The Impact of Child‐Parent Psychotherapy on Child Dependency Court Outcomes

Although parental compliance with court orders in child welfare cases is key to achieving physical parent‐child reunification and successful case closure, little research has examined how parent‐child relationship‐focused rehabilitative services uniquely influence case outcomes. This project fills this gap by investigating links between court ordering of and parental participation in Child‐Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) with court outcomes. Data were obtained from court records of 448 court‐involved parents. Hierarchical regressions revealed that greater participation in CPP led to reunification and successful case closure but not faster case closure. Courtroom professionals should consider parent‐child relationship‐based therapies as tools for achieving child welfare goals.     

Legislative Transparency and Credit Risk

Open governance requirements are designed to improve accountability, which implies that transparent governments are more trustworthy stewards of their publicly invested power. However, transparency may also reduce institutional effectiveness and inhibit political compromise, diminishing the capacity to manage resources responsibly. We assess empirical support for these competing perspectives in the context of American state legislatures, many of which have become exempt from state sunshine laws in recent decades. We leverage variation in the timing of these legislative exemptions to identify the effect of removing transparency in a crucial governing institution on investors’ risk perceptions of states’ general obligation bonds. Our analysis of these data during the period 1995–2010 suggests that removing legislative transparency reduces state credit risk. We conclude that while openness in government may be normatively desirable, shielding legislative proceedings from public view may actually be better for states’ debt repayment capacity, improving their overall fiscal health.     

论完善个人信息保护法制的几个问题

个人信息保护是信息化过程中而产生的问题,在国外有关国家和地区早已掀起了个人信息保护立法的浪潮。鉴于此,本文立足于世界有关国家和地区个人信息立法的情况,对其中涉及逻辑基础、适用范围、原则及个人信息主体的权利、适用例外等问题进行了探讨。     

The structured value referendum: Eliciting preferences for environmental policy alternatives

This article introduces a voting-based method for eliciting public preferences, referred to as a structured value referendum (SVR). The process for developing and implementing an SVR is viewed as a version of public sector decision analysis, in which problem-structuring activities are crucial, and preference is elicited on a large scale by voters selecting among specified alternatives. The present study discusses the steps involved in developing an SVR, drawing on the problem-structuring approaches of decision analysis. Next, the advantages offered by SVR are discussed and compared to standard preference elicitation techniques or conventional referendums. A rationale for the use of SVR as an approach to preference elicitation is provided. Political judgments that differentiate SVR from other elicitation approaches are considered; the nature of the preference judgments and the required level of measurement are discussed. Concluding sections of the study discuss the implementation of an SVR for a regional government in British Columbia, in which 34,000 people voted to select among wastewater treatment alternatives for managing a potential environmental risk.     

Public capital stock and interstate variations in manufacturing efficiency

This study focuses on the role of public capital stock in contributing to interstate differences in productive efficiency in manufacturing. Our motivation is to assess the role of public capital as a source of persistent regional variations in efficiency, and thus determine if public infrastructure policies might reasonably be expected to alter the competitive environment of a state's manufacturing sector. We use a stochastic frontier production function model, explicitly incorporating infrastructure capital, to examine the relative performance of the aggregate manufacturing sector across states and over time. We calculate an index of productive efficiency and estimate the determinants of statewide variations in it. These results show that variations in per capita infrastructure stocks significantly affect manufacturing efficiency. Considering the behavior of public capital as both a direct and an indirect input furthers our understanding of the role of infrastructure and its implications for regional economic development policies.     

A research context for welfare reform

Responsibility for the social safety net continues to “devolve” from the federal to state governments, and many states are now confronting the dilemmas inherent in redesigning welfare—dilemmas that faced Congress, too, as it sought to impose new conditions on receipt of public assistance. This article argues that reforming AFDC is difficult because the public has conflicting goals: putting welfare recipients to work; protecting their children from severe poverty; and controlling costs. For 25 years, reformers have viewed requiring welfare recipients to participate in work-promoting programs as uniquely able to balance these goals. Numerous studies have shown that this approach modestly increased employment and reduced welfare costs. More substantial gains have been achieved by some “mixed-strategy” programs, which stress immediate job entry for some recipients and employment-directed education or training for others. Many people remain on the rolls, however, prompting some policymakers to argue for substituting work-for-benefits or community service work (“workfare”) for welfare after a certain period of time, and others for ending all support. The limited knowledge about work-for-benefits programs suggests that, in contrast to work-promoting activities, this approach ultimately costs money. The research record confirms that there are no easy answers in welfare reform, and that states will have to weigh the trade-offs in considering alternative strategies.     

Detracking America's schools: Equity at zero cost?

Schools across the country are ending the practice of grouping students based on ability, in part, because of research indicating that tracking hurts low-ability students without helping students of other ability levels. Using a nationally representative survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, (NCES) we reexamine the impact of tracking on high school student achievement through the estimation of a standard education production function. This approach allows us to control for the possibility that track is correlated with factors such as class size and teacher education. In addition, we address the possibility that there are unobserved student or school characteristics that affect both achievement and track placement. Our results indicate that abolishing tracking in America's schools would have a large positive impact on achievement for students currently in the lower tracks, but that this increase in achievement would come at the expense of students in upper-track classes.     

Longitudinal Discrepancy in Adolescent Aggressive Behavior Problems: Differences by Reporter and Contextual Factors

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Little is known about the developmental course of informant discrepancies in adolescent aggressive behavior problems, though whether aggression increases or...     

高校治理体系和治理能力现代化视域下教代会改革创新 ：理论逻辑与实践指向

从党的十八届三中全会到十九届四中全会,国家治理体系和治理能力现代化从理论内涵到实践路径不断得以明确,为高校治理体系和治理能力现代化指明了方向、提出了要求。民主治理是新时期高校治理现代化的重要方面之一,因此,教代会工作的改革创新也就成为了这一目标下的必然要求。本研究在论证教代会改革创新的理论逻辑必然性的基础上,通过重新审视高校教代会的工作现状和改革创新面临的困境,探讨了加强党对教代会工作的全面领导、完善教代会改革创新的运行和保障机制,以及夯实教代会民主治校工作中源头参与的实效举措这三方面的治理实践指向。