Showing papers on "Public policy published in 2000"

The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead

Abstract: This paper examines the progressive development of the new institutional economics over the past quarter century. It begins by distinguishing four levels of social analysis, with special emphasis on the institutional environment and the institutions of governance. It then turns to some of the good ideas out of which the NIE works: the description of human actors, feasibility, firms as governance structures, and operationalization. Applications, including privatization, are briefly discussed. Its empirical successes, public policy applications, and other accomplishments notwithstanding, there is a vast amount of unfinished business.

Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy

Abstract: What determines the size and form of redistributive programs, the extent and type of public goods provision, the burden of taxation across alternative tax bases, the size of government deficits, and the stance of monetary policy during the course of business and electoral cycles? A large and rapidly growing literature in political economics attempts to answer these questions. But so far there is little consensus on the answers and disagreement on the appropriate mode of analysis. Combining the best of three separate traditions -- the theory of macroeconomic policy, public choice, and rational choice in political science -- Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini suggest a unified approach to the field. As in modern macroeconomics, individual citizens behave rationally, their preferences over economic outcomes inducing preferences over policy. As in public choice, the delegation of policy decisions to elected representatives may give rise to agency problems between voters and politicians. And, as in rational choice, political institutions shape the procedures for setting policy and electing politicians. The authors outline a common method of analysis, establish several new results, and identify the main outstanding problems.

Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy‐Making

Abstract: In recent years there has been a growing body of literature within political science and international studies that directly and indirectly uses, discusses and analyzes the processes involved in lesson-drawing, policy convergence, policy diffusion and policy transfer. While the terminology and focus often vary, all of these studies are concerned with a similar process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting. Given that this is a growing phenomenon, it is something that anyone studying public policy needs to consider. As such, this article is divided into four major sections. The first section briefly considers the extent of, and reasons for, the growth of policy transfer. The second section then outlines a framework for the analysis of transfer. From here a third section presents a continuum for distinguishing between different types of policy transfer. Finally, the last section addresses the relationship between policy transfer and policy “failure.”

Public Participation Methods: A Framework for Evaluation:

Abstract: There is a growing call for greater public involvement in establishing science and technology policy, in line with democratic ideals. A variety of public participation procedures exist that aim to consult and involve the public, ranging from the public hearing to the consensus conference. Unfortunately, a general lack of empirical consideration of the quality of these methods arises from confusion as to the appropriate benchmarks for evaluation. Given that the quality of the output of any participation exercise is difficult to determine, the authors suggest the need to consider which aspects of the process are desirable and then to measure the presence or quality of these process aspects. To this end, a number of theoretical evaluation criteria that are essential for effective public participation are specified. These comprise two types: acceptance criteria, which concern features of a method that make it acceptable to the wider public, and process criteria, which concern features of the process that are ...

Policies to Foster Human Capital

Abstract: This paper was given presented at the Aaron Wildavsky Forum, Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley. The research reported here was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation and the American Bar Foundation. Outline: Rising Wage Inequality - A Global Problem Linked To Trade and Technology Show Magnitudes of Problem 1.66 Trillion Cost To Restore U.S. to Previous Levels Tuition Subsidy Policy How to Combat This? Transfer Unpopular Skill enhancement is popular Another avenue is to subsidize work by the unskilled Think more broadly about tax/transfer policy Take the Long View Main Points of My Lecture Tonight About Skill Formation and Sources of Skill Formation in A Modern Economy Costly To Produce Skill Need to Recognize That Skill is Not Undimensional Recognize Diversity of Skill Motivation, IQ, Skill all matter but these are not the same thing. Need to Recognize the Life Cycle of Skill Production: Learning Begets Learning and Early Learning More Productive Than Later Learning: Not just because payoff is less for the late investor but also Because of synergies and Complementarity. Beyond A Certain Age and Stage in Life Cycle H.C. Investment Not Productive. Recognize Important Role of Families and Informal Sources of Skill "Social Planners" and professional educators equate skill with educational; what is produced in their institutions and what is measured by their tests; but in a broader definition of skill families play a much greater role (values; motivation) OJT is productive. Firms are highly productive sources of skill of Human Capital 25-50% of Human Capital Produce on the Job The Role of the Formal Overstated and Informal Context and Sources of Skills Understated. A Substantial Antimarket - Anti Choice Bias of Many Educational Planners Against Market and Competition - Yet The Evidence Strong Favors Competition in Provision of Education German Apprenticeship System // Data from U.S. Parental Preferences Peculiar World of High School and the Advantage of School to Work Programs Many Traditional Arguments Supporting Educational Interventions Greatly Overstated Evidence Against Short Term Liquidity Constraints Evidence that H.C. Should be Taxed More (At Least Within U.S. System) - Elimination of Progressive Taxes and Shift To A Consumption Tax and Making Tuition Deductible. Raises Physical Capital Accumulation and Raises Productivity and Wages Formal Schooling and Job Training both Private and Public Quality Effects Credit Constraints Wage Subsidies: Do They Work? Tax Policy Early Interventions and Donohue Siegelman Estimates Long View

