Europeanization and Multilevel Governance： Trying to Make Sense of International Activities of European Local Governments

This paper analyzes the links among Europeanization, multilevel governance, and international activities of local governments. To do so, a revision of the literature on these three areas is provided, with a special emphasis on the effects that the Europeanization process （hierarchical and horizontal） and multilevel governance （type I and type II） have had over the internationalization of local governments. Thus, local governments＇ international activities have evolved and adapted to a complex system of governance. Furthermore, the paper offers a reflection on current trends such as European Union （EU） and national programmes aimed at fostering International initiatives of local governments, and the impact of the economic crisis on these activities.

Transfer payments from the central government to the local governments and the local governments' efforts on taxation: taking China as an example

The influence of the transfer payments from the central government to the local governments on the local governments＇ efforts on taxation must be taken into consideration by every country for the design of the transfer payments. Based on the theoretical analysis on the influence of the transfer payments from the central government to the local governments＇ on the local governments＇ payments＇, this paper indicates that the local governments＇ efforts on taxation depends on the demand elasticity of the district for public goods, It increases with the increase of the elasticity. Judge the degree of the local govet：nment＇s efforts on taxation by measure 2. After an empirical analysis on the transJer payments from the central government to the local governments＇from 2000 to 2004, this paper gets the con- clusion that the local governments＇ effbrts on taxation ctbates with the increase of supporting payments or with the increase of the ratio of transfer payments to local wiliing public paymentS. Under speCific Circumstances, the higher the ratio of transfer payments to the local fiscal expenditure is. the smaller the local governments＇ efforts＇ on taxation is＂ under the central payments, whereas＇ the higher the local income is, the higher the efforts is under the central pav- ments. Based on this＇, this paper gives the meaning of its eOrresponding pofiCieS. ＂

“Scrambling”: Logic of horizontal competition between local governments based on three cases of interprovincial disaster counterpart support

Interprovincial counterpart support is a cooperative system used by local governments to achieve horizontal flow of resources based on cross-regional cooperation.Existing research has mainly focused on governance ef‐ficiency,institutional advantages,and ranking incentives while ignoring the scrambling behavior and opera‐tional mechanisms of local governments formed by ranking incentives and territorial responsibilities.This study selected the Wenchuan earthquake,Yushu earthquake,and COVID-19 as three typical cases.We con‐structed a theoretical framework for competition among provincial local governments and found that competi‐tion in interprovincial disaster counterpart support followed a dual behavioral logic of“striving to be first”and“fear of being last”.Specifically,local governments will choose striving to be first under the logic of time coercion,content games,and territorial responsibility;they will choose fear of being last under the logic of re‐sponsibility avoidance and moral pressure.This type of scrambling-based horizontal competition reflects the logic of local government competition tournaments.This study further revealed the specific processes,mecha‐nisms,and results of horizontal local government competition,which can provide inspiration for cross regional and provincial cooperation.

Local Governments as an Integrative Organizer:The Policy Practice of Constructing Innovation Platforms in South China

Based on an in-depth study of one city district and four new investment projects in South China,this article analyses the implementation practice of innovation policy by Chinese local governments.It is found that at the regional level,innovation policy as practice is a highly mixed-up and integrated process composed of steps from targeting emerging industries,to constructing platforms,and to developing new clusters,during which the most important policy concept of“innovation platform”is used in a distinctive way by local governments to effectively foster regional innovation-oriented development.In general,the local government intervenes heavily in or even“manages”every step of the implementation process with specific policy approach and instrument.Managing regional development as a whole process of innovation,the entrepreneurial Chinese local government indeed plays a role of meso-level organizer equivalent to the innovation project manager in business sector.These new practical approaches of regional innovation development with Chinese characteristics can inspire other emerging and catch-up economies for their policy making in five aspects.

