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Robert M. La Follette
School of Public Affairs
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Madison, WI 53706

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Last updated:
May 24, 2013

Publications: The Working Paper Series

The Working Paper Series makes research by La Follette School faculty available online, in advance of its presentation at conferences, publication in journals or as book chapters, or as soon as faculty believe the work is ready to be shared. Questions about the research, recommendations, and policy proposals within these papers should be directed to the authors. The La Follette School takes no stand on policy issues; opinions expressed in these working papers reflect the views of individual authors and researchers. Some papers are available through the Social Science Research Network.

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A Life Worth Living: Evidence on the Relationship between Prosocial Values and Happiness: Donald P. Moynihan, Thomas Deleire, Kohei Enami / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-008
Arguing that the prosocial desire to help others is a basic human goal that matters to an individual’s happiness, the authors demonstrate that work-related prosocial motivation is associated with higher subjective well-being. They find that the belief one’s job makes a difference is even more important for happiness than the prosocial desire to help.
Credibility, ambition, and discretion in long-term U.S. energy policy targets from 1973 to 2011: Gregory F. Nemet, Peter Braden, Edward Cubero, and Bickey Rimal / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-007
This paper reviews the effectiveness, duration, and ambition of 63 U.S. energy policy initiatives with targets longer than years. The authors find targets were met 64 to 77 percent of the time; median duration to target was 12 years; and median rate of change was 2 percent per year.
Post-recession U.S. employment through the lens of a non-linear Okun’s law: Menzie D. Chinn, Laurent Ferrara and Valérie Mignon / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-006
The authors investigate how well trend gross domestic product can explain trend U.S. employment, allowing for nonlinear effects in the short-run dynamics. They find that near the end of 2012, private employment is about 1 percent lower than predicted on the basis of a model estimated during the 1960-2007 period. Models without nonlinear effects over-predict employment by measurably larger margins.
Macro Approaches to Foreign Exchange Determination: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-005
The author reviews macroeconomic approaches to exchange rate determination, with an emphasis on empirical models. Monetary and portfolio balance models of nominal exchange rates are described and evaluated. The literature on real models of real exchange rates is reviewed. The paper ends with a brief survey of recent developments in exchange rate modeling.
Export and Import Elasticities for Japan: New Estimates: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-004
This paper re-examines aggregate and disaggregate import and export demand functions for Japan in the context of the country's substantial structural transformation, particularly with regard to the East Asian production chain. In the long run, imports of non-fuel goods are highly income sensitive, while the price elasticity is near unity.
Advancing the Empirical Study of Performance Management: What we Learned from the Program Assessment Rating Tool: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-003, forthcoming in American Review of Public Administration
The author discusses the quality and breadth of the research stemming from the Program Assessment Rating Tool, a performance management initiative started by the George W. Bush administration and ended by the Obama White House.
Fiscal Multipliers: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-002
The author looks at the concept of fiscal multipliers in the context of major theoretical approaches. He then recounts differing methods of calculating multipliers (structural equations, VAR, simulation) and discusses the sensitivity of estimates to conditioning on the state of the economy (slack, financial system) and policy regimes (exchange rate system, monetary policy reaction function).
The Predictive Content of Commodity Futures: Menzie D. Chinn and Olivier Coibion / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2013-001 is forthcoming in Journal of Futures Markets
In their examination of the predictive content of futures prices for energy, agricultural, precious and base metal commodities, the authors find little evidence that differences across and within commodity groups reflect liquidity conditions across markets. In addition, they document a broad decline in the predictive content of commodity futures prices since the early 2000s.
The Exchange Rate and Global Imbalances: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-015
The author assesses China’s role in the evolution of global imbalances in the context of standard models of current account balances, as well as recent interpretations (e.g., the “saving glut” and “asset shortage”). The exchange rate is interpreted as an equilibrium price. He reviews the evidence in a partial equilibrium framework for how the exchange rate affects the trade balance. The empirical evidence supports the view that exchange rate movements can affect the volume of trade flows.
Accelerating College Knowledge: Examining the Feasibility of a Targeted Early Commitment Pell Grant Program: Robert Kelchen and Sara Goldrick-Rab / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-014
The authors find that an earlier and simpler Pell Grant application has the potential to increase college enrollment by youth from poor families by helping to reduce their uncertainty about whether college is affordable.
Property Tax Delinquency and the Number of Payment Installments: Paul Waldhart and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-013
This analysis of the relationship between the number of annual payment installments and the property tax delinquency rate indicates that increasing the number of payments from two to three per year reduces the delinquency rate by about a third. Allowing more than three installments, however, does not lead to a statistically significant reduction in the property tax delinquency rate.
A Note on Reserve Currencies with Special Reference to the G-20 Countries: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-012
China's renminbi is likely to gain status as a reserve currency, but initially just on a regional basis. A multi-reserve currency world is unlikely to harm global financial stability. However, achieving the prerequisites for reserve currency status will force sacrifices of policy autonomy. In addition, reserve currency status might reduce international competitiveness for individual countries, as higher demand appreciates their currencies.
Understanding Gender Disparities in Tax-Deferred Retirement Account Balances: Saving through the Wisconsin Deferred Compensation Program: Karen Holden and Sara Kock / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-011
The authors find that women and men are equally likely to contribute to a tax-deferred voluntary retirement plan, but that women contribute a smaller percentage of salary than men of the same salary and age.
Working within Constraints: Can Transformational Leaders Alter the Experience of Red Tape?: Donald P. Moynihan, Bradley E. Wright, and Sanjay K. Pandey / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-010
The authors find that transformational leadership alters perceptions of red tape by influencing goal clarity, political support, and communication.
Agency Political Ideology and Reform Implementation: Performance Management in the Bush Administration: Stéphane Lavertu and Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-009
Analysis of data from a survey of federal agency managers indicates that the impact of the Bush administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool on managers’ use of performance information is largely contingent on the political ideology of the agencies in which managers work.
Property Tax Delinquency and the Number of Payment Installments: Paul Waldhart and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-008
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-013 is an updated version of this paper. This analysis of the relationship between the number of annual payment installments and the property tax delinquency rate indicates that increasing the number of payments from two to three per year reduces the delinquency rate by nearly half. Allowing more than three installments, however, does not lead to a statistically significant reduction in the property tax delinquency rate.
The “Impossible Trinity” Hypothesis in an Era of Global Imbalances: Measurement and Testing: Joshua Aizenman, Menzie D. Chinn, and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-007

Taking into account recent substantial international reserve accumulation, the authors outline new metrics for measuring the trilemma aspects: exchange rate flexibility, monetary independence, and capital account openness. Upon testing the linearity of the trilemma, they find that the weighted sum of the three trilemma variables adds up to a constant. Thus, a rise in one trilemma variable should be traded-off with a drop of the weighted sum of the other two.
China, East Asia, and Global Rebalancing: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-006
The author assesses macroeconomic conditions in the United States, euro zone, and East Asia. Given the likely recession in the euro area and U.S. fiscal policy paralysis, the burden of maintaining world growth and shrinking external imbalances falls heavily on East Asian policymakers, particularly in China. However, the required policy changes would benefit China by prompting it to make its growth model more driven by domestic demand and, hence, more sustainable.
Are Chinese Trade Flows Different?: Yin-Wong Cheung, Menzie D. Chinn and XingWang Qian / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-005

The authors find that Chinese trade flows respond to economic activity and relative prices — as represented by a trade weighted exchange rate — but the relationships are not always precisely or robustly estimated.
Statewide Expansion of Treatment Alternatives to Incarceration in Wisconsin: A Cost Benefit Analysis: Anne Chapman, Colin Christopher, Tim Nardine, Karen Parkinson, Justin Rabbach, Nicole Thiher / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-004

The authors predict the costs and benefits of expanding programs that provide drug and alcohol treatment and diversion from incarceration for non-violent criminal offenders in Wisconsin, which can alleviate overcrowding in corrections facilities and ease budget constraints. They recommend that Wisconsin invest $20 million annually in treatment alternatives and diversion programs, and allocate 75 percent of that funding to diversion programs and 25 percent to drug courts.
Interpreting Community College Effects in the Presence of Heterogeneity and Complex Counterfactuals: Jennie E. Brand, Fabian T. Pfeffer and Sara Goldrick-Rab / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-003

The authors find that average effects of community college attendance mask different effects for different students. Enrolling at a community college appears to penalize more-advantaged students who otherwise would have attended four-year colleges. However, enrolling at a community college has a modest positive effect on bachelor’s degree completion for the majority of community college-goers: disadvantaged students who otherwise would not have attended college.
Long-Term Effects of Public Low-Income Housing Vouchers on Neighborhood Quality and Household Composition: Deven Carlson, Robert Haveman, Thomas Kaplan and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-002

The authors estimate the effect of low-income housing voucher receipt on the composition of recipient households and the quality of the neighborhoods in which recipient households reside. They find that the voucher receipt has little effect on neighborhood quality in the short-term, but some positive long-term effects. We also find that voucher receipt is tied to a higher probability of change in household composition in the year of voucher receipt, but greater stability in subsequent years.
The Eurozone in Crisis: Origins and Prospects: Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffry A. Frieden / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2012-001

The authors analyze the eurozone’s financial crisis, locating the source of the problems in the dissimilarity of the currency union’s economies and the lack of a fiscal mechanism for mitigating shocks to individual economies. They describe the debate over the means to best resolve the crisis and assess the most likely outcomes.
