Russian 1998–2007 TFP decomposed: some inspiration emerging from inherited Soviet legacy

Using a recently developed stochastic Translog production function frontier model, technical inefficiency, technological progress and returns to scale are examined during Russia’s 1998–2007 cyclical expansion at the branch level including both the market and non-market economy. The service sector plus high skill-intensive goods production is shown to be relatively more efficient than traditional Soviet era goods sectors. Technical efficiency decreases markedly over the expansion while technological progress is quite high (23 %) suggesting an expanding frontier leaving many branches behind as the economy adjusts away from the early transition era. Much greater attention to human capital policies are suggested to foster intensive growth in an environment of low oil and gas prices.     

Body Politics with Feeling: The Power of the Clothesline Project

The Clothesline Project uses t-shirt art to address the issue of violence against women. Others have argued that the Clothesline Project empowers women in general and female victims of violence in particular. In this article we attempt to deepen this argument, first, by tying it to the existing "faces of power" literature. Using this literature, we argue that the Clothesline Project empowers by creating a public space for political action, offering an alternative communicative medium, educating in a context of dismissal and silence, and contributing to social and cultural transformation. Second, we develop the notion of affective power and argue that it amplifies the practical power of the Clothesline Project.     

Big Five Personality Traits and Responses to Persuasive Appeals: Results from Voter Turnout Experiments

We examine whether Big Five personality traits are associated with heterogeneous responses to commonly used Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) appeals in both a survey and a field experiment. The results suggest that Big Five personality traits affect how people respond to the costs and benefits of voting highlighted in GOTV appeals. Our evidence also suggests that one trait—Openness—is associated with broad persuasibility, while others shape responses to particular types of messages. In some cases the conditioning effects of Big Five traits are substantial. For example, in the one-voter households (HHs) included in our field experiment, we find that a mailer that raised the specter of social sanctions increased the likelihood of voting by a statistically greater amount among those scoring high on Openness. The findings constitute an important step forward in understanding how core personality traits shape responses to various aspects of the act of voting.     

DNA‐Based Identification of Forensically Important Lucilia (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in the Continental United States*

Abstract: Correct species identification is critical when dipteran larvae are used for inference of the postmortem interval. To facilitate DNA‐based identification of forensically important flies of the genus Lucilia in the continental United States, we develop a vouchered reference collection and DNA sequence database. A total of 122 specimens were collected for nine of the 10 species of Lucilia reported to occur in the continental United States. Using the polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing, data were obtained for an 1100‐bp region of the mitochondrial gene encoding cytochrome oxidase I (COI). We consider a species suitable for DNA‐based identification if it is exclusively monophyletic in >95% of bootstrap pseudoreplicate phylogenetic analyses. Seven of the nine species meet that criterion. Two species (Lucilia coeruleiviridis and Lucilia mexicana) share COI sequence and cannot be distinguished using our reference database. We conclude that DNA‐based identification is likely to be successful for the other seven species.     

In and out of prison: Do importation factors predict all forms of misconduct or just the more serious ones?

Purpose

This study was designed to investigate whether importation factors predict all forms of prison misconduct and recidivism or just the more serious forms.

Methods

Six importation factors were examined: age, marital status, street gang affiliation, criminal thinking, prior drug abuse, and criminal history. Count data for two high severity infractions (assault, escape), two high-moderate severity infractions (fighting, possession of intoxicants), two moderate severity infractions (refusing programs, stealing), two high severity crimes (assault, robbery), and two moderate severity crimes (DUI, failure to appear) were regressed onto these six importation variables in samples of 2488 (prison infractions) and 1101 (recidivism) male inmates.

Results

The importation variables successfully predicted the four infractions that were rated high and high-moderate in severity and the two crimes that were rated high severity but not the two infractions or two crimes that were rated as moderate in severity.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that importation factors are differentially predictive of more serious forms of infraction and recidivism and that the importation model may have as much to offer the study of community adjustment and recidivism as it does the study of institutional adjustment and disciplinary infractions as part of the more general theoretical construct of criminal propensity.     

Pay-for-performance in local governments: the views of personnel directors

This article provides new information about the use of pay-for-performance in local governments by presenting findings from a national survey of personnel directors in municipalities and counties. The findings show that most respondents view pay-for- performance as a useful tool, even though it is only used in a minority of local governments. An in-depth analysis of 40 possible benefits and problems showed that PFP benefits are relatively undefined and that users do experience some potentially serious problems, though these problems appear less serious than the existing literature would predict.     

The county perspective on intergovernmental relations and government capacity

This analysis examines the issues of state and federal responsiveness and state and local government capacity from the perspective of county officials. Using data from a national survey of county administrators, elected executives, and commission chairpersons, the study finds that county officials are: (1) very confident of their own capacities to respond to local problems, but not as confident of local fiscal capacities; (2) very concerned about the responsiveness of state governments, particularly state legislatures, to local needs; and (3) not confident of the responsiveness of federal government to local needs either, but desirous of federal fiscal support. The assessments of state responsiveness appear related to state efforts to expand the policy making, taxing, and borrowing authority of their county governments.     

Do Perceptions of Ballot Secrecy Influence Turnout? Results from a Field Experiment

Although the secret ballot has been secured as a legal matter in the United States, formal secrecy protections are not equivalent to convincing citizens that they may vote privately and without fear of reprisal. We present survey evidence that those who have not previously voted are particularly likely to voice doubts about the secrecy of the voting process. We then report results from a field experiment where we mailed information about protections of ballot secrecy to registered voters prior to the 2010 general election. Consistent with our survey data, we find that these letters increased turnout for registered citizens without records of previous turnout, but they did not appear to influence the behavior of citizens who had previously voted. The increase in turnout of more than three percentage points (20%) for those without previous records of voting is notably larger than the effect of a standard get‐out‐the‐vote mailing for this group. Overall, these results suggest that although the secret ballot is a long‐standing institution in the United States, beliefs about this institution may not match the legal reality.