bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Dividend payout and executive compensation: theory and evidence
Authors: Bhattacharyya Nalinaksha , Mawani Amin , Morrill Cameron 
Published: March 2008

Abstract Bhattacharyya (2007) develops a model in which compensation contracts motivate high‐quality managers to retain and invest firm earnings, while low‐quality managers are motivated to distribute income to shareholders. In equilibrium, the model shows that there is a positive (negative) relationship between the earnings retention ratio (dividend payout ratio) and managerial compensation. Results of tests of US data show that executive compensation is positively (negatively) associated with earnings retention (dividend payout). Our results indicate that corporate dividend policy is perhaps best understood by considering the payout ratio (dividends divided by earnings), rather than the level of cash dividends alone.
Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes; New York: AA Knopf
Authors: Bray G. A. 
Published: March 2008

Summary Good Calories, Bad Calories has much useful information and is well worth reading. Gary Taubes's tenets related to obesity can be summarized in four statements (i) He believes that you can gain weight and become obese without a positive energy balance; (ii) He also believes that dietary fat is unimportant for the development of obesity; (iii) Carbohydrate, in his view, is what produces obesity and (iv) Insulin secreted by the carbohydrate is the problem in obesity. However, some of the conclusions that the author reaches are not consistent with current concepts about obesity. There are many kinds of obesity, and only some depend on diet composition. Two dietary manipulations produce obesity in susceptible people: eating a high‐fat diet and drinking sugar‐ or high‐fructose corn syrup‐sweetened beverages. Insulin is necessary but not sufficient in the diet‐dependent obesities. When diet is important, it may be the combination of fat and fructose (the deadly duo) that is most important. Regardless of diet, it is a positive energy balance over months to years that is the sine qua non for obesity. Obese people clearly eat more than do lean ones, and food‐intake records are notoriously unreliable, as documented by use of doubly labelled water. Underreporting of food intake is greater in obese than in normal‐weight people and is worse for fat than for other macronutrient groups. Accepting the concept that obesity results from a positive energy balance does not tell us why energy balance is positive. This depends on a variety of environmental factors interacting with the genetic susceptibility of certain individuals. Weight loss is related to adherence to the diet, not to its macronutrient composition.
BOOK REVIEWS
Authors: Derwent S. 
Published: March 2008

Staff Reporting. By Isabel E. P. Menzies and E. Anstey. With a foreword by Sir Horace Wilson. Published for the Institute of Public Administration by George Allen &I Unwin Ltd., London. Price, 10s. 6s. (stg.). Autoizoiny and Delegation in County Governgnent: A Study of Delegation In Education and Local Health Administration. By Eninieline W. Cohen. With a foreword by Professor William A. Robson, Institute of Public Administration, London, 1952. Pp. ix+81. Price 6s. (stg.).
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN VICTORIA1
Authors: Mithen P. P. 
Published: March 2008

SummaryTo sum up the views I have expressed, I would say that the present geographical division of Victoria into municipal districts is a brake on the system as a whole. Not only is it expensive, it makes efficient service to the people more difficult, and in some cases impossible, it tends to cause a loss of functions and it prevents municipalities undertaking new services which could be of benefit to ratepayers.The municipal franchise is out of line with modern thinking; it tends to lessen public interest in municipal affairs and deprives many good citizens of the right to vote and to act as councillors.Many of the more progressive municipalities are now undertaking new fields of health and social services and provision of amenities, but their activities are hampered by the necessity to spend so much of their revenues on roads. There is a need for more of the funds raised from road users to be devoted to road works, thereby freeing council revenues for other purposes, but as far as can be seen at present councils will have to rely for the bulk of their revenue on rates, with assistance from Government subsidies.Many councils have been weakened by the loss of experienced councillors, but, on the other hand, the standard of administrative service available to councils is rising. Generally, I believe that local government, despite the fact that it is labouring under some handicaps, not all of which it is anxious to remedy, is doing a pretty good job in the circumstances, better in some municipalities than in others depending on the quality of the council, and its staff; and where that quality is good, councils are gradually getting on top of their problems.
DELEGATION: A CASE STUDY
Authors: Moore B. N. 
Published: March 2008

SUMMARY

Whether to delegate or not to delegate has been an active issue in the New South Wales Public Service since 1960.
There has been considerable delegation of personnel authority to department heads during the period 1960–68, and the benefits of this programme have been significant.
The following rules seem to govern the selection of areas ripe for further delegation:

The “monopoly” rule: Where a department has a virtual monopoly over a particular occupational group in the Service, it should have authority to employ members of that group. The “rubber‐stamp” rule: Where the rate of approval to departmental submissions approaches 100 per cent in any area, delegation of authority should be considered. The “guide‐line” rule: Where the Board finds it possible to formulate guide‐lines for the making of decisions within its own office, these guide‐lines should be communicated to the departments, together with authority to make the appropriate decisions. The “no‐harm” rule: Whenever authority can be exercised in a department without breaching any general or departmental limitation, delegation should be considered.

