Numerous government programs channel capital into rural communities, assuming that new businesses face major capital shortages in starting up. More such programs are enacted annually. This paper looks at business start-ups in Idaho, Montana and Iowa to see the extent of market failure in rural...

Emerging high-growth firms create the lion’s share of jobs in the United States. Even though these firms are economically important, policy researchers have not studied them to a great extent. This focus section tries to stimulate interest in the issue by reporting results of cutting-edge...

Policy makers rely on cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to help them select the best policies and projects to alleviate poverty. But CBA, as practiced in the United States, not only fails to inform policy makers about the best use of scarce resources but helps make poverty worse for many people....

Are rural places inferior to urban areas in developing new businesses? Using employment insurance data for Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, and North Dakota, this study found that rural new businesses contribute substantially to job creation; that rural areas are as competitive as urban areas in...

pt. 1. PART, PMA, BPI, and the quest for results -- pt. 2. State and local government and intergovernmental contexts -- pt. 3. The international context -- pt. 4. Tools for performance management and budgeting.

pt. 1. Changing conceptions of public leadership -- pt. 2. Public leadership and collaboration -- pt. 3. Global public leadership -- pt. 4. New political appointees -- pt. 5. Approaches to public leadership development.

pt. 1. Management issues and policies in health insurance market reforms -- pt. 2. Administering health insurance programs and reforms -- pt. 3. Controlling costs under health care reform -- pt. 4. Using performance management to enhance health care reform -- pt. 5. Empirical studies.