Did welfare reform influence the fertility of young teens?

During the 1990s, states made several reforms to their welfare programs designed to reduce teenage fertility among minors. Among the most prominent of these changes, states started requiring teenage mothers younger than 18 to live with a parent or legal guardian and enroll in high school in order to receive welfare benefits. Using natality data from the National Center for Health Statistics, we compare the trend in fertility rates for young women aged 15 to 17 to the trend for a control group of 18-year-olds. Our estimates imply that the annual percent decline in fertility rates following implementation of these minor parent provisions was 0.7 percentage points larger for young teens than for teens aged 18, a difference of over 22 percent.     

Cheap bribes and the corruption ban: A coordination game among rational legislators

Legislators in modern democracies (a) accept bribes that are small compared to the value of the statutes they pass and (b) allow bans against bribery to be enforced. In our model of bribery, rational legislators accept bribes smaller not only than the benefit the briber receives but than the costs the legislators incur in accepting the bribes. Rather than risk this outcome, the legislators may be willing to suppress bribery altogether. The size of legislatures, the quality of voter information, the nature of party organization, and the structure of committees will all influence the frequency and size of bribes.     

Poorhouse to Warehouse: Institutional Long-Term Care in the United States

Nursing homes in the United States are a product of Americanfederalism and reflect the complexities and variabilities ofthat system. Over time, institutional long-term care for frailelders has shifted from local government funding and administrationto state-level oversight and support to a shared federal-stateconcern. The unsystematic American approach produces haphazardresults in terms of quality, equity, and efficiency. The grayingof the American population will increase the demand for long-termcare, resulting in pressure for a more coherent policy response.     

Anglicizing the United States Constitution: James Bryce's Contribution to Australian Federalism

James Bryce's analysis of American federalism made it possiblefor the Australian founders to reproduce federal institutionson the American model without replicating the republican andempirical ideas that underpinned them in the United States Constitution.Bryce's account in The American Commonwealth (1888) appealedto Australia's founders because it was suited to their needs.Bryce was English, and, like a sensible nineteenth-century Englishman,he argued that U. S. institutions had little to do with intellectualproduct. Instead, they were largely English institutions adaptedto American purposes. Reading Bryce, Australia's founders assumedthat if federal institutions had little to do with abstracttheory, and had simply been adapted to American circumstances,they might also be adapted to Australian circumstances. Thus,Bryce's approach to American federalism allowed Australia'sfounders to substitute their own colonial tradition of parliamentarydemocracy under the Crown for the republican principles of rightsand the separation of powers that underlie the U.S. Constitution.     

Presidential address: How to improve poverty measurement in the United States

This paper discusses the reasons why the current official U.S. poverty measure is outdated and nonresponsive to many anti‐poverty initiatives. A variety of efforts to update and improve the statistic have failed, for political, technical, and institutional reasons. Meanwhile, the European Union is taking a very different approach to poverty measurement. The paper ends with four recommended steps that would allow the U.S. to improve its measurement of poverty and economic need.     

Medicaid Section 1115 Waivers: Shifting Health Care Reform to the States

This article focuses on recent developments in state Medicaidprograms and the role ojSection 1115 waivers in this process.The evidence presented here demonstrates quite clearly thatthe states are using Section 1115 waivers to experiment witha broad range of innovative health-care service delivery, reimbursement,and eligibility concepts. This has allowed the states to reconfiguretheir Medicaid systems. More important, perhaps, the use ofSection 1115 waivers has also increased the role ofof the statesin the American health-care policy process.     

Why teens do not benefit from work experience programs: Evidence from brother comparisons

Social scientists' research on the consequences of teenage employment suggests that government programs providing teenagers with work experience should have worked better than they have. One explanation is that the government failed to deliver an otherwise effective treatment. This article considers three alternative explanations. The first is that the apparent benefits of working during the teenage years are illusory, reflecting only unmeasured differences between teens who do and do not work. A second explanation is that the groups targeted by government programs, the disadvantaged, benefit less from working as teenagers. A third explanation asserts that program participants and working teens experience different benefits because they have different employment experiences. Using information on brother pairs, this article examines these issues. It determines that conventional analyses of the returns to teenage employment greatly overstate the benefits poor minority teenagers receive from working. Our results suggest that the mixed success of previous programs is not primarily due to poor implementation or government involvement per se. Rather, these programs have had limited success because, for those teenagers targeted, work experience during the teenage years does not raise future earnings.     

Performance Budgeting and Performance Funding in the States: A States Assessment

For a variety of reasons, performance budgeting has gained new life in the 1990s. Initially introduced in the 1950s by the Hoover Commission and others, performance budgeting efforts, in the 1990s, go beyond the workload productivity and efficiency focus of earlier phases and place greater emphasis on outcomes and accountability. This study reports on a survey of state executive-branch budget officers designed to determine the current status of state performance budgeting efforts including performance budgeting processes used by the states, their perceived impacts on budget decision making, and their probable future use. In addition, the study assessed the emerging role of performance funding as a further extension of performance budgeting processes. The linking of performance to the allocation or distribution of appropriated funds may be emerging as the next iteration of performance budgeting in the states. In addition to reporting on the survey, relationships between performance budgeting and various aspects of state budgeting practices are analyzed through crosstabulations, and regression analysis is employed to examine the states' organization, fiscal, and political capacity to implement performance budgeting and funding.     

