Efficiency and heterogeneity of public spending in education among Italian regions

The Italian educational system is strictly regulated by the Ministry of Education. However, there are strong differences in educational inputs and outputs among regions, as can be noticed by analysing the allocation of public budgets to the regions and their students' (average) performance in national and international test scores. A general institutional change is ongoing in Italy, that is, the decentralisation of competencies from the State to the regions (federalism). Some insights are necessary about the efficiency of public spending on education in a comparative perspective across regions. To estimate efficiency scores, a nonparametric technique called data envelopment analysis was used. The unit of analysis comprises the 18 Italian regions, with the focus on the lower secondary education. Then, a second‐stage Tobit regression was used to detect the factors affecting efficiency. The results corroborate the difference between the North and South of Italy (the regions in the North outperform their counterparts in the South). When looking at the regional socioeconomic context, gross domestic product per capita appears as the key determinant of efficiency. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nation‐building or ethnic fragmentation? Frontier settlement and collective identities in Israel

The paper analyses the evolution of collective identities from a critical geographical perspective, and argues that certain territorial practices associated with nation‐building and state‐building projects may actually sow the seeds of social and ethnic fragmentation. The analysis focuses on the impact of ‘internal frontier’ settlement in settler societies and highlights the key role of space, place and social control policies in the formation of ethnic and social identities. These identities are shown to be shaped, reshaped and reproduced during the processes of settlement, migration, segregation and inter‐group territorial conflict. Within that theoretical framework, the paper explores the case of Israel, and the impact of the settlement and spatial planning in the Galilee region on the formation of regional collective identities. The analysis shows that the process of settling the frontiers has given rise to ethnic, social and institutional fragmentation, particularly between Palestinian‐Arabs, Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews. These divisions may— paradoxically—undermine the very nation‐building and state‐building projects that had instigated the settlement of the internal frontier.     

Windows of opportunity: Lead poisoning prevention,housing affordability,and energy conservation

Abstract

We used housing demolition and window replacement rates to forecast prevalence trends for childhood lead poisoning and lead paint hazards from 1990 to 2010 for the President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children. The mid‐point of that forecast has now been validated by national blood lead data and the 1998–2000 National Survey of Lead and Allergens in Housing.

The validation of the task force model and new analysis of these survey data indicate that window replacement explains a large part of the substantial reduction in lead poisoning that occurred from 1990 to 2000. A public‐private effort to increase window replacement rates could help eliminate childhood lead poisoning by 2010. This effort would also improve home energy efficiency and affordability, in addition to reducing air pollution from power plants, and a broader initiative could reduce other housing‐related health risks as well.     

Does Strategic Planning Improve Organizational Performance? A Meta‐Analysis

Strategic planning is a widely adopted management approach in contemporary organizations. Underlying its popularity is the assumption that it is a successful practice in public and private organizations that has positive consequences for organizational performance. Nonetheless, strategic planning has been criticized for being overly rational and for inhibiting strategic thinking. This article undertakes a meta‐analysis of 87 correlations from 31 empirical studies and asks, Does strategic planning improve organizational performance? A random‐effects meta‐analysis reveals that strategic planning has a positive, moderate, and significant impact on organizational performance. Meta‐regression analysis suggests that the positive impact of strategic planning on organizational performance is strongest when performance is measured as effectiveness and when strategic planning is measured as formal strategic planning. This impact holds across sectors (private and public) and countries (U.S. and non‐U.S. contexts). Implications for public administration theory, research, and practice are discussed in the conclusion.     

Determinants and Evaluation of Local Energy‐Efficiency Initiatives from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

This article examines variation in local‐level energy‐efficiency grants and corresponding initiatives from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) in the United States. The analysis is based upon a hurdle model of counts of energy‐efficiency grants received by 348 local governments that received these grants from 2009 to 2013, as well as 348 matched local governments that did not receive such funds. City‐level characteristics including amount of federal financial support, per capita income, signaling of preferences for sustainability policies, manufacturing, and political influences are shown to be empirically important determinants of variation in local energy‐efficiency initiatives. The evidence suggests that all else held equal, the $21.8 billion in ARRA funds expended with the intent of increasing local energy‐efficiency programs and policies successfully led to this end.     

