Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences

Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences. Olga Kaganova and James McKellar, Editors. 438 pages. The Urban Institute Press, Washington, D.C., 2006 Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences is a compilation of the work of seventeen authors who have focused their careers on helping central, regional, and local governments become better owners, managers, and users of their real estate assets. It is edited by two prominent researchers in the area of public sector property-Olga Kaganova from the Urban Institute and James McLellar from York University in Toronto, Canada. The international context of the book provides the reader with a very rich, comparative approach that examines both the practices found in developed economies, as well as the more recent practices being developed in the emerging economies. In some cases, the latter group is more advanced because they have had the opportunity and expertise provided by some of the authors of this book to establish new systems and they are not ''bogged down'' in inherited systems passed down for generations. The early chapters outline common problems associated with the management of government-owned property assets. The cases of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France are explored. All are countries in which central governments have reformed property asset management as part of an overall effort to improve public sector efficiency and address issues of sustained fiscal deficits and growing public debt. At the municipal level, the book offers a strategic view of the municipal balance sheet and draws upon asset management experiences in the United States, Switzerland, and Germany. Authors lay out the lessons that have been learned from municipal asset management reform in countries with emerging markets. The book then focuses on special instruments and information systems that are now being tried in some countries, including special purpose corporations and public-private partnerships (PPPs). In conclusion, the book sets out a reform framework for countries and cities that want to start reforms and suggests topics for further research and examination. The compilation of essays results in some interesting findings: * First, prior to the reforms introduced by governments such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, management of real property assets has been badly handled in all types of economies. * Asset management by local governments varies widely even within one country, and often is either absent or embryonic. * Even in a regime of direct democracy, such as Switzerland, citizens have the illusion that when democratic rules are respected, efficiency follows. Within the Roman-law systems, the emphasis is on the ownership of material assets, not their maintenance, management, or potential for delivering economic benefits. Most likely, this focus on ownership per se is implicitly adhered to in many countries and trumps all other considerations, including effective asset management. This unspoken principle appears to guide politicians, who often find that voters are more concerned with retaining a public asset than utilizing it wisely. …