WHAT HAVE POLICY STUDIES TOLD US ABOUT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND WHERE CAN WE QOFROM HERE?

Twenty years after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act o 9 4, politica moral, and legal debates continue over aspects of i t s implementation through the use of affirmative action. Members of the recently reconstituted U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have expressed skepticism over reliance on affirmative action in the future thereby adding new fuel to these discussions. Regrettably, when we turn our attention to policy studies of affirmative action in one key area that of federal employment it is evident policy research has not done enough to answer what many now pose as the central question: Does affirmative action work? The essay assesses the state of knowledge pertaining to this question and suggests how future research might be undertaken to provide a more comprehensive answer.     

THE MARKET FOR INDUSTRY: WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD?

This paper investigates one of the perennial mysteries in the area of state and local finance, the provision of tax and other subsidies to business by federal, state and local governments in the face of solid evidence that such incentives do little to nothing to influence business location or job creation. The paper looks at the upsurge in such governmental aid in the last decade and considers whether this upsurge has occurred because such aid is more efficacious than it used to be or whether it has occurred for political reasons unrelated to its effectiveness.