Abstract: The National Commission on Physician Payment Reform recommends phasing out fee-for-service and outlines strategies to change the model during the transition. The commission advises revision of fee schedules so that evaluation and management are valued as highly as procedures.

Abstract: PART I - GENERAL RULES 1. Introduction to State Aid Law and Policy 2. The Definition of State Aid 3. Compatibility of Aid: General Principles 4. International Agreements PART II - SPECIFIC TYPES OF AID 5. Horizontal Aid and the GBER 6. Regional Aid 7. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises 8. Environmental Aid 9. Risk Capital 10. Research, Development and Innovation 11. Employment and Training Aid 12. Rescue and Restructuring Aid 13. Agricultural and Fisheries 14. Transport 15. Media and Communications 16. Energy, Coal and Steel 17. Financial Services PART III - ENFORCEMENT AND REMEDIES 18. Supervision by the Commission 19. Judicial Remedies in the European Courts 20. National Court Proceedings

Abstract: The 1947 President's Commission on Higher Education offers insight into higher education policy in the United States. This article reviews and assesses the adoption of its policy recommendations in two key areas: 1) improving college access and equity and 2) expanding the role of community colleges.

Abstract: Regulators and the investment community have been concerned that institutional investors pressure financial analysts through trading commission fees to issue optimistic opinions in support of their stock positions We use a unique dataset that identifies mutual fund companies' allocation of trading commission fees to individual brokerages and provide direct evidence on this issue In particular, we show that for stocks in which the fund companies have taken large positions, analysts are more optimistic in their stock recommendations when their brokerages receive trading commission fees from these fund companies The relationship is stronger when the commission fee pressure is greater The market reacts less favorably to the “Strong Buy” recommendations of analysts facing greater commission fee pressure The funds also respond negatively to such recommendations in making portfolio adjustments These results point to a source of analyst bias that has been little explored in the literature Data Av

Abstract: Quota-based bonuses and commissions are the two most common incentive compensation plans. The authors uncover differential effects of these plans from a natural field-based experiment featuring 14,000 monthly observations over three years from 458 sales territories of a pharmaceutical firm that switched from a bonus plan to an equivalent commission plan. The intervention led to significant sales productivity improvement; this effect was heterogeneous across ability deciles, with much larger increases occurring at lower ability deciles. The authors find significant differences across these plans on (1) effort against nonincentivized tasks and (2) output fluctuations induced through “timing games.” At this firm, the bonus plan was strictly inferior to the implemented commission plan with respect to short-term revenues and timing games. In contrast, the commission plan induced greater neglect of nonincentivized tasks (tasks not directly affecting observable output). To organize their findings, the a...

Abstract: The report of the Pearson/RSA Academies Commission, exploring the nature, dynamics and impact of an academised school system

Abstract: List of Tables Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Structure, Culture, and Management: The Status Quo Ante 2. The European Commission and the Process of Enlargement 3 The Kinnock Reforms: Preparing for Enlargement, Changing Culture? 4. The Outsiders Come in: Self-selection, Selection and Socialization of Entry-level Staff 5. Fitting in or Standing out? The Arrival of Managers from the New Member States 6. Nationality: Why it Matters Less than Expected 7. Gender: Why it Matters More than Expected 8. Language, Culture, and Management: the Impact of Enlargement on Language Use in the Commission Conclusions Bibliography

Abstract: This study examines when and why members of the European Parliament (EP) use parliamentary questions as a form of fire alarm oversight. We argue that the multilevel nature of the EU political system allows members of the EP from national opposition parties to use parliamentary questions to alert the European Commission to governments’ failures to implement EU policy. Representation in the EP provides the only avenue for such oversight for national opposition parties. Using a new sample of EP parliamentary questions, we demonstrate that MEPs from national opposition parties are more likely to alert the Commission to violations of EU law in their own member states. These parliamentary questions may lead the Commission to take legal action against member-state governments. Most parliaments allow members to ask questions of the executive branch to keep tabs on its activities. Despite this ubiquitous feature of parliamentarypolitics,therehasbeenlittleresearchonwhenandwhyMPs employ questions to monitor the implementation of legislation by the executive branch and even less work exploring the interaction between different levels of government and the opportunity for parliamentary oversight. This article argues that a party’s national governmentopposition status affects the number and nature of questions its members in the supranational European Parliament (MEPs) ask of the European Commission, the European Union’s (EU) executive branch and guardian oftheEU’streaties.BecausetheEUhasverylittleadministrativecapacity of its own, the member-state governments act as the EU’s agents for the purposes of implementing EU policy. The Commission monitors member-state implementation but frequently depends on outside parties to alert them to problems. In this institutional context, MEP questions are bs_bs_banner