Summary Indicators of Product Market Regulation with an Extension to Employment Protection Legislation

Abstract: This paper presents a database on indicators of product market regulations and employment protection legislation for most of the OECD countries and illustrates a methodology for aggregating these detailed indicators into summary indicators of the strictness of regulations. The summary indicators are obtained by means of factor analysis, in which each component of the regulatory framework is weighted according to its contribution to the overall variance in the data. These indicators are used to assess the regulatory approaches across countries as well as the interrelations between various sets of regulatory provisions. While regulatory provisions can be classified and assessed from a variety of standpoints, this paper focuses exclusively on the relative friendliness of regulations to market mechanisms: there is no attempt to assess the overall quality of regulations or their aptness in achieving their stated public policy goals. The guiding principle inspiring the conception of the ...

Work-Lifestyle Choices in the 21st Century: Preference Theory

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. The failure to predict 3. Causes of the new scenario 4. The polarisation of preferences and behaviour 5. Things are different in the younger generation 6. Heterogeneous preferences 7. Marriage markets and educational equality 8. Policy applications 9. Preferences among men 10. Conclusion

Government Spending, Growth and Poverty in Rural India

Abstract: Using state-level data for 1970–93, a simultaneous equation model was developed to estimate the direct and indirect effects of different types of government expenditure on ruralpoverty and productivity growth in India. The results show that in order to reduce rural poverty, the Indian government shoul d give highest priority to additionalinvestments in ruralroads and agricul turalresearch. These types of investment not only have much larger poverty impacts per rupee spent than any other government investment, but also generate higher productivity growth. Apart from government spending on education, which has the third l argest marginalimpact on ruralpoverty and produc

Promoção da saúde e qualidade de vida

Abstract: Several scientific evidences show the contribution of health to the quality of life of either individuals or populations. Similarly, many of the social life components that contribute to quality in life are also essential for individuals and populations to attain an adequate health standard. For individuals and populations to achieve appropriate health standards it is necessary not only access to quality medical-health services. Health determinants must be considered widely, thus requiring healthy public policies (concerned with its impacts on health), an effective intersectoral articulation, and the population's engagement. In this paper, the author reviews the emergency and development of health promotion by focusing his analysis on the above strategies, which according to the health sector's propositions would be the most promising strategies to improve the quality of life, especially in social formations where social-public health inequities are so many, as in Brazil. These strategies are materialized in the bases and practices of the healthy towns movement, which are strictly associated with public management innovations for the integral and sustainable local development, as well as with the local Agenda 21.

Research on policy implementation: assessment and prospects

Abstract: While policy implementation no longer frames the core question of public management and public policy, some scholars have debated appropriate steps for revitalization. And the practical world stands just as much in need now of valid knowledge about policy implementation as ever. Where has all the policy implementation gone? Or at least all the scholarly signs of it? And why? What has the field accomplished? Should a resurgence of attention to the subject be exhorted? And if so, in what directions? This article considers these questions as foci of an assessment of the state of the field, and the argument reaches somewhat unconventional conclusions: There is more here than meets the eye. While modest to moderate progress can be noted on a number of fronts, an initial assessment is likely to understate the extent of work underway on matters quite close to the implementation theme. Research on policy implementation-like questions has partially transmogrified. One has to look, sometimes, in unusual places and be informed by a broader logic of intellectual development to make sense of the relevant scholarship. Policy implementation work, in short, continues to bear relevance for important themes of policy and management. But some of the discourse has shifted, the questions have broadened, and the agenda has become complicated. Research on implementation, under whatever currently fashionable labels, is alive and lively.

