Have Cities Shifted to Outcome‐Oriented Performance Reporting?—A Content Analysis of City Budgets

“Outcome” orientation has been emphasized in performance measurement and reporting in recent years. Using budgetary documents of the largest cities in the United States, this paper analyzes more than 4,800 performance measures reported by 21 cities to show that clear progress toward outcome‐oriented performance measurement has been made. It also shows that the selection of performance measures differs among types of municipal services and is driven partly by professionalism in city management and the influence of professional organizations. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings and potential future improvements of performance reporting.     

Empirical Experiments in Public Reporting: Reconstructing the Results of Survey Research, 1941–42

During the first half of the 20th century, public administration developed a normative theory of public reporting. It called on government managers to contribute to an informed citizenry through regular reports to the public, especially annual reports. However, in the only known instance when this theory was subjected to comparative empirical research, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted some methodologically credible experiments during the early 1940s. Her results demonstrated the ineffectiveness of annual reports. However, rather than adjusting to accommodate this empirical information, leading organizations ignored them and continued pushing for annual reports. With the test results never published in an academic journal and the student's dissertation left incomplete, they were soon lost and forgotten. Public administration's interest in public reporting declined during the second half of the 20th century, perhaps because of the lack of an empirically based approach.     

Reinventing government through on‐line citizen involvement in the developing world: a case study of taipei city mayor's e‐mail box in Taiwan

Since the 1980s, a global administrative reform movement is reshaping the relationship between citizens and state. A major concern is how government can be more responsive to the governed through citizen participation. However, the more citizens participate, the more costly it is to govern. And the application of new information and communication technology (ICT) seems to be a cure for this limitation. In this research, authors take the Taipei City Mayor's e‐mail‐box (TCME) in Taiwan as a case to illustrate the complex relationships among citizen involvement, e‐government and public management. After a series of empirical investigations, the authors show that although ICT can reduce the cost of citizen involvement in governing affairs, it cannot increase citizens' satisfaction with government activities without reforming the bureaucratic organisation, regulatory structure, and managerial capacities of the public sector. The results could be helpful to public managers in planning and evaluating online governmental services in the developing countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Population data for 11 STR loci in northeast China Han

Allele frequencies for the nine tetrameric short tandem repeats (STR) loci D3S1358, vWA, FGA, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, and D7S820 (AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus PCR amplification kit, PE Applied Biosystems) and two pentameric STR loci Penta D and Penta E (PowerPlex 16 system, Promega Corporation) were determined in a population sample of unrelated China Han.     

Cadaver dog and handler team capabilities in the recovery of buried human remains in the southeastern United States

The detection of human remains that have been deliberately buried to escape detection is a problem for law enforcement. Sometimes the cadaver dog and handler teams are successful, while other times law enforcement and cadaver dog teams are frustrated in their search. Five field trials tested the ability of four cadaver dog and handler teams to detect buried human remains. Human and animal remains were buried in various forested areas during the summer months near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The remains ranged in decomposition from fresh to skeletonized. Cadaver dogs detected with varying success: buried human remains at different stages of decomposition, buried human remains at different depths, and buried decomposed human and animal remains. The results from these trials showed that some cadaver dogs were able to locate skeletonized remains buried at a significant depth. Fresh and skeletonized remains were found equally by the cadaver dogs along with some caveats. Dog handlers affected the reliability of the cadaver dog results. Observations and videotape of the cadaver dogs during field trials showed that they were reliable in finding buried human remains.     

Publication Bias Reconsidered

In political science and many other disciplines, statisticallysignificant results—rejections of the null hypothesis—areachieved more frequently in published than in unpublished studies.Such "publication bias" is generally seen as the consequenceof a widespread prejudice against statistically nonsignificantresults. I argue that evidence of such a prejudice is in surprisinglyshort supply and that publication bias can occur even in theabsence of such a prejudice and even if the review process isfunctioning perfectly. More importantly, publication bias maystem from dutiful application of standards of scientific inquiryrather than from irrational prejudice.     

Discretion and Politicization in EU Competition Policy: The Case of Merger Control

In a world where goods and services (but also people, capital and ideas) are increasingly ignoring national borders, competition policy has emerged as a highly salient issue at the heart of international trade discussions. Aspects of competition policy, from cartels and monopolies to state aids and the liberalization of the utilities, have become a regular feature in the pages of the financial and legal press and have become identified as a central element in any government's policy towards industry and its drive for competitiveness. This article focuses on European Union merger control and although appreciative of the dominance of economics and law in competition policy, stresses the political dimension to competition policy. A government and public administration perspective is essential. This is in evidence in the type of regime, the commitment to enforcing the law, the role of discretion and issues such as transparency and democracy. The example of merger control is used to illustrate how the European Commission (EC) has emerged and operates as a genuinely federal actor in determining and shaping merger policy throughout the EU. In short, this article accounts for policy development, the decision making process and in particular the degree to which discretion and politicization underpin one of the most crucial aspects of economic regulation.     

The Lawrence Inquiry – Incompetence, Corruption, and Institutional Racism

The inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in South London in 1993, which reported earlier this year, documents a catalogue of police incompetence and 'institutional racism'. The report also puts forward a number of far-reaching recommendations, echoing long-standing demands by the black community, for the reform of policing in Britain. Yet, in its approach to 'institutional racism', the report can be seen to have downplayed the need for a critical re-examination of policing policies and priorities at a strategic level. As a result, many of its key recommendations, in such areas as stop and search and the policing of racist crime, may prove ineffective. The government's commitment to 'anti-racism', following the Lawrence report, is also called into question by its subsequent decision to further restrict the rights of defendants and the ability of black people to defend themselves against racist police practices through the criminal justice system.     

A systematic analysis of secondary DNA transfer

The Nature letter by R. van Oorschot and M. Jones (1) addressed two topics: the primary transfer of DNA from person to person or to various objects, and the secondary transfer of DNA through an intermediary. Forensic scientists have described the primary transfer of DNA and other biological evidence for many years. However, the authors also reported detecting secondary transfer of DNA from an object to a person's hands, which could adversely affect DNA typing in the forensic context. The prospect of secondary transfer raises questions of interest to both the legal and forensic communities. Therefore, we sought to evaluate parameters potentially leading to secondary DNA transfer. Our data do not support the conclusion that secondary transfer will compromise DNA typing results under typical forensic conditions.     

Slowing monetary growth since 1984: A public choice explanation

Until about 1984, the U.S. monetary base typically grew at an accelerating rate. Since then, that acceleration has stopped. Modern evidence suggests that the Federal Reserve responds to political pressure. We present empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that reduced monetary base growth reflects the fact that the political advantages of price inflation have been significantly reduced by the tax indexation provisions of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981.