This book is intended to give readers detailed information and perspectives on the reform of financial management reform practices in a variety of national settings around the world. The chapters explore the reform agenda in each nation and factors that stimulated change. Each chapter addresses the extent of the influence of "New Public Management" concepts and practices on reform implementation. The nations whose experience is represented in this book are among the most often cited examples of progressive change to be examined and perhaps emulated by governments in other nations. In the introductory chapter the editors address the question whether and to what extent the financial management reforms detailed in the book reveal real progress or a progression of questions and dilemmas faced but not solved over the past several decades.

This book presents the results of extensive international comparative research into the effects of the economic and financial crisis on democratic institutions and social cohesion policies. The collected studies describe and analyse the measures (often referred to as "reforms") adopted to counter the crisis and the effects of these measures.It investigates three areas: the impact on the functioning of institutions, with respect to the relationship between representative institutions and governments, and the organisational structure of administrations at national and local levels; the impact that the austerity policies on public spending have on social rights; and the impact on traditional instruments of public action (administrative simplification, public services delivering, the use of common assets).The general findings highlight the effect of reducing the administrative and government capacity of the democratic institutions: the public sector, rather than being innovative and made more effective, declines, offering increasingly poor public services and making bad decisions, fuelling substantive or formal privatisation solutions, which in turn cause further weakening.

Representing a unique contribution to the analysis and discussion of the unfolding Eurozone crisis in terms of the relationship between central and local government, this book addresses a number of important fiscal and political economy questions. To what extent have local and regional governments contributed to the crisis? To what degree have sub-national services and investments borne the brunt of the adjustments? How have multi-level fissures affected tensions between different levels of government from the supranational to the local? This volume covers these and many other critical issues that have been largely ignored despite their relevance. The book first addresses general issues of fiscal coordination and management across levels of government in the context of incentives, which can be altered by the existence of a supranational tier. The country-specific chapters, prepared by leading experts, provide a thorough review of the key problems of multi-levels of government in the biggest economies in the Eurozone (France and Germany) and Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece). In further chapters the juxtaposition of Barcelona and Turin provides an opportunity to evaluate large investments in a multi-level context, associated, in this case, with the Olympics. Macedonia provides a discussion of the related issues in an EU accession country. As a whole, the book explores the long-term impact of the crisis on local service delivery and investment, and the consequences for sustainable growth and political cohesion. It also offers rarely found insights and suggestions to increase the stability and strength of multi-level European institutions. This is an enlightening resource for all those, from academics and graduates to policy makers and practitioners, seeking a comprehensive understanding of European fiscal, federal and financial issues.

Nelson Fausto The Greek myth of Prometheus with its picture of a vulture feasting on its chained victimhas traditionallyprovided a visualimageofliverregeneration. Itis apowerful and frightening representationbut ifone were to substitute the vulture by a surgeon and Prometheus by a patient laying on a properly prepared operating table, the outcomeoftheprocedurewould not differ significantlyfrom that describedbyGreek poets. Yet few of us who work in the field have stopped long enough to ask where this myth originated. Did the poet observe a case of liver regeneration in a human being? Was it brilliant intuition or perhaps, literally, just a 'gut feeling' of a poet looking for good rhymes that led to the prediction that livers grow when part of the tissueisremoved? Thisbookdoesnotattemptto solve these historical issues. Itdoes, instead, cover in detail some of the major modem themes of research on liver regen eration, injury and repair. As indicated in Dr. N. Bucher's chapter, the modem phase ofexperimental studies on liver regeneration started in 1931 with the publication by Higgins and Anderson of a method to perform a two-thirds resection of the liver of a rat. The technique described has 3 remarkable features: 1) it is highly reproducible, resulting in the removal of 68% of the liver, 2) it has minimal if any mortality, and 3) it consists only of blood vessel ligation and does not involve cutting through or wounding hepatic tissue.

Government at a Glance provides readers with a dashboard of key public sector indicators. Each indicator is presented in a user-friendly format, with graphs, brief descriptive analysis, and methodological information.