Books in review

the author of numberous works in U.S. Jewish history and culture. Her most recent book is The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture, 1880–1950.     

A Marx for the twenty-first century?

Among his many books are The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification; Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science; Three Sociological Traditions; Sociology Since Mid-Century: Essays in Theory Cumulation;and Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science.     

Public Preferences for Program Tradeoffs: Community Values for Budget Priorities

A growing literature concerns techniques to improve community-based reforms and citizen-centered governance in order to reinforce the trust in democratic government. We analyze a contingent choice technique that systematically collects information about individual citizens' relative values of a set of state public programs. Individual citizens are asked to allocate a fixed increment of public funds. Individuals reveal their marginal willingness to trade off (MWTTO) additions in one program for additions in another. MWTTO values provide program rankings and information concerning the relative strength of citizen preferences. An example of a contingent choice survey is described.