Influencing retirement behavior: A key issue for social security

Recent trends toward earlier retirement threaten future supplies of labor and the financial stability of many of our public and private pension systems. One of the few federal efforts now in place to reverse this trend has been the 1977 law outlawing mandatory retirement before age 70 for most American workers. This legislation by itself will have little effect on retirement patterns, because strong financial incentives to retire remain imbedded in the system. Changes in the Social Security Act enacted this year begin to recognize these incentives but are highly controversial and at best will not begin to go into effect until 1990. To be successful, efforts of policymakers to increase work at older ages must focus on the financial incentives at the heart of retirement plans rather than on merely attempting to weaken mandatory retirement constraints.     

Computerizing Accounting Systems in Developing Bureaucracies: Lessons from Kenya

Kenya's agriculture ministries are reforming their accounting systems and the reform includes computerization. This article examines the impact of computers on accounts and the lessons that can be drawn from Kenya about building computerized accounting systems.
Four propositions emerge about the impact of computers on the accounting systems. First and surprisingly, the initial impact of computers is indirect. Their primary impact is to strengthen the manual accounts which the ministries continue to rely upon. Second, computers promote effectiveness reforms by changing procedures, rather than efficiency reforms by accelerating the throughput of data with existing procedures. Third, computers do not initially promote document processing but do improve data processing. Fourth, computers do promote rudimentary analysis.
One conclusion from the Kenya case is that modular implementation of computerized accounting is helpful. Implementing modules rather than an integrated system means that accounting reforms can begin without waiting for lengthy procedural reforms. Modular implementation also facilitates agency involvement in the design of the system.     

Procedural fairness and organizational commitment under conditions of growth and decline

We surveyed employees from seven relocating firms undergoing either an expansion or decline. Employees' judgments of procedural fairnes regarding the decision procedures used to implement the change showed a stronger effect on normative commitment for sites undergoing decline than for those undergoing growth. Procedural fairness concerns therefore seem to be more important to employees experiencing organizational decline. The finding has implications for research and for the management of organizational decline.     

A Note on the Use of County-Level UCR Data

County-level crime data have major gaps, and the imputation schemes for filling in the gaps are inadequate and inconsistent. Such data were used in a recent study of guns and crime without considering the errors resulting from imputation. This note describes the errors and how they may have affected this study. Until improved methods of imputing county-level crime data are developed, tested, and implemented, they should not be used, especially in policy studies.