ALBERT

Notizen: Abstract This article presents a case study of the role of research in securing passage of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-296). It highlights the role of research in shaping policymakers' views on the benefits of reduced federal economic regulation of the industry, assesses how political considerations influenced the Department of Transportation's research program, and explores the deficiencies and limitations of the Department's research program.

Notizen: Abstract Policy proposals to balance the budget and to limit government spending assume that budget deficits cause substantial harm, either increasing inflation or crowding out private borrowing from credit markets. These assertions have the support of policymakers across the breadth of the political spectrum, and dominate current political debate on macroeconomic policy. However, macroeconomic theory fails to provide a clearcut causal connection between budget deficits and larger economic problems such as inflation and recession. Thus, policies could be enacted that attack the symptoms instead of the causes of the deficit. We use the Granger causality test to find the causal relationships between budget deficits and inflation, GNP, and private investment respectively, for seventeen OECD countries for the period 1949–1981. Deficits do not cause changes in these variables; rather there is weak evidence that inflation and recession cause deficits. This implies that deficits are a symptom rather than a cause of inflation and reduced national output. So, if our goal is to reduce inflation and increase output, we should look to more direct policies than reducing deficits.

Notizen: Abstract This article offers an administrative interpretation of how tax structure develops cumulatively. On the basis of cases of British tax structure development between 1939 and 1982, it explores the extent to which long-term fiscal change can be understood as the slow erosion of basic design features embedded in official structures of rules and bureaucracy, with alternative design principles being espoused after a long process of attrition in terms of subsidiary design features. It further explores the extent to which administrative considerations may shape the style in which new fiscal designs are introduced (by an assumed preference for step-by-step development or imitation as against all-in-one prototyping) and may set selection criteria for the rejection or reinforcement of tax designs in the long run.

Notizen: Abstract This article presents a methodology designed to facilitate the systematic comparison of alternative discounting procedures for the costs and benefits of industrial regulatory activity. A discounting framework developed by Bradford is adapted for use in the context of industry regulation. Within this framework, the choice among the various discounting procedures is reduced to a choice between assumptions about various economic and financial parameter values. As an illustration of the way in which the framework can be applied, the article includes an examination of the validity of parameter assumptions implied by the discounting approach currently used by regulatory agencies in their analyses of regulations affecting the motor vehicle industry. Several hypothetical programs are analyzed to demonstrate the broad differences in program treatment that might be expected if this current discounting approach were replaced by procedures generated within the framework from more reasonable parameter assumptions. Sensitivity of the benefit/cost calculations to uncertainty about underlying parameters is also briefly discussed.

Notizen: Abstract Social welfare administrators inevitably err, and in one of two ways: either they err on the side of harshness (denying benefits to people who deserve them), or on the side of generosity (granting benefits to those who do not deserve them). The same things making errors inevitable also make inevitable a tradeoff between these two kinds of error, so at least for a large class of cases reductions in one kind of error can be accomplished only by increasing the other. Here I develop a criterion for striking the right balance. This criterion implies (contrary to all ordinary political and administrative impulses) that when times are tough and demands on welfare budgets heavy, administrators should not clamp down on applicants but should instead bias their decisions in favor of erring on the side of generosity.

Notizen: Abstract Unemployment insurance (UI) laws have recently come under considerable criticism for fostering employment disincentives. Imperfections in the experience rating tax schedule has been the primary causal factor behind most of these allegations. In particular, the insurance subsidies created by the tax schedule have been blamed for distorted labor markets and for increased layoffs. This article proposes that a property rights system be established for UI reserves which would enable a firm with an unemployment insurance reserve surplus to lend voluntarily to a firm in need of reserves. Such a system would allocate reserves more efficiently and eliminate some of the disincentives effects of the current unemployment insurance scheme. A property rights system would be a second best solution to perfecting the present unemployment insurance system and making it actuarially sound. However, assigning rights to UI reserves can be implemented without challenging the special interests of the politically dominant industries that have been responsible for maintaining the imperfections in the UI system for 50 years.

Notizen: Abstract The major problem in reimbursement rate setting has been to develop approaches capable of identifying the inefficient deliverers of service, while recognizing legitimate differences in environmental factors and service orientation. This article suggests several new analytical approaches, based on various types of Pareto comparisons. Pareto efficiency is a relative approach which as a by-product constructs a peer group of other operating units which are matched on environmental factors, level of outputs provided, and level of resources consumed. The analysis utilizes straightforward linear programming formulations or mixed integer LP's. The various approaches are demonstrated using actual data from 68 pharmacies. Medicaid prescription drug dispensing fees are used to illustrate a scheme for encouraging increased efficiency on the part of the pharmacies.

Notizen: Abstract In policy debates concerning large scale R&D efforts, the achievements of the Manhattan and Apollo projects are frequently cited as evidence of “Yankee ingenuity” and the ability to overcome technical obstacles. In this article, the factors which contributed to the success and failure of large scale “crash” development projects are analyzed systematically. Successes are distinguished from failures according to two criteria. First, while the successes are marked by “parallel” development of technological components which began only after the basic scientific and technical obstacles had been overcome and the basic feasibility had been demonstrated, in the failures, parallel development began much earlier. In addition, the successful “crash” projects, such as the atomic bomb effort and the moon program, were designed to meet static technical goals and did not depend on overcoming countermeasures. The unsuccessful projects, such as the Safeguard ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, failed in the face of changes in Soviet military technology. Using these criteria to analyze the Reagan administration's space-based ballistic missile defense program (SPBMD), the author concludes that despite the claims made by supporters, this R&D effort is not similar to the Manhattan or Apollo projects. Rather, like the Nuclear Airplane and Skybolt missile, parallel developments have begun prior to proof of feasibility, and like the Safeguard BMD, the SPBMD must adapt to countermeasures.

Notizen: Abstract There are at least two frameworks within which the debate on proper institutional arrangements for regulation can be carried out. One rests on seeing the various possibilities as instruments and its central concern is with the most efficient means for achieving regulatory objectives. The second framework views regulation as an essentially political act. It focuses on adapting our choice of institutional alternatives to take account of valued features of our existing political world. It also involves an understanding of how our choice of institutional alternatives actively shapes that world and thus helps to form our regime or the way of life to which we aspire. These two frameworks are examined with special attention being given to the political view.

