Budget makers as agents: A preliminar investigation of discretionary behavior under state-contingent rewards

An earlier version of this essay was delivered at the Public Choice Society Meeting, Tucson AZ, 27–29 March 1987. Our thanks to Laura Langbein, Steve Maser, Eugenia Froedge-Toma, and Gordon Tullock for helpful comments. Special thanks to George Racette.     

A Proposal to Use Mediation and “Night Correspondents” to Curb Urban Violence in Cergy,France

Mediators, called night correspondents, have been hired by some French municipalities to reduce violence in the neighborhoods, using dialogue and daily help (in repairing things in particular). Night correspondents seem to be especially appropriate to reduce incivility, i.e. daily nonrespectful behavior. This essay reports on the results of two surveys conducted in Cergy by MBA students of two seminars at ESSEC business school. Although the recommendation of hiring night correspondents has not been followed yet in Cergy, several decisions have been taken by the social lessors and other public actors in the neighborhoods aimed at reducing violence, through mediation processes.     

Comparison of Anonymous Versus Confidential Survey Procedures: Effects on Health Indicators in Dutch Adolescents

Self-report questionnaires are frequently used in youth research, but doubt remains whether total anonymity affects the results. This study compared the responses of 704 mainly 16–17-year-old adolescents to self-report measures of various health indicators in 2 groups: anonymous and confidential collection. For most health indicators no significant differences were found. Perceived health, use of alcohol, and aggressive behavior (for boys) were reported significantly less frequently in the confidential group (small effect size). It appeared that pupils with high scores on social desirability do not respond differently at most health indicators in the 2 conditions. For most health characteristics, epidemiologically useful outcomes may be derived from confidential self-report measures, which are also valuable for detecting individual at-risk children. Similar studies in lower grades and other types of education should confirm the results.Youth Department, Municipal Health Service Rotterdam area. Main research interests are emotional and behavioral problems of adolescents, youth health care, monitoring.Youth Department, Municipal Health Service Rotterdam area. Main research interests are emotional and behavioral problems of adolescents, youth health care, monitoring.Research Department, Municipal Health Service Rotterdam area. Major research interests include emotional and behavioral problems of adolescents, suicidal behavior, youth health care, monitoring.     

Monotone Comparative Statics for Models of Politics

We elucidate a powerful yet simple method for deriving comparative statics conclusions for a wide variety of models: Monotone Comparative Statics ( Milgrom and Shannon 1994 ). Monotone comparative static methods allow researchers to extract robust, substantive empirical implications from formal models that can be tested using ordinal data and simple nonparametric tests. When these methods apply, they can replace a diverse range of more technically difficult mathematics (facilitating richer, more realistic models), assumptions that are hard to understand or justify substantively (highlighting the political intuitions underlying a model's results), and a complicated set of methods for extracting implications from models. We present an accessible introduction to the central monotone comparative statics results and a series of practical tools for using these techniques in applied models (with reference to original sources, when relevant). Throughout we demonstrate the techniques with examples drawn from political science .     

Budget Control in Virginia Public School Districts

This article examines the selection and use of a budget approval technique. Specifically, two research questions are addressed: (1) Does the use of a particular budget approval method by a governmental body impact the execution of the budget? (2) What characteristics of a local government are associated with its decision to use a particular budget approval method? Both research questions are addressed by analyzing data from public school systems in the Commonwealth of Virginia, specifically, whether using categorical budget approval differs in the accuracy of budgeting versus using a lump-sum approval method. Characteristics of Virginia school districts are also analyzed according to whether any of them are likely to be associated with school districts using a particular approval method. The remainder of this article is organized as follows: the next section describes the role of budgeting control in schools; subsequent sections review Virginia school district budgeting practices, develop the empirical model used to test the hypotheses, describe the sample, analyze the results of empirical tests and discuss implications of the findings.     

Does European Community Regional Policy Empower the Regions?

A central goal of the 1980s reforms of the European Community's regional development policy was to contribute to an increase in the discretionary authority of sub–national decision–makers in the Community's member states. This article assesses the degree to which this goal was attained through comparative studies of selected French and Italian regions. It concludes that only in those regions in which timely policy entrepreneurship on the part of regional–level elected leaders coincided with the pre–existence of a territorial policy Community for economic development did the transfer of resources from the Community contribute to regional empowerment.     

A Longitudinal Study of Self-Esteem: Implications for Adolescent Development

This study used a cluster analytic approach to identify self-esteem trajectories among adolescents over a four-year period from sixth to tenth grades (N = 1,160). Four self-esteem trajectories were identified that replicated previous research: (1) consistently high, (2) moderate and rising, (3) steadily decreasing, and (4) consistently low. Female adolescents were more likely to be in the steadily decreasing self-esteem group while male adolescents were more likely to be in the moderate and rising group. African American and white youth were equally distributed across groups. Using repeated measures analysis, we found that youth with consistently high and moderate and rising self-esteem reported developmentally healthier outcomes in Grade 10 than youth in the other two clusters. Outcomes included susceptibility to peer pressure, school grades, and alcohol use. Implications of these results for studying self-esteem and developmental change more generally are discussed.     

Disentangling the Weight of School Dropout Predictors: A Test on Two Longitudinal Samples

The aims of this study are to identify the most powerful predictors of school dropout and to determine how stable they are over time. Two generations of White French-speaking boys and girls from 12 to 16 years old (n = 791 in 1974, n = 791 in 1985) completed a self-administered questionnaire on their psychosocial adjustment at least one year before leaving school. As expected, the analyses showed that school, family, behavioral, social, and personality variables could all predict dropping out of school in the two samples. Furthermore, these predictors were quite stable over time. However, statistical improvement measures in logistic regression analyses indicated that school experience variables (i.e., grade retention, school achievement, school commitment) were the best screening variables for potential dropouts. The contribution of other psychosocial variables, even though significant, did not improve very much the capacity to identify who will drop out of school. The discussion highlights the implications of the findings for secondary prevention and screening practices.     

Nomenklatura,state monopoly,and private enterprise

Using a behavioral model of political decisionmaking, it is argued that an increasing population size and/or an increasing efficiency of production in a private enterprise economy relative to a centrally planned economy may create the conditions for a self-interested nomenklatura in a Soviet-type economy to consider a transition to a market economy. This transition may be thwarted, however, by the threat for prospective private enterpreneurs of exploitation after the change of regime. Some form of political pluralism guaranteeing sufficient political influence to private entrepreneurs appears to be required for a successful transition. The analysis shows that such a combined political and economic reform can be in the interest of the nomenklatura, thereby providing an endogenous behavioral explanation for a change of regime.