This paper investigates the relationship between market structure and performance in China’s banking system from 1985 to 2002, a period when this sector was subject to gradual but notable reform. ...Using panel data estimation techniques, both the market-power and efficient-structure hypotheses are tested. In addition, the model is extended to consider issues such as the impact of bank size/ownership and whether the big four banks enjoy a “quiet life”. On average, X-efficiency declined significantly and most banks were operating below scale efficient levels. Estimation of the structure–performance models lends some support to the relative market-power hypothesis in the early period. The reforms had little impact on the structure of China’s banking sector, though the “joint stock” banks became relatively more X-efficient. There was no evidence to support the quiet-life hypothesis, probably because strict interest rate controls prevented the state banks from earning monopoly profits. Thus the ongoing liberalisation of interest rates should be accompanied by reduced concentration. Overall, to improve competitive structure, new policies should be directed at encouraging market entry and increasing the market share of the most efficient banks.
One reason reform does not dramatically change public schools is because instructional practices are highly institutionalized. This article advances a theory for how teacher agency can both change ...and maintain institutionalized instructional practices in schools. Based on findings from one U.S. urban public school undergoing state-mandated reform, I assert that three mechanisms drive a particular form of teacher agency. Whether these three mechanisms change or maintain institutionalized instructional practices depends on a set of counterbalancing forces that determine how much innovation versus socialization exists in peer learning; how much cohesion versus diversity is involved in community interactions; and how much cognitive and normative divergence versus convergence characterizes teachers' shared understandings, aims, and practices. The theory provides a generalizable framework for the activities that help teachers drive outcomes in their schools and for the cognitive and social conditions that may be more likely to result in the effective implementation of reform.
Most accounts of electoral reforms focus on successfully implemented reforms to explain how electoral context shapes the incentives of political parties, paying scant attention to the cases where ...governments fail to implement their preferred system. This article takes a step back in the electoral reform process and examines when and why governing parties initiate electoral reforms. In doing so, it focuses on how the electoral context can affect the electoral bases of the incumbents and their main competitor. This novel account expects that governments initiate electoral reforms depending on whether small or new parties draw votes from their own vote base or from that of their main competitor. Using an original dataset of electoral reform attempts from 32 parliamentary democracies between 1945 and 2015, this article shows that ruling parties are more likely to initiate a restrictive reform when small parties draw votes from their electoral base, but a permissive one when small parties draw more votes from their main competitor.
The growth of telemedicine is seen by some physicians, academics, and policymakers as a silver lining of the Covid-19 pandemic. Congress is considering bills that would facilitate the use of ...telemedicine, and licensure reform could be an important step.
This article evaluates the results and impacts of administrative modernization in Germany after more than 10 years of New Public Management experience, concentrating on the most advanced level of ...public sector reform: local authorities. Drawing on a broad empirical basis, the authors pursue the following questions: Do "Weberian" administrative structures and processes continue to characterize the German public sector, or have the reforms left behind lasting traces of a managerial administration? Are local authorities performing better today, and if so, can this be attributed to the New Public Management modernization? The presented results show that no paradigm shift from the "Weberian" bureaucracy to New Public Management has occurred so far. Performance improvements notwithstanding, the new mix of steering instruments causes numerous unintended consequences, causing "Weberian" administration to reemerge.
Denmark has a large network of population-based medical databases, which routinely collect high-quality data as a by-product of health care provision. The Danish medical databases include ...administrative, health, and clinical quality databases. Understanding the full research potential of these data sources requires insight into the underlying health care system. This review describes key elements of the Danish health care system from planning and delivery to record generation. First, it presents the history of the health care system, its overall organization and financing. Second, it details delivery of primary, hospital, psychiatric, and elderly care. Third, the path from a health care contact to a database record is followed. Finally, an overview of the available data sources is presented. This review discusses the data quality of each type of medical database and describes the relative technical ease and cost-effectiveness of exact individual-level linkage among them. It is shown, from an epidemiological point of view, how Denmark's population represents an open dynamic cohort with complete long-term follow-up, censored only at emigration or death. It is concluded that Denmark's constellation of universal health care, long-standing routine registration of most health and life events, and the possibility of exact individual-level data linkage provides unlimited possibilities for epidemiological research.