Effectiveness of fiscal incentives for innovation: Evidence from meta‐regression analysis

This article examines the microeconometric evidence on the impact of government support for R&D and innovation. Our meta‐regression analysis uses a dataset of empirical evidence on the effects of government R&D policies on innovation and investigates the factors that may explain the differences in the estimated effects. The meta‐analysis is structured to include both the direct and indirect government support for R&D and innovation. The estimated results reveal the heterogeneity of empirical studies with respect to the type of incentive, data, and econometric methodology used. The results indicate that the output additionality effect is on average stronger for R&D tax incentives than subsidies. Studies that use the subsample of high technology sector show a stronger additionality effect of fiscal incentives on innovation. Moreover, small and medium enterprises have a stronger input additionality effect. The results also suggest that studies considered endogeneity issues have on average stronger additionality effect.     

The social bases of nuclear energy policies in Europe: Ideology,proximity, belief updating and attitudes to risk

This article analyses the social bases underpinning the widely different trajectories of nuclear energy policies across Western European countries. Employing a set of surveys carried out in the last thirty years, it examines the conditional effects of ideology and geographical proximity to a nuclear power plant on attitudes toward nuclear energy, as well as the long‐ and short‐term dynamics of belief updating after the occurrence of major accidents. Results highlight how proximity can strengthen, weaken or have no effect on the ideological component of these attitudes. Moreover, the publics of most countries with experience in nuclear energy display the traits of Bayesian dynamics of belief updating, especially in the vicinity of a plant. The article also shows the fairly exceptional traits of French public opinion. In conclusion, the broad social constraints within which governments operate, across time and space, shed light on the different policy trajectories of European countries.     

Signs of change in North Korea

The spread of liberal democracy around the world has raised the risk of wishful thinking by students of democratization who hope that what they study will happen. One way of reducing this risk is to focus on regions that challenge the expectations and explanations of democratization. Four criteria can roughly measure a region's ‘recalcitrance’ in this regard: the extent to which it: (1) lacks liberal democracy, thus disappointing democ‐ratizers; (2) is diverse, thus making it hard to explain the lack of liberal democracy with across‐the‐board generalizations; (3) seems not to fit a particularly common expectation, e.g., that more well‐to‐do countries should be more liberal‐democratic; and (4) has leaders who have articulated a serious critique of liberal democracy. By meeting all of these criteria more fully than other parts of the world, Southeast Asia qualifies as the most recalcitrant region. The anomalousness of Southeast Asia is no reason for pessimism. But it does suggest that observers would do well to diversify what they mean by democracy beyond its conventionally liberal form.     

Impact of patent rights on innovation: A meta‐analysis

Research shows that the enforcement of patent rights (PRs) play a significant role in countries' innovation and technological development. The existing narrative reviews find that the impact of PRs on innovation is not clear across countries. Therefore, this study examines the impact of patent rights protection on innovation across countries by conducting a meta‐analysis from 14 empirical studies that contain 145 estimates, undertaken during 1996–2019. This study intends to test whether the findings are sensitive to various measures employed and identify possible policy implications across countries. Our analysis suggests that certain aspects of measuring innovation are crucial in explaining the significance of these findings. This study finds that countries' strength in PRs plays a significant role in determining its innovation. We also find that there is a distinction in PRs' contribution to domestic innovation across developed and developing countries in the existing primary studies.     

Ideological Party Cohesion in Macro‐comparative Politics: The Nordic Social Democratic Parties from a Comparative Perspective

‘Party cohesion’ is a central concept in the analysis of agenda‐setting, veto players and coalition‐building as well as in the analysis of policy efficiency and party responsiveness. However, there is no indicator to measure party cohesion in a systematic manner over time and across parties. As a consequence, most established studies treat political parties as unitary actors although from an analytical point of view they should be considered collective actors. In order to overcome this deficiency, in this article a time‐variant and party‐specific index of party cohesion is developed which can be used in macro‐comparative statistical analysis. The concept of ‘ideological cohesion’ is developed along the Left–Right dimension. This index is applied in order to compare the party cohesion of Nordic social democratic parties (SDs) with their counterparts in 17 additional countries. The results show that the myth of the cohesion of Nordic SDs is only true for the golden age of the welfare state. Currently, most of the Nordic SDs actually have a lower party cohesion than their counterparts in many other countries.     