Governance, good governance and global governance: conceptual and actual challenges

Abstract: This article takes seriously the proposition that ideas and concepts, both good and bad, have an impact on international public policy. It situates the emergence of governance, good governance and global governance, as well as the UN's role in the conceptual process. Although 'governance' is as old as human history, this essay concentrates on the intellectual debates of the 1980s and 1990s but explores such earlier UN-related ideas as decolonisation, localisation and human rights, against which more recent thinking has been played out. A central analytical perspective is the tension between many academics and international practitioners who employ 'governance' to connote a complex set of structures and processes, both public and private, while more popular writers tend to use it synonymously with 'government'.

What should the world bank think about the Washington consensus

Abstract: The phrase ' Washington Consensus ' has become a familiar term in development policy circles in recent years, but it is now used in several different senses, causing a great deal of confusion. In this article the author distinguishes between his original meaning as a summary of the lowest common denominator of policy advice addressed by the Washing based institutions and subsequent use of the term to signify neoliberal or market-fundamentalist policies. He argues that the latter policies could not be expected to provide an effective framework for combating poverty but that the original advice is still broadly valid the article discusses alternative ways of addressing the confusion. It argues that any policy manifesto designed to eliminate poverty needs to go beyond the original version but concludes by cautioning that no consensus on a wider agenda currently exists.

Self‐Regulation and Social Welfare: The Political Economy of Corporate Environmentalism*

Abstract: We extend the economic theory of regulation to allow for strategic self-regulation that preempts political action. When political ‘‘entry’’ is costly for consumers, firms can deter it through voluntary restraints. Unlike standard entry models, deterrence is achieved by overinvesting to raise the rival’s welfare in the event of entry. Empirical evidence on releases of toxic chemicals shows that an increased threat of regulation (as proxied by increased membership in conservation groups) indeed induces firms to reduce toxic releases. We establish conditions under which self-regulation, if it occurs, is a Pareto improvement once costs of influencing policy are included. While some of the environmental changes now emerging in corporate America are genuine and welcome, a good many are superficial, some are downright diversionary, and a few are being specifically designed to preempt more stringent public policies from emerging. [Brent Blackwelder, President, Friends of the Earth] 1

Public Policy and Program Evaluation

Abstract: Evaluation is a controversial and little-understood strategy of public governance, control, and decision making. As early as classical antiquity, scholars were summoned to court to counsel kings. Public policy and program evaluation is a recent addition to the great chain of attempts to use the brainpower of scholars and scientists to further the interests of the state. Evaluation scholars are asked to provide retrospective assessments of the implementation, output, and outcome of government measures in order to effect deeper understanding and well-grounded decisions on the part of those in charge of government operations. Evaluation is the process of distinguishing the worthwhile from the worthless, the precious from the useless; evaluation implies looking backward in order to be able to steer forward better. Written from a political science perspective, Public Policy and Program Evaluation provides an overview of the possibilities and limits of public sector evaluation. Evert Vedung examines evaluation as a mechanism for monitoring, systematizing, and grading government activities and their results so that public officials, in their future-oriented work, will be able to act as responsibly, creatively, and efficiently as possible. Topics discussed include: "Evaluation, Rationality, and Theories of Public Management"; "Models of Evaluation"; "Internal or External Evaluation"; "Impact Assessment as Tryout and Social Experimentation"; "Process Evaluation and Implementation Theory"; "The Eight-Problems Approach to Evaluation"; and "Uses and Users of Evaluation." All evaluation rests upon the idea that perceptions, opinions, intentions, judgments--in short, everything concerned with the world of human consciousness--play such interesting roles in political and administrative action that their functions are worth investigating. Through experience, humans may learn from past actions. The interventions of the modern state are so extensive, their execution so complicated, and their potential consequences so far-reaching that science and social research are needed to monitor operations and establish impacts. As an excellent Introduction to the field of policy evaluation, Public Policy and Program Evaluation will be a valuable resource for students of public administration, public policy, political science, education, and sociology.

For Love or Money--Or Both?

Abstract: This paper explores the implications for economic analysis, societal well-being, and public policy of the movement of care services (such as child and elder care) from home to market. A broad empirical overview sets the stage for the argument that this process cannot be properly evaluated using only a priori judgments about the suitability of marketization. The context in which markets operate is crucial, and while the growth of market provision poses some risks, it also offers some potential benefits.

China's forest policy for the 21st century.

Abstract: A half-century policy of forest exploitation and monoculture in China has led to disastrous consequences, including degradation of forests and landscapes, loss of biodiversity, unacceptable levels of soil erosion, and catastrophic flooding. A new forest policy had been adopted in China called the Natural Forest conservation Program (NFCP), which emphasizes expansion of natural forests and increasing the productivity of forest plantations. Through locally focused management strategies, biodiversity and forest resources will be sustained, and downstream regions will be better protected from flooding. This new policy is being implemented with a new combination of policy tools, including technical training and education, land management planning, mandatory conversion of marginal farmlands to forest, resettlement and retaining of forest dwellers, share in private ownership, and expanded research. These policy tools may have wider relevance for other countries, particularly developing countries.

