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University autonomy represented an additional argument against government interference in university education. From academic perspective, the diversification of funding sources and the introduction of changes in the funding mechanism represented positive factors in the evolution of higher education. It is obvious that most of the problems associated with underfunding of higher education are relevant because it affects the quality of education and overall performance of universities. Since the training costs per capita in the higher education system were the lowest compared with the same indicator in relation to vocational schools and colleges in the period of 2005 – 2009, it is clear that underfunding is real and requires necessary measures to be taken to remedy the situation

In 2008 the CPUC adopted the California Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan, which recognized the critical role of financing in helping California to meet its energy efficiency goals – especially for obtaining efficiency improvements to existing homes, businesses, and other facilities. In Decision D.09-09-047 (2009) the Commission specifically directed Energy Division staff, in consultation with knowledgeable financial experts, to prepare an assessment and plan for ensuring the most promising and effective financing instruments are available for energy efficiency investments. Later in 2009 the State Legislature enacted AB 758 (Statutes of 2009) that directed 1) the California Energy Commission (CEC) to develop a comprehensive program to achieve greater energy savings in the state's existing residential and nonresidential building stock, and 2) the CPUC to investigate the ability of electric and gas utilities to provide energy efficiency financing options to their customers to implement the program to be developed by the CEC. The Energy Division engaged a consulting team, Harcourt Brown & Carey (HB&C), to accomplish both the Commission's and Legislature's directions to identify meaningful financing approaches for efficiency. HB&C conducted a needs and gaps assessment, and has made findings and recommendations for the most effective approaches to facilitate capital investment in efficiency. Energy Division staff and HB&C together conducted public workshops in October 2010 to explore issues, needs, and promising ideas. Since then the consultant team has documented specific mechanisms, and compared them to both the scale of investment needed in California and the specific needs of borrower market segments. The attached report presents their findings

After integrating external ecological and endogenous factors of the development of the industry, the paper builds a financing ecology index system, and analyses the financing ecology of strategic emerging industries in recent years. Then the paper further analyses the influence of external and internal financing ecology on financing efficiency. The results show that the financing ecology of the strategic emerging industries, external financing ecology in particular, is in the continuous improvement. The financing efficiency is significantly positively correlated with the macro-economy level and the internal financing ecology, and significantly negatively correlated with the role of government. There is a positive but non-significant correlation between financial development and financing efficiency, meanwhile a negative and non-significant correlation between credit environment and financing efficiency. The internal and external financing ecology can be replaced to some extent. Therefore, the strategic emerging industries should give full consideration to the synergistic optimization of the endogenous factors and external financing ecology so as to improve the financing efficiency.

After integrating external ecological and endogenous factors of the development of the industry, the paper builds a financing ecology index system, and analyses the financing ecology of strategic emerging industries in recent years. Then the paper further analyses the influence of external and internal financing ecology on financing efficiency. The results show that the financing ecology of the strategic emerging industries, external financing ecology in particular, is in the continuous improvement. The financing efficiency is significantly positively correlated with the macro-economy level and the internal financing ecology, and significantly negatively correlated with the role of government. There is a positive but non-significant correlation between financial development and financing efficiency, meanwhile a negative and non-significant correlation between credit environment and financing efficiency. The internal and external financing ecology can be replaced to some extent. Therefore, the strategic emerging industries should give full consideration to the synergistic optimization of the endogenous factors and external financing ecology so as to improve the financing efficiency.

Russian universities are increasingly competing for additional sources of funding. This paper proposes a ranking of scientific and practical effectiveness of Russian universities, based on the account of the volume of funds obtained through research and development; the authors assess the sustainability of a built rating. The leaders of universities ranking are identified and "technological" model of their success is disclosed, their policy to diversify sources of funding is discussed. Typical examples of a new trend of the higher education market — "technologization" of leading social and humanitarian universities — are shown.

Efficiency in Higher Education Systems is an issue of crucial importance these days considering the strong dependence of this sector on public funds. Indeed in the context of the current economic crisis the evaluation of efficiency of education provision is a primary target for governments from a social viewpoint. In this context, this thesis seeks to fill a significant gap in the literature on the Italian higher education system, by looking at issues of efficiency and quality. The thesis consists of three essays. The first paper is strictly related to the estimation of the overall efficiency of Italian Universities during the last decade using appropriate recently introduced (Tsionas, 2002; Greene, 2005) econometric techniques. Efficiency is measured by taking into account the multidimensional nature of academic institutions which -by their nature- involved teaching, research and administrative activities as their primary dimensions. Going deeply into the issue of academics' efficiency, we should note that the main human capital stock of inputs for both the teaching and research dimensions consists of the academic body. Quality, competences and professionalism of professors are leading "determinants" of teaching and research of our universities. Therefore the selection mechanisms of academics and their recruitment rules gather a great importance in this context. To this purpose we notice that a decentralization of academic selection procedures was introduced in Italy in 1998 with the "Berlinguer reform" act. Second and the third paper of this thesis focus especially on the evaluation of the quality of those individuals who succeeded in competitive examinations to become associate, and full professors, and on the incentives to produce international research associated with different recruitment mechanisms (national versus local).