An aggregative model for municipal economic planning

The growth and increasing complexity of municipal governments have been phenomenal in recent years. Thus, economic planning of the municipality has become one of the most difficult administrative functions of local government officials. Yet economic systems analysis of cities has been generally neglected by economists and management scientists. This paper presents a methodology for the effective long-range economic planning of a municipal government. More specifically, it applies the goal programming model to design optimum aggregative model for municipal economic planning.     

Imprisonment v. the death penalty as a deterrent to murder

In this investigation we examine the simultaneous deterrent effect of imprisonment and executions on homicide. Examination of the census years 1920 to 1960 shows the certainty of execution and homicide rates to be generally unrelated. Also contrary to the deterrence hypothesis, the significant negative bivariate relationship between the severity of prison sentence and homicide rates found here and in earlier investigations is shown to be a statistical artifact resulting from a failure to control for the effects of alternative legal sanctions and sociodemographic factors. While neither imprisonment nor executions are found to have a significant deterrent effect on homicide, attention is called to some limitations of this investigation and the need for additional research.