Abstract: The current arrangements for health and social care in England were essentially laid down in two pieces of legislation that took effect in 1948. The NHS Act created the National Health Service, a comprehensive system of health care, open to all and almost entirely free at the point of use. What we now describe as social care was covered by the National Assistance Act, which is heavily needsand means-tested.

Abstract: This article analyzes the leadership of three Commission Presidents: Jacques Delors, Jacques Santer and Romano Prodi. It questions whether these Presidents performed as transactional or transforming leaders – that is, whether they ‘mattered’ as forceful promoters of the European project. Drawing on leadership theory, the article identifies three factors providing opportunities and setting constraints, as decisive for exercising political leadership: the institutional setting, the situational context and the personal qualities of the office holders. It analyzes to what extent these factors, and the interplay among them, shape the leadership of the Commission Presidents, and which of these factors are conditional for the exercise of transforming leadership. It concludes that only Delors was able to act as a transforming leader, whereas Santer and Prodi mainly performed as transactional leaders. These differences are explained by variations in the situational context and the personal qualities of the incumbents and the interplay between all three factors determining political leadership.

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION Real estate brokers typically provide sellers with bundles of services, most of which are ostensibly aimed at improving the terms at which homes are sold and helping homeowners find buyers more quickly. (1) Traditionally, access to the multiple listing service (MLS), a pooled database of homes for sale that is owned and operated by an association of local real estate brokers, has been an important component of that bundle. Other components of the traditional brokerage bundle that potentially affect the terms and timing of a sale include market information and recommendations pertaining to the appropriate asking price, (2) promotional services (preparing a home for sale, circulating flyers, placing advertisements, holding open houses, and recommending the home to individual buyers), the screening of prospective buyers, the facilitation and acceleration of matches between buyers and sellers, (3) and assistance with negotiations. (4) The object of this paper is to measure the effects of real estate brokerage services provided to sellers, other than MLS listings, on the terms and timing of home sales. It is not obvious that sellers benefit from those services. On the one hand, brokers offer potentially useful knowledge and expertise. On the other hand, because the relationship between the homeowner and the broker resembles a classical principal-agent problem, the broker may not deploy services in ways that promote the seller's interests. While appropriately structured compensation schemes may alleviate the principal-agent problem to some degree (see, e.g., the recent survey by Miceli, Pancak, and Sirmans, 2007), significant conflicts remain. As Levitt and Syverson (2008) emphasize, an agent "has strong incentives to sell the house quickly, even at a substantially lower price." Their empirical analysis shows that homes owned by agents sell for nearly 4% more and stay on the market roughly 9 days longer than other comparable houses. Similarly, Rutherford, Springer, and Yavas (2005) find that "real estate agents receive a premium of 3.0%-7.0% when selling their own condominiums in comparison to similar client owned condominiums" by waiting longer to sell. (5) While those studies shed light on the magnitude of agency costs (i.e., the extent to which the deployment of brokerage services departs from the first-best), they do not tell us how those costs compare to the benefits flowing from a broker's knowledge and expertise. Consequently, they do not answer the question posed at the outset of this paragraph. The importance of the question addressed in this paper is most readily apparent within the context of the recent policy debate over service bundling in real estate brokerage. As long as valuable MLS listings are bundled with brokerage services, homeowners may use brokers even if the agency costs exceed the benefits of brokers' knowledge and expertise. In that case, unbundling would benefit homeowners and promote efficiency. In practice, a small but growing number of brokers now offer to place clients' homes in the MLS for a fixed fee. (6) Yet in many jurisdictions established brokers have resisted pressures to unbundle MLS listings from other services. In some cases, they have pressed for "minimum service" laws that prevent agents from offering MLS-only options. As of 2007, eight states had such laws in place. (7) Some states have also adopted licensing requirements that impede the entry of non-traditional real estate brokers. Where such laws are not in force, some MLSs have adopted their own rules and procedures to prevent or at least discourage unbundling. (8) Though the Internet increasingly provides alternatives to MLS databases (at least in some jurisdictions), the U.S. Federal Trade Commission observed as recently as November 2009 that "[t]he MLS is generally acknowledged to be a superior platform for matching home buyers and sellers." (9) Thus, the practice of bundling MLS listings with other real estate brokerage services handicaps homeowners who wish to sell their homes either completely independently ("for sale by owner" or FSBO transactions) or without the ancillary services of a listing broker. …

