Browsing by Author "Mear, Fred"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Discourse Analysis of the Dinar Currency System and the single currency agenda in the Gulf States
    (2016-09) Mear, Fred; Lukman, Raimi; Aljadani, A.
    Dinar (Gold) currency system has been the focal point of monetary authorities in both medieval and modern periods. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the historical connection between the dinar currency system and the single currency agenda in the Gulf States. The authors adopt qualitative research method, while sourcing the required information from the documentary sources. The sourced materials were critically analysed using discourse analysis. The first finding indicates that there is a strong historical connection between the dinar currency system and the single currency system in the Gulf States because of its religious and cultural connection to Muslim countries especially in the Middle East and North Africa (often called MENA). The second finding indicates that the desire by the six GCC member nations to have a single currency is motivated by the strong belief that a single currency in the region would place them at a vantage position to assert their influence economically, diplomatically and politically at the level of international trade relations. The implication of the paper is that the modern calls for the formation of economic and political blocs in the Gulf region have religious and cultural connections with the dinar currency system which collapsed in Turkey in 1928
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    Does Reforming the Public Financial management system reduce corruption?
    (2020-02-26) Mear, Fred; Komakech, Samuel; Mear, Anna; Ellam, Louis
    The presentation looked at the initial findings of the correlation between improvements in PFM as measured by the PEFA framework and the Corruption Perception Index. It identified some areas of high correlation and some of very little or no correlation as a starting point to discuss policy priorities
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    Government Financial Reporting - Good Practices from sub-Saharan Africa
    (The International Consortium on Governmental Financial Management St Michaels, Maryland United States of America, 2016-04-26) Wynne, Andy; Mear, Fred
    This study attempts to codify good practices in financial reporting by sub-Saharan African governments. The study identifies, analyses and documents existing good practices from annual financial reports by central governments in sub-Saharan Africa. As such it provides a guide to governments wishing to improve the quality of their annual financial statements based on the approaches adopted by their peers. The financial statements of a dozen governments of sub-Saharan Africa were reviewed to identify examples of good practice which were then analysed against the four broad indicative criteria which were developed for the study. Visits were made to Burkina Faso, Namibia and Tanzania to obtain further information and to discuss the needs of the key uses of government financial information. Keywords: Accountability;
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    How does China’s New Budget Law affect the pricing of Local Government Bonds?
    (Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-19) Bo, Lan; Haixin, Yao; Mear, Fred; Zhang, Weiwei
    This article examines the impact of China’s New Budget Law implementation on the pricing of Local Government Bonds (LGBs). We collect 5,442 province-year LGBs observations from 2009 to 2019 and estimate the Simultaneous Equation Models that consider the endogeneity of fiscal transparency. Our results show that the enforcement of the New Budget Law unexpectedly leads to a rise in the interest rates of LGBs overall while enhancing the fiscal transparency of local governments. The findings in this paper suggest that the marketization level of LGBs’ pricing in China needs to be further improved.
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    Living up to the Busan Partnership for effective development co-operation? Assessing Government Financial Systems
    (2018-06-27) Mear, Fred; Wynne, Andy; Hadziyiannakis, Yiannis
    Experience shows that when low and middle income country national administrative systems are bypassed aid has not been effective and sustainable (OECD, 2012) hence the start of the millennium saw a new concerted effort to improve aid effectiveness in reducing global poverty, improve human rights, democracy and the rule of law . In the five high level meetings in Rome (2003), Paris (2005), Accra (2008), Busan (2011) and Mexico (2014) three components for effective aid are recognised as co-ordination amongst development partners and governments, a government led reform agenda that uses country systems with aid disbursed via general budget support, and a shared information pool on public financial management (PFM) systems accepted and shared by all stakeholders. To achieve general budget support governments need to agree a PFM reform strategy aimed at reducing corruption, waste and inefficiency with funding and technical assistance from development partners. This paper is based on research carried for, and funded by the PEFA Secretariat to help develop guidance on the tools available for development partners and governments to assess the efficacy of country systems. The first stocktake in 2004 identified 11 diagnostic tools this has now increased to 45 used internationally. As the complexity and the number of tools increases, the potential for choosing the appropriate tools for a specific purpose increases, but so does the potential for omitting useful ones, poor sequencing of diagnostic assessments. The research aims to give the first central repository of diagnostic tools with guidelines on their se so governments and development partners are aware of the full range of tools available and to highlight the issues that need to be considered when choosing a diagnostic tool. Despite the aim to rationalise the tools since the 2010 stocktake an additional 12 tools are used. The PEFA assessment has become the development partner’s broad diagnostic tool of choice with over 582 carried out since 2001. The other tools can be divided into drill down and complementary tools. If the use of the tools can be co-ordinated it can help in reducing transaction costs, limiting duplication of work minimising political and administrative resistance in Ministries from over assessment. The typology recognised: Broad diagnostic tools covering all aspects of the PFM system (12); individual PFM sub-systems (24), and finally tools used by development partners to assess fiduciary risk (10). The expansion has focused on sub-systems increasing to 24, ten of which covering revenue administration, emphasizing the focus on minimising the tax gap (though tax evasion, avoidance and corruption). Most PFM sub-systems are now covered by specialized drill down tools. The tools increasing use performance indicators with an ordinal scale against specific performance criteria reflecting the move to quantitative performance measurement. This study aims to enhance harmonization and alignment of PFM assessments.