Notizen: Abstract This article uses the case of the Soviet Union to demonstrate that in centrally planned economies there remain both incentives and channels for regional administrators to express local interests to the center and have these interests reflected in national policy decisions. Debate over future economic development in Soviet Central Asia is fascinating in what it reveals concerning the nature of center-periphery relations in the USSR and the limitations these relations impose on centrally planned economies. The debate shows that even in a system which so highly values centralized economic planning, regional planners often give priority to local over national economic needs in their policy proposals and are able to affect policy decisions made in Moscow. The findings are relevant to all centrally planned economies and must be considered in any evaluation of this economic model.

Notizen: Abstract A widely held and durable normative position has been that policy analysts should attempt to estimate the evaluative reaction of those who will be most directly affected by a government sponsored or regulated technology. The premise of applied welfare economics is that citizens would divide, substitute and additively recombine their assessments of the project's impacts in the same manner. This paper outlines an alternative theory by arguing that citizen preferences will often be contingent upon, rather than divisible from, the substantive and procedural characteristics of the context in which a choice takes place. Moreover, one can predict that the manner in which these evaluations are substituted and recombined will vary with the internal structure of one's value and belief system. By representing that system in terms of a hierarchical model composed of four factors — common orientation, procedural judgment, desire for personal control and substantive evaluation — it is argued that the evaluations of a project will be combined by way of interactive, indirect and non-recursive relationships as well as the common additive expectations. Some of the implications of this alternative theory for policy analysis are explored.

Notizen: Abstract There are various reasons why the often stated gap between policy formulation and policy implementation is especially large in developing countries: ambiguous policy goals, decision-making without considering the needs of those affected, low degree of compliance and administrative capacity of implementing agencies etc What is perhaps most striking is the fact that interest aggregation generally occurs at the enforcement stage only. This means that laws and regulations can be sapped and distorted along the lines of the power constellations of the actors involved. The case study presented here deals with the regulatory aspects of street-vending in the particular cultural environment of a South-East Asian capital, Manila. It is demonstrated that regulations are more inspired by Western images of modernization largely removed from the harsh socioeconomic realities of the sector. Moreover, compliance is minimized by cultural values (conflict avoidance, respect of power structures) governing the behavior of lower level administrative agents and hawkers alike. The overall result is that regulations are purely symbolic and ineffective, nevertheless maintaining a climate of harassment and extortion. The paper advocates a more positive approach towards street-vendors combining minimal regulation with measures of encouragement and public assistance.

Notizen: Abstract Putting prisoners to work has widespread appeal, but the nature of prison labor markets suggests that prisoners may have little incentive to work. The inmate population exhibits sociodemographic and psychological characteristics that correlate highly with labor market difficulties. Moreover, work incentives are bounded by both a guaranteed minimum standard of living and severe restrictions on the uses of earnings; prison is essentially a ration regime The impact of these institutional arrangements also depends upon the duration of the prisoner's remaining sentence and expected remaining lifetime. Unfortunately, there is little evidence bearing on these concerns, and experimental analysis is proposed.

Notizen: Abstract Under tax increment financing (TIF), the property tax revenues of county, school and other local governments are used to finance the development expenditures of cities. This paper examines the tax shifting that results when TIF is used by numerous cities in a single urban area. Development subsidies for governments and individuals are distinguished and TIF is shown to have potential negative financial impacts on some taxpayers within a metropolitan area unless two important conditions are met. Data for cities in Milwaukee County, Milwaukee are used to demonstrate the potential tax shifting that results when TIF is used in a large urban area.

Notizen: Abstract Homogenizing the poor, treating them as a shapeless blob, is not only dehumanizing but also makes them candidates for a single set of public policies. We propose to show, instead, using cultural theory, that there are different types of poor people, who follow different strategies in coping with or overcoming their condition.

Notizen: Abstract Worldwide fiscal experience over the past twenty-five years indicates steady expansion in the political and academic constituency for expenditure taxation, including indirect taxes on consumption. Retail levies have emerged as the preferred method of indirect taxation of consumption, as older, pre-retail sales taxes have proven unsuited to modern economic structures. Increasingly, reform of sales taxation has involved a shift to one particular form of tax, the European Community type of value-added tax (VAT). This consumption tax option is again a topic of policy debate in North America, particularly in Canada where a VAT was under active consideration in 1985. This paper sifts through worldwide experience with broad-based sales taxes to identify lessons for tax policy in North America both in the short and longer-run. It indicates that the reputation of such taxes as regressive instruments may have been much exaggerated, and that in any case methods are available, particularly in Canada, for resolving equity issues in sales taxation. The VAT is shown to have marginal economic and administrative advantages over single-stage federal retail taxes in both Canada and the US. However, these advantages are not nearly so significant as in European countries where the VAT was adopted there. Further, sensible debate over the merits and limitations of the VAT in North America will call for much closer scrutiny of the problems unique to this form of tax. Finally, three political issues that were not significant in Europe will likely have an important bearing on any future choices of sales tax instruments, both in the U.S. and in Canada.

Notizen: Abstract Problem definition and program adaptation are difficult tasks in policy analysis. In the analysis of social welfare policy, for example, there are tendencies (1) to ignore many of the factors necessary to distinguish the truly needy, resulting in the misdirection of resources; (2) to focus on individual programs, resulting in unintended consequences arising from program interactions; and (3) to overlook evolutionary changes in the target populations, resulting in obsolete programs. Conventional techniques that simplify data by variables exacerbate these and related problems of analysis. Unconventional techniques that simplify by cases might help resolve them. This paper develops the rationale for case-wise policy information systems, using the measurement and definition of poverty as an example.

Notizen: Abstract The improved valuation techniques that have expanded the range of benefit-cost analysis assume the likelihood and intensities of impacts from development projects can be predicted. Techniques for prediction address the impacts of the project on the environment and society, but indirect relationships - the impact on society and thereby the environment - are too numerous, subtle, and complex to model. Even if these indirect relationships could be modeled systematically, predictive models must assume factors and relationships are fixed or change in predetermined ways. Projects do not perform as predicted and benefit-cost analyses have limited value because the characteristics of factors and relationships in fact evolve in unpredictable ways over time. In some cases evolution results in further gains, but typically this has not been the case. The use of coevolutionary development criteria would help in the design of projects which would more likely evolve in preferred ways.

Notizen: Abstract The effectiveness of safety regulation can be enhanced or offset by various forms of behavioral feedback. This study provides estimates of the effectiveness of motorcycle helmet laws in reducing fatalities based on pooled time-series and cross-sectional data for the United States during the years 1975 to 1984. Estimates from the model suggest that the presence of a helmet-wearing law induces a 12 to 22 percent decline in the motorcycle mortality problem. The results are consistent with the view that helmet laws are an effective public health policy, at least in the short run. However, there is also some evidence of gradual “risk-compensation” behavior: The immediate rise in fatalities following repeal of helmet laws appears to dissipate gradually at a rate of roughly 2.5 percent per year. This result suggests that future studies of safety regulation should consider longrun as well shortrun behavioral responses.

