Bureaucratic choice and nonoptimal provision of public goods: Theory and evidence

Local governments' allocation decisions are modeled in the context of a slack maximizing bureaucrat who produces public goods according to a production function that includes both provision and the constituents' socio-economic characteristics. To gain a better understanding of the determinants of slack, comparative statics and an empirical study of Illinois municipalities are conducted. The indirect output distance function provides efficiency scores upon which we regress several variables, representing socio-economic characteristics, costs and competition measures. We find that slack or inefficient behavior is associated with richer communities, lower education levels and a lack of competition for residents among municipalities.     

The emergence of the entrepreneurial state in contemporary China

As market reform has progressed in China, state bureaux have adapted and become entrepreneurial. This contradicts expectations that states will either simply retreat in the face of encroaching markets to play a minimal role in the economy, or obstruct market‐oriented change through bureaucratic conservatism or rent‐seeking. This paper describes the state entrepreneurialism that has appeared in the Chinese city of Tianjin in the early 1990s and explains its emergence as the consequence of both market‐induced structural transformation and the resultant changing incentives and demands on officials. It proposes the ‘entrepreneurial state’ as a model of state adaptation to marketization and assesses its implications for both our conception of the developmental state and for anticipation of rent‐seeking and resistance to market reform.     

ASSURING HOSPITAL STANDARDS: THE INTRODUCTION OF HOSPITAL ACCREDITATION IN AUSTRALIA

Abstract: The system of hospital accreditation that has developed in Australia involves a quasi non-government organization, the Australian Council on Hospital Standards (ACHS), "surveying" hospitals and issuing certificates to those which meet published standards. The surveying process has the potential to influence the internal hospital balance of power between doctors and the hospital administration, and to place additional demands on statutory health authorities. The ACHS was set up formally in 1977 following a protracted process of discussion, research and inter-organizational conflict that had its origins in proposals framed in the 1920s. The roles played by the sponsors of accreditation (the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Hospital Association) and by its detractors, especially the Health Commission of New South Wales, are explained using concepts developed in theories of inter-organizational relations.     

“Taking care”: Maintaining the self and the home in early adolescence

This paper explores young adolescents' experience of basic daily tasks: personal maintenance (e.g., grooming and eating) and household maintenance (e.g., chores and errands). Quantity of time, companionship, and subjective states in these activities were examined during one week in the lives of 401 5th–9th graders with the Experience Sampling Method (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1987). Our findings show that these tasks are particularly subject to sex typing. Girls engaged in grooming more often than boys, and this time increased in the higher grades, while boys showed no age effects. Boys did more outside chores while girls did more indoor chores. Girls were also more likely to carry out household tasks with family while boys did more chores alone. An examination of subjective states during household maintenance revealed that older girls reported a greater sense of motivation and choice than younger girls, but boys' experience did not differ. Experience of maintenance as socialization for adult activities is discussed.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson.Current research interests are the effects of maternal employment on children and adolescents, and the study of day care.Current research interests are family relationships in early adolescence, interpersonal conflict and the study of daily psychological experience.Current research interests are pubertal development, precursors of eating disorders, and the effects of maternal employment on young adolescents.     

“We were just talking ...”: Conversations in early adolescence

This paper explores young adolescents' experience of talk, examining changes in boys' and girls' patterns of communication with family and friends. The data consist of immediate self-reports provided by 401 5th–9th grade students during the course of one week of their normal lives. Results indicate that while time spent talking to friends increased dramatically across this age period, especially for girls, talk with family members remained stable. Analysis of topics of conversation suggests that older children turned to friends for discussions of age-related concerns while continuing to discuss daily issues with family members. Talk with friends did not appear to replace talk with family members but rather represented a new facet of the social world, supplementing existing family relationships.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson, and was carried out while the first author was a predoctoral fellow in the Clinical Research Training Program in Adolescence, jointly sponsored by The Center for the Study of Adolescence at Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, and the Committee on Human Development at The University of Chicago, funded by NIMH institutional training grant number 2 T32 MH14668-12.Current research interests are family relationships in early adolescence, interpersonal conflict, and the study of daily psychological experience.Current research interests are the effects of maternal employment on children and adolescents and the study of day care.     

Specific Purpose Programs in Human Services and Health: Moving from an Input to an Output and Outcome Focus

The content and control mechanisms of specific purpose programs are regularly under review, currently through processes associated with the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), with most proposals for reform in this area arguing for a shift to a focus on outputs or outcomes. This article reviews the place and role of specific purpose programs in the human services and health field, and identifies four issues which need to be addressed as part of any refocus onto outputs and outcomes. The four issues are: specification of objectives; measurement of outputs and/or outcomes; mechanisms for ensuring accountability to consumers; and systems of sanctions and rewards.     

Tackling unemployment in China: state capacity and governance issues

Abstract

This paper considers China's state capacity and changing governance as revealed through its policies to tackle unemployment. Despite high levels of growth, economic restructuring has resulted in rising unemployment over the last decade. The Chinese state has been able to manage job losses from state enterprises, demonstrating some state capacity in relation to this sector and some persistent command economy governance mechanisms. However both design and implementation of policies to compensate and assist particular groups among the unemployed have been shaped by weak state capacity in several other areas. First, capacity to gather accurate employment data is limited, meaning local and central governments do not have a good understanding of the extent and nature of unemployment. Second, the sustainability of supposedly mandatory unemployment insurance schemes is threatened by poor capacity to enforce participation. Third, poor central state capacity to ensure local governments implement policies effectively leads to poor unemployment insurance fund capacity, resulting in provision for only a narrow segment of the unemployed and low quality employment services. Although the adoption of unemployment insurance (and its extension to employers and employees in the private sector), the introduction of a Labour Contract Law in 2007, and the delivery of employment services by private businesses indicate a shift towards the use of new governance mechanisms based on entitlement, contract and private sector delivery of public-sector goods, that shift is undermined by poor state capacity in relation to some of these new mechanisms.