A Theory of Culture-Switching: Leadership and Red Tape during Hurricane Katrina: Donald Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-018 is forthcoming in Public Administration
The U.S. Department of Defense's initial response to Hurricane Katrina was slowed by an agency culture that imposed red tape to limit engagement in crisis response and thus maintain autonomy. DOD leaders altered the response by committing to another cultural assumption widely shared within the agency: a “can-do” approach to achieving difficult goals regardless of obstacles. The case illustrates how different organizational cultural assumptions interact with red tape to foster either inertia or a proactive response.
Does Involvement in Performance Management Routines Encourage Performance Information Use? Evaluating GPRA and PART: Donald Moynihan and Stéphane Lavertu / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-017 is forthcoming in Public Administration Review
The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 and the Bush administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) established new routines intended to foster performance management practices. Using data from two surveys, the authors find that the involvement of agency employees with PART reviews and GPRA processes generally had little direct effect on the use of performance information once other factors are accounted for.
A Forensic Analysis of Global Imbalances: Menzie D. Chinn, Barry Eichengreen and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-016
The authors use updated data to re-examine the determinants of current account balances. They find that changes in budget balances in 2008-09 appear to have an effect in advanced current account deficit countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Stock market performance and real housing appreciation explain unusual current account balances in 2006-08. The findings suggest that unless countries implement substantial policy changes, the global imbalances are unlikely to disappear.
Willingness to Pay for a Climate Backstop: Liquid Fuel Producers and Direct CO2 Air Capture: Gregory F. Nemet and Adam R. Brandt / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-015
Under most assumptions, development costs exceed the private benefits of air capture. A particularly robust result is that carbon prices generate large benefits for conventional oil producers, which makes a climate backstop unappealing for them.
Do Important Inventions Benefit from Knowledge Originating in Other Technological Domains?: Gregory F. Nemet and Evan Johnson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-014
Increasing citations to previous patents is a significantly less important predictor of a patent's importance than citing previous patents that are technologically closer.
Macro Approaches to Foreign Exchange Determination: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-013 has been updated as Working Paper No. 2013-005
The author reviews macroeconomic approaches to exchange rate determination, with an emphasis on empirical models. Monetary and portfolio balance models of nominal exchange rates are described and evaluated. The literature on real models of real exchange rates is reviewed. The paper ends with a brief survey of recent developments in exchange rate modeling.
The Impact on Property Taxes of the Governor’s 2011-12 School Funding Proposals: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-012
This paper estimates the reductions in general school aid allocations and revenue limits for the 2011-12 academic year under the Wisconsin governor’s proposed budget. Unless voters approve referenda to increase their revenue limits, the study finds that the majority of school districts will be forced to reduce school property taxes.

Does Involvement in Performance Routines Encourage Performance Information Use? Evaluating GPRA and PART: Donald P. Moynihan and Stéphane Lavertu / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-011 is updated as No. 2011-017, which is forthcoming in Public Administration Review
The authors find that the involvement of federal agency employees with Program Assessment Rating Tool reviews and Government Performance and Results Act routines generally has not fostered greater performance information use once other factors are accounted for.
Prosocial Values and Performance Management Theory: The Link between Perceived Social Impact and Performance Information Use: Donald P. Moynihan, Sanjay K. Pandey, and Bradley E. Wright / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-010 is forthcoming in Governance
Performance management techniques are presented as control mechanisms to save money and hold bureaucrats accountable, consistent with negative agency theory assumptions of bureaucrats. In contrast, the authors argues that public servants who see the social impact of their work are more likely to use performance metrics.
Setting the Table: How Transformational Leadership Fosters Performance Information Use: Donald P. Moynihan, Bradley E. Wright and Sanjay K. Pandey / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-009 is forthcoming in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
The authors examine how leadership fosters performance data and influences the implementation of management reforms. They suggest that transformational leadership has a positive but indirect effect on the use of performance information via two mediating factors: goal clarity and organizational culture.
The Impact of the Great Recession and the Housing Crisis on the Financing of America’s Largest Cities: Howard Chernick, Adam Langley, and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-008
The authors use data on the financing of the nation's largest central cities from 1997 to 2008 to forecast the impact of the recession and the housing crisis on central city expenditures between 2009 and 2013. They predict that real per-capita spending in the average central city will be reduced by about 7 percent during the forecast period, and that spending cuts will be substantially greater in cities hit hardest by the economic recession and the housing market collapse.
A Forensic Analysis of Global Imbalances: Menzie D. Chinn, Barry Eichengreen and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-007 has been updated as No. 2011-016
The authors use updated data to re-examine the determinants of current account balances. They find that changes in budget balances in 2008-09 appear to have an effect in advanced current account deficit countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Stock market performance and real housing appreciation explain unusual current account balances in 2006-08. The findings suggest that unless countries implement substantial policy changes, the global imbalances are unlikely to disappear.
Financial Globalization and China: Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-006
This paper looks into the relationship between financial globalization and China's economic development. The authors suggest that China may need to reform its financial institutions and systems to accommodate more market mechanisms in the allocation of capital.
Reducing Health-Care Associated Infections: An Organizational How-To Guide: Donald P. Moynihan and Nasia Safdar / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-005
The authors apply concepts of organizational theory to the empirical study of efforts to improve the safety of hospital patients. By identifying elements of efforts to improve safety, they outline a model of organizational change that charts how best to unfreeze an existing process, introducing a change and then freezing the change into a new process.
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Implementing a Sales Tax on Motor Fuels in Wisconsin: Kieran Coe, Adam Hartung, Jennifer Russ, Adam Smith, and Peter Whalen / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-004
This cost-benefit analysis devises a mixed-tax alternative to Wisconsin's 32.9 cent excise tax on motor fuel. The authors compare their alternative to the current tax and to three variations on the current policy that take inflation and sudden price changes into account. Changing from the status quo of 32.9 cents per gallon to the mixed-tax alternative could yield Wisconsin an additional $1.7 billion in total revenue from 2012 to 2020, if price shocks are considered.
An Analysis of the Proposal to Reduce Revenue Limits for Wisconsin School Districts: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-003
If the Wisconsin governor’s budget includes a mandated reduction of $500 per pupil in the sum of general aid received from the state and local property tax revenue, school districts would see an aggregate 7 percent reduction in allowable revenues relative to the 2010-11 revenue limit. In general, the districts with higher property values would face smaller percentage reductions in the revenue limits.
Evidence on Financial Globalization and Crises: Global Imbalances: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-002
The author defines global imbalances and discusses explanations for the development of large current account deficits and surpluses in key economies after 1997. He includes the saving-investment approach, the intertemporal approach, mercantilism and the Bretton Woods II hypothesis, and the global saving glut view. A discussion of the literature linking the financial crisis of 2008-09 to the development of global imbalances concludes.
Efficiently Reducing Corrections Costs in Wisconsin: Applying the Washington State Model: Sylvia Fredericks, Sara Kock, Emily Ley, Olivia Little, Natalie Olson, Paul Waldhart / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-001
The authors examine evidence-based programs that can reduce crime and lower corrections costs in Wisconsin. Their cost-benefit analysis identifies nine combinations of prison population reduction and reinvestment of subsequent savings into programs that reduce crime. Decreasing the average daily prison population by 10 percent (2,248 prisoners) and reinvesting 100 percent of the savings was the option with the highest estimated societal savings.
Education and Health in Late-Life among High School Graduates: Cognitive versus Psychological Aspects of Human Capital: Pamela Herd / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-024
Higher academic performance in high school plays a critical role in better health throughout life. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, the report looks at links between educational attainment, high school academic performance, personality and psychological characteristics, and late-life health among high school graduates.
The (Un)Productivity of American Higher Education: From “Cost Disease” to Cost-Effectiveness: Douglas N. Harris and Sara Goldrick-Rab / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-023
The authors examine two explanations for why productivity in academic degrees granted by American colleges and universities is declining. First, few popular programs and strategies in higher education are cost-effective, and those that are may be underutilized. Second, a lack of rigorous evidence about the costs and effects of higher education practices intersects with a lack of incentive to use cost-effectiveness to guide decision-making.
Revenue Diversification and the Financing of Large American Central Cities: Howard Chernick, Adam Langley, and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-022
The authors develop the concept of constructed governments to compare the revenue-raising policies of large central cities and related overlying governments. They explore whether revenue diversification supports higher levels of government spending. Using central city fiscal data and information on state sales tax rates, they also explore vertical tax competition between states and their large cities.
Temporary Help Work: Multiple Job-Holding and Compensating Differentials: Sarah Hamersma and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-020
The authors use a compilation of administrative data to examine hourly wages, total hours of work, and quarterly earnings to investigate whether temporary help service (THS) jobs pay a compensating differential (or wage premium) relative to traditional jobs. They find lower quarterly earnings at THS jobs relative to non-THS jobs and a wage premium of $1 per hour for THS work that they suggest is largely explained by the much shorter duration of THS jobs.
Creaming-Skimming, Parking and Other Intended and Unintended Effects of Performance-Based Contracting in Social Welfare Services: Pierre Koning and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-021
The authors' analysis finds that government-contracted private providers of job placement services in the Netherlands tend to focus on helping clients who are the easiest to place, a practice known as cream-skimming, when the providers are engaged through fully performance-contingent contracts. In addition, making contract payments fully contingent on performance appears to increase job placements, but not job duration, for more readily employable workers.
