Polly S. Rizova

Understanding and Creating Public Value: Business is the engine, government the flywheel (and also the regulator)

Abstract In this essay, we define the meaning and content of public value, show how government and business create public value, and briefly explain why their governance arrangements work the way they do. We deal first with business and then government. We conclude that government manages risks and that governmental value creation is distinctively concerned with stability. Hence, to make government work better, risk management ought to be central to the practice of public finance, public policy, and public administration. Understanding the importance of stability is potentially of even greater importance to those who research and teach public policy and administration. Indeed, we propose that the elaboration of a general risk assessment model explaining, among other things, government’s systemic inclination to stability, would take our field a long towards integration with mainstream positive social science and, therefore, holds out the prospect of considerable interdisciplinary consilience, although at this time we can do no more than suggest the contours of such a model.

How Government Creates Value

Private enterprises should be concerned with maximizing productivity. Government should be concerned with minimizing risk, perhaps subject to a cost or productivity constraint. Value creation in government ought to strive for consistency, coherency, and transparency. Achieving consistency and coherence in the face of systemic and idiosyncratic risk calls the elaboration of general risk assessment model, which takes account of the various kinds of risk confronted by the diversity of government institutions. Lacking such a model, the best we can hope for is the design and execution of policies and practices that assure reasonably satisfactory outcomes no matter what the future throws at us.

How Government Creates Value? / Kako Vlada Stvara Vrednost?

Abstract Private enterprises should be concerned with maximizing productivity. Government should be concerned with minimizing risk, perhaps subject to a cost or productivity constraint. Value creation in government ought to strive for consistency, coherency, and transparency. Achieving consistency and coherence in the face of systemic and idiosyncratic risk calls the elaboration of general risk assessment model, which takes account of the various kinds of risk confronted by the diversity of government institutions. Lacking such a model, the best we can hope for is the design and execution of policies and practices that assure reasonably satisfactory outcomes no matter what the future throws at us.

Governing Public School Districts: Insights from Economics, Political Science, and Business Management

In this essay, we review the contributions economists, political scientists, and business scientists have made to an understanding of how local school districts, boards of education, school superintendents, and district offices affect student learning and other achievement outcomes of interest, where and how their work differs from that done by students of educational administration, and the implications of their findings for future research.