Notizen: Abstract In spite of the intense controversy associated with the conditionality of its lending, IMF decisions are not voted upon but are the “sense of the meeting” of the Executive Directors as declared by the Managing Director. This unusual decisionmaking process is a substitute for secrecy of voting, which is not feasible within the IMF. It permits the wealthier countries to impose adjustment conditions without the appearance of the continual exercise of their majority power in the IMF. It permits the poorer, developing countries to agree or to disagree without taking an explicit position or to disagree with less danger to the favorable consideration of any future request which might be made.

Notizen: Abstract This paper reasseses the original data of Stigler and Friedland's influential 1962 article on the effects of regulation, which studied U.S. electricity rates in the early 1900's. Whereas Stigler and Friedland contended the economic effects of regulation serve those regulated regardless of the statutory characteristics of the regulations, a critical look at their data suggests the regulations studied did have their intended effect.

Notizen: Abstract The USA and Britain have medical care delivery and financing systems which are polar opposites. The Irish system incorporates important features of both. Using original household survey data of medical care utilization in Ireland, and published data and studies of the USA and Britain, the effect of the incentive structures in the three systems on physician behavior, especially on the so-called agency role, is examined. We conclude that the incentive structure is of the utmost importance to policy makers concerned with health costs and economic rationality of medical care systems.

Notizen: Abstract This article sets out to analyse the response of West European governments and of the European Community to the challenge of information technology (IT). European countries have joined the race among industrial nations to restructure their economies around the industries of the future (micro-electronics, computers and advanced telecommunications). The race is currently led by Japan and the United States with Western Europe following a poor third. In order to catch up, West European governments have for some time pursued national strategies and are now attempting to develop a common approach with the assistance of the European Commission. This attempt has been bedevilled, however, not only by national chauvinism, but by conflict between the ambitions of governments and the goals of private sector strategies. Eureka - Europe's response to America's Strategic Defence Initiative - marks a step towards resolving such differences. But as this article suggests, it will not resolve the deeper tensions between the major aims of current policies: the concentration of research and production resources while also creating an open and fully competitive market for IT in Western Europe.

Notizen: Abstract This paper reviews the evidence on ex ante and ex post forecasting with econometric models, considering in particular the role of human judgment in improving forecast accuracy. The importance of human judgment in econometric forecasting and the general superiority of ex ante over ex post forecasts provide evidence of model misspecification, which casts doubt on the validity of econometric policy simulations. An inadequate basis for selection among alternative models with differing policy implications undermines further the utility of these models in policy analysis and in testing hypotheses. Despite this record of performance macroeconometric models thrive and are widely used in policy analysis. Some reasons for their survival and importance in policy are suggested, and guidelines for the use of econometric models in the policy process are given.

Notizen: Abstract This paper seeks to contribute to the growing body of literature on interpretive policy inquiry. As such, its specific focus is the presentation of the interpretive approach as a corrective for the shortcomings inherent in the standard view. Following an outline of the problems facing the received view, a systematic, philosophically grounded, statement of the interpretive position is developed. Thereafter, the tangible positive consequences for policy making of this approach are further discussed. The paper concludes with some reflections on the relationship between the positivistic and interpretive paradigms.

Notizen: Abstract With positivist and technocratic notions still prevalent, Paul Healy's (1986) insightful effort to advance “interpretive policy inquiry” both underscores the limitations of conventional analysis and helps us to grasp the policy process in human terms. Yet the article falls short of a systematic presentation of the interpretive position and, in doing so, reveals the limitations of that approach: the need for an explicitly critical posture becomes clear. This point is made with particular attention to a pre-positivist figure, Machiavelli.

Notizen: Abstract This study explores the relationship between dangerous invention characteristics and US local, state, and federal government safety policy-making patterns and effectiveness. When an invention prototype appears and its existence is recognized, an initial policy direction is established quickly if the invention is treated by society as being similar to a previous way of doing things. In this case the invention's dangers will be regulated within the established legal and administrative framework. If an invention is perceived as being entirely new, its introduction tends to be followed by governmental inaction for years or even decades. When government finally responds it is likely to be at the federal level.

Notizen: Abstract In this paper we argue that behind widely accepted problem definitions are myths, stories which draw on tradition and taken for granted knowledge. These myths, which may or may not be true in a factual sense, are important to the definition of problems because they link public issues to widely accepted ways of understanding the world and to shared moral evaluations of conditions, events, and possible solutions to problems. Such myths perform a double-edged function in a policy or planning process. On the one hand, they can provide creative inspiration for policies, a way of translating community values into action proposals, and a powerful means to communicate to a broad public and rally support. They can mediate social and economic change by allowing new policies to carry familiar meaning. On the other hand, a myth can conceal crucial contradictions and realities, legitimize policies that benefit the powerful, and support anachronistic perceptions of policy problems. These ideas are explored in case histories of two areas of urban policy. In one we trace the support for home ownership to a transformation of the Jeffersonian myth of the independent yeoman farmer as the ideal citizen. This use of myth made home ownership the cornerstone of US housing policies and helped suppress alternatives. Though debate over home ownership occurs in the context of housing policy, the tacit purpose is to maintain a myth which is central to our identity as a nation. In the second example, public officials and analysts engaged in an explicit myth-making process to garner support for public-private partnerships as a central tool in urban redevelopment. The myths, which drew on familiar themes, made socially beneficial cooperation seem easy to achieve and legitimized new political and institutional arrangements though it also concealed implementation difficulties. Though myths complicate the effort to use rational, systematic analysis, they are an inevitable part of policy making and planning processes. Planning professionals must openly confront myths and make creative, responsible, use of them rather than allow policies and plans to be subject to their unexamined influence.

Notizen: Abstract After more than a decade of sharp conflict, environmental and chemical industry lobbyists sat down in direct, private negotiations on reforming pesticides regulatory policy in the United States. This article examines the dynamics that transformed longtime adversaries into temporary collaborators during 1985–86. It also examines why the efforts of this ad hoc coalition eventually failed. In doing so, this case looks into the current state of relations among American interest groups, and between the interest group community and the Congress.

Notizen: Abstract This paper develops and experimentally tests an institution that is specifically designed to promote efficiency without sacrificing equity. The principal result of the analysis is that the institution developed here performs well in the sense that efficiency is increased for a wide range of different initial distributions of wealth. The framework developed in this paper is relevant to policy makers who are interested in implementing more efficient institutions, but who are constrained by the political environment in which they operate.

