The political determination of intergovernmental grants in Australia

Intergovernmental grants have been conventionally explained on the basis of either equity/efficiency and/or institutional considerations. This paper seeks to model Australian intergovernmental grants by including both traditional public finance variables and public choice influences; that is, grants are used by federal government politicians to purchase political capital, thereby enhancing their own chances of reelection. The models employed in this paper are tested for six Australian states for the period 1981–82 to 1991–92 using unsystematic grant transfers. The results provide support for these public choice considerations, and highlight the importance of incorporating institutional factors and controlling for misspecification in the error structure in estimates of this type.     

Shooting Felons: Law,Practice, Official Culture,and Perceptions of Morality1

Until a change in the law in 1967 felons might be shot in order to prevent escape from lawful custody; their death counted as justifiable homicide. Shooting escaping felons came to be particularly associated with Dartmoor Prison, where outside working parties were accompanied by armed guards until the 1950s. But many years before this, administrative action had been directed towards ensuring that fatal shootings should not occur; the last such incident took place in the nineteenth century. This article traces the history of the relationship between formal law and administrative practice.     

Roles of neighborhood race and status in the middle stages of juror selection

This study investigated impacts of neighborhood race, status, and stability on the likelihood that summoned citizens would appear at the courthouse for jury duty using a full year of geocoded summoning data from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (n = 256,204). A theoretical model based on jury selection models and the sociology of settlement patterns connected potential juror yield or turnout with neighborhood stability, and racial and status composition. Multilevel models using census block groups as neighborhoods and controlling for spatial autocorrelation found, as predicted, that yield varied significantly across neighborhoods, and was lower in lower status neighborhoods, less stable neighborhoods, more predominantly Asian neighborhoods, and more predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods. As predicted by work on neighborhood integration, effects of African-American racial composition depended on the stage of neighborhood integration. Overall, the net effect of increasing African-American neighborhood racial composition was to increase yield. A significant spatial lag effect suggested localized dynamics operating beyond neighborhood boundaries.     

Assimilation and intermarriage for U.S. immigrant groups, 1880–1990

Marriage outside one's ethnic or racial group constitutes the ultimate test of assimilation. In this research, we offer a new test of theories of assimilation by examining the choice of marriage partners among Mexican Americans, several European immigrant groups, and natives. Data from the 1880 to 1990 Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) are employed, augmented by additional identification procedures developed for the Hispanic population. Assimilation measured by intermarriage rates varies by ethnic origin with striking affinity in historical patterns for Italians and Mexicans. Density and location of ethnic settlement, sex ratios, and generational mix played a role. Continued immigration marks certain groups, such as Mexicans, as structurally distinct.     

'Enabling' And The 1993 Local Government Act In New South Wales

Different conceptions of 'enablement' provide a framework for the analysis of the reform of local government in New South Wales. The enabling local authority is one that contracts out to the commercial and not-for-profit sectors, adopts a consumerist approach to the recipients of services, engages in strategic planning, influences other organizations, stimulates pluralist collectivism, and facilitates participation. In New South Wales the Local Government Act of 1993, though potentially enabling, especially in the delegation of a general competence, has had less effect than might have been expected. However, local government has traditionally been enabling in the narrow sense as well as in the sense of employing interesting forms of participative community management and in seeking to influence the decisions of other organizations which are part of local governance. Some councils are developing community plans to strengthen these relationships.