Marginal Pricing and Student Investment in Higher Education

This paper examines the effect of marginal price on students’ educational investments using rich administrative data on students at Michigan public universities. Marginal price refers to the amount colleges charge for each additional credit taken in a semester. Institutions differ in how they price credits above the full‐time minimum (of 12 credits), with many institutions reducing the marginal price of such credits to zero. We find that a zero marginal price induces a modest share of students (i.e., 7 percent) to attempt up to one additional class (i.e., three credits) but also increases withdrawals and lowers course performance. The analysis generally suggests minimal impacts on credits earned and the likelihood of meeting “on‐time” benchmarks toward college completion, though estimates for these outcomes are less precise and more variable across specifications. Consistent with theory, the effect on attempted credits is largest among students who would otherwise locate at the full‐time minimum, which includes lower‐achieving and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.     

商务英语技术本科教育研究的新视角

自我决定论是新近发展起来的一种认知动机理论，把人类的动机看成是一个从外在调节到内在动机的动态连续体。本文从应用型大学商务英语专业教学现状和需求出发，通过实证调查分析学生的主观需求和学习动机及其与成绩的关系，引入自我决定理论，对其动机分类及外在动机内化的条件进行探讨，多方位构建技术本科院校商务英语学科创新素质教育体系。     

新建本科院校隐性思想政治教育探析

隐性思想政治教育作为高校思想政治教育的重要途径之一,备受人们的广泛关注。新建本科院校如何实施好隐性思想政治教育有着特殊的意义。从新建本科院校隐性思想政治教育存在的问题出发,结合时代特征和校园地域特色,提出了"三新(即新理念、新环境和新方式)"的隐性思想政治教育的见解。     

Employee Satisfaction in Agencies with Merit-Based Pay: Differential Effects for Three Measures

While many studies have sought to understand the association between merit-based pay and organizational performance, few have assessed the psychological well-being of employees in agencies with such incentive schemes. We show that employees in agencies with merit-based pay are less satisfied with their organization than are those working in agencies that do not implement the incentive systems. We also show that this negative effect is larger in the case of organizational satisfaction than for pay satisfaction or employee satisfaction with the job itself.     

Differential Responsiveness in Europe: The Effects of Preference Difference and Electoral Participation

As a core principle of contemporary democracy, political representation has been the subject of numerous studies. In particular, responsiveness has been thoroughly examined and research suggests that policies tend to reflect citizens’ preferences. However, it has also been argued that, in some instances, responsiveness systematically reflects the preferences of the rich better than those of the poor, hence violating a second democratic principle, that of political equality. While much research has focused on the United States, this study tests whether differential responsiveness also occurs in European democracies and enquires about the structural factors that may cause such inequality. The article examines to what extent the preference gap between the rich and the poor as well as the level of electoral participation can account for variation in differential responsiveness. To do this, a dataset including information on 25 European countries from 2002 to 2010 is constructed and analysed using time-series cross-sectional methods. The findings suggest that European democracies experience differential responsiveness and that the preference gap and level of turnout partly account for this.     

Influencing Public Opinion of Space Policy: Programmatic Effects Versus Education Effects

The public is generally supportive of space policy, but less supportive of spending for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) compared to other government programs. Previous research has helped identify who is more likely to be supportive of NASA spending, but not why. This study seeks to understand the causal mechanisms that influence support for NASA. Using natural between-survey and induced within-survey experiments, this study attempts to identify factors influencing changes in public support for NASA spending. Short-term programmatic and related media effects appear to have no influence on public support for NASA spending. However, correcting information asymmetries in regard to NASA's budget appears to have a significant positive effect on public support for NASA spending. The findings speak to the importance of the public being well informed on policy issues in order to make a correct policy choice, and demonstrate that individual programmatic aspects may not be as important as overall agency direction.     

Pricing Outputs: A Case Study in Law Enforcement

This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of economic evaluation as a measurement methodology within the Australian government's outcome and output framework including preliminary benefit–cost analysis of Australian Federal Police investigations. The results suggest that the Australian Federal Police is returning over $5 to the community for every dollar invested in fraud and drug investigations. It is concluded that benefit–cost analysis is a useful tool for comparing the price of an output to the value of an outcome. The method has limitations. Not all outcomes will admit of easy assessment and the information may be difficult to collect. However, the use of surrogate measures and extrapolation of results may overcome most of these limitations.     

The Differential Empowering Effects of Europeanization on the Autonomy of National Agencies

This article examines the influence of Europeanization on the relationship between ministries and agencies at the national level. The core argument is that the differentiated nature of the international environment (with policy development often transferred to the international level and policy implementation left at the national level) transforms national agencies into policy‐developing actors that shape policies without being directly influenced by their national political principals. The increasingly common involvement of national agencies in European policymaking processes thereby increases these agencies' policy‐development autonomy but does not change their role in policy implementation. We examine this argument by testing an innovative hypothesis—the differentiation hypothesis—on a combined data set of German and Dutch national agencies. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis in both countries, suggesting that similar effects can be expected in other contexts in which semiautonomous agencies are involved in transnational policymaking.     