Notizen: Abstract A method is developed for empirically estimating the direct leveraging, indirect leveraging, and externality benefits accruing from home rehabilitation subsidy policies. The method is applied to two single-family home rehabilitation subsidy programs administered by Minneapolis from 1976 to 1980. Multivariate statistical analysis of sampled homeowners reveals that for each dollar of grant and loan received, all else equal, participants spent $1.62 and $0.345 more, respectively, of their own funds on home upkeep, all expressed as annual averages for the period. A tentative finding of indirect effects on proximate homeowners' confidence in the neighborhood and concomitant rehabilitation expenditures is also observed. These home improvements, in turn, created an additional aesthetic externality benefit. Benefit-cost analyses employing estimated parameter values are conducted. Results show that both grants and loans are net beneficial from the societal perspective. From the budgetary perspective of the public sector, the grants program was net beneficial. Loan programs involving very low interest rates, deferred payments, and/or lengthy repayment schedules typically were not. Under wide ranges of parameter values, however, subsidized loans can be devised which yield superior budgetary efficiency to grants. These findings suggest that home rehabilitation subsidy policies should be redesigned so that the mix of grants and loans for individual recipients is varied in order to enhance budgetary efficiency. The central principle is to require that recipients who can afford to do so take out loans on terms which render them more net beneficial than grants, before any grants are awarded.

Notizen: Abstract International water resources have been a source of contention in many parts of the world over the last few decades and such conflicts may grow in frequency and severity as future climatic changes alter the quantity or quality of limited water resources. Indeed, some future climatic changes appear inevitable due to growing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Unless mechanisms for incorporating climatic changes into water agreements can be worked out, these changes may provoke further frictions and conflicts. One region with a history of political conflict over shared water resources is the Colorado River Basin in the United States and Mexico. While past disagreements over water have mostly been resolved, future climatic changes that adversely affect the existing hydrologic regime of the basin cannot be discounted. This paper examines the possibility that future long-term climatic changes may exacerbate shortages in the Colorado River. Political conflicts and tensions that arise from reductions in water supply in both the United States and Mexico are evaluated and discussed, together with recommendations for incorporating the issue of climatic change into existing international treaties and agreements.

Notizen: Summary Ronald Reagan came to the White House with a reputation for welfare reform that dated from his days as governor of California. The administration's first step was to restrict benefits to working recipients in ways similar to procedures originally proposed in that state. The impact on the AFDC caseload of these changes, however, was modest, and, ironically, the work program opportunities provided by legislation sponsored by the Reagan administration have been exploited as successfully by Democrats such as Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts as by Republicans. Despite frequent references to welfare and welfare problems since 1981, the administration has been notably short of ideas. The silence from the White House has been filled by outsiders - first Murray and then Mead and others such as journalists Mickey Kaus (1986) and Nicholas Lemann (1986). While Losing Ground argued for the government's retirement from the field in the War on Poverty, Mead offered a vision certain to make both liberals and the administration uncomfortable. On the one hand, his demand for ‘creative statecraft’ calls for substantial government activism, a renewed attack. On the other, his assertion that further progress will require attention to behavioral issues challenges the liberal attitude that what the poor need most is the empowerment that cash can provide. For the concerned public, something about Mead's argument rings true. The poverty we see - homeless derelicts, children of mothers who are children themselves, recipients who reach midlife never having known anything but welfare dependency, neighborhoods in which everyone receives support - hardly seems vulnerable to negative tax payments. And, as Mead suggests, eliminating the present system would create unacceptable hardship. Even if financial incentives are the prime movers in most areas of economic life, we are all a bit embarrassed by them; in the abstract it seems better to say that absent parents are obligated to support their children and able-bodied adults are obligated to work. That said, Beyond Entitlement offers few prescriptions for conduct of the creative statecraft that will devise obligations for the poor and provide for their enforcement. Even Mead's most successful WIN offices were working with only a small fraction of adults on assistance. Problems already encountered in implementation of work-welfare programs in several states suggest that ambitious intervention intended to reduce dependency is extremely difficult. In retrospect it appears that Mead's principal contribution was, as was Murray's, to open up the debate on welfare and to make reference to recipient responsibilities and obligations acceptable. But given the intellectual elbowroom provided by Murray and Mead, we are left with the hard work of program design and implementation and a continuing mandate to care for the poor.

Notizen: Abstract One of the primary agents of change within federal organizations is the policy analyst. This is so because analysts are formally charged with critiquing existing policies and the organizations that implement them, and with proposing new policies and implementation procedures. But it is often forgotten by both proponents and critics of policy analysis that analysts themselves work within — are are responsive to — an organizational context. This paper provides an attempt to view analysis as a process that initiates and responds to policy change, and that is constrained by the organizational context within which analysis takes place. A set of cases, drawn from energy policy at the federal level, are used to illustrate that process.

Notizen: Abstract There has been a great deal of research in recent years concerning the use of substantive policy analysis in public policy-making. This paper seeks to integrate those findings - e.g., the ‘enlightenment function’ of policy research - into a more general model of policy-making over periods of a decade or more. The conceptual framework focuses on the belief systems of advocacy coalitions within policy subsystems as the critical vehicle for understanding the role of policy analysis in policy-oriented learning and the effect, in turn, of such learning on changes in governmental programs.

Notizen: Abstract The debate on natural gas pricing policy has been one of the longest and most active in the United States in this century. Conflicts in the fundamental belief systems of the advocacy coalitions involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of natural gas have dominated the debate, and the financial stakes to each have been high. These circumstances and the physical nature of the gas supply, distribution, and consumption system have motivated a very large number of analytic studies of the policy options, particularly since 1973. In this paper the extent of policy-oriented learning that has taken place in the development of natural gas pricing policy, and the role of formal analysis in that learning process are assessed. These objectives are greatly facilitated by reliance on a recently proposed framework for analyzing the factors affecting policy change.

Notizen: Abstract Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (above) have presented a framework for describing the processes by which public policies change over time, and Heintz and Weyant (above) have provided an array of case studies illustrating and elaborating those processes. This article will focus explicitly on the manner in which the advocacy coalition framework bears on the practice of policy analysis, both from the perspective of the manager of analytical resources, and from the perspective of the practicing policy analyst.