Temporary Help Work: Multiple Job-Holding and Compensating Differentials: Sarah Hamersma and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-020
The authors use a compilation of administrative data to examine hourly wages, total hours of work, and quarterly earnings to investigate whether temporary help service (THS) jobs pay a compensating differential (or wage premium) relative to traditional jobs. They find lower quarterly earnings at THS jobs relative to non-THS jobs and a wage premium of $1 per hour for THS work that they suggest is largely explained by the much shorter duration of THS jobs.
How Credible is the Evidence, and Does It Matter? An Analysis of the Program Assessment Rating Tool: Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-019
This study empirically examines the quality of evidence that agencies provided to the Office of Management and Budget in assessments using the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), which was introduced in 2002 to strengthen the process for evaluating public program effectiveness and holding agencies accountable for results. The author finds some significant, positive associations between the quality of evidence and PART ratings, but no discernible consequences for program funding over time.
Reducing Child Support Debt and Its Consequences: Can Forgiveness Benefit All?: Carolyn J. Heinrich, Brett C. Burkhardt and Hilary M. Shager / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-018
This evaluation of a demonstration program that targeted noncustodial parents with high levels of unpaid child support debt and offered them incentives to become regular payers finds that participants paid more toward their child support obligations, made more frequent payments and reduced their debt balances.
Improving Education and Employment for Disadvantaged Young Men: Proven and Promising Strategies: Carolyn J. Heinrich and Harry J. Holzer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-017
The authors review the evidence based on youth development policies for adolescents, programs seeking to improve educational attainment and employment for in-school youth, and programs that try to “reconnect” those who are out of school and frequently out of work to identify programmatic strategies that are promising or proven based on rigorous evaluations. They conclude that policy efforts need to promote a range of approaches to engage and reconnect youth, and to encourage ongoing evaluation efforts to improve understanding of what works, including which program components, for whom.
How Large Is Wisconsin’s Budget Gap for the 2011-13 Biennium?: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-016
With adjustments to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s July 2010 determination of Wisconsin’s fiscal condition at the beginning of the upcoming biennium, the author estimates as much as a $3 billion structural fiscal deficit for 2011-13. He adjusts the LFB number for to account for both increases in the costs of providing public services and the additional revenues that economic growth will generate.
Financing U.S. Debt: Is There Enough Money in the World – and At What Cost?: John Kitchen and Menzie Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-015
This paper examines the potential role for foreign official holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and the associated implications for Treasury security interest rates, international portfolio allocations, net international income flows, and the U.S. net international debt position, using a baseline outlook of current and projected U.S. budget deficits and growing debt.
Are Property Taxes Forcing the Elderly Out of their Homes?: Rebecca Boldt, Bradley Caruth, and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-014
This preliminary study finds that few of Wisconsin's elderly homeowners are forced to move from their homes because of property tax increases. Given that Wisconsin's property taxes are high compared to those in other states, these findings suggest that property taxes throughout the country have little effect on people's decisions to move, especially among older adults.
U.S. Health Care Reform: A Primer and an Assessment: Robert Haveman and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-013
The authors examine the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. They describe the existing structure of the U.S. health-care system, identify its major weaknesses, describe the primary features introduced by the act, and offer their appraisal of the reform.
Explaining Export Varieties: the Role of Comparative Advantage: Isao Kamata / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-012
This study investigates whether the variety of products in a country’s exports is explained by the country’s comparative advantage. The author’s model predicts greater export variety in industries that intensively use a production factor with which the country is relatively well-endowed. Empirical tests using U.S. import data confirm this theoretical prediction by showing that countries with a relative abundance of skilled labor tend to export a greater variety of products made by industries using more skilled labor, and that countries with an abundance of unskilled labor tend to export a greater variety of products made by industries using more unskilled labor.
Willingness to Pay for Climate Policy: A Review of Estimates: Evan Johnson and Gregory Nemet / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-011
The authors survey estimates of consumer willingness to pay for climate policy to (1) assess the validity of this explanation, (2) compare elicitation techniques, and (3) explore factors that might explain variation in willingness-to-pay estimates. They recalculated estimates on an equivalent basis across 27 studies and found a range of $22-$437 per household annually, with a median of $135.
Measuring Misalignment: Latest Estimates for the Chinese Yuan: Yin-Wong Cheung, Menzie D. Chinn, and Eiji Fujii / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-010
The authors re-orient the discussion of currency misalignment back toward theory and empirics. They set forth a typology of modeling approaches to assess misalignment to highlight the difficulties in theoretically defining the "real" exchange rate and in quantifying the extent of deviations from equilibrium in practice. They also recap recent estimates of yuan misalignment.
Surfing the Waves of Globalization: Asia and Financial Globalization in the Context of the Trilemma: Joshua Aizenman, Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-009
With a focus on the Asian economies, the authors examine how policy configurations affect macroeconomic performances by using Aizenman et al.'s “trilemma indexes” that measure the extent of achievement in each of the trilemma's policy goals — monetary independence, exchange rate stability, and financial openness. They find that the three policy choices matter for output volatility and the medium-term level of inflation.
The Emerging Global Financial Architecture: Tracing and Evaluating New Patterns of the Trilemma Configuration: Joshua Aizenman, Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-008
The authors investigate how the trilemma policy mix affects economic performance in developing countries. They find that greater monetary independence can dampen output volatility, while greater exchange rate stability is associated with greater output volatility. Greater financial openness, when accompanied by a high level of financial development, reduces output volatility.
Revisiting the Revisited: An Alternative Test of the Monopolistic Competition Model of International Trade: Isao Kamata / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-007
This paper proposes an alternative test of the monopolistic competition model of international trade that has an implication for the relationship between the volume of trade and similarity among trading countries in the sizes of their economies. As the model predicts, the result shows that for industrial countries, the positive correlation between the volume of trade and the similarity of economic size among countries is more significant in the sectors characterized by product differentiation. However, for developing countries, the predicted relationship is more pronounced in the non-differentiated sectors, counter to what the model suggests.
Robust Incentives and the Design of a Climate Change Governance Regime: Gregory F. Nemet / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-006
A poorly coordinated international governance regime has the advantage of reducing the risk associated with a global policy failure. Beyond this case study, the importance of this positive effect depends on the probability of policy failures in each country, the correlations among them and the probability of a global policy failure.
Comparative Advantage, Firm Heterogeneity, and Selection of Exporters: Isao Kamata / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-005
This investigation explores how a country’s fraction of exporting domestic firms differs across industries, depending on a country’s comparative advantage. The author shows that a country’s share of exporters can be explained by an industry’s intensity of production resources with which the country is endowed. The author’s empirical finding demonstrates that a country with a higher abundance of skilled labor has a higher correlation between the shares of exporters in domestic firms and industry skill intensities.
Asset-Based Measurement of Poverty: Andrea Brandolini, Silvia Magri, and Timothy M. Smeeding / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-004
This paper investigates measures of poverty that rely on indicators of household net worth. The authors review and assess two main approaches: income-net worth measures and asset-poverty. They provide fresh cross-national evidence based on data from the Luxembourg Wealth Study.
A Critical Review of Property Tax Relief in Wisconsin: The School Levy Credit and the First Dollar Credit: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-003
Wisconsin's school levy credit and first dollar credit are an expensive and highly inefficient means of providing property tax relief to Wisconsin taxpayers, this analysis suggests. In fact, they provide relatively little relief to homeowners and renters facing the highest property tax burdens. A version of this paper appears in State Tax Notes, February 8, 2010
The Predictive Power of the Yield Curve across Countries and Time: Kavan Kucko and Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-002
This re-examination finds that power of the yield curve to predict economic activity has deteriorated in recent years. However, the authors find reason to believe that European country models perform better than non‐European countries when using more recent data.
Supply Capacity, Vertical Specialization and Tariff Rates: The Implications for Aggregate U.S. Trade Flow Equations: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-001
This paper re-examines aggregate and disaggregate import and export demand functions for the United States for 1975-2007 and suggests that the standard models omit important factors. The rising importance of vertical specialization combined with decreasing tariffs rates explains some of results. Accounting for these factors yields more plausible estimates of income elasticities.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Intensive Autism Services in the State of Wisconsin: Sandy Magaña, Molly Stapleton, and Alex Garcia / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-027
The authors examined racial and ethnic disparities in the receipt of intensive autism services in Wisconsin and found that Latino, African American and American Indian children with autism are underrepresented.
Do Rising Property Taxes Lead the Elderly to Move from their Homes?: Rebecca Boldt, Bradley Caruth, and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-026 has been revised as working paper no. 2010-014
This preliminary study finds that few of Wisconsin's elderly homeowners are forced to move from their homes because of property tax increases. Given that Wisconsin's property taxes are high compared to those in other states, these findings suggest that property taxes throughout the country have little effect on people's decisions to move, especially among older adults.
The Benefits and Costs of the Section 8 Housing Subsidy Program: A Framework and First-Year Estimates: Deven Carlson, Robert Haveman, Thomas Kaplan and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-025
The authors provide estimates of the social benefits and costs of the Section 8 housing subsidy program. Their analysis rests on a series of studies in which they estimate the effects of voucher receipt on a variety of recipient living unit behaviors, including movement to new neighborhoods, employment, earnings, and the receipt of public benefits: child-care subsidies, medical care assistance, and welfare assistance.
Local Air Quality and Climate Policy: Valuing Ancillary Benefits When the Debate is about Minimizing Costs: Gregory F. Nemet, T. Holloway and P. Meier / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-024 has been published in Environmental Research Letters under the title "Implications of Incorporating Air-Quality Benefits into Climate Change Policymaking."
