Can public policy deter smoking escalation among young adults?

In the wake of significant budget shortfalls, 37 states and the District of Columbia have recently increased cigarette excise taxes to boost revenues. This study examines the impact of increasing the price of cigarettes, which will occur as a consequence of cigarette excise tax increases, and implementing restrictions on smoking in private worksites, restaurants, government worksites, healthcare facilities, and other public places on young adult smoking progression. This paper employs nationally representative longitudinal data on young adults from the Monitoring the Future Surveys matched with information on site-specific prices and smokefree air laws. The estimates clearly indicate that increasing the price of cigarettes would substantially decrease the number of young adults who progress into higher intensities of smoking. In addition, private worksite restrictions and restrictions on smoking in other public places are found to decrease moderate smoking uptake among young adults.     

Environmentalism,pre-environmentalism,and public policy

In the last decade, thousands of new grassroots groups have formed to oppose environmental pollution on the basis that it endangers their health. These groups have revitalized the environmental movement and enlarged its membership well beyond the middle class. Scientists, however, have been unable to corroborate these groups' claims that exposure to pollutants has caused their diseases. For policy analysts this situation appears to pose a choice between democracy and science. It needn't. Instead of evaluating the grassroots groups from the perspective of science, it is possible to evaluate science from the perspective of environmentalism. This paper argues that environmental epidemiology reflects pre-environmentalist assumptions about nature and that new ideas about nature advanced by the environmental movement could change the way scientists collect and interpret data.     

A public policy paradox

Over the last two decades policy analysis has flourished, as government has turned increasingly to the services of policy experts. With the refinement of analytic tools vast amounts of data have been made available to decision-makers. These developments have no doubt enhanced the management of many government programs. But some of the most serious policy problems—those involving macroeconomic policy and aspects of foreign policy — have not yielded to solutions. Moreover, the abundance of data has sometimes been overwhelming for decision-makers, a fact that may explain in part the inclination of many to seek simple and painless panaceas for complex problems. Although policy analysis can help the policymaker, it does not provide an avenue of escape from difficult decisions.     

Rational choice theory,public policy and the liberal state

Liberalism requires a high order of responsible behaviour from its citizens in order to be sustainable. Yet when the modern liberal state makes policy, it is the stereotyped economic man, driven by self-interest and influenced only by carrots and sticks, who occupies center stage. This regulatory approach to public policy can be shown theoretically to give rise to a paradox — the greater the need for regulation, the less likely, because of compliance problems, it is to succeed. It is contended that an alternative approach which explicitly focuses on a broader behavioral understanding of citizens' attitudes and motivations provides a rationale for the use of a much wider range of policy instruments than does the regulatory framework, and is also more in keeping with those values necessary to the sustainability of the liberal state.     

Families of nations and public policy

Employing cluster analysis, this article reconsiders a concept formulated by Francis G. Castles that stresses the existence of four families of nations, which markedly differ in respect of public policy-making. For two policy fields - social and economic policy - the hypothesised families of nations can be shown to exist, and they are quite robust and stable over time. Cluster analysis also reveals different paths towards modernity. On the one hand, there are more state-oriented versus more market-oriented models of public policy-making; on the other, there is a cleavage in public policy-making between rich countries located at the centre and somewhat poorer countries located at the periphery.     

Families of nations and public policy

Employing cluster analysis, this article reconsiders a concept formulated by Francis G. Castles that stresses the existence of four families of nations, which markedly differ in respect of public policy‐making. For two policy fields — social and economic policy — the hypothesised families of nations can be shown to exist, and they are quite robust and stable over time. Cluster analysis also reveals different paths towards modernity. On the one hand, there are more state‐oriented versus more market‐oriented models of public policy‐making; on the other, there is a cleavage in public policy‐making between rich countries located at the centre and somewhat poorer countries located at the periphery.     

Technocracy,democracy, and public policy: An evaluation of public participation in retrospective regulatory review

Retrospective review of existing regulations is an increasingly common aspect of the regulatory policy cycle. As with prospective regulatory policymaking, public participation is a central feature of many retrospective review initiatives. Despite its theoretical and practical significance, participation in retrospective review has received little scholarly attention. This paper presents the first systematic assessment of participation in United States retrospective regulatory review. Utilizing content analysis of an original dataset of government documents and public input produced pursuant to Executive Orders 13563, 13579, and 13610, the paper analyzes participatory institutional design, the level and composition of participants, and participation processes. The results suggest that retrospective review participation processes largely reflected the modes of stakeholder outreach and engagement employed in prospective regulatory policymaking, but resulted in comparatively low levels of participation. Consistent with the purposes enumerated in the executive orders, participation processes facilitated information exchange and were relatively representative of and responsive to stakeholders.     

Technology transfer,public policy,and the cooperative extension service-OMB imbroglio

The Cooperative Extension Service, although widely cited as an exemplary technology transfer system for its documented contributions to increases in agricultural productivity, is confronting a number of challenges. Recent presidential budgets propose a narrowing of federal responsibilities for Extension to programs related to the transfer of agricultural technology. At the same time, the relevance of its traditional organizational structure to the technical needs of contemporary agriculture has been questioned. Extension's ability simultaneously to correct what it perceives to be a narrow view of its mission as well as to improve its performance as a technology transfer system is constrained by several things. One of these is its need to provide the diverse set of services demanded by the broad constituency that comprises its political base of support. Another is the gradual change in its own internal norms towards an educational information dissemination orientation away from an emphasis on adaptive research and technical problem-solving.     

The public demand for smoking bans

Smoking bans are gaining widespread support in the United States and other countries. While supporters argue that bans are necessary to resolve market failures associated with negative externalities, the Coase Theorem predicts that, under various conditions, private markets internalize negative externalities. We examine the smoking issue within the framework of the Coase Theorem and hypothesize that smoking bans misallocate air space resources shared by smokers and nonsmokers. Because smoking bans shift ownership of scarce resources, they are also hypothesized to transfer income from one party (smokers) to another party (nonsmokers). Supporting evidence for these hypotheses is provided by an examination of a comprehensive smoking ban imposed in San Luis Obispo, CA.     

Graduate education in public policy

Contemporary social transformation and accelerated politicization are inducing and requiring changes in the epistemological structure and the substantive content of the social and political sciences. To accommodate to and to facilitate these changes there is here proposed an interdisciplinary program of graduate education in Public Policy which is designed (1) to aggregate the most relevant materials and usable generalizations of the sociopolitical sciences and (2) to strike a balance between viable theory and tested experience. Although the curriculum is intended to be primarily contemporaneous and futuristic, it incorporates comparative and historical as well as normative and positivistic materials and methods. A variegated and qualified body of students is expected to be recruited for the proposed program as its principal intellectual and creative component.