Abstract: • Five years on from the establishment of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, it is timely to review the context for reform and some of the actions taken to date, and to highlight remaining areas of concern and priority. • The Commission's final report was released in July 2009 and presented 123 recommendations organised under four reform themes: Taking responsibility: individual and collective action to build good health and wellbeing - by people, families, communities, health professionals, employers, health funders and governments Connecting care: comprehensive care for people over their lifetime Facing inequities: recognise and tackle the causes and impacts of health inequities Driving quality performance: leadership and systems to achieve best use of people, resources and evolving knowledge. • Overall, the Australian Government's response to the Commission's report has been very positive, but challenges remain in some key areas: Financial sustainability and the vertical fiscal imbalance between the federal and state governments Getting the best value from the health dollar by reducing inefficiency and waste and using value-based purchasing across the public and private health sectors National leadership across the system as a whole Getting the right care in the right place at the right time Health is about more than health care - increasing focus on prevention and recognising and tackling the broader social determinants of health.

Abstract: Despite its importance and singularity, the EU’s state aid policy has attracted less scholarly attention than other elements of EU competition policy. Introducing the themes addressed by the special issue, this article briefly reviews the development of EU policy and highlights why the control of state aid matters. The Commission’s response to the current economic crisis notably in banking and the car industry is a key concern, but the interests of the special issue go far beyond. They include: the role of the European Commission in the development of EU policy, the politics of state aid, and a clash between models of capitalism. The special issue also examines the impact of EU policy. It investigates how EU state aid decisions affect not only industrial policy at the national level (and therefore at the EU level), but the welfare state and territorial relations within federal member states, the external implications of EU action and the strategies pursued by the Commission to limit any potential disadvantage to European firms, and the conflict between the EU’s expanding legal order and national.

Abstract: This research examines how consumers’ subjective product knowledge affects the way they interpret salesperson compensation within the financial services industry. Data from a nationwide panel of consumers show that higher product knowledge consumers become highly suspicious and lower purchase intentions when salesperson commission rates fall outside of the latitude of acceptance (Study 1). Study 2 results, however, demonstrate a reversal of these effects by showing that compensation–recommendation consistency is an important moderator in financial salesperson interactions. In addition, the study describes boundaries of the suspicious mindset that underlies consumer responses to sales information. Theoretical and practical implications of the finding are discussed, as are future research directions.

Abstract: Prospective memory (PM) research typically examines the ability to remember to execute delayed intentions but often ignores the ability to forget finished intentions. We had participants perform (or not perform; control group) a PM task and then instructed them that the PM task was finished. We later (re)presented the PM cue. Approximately 25% of participants made a commission error, the erroneous repetition of a PM response following intention completion. Comparisons between the PM groups and control group suggested that commission errors occurred in the absence of preparatory monitoring. Response time analyses additionally suggested that some participants experienced fatigue across the ongoing task block, and those who did were more susceptible to making a commission error. These results supported the hypothesis that commission errors can arise from the spontaneous retrieval of finished intentions and possibly the failure to exert executive control to oppose the PM response.

Abstract: Over the past two decades, reliance on short-term contracted staff has increased in government institutions across the Western world. This tendency towards ‘contracted government’ may be strengthened during periods of economic and financial stress. This article therefore poses the following questions: First, does ‘contracted government’ lead to civil servants less loyal and attentive to the concerns of ‘their’ government institutions? Secondly, and more generally, what factors shape the behavioural perceptions of contracted government staff? Benefiting from a new, full-scale survey among seconded national experts in the European Commission, this study shows that contracted Commission staff are largely integrated and committed to the Commission and its administrative sub-units. The general lesson learned is that when under contract, contracted personnel seem mainly loyal and attentive to the concerns of the government institution under which they formally serve. This finding dispels fears that contracted g...