The following limitations to delegation of further personnel authority are seen to exist:

The “size” limitation: The small size of many departments limits the scope for further delegations of authority. The “geographical” limitation: The geographical dispersion of departmental staff is a factor that limits the scope for further delegations of authority. Regional decentralization, paradoxically, often leads to centralization of personnel authority. The “uniformity” limitation: The need to achieve uniformity in the Service, from one department to another, limits the scope for further delegations of authority. The ideal of uniformity, however, has probably been over‐emphasized in the past because of the early history of the Public Service Board, and the centralized system of arbitration within which it operates. Other limitations: Factors unique to individual departments, such as historical influences and lack of competence in personnel administration, impose specific barriers to further delegations of authority.
OUTCOMES OF VARIOUS MODES OF ADMINISTERING AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES
Authors: Black Alan W. 
Published: March 2008

SUMMARYThe outcomes of various modes of administration may be summarized as follows:

Under both ministerial and departmental control, the prior experience and predispositions of the Minister were critical factors affecting the colleges. Under departmental control, the background and attitudes of senior officers within the department were also important. Various instances of this were cited.
There tended to be proportionately fewer dismissals of principals or resignations in protest by them under departmental control than when colleges were controlled by Ministers of the Crown or governing councils. Several reasons for this trend were suggested.
Under all systems of control the colleges were subject from time to time to direct or indirect political pressure. For example, there were instances in which parents invoked or attempted to invoke political pressure to save their sons from expulsion from a college. Such pressures played a part in the dismissal or resignation of several principals.
Another factor which led to the resignation of two principals who were directly responsible to a Minister was the belief that their jurisdiction had been transgressed by another senior public servant.
Under departmental control a principal was likely to be caught up in intradepartmental politics. The fortunes of the college depended somewhat upon his success in this arena.
In determining the policies and practices to be adopted on the college farm, a principal generally had greater freedom under Education Department control than under Agriculture Department control. On the other hand, teaching practices were generally subject to closer departmental supervision in the former case than in the latter.
One problem with any system of control is that of maintaining a balance between continuity in policy on the one hand and sensitivity to demands for change on the other. In general, control over the colleges by government departments or governing councils tended to be conservative in emphasis, to stress continuity. By contrast, where control was directly exercised by Ministers of the Crown and where there were relatively frequent changes in incumbency of the relevant portfolio, continuity in policy was less assured.
The life of advisory committees was typically marked by early enthusiasms and influence in dealing with urgent matters of policy. After these matters had been dealt with there was generally a decline in activity and influence, growing disillusion among members, and eventually reconstitution or replacement of the committee.
ACCOUNTABILITY, EFFICIENCY AND THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Authors: Cutt James 
Published: March 2008

Abstract: This paper deals first with alternative concepts of accountability and efficiency. It views accountability—and associated concepts of efficiency—in a hierarchy of increasing sophistication and potential usefulness, but corresponding operational difficulty. The lowest level is fiscal or fiduciary accountability, relating to the actual expenditure of funds and procedures by which that expenditure is accounted for. The second level is efficiency accountability, defined in terms of the ratio of some physical measure of output to cost. The most sophisticated level is effectiveness accountability, in which the output measures used reflect the attainment of objectives or programs. Corresponding to these levels is a hierarchy of approaches to auditing, namely financial, efficiency, and effectiveness auditing.The second part of the paper looks at the present situation in Australia and at the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration in terms of this framework. It argues that the government should commit itself to a continuing, comprehensive process of analysis and evaluation of public programs and activities aimed at making programs efficiently effective in a manner consistent with regular financial procedures. A “package” for implementing this approach—including revised institutional arrangements—is discussed in terms of the difficulties likely to be encountered—difficulties such as the shortage of capable personnel and problems of extending analytical practices to the State and local spheres of government.
EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS: PROBLEMS OF ASSESSMENT
Authors: Walker Neil V. 
Published: March 2008