Notizen: Abstract Four ‘traditional’ market failures are commonly used to justify public interventions to increase economic efficiency: public goods, externalities, natural monopoly, and information asymmetry. Despite the fact that information asymmetry seems to be the rationale for many programs of direct and indirect regulation on behalf of consumers, it is the least conceptually developed of the ‘traditional’ rationales in terms of problem diagnosis and policy prescription. Three questions are important: first, under what conditions does the potential for significant inefficiency due to information asymmetry exist? Second, under what conditions are private responses likely to prevent the inefficiency from being realized? And third, what are the candidate public interventions for reducing any inefficiency that does occur? Drawing on the growing literature on the economics of product quality, this paper provides a framework to help analysts answer these questions.

Notizen: Abstract This article reports on the results of a small group experiment relating the effects of situational and psychological factors to the use of revenue forecast information on budgetary decision-making. The results suggest ‘objective’ information is not completely ignored because of conditions in the budgetary environment and that one's role in the budget process influences how ‘objective’ information is used. The results also indicate that some useful insights for budget theory are possible from small group experiments.

Notizen: Abstract In his influential indictment of the Great Society, Charles Murray focused upon young black males being unemployed as the result of government programs. He is correct in stating that the employment problems of young black males have worsened since 1965 but wrong in asserting that older black males and white males had no employment problems. Labor force participation for all males has dropped since 1965. The employment problems of young black males resulted from sweeping changes in the job market and, secondarily, the revolution in female employment. Blue-collar jobs and full-time jobs are a smaller portion of the job market, while white collar and part-time jobs have increased substantially. Women have obtained a far higher proportion of all jobs than ever before, and sometimes in occupational categories dominated by males. Both the restructured job market and the competition of men and women for jobs, issues ignored by, Murray, raise painful policy dilemmas. To what extent should a politically powerless group like young black males be directly assisted in their employment struggles? To what extent should they be encouraged to migrate or secure further education? To what extent should women's employment be publicly supported through programs such as day care?

Notizen: Conclusion According to the Logic of Collective Action, most actions in the service of common interests are either not logical or not collective. In a large group, the argument goes, individual action counts for so little in the realization of common interests that it makes no sense for a person to consider group interests when choosing a course of personal conduct. Only private interests are decisive. Their fulfillment, at least, depends in a substantial way on one's own behavior. Individual actions designed to achieve private advantage are therefore rational. Actions aimed at collective goods are a waste of time and effort. Occasionally, of course, a person acting on the basis of private interests may inadvertently provide some collective good from which many other people derive benefit. This is what happens in the case of the Greek shipping tycoon. But it occurs only because one person's private good fortuitously coincides with the collective good of a larger group. From the tycoon's perspective, there are no collective interests at stake in the sponsorship of an opera broadcast, only his own private interests. Nor does his decision to underwrite a broadcast take account of the other people who will listen to it. His action is a solitary one designed to serve a private interest, and it is perfectly consistent with Olson's argument concerning the illogic of collective action, because it is not grounded in collective interest and is not a case of collective behavior. Olson's theory permits people to share collective interests but not to act upon them voluntarily. The only acknowledged exception occurs in the case of very small groups, where each member's contribution to the common good represents such a large share of the total that any person's default becomes noticeable to others and may lead them to reduce or cancel their own contributions. In this instance, at least, one person's actions can make a perceptible difference for the chance of realizing collective interests, and it is therefore sensible for each person to consider these collective interests (and one another's conduct) when deciding whether or not to support group efforts. Outside of small groups, however, Olson finds no circumstances in which voluntary collective action is rational. But in fact the conditions that make collective action rational are broader than this and perhaps more fundamental to Olson's theory. They are inherent in the very ‘collectiveness’ of collective goods - their status as social or group artifacts. In the absence of a group, there can be no such thing as a collective good. But in the absence of mutual awareness and interdependence, it becomes extremely difficult to conceive of a social group. The assumption that group members are uninfluenced by one another's contributions to a collective good is no mere theoretical simplification. It may be a logical impossibility. Being a member of a group, even a very large one, implies at the very least that one's own conduct takes place against a background of group behavior. Olson's assumptions do not acknowledge this minimal connection between individual and group behavior, and they inhibit recognition of the elementary social processes that explain why slovenly conduct attracts special attention on clean streets, or why the initial violations of group norms are more momentous than later violations. It may be argued, of course, that the groups of Olson's theory are not functioning social groups with a collective existence, but only categories or classes of people who happen to share a collective interest. The logic of collective action is intended precisely to show why these ‘potential’ groups are prevented from converting themselves into organized social groups whose members act in a coordinated way. In such latent groups, perhaps, members are unaware of one another, and Olson's assumption that they are uninfluenced by one another's conduct becomes a reasonable one. Another implication, however, is that Olson's theory is subject to unacknowledged restrictions. The logic of the free ride is for potential groups. It may not hold for actual ones. The distinction is exemplified, in the case of public sanitation, by the difference between what is rational on a clean street and what is rational on a dirty one. The logic of the free ride does not make sense for the members of an ongoing group that is already operating to produce collective goods such as public order or public sanitation. While this represents a notable limitation upon the scope of Olson's theory, it apparently leaves the logic of collective action undisturbed where potential or latent groups are concerned. But suppose that a member of an unmobilized group wants her colleagues to contribute to the support of a collective good that she particularly values. Her problem is to create a situation in which such contributions make sense to her fellow members. As we have already seen in the case of the neighborhood street-sweeper, one possible solution is to provide the collective good herself. If it has the appropriate characteristics, its very existence may induce other members of the latent group to contribute to its maintenance. This is not one of those cases in which one person's private interest fortuitously coincides with the collective interest of a larger group. The neighborhood street-sweeper is acting on behalf of an interest that she is conscious of sharing with her neighbors. Her aim is to arouse collective action in support of that interest. She does not expect to pay for public cleanliness all by herself, or to enjoy its benefits all by herself. Her role bears a general resemblance to the one that some analysts have defined for the political entrepreneur who seeks to profit personally by supplying a collective good to the members of a large group (Frohlich, Oppenheimer, and Young 1971). Like the neighborhood street-sweeper, the entrepreneur finds it advantageous to confer a collective benefit on others. But the similarity does not extend to the nature of the advantage or the manner in which it is secured. The entrepreneur induces people to contribute toward the cost of a collective good by creating an organizational apparatus through which group members can pool their resources. The existence of this collection mechanism can also strengthen individual members' confidence that their colleagues' contributions are forthcoming. What the entrepreneur gains is private profit - the difference between the actual cost of a collective good and the total amount that group members are prepared to pay for it. By contrast, the neighborhood street-sweeper induces support for a collective good, not by facilitating contributions, but by increasing the costs that come from the failure to contribute. As a result of her efforts, she gains a clean street whose benefits (and costs) she shares with her fellow residents. She takes her profit in the form of collective betterment rather than private gain, and her conduct, along with the behavior of her neighbors, demonstrates that effective selfinterest can extend beyond private interest. Self-interest can also give rise to continuing cooperative relationships. The street-sweeper, acting in her own interest, brings into being a cooperative enterprise in which she and her fellow residents jointly contribute to the production of a collective good. Cooperation in this case does not come about through negotiation or exchange among equal parties. It can be the work of a single actor who contributes the lion's share of the resources needed to establish a collective good, in the expectation that its existence will induce others to join in maintaining it. The tactic is commonplace as a means of eliciting voluntary collective action, and it operates on a scale far larger than the street or the neighborhood. Government, paradoxically, probably relies on it more than most institutions With its superior power and resources, it may be soc

