Do fiscal rules dampen the political business cycle?

This paper develops and tests the theory that fiscal rules limit politicians' ability to manipulate the budget for electoral gain. Using panel data from the American states, I find evidence suggesting that stringent balanced budget rules dampen the political business cycle. That is, while spending rises before and falls after elections in states that can carry deficits into the next fiscal year, this pattern does not exist in states with strict “no-carry” rules. Neither binding gubernatorial term limits nor the partisan composition of government appear to significantly affect the magnitude of the political business cycle.     

加入工会能提高产业工人技能水平吗？ ——来自大连市产业工人调查数据的经验证据

产业工人技能水平能否更好地匹配产业发展的方向,实现技能劳动力的供求动态平衡,关系到 能否为产业转型升级和经济高质量发展提供人力资本支撑。工会组织通过推进职工素质建设工程、开展劳动技 能竞赛和群众性技术创新活动等,在提升产业工人技能水平方面发挥着重要作用。本研究基于大连市产业工人 的微观调查数据,发现加入工会显著促进了产业工人技能水平的提升,且对制造业产业工人的影响更显著。机 制检验发现,工会通过开展职业培训提升了产业工人技能水平。研究建议：在实践中应充分利用工会资源为产 业工人提供形式多样的职业培训;完善产业工人技能评价方式;加强与职业院校合作,推动多层次多样化的职 业教育资源服务于产业工人技能提升。     

To Know You is Not Necessarily to Love You: The Partisan Mediators of Intergroup Contact

We propose the contact–cue interaction approach to studying political contact—that cues from trusted political elites can moderate the effect of contact on the formation of public policy opinions. Allport’s initial formulation of the contact effect noted that it relies on authority support. In a highly polarized political era, authoritative voices for individuals vary based on party identification. Social experiences may affect public policy, but they must also be considered in light of partisan filters. Using data from the 2006 CCES, we examine the manner in which straight respondents with gay family members, friends, co-workers and acquaintances view same-sex marriage policy, finding a strong contact effect among Democrats, but no contact effect among the strongest Republican identifiers. Our data and analyses strongly support the perspective that social interactions (and their effect on policy) are understood through the lens of partisanship and elite cues.     

Filicide-suicide in Chicago, 1870-1930

Filicide (the killing of a child by a parent) followed by the offender's suicide is a tragic but, fortunately, rare event. The contexts and circumstances surrounding filicide-suicide may provide insight into parental psychology. The authors test several hypotheses about filicide-suicide using a database including incident-level information on 11,018 Chicago homicides during 1870-1930. The results provide some support for the hypothesis of differential risk of suicide following filicide by genetic parents and stepparents and replicate previous research indicating that filicides with multiple victims are more likely to end in the offender's suicide than are filicides with a single victim; parents are more likely to commit suicide following the filicide of an older child than of a younger child; and older parents, relative to younger parents, are more likely to commit suicide following filicide. The discussion situates these results within the existing literature and highlights important directions for future research.     

Gender dynamics in the sentencing of white-collar offenders

Theory and empirical research often have agreed that female and white-collar offenders benefit from leniency at the sentencing stage of criminal justice system processing. An untested research question emerging from these distinct bodies of literature is whether the greatest leniency is afforded to female white-collar offenders. We investigate the individual and interactive influences of gender and white-collar conviction on judicial leniency by analyzing Florida sentencing guidelines data from 1994 to 2004 using multinomial logistic regression to model the decision to incarcerate nonviolent economic offenders in jail or prison rather than sentence them to community control. Results indicate that female street offenders sentenced by male judges receive the most lenient sentences, while male offenders are punished the harshest regardless of the gender of the sentencing judge or type of crime. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed in terms of focal concerns, familial paternalism, and attributional perspectives on judicial decision-making.     

Thou Shalt Not Flip Flop: Senators’ Religious Affiliations and Issue Position Consistency

Is there a relationship between legislators’ religious affiliations and the consistency of their voting records? Building on the theory of “the personal roots of representation,” we argue that a legislator's likelihood of switching positions depends on whether the issue is central to their personal values. We evaluate this claim using a data set including senators’ religious affiliations and “culture war” votes from 1976 to 2004 and find that different religious groups vary in their voting consistency on issues such as abortion, public prayer, and gay and lesbian rights.     

Public perceptions of white-collar crime and punishment

Although financial losses from white-collar crime continue to exceed those of street crime, the criminal justice system has traditionally focused on the latter. Past research suggested that citizens are more likely to support punitive sanctions for street offenders than white-collar offenders. Recent corporate scandals have increased public awareness of white-collar crime, but whether public attitudes have been altered remains to be determined. Using a 2005 national sample of 402 telephone survey participants, the current study examined citizen perceptions of white-collar and street crime, as well as attitudes regarding apprehension and punishment. This research extended prior studies by also considering the influence of sociodemographic characteristics as well as perceptions of white-collar crime and punishment on the public's support for increasing resource allocation. Implications for future research and development of more effective white-collar crime control policy are discussed.     

Al Qaeda Versus Big Brother: Anxiety About Government Monitoring and Support for Domestic Counterterrorism Policies

Explanatory models of attitudes toward U.S. domestic counterterrorism policy routinely incorporate individual concern over terrorism, but uniformly disregard concern about the government??s use of domestic surveillance. Indeed, one of the most prominent works of this kind explicitly argues that ordinary Americans will not perceive that government monitoring targets people like themselves and thus domestic surveillance programs will not generate anxiety. We question this assumption on theoretical and historical grounds. Our research uses a unique probability sample survey to demonstrate that significant portions of ordinary Americans feel anxious about domestic government monitoring. Moreover, the results show that anxiety about government monitoring negatively relates to attitudes toward domestic counterterrorism policies. Although never included in previous models, and even plainly dismissed as irrelevant, felt anxiety about government monitoring importantly predicts attitudes about domestic counterterrorism policies.