A study of Supplemental Security Income awardees

Since its enactment in 1974, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program has had a stable caseload of about 4 million recipients. Hidden by this unchanging total is the fact that nearly 9 million persons were served by the program from 1974 to 1986. This study explores some SSI program dynamics by following a group of SSI awardees for a period of 4 years from the initial receipt of award in 1981. Many of these awardees had previous contact with the program either through a previous award or a denial. About 60 percent of the awardees were eligible at the end of the 4-year period. Most persons who became ineligible did so within the first 6 months after the award.     

Development and evaluation of a survey-based type of benefit classification for the Social Security program

This attempt to classify Social Security beneficiaries by type of benefit using the new Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) has yielded promising results. Evaluations of the classification algorithm based on comparison of the estimated number of beneficiaries in each of the several categories to independent estimates of the number of beneficiaries indicate that in most instances a high percentage of each category has been identified. For the most part, age and monthly benefit amount size distributions seem reasonable. Furthermore, very few persons in the sample who were identified as Social Security beneficiaries could not be assigned to one or another of the benefit groups. The classification procedure also represents a marked improvement over earlier efforts to classify type of beneficiary that relied on data from the March Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS). Most importantly, the benefit classification scheme based on SIPP data appears to provide reasonably reliable distinctions between retired-worker and widow benefits for widowed women and permits the identification of retired-worker benefits for those women dually entitled to retired-worker and spouse benefits. In addition, the distinction between disabled- and retired-worker benefits for recipients aged 62-64 appears to be reasonably reliable, and for women under age 65, the classification procedure distinguishes between disabled-worker benefits on the one hand and widow and widowed mother benefits on the other. Finally, SIPP procedures for identifying minor child beneficiaries yield markedly better estimates than those available from the Current Population Survey. These improvements in the SIPP context are due entirely to the presence of information not collected in the CPS. The enhancement of the SIPP data set in turn resulted directly from an assessment of earlier work carried out by Projector and Bretz in the CPS context and on extensive research into the nature of Social Security reporting errors in the CPS. The superiority of the SIPP data set is linked principally to the presence of three pieces of information: the Medicare BIC, the direct question on reasons for benefit receipt asked of persons under age 65, and the direct measurement of recipiency and amount of benefits for minor children. Other items of some import include self-reported work disability, retirement status (ever retired from a job), previous marital status for currently married women, age first prevented from working due to a health condition, and Supplemental Security Income misreporting items.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Political-economic aspects of public employment

Abstract. An examination of public employment and expenditure data for 17 OECD countries for the period 1963–1983 reveals decelerating growth in public employment after 1970, whereas expenditure growth rates have been accelerating. Two contrary tendencies in public sector employment since the early 1970s are apparent: a general decline in goods and market services, and a significant increase in communal and social services. Comparative empirical analysis, using a pooled cross section-time series technique, confirms the important contribution of increasing wealth to public employment growth. Similarly, a strong societal position for organised labour and increasing unemployment rates contribute to public employment growth, thereby suggesting the presence of a discretionary stabilization policy. Contrary to expectations, however, increased trade dependence exerts a negative impact. With regard to the relationship between expenditure and employment, a general increase in the employment creation efficiency of spending can be discerned. Empirical estimates again suggest that the importance of labour in political-economic decision-making has intensified the employment creation effect of public spending.     

Shirking and sorting in a political market with finite-lived politicians

This paper analyzes principal-agent slack in the context of a political market composed of voters, challengers, and incumbents. The introduction of a last period (via finite-livedness) in combination with voters' imperfect information about politicians' preferences causes time-varying shirking behavior on the part of politicians. Political markets eventually sort out those politicians with significantly deviant policy preferences, potentially providing a solution to the last period problem and enabling politicians to make credible commitments. In the extreme, sorting can insure that it is not worthwhile for potential shirkers to run for office. A systematic relationship between political shirking and number of terms in office may exist, and depends on how quickly sorting takes place. We show that evidence of little if any shirking is quite consistent with politicians having diverse and strongly held policy preferences. In addition, if sorting is a significant feature of political markets, cross-sectional studies will tend to oversample little- and non-shirking politicians compared to longitudinal studies. Reinterpretations of existing empirical work are also discussed.We wish to thank John Bond, Donald Deere, Gertrud Fremling, Tim Gronberg, Michael Munger, Russell Roberts, and the participants of workshops at Dartmouth College, Texas A&M University, University of Houston, University of Texas, Yale Law School, and the 1987 Public Choice Meetings for valuable discussions on earlier drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper was issued as working paper E-87-34 by the Hoover Institution. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Sentencing Commission nor those of any of its Commissioners. Any remaining errors are of course our own.     

Chicago political economy: A public choice perspective

George J. Stigler (Ed.), Chicago studies in political economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pages xviii + 641.     

On the optimal retaliation against terrorists: The paid-rider option

We examine whether nations, faced with the threat of terrorism, will be motivated to engage in the efficient amount of retaliation against terrorists. We demonstrate that the problem confronting the efforts of nations to achieve an optimal retaliation against terrorists is understated by the traditional free-rider analysis. In particular, nations have the option of actually selling or reducing the public good of retaliation, provided through the efforts of others, by offering safe havens to terrorists in return for the terrorists' pledge to attack elsewhere. This paid-rider behavior is also shown to apply to other public good scenarios.The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Gordon Tullock on an earlier draft. Sole responsibility for the paper's content rests with the authors. Todd Sandler's research was supported by a Science and Humanities Research Institute Summer Grant at Iowa State University.