Developing an index of sustainable development goals for local governments:the case of Gyeonggi province in korea

This study aims to develop and evaluate the indicators of Sustainable Development Goals(hereafter SDGs)for local governments in Gyeonggi Province,South Korea from the perspective of the glocal mainstreaming of SDGs and localization.Through surveys and focus group meetings,35 SDGs indicators that are to be implemented by both the Gyeonggi Provincial government and 31 separate local governments were selected and an overall index was calculated by standardizing 27 indicators.Through the comparative analysis of the fuzzy-set,this paper revealed the four ideal types along with the arrangement of two variables,the socio-economic SDGs index(S)and the environmental SDGs index(E),which are derived from 31 local governments.In short,some examples of this arrangement are the Type 1(S^(*)E:“sustainable local gov.”)including Hanam City(fuzzy score,0.729);Type 2(S^(*)e:“imbalanced local gov.(I)”)including Hwaseong City(0.862);Type 3(s^(*)E:“imbalanced local gov.(II)”)including Gapyeong County(0.922);and Type 4(s^(*)e:“unsustainable local gov.”)including Pyeongtaek City(0.650).As a result,this paper suggests policy priority should be placed on the local governments of Type 4 where all three dimensions of sustainable development pose challenges.Furthermore,it is important for Type 2 and Type 3 to enhance policy coherence for sustainability.

A Small “Think Tank” Integrating Foresight,Innovation,and Practicability: A Review on Practice and Reflections on Local Governments' Response to Major Natural Disasters

Practice and Reflections on Local Governments’Response to Major Natural Disasters Authors:He Zhen et al.Year:2014Publisher:People’s Publishing House ISBN:9787010137049(478 pages,in Chinese)China is a countr y with frequent occur rence of major natural disasters.Especially since the 21st century,natural disasters。

Land finance of Chinese local governments:formation and distortionary effects on urbanization

This paper explores the distortionary effects of the 1994 reform of the system of tax revenue sharing between the central and local Chinese governments and its interaction with the incentives for local officials to promote local economic growth. One of the major distortions was to encourage local governments to rely on land finance in their efforts to promote urbanization and growth. This paper analyzes the causes and effects of increasing dependence on land finance and provides constructive suggestions for solutions to the problems that over reliance on land finance have generated, including their distortionary impacts on the urbanization process.

Can Local Governments Buy Truth From the Public?

In line with China’s shift toward developing a more harmonious society, local governments are working hard to pay greater attention to the needs of the people. Recently,

2017 BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Governments Cooperation Forum Successfully Held

On July 12,the 2017 BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Governments Cooperation Forum was successfully held in Chengdu by the CPAFFC, CIFCA and Chengdu Municipal People’s Government. It was hosted by the Chengdu Foreign Affairs Office. Wang Jiarui, vice-chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC; Li Xiaolin, president of the CPAFFC and CIFCA; Deng Chuan, vice-

Role of local governments in fostering the development of an emerging industry: A market-oriented policy perspective

This research investigates the role of local governments in stimulating an emerging industry and focuses on the specific growth of the new energy vehicle industry in Hangzhou,China.This research confirms that enabling firms to access emerging technology,acquire financial support,and touch customers and/or suppliers are critical to foster the emergence and development of industries.Moreover,the primary contribution of this study is to emphasize the support of the local government in the development of emerging industries on the perspective of the creation of a large-scale market demand.The creation of large-scale market demand may inspire actors to be proactive in responding to these incentives;thus,public and private actions may help increase the accessibility to technology,infrastructure,and finances.Hence,a market-oriented policy that incentivizes the creation and expansion of market demand among diverse public and private actors should be seen as the key issue for the emergence and growth of emerging industries.Policies should also be adopted promptly with the development of the market.

Central environmental protection inspection and carbon emission reduction: A tripartite evolutionary game model from the perspective of carbon neutrality

Since the carbon neutrality target was proposed,many countries have been facing severe challenges to carbon emission reduction sustainably.This study is conducted using a tripartite evolutionary game model to explore the impact of the central environmental protection inspection(CEPI)on driving carbon emission reduction,and to study what factors influence the strategic choices of each party and how they interact with each other.The research results suggest that local governments and manufacturing enterprises would choose strategies that are beneficial to carbon reduction when CEPI increases.When the initial willingness of all parties increases 20%,50%—80%,the time spent for the whole system to achieve stability decreases from 100%,60%—30%.The evolutionary result of“thorough inspection,regulation implementation,low-carbon management”is the best strategy for the tripartite evolutionary game.Moreover,the smaller the cost and the larger the benefit,the greater the likelihood of the three-party game stability strategy appears.This study has important guiding significance for other developing countries to promote carbon emission reduction by environmental policy.

