In federal systems, governments have the opportunity to learn from the policy experiments – and the potential successes – of other governments. Whether they seize such opportunities, however, may depend on the expertise or past experiences of policymakers. Based on an analysis of state-level adoptions of antismoking restrictions targeted towards youths, we find that US states are more likely to emulate other states that have demonstrated the ability to successfully limit youth smoking. In addition, we find that political expertise (as captured by legislative professionalism) and policy expertise (as captured by previous youth access policy experiments at the local level) enhance the likelihood of emulating policy successes found in other states. As such, we establish that internal expertise and external learning are complements, rather than substitutes.

This article investigates the conditions under which government officials who implement policy integrate the best available science into regulatory practice. It examines the adoption of rapid wetland assessment tools, a type of science policy innovation, by street-level bureaucrats in six US Mid-Atlantic states. These bureaucrats operate in relatively opaque and discretion-laden institutional settings. The analysis of an original survey of state wetland officials shows that these officials are more likely to adopt tools when they have more opportunities to learn tool-related information and practice norms. Bureaucrats’ adoption of this class of science policy innovations appears facilitated by peer communication via network ties, on-the-job experience and incentives and disincentives associated with bureaucrats’ organisational contexts and operating environments.

This paper examines long-term care insurance sales to assess whether state income tax subsidies are effective in encouraging the private purchase of long-term care insurance. Drawing from the most comprehensive available sales data on long-term care insurance policies, cross-state and over-time variation in sales data during the late 1990s and early 2000s are analysed. This analysis uses a panel model with fixed effects controls for potential endogeneity between state provision of tax subsidies and actual sales of long-term care insurance policies. Income, health and family support factors are significant determinants in the sale of long-term care insurance, but the tax incentives provided by many state governments do not induce any more sales of long-term care insurance than could be expected without such incentives. These costly subsidies have not been prudent uses of public dollars, and have not helped states cope with the challenge of long-term care costs.

Complex environmental challenges cut horizontally across sectors and vertically across levels of government. To address them in coordinated and integrated ways, governments have resorted to integrated, multi-sectoral strategies since the 1990s. After introducing this new governance approach, we describe the policy rationale, prevalence, governance characteristics and performance of three distinct yet thematically related, integrated strategies on sustainable development, climate change mitigation and adaptation in the EU-15 countries. Based on this literature-based synthesis, we highlight their similarities and differences and the lack of linkages between them. The concluding discussion explores options on how to develop integrated strategies further. Since all three integrated strategies failed as comprehensive governing processes that aim to better coordinate policies, we suggest recalibrating them towards communication so that they can be more effective in pursuing the functions they can realistically fulfil: providing direction and raising awareness.

Forecast errors in budgetary variables are frequent. When systematic, they are a source of concern, as they signal misconduct in fiscal policymaking, undermine the government’s credibility and compromise long-term fiscal sustainability. This paper analyses the characteristics of fiscal forecasting and implementation errors in Italy using real-time data over the period 1998–2009. Several empirical methods are applied in order to identify the features of policymakers’ behaviour in preparing and implementing annual fiscal policy and to discover potential determinants in the formation of the implementation errors. Our results show that implemented budgetary plans systematically fall short one year ahead of ambitious planned adjustments for the main public finance aggregates. Fiscal illusion dominates revenue and GDP forecasting, and preliminary data releases are severely biased estimators of the final data, especially for expenditures. The role of the parliamentary session in driving a severe expenditure drift is confirmed.

The financial cost of corruption has recently been estimated at more than 5 per cent of global GDP. Yet, despite the widespread agreement that corruption is one of the most pressing policy challenges facing world leaders, it remains as widespread today, possibly even more so, as it was when concerted international attention began being devoted to the issue following the end of the Cold War. In reality, we still have a relatively weak understanding of how best to measure corruption and how to develop effective guides to action from such measurement. This paper provides a detailed review of existing approaches to measuring corruption, focusing in particular on perception-based and non-perceptual approaches. We highlight a gap between the conceptualisation of corruption and its measurement, and argue that there is a tension between the demands of policy-makers and anti-corruption activists on the one hand, and the motivations of academic researchers on the other. The search for actionable answers on the part of the former sits uncomfortably with the latter’s focus on the inherent complexity of corruption.