WASHINGTON, D.C., April 3, 2006—National, regional, and local governments are by far the largest owners of real property; even Western governments may control a third or more of all property assets. A new book from the Urban Institute Press comprehensively examines the management of these assets from an international perspective.
Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences -- edited by Olga Kaganova of the Urban Institute and James McKellar of the Schulich School of Business at Toronto's York University -- dissects a topic of lasting significance to mature and reform economies, given the extent of public ownership of land and buildings throughout the world.
The book, representing the work of 16 scholars and practitioners from 7 countries, is directed toward reform-oriented governments, offering a framework to help them meet a challenge that other reformers have overcome. For professionals working with public property, this book is an invaluable resource on conceptual thinking, best practices, lessons learned, and new ideas, some successful and others not.
"This benchmark book raises, for the first time in a unified and comparative way, the major question of how central, regional, and local governments can become better owners of their real estate assets, in advanced economies and emerging economies alike," said Bertrand Renaud, former advisor at the World Bank's Financial Development Department.
Managing Government Property Assets bridges the gap between two seemingly disconnected universes: those few countries that have implemented public property management reforms and the majority of countries only now beginning to struggle with the task. The book also offers insights into management experiences below the national level, about which little has been previously written.
The first chapter, an introduction by editors Kaganova and McKellar, along with George Peterson of the Urban Institute, identifies common pre-reform problems. These include a lack of explicit policy; fragmented management responsibilities; inefficient practices; and a lack of transparency, accountability, and information systems. It also discusses the relationship between accounting and asset management reform and the separation of ownership from management.
The remainder of the book explores central government asset management, management at sub-national levels of government, and special advanced instruments of public asset management.
Central Government Asset Management
Four chapters present in-depth reviews of central government property reforms in Australia (by Francis Conway), Canada (by James McKellar), New Zealand (by Peter Dow, Iain Gillies, Gary Nichols, and Sarah Polen), and France (by Bernard Bizet). The sixth chapter compares and contrasts various approaches taken by these countries, three of which are commonly recognized as leaders in the field, and offers a "composite image of reform."
Asset Management by Local Governments
The next six chapters explore asset management at the sub-national level and combine country-specific analysis with debate on key topics.
- Peterson discusses how a balance sheet view of property assets can be used to improve the financial standing of a government or achieve economic development and service-provision goals.
- John Hentschel and Marilee Utter spotlight the challenges of managing property assets in American cities.
- Bernard Dafflon demonstrates that Switzerland's reform framework for asset management, based on the democratic process, is more advanced in theory than in practice.
- Karl-Werner Schulte and Christian Ecke show that property-management reform by local authorities in Germany is in its early stages and that local authorities are often falling short of their targets.
- Kaganova provides a detailed account of asset-management problems in formerly centrally planned economies, illustrating how public wealth concentrated in municipal real estate is mismanaged.
- Kaganova and Charles Undeland discuss conceptual and practical approaches to technical assistance for local asset-management reform and share their lessons as assistance providers.
Special Instruments of Public Asset Management
Three chapters examine innovative strategies and organizational structures:
- Alan Jowett turns to Canada to present one of the more successful attempts to implement a national data system for real property assets.
- McKellar offers an in-depth examination of three special-purpose corporations established by Canadian provinces to manage their property assets and suggests a conceptual framework for these alternative models.
- Kaganova and Polen discuss the lessons central and local governments can draw from experiments with private-public partnerships.
Sharing Experiences
Kaganova and McKellar conclude with a "big picture" perspective, grouping best practices into six categories: the relationships among management, budgeting, and accounting; institutional arrangements; degrees of privatization; the scope of reform measures; the launch sequence for reform efforts; and information systems.
"There is no simple prescription for success," says McKellar. "Lessons shared through efforts such as this book are essential to moving forward with the advances required to ensure that both mature and emerging economies make the best use of one of their most valuable assets."
Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences, edited by Olga Kaganova and James McKellar, is available from the Urban Institute Press for $32.50 (448 pages, ISBN 0-87766-730-6). Order online at http://www.uipress.org, call 202-261-5687, or dial 1-877-847-7377 toll-free.
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