Achievements and challenges of energy poverty alleviation policies: Evidence from the select states in India

Indian energy sector has undergone a tremendous transformation with consistent government policy interventions since 2000. Against this backdrop, we examine the extent to which energy poverty has decreased due to the expansion of energy services and the significant determinants of energy poverty in select six states in India. Overall, results reveal that absolute multidimensional energy poverty has substantially decreased across all states examined in the study as well as across all income and social groups between 2015 and 2018. Specifically, acute multidimensional energy poverty has reduced by an average of 30% between 2015 and 2018 in six states. At the same time, dependency on biomass remains more or less the same between 2015 and 2018. Results also show that inequality in the access to energy across income and social groups exists, and education is negatively related to energy poverty. Energy poverty has declined by a similar percentage among most employment groups, except for people practicing cattle rearing. Finally, culture is a significant determinant of energy poverty as households with the elderly and more land owned have higher energy poverty, probably due to the easy access to biomass and preference of such households to use it.     

Blind spots in policy analysis: What economics doesn't say about energy use

This article describes the difficulties of reducing analysis of energy use to an application of economic theory. It shows how economic concepts of behavior direct attention selectively to some important determinants of consumer behavior and away from others; how available economic accounts of short-term change in energy use, investment in energy efficiency, and the dynamics of investment limit understanding and narrow analysts' vision; how promising policy options are overlooked as a result; and how concepts and knowledge from the noneconomic behavioral sciences can compensate. Two strategies are discussed for improving analysis. Using economic theory to guide the improvement of existing models can help, conceptual blind spots will remain. A problem-oriented approach drawing on concepts and methods from across the behavioral sciences can avoid the blind spots, but cannot be systematic. Analysis can be improved by using both approaches in concert; some implications of a combined strategy are sketched.     

What determines the value of life? a meta‐analysis

A large literature has developed in which labor market contracts are used to estimate the value of a statistical life (VSL). Reported estimates of the VSL vary substantially, from less than $100,000 to more than $25 million. This research uses meta‐analysis to quantitatively assess the VSL literature. Results from existing studies are pooled to identify the systematic relationships between VSL estimates and each study's particular features, such as the sample composition and research methods. This meta‐analysis suggests that a VSL range of approximately $1.5 million to $2.5 million (in 1998 dollars) is what can be reasonably inferred from past labor‐market studies when “best practice” assumptions are invoked. This range is considerably below many previous qualitative reviews of this literature. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Explaining variation in sub‐state regional identities in Western Europe

While national identities emerged as the dominant source of territorial identification during the twentieth century, sub‐state regional identities are becoming increasingly important in some Western European regions. However, this is not a uniform development. In some regions, nearly half of respondents in Eurobarometer surveys claim a stronger attachment to the region than to the state. In others, less than 4 per cent are primarily attached to their region. This article examines the extent to which these differences are explained by the characteristics of the regions themselves. What, if anything, do regions that mobilise public identity have in common? Developing a model of regional identities, the study examines cultural, geographic, economic and political factors that vary across different regions in Western Europe. The study finds that regional identities tend to be stronger in regions where a regional language is spoken and which do not border the state capital, signalling a cultural and a centre/periphery dimension to regional identity formation. However, there is potentially a more strategic aspect to identification, as regional identities are likely to be stronger in economically developed regions and in regions with highly distinctive voting behaviour.     

Impact of industrialization,urbanization, and financial development on energy consumption: Empirical evidence from India

This article examines the relationship between energy consumption, industrialization, urbanization, economic growth, and financial development in India from 1980 to 2017. The ARDL bound testing; Johansen & Juselius cointegration approach and Gregory & Hansen structural break cointegration technique confirm the long‐run relationship exists among variables. The result of long‐run analysis indicates that the industrialization, urbanization and economic growth play a vital role in increasing energy consumption in India. However, financial development indicates negative relation to energy consumption. The coefficient of error correction term is negative and statistically significant at 1% confidence level, it means last‐period's deviation from a long‐run equilibrium. It is clear from the results of Toda‐Yamamoto Causality, there is a unidirectional causality running from industrialization to energy consumption. However, there is bidirectional causality showing between energy consumption and urbanization, economic growth and energy consumption, and urbanization and Economic growth. Urbanization facilitates fuel switching, as decentralized rural energy sources like traditional wood‐burning are replaced by centralized energy sources. From the above findings, we argue that proper awareness should be made at the urban center regarding use of energy saving equipments and public infrastructure should be improved to harness the effect of urban agglomeration. As rapid development of energy intensive‐industries and economic activity in Indian economy, there is need of energy efficient technology in industry in order to reduce energy consumption.     

