Browsing by Author "Sproule-Jones, Mark"

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Co-Production: A Different Approach to Public Sector Efficiency
(1983) Sproule-Jones, Mark
(From pp. 2-3): "In this first of a series of occasional reports on cutback management in government, we detail the potential advantages and difficulties in implementing co-production for government functions. "Section (2) of the report describes co-production and gives examples of its use in local governments in Canada and abroad. The economic theory of co-production is relegated to an Appendix note, as are a bibliography and the methodology used in this study, for those readers who wish to pursue a more in-depth analysis. "Section (3) provides evidence on the potential savings and cost-effectiveness from co-production, with data drawn from its current use in the Hamilton-Wentworth area. "Section (4) discusses the key requirements for any successful introduction of co-production into service provisions by local governments. And it discusses the difficulties of implementation. "Section (5) offers concluding remarks and summarizes the thrust of this report for government and for the informed layman."
Common Pools and Multiple Uses
(1997) Sproule-Jones, Mark
"This is the major theoretical chapter in a book length study of the more recent attempts to restore the ecosystems of the Great Lakes Basin in North America."
Institutions, Constitutions and Public Policies: A Public Choice Overview
(1982) Sproule-Jones, Mark
(From pp. 1-2): "Public choice is a comparative approach to the study of public policies. It is centrally concerned with comparing different ways of providing public policies to individual citizens. It is also an economic approach to the study of public goods, externalities and common pools to compare how and why public policies differ. It is one of the objectives of this chapter to outline and illustrate the public choice approach to comparative policy analysis. "This chapter also has a second objective. One of the major concepts used in public choice analysis is that called institutional arrangements, which is a term used to describe the laws (statute and common), the government regulations, and the number and type of organizations (government and private) that may be involved in providing public policies. These institutional arrangements are ultimately established and maintained by so-called constitutional arrangements that determine who may exercise governmental authority, what limits (if any) are placed on this authority, and what kinds of agreements must exist between government decision makers before laws, regulations, and organizations are changed. The constitutional arrangements may all be written down in a single document, but more are contained within a number of documents (like the British North America Act, the Treaty of Westminster, the treaties between Native Indians and the British Crown before Canada became independent). Public choice is interested in seeing what differences both institutional arrangements and also constitutional arrangements make in providing public policies. This chapter will outline and illustrate such differences. "A third objective exists for this chapter. Unlike many other contributions to the book, the public choice approach is normative in cast. It is interested in determining what kinds of institutional arrangements and constitutional arrangements work better for citizens. It argues that laws, regulations, government and private organizations, as well as constitutional arrangements that do not perform in the interests of citizens should be reformed. The structure of government-the composition of Parliament, for example- should be modified in favour of a different structure if necessary. Institutional and constitutional arrangements that exist in Canada at this time are of no value in themselves; they are only of value if they wok better than others in providing the policies that individual citizens prefer. The third objective of the chapter is to outline and illustrate the criteria used in public choice for assessing performance."
On Linking the Micro and Macro Analysis of Policies and Institutions
(1987) Sproule-Jones, Mark
From Introduction: "This paper has three major objectives. First, it is to place on the agenda of 'Comparative Institutional Analysis', the issue of the interdependencies between constitutional arrrange-ments (on the one hand) and policy performance (on the other hand). Policy analysts have long been sensitive to the inter-dependencies between different policies Thus, education policies can be shown to be interdependent with employment policies and those with government fiscal policies and so on. Economists have pushed these analyses the furthest with their conceptual reasoning about technical and pecuniary externalities. There has also been increasing awareness of the interdependencies between institutional arrangements for organizing public policies. Thus, we are aware of the multi-organizational arrangements that characterize the provision and production of most policies and services to residents of the the world's cities."
Restoring the Great Lakes: Institutional Analysis and Design
(1998) Sproule-Jones, Mark
"I will briefly outline the scope of the multiple uses of the Great Lakes as a whole and describe the most recent attempts to restore the water quality of the most degraded bays, harbours and river mouths on these Lakes. The range of collective choice and operational rules through which these recent attempts known as RAP's (Remedial Action Plans) work will be sketched. The third section will review our knowledge about common properties, their technical characteristics and dynamics. The fourth section will describe property rights in general and then develop the conditions for adaptation in these rules. An extended example of water rights will be used. Section five develops the concept of multiple stakeholders and their potential property rights. Section six deals with collective choice rules and presents a framework for the institutional analysis of RAP's and their implementation. Concepts and data used to examine RAP's are described. Section seven presents the major findings of the research. The dominant incentives are described as are key exceptions. These reflect the scope of constitutional discretion accorded to the governmental stakeholders granted authority to design the institutional arrangements for plans and their implementation. The major rules at the collective choice level that form the design arrangements are described and evaluated in terms of balancing the interests of the multiple stakeholders. Section eight is a conclusion. It reemphasizes the importance of careful institutional design in the real world, something that is not exemplified on the Great Lakes and which suggests limits to their restoration."
Rights, Rules and the Organization of Environmental Decision Making
(1989) Sproule-Jones, Mark
"There is an additional purpose of this paper besides that of clarifying the nature of property rights and representational rules for resource and environmental decision-making. It is to subject key theoretical questions about rights and rules and about rights-holders and rule makers to empirical scrutiny."
The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited: A Note on Plagues and Pestilences and the Canada Goose
(2002) Sproule-Jones, Mark; Balahura, Andrew
"We wish to raise a new wrinkle to CPR theory. We wish to extend the logic to resources that people/potential harvesters regard as having negative value, but from which withdrawals are not possible. There are rules that prevent people from eliminating common pool bads of opposed to goods and the stock of the resource quality can actually increase in the commons' situations. Our case in point is the resource of Canada geese which have become an urban, non-migratory pest or plague in many North American sites....We will describe the problem in Southern Ontario and the solutions ultimately worked out to accomodate the common pool. First, we will outline the theoretical extension before we examine the empirical case. We show how the non-market values associated with a non-renewable resource like the Canada geese can gradually be reduced and outweighed by the negative consequences of population increases. We also show how government authorities have continued to restrict culling and harvesting despite supportive evidence, including public opinion. We conclude that the classic tragedy of the commons has an inverse logic whereby limits to harvesting create incentives for the growth of pestilences and plagues particularly in urban areas where carrying capacities appear large."
Urban Bads and the Structure of Institutional Arrangements
(1979) Sproule-Jones, Mark
"This paper will attempt to answer these broad questions. It does so by first outlining what may be called 'the theory of public bads.' Such a theory is necessary to explain the relationships between institutional arrangements and policy initiatives in the context of an urban and interdependent society. And this kind of explanatory knowledge is necessary for an evaluation of past institutional changes and future institutional possibilities. "Part II of the paper contains the theory and an illustrative case study of its empirical warrantability. Part III of the paper argues that the thrust of most changes in institutional arrangements over the last decade may have exacerbated rather than ameliorated the human condition in urban society. This argument is congruent with the theoretical section. It also presents a key institutional reform which could set the agenda for responsive and effective governance of urban society in the immediate future."