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    New development: China’s debt transparency and the case of urban construction investment bonds
    (Taylor and Francis, 2017-02-13) Bo, Lan; Mear, Fred; Huang, Jingchi
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    New development: Is China’s local government debt problem getting better or worse?
    (Taylor and Francis, 2021-02-10) Mear, Fred; Lan, Bo; Yao, Haixin
    China’s central government has been addressing the country’s local government hidden debt since 2015 with the introduction of a ‘New Budget Law’ to make the debt explicit (transparent). The authors discuss the progress made, the continuing systemic risk of hidden debt, and the impacts of central government action on debt costs and funding opportunities. This paper adds to the literature on the management of general government debt.
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    Subsidiarity as Secret of Success: ‘Hidden Champion’ SMEs and Subsidiarity as Winning HRM Configuration in Interdisciplinary Case Studies
    (Emerald, 2020-08-28) Mear, Fred; Werner, Richard
    Innovation plays a central role in the economy, both as enginge for economic growth, as Schumpeter identified, and for corporate competitiveness and success. There is a growing literature on the role HRM plays in stimulating innovation based on empirical evidence, but with slim theoretical underpinnings. We contribute to the literature by identifying key secrets to the success of German ‘Hidden Champion‘ SME. Hidden Champions are small and mediumsized enterprises that are global market leaders, despite their limited size and their names being largely unknown, maintaining first, second or third place in terms of global market share in their respective market niche. Germany boasts an unusually large number of such Hidden Champions, significantly ahead of any other country, which contribute to a significant proportion of German exports. These firms are highly competitive, due to above-average innovation. What is the secret of their success? In this paper, we first establish that this is not a post-war phenomenon. Instead, the past two hundred years of high performance have to be considered. We postulate that HRM configurations are likely to provide a key explanation. We identify the Prussian army as the source of early HRM empirical experiments and identify the principle of subsidarity as the key component of a successful HRM bundle delivering high firm performance. As robustness check, we identify a contemporary case study from a different organisational field (public fiscal management) and country setting, and confirm an incentive role of subsidiarity. Our findings provide theoretical underpinnings for the empirical studies on successful SMEs and HRM at Hidden Champions. A final section discusses the findings, areas for further research and policy implications.
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    What are the risks of using big data, policy making and organisational performance measurement? – An international perspective
    (2019-03-01) Mear, Fred
    The role of big data carries with it great opportunities to improve the public services and administration. The ability to manage large volumes of data, process and draw conclusions and develop policies via Artificial Intelligence has the ability to shape policy that has not been available before and will transform the shape of the Public Sector. This great potential to shape policy also brings with it enormous risks, especially in the government sector. This paper will explore some of those risks and look at international examples to raise questions as to how these risks can be managed (and if not what should be done). The paper therefore looks at the risks throughout the parts of the PFM (Public Financial Management) system that bring together measuring organizational efficiency. Under NPM linking reward and control systems to performance have led to unintended consequences and in some instances dysfunctional decision making. It is important that big data takes into account the limits of human capacity to limit or identify these behaviours, or put into place strict controls to avoid data manipulation, and if possible use big data sources to identify data manipulation. The main areas of risk are in the identification of performance measures (outputs) measurement of inputs (Accounting systems especially IPSAS/IFRS) scope for manipulation (tightness of controls) and at the same allowing managerial discretion to introduce new and innovative approaches so that the limitations of bureaucratic inefficiencies do not simply return under the guise of big data. All these factors risk democratic accountability and scrutiny and remembering always that policy is part of democratic choices. Big data has to assist those choices not replace them. Public Choice theory has been the basis of the international drive in moving towards new public management (NPM). Whilst this paper highlights the limitations/risks of using big data in measuring efficiency performance so that the speed of development is consistent with progress in designing accounting and output information.