Notizen: Abstract Most of the analysis of costs associated with the introduction of risky prospects has concerned contingent costs amenable to insurance programs. An important missing element is the current cost associated with changes in uncertainty. These costs are not amenable to insurance plans and require compensation in order to prevent transfers. In a novel approach, this paper develops an application of prospect theory to such questions, in an intergenerational context. The importance of such an application is demonstrated in a case study of the high-level nuclear waste repository (HNWR) siting decision. As a case study, the costliness of obtaining some elements of the analysis leads to a simulation approach, comparing prospect costs at the three sites that were under consideration by the U.S. Department of Energy. Finding that such costs can be large, we argue for a reassessment of current risk analysis approaches. On a policy note, on the basis of the prospect cost analysis here, the choice of the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, HNWR site seems ill-advised.

Notizen: Abstract In this paper several examples of government contracts with private firms are examined to see how experience conforms to a principal-agent model of cost minimization via competitive bidding and how important are the many qualifications to the model. Fifteen cases of local government contracting are examined. The course of private contracting is not always smooth — as judged by the many contract disruptions observed and by the number of cities that believe they are no longer saving money by contracting and those which have resumed public production. It also seems to be the case, however, that competition generally reduces initial costs, that in many cases cost savings persist, that it is possible to stimulte competition, and that providing for continual interaction, as contrasted with simply monitoring performance, can prevent disruption.

Notizen: Abstract Agricultural policy making between 1960 and 1973 is examined drawing on Herbert Simon's conception of procedural rationality. The basic structure of current agricultural policy evolved during the period studied. The paper suggests that policy and policy making interact narrowing the search for a law until it achieves a combination of provisions that is an equilibrium. The computational ‘routines’ used in calculating consequences of provisions of legislation are extracted from the text of committee hearings and analyzed as a system of inequalities. The paper also discusses what satisficing means in this policy making process.

Notizen: Abstract Land use disputes are often at their center disagreements about the expectations of different parties, public and private, concerning permissible land uses and activities. Expectations are influenced by numerous factors, from broad economic and social trends to specific public planning policies and decisions. One source of land use expectations are promises issued by public planning and decisionmaking bodies. Two types of promises arise: explicit promises (e.g. statements of intention found in an officially-adopted comprehensive plan, publicly issued resolutions, etc.) and tacit promises (e.g. created by a series or pattern of public decisions, or by the clear unwillingness of the public to take actions in the past where opportunities existed to do so). It is argued that public officials and planners should be concerned with promises and that they should be given some degree of moral consideration when debating and resolving land use conflicts. Other things being equal, public planning agencies and decisionmaking bodies ought to acknowledge that the expectations of individuals are influenced by such promises and seek to respect them. Private land use expectations based on public promises are not sacred, however, as many situations arise where land use officials are confronted with conflicting moral demands. Situations where public land use promises may need to be overruled or qualified are considered. At a minimum, public land use officials have an obligation to clarify expressions of land use policy so that the formation of false private land use expectations is minimized.

Notizen: Abstract Problem definition is a package of ideas that includes, at least implicitly, an account of the causes and consequences of undesirable circumstances and a theory about how to improve them. As such, it serves as the overture to policymaking, as an integral part of the process of policymaking, and as a policy outcome. In each of these roles it seems to exert influence on government action. Distinguishing among the roles clarifies the nature of that influence. A case study examines the transition from one problem definition to another in the domain of information collection by the federal government. The rise of the Paperwork Reduction definition illustrates the variety of ways in which problem definition has powerful consequences.

Notizen: Abstract Government budgets are premised on forecasts of revenues and expenditures. These forecasts are subject to both stochastic error and strategic manipulation. Circumstantial evidence in the budgeting literature and in the popular media suggest that government officials routinely bias the forecasts underlying budgets. The research reported here asked three primary questions: To what extent are budget forecasts systematically biased? Why? (Are fiscal and electoral variables systematically related to the magnitude and direction of the biases?) What political and ethical difference do the biases make? From the literature and an analysis of the incentives facing politicians and bureaucrats, we developed hypotheses about budget biases. These hypotheses were tested using time series data for the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1941–1983); the City of San Diego, California (1950–1982); and the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) School District (1946–1983). In these locales over the periods examined, budgets were systematically pessimistic; revenues were underestimated and expenditures were overestimated. The fiscal and electoral factors hypothesized to account for this pessimism are, however, very mixed in their ability to explain the biases.

Notizen: Abstract This paper assesses the influence of tax preparers on tax compliance. Using data from the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program and an index of legal ambiguity based on Revenue Rulings, the impact of preparation mode (paid third party vs. self) on compliance at the level of the return line item is probed. The results suggest that preparers contribute to compliance by enforcing legally clear requirements but also contribute to noncompliance, as measured by the IRS, by helping taxpayers take advantage of legal ambiguity. Furthermore, an analysis of a campaign to enforce estimated tax requirements conducted by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue suggests that tax preparers are also an important network for communicating tax agency enforcement priorities to taxpayers.

Notizen: Abstract This article presents an analytic model for understanding the role of decision makers in bringing about significant policy and institutional changes and in understanding how processes of agenda setting, decision making, and implementation shape the content, timing, and sustainability of reform initiatives. Central to the model is the assertion that policy elites and the policy making process are important determinants of reform. The framework indicates that circumstances surrounding issue formation, the criteria that decision makers use to select among options, and the characteristics of specific policies are analytic categories that explain a considerable amount about reform outcomes. The model is based on cases developed by participants in twelve initiatives to bring about policy and institutional change in a variety of developing countries.

