Developing a Municipal Performance-Measurement System: Reflections on the Atlanta Dashboard

Under the leadership of Mayor Shirley Franklin, the City of Atlanta introduced a new operating model for municipal government in early 2002. A central component of that effort has been a performance-measurement system—the "Atlanta Dashboard"—designed to assess various aspects of municipal performance and, through that assessment, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of municipal services.     

Beyond Neighborhood Quality: The Role of Residential Instability,Employment Access,and Location Affordability in Shaping Work Outcomes for HOPE VI Participants

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between neighborhood quality, residential instability, employment access, location affordability, and work outcomes among individuals relocated as part of the Boulevard Homes HOPE VI redevelopment in Charlotte, North Carolina. We found that, contrary to expectations, relocation to private-market units with vouchers, as compared with public housing, did not always result in better neighborhood outcomes. Whereas voucher holders relocated to better quality neighborhoods, relocatees who moved to other public housing lived in neighborhoods with better employment access and lower costs. We also found a positive correlation between locational affordability (housing + transportation costs) and work outcomes.     

Face-to-Face and Cyber-Victimization: A Longitudinal Study of Offline Appearance Anxiety and Online Appearance Preoccupation

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Most adolescents and young adults navigate seamlessly between offline and online social environments, and interactions in each environment brings with it...     

Paths of Recruitment: Rational Social Prospecting in Petition Canvassing

Petition canvassers are political recruiters. Building upon the rational prospector model, we theorize that rational recruiting strategies are dynamic (Bayesian and time‐conscious), spatial (constrained by geography), and social (conditioned on relations between canvasser and prospect). Our theory predicts that canvassers will exhibit homophily in their canvassing preferences and will alternate between “door‐to‐door” and “attractor” (working in a central location) strategies based upon systematic geographical variation. They will adjust their strategies midstream (mid‐petition) based upon experience. Introducing methods to analyze canvassing data, we test these hypotheses on geocoded signatory lists from two petition drives—a 2005–6 anti–Iraq War initiative in Wisconsin and an 1839 antislavery campaign in New York City. Canvassers in these campaigns exhibited homophily to the point of following geographically and politically “inefficient” paths. In the aggregate, these patterns may exacerbate political inequality, limiting political involvement of the poorer and less educated.     

Beyond the Unit Root Question: Uncertainty and Inference

A fundamental challenge facing applied time-series analysts is how to draw inferences about long-run relationships (LRR) when we are uncertain whether the data contain unit roots. Unit root tests are notoriously unreliable and often leave analysts uncertain, but popular extant methods hinge on correct classification. Webb, Linn, and Lebo (WLL; 2019) develop a framework for inference based on critical value bounds for hypothesis tests on the long-run multiplier (LRM) that eschews unit root tests and incorporates the uncertainty inherent in identifying the dynamic properties of the data into inferences about LRRs. We show how the WLL bounds procedure can be applied to any fully specified regression model to solve this fundamental challenge, extend the results of WLL by presenting a general set of critical value bounds to be used in applied work, and demonstrate the empirical relevance of the LRM bounds procedure in two applications.     

The color of confinement: examining youth exoneration decisions and the critical race theory

Abstract

The critical race theory has been predictive of how minority youth are treated in the juvenile and criminal justice systems in the United States. However, the theory has not been applied in explaining the existence of wrongful convictions among juveniles. Using secondary data derived from the National Exoneration Registry, the purpose of this study is to identify specific factors (e.g., DNA evidence, etc.) related to the wrongful convictions of Black youth who have been exonerated. Compared to other racial categories, the results reveal that Black youth are more likely to experience wrongful convictions as a result of false confessions, faulty eyewitness identification, perjury, and official misconduct. Limitations, policy implications, and areas of further investigation are offered.     

What is valued in resolving environmental dilemmas: Individual and contextual influences

Justice is an increasingly important concept to examine with regard to decisions about environmental conflicts. But justice can be defined in a number of ways. This paper argues that the perceived importance of different principles of justice to environmental decisions is affected by the position argued, by contextual manipulations, and by individual difference variables. Literature is reviewed in support of the first of these points, suggesting that environmentalism is more congenial than antienvironmentalism to macrojustice principles. Data are presented to show that the way in which a conflict is described, in general or specific terms, affects the perceived importance of some justice principles, and that subject gender and environmental ideology are also related.