Modeling Solid Waste Minimization Performance at Source in Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania

Municipal solid waste generation is strongly linked to rising human population and expanding urban areas, with significant implications on urban metabolism as well as space and place values redefinition. Effective management performance of municipal solid waste management underscores the interdisciplinarity strategies. Such knowledge and skills are paramount to uncover the sources of waste generation as well as means of waste storage, collection, recycling, transportation, handling/treatment, disposal, and monitoring. This study was conducted in Dar es Salaam city. Driven by the curiosity model of the solid waste minimization performance at source, study data was collected using focus group discussion techniques to ward-level local government officers, which was triangulated with literature and documentary review. The main themes of the FGD were situational factors (SFA) and local government by-laws (LGBY). In the FGD session, sub-themes of SFA tricked to understand how MSW minimization is related to the presence and effect of services such as land use planning, availability of landfills, solid waste transfer stations, material recovery facilities, incinerators, solid waste collection bins, solid waste trucks, solid waste management budget and solid waste collection agents. Similarly, FGD on LGBY was extended by sub-themes such as contents of the by-law, community awareness of the by-law, and by-law enforcement mechanisms. While data preparation applied an analytical hierarchy process, data analysis applied an ordinary least square (OLS) regression model for sub-criteria that explain SFA and LGBY;and OLS standard residues as variables into geographically weighted regression with a resolution of 241 × 241 meter in ArcMap v10.5. Results showed that situational factors and local government by-laws have a strong relationship with the rate of minimizing solid waste dumping in water bodies (local R square = 0.94).

Local Government Debt Management Solutions

Two rounds of leveraging-up have led to a high debt ratio in the Chinese economy, triggered liquidity mismatch and increased systemic financial risks. The key causes of local government liabilities are soft budget constraints and non-market-based factor allocation. Currently, the risks of local government liabilities are generally controllable. This paper concludes that the long-term solution to managing local government liabilities is to enhance budget constraint and institutional assurance and proposes countermeasures in the reform of urban construction investment and ftnancing mechanisms.

Local mine production safety supervision game analysis based on incomplete information

Utilized fundamental theory and analysis method of Incomplete Information repeated games, introduced Incomplete Information into repeated games, and established two stages dynamic games model of the local authority and the coal mine owner. The analytic result indicates that： so long as the country established the corresponding rewards and punishments incentive mechanism to the local authority departments responsible for the work, it reports the safety accident in the coal mine on time. The conclusion that the local government displays right and wrong cooperation behavior will be changed with the introduction of the Incomplete Information. Only has the local authority fulfill their responsibility, can the unsafe accident be controlled effectively. Once this kind of cooperation of local government appears, the costs of the country on the safe supervise and the difficulty will be able to decrease greatly.

Good Local Government for Better Governance and Sustainable Human Development

The purpose of this article is to raise the question of how important decentralisation and local governments are for the successful transition and eventually for sustainable human development of a state. The paper focuses on the gap between development or transition and decentralisation within academic and international policy discourse. In article, the author tries to answer such questions as how local government can contribute to SHD （sustainable human development）. And how should the international community contribute to and support the transition and development process of the developing countries？ Article shows that local self-government can be a school of democracy and responsibility for the wealth of the state and citizens. By sharing the Polish decentralisation experience, the author shows how important decentralisation might be for successful transition, democratization and sustainable development. The paper also includes a short introduction to the European Charter, recent African efforts like AMCOD or UCLGA and European Union development assistance policy. The purpose of this is to show how little attention is paid to local governments and decentralisation within international policy and how huge is the gap between Europe＇s （developed） states and Africa＇s （developing） states related to their decentralisation policy, law and practice.

The AHP-Based Assessment of Public Services With Respect to Different Groups of Customers of Polish Local Government

