In 1601, Elizabeth I and her government devalued the Irish coin from nine ounces fine to three ounces fine of silver in order to finance the high cost of the Nine Years War in Ireland. 1 This unilateral move by the English government, combined with the failure to remove the old sterling from circulation, caused catastrophic problems throughout Ireland. 2 In addition to rapid inflation in common foodstuffs, the people in Ireland would only accept the new coin at its reduced intrinsic value rather than face value. 3 Further, merchants refused to accept the devalued coin in commercial transactions leading to a shortage of vital goods from England. 4
In Italy, the transformation of government procurement began in 2000 with the model developed by Consip SpA (a public company owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance) for all public agencies across the nation. The paper is aimed to reconstruct the path taken by the public procurement reform in Italy gradually evolving from a supply-driven to a demand-driven approach. The Italian procurement transformation has co-existed with two different approaches to reform, which are working in parallel and sometimes at cross-purposes. A supply-driven approach focuses on tightening the controls on spending to tap economies of scale. A demand-driven approach focuses on decentralization and development of Electronic Public Administration MarketPlace (MEPA). The paper discusses the role Consip has played and is still playing to centrally guide the decentralization of public e-procurement, and shows the results of a sample investigation aimed at analysing the level of satisfaction of small/medium firms participating in the MEPA.
This dissertation examines why and how jurisdictions choose to finance their roads. The systematic causes of revenue choice are explored qualitatively by examining the history of turnpikes. The question is approached analytically by employing game theory to model revenue choice on a long road. The road is covered by a series of jurisdictions seeking to maximize local welfare. Jurisdictions are responsible for building and maintaining the local network. Complexity arises because local network users may not be local residents, and local residents may use non-local networks. Key factors posited to explain the choice of revenue mechanism include the length of trips using the road, the size of the governing jurisdiction, the degree of excludability, and the transaction costs of toll collection. These factors dictate the size and scope of the free rider problem. It is hypothesized that smaller jurisdictions and lower collection costs favor tolling policies over taxes.The analytical model is operationalized by assuming jurisdictions have two decisions: the strategic decision to tax or toll, and the tactical decision of setting the rate of tax or toll. Models of user demand as a function of trip distance and monetary cost and of network costs as a function of traffic flow and the number of toll collections are specified. The values of the constants and coefficients of the model are developed from recent cost literature and the estimation of a model of collection costs from California Toll Bridge data.The model is applied to evaluate the dissertation's hypotheses. The application evaluates the welfare implications of a jurisdiction and its neighbors imposing general tax, cordon toll, odometer tax, or perfect toll policies. Sensitivity tests of the model under alternative behavioral assumptions, and with varying model coefficients are conducted. Finally, policy implications from the analysis are drawn. The general trends which bode well for road pricing (electronic toll collection (ETC), decentralization, advanced infrastructure, privatization, and federal rules) are established. Possible scenarios for three cases are presented: deploying ETC and building new toll roads, and converting free roads.
About the Internet, there have been a number of indications recently, that the use of electronic methods not only for expanding business or creating new business, but also for making payments, may introduce a new " industrial and monetary " order. This idea, (millenarianism ?) implies a large adoption of new technologies, of e-business opportunities and usages and finally, the resolution of e-payment problems, especially taking into account the Internet's characteristics (decentralization and aperture). These problems do not depend only on implementation of information's technologies, cryptography or network management. Because payments concern the core of the market's economy, the e-payment systems involve i) the monetary regime - i.e. forms and nature of money creation - and ii) agents qualified to create money. On these points, the emergence of e-payment systems is not anodyne, because it participates in the evolution of the actual monetary regime in the direction of a weakening between money supply, quantity of money and economy financing by bank's credit. It participates also in the evolution of the " banking industry " in the direction of a real disintermediation.