The Swiss energy policy elite: The actor constellation of a policy domain in transition

Abstract. In the actor–centered institutionalist approach of Fritz Scharpf (1997), 'actorconstellations' constitute the crucial link between substantive policy analysis and interactionoriented policy research. This paper presents an attempt to conceptualize the 'actor constellation' in a given policy domain and to analyze it empirically with network analysis. The empirical context is provided by the Swiss energy policy elite in the late 1990s— an example of a policy domain in transition between two policy equilibria. Based on interviews with 240 of the core actors in this policy elite, the results show a characteristic antagonism between a pro–ecology and a pro–growth coalition. On the national level, the two coalitions are of comparable size and power, which explains the current impasse in the policy domain in question. Moreover, in a federalist state like Switzerland, the energy policy elite is not concentrated at the center, but the basic antagonism is reproduced in each region nationwide. Confirming the consensus character of Swiss politics, the different components of the two antagonist coalitions not only cooperate within, but also across coalitions. These cooperative ties and the presence of honest brokers, policy enterpreneurs, and heterogeneous interests within eachm coalition provide opportunities for new alliances, which may lead out of the current impasse in the more or less near future.     

Conducting Meta-Analyses of Evaluations of Government-Funded Training Programs

Government‐funded training programs in the United States have often been subject to rigorous evaluation. Indeed, many of these programs have been evaluated with random assignment, although sophisticated quasi‐experimental methods have also been used. Until very recently, however, there has been little systematic attempt to use the cumulative information vested in these evaluations to attempt determine which kinds of programs work best in which setting and with respect to which types of client. Meta‐analysis—a set of statistical procedures for systematically synthesizing findings from separate studies—can, in theory at least, address these and other topics that evaluation of individual programs cannot. This article discusses the steps in conducting such a synthesis, summarizes the results of three recently conducted meta‐analyses of training and welfare‐to‐work programs, identifies limitations to the meta‐analytic approach, and considers ways in which some of these limitations can be overcome.     

The Spreading of Innovation: State Adoptions of Energy and Climate Change Policy

The American states are engaged in a variety of policy efforts to mitigate climate change and alter energy usage. While a number of studies have considered the reasons for adoption of renewable energy and climate change policies, they typically consider only one policy in isolation. This study examines policy adoption of 14 energy and climate change programs in a pooled event history analysis. Our primary research questions consider average effects of horizontal policy diffusion, while also identifying factors that vary across policy type. We offer a method of testing whether predictors vary across policies and use this test to incorporate interactions by policy in the statistical analysis. Our results indicate that many of the primary drivers of adoption are political in nature, including state ideology, environmental interest group membership, and diffusion via ideologically similar neighbors. In addition, we find that given policy heterogeneity, a number of determinants vary by policy type, though differences are in magnitude rather than direction.     

Efficiency Measurement in Spanish Local Government: The Case of Municipal Water Services

In this work, we established a procedure for evaluation of the efficiency of the water supply. This procedure has allowed us to find that the proposed indicators have a discriminating capability in the analysis of the service, and to reject criticisms traditionally assigned to the sensitivity of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique in relation to degrees of freedom. The results obtained show that the population density, as a factor that defines one of the particular characteristics of the surroundings of each municipality, has a statistically significant impact on the indexes of efficiency, this affirmation not being extended to the public or private ownership of the service. The scale inefficiency is higher than the technical inefficiency. These typologies of efficiency are, principally, motivated by the supply side of the service, which is specially linked with the necessary infrastructure. The demand of the citizens is satisfied with a behavior close to optimal.     

How important is information format? An experimental study of home energy audit programs

Among alternative regulatory responses, information provision programs are receiving increasing attention despite the decidedly mixed evidence about their effectiveness. This paper provides detailed experimental evidence to demonstrate that for one important example of an information program, the use of energy audits to stimulate residential energy conservation, the effectiveness of the program is highly sensitive to the information processing behavior of the users of the information. Simple changes in the format of the information provided to homeowners produced marked improvements in the efficiency of consumer choices. The study illustrates Stern's conclusion in a recent issue of this journal that laboratory experimentation provides a useful alternative to model-based analysis of natural experiments, especially for policy design issues involving information acquisition and processing. The paper also offers conclusions about improving the effectiveness of home energy audits, as well as the entire class of information provision programs.