This paper presents the results of the content analysis of 139 Web of Science papers focused on collaborative innovation with external stakeholders of public administration, specifically on co-production and co-creation. The analysis included papers published between 2009 and 2018 and was based on a coding scheme consisting of 12 parameters grouped into four groups: paper descriptors, financial support of the research, methodological framework, and co-creation characteristics. The results reveal a considerable increase in researchers’ interest in co-production and co-creation in the context of public administration in the last few years. This is particularly the case in Northern and Western Europe, where Anglo-Saxon and Nordic administrative traditions dominate. Furthermore, the results show that co-creation is most often placed in the contexts of social policy and welfare, as well as health care. Over the selected period, research seldom addressed companies as a target group in the co-creation of public services—in comparison to citizens and internal users. More than three quarters of the papers observed were empirical and less than 20% were quantitative. In general, a lack of conceptual clarity was often identified through the interchangeable usage of the terms co-creation and co-creation and the low level of international comparison—the majority of the papers focused on case descriptions at a national level, even though collaborative innovation is strongly related to administrative traditions dominating in specific regions.

As a part of the public governance, transparency started to come forward during the New Public Management reforms, mostly for the evaluation of public sector efficiency. This article focuses on online local budget transparency (OLBT) in two neighbouring countries – Croatia and Slovenia. The article is pioneering in a comparative study of the determinants of budget transparency in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, based on a unique database and measure of transparency. The article tests the determinants of OLBT that reflect the accountability of local authorities and a cornerstone for public participation in the budget process. The following methodology was applied: using a data set of 768 Slovenian and Croatian local governments over the 2015–2017 period and testing it against several financial and socio-economic variables, and a random effects panel logistic regression, separately for Croatia, Slovenia, and a pooled sample. The results indicate that greater size of the population, higher administrative capacity and lower unemployment rate in individual local governments significantly contribute to higher levels of OLBT. This study demonstrates the possibility of developing a standardised measure of local budget transparency and using it to investigate the reasons for different levels of transparency in the two – and potentially other – CEE countries. The results of this and similar studies can serve as a basis for establishing cohesive local budget transparency policies for different countries and creating a combination of policy instruments to enhance transparency.

Recent developments in local public finance management in Slovenia indicate the local governments’ growing interest in introducing participatory budgeting as a decision-making tool, wherein part of local resources are used with citizen participation. Usually, the literature on participation budgeting analyses its effects, but our main research objective was to analyze the possible determinants influencing its implementation. The influence of political factors, sociodemographic factors, economic factors, and the capability of municipalities are examined here using binary logistic regression to predict a dichotomous dependent variable from a set of predictor variables. In binary logistic regression, predictable variables are the probability of one category being chosen. In this case, the authors calculated the probability that a municipality, described by selected prediction variables, would implement a participatory budget. The results of the analysis suggest six indicators that impact the probability of participatory budgeting adoption, proving the influence of four determinants on the decision to adopt such a measure.

Due to the financial crisis and the increase in the unemployment rate, active labour market policy (ALMP) inevitably returned to the forefront with its “activation strategy”. The research challenge of the article is analysing the effectiveness of ALMP in the period 2007-2013. The methodology of the work is panel regression with fixed effects estimation. The model estimates the effect of the two largest programs of the ALMP, Training and Employment Incentives, on Employment Rate, considering six additional control variables with potential effect on the labour market. The results demonstrate a positive impact of the Training program on the Employment Rate even in the time of crisis. In contrast, the Employment Incentives program had, along with Passive Labour Market Policy (PLMP), a somewhat negative impact on Employment Rate. The findings provide an insight into the nature of ALMP's implementation during the financial crisis. While the training programs keep their active nature, the employment incentives become reactive and to a certain degree act as a measure of PLMP.