While air quality co-benefits have been prominently portrayed as a hedge against uncertainty in climate policy, this assessment finds that full inclusion of co-benefits depends on — rather than substitutes for — better valuation of climate damages.
The President and the Distribution of Federal Spending: Christopher R. Berry, Barry C. Burden and William G. Howell / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-023
This study of distributive politics finds that districts represented by legislators in the president’s party receive systematically more spending, as do those where the legislator or the president was narrowly elected.
Information Costs, Policy Uncertainty, and Political Control: Federal Advisory Committees at the FDA: Stéphane Lavertu and David Weimer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-022
The authors investigate how the Food and Drug Administration uses advisory committees in the approval of drugs and medical devices. Such committees may share policy expertise or help legitimize agency positions. Advisory committees also may facilitate political accountability by making decision-making more transparent and by giving certain interests seats at the table.
Governance and Evidence-Based Medicine: Lessons from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network: David Weimer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-021
The author explores whether an evidence-based governance arrangement based on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network be applied to Medicare through a sketch of MedSAVE, an organization that would set reimbursement rates and reporting requirements for surgeries paid for by Medicare.
Through A Glass, Darkly: Understanding the Effects of Performance Regimes: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-020
While governance increasingly relies on performance regimes, we have relatively limited empirical knowledge of the full effects of these regimes. This article presents a roughly drawn map of such effects, identifying relevant variables and speculating how they interact with performance measures and are reconstituted by performance regimes. This article is published in Public Performance & Management Review 32(4): 586-598.
The Big Question for Performance Management: Explaining Performance Information Use: Donald P. Moynihan and Sanjay K. Pandey / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-019 was published in 2010 as “The Big Question for Performance Management: Why do Managers Use Performance Information?” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 20(4): 849-866.
The analysis shows that public service motivation, leadership role, information availability, organizational culture, and flexibility all affect how and why public managers use performance information.
Leadership and Reform: Mapping the Causal Pathways of Performance Information Use: Donald P. Moynihan, Sanjay K. Pandey and Bradley E. Wright / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-018
A revision of this paper, which is forthcoming in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, is available as La Follette School Working Paper No. 2011-009. The authors examine how leadership fosters performance data and influences the implementation of management reforms. They suggest that transformational leadership has a positive but indirect effect on the use of performance information via two mediating factors: goal clarity and organizational culture.
Performance Regimes amidst Governance Complexity: Donald Moynihan, Sergio Fernandez, Soonhee Kim, Kelly M. LeRoux, Suzanne J. Piotrowski, Bradley E. Wright and Kaifeng Yang / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-017 is forthcoming in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
This article examines the tensions between performance measurement, which is often described as a simple and value-neutral way to monitor and improve government, and the complexity of modern governance. The authors identify implications and questions for research and practice.
The Predictive Content of Commodity Futures: Menzie D. Chinn and Olivier Coibion / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-016 has been updated as No. 2013-001
The authors examine the relationship between spot and futures prices for commodities, including those for energy (crude oil, gasoline, heating oil markets and natural gas), precious and base metals (gold, silver, aluminum, copper, lead, nickel and tin), and agricultural commodities (corn, soybean and wheat). They find that while energy futures prices are generally unbiased predictors of future spot prices, there are certain notable exceptions.
Implications of Climate Policy in a Carbon-Intensive Region: Estimating Abatement costs under Deep Policy Uncertainty: J.P. Muller and Gregory Nemet / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-015
This report looks at the most important uncertain details of climate change mitigation policy, depicts the dispersion of implementation details in existing policy proposals, assesses which ones will have greater cost impacts, and then describes the scenarios that could have major direct economic impacts on Wisconsin utility consumers.
State and Federal Aid to Wisconsin School Districts in Fiscal Year 2010: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-014
For many Wisconsin districts, the decline in state aid will be larger than the additional federal funding many will receive as part of the stimulus package.
New Estimates of Public Employment and Training Program Net Impacts: A Nonexperimental Evaluation of the Workforce Investment Act Program: Carolyn J. Heinrich, Peter R. Mueser, Kenneth R. Troske, Kyung-Seong Jeon, and Daver C. Kahvecioglu / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-013
Two federal job training programs for adults lead to higher wages in the long run. People with poor work histories who enrolled in training through the Workforce Investment Act's Adult Program initially had lower wages, but after 10 quarters they caught up with people who did not receive training. Participants in the Dislocated Worker Program also improved their wages in contrast to their comparison group over time. People in both programs had depressed wages during and immediately after the training period.
Does Debt Discourage Employment and Payment of Child Support? Evidence from a Natural Experiment: Maria Cancian, Carolyn Heinrich and Yiyoon Chung / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-012
The authors find an inverse relationship between child support debt and a father's earnings and child support payments. Higher arrears are generally associated with lower payments and lower earnings for fathers, although the patterns vary with fathers’ age and work histories.
Third-Party Governance under No Child Left Behind: Accountability and Performance Management Challenges: Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-011 was published in 2010 as “Third-Party Governance under No Child Left Behind: Accountability and Performance Management Challenges in Supplemental Educational Services Provision” in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 20(1): 59-80.
This study explores how the Milwaukee public school district manages the organizations that provide tutoring and other supplemental educational services required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. It also examines the relationship between the performance of service providers and their shares of the participating students and finds little correlation between the two.
Supplemental Education Services under No Child Left Behind: Who Signs Up, and What Do They Gain?: Carolyn J. Heinrich, Robert H. Meyer, and Greg Whitten / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-010 was published in 2010 in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 32 (June): 273-298.
A federally mandated and funded tutoring program in Milwaukee Public Schools is not necessarily reaching the people who need the help the most, nor is it effective in increasing student achievement. The authors integrate qualitative and quantitative data from a large-scale study of supplemental educational services offered under the No Child Left Behind Act to assess the effectiveness of these services.
Financial Literacy Programs Targeted on Pre-School Children: Development and Evaluation: Karen Holden, Charles Kalish, Laura Scheinholtz, Deanna Dietrich, and Beatriz Novak / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-009
This review of financial literacy programs for preschool-age children finds they tend to concentrate on concrete lessons without consideration of underlying concepts to be taught. They also do not consider the cognitive ability of children to grasp the concepts, nor the behavior and timing of
behaviors that financial literacy educators seek to improve.
Private Information and the Monetary Model of Exchange Rates: Evidence from a Novel Data Set: Menzie D. Chinn and Michael J. Moore / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-008
The authors propose an exchange rate model that is a hybrid of the conventional specification with monetary fundamentals and the Evans-Lyons microstructure approach. They argue that the failure of the monetary model is principally due to private preference shocks that make the demand for money unstable. These shocks to liquidity preference are revealed through order flow. They estimate a model augmented with order flow variables, using a unique data set: almost 100 monthly observations on inter-dealer order flow on dollar/euro and dollar/yen. The augmented macroeconomic, or “hybrid,” model exhibits out-of-sample forecasting improvement over the basic macroeconomic and random walk specifications.
Enhancing the Feasibility of School Finance Reform: Andrew Reschovsky and Adam Langley / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-007
This paper describes a simulation model designed to analyze school funding reform proposals in Wisconsin. It includes a parallel current law model and the capacity to show any proposal's aggregate budgetary and distributional impacts. The simulations allow for alternative spending and property tax levy responses by individual districts in response to changes in state aid.
The Growth of Homeowner Property Taxes: Evidence from Wisconsin: Rebecca Boldt, Bradley Caruth and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-006
The authors examine how Wisconsin homeowners' property tax liabilities and burdens change over time. They find that the amount paid and the economic hardship created vary widely among homeowners. Relative to income, some homeowners face high and increasing property taxes, while others pay low and/or declining taxes.
Is University of Wisconsin Education Becoming More Elite? A Partial Answer: John F. Witte and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-005
Family income does not affect whether the University of Wisconsin–Madison admits a student, an analysis of data from the university and census bureau finds, suggesting that family wealth does not privilege college freshmen in gaining access to the state's flagship public university.
Assessing the Emerging Global Financial Architecture: Measuring the Trilemma’s Configurations over Time: Joshua Aizenman, Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-004
La Follette School Working Paper 2010-008 is a substantive revision of this paper. The authors develop a methodology to characterize in an intuitive manner the choices countries have made with respect to the trilemma during the post Bretton-Woods period.
Private Information and the Monetary Model of Exchange Rates: Evidence from a Novel Data Set: Menzie D. Chinn and Michael J. Moore / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-003
The proposed exchange rate model argues that the failure of the monetary model is principally due to private preference shocks that render the demand for money unstable.
Pitfalls in Measuring Exchange Rate Misalignment: The Yuan and Other Currencies: Yin-Wong Cheung, Menzie D. Chinn and Eiji Fujii / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-002
Using a framework built around the relationship between relative price and relative output levels, the authors find little evidence that the renminbi is undervalued. The misalignment they detected in previous work disappears in this data set.
What Does It Mean to be Poor in a Rich Society?: Robert Haveman / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2009-001
The author extends the discussion of poverty and its measurement beyond the current U.S. model that dates to the mid-1960s. He explores European Union and United Kingdom proposals for comprehensive measures that consider indicators of material deprivation and "social exclusion." He concludes with a proposal for developing a measure of poverty and social exclusion for the United States.
The End of an Idea? The Bush Administration and the Exhaustion of the Politicized Presidency: Donald P. Moynihan and Alasdair S. Roberts / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-024 has been published as “The triumph of loyalty over competence: The Bush administration and the exhaustion of the politicized presidency.” Public Administration Review, (70)4: 572-581.