Policy Transfer in the European Union: Institutional Isomorphism as a Source of Legitimacy

Abstract: This article examines public policy in the European Union (EU) by drawing upon the framework of policy transfer, which has been recently refined by comparativists, and the concept of isomorphism developed within organizational theory. Three case studies—namely, the single currency, tax policy and media ownership policy—are discussed and compared with the aim of assessing the potential of isomorphism for the analysis of policy dif-fusion. The author argues that European institutions, which have a serious limitation in terms of legitimacy, stimulate policy transfer by catalyzing isomorphic processes. Policy transfer, however, is constrained when there are no national cases to be imitated. Yet European institutions, most notably the European Commission, can overcome the problem by “inseminating” solutions into national political systems.

The Global Public Management Revolution: A Report on the Transformation of Governance

Abstract: Over the last two decades, governments around the world have launched ambitious efforts to reform the way they manage their programs. Citizens in nations like Mongolia and Sweden, New Zealand, and the United States have demanded smaller, cheaper, more effective governments. They have also asked for more programs and better services. To resolve this paradox, governments have experimented with scores of ideas to be more productive, to improve performance, and to reduce costs. In The Global Public Management Revolution , Donald F. Kettl charts the basic models of reform that are being employed worldwide, including New Zealand's "new public management," the U.S. effort at "reinventing government," and related efforts in developed and developing nations. In reviewing the standard strategies and tactics behind these reforms, Kettl has identified six common core ideas: the search for greater productivity; more public reliance on private markets; a stronger orientation toward service; more decentralization from national to subnational governments; increased capacity to devise and track public policy; and tactics to enhance accountability for results. Kettl predicts that reform and reinvention will likely become mantras for governments of all stripes, requiring the instinct for reform to be hardwired into government practice. Ultimately, this strategy means coupling the reform impulse with governance --government's increasingly important relationship with civil society and the institutions that shape modern life.

An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research

Abstract: Since its beginnings at the start of the 20th century, educational scholarship has been a marginal field, criticized by public policy makers and relegated to the fringes of academe. An Elusive Science explains why, providing a critical history of the traditions, conflicts, and institutions that have shaped the study of education over the past century.

Social Capital and Civil Society

Abstract: Social capital is an instantiated informal norm that promotes cooperation between individuals. In the economic sphere it reduces transaction costs, and in the political sphere it promotes the kind of associational life that is necessary for the success of limited government and modern democracy. Although social capital often arises from iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma games, it also is a byproduct of religion, tradition, shared historical experience, and other types of cultural norms. Thus whereas awareness of social capital is often critical for understanding development, it is difficult to generate through public policy.

The new regulatory state and the transformation of criminology

Abstract: The forms of government and social relations that increasingly characterize contemporary society are giving rise to new ways of thinking about crime and crime control. In particular it is argued that although the discipline of criminology is currently well established in institutional terms, the intellectual tools of the discipline are of diminishing relevance to the social world that is now emerging. The article describes the major developmental trends in government policy as involving a shift from a welfare state, governed by Keynesian techniques of demand management to a new form of regulatory state, premised upon a neo-liberal combination of market competition, privatized institutions, and decentred, at-a-distance forms of state regulation. These new styles of governance are premised upon a recognition of new social forces and mentalities, particularly of the globalizing logic of risk management, and they will increasingly reconfigure the social and political fields in ways that have consequences for the policing and control of crime. Criminology’s traditional focus upon street crimes and the institutions of police, courts and prisons may be decreasingly relevant to the new harms, risks and mechanisms of control that are emerging today. The innovative work of ‘regulatory state scholars’ such as Clifford Shearing is identified as pushing criminology in new directions that confound the discipline’s traditional boundaries but which give it more leverage in the attempt to understand and respond to the control problems of the end of the century. The possibilities for restorative justice in the new context are also discussed, as are other methods for combating insecurity, and both are linked to the importance of developing forms of local knowledge that are informed by a sense of the global development context. It is argued that the Keynesian state has been replaced by a new regulatory state that is a more Hayekian response to a risk society. Clifford Shearing is identified as a criminological theorist who has come to terms with these developments, especially in his collaborations with Phillip Stenning, David Bayley, Tony Doob and his colleagues at the Community Peace Foundation in Cape Town. Shearing et al. are forging a new paradigm (that incorporates the restorative justice paradigm) which might just transcend criminology and become something of general import to the social sciences.