Making Good Use of Partners: Differential Effects of Managerial Networking in the Social Care Domain

ABSTRACT

Public managers engage in networking relationships with a wide variety of external actors and organizations from which they can draw different types of support and resources. Most empirical studies on managerial networking merely present different intensities of external networking in general, as if it were a unidimensional concept. In practice, however, public managers strategically differentiate between functional or task-related groups of external partners, based on the specific policy context. Moreover, such differentiation in networking behavior can be expected to systematically impact agency and public program performance outcomes. This article derives contextualized hypotheses on how managerial networking affects the performance of Dutch local governments in the social care domain. Multilevel structural equation analyses of 3,257 social care clients in 71 local governments provide evidence that bilateral client-interest networking is more beneficial to the Social Support Act's overall goal of improving the level of social participation of clients than professional networking. Moreover, the effect is indirect: managerial networking with client interest groups improves the physical self-reliance of clients, enabling them to engage in social activities.     

Transparency by Conformity: A Field Experiment Evaluating Openness in Local Governments

Sunshine laws establishing government transparency are ubiquitous in the United States; however, the intended degree of openness is often unclear or unrealized. Although researchers have identified characteristics of government organizations or officials that affect the fulfillment of public records requests, they have not considered the influence that government organizations have on one another. This picture of independently acting organizations does not accord with the literature on diffusion in public policy and administration. This article presents a field experiment testing whether a county government's fulfillment of a public records request is influenced by the knowledge that its peers have already complied. The authors propose that knowledge of peer compliance should induce competitive pressures to comply and resolve legal ambiguity in favor of compliance. Findings indicate peer conformity affects both in the time to initial response and in the rate of complete request fulfillment.     

80后作家作品对大学生情商养成影响的调查与思考

80后作家作品倍受当代大学生群体追捧,本文以阀卷调查的方式,从分析研究对大学生影响深远的80后作家作品入手,通过当下大学生对80后作家作品的消费状况、阅读心理和阅读效果的调查,探究当下80后作家作品对大学生情商养成方面的影响。     

网络环境下大学生自主学习:问题及对策

网络技术的发展不仅极大地改变着人们的生产方式和生活方式,而且极大地改变着人们的思维方式和学习方式。网络环境下自主学习成为必需,但当前大学生在自主学习中存在的各种问题影响了大学生自主学习能力的培养和提高,必须正确应对和解决这些问题,才能从根本上培养大学生的自主学习意识和自主学习能力。     

An Organization of the Theoretical Perspectives in the Field of Civic and Political Participation: Contributions to Citizenship Education

This article provides a review of the theoretical perspectives on civic and political participation. Four distinct views were identified in the literature: (a) The orthodox view: “Civic and political participation are always positive”; (b) The broad view: “Civic and political participation are multidimensional”; (c) The qualitative view: “Civic and political participation are not always good”; and (d) The nonconformist view: “The need to redeem the political dimension of participation.” This article intends to sophisticate simplistic assumptions about civic and political participation and to provide an original organization of the theoretical perspectives in this field. Based on this analysis, this article presents suggestions for an alternative approach to citizenship education.     

Pricing in the nuclear power industry: Public or private interest?

This paper tests empirically the Ramsey version of the public-interest theory of regulation by examining the pricing practices in the nuclear power industry, using a 1985 cross-sectional sample of 40 electric utilities. Other researchers have avoided this segment of the industry because of difficulties with nuclear fuel data, or perceived differences in the underlying production function. We show that regulators respond to political influences according to the Stigler-Peltzman version of regulation and that Ramsey pricing cannot be validated, at least for the nuclear segment of the electric power industry.     

The Effects of Accountability Incentives in Early Childhood Education

In an effort to enhance the quality of early childhood education (ECE) at scale, nearly all U.S. states have recently adopted Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). These accountability systems give providers and parents information about program quality and create both reputational and financial incentives for program improvement. However, we know little about whether these accountability reforms operate as theorized. This study provides the first empirical evidence on this question using data from North Carolina, a state with a mature QRIS. Using a regression discontinuity design, we examine how assignment to a lower quality rating influenced subsequent outcomes of ECE programs. We find that programs responded to a lower quality rating with comparative performance gains, including improvement on a multi‐faceted measure of classroom quality. Programs assigned to a lower star rating also experienced enrollment declines, which is consistent with the hypothesis that parents responded to information about program quality by selectively enrolling away from programs with lower ratings. These effects were concentrated among programs that faced higher levels of competition from nearby providers.     

Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout

The powerful relationship between education and voter turnout is arguably the most well-documented and robust finding in American survey research. Yet the causal interpretation of this relationship remains controversial, with many authors suggesting that the apparent link between education and turnout is spurious. In contrast to previous work, which has relied on observational data to assess the effect of education on voter turnout, this article analyzes two randomized experiments and one quasi-experiment in which educational attainment was altered exogenously. We track the children in these experiments over the long term, examining their voting rates as adults. In all three studies, we find that exogenously induced changes in high school graduation rates have powerful effects on voter turnout rates. These results imply that the correlation between education and turnout is indeed causal. We discuss some of the pathways by which education may transmit its influence.     

高校设备招标采购领域的廉政风险及其防控措施

高校设备招标采购领域的廉政风险防控是一项永远在路上的系统工程,设备招标采购涉及环节多,廉政风险系数高,腐败现象频发,给高校的党风廉政建设带来了严峻考验。高校设备招标采购领域的廉政风险点主要有制度机制风险、业务流程风险、思想道德风险和采购监督管理风险。为促进高校设备招标采购工作规范、安全、高效运行,保障设备招标采购队伍廉洁从政,应通过健全招标采购管理规章制度、规范招标采购工作流程、创新采购监督管理模式、建立完善信息回访机制、提升招标采购人员整体素质、加强信息化建设等举措来加强防控。