The most important component of the George W. Bush administration's management agenda was the extension of the politicized presidency. However, the strategy of increased tighter political control of the federal bureaucracy largely failed: it undermined the Bush administration's policy goals and restoration of the institution of the presidency.
One Standard Fits All? The Pros and Cons of Performance Standard Adjustments: Burt S. Barnow and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-023 was published in 2010 in
Public Administration Review 70(1): 60-71.
Public performance measurement systems rarely use formal performance standards adjustment procedures. After weighing the pros and cons and describing processes, the authors recommend how public sector performance measurement systems can be improved and argue this is a rich area for experimentation and academic research.
The Design and Dynamics of Performance Measurement Systems in the Public Sector: Carolyn J. Heinrich and Gerald R. Marschke / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-022 is a revision of 2008-014. It was published in 2010 as “Incentives and their Dynamics in Public Sector Performance Management Systems.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 29(1): 183-208.
The authors use the principal-agent framework to synthesize theoretical and empirical knowledge of the implementation of performance management systems in the public sector. They describe a dynamic framework to account for individuals' strategic behavior over time.
The Potential of a Couples Approach to Employment Assistance: Results of a Nonexperimental Evaluation: Rachel A. Gordon and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-021 has been published in Review of Economics of the Household 7(2) 2009: 133-158.
This evaluation of a program employing both partners in a couple relationship finds that mothers had larger immediate gains in employment and earnings and decreases in receipts via Temporary Assistance for Needy Families after they left the employment program exit compared to mothers who participated as individuals. Fathers show similar though weaker results.
The Network Governance of Crisis Response: Case Studies of Incident Command Systems: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-020; an abbreviated version was published in 2009 in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 19(4): 895-915.
This examination of hierarchical incident command systems (ICS) used in crises explores how the network properties of crisis responses fundamentally affect ICS operations in terms of coordination, authority and trust.
A Faith-based Initiative: Does a Flexible Exchange Rate Regime Really Facilitate Current Account Adjustment?: Menzie D. Chinn and Shang-Jin Wei / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-019
The authors find no strong tie between exchange rate regime flexibility and the rate of current account reversion, even after accounting for economic development, trade and capital account openness. They also find that the endogenous selection of exchange rate regimes does not explain the observed lack of correlation.
A Heckuva Job: How Management Failures Doomed the Bush Administration: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-018 has been published in Public Management Review 11(1): 121–133.
This extended review examines six volumes and discusses the Bush administration from a public management perspective.
Beyond Access: Explaining Socioeconomic Differences in College Transfer: Sara Goldrick-Rab and Fabian T. Pfeffer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-017
The authors find that college students from less educated families are more likely to transfer from four-year schools to community colleges partly because of lower levels of academic performance during freshman year.
Happiness as a Complex Financial Phenomenon: The Financial and Psychological Adjustment to Widowhood in the U.S.: Karen Holden, Jeungkun Kim and Angela Fontes / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-016
Using a sample of relatively young widows and widowers, this paper examines the relationship between psychological and financial well-being of the surviving spouse. For all married and widowed men and women, wealth and health shape financial satisfaction, but widowhood has a fairly selective effect. Controlling for financial satisfaction, the authors find that widows and widowers are more depressed than are married men and women.
Nonlinearities, Business Cycles and Exchange Rates: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-015
The paper brings together the literature on exchange rate models and monetary policy models, with special reference to the importance of output, inflation gaps and exchange rate targets. It focuses on the dollar/euro exchange rate, and the differential results arising from using alternative measures of the output gap for the United States and the euro region.
Dynamics in Performance Measurement System Design and Implementation: Carolyn J. Heinrich and Gerald R. Marschke / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-014
Working Paper No. 2008-022 is an updated version of this paper. The authors scrutinize a commonly used static, principal-agent framework for informing performance incentive system design and highlight the models’ limitations for understanding individual and organizational responses to performance measurement requirements. They develop a dynamic framework for performance measurement systems to account for employees' strategic behavior over time.
Long-Term Effects of Public Low-Income Housing Vouchers on Work, Earnings, and Neighborhood Quality: Deven Carlson, Robert Haveman, Thomas Kaplan and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-013
This analysis of the federal Section 8 housing voucher program finds that voucher recipients live in better neighborhoods within five years of receiving vouchers. The results also show that voucher receipt initially causes lower earnings, but these dissipate over time. The work and earnings effects from voucher receipt differ substantially across demographic groups.
Interpreting Interim Deviations from Cost Projections for Publicly Supported Energy Technologies: Gregory F. Nemet / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-012 has been published: Nemet, G.F. (2009). “Interim monitoring of cost dynamics for publicly supported energy technologies." Energy Policy 37(3): 825-835. Available through Science Direct
Widespread public funding of nascent energy technologies, combined with recent increases in costs the most heavily supported, has introduced a policy dilemma: should policymakers sustain these programs in anticipation cost increases being temporary disturbances or should they eliminate them to avoid risking billions of dollars of public funds on technological dead ends? This paper uses experience curve to estimate possible policy outcomes and to introduce new ways of assessing near term cost dynamics.
Private Information and the Monetary Model of Exchange Rates: Evidence from a Novel Data Set: Menzie D. Chinn and Michael J. Moore / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-011
The authors propose an exchange rate model which is a hybrid of the conventional monetary specification and the Evans-Lyons microstructure approach. It argues that the failure of the monetary model is principally due to private preference shocks which render the demand for money unstable.
Cost Containment for Climate Policy Requires Linked Technology Policies: Gregory F. Nemet / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-010. A revision of this paper is forthcoming in Climatic Change under the title "Cost Containment in Climate Policy and Incentives for Technology Development" and available on SpringerLink.
Safety valves, discretionary advisory boards, and other cost containment mechanisms enhance the political feasibility of stringent climate policy by limiting firms’ and households’ exposures to higher than anticipated costs associated with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, cost containment comes at a price; it increases the risk of climate-related damages and it also discourages investments in low-carbon innovation.
Grandparents to Grandchildren Transfers: The Potential Importance to Younger Families’ Economic Stability: Angela Fontes and Karen Holden / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-009
Grandparents are more likely to give time and money to their grandchildren's families when grandparents are young, married and financially secure. They are more likely to assist grandchildren if they themselves were assisted or assisted their own children. Grandparents who continue to work are more likely to provide time and money assistance than nonworking grandparents, even controlling for age and income of grandparents. The authors conclude that grandparents may adjust their retirement plans to enable their adult children to fulfill child-rearing needs.
A Faith-Based Initiative: Do We Really Know that a Flexible Exchange Rate Regime Facilitates Current Account Adjustment?: Menzie D. Chinn and Shang-Jin Wei / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-008
The authors show that data do not support the assertion that a flexible exchange rate regime would facilitate current account adjustment.
The Euro May over the Next 15 Years Surpass the Dollar as Leading International Currency: Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffrey A. Frankel / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-007
The euro has arisen as a credible eventual competitor to the dollar as leading international currency, much as the dollar rose to challenge the pound 70 years ago. The authors find that the euro may surpass the dollar as the world's top reserve currency as soon as 2025.
Demand Subsidies Versus R&D: Comparing the Uncertain Impacts of Policy on a Pre-Commercial Low-Carbon Energy Technology: Gregory F. Nemet and Erin Baker / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-006. A revised version has been published in The Energy Journal 30(4): 49-80.
To compare the effects of publicly sponsored research and development and subsidies for demand, the authors combine a bottom-up manufacturing cost model with information gathered from experts. They apply their model to purely organic photovoltatics, a low-carbon energy technology that is not commercially available, and find that successful R&D programs reduce costs more than demand subsidies. They also find that quality R&D brought the cost of the photovoltaics to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, which subsidies alone could not achieve.
Supplemental Education Services under No Child Left Behind: Who Signs Up, and What Do They Gain?: Carolyn J. Heinrich, Robert H. Meyer, and Greg Whitten / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-005 has been revised as 2009-010
A federally mandated and funded tutoring program in Milwaukee Public Schools is not necessarily reaching the people who need the help the most, nor is it effective in increasing student achievement, the authors find in their integration of qualitative and quantitative data from a large-scale study of supplemental educational services offered as part of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Education and Labor Market Consequences of Teenage Childbearing: Evidence Using the Timing of Pregnancy Outcomes and Community Fixed Effects: Jason Fletcher and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-004
The authors explore the consequences of teen childbearing to the mother using a comparison group of pregnant teens who had miscarriages. Taking into account birth control choices, the timing of miscarriages, and community factors, they find evidence that teenage childbearing likely reduces the probability of receiving a high school diploma by 5 to 10 percentage points, reduces annual income as a young adult by $1,000 to $2,400, and may increase the probability of receiving cash assistance and decrease years of schooling.
Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD Revisited: Jason Fletcher and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-003
The authors look at a sample of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. They confirm and extend findings by other analysts in terms of implications for schooling, and they explore implications for human capital of siblings.
Explaining Turnover Intention in State Government: Examining the Roles of Gender, Life Cycle and Loyalty: Donald P. Moynihan and Noel Landuyt / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-002 has been published in the Review of Public Personnel Administration 28(2): 120-143. Available through Proquest.
To understand the intent of state employees to leave their jobs, this paper looks at life-cycle, gender and loyalty. The authors find that age, experience, and geographical preference coupled with economic and family constraints temper job-change decisions. Contrary to other results, women are less likely to say they intend to quit their positions. Organizational loyalty and sense of empowerment help predict turnover intention.
