Public Administration
Public Administration research activities are focused around three core areas: Applied Policy and Program Analysis, Comparative Policy and Governance, and Organizational Studies.
Applied Policy and Program Analysis
The Unintended Consequences of Canadian Tax Reform
Assistant Professor Lindsay Tedds recently co-authored a paper for Tax Notes International, entitled "Backdating, Tax Evasion, and the Unintended Consequences of Canadian Tax Reform." This article explores the significant changes to the tax treatment of employee stock options in Canada, and the consequences of these actions on employees and employers.
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A Congestion Charge on the Halifax Peninsula?
Congestion charges pose a policy dilemma due to the balance that must be made between the management of a quasi public good along with the correction of negative externalities against the needs of economic, demographic and urban growth along with citizen acceptance. Assistant Professors Lindsay Tedds and Catherine Althaus-Kaefer have exposed some of the issues, both technical and administrative, that confront the implementation challenge of enacting a congestion charge in their paper in Canadian Public Policy (Vol.37(4), p.513-539) entitled “The Feasibility of Implementing a Congestion Charge on the Halifax Peninsula: Filling the “Missing Link” of Implementation.”
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Relationships between Risk and Social Policy
Assistant Professor Catherine Althaus-Kaefer has been working with the Policy and Research Initiative (PRI) completing two working papers and a brownbag session on the relationships between risk and social policy. Some of this work has contributed towards an article in the Horizons journal.
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Changes to Insider Reporting Obligations
In April 2010, new rules governing the reporting of securities trades by insiders of reporting issuers came into effect in Canada. These new rules were meant to deter the practice of options backdating. In the article "Insider Reporting Obligations and Options Backdating", published in Banking and Finance Law Review (Vol.25, No.3, 2011) Assistant Professor Lindsay Tedds and colleagues review the new rules and the mechanisms for their enforcement revealing weaknesses in the Canadian approach.
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Backdating: A Canada-US Comparison
Does the Canadian Tax System reward those who engage in the dubious practice of backdating stock options? According to research by Assistant Professor Lindsay Tedds and colleagues the answer is “Yes.” Their forthcoming article in the Columbia Journal of Tax Law contrasts the post-tax returns of backdated at-the-money options to currently-dated in-the-money options (with the same strike price as the backdated options) and demonstrates that a Canadian executive can earn a significantly larger after-tax return from backdated options compared to a US executive. The comparison suggests that the personal tax regime may have been one of the factors which impacted the desire to receive backdated options in lieu of other forms of compensation in Canada but not so in the United States.
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The Service State: Rhetoric, Reality and Promise
Professor John Langford and Associate Professor Cosmo Howard are co-authors of the recently published book The Service State: Rhetoric, Reality and Promise. This book probes the central dimensions of service reform efforts from a variety of perspectives and answers some pressing questions, such as, 'How can we make better decisions about service delivery? How should we engage users of government services?'
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As the Rich Get Richer and Poor Get Poorer, why have Government Policies Failed to Keep Up with the Rapid Growth in Income Inequality?
Professor David Good goes inside bureaucratic politics to look for some answers in a chapter in the forthcoming book, The New Politics of Redistribution, edited by Keith Banting and John Myles.
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Minority Government and the Public Service: Some Impacts on Governing
Professor David Good analyzes the implications of minority government for the public service in the March 2011 edition of Optimum Online. The singular focus of minority governments on their short-term electoral prospects has significant consequences for the public service and for governing.
Local Power and the Governance of Borders and Borderlands
How is local power and politics influencing the governance of borders and borderlands? This is a question Associate Professor Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly addresses in “Power, Politics and Governance of Borderlands – the structure and agency of power” in Harlan Koff, Theorizing Borders Through Analyses of Power Relationship, Peter Lang, 2010.
Metropolitan Co-operation
In North America, why and how municipalities in large metropolitan areas co-operate is a pressing question. Both in Canada and the US, the literature has been greatly influenced by the public choice views that rational actors have very limited rational or economic incentives to co-operate unless the stat steps in to rule co-operation. In his upcoming article "Metropolitan co-operation, theory and practice - Looking at Vancouver BC, Canada" appearing in the journal Regions & Cohesion Associate Professor Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly explores the district's exemplary commitment to metropolitan co-operation.
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Local Government in a Global World
Local government plays a critical role in the lives of all citizens, from remote towns to capital cities. As the political legitimacy and importance of municipalities grow, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to strike a balance between local and higher levels of government. Working with experts from both Canada and Australia, Associate Professor Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly and co-editor Professor John Martin (LaTrobe University, Australia) present a series of essays which explore the question, is globalization impacting local governments in either Australia or Canada? Read more
Organizational Studies
Developing Guidelines for Effective Cross-Cultural Research Teams
Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary projects are becoming an important part of academic life. Research questions are becoming more complex and sophisticated, requiring a team approach to address. Despite this increasing use of teams, protocols to prepare individual researchers to work as part of a team are not widely developed. Assistant Professor Lynne Siemens is part of a team investigating the impact of membership from multiple countries, languages and/or cultures on academic teams.
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Incrementalism Turns Fifty
Professor David Good marks the occasion of Charles Lindblom’s celebrated theory of decision-making in his article, "Still Budgeting by Muddling Through: Why Disjointed Incrementalism Lasts", in the February 2011 edition of Policy and Society.
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The Administrative Sherpa: The Adventure of Public Service Leadership
Assistant Professor Catherine Althaus-Kaefer is completing an article on the application of the sherpa metaphor to the leadership task of public administrators. The sherpa metaphor offers tools for practitioners to think more critically about their role and how they can improve their leadership skills.
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