Notizen: Abstract The introduction to this special issue asks what is distinctive about public policy making in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In field after field, some political scientists have argued for distinguishing Western polities from developing polities, whereas other have argued for inclusive treatment. The essay assesses these divergent perspectives as they relate to public policy making. On the one hand, it is clear that the systemic frameworks of policy - the institutions, participants, resources, the weight of the state relative to the society, and the capacity of the state to work its will - all vary as between developing and Western countries. The same is true for the scope of policy activity, the configuration of issues, and the actual content of policy. On the other hand, the policy process - the constraints, the ripe moments that produce innovation, the tendency for policy to have unanticipated consequences, and so on - appears to display regularities that transcend the categories of Western or Third World state. The essay goes on to explain the divergences of policy in terms of disparate access to resources, levels of economic development, and social patterns. The convergence of process is explained in terms of the deeper exigencies of human problem solving in highly structured contexts.

Notizen: Abstract Ghana and Nigeria are in the midst of government-initiated democratization programs. This paper compares the different settings, reasons, strategies, procedures, and implementation of democratization efforts in these two countries. While Nigeria's comprehensive approach to democratic planning has enabled elite continuity, it has neither assured regime stability nor enhanced state capacities. In contrast, Ghana's plan for democratic transformation, pursued in a piecemeal fashion, has resulted in regime stability and some state consolidation, but not in democratization. In both countries, there is little doubt that the unintended consequences of each approach may prove more significant than the direct results of successful policy implementation. Thus, even if the specific design for democracy may fail, the democratic project in these West African states may nevertheless be progressing.

Notizen: Abstract This article identifies tentative lessons about successful political management of stabilization and structural adjustment policies in developing countries. It addresses three basic questions: 1) What is the purpose of stabilization and structural adjustment policies and what specific measures are usually undertaken? 2) Who, in theory, is supposed to benefit or lose from such policies and who, in actual practice, supports or opposes them? 3) How have governments in developing countries successfully managed the supporters and opponents of adjustment policies? The article concentrates in detail on how the governments of Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala managed the actual supporters and opponents of these policies between 1982 and 1987, based on interviews with policy makers, official documents and content analysis of media sources, with the aim of determining what measures were implemented, who protested or supported them, and what the government did to build support or minimize opposition. The lessons from these three experiences are tied to the more general literature on successful political management of stabilization and structural adjustment.

Notizen: Abstract Considering public policy as both a dependent and an independent variable, this article undertakes a systematic assessment of the sources and systemic consequences of policy. It begins with a statement of contrasting theories of the sources of policy. One strand of comparative theory emphasizes national cultures and elite beliefs as the main sources of policy; another stresses the cross-national imperatives of particular policy programs, of international diffusion, and of common policy processes. Drawing on longitudinal data on an array of ethnic policies in Malaysia, the study highlights the limits of cultural-determinist theories of policy. It shows that elite beliefs change over time, often creating layers of policy based on varying premises; that one set of beliefs can overcome another, inconsistent set; that critical events can alter the balance of authoritative beliefs; and that, where beliefs are in conflict, organized interests have room for maneuver. Moreover, the interaction of a mix of operative beliefs can produce outcomes very much at variance with what policymakers wish or anticipate. Finally, on the systemic effects of policy, the study shows that interests created by earlier policy can be decisive actors in the shaping of later policy. Policy itself can change the entire structure of the political system - an outcome rather clearly demonstrated in the case of Malaysia.

Notizen: Abstract Over the last ten years, policy change in the third world has become a matter of considerable intellectual and practical importance. For the theoretically inclined, how one explains changes in the behavior of the state is the main issue. Both Marxian and liberal orthodoxies had a tendency to ‘read off’ state behavior from the power relationships at the level of the society, though differing in the way they conceptualized power. The return of institutional and state-centric explanations over the last decade has attempted to reverse this bias by looking more closely at the power struggles within the state institutions. For the practically inclined, the powerful intellectual rationale behind so many policy recommendations has often been puzzlingly lost in the maze of politics. What ‘interests’ impede the implementation of good ‘ideas,’ what ‘institutions’ block ‘getting policies right’ - these are some of the key questions on the agenda of international development institutions. Responding to these varied concerns, this paper analyzes a particularly successful case of policy change. While most of third world was still experimenting with land reforms and cooperatives as the ways to develop agriculture, India in the mid-1960s switched to producer price incentives and investments in new technology, a change that is widely believed to have turned India from a food-deficit to a food-surplus country. The focus is on how ideas, interests and institutions interacted to produce the change.

Notizen: Abstract During the debt crisis of the 1980s, new democratic governments in Argentina and Brazil experimented with heterodox approaches to economic stabilization, whereas Mexico's dominant party regime adopted a far more orthodox line of adjustment. None of these approaches had led to a sustained recovery by the end of the decade. Difference in policy choices are attributable to goals and beliefs of top decisionmaking officials and to the way the institutional features of their respective political regimes structured time horizons and vulnerability to domestic distributive pressures. Converging economic outcomes are attributable to underlying structural problems that cut across these distinctions: political constraints on the management of fiscal deficits, and international power asymmetries impeding significant reductions in the external debt burden.

Notizen: Abstract The official language policy of India is described as a 3 ± 1 language outcome. The central question that guides this paper is to explain why, when Congress leaders attempted to provide for India a single indigenous language for official communication, have they suffered more opposition than have rulers of states that consolidated in earlier centuries? Standard explanations for the different outcome, relying on special attributes of Indian culture and history, are found to be inadequate. A game theoretic analysis of political strategy helps to highlight two variables that best explain India's language outcome: the world historical time of state consolidation; and the nature of politician/bureaucrat relations for postcolonial states.

Notizen: Abstract The paper analyzes the interaction between inflows of foreign aid and the character of the economic policies pursued by the Sri Lankan government between 1977 and 1983. Aid did not support the policies of liberalization and balanced public investment that were preferred by donors. Rather it enabled the Sri Lankan government to push forward with the Mahaweli irrigation scheme on a scale that worked against both liberalization and other components of public investment. The process that led to the adoption and funding of the Mahaweli scheme and continued support for that scheme even after its impact on the overall economic program had become apparent is examined in detail, with particular emphasis on the decisions and behavior of both the Sri Lankan government and of aid donors.

Notizen: Abstract A number of recent studies have analyzed whether there is a political influence on monetary policy, focusing primarily on whether monetary policy becomes “easier” just prior to elections. In addition to exploring whether there exists an election period cycle in monetary policy, this article explores the existence of another political influence on policy. Following up on some recent anecdotal evidence provided by John T. Woolley, this article explores whether incumbent FED chairmen have succeeded in influencing monetary policy in order to improve their reappointment chances. The analysis, which spans the administrations of seven U.S. presidents and four FED chairmen, finds no conclusive evidence that FED policy changes systematically either before elections or chairman reappointment dates. The analysis has implications for the issue of rules versus discretion in monetary policy.

