Status polarization of social welfare attitudes

This paper tests two competing theories of status polarization of social welfare attitudes. One theory, which can broadly be termedsocial-psychological, sees status polarization as a function of identification with social groups. The other, which can be termedeconomic, sees policy preferences as a function of the individual's expected utility from various policies. Using CPS data for the years 1956–1984, we find that the utility maximizing hypothesis has much more explanatory power for the middle and late 1970s. Social class identification, on the other hand, rivals utility maximization as an explanation of policy preferences during the years 1956–1964 and shows a slight resurgence in 1982 and 1984. These results suggest little prospect for a revival of the New Deal party coalitions, barring strong political leadership that defines issues in class terms and polarizes the electorate.     

The Effects of Juror Anonymity on Jury Verdicts

This study examined the effects of anonymity on jurors' verdicts and on jurors' feelings of accountability for their jury's verdicts. Twenty four-person anonymous juries and 20 four-person nonanonymous juries rendered individual and group verdicts for three student defendants charged with selling drugs on a school campus. When unanimous guilty verdicts were reached, juries imposed one of five punishments. Finally, jurors completed postdeliberation opinion and accountability questionnaires. As predicted, anonymous juries showed a higher rate of conviction (70%) than did nonanonymous juries (40%) when the evidence against the defendant was strong, supporting the hypothesis that anonymity would have a greater effect for situations in which there was relatively strong evidence of the defendant's guilt. Anonymous juries imposed the harshest punishment (expulsion) significantly more often than did nonanonymous juries. Contrary to predictions from differential self-awareness theory, anonymous juries did not report feeling less accountable than did nonanonymous juries. However, anonymous juries did see the process as significantly more fair than did identifiable juries.     

The Economics of Cruel and Unusual Punishment

It has sometimes been argued that one way to reduce the costs of law enforcement would be to reduce the probability of detection and conviction (hence saving those costs), while at the same time increasing the size of the punishment. Following this strategy would keep the expected costs (to a risk neutral criminal) of committing a crime constant and hence keep the deterrence level constant; it would have the benefit, though, of reducing costs to the rest of society.There are some well-known objections to such a policy. One such objection deals with marginal deterrence: A convicted murderer serving a life sentence with no chance of parole in a jurisdiction which bans capital punishment has nothing to lose from killing a prison guard—there is no marginal deterrence to the commission of a more serious crime or any additional crime for that matter. In fact, so long as there remains any upper limit to the amount of punishment that can be inflicted upon a convicted criminal, the only ways to create some type of marginal deterrence are to reduce the punishments for less serious crimes, which will either reduce the deterrence of those less serious crimes, or alternatively to require the use of more of society's scarce resources to increase the probabilities of apprehension and conviction.It is possible to reduce this marginal deterrence problem, however, by practicing cruel and unusual punishment on perpetrators of serious crimes, i.e. by raising the limits of allowable punishment. Anecdotal evidence suggests this practice is followed unofficially with child molesters and killers of prison guards and hence provides some additional deterrence against these crimes.Despite the theoretical validity of this argument, our society has chosen to impose a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Furthermore, over time we seem to have lowered the threshold of what is considered cruel and unusual. Following Dr. Pangloss, the concluding section of the paper examines why rational maximizers would choose to give up this additional potential deterrence. The explanations depend upon an assumed positive income elasticity of demand for humanitarianism or for insurance against the costs of punishing the innocent. While there are some reasons to accept the humanitarianism argument, the insurance argument seems more persuasive.     

ECONOMIC POLICY ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH BEACH RENOURISHMENT

Coastal beaches are a source of considerable recreational activity, but are also eroding at a rapid rate. Since beach resources are common property, there is no organized market to determine economic benefits from recreational use. Through a willingness to pay equation for beach use, this article demonstrates how proposed beach renourishment policy can be evaluated within a benefit-cost analysis framework. Benefits are estimated as the incremental willingness to pay per day for a larger beach width which is translated into annualized benefits. Annualize cost of achieving maximum benefits are calculated from a cost function. Given the existing cost of beach renourishment, it was found that all beaches in Florida that are overcrowded (i.e., had less than 112 square feet per person/day) could be renourished at a benefit-cost ratio greater than unity. In Florida, beach renourishment policy for overcrowded beaches yields more economic benefits than costs. However, this technique does not lend itself to policy analyses of uncrowded beaches that are undergoing considerable erosion.     

Ethics and the psychiatric determination of competency to be executed

For the last several centuries, most jurisdictions using capital punishment have had formal or informal rules that prohibit the execution of the mentally ill. In this article, the procedures for such exclusions in Florida are examined. The article begins by attempting to answer the question of why legislators and judges, at least nominally, have prohibited the execution of the mentally ill. Next, Florida's criteria for defining and procedures for excluding mentally ill prisoners are examined and found to be vague. We then turn attention to the ethical problems created by the statute and its implementation that face the participating psychiatrists and the profession. These problems are compounded because the physician's findings are not acted upon by politically neutral authorities and the inmate has no opportunity to challenge the findings with his own panel of experts. Finally, since any exclusion of the mentally ill from execution is temporary and the patient will be executed if he recovers, the dilemmas facing the treatment staff if the death sentence is not commuted to life imprisonment before treatment are discussed.     

Apprenticeship and the transfer of technical know-how

This paper is based on a study of apprenticeship, a long renowned institution for transferring technical know-how. Case studies of apprenticeship led us to define know-how as: a commercially viable integration of proficient technique gained by practicing the work process of an expert and contextual knowledge gained by observing and questioning other workers. One implication of this definition is its stress on know-how transfer teams that consist of work process designers, practice tutors, and transfer manager. A second implication calls for explicit planning of know-how adaptation when new technology makes work processes obsolete. A final implication for researchers in technology transfer stresses the integration of individual know-how into community systems that put technology to work.