Abstract: The paper investigates how the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) fits into the 1950s' international debate about investment criteria and choice of techniques in development planning. In some of their documents, CEPAL economists expressed a preference for projects with low capital-labour ratios, in line with the conclusions of A.E. Kahn and Hollis Chenery's ‘social marginal productivity’ of capital criterion for investment in countries relatively short of capital. However, one may also find CEPAL economists proposing an increasing participation of heavy industries in total investment during the acceleration phase of economic growth, an approach that was supported by Maurice Dobb's and Amartya Sen's argument for capital-intensive projects. This double perspective is explained by the distinction between static and dynamic scenarios in CEPAL's framework, which sheds new light on the treatment of capital accumulation and technology as part of import-substituting industrialization pol...

Abstract: Over the last two decades the need for a financially literate population has grown in importance. Hence in Australia, it is imperative that individuals possess both the financial knowledge and capability to make sound financial decisions. In contrast, the results of the Australian & New Zealand Bank (ANZ) surveys from 2003 to 2010 have demonstrated that there is a substantial deficiency in the level of financial literacy amongst many of the Australian population. Both the government and the private sector have encouraged the development of financial education programs as an important tool in remedying the detected low levels of financial literacy as reported in the ANZ research. The Australian Security and Investment Commission (ASIC), the government regulator, has strongly promoted the need to develop confident and informed consumers and investors through the provision of quality financial education. ASIC’s focus was reiterated in its Report 229, the National Financial Literacy Strategy. This report which was announced in March 2011 set out the strategy for the development and delivery of initiatives to improve financial literacy levels in Australia (ASIC 2011). In particular, the National Strategy has been developed to improve the level of financial literacy among Australian students. The focus is on incorporating financial education through the existing school curriculum, beginning in kindergarten through to year 12 students. The aim of this research paper is to challenge and ask questions relating to the Australian Government’s financial literacy strategy directed at schools. This direction would appear to have limited support of success, given the evidence published in the USA, and to a limited extent in the United Kingdom and Europe. This study reviews the current evidence available in both Australia and the USA in relation to financial literacy projects in schools. In respect of the international experience this paper explores the possible reasons for their limited success, and in some cases failure, to deliver the desired outcomes. In Australia there has been no academic research as to the possible effectiveness of teaching financial literacy at a school level. Given the USA research into such initiatives, this paper seeks to question the policy direction of the government in Australia. This paper also challenges the validity of the current Australian approach. The emphasis placed upon school financial literacy programs defies the wealth of evidence overseas which has failed to identify any measurable improvement in financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviour as a result of embedding financial literacy in school education curriculum.

Abstract: This article presents an analysis of the European Commission’s staffing policies. It focuses in particular on the extent to which, over time, the Commission has taken the criterion of nationality into account. The theoretical framework of this study is the theory of representative bureaucracy. The article shows that, although the Commission does not use a quota system, its staffing policies have evolved from a limited practice of representation to a complex, explicit, but flexible strategy of representation, which satisfies the criteria of representative bureaucracy. However, due to the duty of loyalty to which civil servants of the European Union submit, these policies only satisfy the criterion of passive representation. The article ends on an explorative note, with the hypothesis that a third type of representation exists. It suggests the creation of a third concept, linkage representation, to account for this.

Abstract: In 2006 the European Commission, under the leadership of Directorate General (DG) Justice, adopted a policy of promoting children's rights, a project that inevitably relied on the support of children's rights organizations. This article examines why the relationship between the Commission and the children's rights networks shifted from consensus to disenssus and how this has impacted on the children's rights agenda. We argue that the relationship with children's rights networks did not follow the normal pattern of Commission–interest group relations. Clientelistic, symbiotic relations were difficult to establish. The disengagement of the key children's rights advocacy organizations from the Commission's agenda intensified the impact of the conflict between DG Justice and DG External Relations over the issue and prevented the Commission from accomplishing its goal to become an agenda-setter in this area.