The situation of the contemporary economic systems is based on their ability to ensure optimal response to the customer needs. There are several important groups of clients, who may determine development processes and who are recipients of public services. They include： residents, entrepreneurs, tourists, and State Treasury. Local governments are equipped with a range of legal instruments to provide public services addressed to the selected clients. The objective of this paper is to present the application of the AHP method to assess the significance of the selected categories of public services for different groups of clients in Poland. The results allow setting priorities for future policy and adjust the tasks to the specific expectations of each group of clients. The model of assessment of public services was built using the analytic hierarchy process （AHP）. Since the 1970＇s, this multicriteria decision-support method has been used by researchers and practitioners in many areas of socioeconomic life. The case study presented in this paper involved 14 experts--public administration workers in one of the districts in Southern Poland. The survey consisted of two stages. First, they assessed--using the AHP--the influence of each group of customers on local development processes. The most important was ＂business＂ （priority 38.7%）, followed by ＂tourists＂ （29.7%）, ＂citizens＂ （26.1%）, and ＂central administration＂ （5.5%）. Second, they evaluated at the five-point Liken scale the influence of over 20 different public services with respect to different groups of clients. The results were aggregated using arithmetic mean and multiplied by the priorities of the clients. The synthesized final score indicated the most significant public activities overall, which were ＂roads＂ （4.16）, ＂transport＂ （3.93）, and ＂tourism＂ （3.84）.

Grand Strategies for Dealing With Chinese Local Government Debts

Local governmental debts in China seem to be in a more precarious position than local government debts in the USA. The scale of Chinese local government debts far surpasses that of the USA. Further, Chinese local government debts appear to be expanding at an alarming rate in the past decade or so. This research focuses on grand strategies for dealing with Chinese local government debts. There are five research questions for this paper： 1） What is the size of the Chinese government debts？ 2） Are Chinese local government debts controllable？ 3） Who or what caused the rapid increase of the Chinese local government debts？ 4） Is it possible to have individual accountability for increasing local government debts in the future？ and 5） Will it be helpful to create a local government debt management organization in the Chinese central government？ Based on the available literature, this analysis also utilizes in death interviews with 13 government officials, policy analyst, and scholars. First, this paper identifies the size and categories of debts related to Chinese local governments. Then this paper illustrates various ways and methods of Chinese local governments to obtain leverage. After analyzing the causes and origins of these debts, the research demonstrates a potential local systematic risk. By contrast to its advantages and disadvantages, the paper suggests that the local governmental debts need to be constrained. It is important to restrict debt growth in terms of issuing, buying, repurchasing, collateralizing, etc. within a legal framework. With the consideration of political mechanisms in China, the research suggests that the central government establishes a specific organization to help normalize the local governmental debts with the function of supervision and management. The research also believes that it will be an effective way to control the growth of local debts if the central government can hold the relevant top leaders/officials of local governments to be accountable for their performances related to debt accumulation.

Local Development Fee in Slovak Republic

With the advent of tax and expenditure limitations, state and local governments have been searching for new sources of revenue to maintain or expand public services. The need for new sources of revenue has been particularly acute in localities that have experienced rapid growth. The new act No. 447 of November 20, 2015 on Local Development Fee was approved in Slovakia. The Act comes into force on November 1, 2016. The paper points out possible problems associated with the introduction of the local development fee abroad and discribes the situation in Slovakia.

Local Government Behavior behind China's Excessive Investment under Decentralization——Theoretical and Empirical Analysis Based on Manufacturing Sector

This paper investigates the effect of local government intervention on capital deepening of manufacturing sector by using interprovincial panel data sets of 28 Chinese provinces,municipalities and autonomous regions between 1994 and 2011.Theoretical research indicates that as a transitional economy,China's local government intervention in corporate investment behaviors will cause excessive investment,thus bringing about a long-term and sustained tendency of capital deepening in manufacturing sector.Empirical test further discovers that in a certain range,the phenomenon of capital deepening in manufacturing sector is not an inevitable result endogenous to economic development and technology progress,and that investment behaviors of manufacturing sector are largely subject to the external institutional environment.Fiscal decentralization has indeed promoted capital deepening of manufacturing sector.Financial credit expansion and interventions in SOEs are major instruments for local governments to intervene in the capital deepening of manufacturing sector and such an influence is particularly significant for China's central,western and northeast regions.Therefore,clarifying government functions and improving local government performance review mechanism are of great significance to the healthy development of China's manufacturing sector.

Reforms on China＇s Fiscal System and Its Impact on Local Government Behavior

The fiscal system is an important part of national economic management and deals with the division of financial responsibility and power, regulates and defines the fiscal activities among different levels of governments. The changes in economic system and economic structure decide the changes of fiscal function and fiscal structure, which results in the changes in intergovernmental distribution form and local government behavior. This paper takes a look at the stages of China＇s fiscal reform process and the impacts on local government behavior, and tries to find measures for perfecting the fiscal system reform to optimize local government behavior and guarantee a healthy national economy.