Demand Pull, Technology Push, and Government-Led Incentives for Non-Incremental Technical Change: Gregory F. Nemet / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-001 has been publishing in Research Policy 38(5): 700-709 and is available through Science Direct.
This paper uses patent citation data to examine the strength of incentives for inventors created by government policy. The results show only weak effects; the author discusses three explanations for this apparent contradiction of the demand-pull hypothesis.
Master or Servant? Agency Slack and the Politics of IMF Lending: Mark S. Copelovitch / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-039
This paper argues that states and International Monetary Fund bureaucrats exercise partial but incomplete control over the fund’s lending policies. Using an original dataset of IMF lending to 47 countries from 1984-2003, the author finds that “agency slack,” or the extent of staff autonomy, is conditional on the intensity and heterogeneity of preferences among the IMF’s largest shareholder countries.
Choose Your Weapon: International Trade Agreements and Exchange Rate Policy Choice: Mark S. Copelovitch and Jon C. Pevehouse / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-038
This paper examines the question of whether governments engage in “exchange rate protection” - that is, whether they actively manipulate the exchange rate and/or utilize exchange rate fluctuations as a lever to influence the terms of trade. Using data on 21 countries from 1975-1999, the paper identifies specific conditions under which governments use exchange rate policy as a substitute for trade protection.
Financial Regulation, Monetary Policy, and Inflation in the Industrialized World: Mark S. Copelovitch and David Andrew Singer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-037 has been published in the Journal of Politics, 70(3), July 2008: 663-680.
This paper argues that the institutional mandates of central banks influence inflation outcomes in advanced industrialized countries. When bank regulation is assigned to a separate agency, the central bank is more likely to enact tighter monetary policies geared solely toward maintaining price stability. The authors support this argument with a statistical analysis of inflation in 23 countries from 1975-1999 and a case study of the Bank of England, which lost its bank regulatory authority to a new agency in 1998.
Uncertainty, Context, and the Duration of International Agreements: Mark S. Copelovitch and Tonya L. Putnam / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-036
Why are some international agreements set up to operate indefinitely while others are of limited duration? This paper argues that “institutional context” — the existing legal and institutional environment in which states negotiate international agreements — is a significant determinant of states’ choices about the duration of international cooperation.
The Effects of Family Caps on the Subsequent Fertility Decisions of Never-Married Mothers: Geoffrey L. Wallace / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-035
The author's estimates suggest that family caps designed to reduce fertility among welfare recipients by denying additional cash assistance to those who have children do not have an effect on subsequent child-bearing among never-married women.
The Effect of Child Support Enforcement Efforts on Nonmarital Fertility and Marriage: Geoffrey L. Wallace / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-034
The author finds mixed evidence as to whether the strength of state child support enforcement affects nonmarital birth or marriage rates. In the preferred specifications, increased enforcement leads to a decrease in the likelihood of marriage among never-married, childless women and in the annual likelihood of a non marital birth and marriage among never-married women with one child.
A New Measure of Financial Openness: Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-033
In creating an index that measures the extent of openness in capital account transactions, the authors address the lack of proper ways of measuring the extent of the openness in cross-border financial transactions. The data are available for 181 countries for 1970-2005.
Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD Revisited: Jason Fletcher and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-032
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-003 is a revision of this paper. The authors look at a sample of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. They confirm and extend findings by other analysts in terms of implications for schooling, and they explore implications for human capital of siblings.
A Decade of Innovation in EU Governance: The European Employment Strategy, the Open Method of Coordination, and the Lisbon Strategy: Jonathan Zeitlin / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-031
This paper examines the European Employment Strategy and the Open Method of Coordination as European Union governance tools. It evaluates the Lisbon Strategy and proposes reforms.
China’s Current Account and Exchange Rate: Yin-Wong Cheung, Menzie D. Chinn and Eiji Fujii / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-030
The authors examine whether the Chinese exchange rate is misaligned and how Chinese trade flows respond to the exchange rate and to economic activity. They find, first, that the currency is substantially below the value their cross-country estimates predicted. They also find that Chinese multilateral trade flows respond to relative prices.
Price-based Measurement of Financial Globalization: A Cross-Country Study of Interest Rate Parity: Hiro Ito and Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-029
The authors characterize the relationship between ex post exchange rate depreciation and the interest differential for a set of countries that spans developed and emerging market economies. The measured ex post uncovered interest differentials in terms of both levels and absolute values are then related to measures of trade and financial openness, financial development, government budget balances, institutional development, and exchange rate regimes. They find wide diversity in the coefficient relating depreciations and interest differentials.
Public Service Motivation and Interpersonal Citizenship Behavior in Public Organizations: Testing a Preliminary Model: Sanjay K. Pandey, Bradley E. Wright and Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-028 is published in International Public Management Journal 11(1): 89-108.
This paper tests the relationships between individual levels of public service motivation and interpersonal citizenship behavior. The authors find that public service motivation increases organizational citizenship, even when accounting for the significant role of co-worker support.
The Ties that Bind: Social Networks, Person-Organization Fit and Turnover Intention: Donald P. Moynihan and Sanjay K. Pandey / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-027 is published in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
The authors argue that employees exist in social networks that shape employee attitudes and behavior. They find that strong relationships with coworkers reduce intent to leave but do not uncover strong support that external networks increase turnover intention. In addition, an employee whose personal values mesh with those of the organization are more likely to make a long-term commitment to that organization.
Measuring How Administration Shapes Citizenship: A Policy Feedback Perspective on Performance Management: Amber Wichowsky and Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-026 is published in Public Administration Review 68(5): 908-920.
Governments' emphasis on gauging the outcomes of social programs generally do not measure how a policy affects an individual's role as citizen. The authors argue that performance management systems should focus on citizenship outcomes. They offer suggestions for measuring such outcomes.
How do Public Organizations Learn? Bridging Cultural and Structural Perspectives: Donald P. Moynihan and Noel Landuyt / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-025 has been published in Public Administration Review 69(6): 1097-1105.
This article presents a model of organizational learning and finds that leaders seeking to foster learning should recognize that most relevant organizational variables combine structural and cultural aspects, which are mutually dependent on one another.
East Asia and Global Imbalances: Saving, Investment, and Financial Development
: Hiro Ito and Menzie Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-024
The paper investigates the role of budget balances, financial development and openness in the evolution of global imbalances. The authors examinine the effect of different types and aspects of financial development using a cross-country analysis that encompassinges a sample of 19 industrialized countries and 70 developing countries for 1986 through 2005.
Property Tax Responses to State Aid Cuts in the Recent Fiscal Crisis
: Richard F. Dye and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-023
The paper examines whether states increased property taxes between 2002 and 2004 in order to maintain the level of public services in light of large cuts in state intergovernmental grants resulting from state fiscal crises.
Strengthening the Social Dimension of the Lisbon Strategy
: Jonathan Zeitlin / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-022
The author introduces a discussion of how to strengthen the social dimension of the Lisbon Strategy by focusing on the question of how best to implement the conclusion of the spring 2007 European Council that “the common social objectives of Member States should be better taken into account within the Lisbon Agenda.”
The Normative Model in Decline? Public Service Motivation in the Age of Governance: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-021
This paper examines how public management reforms that foster market values (through performance measurement, financial incentives and contracting out) crowd-out the public service motivation of employees. The flaws of the market model in practice means that it encourages opportunistic behavior, making it even more important that the public sector curtails financial motivators, encourages intrinsic motivation and selects people who are not primarily driven by self-interest.
Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance in the European Union: Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-020
The authors identify distinctive and surprisingly effective innovations that have emerged in European Union governance. These innovations might inform the next round of efforts to render the institutions of European
decision-making comprehensible and democratically accountable.
Cost-Benefit Analysis Involving Addictive Goods: Using Contingent Valuation to Estimate Willingness to Pay to Eliminate Addiction: David L. Weimer, Aidan Vining and Randall K. Thomas / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-019
To conduct a cost-benefit analysis for social policies related to physically or psychologically addictive goods such as tobacco or gambling, the authors propose an adjustment to consumer surplus, the difference between the maximum consumers will pay for a good and what they actually pay.
Access to Higher Education: Exploring the Variation among Research Universities in the Prevalence of Pell Grant Recipients: Matthew P. Steinberg, Patrizio Piraino and Robert Haveman / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-018
The prevalence of low-income students at 148 public and private research universities is studied using receipt of a federal Pell Grant as a proxy for low-income status. The authors consider the factors that may contribute to variation among research universities in the prevalence of low-income students among the undergraduate student body and the extent to which an institution’s actual low-income prevalence deviates from their estimates.
Public Service Motivation and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Testing a Preliminary Model: Sanjay K. Pandey, Bradley E. Wright and Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-017
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-028 is a substantial revision of this paper. This paper tests the direct and indirect relationship between individual levels of PSM (Public Service Motivation) and organizational citizenship using a structural equation model. It accounts for the effect of organizational environment by incorporating a measure of co-worker support. The authors find that PSM has a direct and positive effect on organizational citizenship, even when accounting for the significant role of co-worker support.
Does Community Participation Produce Dividends in Social Investment Fund Projects?: Carolyn J. Heinrich and Yeri Lopez /La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-016 was published in 2009 in World Development 37(9): 1554-1568.
In a study of education projects in Honduras, the authors investigate whether participatory, community-driven approaches to social investment fund projects improve educational outcomes and community members’ perceptions of the projects’ effectiveness. Although they do not find significant effects of the education projects on academic outcomes of school-aged youth, they do observe a positive relationship between the use of participatory methods and household opinions of the projects.
