Private sector contributions to public sector performance: November 2007 to March 2008

A series of meetings exploring the incentives and impediments facing private contributions to improved public sector performance. The effects of `disclosure' on government and corporate behaviour, the `architecture' of corruption and the management of `incomplete'contracts' were amongst the topics discussed.

Institutions, incentives and public sector performance:                     18 January 2008

A symposium examining the motivations driving public service performance, its measurement and issues in devising public sector incentive schemes.

Adding public value: the limits of corporate responsibility:               March to June 2006

This series explored the proposition that corporations exploiting natural resources might have increasing interest in promoting host countries' governance and public sector competencies. If so, this represents a development in the corporate social responsibility agenda.

Health services productivity:                                                                  January to May 2004

This seminar series reviewed the current state of knowledge on health services productivity. Its objectives were to lay the foundation for international comparative research designed to identify the key ways in which health services can be delivered more efficiently in different settings and to build international networks interested in participating in follow-on research projects.

Issues in health sector regulation :                                                 April to June 2000

Informational asymmetries leave health service consumers vulnerable to indifferent service quality, unnecessary tests and treatments and uncompetitive prices. In most countries professional self-regulation has been their main defence. However, there is theoretical, and growing empirical, evidence that the incentives professional `clubs' have to regulate health service quality volume and price are weak and, in some cases, perverse. Some would argue that such pervasive market failures justify public intervention. However, cost-effective public strategies have proved to be elusive in practice. These seminars explore some of the issues involved.

New challenges for the international relations of developing countries : January to March 2000

In the wake of globalisation and the end of the cold war, the first decade of the twenty-first century poses serious new challenges for developing countries in their international relations. This seminar reviewed research into the implications for developing countries of transformations in the international political, economic and social environment.

Re-thinking approaches to government reforms:          September to December 1999

This seminar series looked at the implementation of 'New Public Management' ideas in countries including those outside the `leader countries' in Europe and Australasia.  Some common themes that influenced the progress of these reforms include the need for strong institutions that hold politicians and service commissioners accountable; the difficulty politicians have in distancing themselves from operational decisions and `managing by contract' and the broader environment of social institutions that determine political and bureaucratic behaviours.