How the spending patterns of cities change: Budgetary incrementalism reexamined

Do city governments generally behave in keeping with the assumptions underlying the incremental model when they allocate their resources among competing activities? That is to say, do they try to maintain everyone's historical “fair share” of the budget in order to minimize disputes among rival participants in the decision process? Earlier studies have lacked sufficient data to address this question. However, with data from 105 West German cities, the present study is able to provide an answer. The resource allocation behavior of many of those cities seems to conform with the incremental model's assumptions. Yet for other cities, major changes in expenditure patterns from one year to the next are common. The differences in the variability of expenditure patterns across the cities studied are far from random. They are systematically associated with certain characteristics of the municipal environment. These associations, in turn, offer plausible hints about the process that leads to change in cities' spending patterns.     

Structure and Process in Consociationalism and Federalism

It is relatively easy to characterize the institutional structureof a country as consociational or federal. The task is muchmore difficult if we turn from structure to the decision process.Within a given structure, there may be a great deal of variationwith regard to the decision process. Data for such variationare given for the decision process in Switzerland for whichthe following four types are distinguished: (1) consociationaland federal, (2) consociational and unitary, (3) competitiveand federal, and (4) competitive and unitary. Difficulties arediscussed in aggregating from such a variation to a measurefor the prevailing decision process in a country as a whole.It is suggested that the problem be disaggregated and that decisionprocesses be compared for particular issues. This can be doneboth across and within countries.     

Sequencing of intersecting lines by combined lifting process and scanning electron microscopy

The chronological order in which two intersecting writing or typed strokes were made can be determined for several combinations of writing media by scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination, a lifting and transfer technique using Kromekote paper, or a combination of the transfer technique followed by SEM examination of the remaining material in the intersection. When non-destructive examination cannot provide unambiguous determination of sequence, judicious choice by the document examiner of which technique to use for a given combination of writing media and paper type can be made using known characteristics of the materials involved. The range of line-crossings which can be reliably sequenced is greater using a combined transfer and SEM technique than when the examination is limited to either technique alone.     

Evaluating the effects of changes in AFDC: Methodological issues and challenges

Analysts are commonly called upon to perform the difficult task of evaluating the effects of specific changes in public policy upon the behavior of individuals, such as a change in the provisions of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program relating to the benefits of those in the program who find work. When charged with such a task, analysts commonly try to answer the question by tracing the behavior of a fixed panel of individuals, comparing the experience of the group before and after the change in policy. That approach, however, risks major errors; in the case of the AFDC program, for instance, changes in the work benefit provisions affected the decisions of some who might have come into the program, a consequence that would not be picked up by a fixed panel of initial recipients. Cross-sectional data drawn independently from a general population at points in time before and after a policy change can often provide a more valid measure of the effects of the policy change than can panel data; moreover, cross-sectional data are usually less expensive and more readily available.