The Ties that Bind: Social Networks, Person-Organization Fit and Turnover Intention: Donald P. Moynihan and Sanjay K. Pandey / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-015
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-027 is a substantial revision of this paper. The authors examine the influence of social networks and values on turnover intention among public and nonprofit employees. They argue that employees exist in social networks inside and outside their organizations, and that these networks shape employee attitudes and behavior. They find that strong relationships with coworkers reduce intent to leave, but do not find strong support that external networks increase turnover intention. The authors also propose and find evidence overlap between employee and organizational values encourages long-term commitments to organizations.
Two Essays in International Finance: Interest Rate Parity and the Forward Premium Puzzle: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-014
These two essays were prepared for the Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy, edited by Kenneth Reinert and Ramkishen Rajan, forthcoming from Princeton University Press.
Evidence-Based Policy and Performance Management: Complementary or Colliding Movements?: Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-013 has been published as “Evidence-based policy and performance management: Challenges and Prospects in Two Parallel Movements.” The American Review of Public Administration 37(3): 255-277.
In this essay, the author examines complementarities and tensions between the evidence-based policy and performance management movements. She considers alternative models and approaches for raising the standards for evidence production and for promoting policymakers' effective use of the information produced.
Global Current Account Imbalances: American Fiscal Policy versus East Asian Savings: Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-012
The authors consider the origins of global current account imbalances and find that for industrial countries, the government budget balance is an important determinant of the current account balance. Their estimates lead them to conclude that fiscal factors might be as important as excess savings arising from East Asia.
Inequality and Health: Is Housing Crowding the Link?: Sholeh A. Maani, Rhema Vaithianathan and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-011
The authors propose a new mechanism through which income inequality can influence health. They argue that increased income inequality induces household crowding, which in turn leads to increased rates of infectious diseases.
The Gap in Employment of High-Income Professionals in Wisconsin: Donald A. Nichols / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-010
A shortfall in employment of high-income professionals in Wisconsin, does exist. The author attributes this to the absence of a mega city with a large financial and business services sector.
Wisconsin's Border Counties: Donald A. Nichols / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-009
Given the tendency of some people to live in Wisconsin and commute to the Twin Cities or Chicago metropolitan areas, Wisconsin border communities can take steps to attract and retain these commuters.
Living Costs and Taxes in Wisconsin: Donald A. Nichols / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-008
The author takes on the task of looking at how the cost of living, including taxes, affects migration to Wisconsin, especially the decisions of young, highly educated people to relocate in the Badger State.
Migration To and From Wisconsin: Yeri Lopez and John Karl Scholz / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-007
Wisconsin exports more college graduates than it imports, with a net 7,000 people with bachelor's degrees leaving, the authors discover. More educated people leave Wisconsin for Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul than leave Illinois or Minnesota for Milwaukee.
Perspectives on Economic Development from Site Selection Magazine: Yeri Lopez and John Karl Scholz / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-006
The authors find that a Wisconsin presence is missing from an influential magazine that professionals consult when they consider locations for their businesses. The authors categorize themes in the journal's advertisements and measure their prevalence.
Choosing the Right Pond: What are Appropriate Comparison Cities for Wisconsin's Metropolitan Areas?: Yeri Lopez and John Karl Scholz / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-005
Using per-capita income, the authors rank Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay and Appleton/Fox River Valley against their 10 closes comparison metropolitan statistical areas. They find that Milwaukee and Madison are similar to or slightly better than similar areas, while the other two are doing very well economically.
The Case for Counter-Cyclical Fiscal Capacity: Yilin Hou and Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-004 is published in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18 (1): 139-159.
The authors suggest that state governments develop "counter-cyclical fiscal capacity" to create and use financial tools to maintain spending and program stability when revenue drops. This would help avoid spending cuts and tax increases.
Finding Workable Levers over Work Motivation: Comparing Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment: Donald P. Moynihan and Sanjay K. Pandey / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-003 is published in Administration & Society 39(7): 803-832.
Managers have varying degrees of influence over aspects of work motivation, with the most over job satisfaction and the least over job involvement. Public service motivation, advancement opportunities, role clarity, job routine, and group culture are some of the variable important to work motivation.
The Overvaluation of Renminbi Undervaluation: Yin-Wong Cheung, Menzie D. Chinn and Eiji Fujii / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-002
The authors find little statistical that China's renminbi is undervalued.
The Role of State Governance in the Adoption of Pharmaceutical Technologies in Substance Abuse Treatment: Carolyn J. Heinrich and Carolyn J. Hill / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-001 has been published in Health Services Research 43(3): 951-970.
This paper examines policy, institutional, and environmental factors associated with the adoption of a pharmaceutical agentnaltrexonein the treatment of alcohol dependent clients by substance abuse treatment facilities.
Economic Conditions and Poverty: A Comparison of the 1980s and 1990s: Gary A. Hoover and Geoffrey L. Wallace / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-031
The authors first establish a benchmark for the relationship between poverty rates among family types and unemployment rates in the 1980s and 1990s. The authors then discuss possible reasons for the differences in responsiveness of family poverty to unemployment rates that this benchmark suggests.
An Assessment of Several Marriage Market Related Explanations for the Decline in Female Marriage Rates Between 1970 and 1980: Geoffrey L. Wallace / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-030
This examination of the role of how marriage market conditions affected the decline in 1970-80 female marriage rates documents the importance of changes in mate availability and quality. Much of the decrease in marriage rates among White females ages 18 to 30 remains unexplained. Increases in school enrollment and deterioration of marriage market conditions were important in accounting for the decline in marriage rates among Black females ages 18 to 30.
What Makes Hierarchical Networks Succeed? Evidence from Hurricane Katrina: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-029
The network of organizations that responded to Hurricane Katrina was inherently difficult to coordinate. This paper examines how network task, capacity and coordination factors weakened the response.
Public Policies, Citizenship Outcomes and the Implications for Performance Management: An Analysis of the Program Assessment Rating Tool: Amber Wichowsky and Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-028
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-026 is a substantial revision of this paper. The federal government's new emphasis on gauging the outcomes of social programs may mean that how a policy affects an individual's role as citizen is not being measured. The authors suggest that program performance measures, including the latest and most sophisticated instrument, the Program Assessment Rating Tool, excludes citizenship outcomes.
Current Account Balances, Financial Development and Institutions: Assaying the World Savings Glut: Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-027
Through investigation of the medium-term determinants of the current account the authors find that for industrial countries, the government budget balance is an important determinant of the current account balance. However, their empirical findings are not consistent with the argument that the more developed financial markets are, the less saving a country undertakes. There is no evidence of excess domestic saving in the Asian emerging market countries; rather they seem to have suffered from depressed investment in the wake of the 1997 financial crises. The authors find that the more developed equity markets are, the more likely countries are to run current account deficits.
The Color of Devolution: Race, Federalism, and the Politics of Social Control: Joe Soss, Richard Fording and Sanford F. Schram / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-026
Through analysis of state-level policy decisions, the authors show how modest but consistent racial effects on policy choices combine to produce large disparities in welfare and criminal justice policies encountered by members of different racial groups.
A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback: Joe Soss and Sanford F. Schram / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-025
While welfare reform in the 1990s made welfare less salient as a public issue, the authors show that it did little to change the public's willingness to spend on anti-poverty efforts or to support the Democratic Party. After presenting relevant evidence from national survey data, the authors advance a general set of propositions to explain welfare reform's limited effects on mass opinion.
False or Fitting Recognition? The Use of High Performance Bonuses in Motivating Organizational Achievements: Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-024 has been published in Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 26(2): 281-304.
This study examines the federal government's payment of bonuses to state organizations to motivate and recognize high performance achievements and finds that the system may be more likely to encourage misrepresentation of actual program results.
The Illusion of Precision and the Role of the Renminbi in Regional Interaction: Yin-Wong Cheung, Menzie D. Chinn and Eiji Fujii / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-023
The Chinese renminbi might not be as undervalued as many analysts claim. They find that the currency might even be slightly overvalued, although they concede that this is a small possibility. Changes in China's currency value should be approached very carefully, as abrupt policy changes may cause unintended damage to China's difficult-to-manage economy.
The Chicago O'Hare Expansion: A Case Study of Administrative Manipulation of Benefit-Cost Principles: Robert Haveman / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-022
The author describes the application of benefit-cost analysis principles by the Federal Aviation Administration to a major infrastructure investment proposal: the expansion of OHare International Airport.
Generational Income Mobility: A Review Essay: Patrizio Piraino and Robert Haveman / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-021
This essay discusses studies collected by Miles Corak that examine changes in economic status from one generation to the next. The essays cover 15 countries, 10 of them North American or European.
Do Youth Nonmarital Childbearing Choices Reflect Expected Income and Relationship Consequences?: Barbara Wolfe, Robert Haveman, Karen Pence, and Jonathan Schwabish / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-020
The authors explore whether the perceptions unmarried, adolescent females have about the consequences of choices they make affect those choices and the teens' behavior. The analysis considers expectations about marriage and cohabitation and about income.
The Sufficiency of Retirement Savings: A Comparison of Two Cohorts of Retired Workers at the Time of Retirement: Robert Haveman, Karen Holden, Barbara Wolfe and Andrei Romanov / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-019
This paper compares the savings adequacy of two groups of retirees, one of people who retired in 1980-81, the other of people retiring 20 years after that. The results suggest that single people and those with low education and skills and periods of unemployment are the most likely to not have enough savings for retirement.
