City Management in the United States and Norway: A Comparative Analysis of Professional Orientations

This analysis examines the effects of political culture on the nature and practice of professional local government management by comparing the structures, responsibilities, and relationships of city administrative executives in the democratic countries of the United States and Norway. The findings suggest that, despite fundamental differences in societal institutions and settings, American and Norwegian city managers serve similar roles in their respective local government organizations. However, the notable variations in the processes of municipal management identified between the two nations appear to reflect the contextual influence of divergent political foundations on the operational environment of professional public administrators.     

Reexamining Causes and Consequences: Does Administrative Intensity Matter for Organizational Performance?

ABSTRACT

This study examines the relationship between organizational structure (size and complexity) and administrative intensity and, subsequently, the effect of administrative intensity on organizational performance in the context of four-year institutions of higher education in the United States between 2003 and 2009. Organizational size has a negative effect on administrative intensity and supports the notion of economies of scale. Size and complexity also interact such that complexity has a greater effect on total administrative intensity in larger organizations. While administrative intensity has a nonlinear relationship with degree productivity, suggesting a tipping point of 30% total administration, it has little direct effect on graduation rates.     

Comparing and Combining List and Endorsement Experiments: Evidence from Afghanistan

List and endorsement experiments are becoming increasingly popular among social scientists as indirect survey techniques for sensitive questions. When studying issues such as racial prejudice and support for militant groups, these survey methodologies may improve the validity of measurements by reducing nonresponse and social desirability biases. We develop a statistical test and multivariate regression models for comparing and combining the results from list and endorsement experiments. We demonstrate that when carefully designed and analyzed, the two survey experiments can produce substantively similar empirical findings. Such agreement is shown to be possible even when these experiments are applied to one of the most challenging research environments: contemporary Afghanistan. We find that both experiments uncover similar patterns of support for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) among Pashtun respondents. Our findings suggest that multiple measurement strategies can enhance the credibility of empirical conclusions. Open‐source software is available for implementing the proposed methods.     

Spousal violence in Bangladesh as reported by men: prevalence and risk factors

To study risk factors for perpetration of spousal violence among men in Bangladesh, self-reported Demographic and Health Surveys data from 2,780 married men using bivariate and multivariate techniques are analyzed. Of the respondents, 74% report having ever been violent toward their wives; 37% report violence in the past year. Nonnormative behaviors increase the risk for violence: Men who marry more than once, men who use drugs, and men who are unfaithful to their wives are all significantly more likely to report violence against their spouses. Egalitarian attitudes toward women do not decrease the risk for violence. However, attitudes explicitly about wife-beating are the strongest predictor of violence: Men who believe wife-beating is acceptable are more than 4 times as likely to report recent violence against their wives. While men's self-reports of spousal violence indicate that wife-beating is prevalent in Bangladesh, the results indicate opportunities for programmatic intervention.     

Overestimating Self-Blame for Stressful Life Events and Adolescents’ Latent Trait Cortisol: The Moderating Role of Parental Warmth

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Cognitive interpretations of stressful events impact their implications for physiological stress processes. However, whether such interpretations are related to...     

Advance price announcements and antitrust policy

This paper analyzes the competitive significance of advance price announcements. In the model, advance price announcements are used by firms to communicate private information on demand or cost. By so sharing the information, the firms are able to set their prices at more profitable levels. When the advance price announcements resolve demand uncertainty, profits rise and consumer surplus falls. Interestingly, when the advance price announcements resolve cost uncertainty, both profits and consumer welfare rise. Finally, we examine U.S. antitrust policy regarding price announcements.