Innovation as a Systemic Phenomenon: Rethinking the Role of Policy

Abstract: This paper looks at the policy implications of viewing innovation as a systemic phenomenon. The first section provides a brief overview of conceptual approaches used in the recent literature on innovation systems. The second part of the paper looks at learning and technological knowledge at the firm-level, and explores the ways in which different theoretical approaches affect our understanding of innovation processes. This discussion focuses on the contrast between 'systems' models of learning and the concepts of knowledge which underpin the current 'mainstream' rationale for public policy in this area. The third section discusses policy problems arising from this broad field of study, focusing on two issues: the rationale for policy intervention; and policy capabilities and 'knowledge bases'.

Effect Size, Practical Importance, and Social Policy for Children

Abstract: Real decisions for real children are influenced by the papers developmentalists write, regardless of whether we ever intended our papers to be used in the policy arena. Yet most social scientists seldom analyze data in ways that are most useful to policymakers. The primary purpose of this paper is to share three ideas concerning how to evaluate the practical importance of a finding or set of findings. First, for research to be most useful not only in the policy arena but also more generally, significance tests need to be accompanied by effect size estimates. The practical importance of an effect size depends on the scientific context (i.e., measurement, design, and method) as well as the empirical literature context. Second, researchers need to use all existing data when weighing in on a policy debate; here, meta-analyses are particularly useful. Finally, researchers need to be careful about embracing null or small findings, because effects may well be small due to measurement problems alone, particularly early in the history of a research domain.

The Transformation of Governance: Globalization, Devolution, and the Role of Government

Abstract: Over the last generation, American government has undergone a steady, but often unnoticed, transformation. Its traditional processes and institutions have become more marginal to the fundamental debates. Meanwhile, new processes and institutions--often nongovernmental ones--have become more central to public policy. In doing the peoples' work to a large and growing degree, American governments share responsibility with other levels of government, with private companies, and with nonprofit organizations. This transformation has had two effects. First, it has strained the traditional roles of all the players. For decades, we have debated privatizing and shrinking government. While the debate raged, however, we incrementally made important policy decisions. Those decisions have rendered much of the debate moot. Government has come to rely heavily on for-profit and nonprofit organizations for delivering goods and services ranging from anti-missile systems to welfare reform. It is not that these changes have obliterated the roles of Congress, the president, and the courts. State and local governments have become even livelier. Rather, these changes have layered new challenges on top of the traditional institutions and their processes. Second, the new challenges have strained the capacity of governments--and their nongovernmental partners--to deliver high-quality public services. The basic structure of American government comes from New Deal days. It is a government driven by functional specialization and process control. However, new place-based problems have emerged: How can government's functions be coordinated in a single place? Can environmental regulations flowing down separate channels (air, water, and soil) merge to form a coherent environmental policy? New process-based problems have emerged as well: How can hierarchical bureaucracies, created with the presumption that they directly deliver services, cope with services increasingly delivered through multiple (often nongovernmental) partners? Budgetary control processes that work well for traditional bureaucracies often prove less effective in gathering information from nongovernmental partners or in shaping their incentives. Personnel systems designed to insulate government from political interference have proven less adaptive to these new challenges, especially in creating a cohort of executives skilled in managing indirect government. Consequently, government at all levels has found itself with new responsibilities but without the capacity to manage them effectively. The same is true of its nongovernmental partners. Moreover, despite these transformations, the expectations on government--by citizens and often by government officials--remain rooted in a past that no longer exists. Citizens expect their problems will be solved and tend not to care who solves them. Elected officials take a similar view: They create programs and appropriate money. They expect government agencies to deliver the goods and services. When problems emerge, their first instinct is to reorganize agencies or impose new procedures--when the problem often has to do with organizational structures and processes that no longer fit reality. The performance of American government--its effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness, and accountability--depends on cracking these problems. Consider the case of Wen Ho Lee, arrested in December 1999 for mishandling classified nuclear secrets on his computer. Intelligence analysts concluded the Chinese government had captured the secrets of the W-88 warhead, America's most advanced nuclear device. Either intentionally or by sloppy handling of secret data on his computer, the experts believe the Chinese had obtained the secrets from Lee. For two decades, Lee was an essential researcher at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. As an analyst in the secret "X Division," he had access to the top secrets and moved massive amounts of data--806 megabytes--to unsecured computers. …