Abstract: The paper focuses on the Coombs Commission's recommendations on efficiency and effectiveness in the Commonwealth Public Service. The recommendations involve the allocation of organizational responsibility for efficiency and effectiveness to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Public Service Board, Treasury and the Auditor‐General and individual responsibility to the departmental manager through the establishment of a “Forward Estimating Budgetary” process. However the Commission has given little guidance in the matter of the technological tools which must be developed in order to secure its implementation.The Commonwealth Public Service Board has developed over the last two years a program of Staff Utilization Reviews (S. U. Rs) as one of its management improvement programs. The paper canvases the technological aspects of efficiency and effectiveness drawing upon the development and operational experience of the S.U.R. program. It concludes that much resource‐intensive work must be done before the Commission's recommendations can be implemented but Australian and overseas experience confirms the potential fruitfulness of that work.
ADMINISTRATIVE STYLE AND SIR FREDERIC EGGLESTON*
Authors: Holmes Jean 
Published: March 2008

Abstract: Sir Frederic Eggleston's place as a political intellectual in Australia is an established one, arising out of the framework of his political thought and administrative experiences as a Minister of the Crown in Victoria in the 1920s. For Eggleston the essence of politics lay in political ideas and philosophical debate about those beliefs. In his view Australian political life would be immensely enriched if political leaders had the freedom and leisure to discuss philosophical goals, and this could only be achieved by hiving off the day‐to‐day work of government into autonomous corporations run quietly and efficiently by responsible managers. Broad policy was a matter for legislation, while its detailed implementation was best carried out by public corporation managers, protected by the legislation from sectional electorate pressures.Although Sir Frederic found the justification for his political framework in Victoria's political and administrative circumstances at the turn of the century, when sectional pressures through the legislature brought the State to the brink of disaster and insolvency, it can also be shown that the roots of his political beliefs and administrative prescriptions reach back into his childhood and young manhood. He left the narrow confines of his church‐oriented childhood home for the wider cultural and intellectual delights of his maternal relatives' social circle in the early 1900s. a move linked in his mind with his all‐important membership of the Gladstone Debating Society. This dichotomous life experience flowed through into his political perceptions, finding substance in his notion of Parliament as a debating forum for “great men who articulate the ideas which give expression to /our culture's/ aspirations and set gsals for its activities” while for efficiency's sake, “a business service undertaken by the State must be isolated from the State”.He judged Victoria's State enterprises from this perspective. In so far as they went quietly about their business, were financially sound and did not intervene in the political arena. then they met his criteria; where they did not exercise “austerity and restraint” they suffered his criticism. There is a clear link between this judgement and his own political experience which reminds us that “politics is personal and the personal is political” is both truism and warning.
THE WILENSKI REVIEW
Authors: Parker R. S. 
Published: March 2008

Since the early 1950s a spate of large‐scale inquests on government administration has swept the English‐speaking world, under governments of all political complexions. The phenomenon has received no general explanation, but its continuity has had certain practical advantages. It has added to the stock of techniques for conducting inquiries. It has suggested that linking investigation with implementation may reduce the risk of “pigeonholing”. It has revealed the importance of political support for essays in reform. The experience also invites, by now, some reflections upon the role of vested interests in the reform process, the impermanence and relativity of particular recipes for reform, and the constant emergence of new perspectives for appraisal of administration. Although Professor Wilenski's Interim Report* is well over a year old, his Review is still in full swing, and is worth discussing not only on its own merits but also for the way it illustrates some of these points.*Directions for Change: An Interim Report, by Professor Peter Wilenski, Commissioner, Review of N.S.W. Government Administration, Sydney, D. West, N.S.W. Government Printer, November 1977. Pp. ix + 353. Illustrations by Patrick Cook.
New South Wales
Authors: Moore Barry 
Published: March 2008

SummaryNew South Wales easily retained its reputation as the State of commotion. Politicians and administrators during the past twelve months have lived through interesting times. Things are out in the open, at least. A rich and varied range of inquiries has been tackling problems which have remained hidden for decades. Hard items on the agenda of administrative reform are at last receiving attention. Courts and parliamentary procedures are being revitalized. The next great uproar will occur when the long‐awaited Freedom of Information Act arrives and provides ordinary members of the public with their own tickets of admission to the political and administrative arena.
MODELLING COORDINATION
Authors: Minnery John R. 
Published: March 2008

