Does inconvenience explain low take‐up? Evidence from unemployment insurance

Application inconvenience is one popular explanation for why many individuals do not receive the social benefits for which they are eligible. Applications take time and some individuals may decide that the financial benefits do not outweigh these time costs. This paper investigates this explanation using cross‐state variation in administrative changes that made applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits substantially more convenient over the past decade. We find that the introduction of phone‐ and Internet‐based claiming did not have an appreciable impact on overall UI take‐up, nor did it lead to a shift toward recipients that are higher income or likely to be receiving the maximum benefit amount. These findings are inconsistent with a time‐ and transaction‐cost explanation for low take‐up, since remote UI claiming is less time intensive. This suggests that reducing application barriers alone may not be an effective tool for increasing program participation. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Does Age Matter?

How does age influence public opinion regarding controversial social issues? The issues at stake are: attitudes toward Muslims, Jews, Affirmative Action, immigration, abortion, and gays and lesbians. While we understand the importance of including opinions toward African-Americans among these categories, we found little data on opinions toward this group by age. We also discuss opinions toward Darwin’s theory of evolution and stem cell research since they were issues that pitted science against religion in American society and were important topics of intense political discussion. The selection of issues is based on the importance of these issues in public debate and electoral politics. A number of these issues, mainly those related to opinions toward religious and racial groups, reflect the development of American society and draw lines of possible disagreements and social cleavages.     

Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization?

Both pundits and scholars have blamed increasing levels of partisan conflict and polarization in Congress on the effects of partisan gerrymandering. We assess whether there is a strong causal relationship between congressional districting and polarization. We find very little evidence for such a link. First, we show that congressional polarization is primarily a function of the differences in how Democrats and Republicans represent the same districts rather than a function of which districts each party represents or the distribution of constituency preferences. Second, we conduct simulations to gauge the level of polarization under various "neutral" districting procedures. We find that the actual levels of polarization are not much higher than those produced by the simulations. We do find that gerrymandering has increased the Republican seat share in the House; however, this increase is not an important source of polarization.     

Does Political Advertising Persuade?

Well over $1 billion was spent on televised political advertising in the U.S. in 2004. Given the ubiquity of the 30 second spot, one might presume that ads must affect viewers’ vote choices. Somewhat surprisingly, though, scholars have yet to make much progress in confirming this claim. In this paper, we leverage a comprehensive dataset that tracks political ads in the nation’s top media markets and a survey of presidential and U.S. Senate voters in 2004. We ask whether exposure to presidential and Senate advertising influences voters’ evaluations of candidates and the choices that they make at the ballot box. In the end, we find considerable evidence that advertising persuades—and that its impact varies depending on the characteristics of the viewer.

Does supported employment work?

Providing employment‐related services, including supported employment through job coaches, has been a priority in federal policy since the enactment of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act in 1984. We take advantage of a unique panel data set of all clients served by the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs between 1999 and 2005 to investigate whether job coaching leads to stable employment in community settings. The data contain information on individual characteristics, such as IQ and the presence of emotional and behavioral problems, that are likely to affect both employment propensity and likelihood of receiving job coaching. Our results show that unobserved individual characteristics and endogeneity strongly bias naive estimates of the effects of job coaching. However, even after correcting for these biases, an economically and statistically significant treatment effect remains. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Does Anthropology Still Exist?

In response to Roger Sandall’s critical analysis, the problematic notion of culture in modern anthropology is examined in terms of cultural resistance to globalization. The example of McDonaldization is taken to be a potent instance of cultural globalization. Three conditions for successful cultural resistance to cultural standardization are proposed. The first is cultural in the shape of a strong aesthetic tradition of (national) resistance. This dimension involves some degree of cultural conservatism. The second condition is political, namely a viable and robust civil society that provides the basis for decisive (cultural) leadership. The third element is the involvement of the state in policies that promote and sustain a national heritage. Without this state involvement, global market conditions will largely shape the erosion of local and national cultures. Without a political response to cultural globalization, global market commodities will in all likelihood oust local goods and services. Those societies that lack both a strong aesthetic and an effective political leadership can offer little effective resistance to negative globalization and their local traditions are quickly destroyed. This argument is then examined in terms of a number of societies especially Turkey, China and Japan where the erosion of national cultures is proceeding rapidly. These critical assertions against global standardization require a strong first-order notion of culture which modern anthropology appears to be unable or unwilling to provide.