Abstract: The article explores the implications of personal budgets within English social care services, which position the individual as market actor. Rooting the research in the broader personalization agenda, the study looks at the limitations of the market in relation to individual purchase of private goods (e.g. home care), in the pooling of funds to purchase group services and in the provision of public goods such as building-based services. The article takes a multi-method approach, combining an interpretive focus on the framing of the personal budget-holder by advocates of personalization with national evaluation data, and data from a small survey of day centre workers. The article identifies three framings of the individual budget-holder articulated by advocates of personalization. The first is that personal budget-holders will be empowered market actors, commissioning the services they need. The second is that budget-holders will pool resources with others to purchase group services in order to broaden the range of options available to them. The third is that services which cannot be disaggregated into individual or group budgets – such as day centres – are not valued by service users. The article looks at the evaluation data on these three claims in turn. It identifies four limitations to the capacity of people to purchase care goods on an individual basis: lack of transparency in allocating budgets, complexity in managing a budget, excessive auditing of spending and lack of responsiveness from the provider market. Pooling of budgets to purchase collective services is found to be underdeveloped, and hampered by the complexity which is a broader limitation on personal budgets. Day centres are found to be closing not in response to commissioning decisions by individual budget-holders but because of decommissioning by local authorities, minimising the scope for individuals to express a preference for this type of care. The survey highlights patterns of day centre closure, rising fees for attendance and reduced eligibility, and the underdevelopment of mechanisms to facilitate commissioning of new collective spaces. The paper concludes that the transition to personal budgets – in the context of the accompanying financial crisis in local authorities – has led to inadequate attention to the potential for an undersupply of collective and public goods. The loss of day centre provision will be felt by personal budget holders but also by self-funders and people in residential accommodation who may no longer be eligible for, or able to afford, to access shared spaces. Local authorities are actively taking on the role of decommissioners without sufficient responsiveness to how and what individuals want them to commission.

Abstract: The European Commission has undergone successive waves of public management reforms since the second half of the 1990s that have led to substantive administrative change. This contribution aims at explaining how the “unique” politico-administrative context of the European Union affected the trajectory of reform of the Commission, compared with trajectories of reform of the public sector at the national level. On the basis of such analysis, the Pollitt and Bouckaert model of contextual influences on the dynamics of public management reform is revisited, and considerations on the use of historical institutionalism in the study of administrative reforms proposed.

Abstract: The Post Danmark judgment may cast the light on the interpretations by the EU Court of Justice of crucial dimensions of the competition policy as: selective price cuts, above-cost rebates, costs test for exclusionary abuses with common costs. As we see one of the main interests of the decision lies on the cost criteria used by the Court to determine if a given price practice may exclude a competitor as efficient as the incumbent. In other words, does Post Danmark constitutes a real step towards the appropriation by the Court of Justice of the more economic approach promoted by the Commission and, more broadly, is really the logic of the Court coherent with an effects-based approach? Does Post Danmark conciliates the traditional decisional practice of the Court with the new principles of competition policy enforcement advocated by the Commission since the issuance of its February 2009 guidelines, relative to the exclusionary practices of dominant undertakings?

Abstract: The most important amendments to the Brussels I Regulation adopted on 12 December 2012 are presented and discussed. The amendments concern: 1) arbitration, 2) external situations, 3) choice-of-court agreements, and 4) abolition of exequatur. Compared to the Commission's ambitions, only modest, but probably useful compromises were achieved in respect of arbitration and external situations. For exclusive choice-of-court agreements, an efficient and sophisticated provision based on the Commission's ideas was adopted, and the Commission's primary goal, to abolish exequatur, was also successfully achieved.

Abstract: As long as state aid outside the EU is unregulated, the European Commission faces a dilemma: either European firms will be disadvantaged in global competition by strict EU rules, or the Commission will come under pressure to relax the rules, thereby running the risk that fair competition within the EU will be undermined. As a consequence, the Commission attempts to promote EU rules on state aid and public procurement beyond EU borders — in non-member countries as well as at the WTO level. This article analyses the Commission’s channels of regulatory transfer and the factors accounting for its varying success. Bilateral cooperation provides many opportunities to spread European state aid rules, but decentralised enforcement at the national level remains ultimately deficient. Moreover, the transfer of European rules to the multilateral WTO depends heavily on the EU’s ability to reach prior consensus with its most powerful partner and rival, the US government.