The effects of cashing-out food stomps on household food use and the cost of issuing benefits

The recent report produced by Vice President Gore's committee on government efficiency highlights the importance of streamlining government operations. But often there are trade-offs between administrative streamlining and accomplishing substantive program objectives. This article examines these tradeoffs in the context of the Food Stamp Program, an important component of the United States' safety net for providing low-income assistance. We estimate impacts on both administrative costs and substantive outcomes (participant food expenditures) resulting from issuing program benefits in the form of checks rather than the usual food coupons. The findings, which are based on experimental tests of the cashout approach in parts of Alabama and California, suggest that significant cost savings can be attained through cashout but that these savings may be achieved at the cost of weakening the program's ability to achieve its substantive objective of encouraging food use.     

Black and white perceptions of party differences

Despite a comparative disadvantage vis-à-vis whites in resources like education that often are considered to lead to political sophistication, African Americans show signs of being a rather politically sophisticated group of people. Given that better educated people are much more likely than those with less education to see larger differences between Democrats and Republicans, the propensity for blacks to perceive larger differences between the parties, both in general and on specific issues, is striking. This puzzle is explained by the fact that education has a huge impact on seeing partisan differences for whites, but not for blacks. That this understanding of the structure of American politics has so completely penetrated black public opinion is quite remarkable. Strength of partisanship, and to a lesser degree, racial consciousness, appear to be largely responsible for blacks (particularly less educated blacks) perceiving such stark party differences.     

Federalism As an Ideal Political Order and an Objective for Constitutional Reform

Federalism is first examined as an ideal-type political orderas possibly emergent from initial constitutional agreement amongmembers of a prospective political community. This abstractedand nonhistorical analysis is followed by an examination ofthe possible applicability of the federalist ideal as the basisfor reform in specific historical-institutional settings. Thedirection of constitutional change toward effective federalismis discussed, with the devolution of political authority fromcentralized structures carefully distinguished from the limitedconcentration of authority from previously autonomous politicalunits.     

Books in review

He has also served as research director of the Guggenheim Foundation from 1972–1984. Among his books are Men in Groups; The Imperial Animal(with Robin Fox); The Manufacture of Evil;and The Pursuit of Pleasure.     

The influence of state-level economic conditions on the 1992 U.S. presidential election

Evidence is found that state-level economic conditions played a significant role in the defeat of George Bush in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. Evidence is also found which indicates that the entrance of Ross Perot into the race as an independent candidate was not instrumental in the Bush loss.     

Heterogenous demand for public goods: Behavior in the voluntary contributions mechanism

Numerous laboratory experiments have investigated the performance of several processes for providing public goods through voluntary contributions. This research has been able to identify features of the institution or environment which are reliably likely to produce outcomes “close” to the free riding outcome or “substantially” greater than the pessimistic prediction of standard models. One such feature is the “marginal per-capita return” (MPCR) from the public good. Various authors have altered MPCR between groups or for an entire group at the same time. The experiments reported here address a different question, “What would happen if, within a group, some persons faced a ‘high’ MPCR while others faced a ‘low’ MPCR?”     

An analysis of contributions and contributors to Public Choice and the Journal of Law and Economics; 1973–1987

Several conclusions may be drawn from the information we have presented here. First and without doubt, the University of Chicago is by far the most dominant force overall, and is particularly so with respect to the production of pages and papers published in the Journal of Law and Economics. The George Mason-Virginia Tech influence is strong with respect to Public Choice, but is not, in our opinion, dominant.One does not necessarily need to be located at a large, research-oriented school in order to publish in either journal, but these schools are the source of most contributions. This is particularly true of the JLE but significantly less so for PC. The source of contributions is very broad, but top 50 institutions account for the lion's share. Contributions by persons employed at foreign institutions are important, particularly for PC.     

Communication and connectedness in mother- and father-adolescent relationships

In Study 1, 605 adolescents estimated how well their parents knew them and said how much they cared what their parents thought about them. Sons and daughters judged that mothers knew them fairly well, but daughters judged that fathers did not know them so well. At the same time, statements of caring indicated high concern by sons and daughters for both parents. A supplemental result was that sons from white-collar families gave relatively low estimates of how much their mothers knew them and daughters from blue-collar families gave very low estimates of how much their fathers knew them. In Study 2, 52 adolescents from single-parent families and living with their mothers but not with their fathers also gave estimates for knowing and caring. Knowing followed the above pattern, with an expected lowering of estimates for fathers by sons and daughters. Further, estimates of caring declined especially for fathers by daughters. These results add to the growing literature that shows mother-adolescent and father-adolescent relationships contribute differentially to psychological development. The results seem especially relevant for adolescents' sex role development and constructed individuality as mediated through relationships with both parents.Received Ph.D. in experimental psychology from The Catholic University of America. Research interests are in social development, developmental theory, and the history of the concept of psychological development.Received Ph.D. in developmental psychology from The Catholic University of America. Research interests are in social development in adolescence and the effects of parental divorce on development.