Explaining differences in productive efficiency: An application to Belgian municipalities

The purpose of this paper is to measure and explain variations in productive efficiency of municipal governments in Belgium. Technical efficiency is evaluated using a non-parametric method based on the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) reference technology. We first calculate input, output, and graph Farrell efficiency measures for a cross-section of all 589 Belgian municipalities. In a second stage of the analysis we explain the calculated differences in efficiency in terms of variables related to the structural characteristics of municipalities and to the institutional environment.     

The racial wealth gap,financial aid,and college access

We examine how the racial wealth gap interacts with financial aid in American higher education to generate a disparate impact on college access and outcomes. Retirement savings and home equity are excluded from the formula used to estimate the amount a family can afford to pay. All else equal, omitting those assets mechanically increases the financial aid available to families that hold them. White families are more likely to own those assets and in larger amounts. We document this issue and explore its relationship with observed differences in college attendance, types of institutions attended, degrees attained, and education debt using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We show that this treatment of assets provides an implicit subsidy worth thousands of dollars annually to students from families with above-median incomes. White students receive larger subsidies relative to Black students and Hispanic students with similar family incomes, and this gap in subsidies is associated with disadvantages in educational advancement and student loan levels. It may explain 10 percent to 15 percent of white students’ advantage in these outcomes relative to Black students and Hispanic students.     

Review of Marilyn French,Shakespeare's division of experience †

SHAKESPEARE'S DIVISION OF EXPERIENCE by Marilyn French. (Summit Books — Simon and Schuster, 1981). 376pp., $15.95.     

On Jordan Peterson,Postmodernism, and PoMo-Bashing

Jordan Peterson says that postmodernists say no interpretation is better than another. I would no sooner identify Peterson’s adversaries as those who have been misled by “postmodernism” than I would identify them as misled by “sustainability,” “diversity,” “multiculturalism,” or “intersectionality.” Such fare is mainly symptomatic. “Postmodern” invocations are often like “sustainability” invocations: inessential. This piece is not a defense of postmodernism. It is a critique of PoMo-bashing.     

Ideology in the Era of Xi Jinping

Journal of Chinese Political Science - After 1978, Maoism as a living mass ideological and social force in the People’s Republic of China largely died away. The Party state’s legitimacy...