Abstract: Coordination is an important concept in both the study and the practice of public administration. Complex tasks are split up into manageable sub‐tasks with the result that the pieces need to be coordinated. Coordination is necessary and sensible, yet it is widely recognised that it can also be a facade to hide coercion and conflict.This article explores the practice of coordination in public adminstration. It develops the four models of hierarchical control, use‐of‐power, adjustment, and common purpose as forms of coordination then illustrates each from the work of the Queensland Co‐ordinator‐General. Each model is described in terms of structure, processes, outcome and values. The models help to draw out important but less visible features of central coordination.
THE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC PROVISION
Authors: McCoy Elaine 
Published: March 2008

Abstract: This work addresses the special character of public management by positing some important distinctions under‐represented in current academic literature. In exploring the primary distinction between public administration and public management, the analysis proceeds from a treatment of public management as control of a production process uniquely configured as a combination of policy brokerage and resource management, to a demonstration of the economic agency (value addition) of public managers. The paper also presents a contextual analysis of the scope and scale of the public sector as this pertains to a model of “public provision”, and introduces some new ideas regarding the temporal characteristics of public management as it responds to a discrete set of three cycles: the budget cycle, the product cycle and the policy cycle.This work aims to provide tools for analysis which both distinguish public administration from public management and distinguish the economic agency of private managers from that of public managers. The general argument is that the “public provision process”, while similar to a conventional production process, contains unique and important responsibilities which need to be understood and defended. By the same token, public managers ought to be empowered by a knowledge and identity which express their importance as economic agents who contribute both to the commonweal and to the wealth of the nation.
THE POLITICS OF MICROECONOMIC REFORM: STRUCTURING A GENERAL MODEL1
Authors: Gerritsen Rolf 
Published: March 2008

Abstract:This paper examines the current endeavours to render the Australian economy more economically efficient. While the case for microeconomic reform is clear in economic theory, Australian public policy analysts are less sanguine about the possibilities for its long‐term success. This paper seeks to develop the parameters of a simple general model to explain both why microeconomic reform proposals are dominant today on the Australian policy agenda and, more importantly, what the conditions are for their success or failure. This general model provides a framework that will allow further elaboration in case studies of particular episodes of microeconomic reform.The paper concludes pessimistically; micro‐economic reform has been subsumed into the normal political agenda contests of Australian party politics. The pressures of such “politics” inclines Australian reforming towards incrementalism, rather than the Simon‐style rationalism implicit from micro‐economics. This mode of policy implementation will inhibit microeconomic reform in the longer term.
PUBLIC AND CORPORATE DUTIES: THE LLOYD CASE IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Authors: Harman Elizabeth J. 
Published: March 2008

Abstract: In its broadest sense, this paper is about public and corporate accountability in Australia. In its narrowest sense, it examines the implications for senior public officers of the trial of Tony Lloyd in Western Australia. Lloyd was convicted in 1991 of acting improperly in his capacity as a director of Western Colleries Ltd during one of the last attempted rescues of Rothwells Ltd by the state government and the Bond Corporation in 1988. He successfully appealed, not against the conviction, but against the two‐year sentence of imprisonment. The comments of the three judges of the Supreme Court are directly relevant to contemporary interpretations of the roles and relationships between business and government, and between public servants, government advisers and company directors.The first section of the paper examines obligations and constraints imposed on individuals who have public duties, and how these are currently being interpreted in Western Australia. It refers to the uncertainties and imprecision which have developed in understandings of private and political interests, company and public duties, in both convention and the law. This discussion is the background for the detailed analysis which follows of the Lloyd case and its implications for Australian public servants.
BENCHMARKING OR THE SEARCH FOR INDUSTRY BEST‐PRACTICE: A SURVEY OF THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SECTOR
Authors: Frost Freerick A. , Pringle Amanda 
Published: March 2008

Abstract: “The continuous process of measuring products, services, and practices against the toughest competitors or those companies recognised as industry leaders. (That is)… the search for industry best practices that will lead to superior performance” (Camp 1989. p. 10).“Benchmarking” or the “Search for Industry Best Practices” has been accepted as a useful strategic tool. The move into the public administration arena is more recent. The underlying research in both cases is limited. The paper considers the advantage of benchmarking over business intelligence systems. Also, the government's stance on establishing quality programs and the relationships to benchmarking are considered.The paper is based on research conducted in the public sector in Westem Australia to determine the extent to which benchmarking is used. The results indicate that whilst the concept is being embraced, the full range of benefits that could accrue is as yet not being realised. Indicators as to why this is so are outlined.