The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation

Abstract: The originators of classical political economy - Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Steuart, and others - created a discourse that explained the logic, the origin, and, in many respects, the essential rightness of capitalism. But, in the great texts of that discourse, these writers downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism's creation: for it to succeed, peasants would have to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go to work for wages in a factory. Why would they willingly do this? Clearly, they did not go willingly. As Michael Perelman shows, they were forced into the factories with the active support of the same economists who were making theoretical claims for capitalism as a self-correcting mechanism that thrived without needing government intervention.Directly contradicting the laissez-faire principles they claimed to espouse, these men advocated government policies that deprived the peasantry of the means for self-provision in order to coerce these small farmers into wage labour. To show how Adam Smith and the other classical economists appear to have deliberately obscured the nature of the control of labour and how policies attacking the economic independence of the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to foster primitive accumulation, Perelman examines diaries, letters, and the more practical writings of the classical economists.He argues that these private and practical writings reveal the real intentions and goals of classical political economy - to separate a rural peasantry from their access to land. This rereading of the history of classical political economy sheds important light on the rise of capitalism to its present state of world dominance. Historians of political economy and Marxist thought will find that this book broadens their understanding of how capitalism took hold in the industrial age.

Studying Governance and Public Management: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract: How can public-sector regimes, agencies, programs, and activities be organized and managed to achieve public purposes? This question, of fundamental importance in the fields of politics, policy implementation, public administration, and public management, motivates the systematic study of governance. In this article, we present a logic of governance, based in political economy literatures, that might be used as a first step toward framing theory-based governance research. We also describe a methodological approach that is more likely to appropriately identify and explain relationships in governance regimes that involve activities and interactions that span more than one level of an organization or systemic structure. In addition, we explore the potential of various sources of data for governance research, recognizing that governance researchers will inevitably have to make simplifying assumptions or measure crudely things that we know are much more complex. We argue that when appropriately framed and interpreted through a logic of governance that acknowledges limitations attributable to the models, methods, and data employed, governance research is more likely to produce enduring knowledge about how, why, and with what consequences public-sector activity is structured and managed.

The Psychology of Terrorism: An Agenda for the 21st Century

Abstract: Research on political terrorism, which began in the early 1970s, faces some persistent problems. These involve defining the concept, collecting empirical data, building integrative theory, and avoiding the attribution of terrorism to personality disorders or “irrationality.” Furthermore, analysis risks being driven by events or the concerns of policymakers. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that psychological explanations of terrorism must take multiple levels of analysis into account, linking the individual to the group and to society. Future research should critically examine the assumption that a “new terrorism” has appeared at the end of the 20th century. Analysts should also take advantage of 30 years of history to develop comparisons and developmental studies that look not only at the causes of terrorism but at changes in terrorist strategy, the termination of terrorist campaigns, government decision-making, and policy effectiveness.

Hospital Ownership and Public Medical Spending

Abstract: The hospital market is served by firms that are private for-profit, private not-for-profit, and government-owned and operated. I use a plausibly exogenous change in hospital financing that was intended to improve medical care for the poor to test three theories of organizational behavior. I find that the critical difference between the three types of hospitals is caused by the soft budget constraint of government-owned institutions. The decision-makers in private not-for-profit hospitals are just as responsive to financial incentives and are no more altruistic than their counterparts in profit-maximizing facilities. My final set of results suggests that the significant increase in public medical spending examined in this paper has not improved health outcomes for the indigent. I. INTRODUCTION The hospital market is served by firms that are private for-profit, private not-for-profit, and publicly owned and operated. In this paper I examine how a hospital's type of ownership influences its response to profitable opportunities that are created by changes in government policy. The policy change that I exploit was designed to improve the quality of medical care for lowincome individuals by significantly increasing hospitals' financial incentives to treat them. This program also substantially increased the revenues of those hospitals that had been serving a disproportionate share of the indigent. I use this plausibly exogenous change in government policy to test three different theories of organizational behavior, and then to assess the impact of hospital behavioral responses on health outcomes. The response of organizations to changes in government policy will have an important impact on the consequences of these policies. This is likely to be especially true in the medical sector, in which the federal, state, and local governments contract directly

Government, Interest Groups and Policy Change:

Abstract: Much of the British and European literature on the role of interest groups in the policy process focuses on their participation in policy networks of various types. Possibly reflecting the original...