Notizen: Abstract How does a nation formulate policy for a technology not yet quite “ready” but which may nevertheless have to be used? Earthquake prediction illustrates some of the policy issues relevant to this question. Earthquake prediction is a technology that is still in the research and development (R & D) stage. Yet predictions have been made and can be expected in the future. The question for policymakers is, are the predictions “ready enough” to use - do the risks of doing nothing in response to a scientific prediction exceed those of a false alarm? As earthquake prediction represents an emerging technology, it calls for a developing policy framework. What is the nature of “present” developing policy? How did this policy come to be? How adequate is it? What needs to be done? This article attempts to answer such questions, dealing primarily with U.S. policy, but also drawing on the experience of other nations, particularly Japan.

Notizen: Abstract This article discusses the difficulties of analysing very complex problems by purely verbal or mathematical methods, and suggests that a compromise may lie in a formally rigorous approach of diagrammatic system description. The importance of Counter Insurgency Warfare is briefly reviewed, and the rigorous approach is applied to produce a diagrammatic model of the influences at work between Government and Insurgents. The feedback structures of the model are analysed to detect the asymmetric mechanisms of victory for both sides, and policy implications for the Government are analysed.

Notizen: Abstract A balanced federal budget is not a best outcome for all situations, and a constitutional amendment to require annually balanced budgets is not well defended on grounds that it is. However, the case for a balanced budget amendment may have some merit on other, subtler grounds. This article outlines a set of such grounds. Specifically, if it can be shown that the political process systematically undervalues a desirable relationship between revenues and expenditures, a balanced budget requirement might be defensible. The grounds would be that annually balanced budgets are a second best solution, given an argument that the unconstrained political process produces even less desirable outcomes. However, existing knowledge does not make an adequate case that such a rule is needed.

Notizen: Abstract Criticized for its generally positivist and technocratic orientation, the literature of public policy analysis has begun to generate proposals that would create a convergence between the field and the wider movement for a post-positivist restructuring of social inquiry. Ironically, critics have often focused on “policy science” as the epitomy of positivism and technocracy, giving little attention to the actual position of the figure responsible for the term - Harold D. Lasswell. Centering on Lasswell's key concept of contextual orientation, this article argues that, despite positivist influences, he developed an approach to inquiry and a proposal for a policy science profession which together clearly transcend positivism and technocracy- which, indeed, anticipate recent post-positivist proposals. Implications for policy analysis of a project of contextual orientation are also considered, along with problems in Lasswell's focus on professionalization.

Notizen: Abstract In this article we develop philosophically Cronbach's (1982) suggestion that the evaluator is an educator. The motivation for this article arose from problems encountered by us on a major evaluation project and from dissatisfaction with the existent philosophical underpinnings of evaluation theory. We propose, and provide a justification for, a model of evaluation based upon the notion of the evaluator as educator, which is sufficiently broad philosophically not only to subsume scientistic and humanistic models, but also to transcend them. Within this broad philosophical model we develop a particular theory of evaluation, based essentially upon Wittgenstein, and in which the notion of a learning community is taken as central. Finally we consider some practical implications of this theory of evaluation.

Notizen: Abstract If “policies” are to serve as guides to real world actions and be subject to criticism and improvement out of human experience, they must have certain attributes and capacities - those requirements serve to define the meaning of the term. This article seeks (a) to demonstrate the substance of those requirements through a systematic analysis of the structures and processes involved in reasoned, corrigible actions, (b) to sketch the basic assumptions of a theory of knowledge able to show how those requirements can be fulfilled within the limits of human capacity, and (c) to examine the implications of that conception of “policy,” and its companion concept “theory,” for those involved in collective policymaking and policy studies.

Notizen: Abstract The influence of institutions on budgetary behavior at the federal level is the subject of this article, which examines the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. While its impact on budgetary priorities and growth seems modest at best, the Act has had a substantial impact on the process of budgetary decisionmaking, the nature of budgetary debate, and the budgetary strategies employed within Congress. These new and generally dysfunctional forms of congessional budgetary behavior are consequences of a budgetary reform that attempted to transfer many of the resource allocation procedures of the Executive branch to a legislative context. The transfer of many Executive branch budgetary procedures has led to the appearance within Congress of budgetary behavior previously confined largely to the Executive branch. The article also discusses attempts to render the congressional budget process more compatible with the legislative environment, analyzing the modifications in the original budget process that have been effected and proposed in recent years.

Notizen: Abstract A cubist policy analysis sets forth several interacting realities about a policy proposal in order to arrive at an optimum reconciliation of their demands. In relation to the proposal of a refundable tax credit, one must consider the political climate in 1984 and 1985 with respect to income taxes, the effect on families that are poor or have marginally middle-class or middle-class income, of relatively small increments or reductions of money, trends with respect to income for such families, and the manner in which established income transfer mechanisms respond and are able to respond to problems that emerge. Taking all this together, we are led to a proposal to replace the personal exemption in income taxes with a tax credit of $400 per person, reduced by 5 percent of household Adjusted Gross Income in excess of $10,000 a year. Costs and benefits and alternative designs for a refundable tax credit (including one that a taxpayer may choose or decline) are provided.

Notizen: Abstract It is by now widely accepted that social science research has only an indirect and general impact on public policymaking. Academic social science research, it is often argued, is antithetical to policy research: the former is animated by traditional scientific canons while the latter is specific and problem-oriented. Moreover, modern bureaucracies are now understood as political environments within which “pure research” will be routinely ignored if it does not serve someone's interests. For these and other reasons, social scientists are being encouraged either to eschew policy research or not to expect much influence. This article provides an alternative model of social scientists in the policy process, as “consulting critics” reviewing, analyzing and commenting upon substantive policy research. This model holds benefits for both scholars and clients, turns the canons of scientific inquiry into assets instead of liabilities, and responds to some of the concerns recently raised in the literature concerning the role of social science in the policy process.

Notizen: Abstract This essay compares and contrasts important attributes of the use of scientific knowledge and judgment in regulatory decisions in the United States and West Germany. It decribes the broader historical context for such decisions in each country. Although the system in America exhibits considerable conflict and assumption of adversarial positions, it is argued that a more fundamental attribute of the system is that policy decisions are reviewed according to rules of evidence and its interpretation. Similarly, although the German system involves a great deal of consultation, a more fundamental aspect of policy decisions there is that of the determination of the social obligation to act. In the United States, it is more important that a decisionmaker has properly developed and interpreted the evidence than that he or she has consulted with all the relevant parties. In Germany, the order of importance of the two is reversed.