Using Term Limits to Estimate Incumbency Advantages When Officeholders Retire Strategically

Empirical study of U.S. elections over the last 50 years has documented a strong electoral advantage to incumbency in state and federal elections. Recently, however, critics have argued that traditional estimates of the incumbency advantage may overstate the advantage by as much as 100% because the estimates fail to consider strategic retirements. This article directly examines whether or not strategic retirement biases conventional regression estimates of incumbency advantages. We use term limits in state executive and legislative elections as instrumental variables to correct for strategic retirement. We find that, as an empirical matter, strategic retirement is not substantively important. Estimates of incumbency advantages that take account of strategic retirement actually are marginally larger than estimates that do not.     

A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON INSURANCE FRAUD IN AUTO BODY REPAIR*

This article focuses on a particular form of white-collar crime–insurance fraud in auto body repair. Through the use of an experimental design, whether repair estimates were related to insurance coverage was investigated for a statewide representative sample of auto body repair shops in Massachusetts. The auto body repair estimates were significantly higher with insurance coverage than without, regardless of type of car, extent of damage, sex of driver, and location of shop. The implication of the findings is that the automobile insurance industry is very susceptible to fraudulent or illegal practices that take unfair advantage of consumers and insurance companies.     

The Impact of Bicameralism on Legislative Production

It is generally accepted by scholars, as well as by cameral partisans, that adding a second chamber to an otherwise unicameral legislative process will decrease the volume of laws that a legislature enacts. This study challenges the conventional wisdom. First, I offer a simple theoretical argument that shows that when second chambers can originate as well as reject legislation, bicameralism will have an indeterminate impact on legislative production. Second, I provide historical data gathered from the four U.S. states that have experienced cameral transitions. Although very rudimentary, the historical evidence, when coupled with the theoretical argument, raises serious doubt regarding the traditional claim that bicameralism reduces the production of legislation.     

ANGELS IN PLASTIC: THE LIBERAL SURGE IN 1974

Abstract. Before the Liberal surge in 1974, survey research stressed that the Liberal vote was electorally volatile, socially representative, and negative in character. Data from 1974 indicates that the volatility of the Liberal vote owes more to the absence of a large core of stable Liberal voters than to any difference among parties in their ability to retain the votes of recent converts. Moreover, the small core of regular Liberal voters is unusually middle-aged and middle-class, socially very different from the larger and socially representative body of occasional Liberal voters. In the eyes of the electorate, the Liberal Party continues to have a diffuse image, largely devoid of any specific policy content. The Party benefited from dissatisfaction with the state of the country, but there is no evidence that an image of classlessness contributed to its electoral success. Moreover, while most Liberal voters did so for some positive reason, many of their reasons had more to do with style than policy, and the personalities of party leaders appear to have had much to do with moving people to consider—if not actually vote for—the Liberal Party.     

PARENTS AND DRUGS REVISITED: SOME FURTHER EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY*

Social control and social learning theories suggest divergent relationships between attachment to parents and children's drug use when level of parent drug use is considered. Social control theory proposes a uniformly negative relationship between children's drug use and attachment to parents whereas social learning theory proposes that the relationship is affected by parental drug use. The relationship between attachment to parents and children's drug use was investigated for each of three groups of low, moderate, and high parental drug use through estimation of a latent variable structural model of attachment to family on children's tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. Results indicate that attachment to parents related inversely, but with different magnitudes, to children's drug use for youths whose parents use drugs at low or moderate levels. No significant relationship exists between attachment to family and children's drug use for youths whose parents are relatively high-level users. Neither ethnicity nor sex affected these findings. The implications of these results supporting social learning theory are discussed.     

PROBLEMS AND STRATEGIES IN GAINING RESEARCH ACCESS IN POLICE ORGANIZATIONS

“Access” is conceived of as involving passage through two gates: one manned by the top-level authority figures of the organization, and the other by the proposed subjects of one's study. Within this framework, informal contacts, contingent acceptance at successive organizational levels, and self-selection are identified and discussed as the factors most central to an understanding of our successful access into three police organizations and our failures to gain access to two police organizations.     

PAYING FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT: CHARGING FOR SERVICES

The latest Green Paper on reform of local government finance was published in January 1986. It represents an attempt to achieve local accountability which the present system is regarded as having failed to achieve. Increased use of fees and charges is seen as 'an even more direct way of ensuring that local people can see what they are getting for what they are paying' and, at the same time, 'has benefits in terms of efficiency as well as accountability'. This article critically appraises just what is meant by 'realistic charging policies', 'efficient use of resources' and 'effective pricing policies'. Realistic pricing policies are then outlined based on radical improvements in the nature and quality of information available to local authorities. The danger of a blinkered approach to increased use of charging is stressed and factors to be considered when reviewing charging are discussed.     

PEOPLE OR PAPERWORK An Analysis of Influences upon Juvenile Court Personnel

Probation officers and other juvenile court staff complain that paperwork limits the time spent working directly with youth. The alleged effect of paperwork is compared with that of interpersonal influence resulting from time spent talking with youth about their problems. Multiple regression of data from a juvenile court staff indicated that the time spent on paperwork has no independent effect. This group's paperwork complaints are ideological. But interpersonal influences do have considerable impact.