Diffusion and Diversity: Federalism and the Right to Die in the Fifty States

Right-to-die issues—from the right to have life-sustainingtreatment withdrawn to the right to assisted suicide—arebecoming important sources of state policy activity. Withoutmuch federal instruction, some state courts have constructeda general consensus position for other courts to follow usingthe federal Constitution to legitimize their decisions. Statelegislatures have accomplished less. Statutory diversity wasthe rule until recently, with legislatures passing a rich varietyof generally conservative rules. Lately, with the pressure fromrights-oriented interest groups and professional organizations,state legislators have been edging closer to the more liberalpattern of policy charted by judges of the state supreme courts.Policymaking that applies to assisted suicide may be expectedto follow the same pattern: the federal government will remainsilent while the state courts take the lead using the U.S. Constitutionas ammunition. The state legislatures can be expected to trailbehind, catching up to the courts only after statutory diversityis found wanting.     

Citizenship,identity and transnational migration: Arab immigrants to the United States

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the changing relationships between identities, citizenship and the state in the context of globalisation. We first examine the ways in which scholars discuss changes in the ways in which citizenship and political identity are expressed in the context of international migration. We argue that much of the discussion of transnationalism and diaspora cling to an assumption that citizenship remains an important—though not defining—element of identity. Our position, by contrast, is that migration is one of a number of processes that transform the relationship between citizenship and identity. More specifically, we argue that it is possible to claim identity as a citizen of a country without claiming an identity as ‘belonging to’ or ‘being of’ that country, thus breaking the assumed congruity between citizenship, state and nation. We explore this possibility through a study of Arab immigrants in the US. Our findings, based on interviews with activists and an analysis of Arab American websites, suggest that concerns with both homeland and national integration are closely related to each other and may simultaneously inform immigrants' political activism. These findings indicate a need to identify multiple axes of political identification and territorial attachment that shape immigrants' sense of political membership. We argue for the importance of thinking about transnationalism as a process—and perhaps a strategy—as migrants negotiate the complex politics of citizenship and identity.     

Party incumbency and economic growth in the United States: 1929 to 1984

This paper investigates the relationship between Democratic presidential incumbency and economic growth in the United States in the long run. The analysis shows the Democrats have stimulated growth beyond trends when two conditions are met: first, when an incoming administration is formally committed to promoting growth and employment, and second, when that administration has at least two terms of office to implement those goals. The transmission mechanisms linking incumbency and growth are explored by means of a standard Keynesian IS-LM model, which is augmented by additional relevant variables. The transmissions process works via monetary policy, fiscal policy, and welfare expenditure. It also seems likely that changing expectations of consumers and investors stimulated the economy beyond trends for some Democratic administrations.     

Environmental Commitment among the States: Integrating Alternative Approaches to State Environmental Policy

This article examines variation in state commitment to protectingthe natural environment. We contribute to theoretical and empiricalresearch in this area in two primary ways. First, our dependentvariable consists of a general measure of state commitment tothe environment. Second, we develop a causal model that integratessix major explanatory approaches to state environmental policy.Our results show that stales with liberal public opinion, strongenvironmental interest groups, liberal legislatures, and professionalizedlegislatures are the most committed to environmental protection.States' manufacturing interests and economic resources playa relatively minor role, and slates' environmental conditionsand the influence of the federal government play virtually norole in explaining variation in general state commitment toenvironmental protection.     

Budget Deficits in the States: Illinois

During FY 2009 and FY 2010, the State of Illinois was faced with significant fiscal challenges. The national recession was adversely impacting the state's economy, while the state had been struggling since the last recession with operating budget deficits and large unfunded pension liabilities. In the spring of 2009, the Governor's Office of Budget and Management estimated that in the absence of any intervention, there would be a $4.3 billion budget deficit in FY 2009 and a $7.3 billion budget shortfall in FY 2010. This paper discusses the magnitude and nature of Illinois' fiscal problems and the factors that have contributed to this situation. It also discusses Governor Quinn's proposed budget for FY 2010, as well as the legislative response. Although the state passed a capital budget and an operating budget, the outlook for the future remains uncertain. The operating budget significantly relies on one-time revenue and funding sources (including $3.4 billion in debt) and the state has approximately $100 billion in unfunded accrued liabilities for pensions and other postemployment benefits.     

Budget Deficits in the States: Virginia

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Budget Deficits in the States: Connecticut

Like many states, the State of Connecticut has recently faced substantial budget problems. This article is one of several that explore budget deficits in the states. We explore the reasons, extent, and current solutions to the budget deficits in Connecticut. Connecticut's fiscal circumstances include very poor accounting practices; dueling revenue estimates; large amounts of debt (both bonded and for post-employment benefits); a structurally strong legislature and governor; a governor and legislative majority of different political parties and fiscal philosophies; and a legislature with the ability to override gubernatorial vetoes. The combination of these ingredients has led to a highly partisan and contentious approach to budget discussions amid some of the largest budget deficits the state has ever experienced.     

Budget Deficits in the States: Massachusetts

Massachusetts entered the current recession carrying a structural deficit counterbalanced by a healthy, $2.1 billion stabilization fund, equal to 10 percent of total tax revenue. Like most states, Massachusetts only dimly realized the depth of the current recession in October 2008 when revenue collections began to slip and welfare caseloads began to increase. By May of 2009, a total FY2009 budget gap of $4 billion had been identified, the combined effect of plummeting revenues and increased costs for welfare and medical assistance. The Commonwealth closed the FY2009 budget gap through a combination of budget cuts, stabilization fund transfers, and federal stimulus funds. The Commonwealth faced an even larger $4.8 billion budget gap in FY2010. With the stabilization fund severely depleted, the FY2010 budget gap was closed primarily by budget cuts, federal stimulus money, and a sales and use tax increase. Because of the Commonwealth's reliance on one-time money to close current budget gaps, a significant budget gap of at least $2.8 billion for FY2011 was identified soon after passage of the budget. In this paper we discuss the political and historic context in which the budget gaps occurred, outline the causes of the budget gaps, and evaluate the strategies employed to close them.