How can societies restrain their coercive institutions and transition to a more humane criminal justice system? We argue that two main factors explain why torture can persist as a generalized ...practice even in democratic societies: weak procedural protections and the militarization of policing, which introduces strategies, equipment, and mentality that treats criminal suspects as though they were enemies in wartime. Using a large survey of the Mexican prison population and leveraging the date and place of arrest, this paper provides causal evidence about how these two explanatory variables shape police brutality. Our paper offers a grim picture of the survival of authoritarian policing practices in democracies. It also provides novel evidence of the extent to which the abolition of inquisitorial criminal justice institutions—a remnant of colonial legacies and a common trend in the region—has worked to restrain police brutality.
Energy is the key factor in economic growth and reforms are a means to improve energy efficiency, reduce its intensity, and decrease its per-unit cost. Therefore, the role of energy reforms has ...increased significantly after globalization, which directly affects local industries due to inefficiencies in their production, to the ultimate detriment of local consumers. To understand the impact of energy reforms on energy efficiency, this study used a dataset collected from forty-eight countries in five different regions. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the difference-in-difference (DID) method were used to view the impact of energy reforms. According to the DEA results, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Singapore perform poorly in the improvement of energy efficiency due to reforms, while Uzbekistan is the lowest performing country in this regard. The DID results show that Sub-Saharan Africa has seen improved performance after implementing energy reform in the region. These outcomes confirm that energy reform can be a good means to achieve a high level of energy efficiency and reduce the per-unit energy cost. The results show a 13.2% improvement in energy efficiency after electricity reforms. Based on the empirical results, this study identifies certain policy implications.
•Electricity reforms are considered to enhance its efficiency, and decrease per unit cost.•Dataset of 48 countries (5 regions) utilized to view energy efficiency with & without electricity reforms.•The DEA and DID method applied for the period during the period.•Sub-Saharan African region perform better after implementing energy reform.•Study suggests that policy agents have a straightforward impact on the cost of energy products.
This paper analyzes empirically what explains the low profitability of Chinese banks for the period 1997–2004. We find that better capitalized banks tend to be more profitable. The same is true for ...banks with a relatively larger share of deposits and for more X-efficient banks. In addition, a less concentrated banking system increases bank profitability, which basically reflects that the four state-owned commercial banks – China’s largest banks – have been the main drag for system’s profitability. We find the same negative influence for China’s development banks (so-called Policy Banks), which are fully state-owned. Instead, more market-oriented banks, such as joint-stock commercial banks, tend to be more profitable, which again points to the influence of government intervention in explaining bank performance in China. These findings should not come as a surprise for a banking system which has long been functioning as a mechanism for transferring huge savings to meet public policy goals.
Objective
To evaluate the impact of tort reform on defensive medicine, quality of care, and physician supply.
Data Sources
Empirical, peer‐reviewed English‐language studies in the MEDLINE and ...HeinOnline databases that evaluated the association between tort reform and our study outcomes.
Study Design
We performed a systematic review in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines.
Data Collection/Extraction Methods
Title and screening was followed by full‐text screening of relevant citations. We created evidence tables, grouped studies by outcome, and qualitatively compared the findings of included studies. We assigned a higher rating to study designs that controlled for unobservable sources of confounding.
Principal Findings
Thirty‐seven studies met screening criteria. Caps on damages, collateral‐source rule reform, and joint‐and‐several liability reform were the most common types of tort reform evaluated in the included studies. We found that caps on noneconomic damages were associated with a decrease in defensive medicine, increase in physician supply, and decrease in health care spending, but had no effect on quality of care. Other reform approaches did not have a clear or consistent impact on study outcomes.
Conclusions
We conclude that traditional tort reform methods may not be sufficient for health reform and policy makers should evaluate and incorporate newer approaches.
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