Learning from Difference: The New Architecture of Experimentalist Governance in the European Union: Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-018
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-020 is a substantial revision of this paper. The authors identify distinctive and surprisingly effective innovations that have emerged in European Union governance. These innovations might inform the next round of efforts to render the institutions of European decision-making comprehensible and democratically accountable.
ICT Use in the Developing World: An Analysis of Differences in Computer and Internet Penetration: Menzie D. Chinn and Robert W. Fairlie / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-017
The authors find evidence indicating that income, human capital, the youth dependency ratio, telephone density, legal quality and banking sector development are associated with the penetration rates of computer and Internet use.
Conventional and Unconventional Approaches to Exchange Rate Modeling and Assessment: Ron Alquist and Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-016
With a new approach, the authors examine the relative predictive power of the sticky price monetary model, uncovered interest parity, and a transformation of the net exports variable.
Challenges of the New Regulation: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-015
The author examines new methods of environmental regulation that seek to reform the traditional "command and control."
Performance-Based Contracting in Social Welfare Programs: Carolyn J. Heinrich and Youseok Choi / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-014 has been published in The American Review of Public Administration 37(4): 409-435.
In the context of Wisconsin Works (W-2), Wisconsin's welfare program, the authors discuss government contracting for social welfare services delivery and analyze the implications of different contract structures for the behavior and performance of service providers.
Public and Private Regulation of Organ Transplantation: Liver Allocation and the Final Rule: David L. Weimer/ La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-013
Private regulation governs how organs from cadavers are allocated. This process led to a change in the rules that more clearly define public and private roles. Several liver transplant centers prompted the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to adopt a national process for sharing organs. This paper examines the politics behind the decision and finds that private regulation makes effective use of stakeholders' technical expertise when changing the rules.
Cost-Benefit Analysis Involving Addictive Goods: Using Contingent Valuation to Estimate Willingness to Pay to Eliminate Addiction: David L. Weimer, Aidan Vining and Randall K. Thomas / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-012
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2007-019 is a substantial revision of this paper. To conduct a cost-benefit analysis for social policies related to physically or psychologically addictive goods such as tobacco or gambling, the authors propose an adjustment to consumer surplus, the difference between the maximum consumers will pay for a good and what they actually pay.
Fiscal Conditions in Selected Metropolitan Areas: Howard Chernick and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-011
This paper presents the initial steps to better understand the current fiscal condition of local governments within metropolitan areas and to establish the extent to which fiscal disparities exist within a sample of U.S. metropolitan areas. The primary focus is to determine the extent to which fiscal institutions within a metropolitan area taxing authority, mandates, expenditure responsibilities, intergovernmental grants-in-aid, regional governance contribute to the fiscal health of local governments within metropolitan areas.
The Legacy of Rodriguez: Three Decades of School Finance Reform in Texas: Jennifer Imazeki and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-010
This paper explores the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Rodriquez ruling that said Texas's heavy reliance on the local property tax to fund public education did not violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The authors assess whether Texas has achieved the school funding equity objectives that were at the core of the Rodriguez plaintiffs case and whether the current school funding system in Texas is providing school districts with sufficient revenues to educate students to meet the performance standards imposed by the state.
Demand and Supply-Side Determinants of Conditional Cash Transfer Program Effectiveness: Improving the First-Generation Programs: Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-009 has been published as World Development, 35(1): 121-143.
The effects of large-scale federal intervention to promote human capital accumulation come to light in this study of a cash-transfer program for youth in Argentina that began in the late 1990s and is a priority for additional support and protection since the 2001 economic emergency in Argentina.
Expectations and Exchange Rate Policy: Michael B. Devereux and Charles Engel / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-008
Empirical evidence and theoretical discussion have long emphasized the impact of "news" on exchange rates. In most exchange rate models, the exchange rate acts as an asset price and, as such, responds to news about future returns on assets. But the exchange rate also plays a role in determining the relative price of non-durable goods. This paper argues that these two roles may conflict with one another when nominal goods prices are sticky. If news about future asset returns causes movements in current exchange rates, then when nominal prices are slow to adjust, this may prompt changes in current relative goods prices that have no efficiency rationale. In this sense, anticipations of future shocks to fundamentals can cause current exchange rate misalignments. The paper outlines a series of models in which an optimal policy eliminates news shocks on exchange rates.
The U.S. Current Account Deficit and the Expected Share of World Output: Charles Engel and John H. Rogers / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-007
This paper investigates the possibility that the large current account deficits of the United States are the outcome of optimizing behavior. It develops a simple long-run world equilibrium model in which the current account is determined by the expected discounted present value of its future share of world gross domestic product relative to its current share of world gross domestic product.
Taylor Rules and the Deutschmark Dollar Real Exchange Rate: Charles Engel and Kenneth D. West / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-006
The authors explore the link between an interest rate rule for monetary policy and the behavior of the real exchange rate. The interest rate rule, in conjunction with some standard assumptions, implies that the deviation of the real exchange rate from its steady state depends on the present value of a weighted sum of inflation and output gap differentials. The weights are functions of the parameters of the interest rate rule. An initial look at German data yields some support for the model.
The Effects of Welfare-to-Work Program Activities on Labor Market Outcomes: Andrew Dyke, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Peter R. Mueser, Kenneth R. Troske and Kyung-Seong Jeon / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-005 has been published in Journal of Labor Economics, 24(3): 567-608.
This study uses administrative data on welfare recipients in Missouri and North Carolina to estimate the effects of participating in sub-programs of each state's welfare-to-work program. The authors find that the effects of program participation are negative in the short term and improve in the second year after participation. The results also show that more intensive training is associated with greater initial earnings losses and greater long-term earnings gains.
Temporary Help Service Firms' Use of Employer Tax Credits: Implications for Disadvantaged Workers' Labor Market Outcomes: Sarah Hamersma and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-004 has been published in Southern Economic Journal 74(4): 1123-1148
The authors examine labor market trends affecting low-skilled and disadvantaged workers: their increased participation in the temporary help services employment sector and employers' increased participation in hiring subsidy programs such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit and the Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit.
The Taxpayer Protection Amendment: A Preliminary Analysis: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-003
This analysis demonstrates that a proposed amendment to Wisconsin's constitution to limit the annual growth of government revenue would reduce public services and harm economic development. If it had been enacted in 1985 and not changed, Wisconsin would have experienced a 30 percent decrease in its revenue from taxes, bonds and fees. Related news coverage
Gender Issues and Social Security Reform: Assessing the Role of Social Security and Personal Savings in Well-Being During Retirement: Robert Haveman, Karen Holden, Barbara Wolfe and Andrei Romanov / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-002
The adequacy of retirement savings is central to the U.S. debate about the effects of Social Security reform and pension changes that would place greater responsibility on individuals for accumulation of retirement resources. While gender issues have not been neglected in Social Security reform discussions, there has been little attention to gender issues in the discussion of the relative importance of Social Security benefits to retirement savings adequacy. We contribute to this discussion by examining the extent to which Social Security plays a role in the economic status of individuals as they age, specifically whether there is a gender effect on the maintenance of resource adequacy as women and men survive in retirement and experience changes in health and marital status. We use our results to draw conclusions about the importance of Social Security to the well-being of women and men during retirement.
Will the Euro Eventually Surpass the Dollar as Leading International Reserve Currency?: Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffrey Frankel / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-001
The euro is a plausible competitor to replace the dollar as the leading currency central banks hold, just as the dollar replaced the pound. Factors affecting the dollar's status include size of the home country, inflation, exchange rate variability and size of the relevant home financial center as measured by the turnover in its foreign exchange market. The euro's success will depend on whether the United Kingdom and enough other European Union members join euroland so it becomes larger than the U.S. economy and whether U.S. macroeconomic policy undermines confidence in the value of the dollar, in the form of inflation and depreciation. This paper is a substantial revision of an earlier work presented at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference on current account sustainability.
Economic Inequality in College Access, Matriculation, and Graduation: Robert Haveman and Kathryn Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-032
This paper concerns the extent to which colleges and universities have succeeded in their desire to promote merit, foster economic mobility, and serve youth from less advantaged families.
Work and Earnings of Low-Skill Women: Do Survey Response and Administrative Records Provide Consistent Information?: Robert Haveman and Geoffrey L. Wallace / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-031
The authors find substantial differences in mean earnings and mean employment rates between survey data and Unemployment Insurance data.
SCHIP Expansion and Parental Coverage: An Evaluation of Wisconsin's BadgerCare: Barbara Wolfe, Thomas Kaplan, Robert Haveman and Yoonyoung Cho / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-030
In the wake of the expansion of Wisconsin's public health-insurance program, this research explores the extent to which a program like Wisconsin's BadgerCare reduces the proportion of the low-income population without health-care coverage.
Why the Renminbi Might be Overvalued (But Probably Isn't): Yin-Wong Cheung, Menzie D. Chinn and Eiji Fujii / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-029
The authors find that some approaches for evaluating China's renminbi imply substantial underevaluation, while others imply little or none, and other methods indicate slight overevaluation.
Learning under Uncertainty: Networks in Crisis Management: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-028 has been published in Public Administration Review 68(2): 350-361
This paper examines the nature of learning in networks dealing with conditions of high uncertainty. It applies Koppenjan and Klijns (2004) framework for understanding network uncertainty to an extreme example: an inter-organizational crisis task force dealing with an exotic animal disease. The paper identifies the basic difficulties involved in learning under crisis conditions. The task force had to learn most of the elements taken for granted in more mature structural forms the nature of the structural framework in which it was working, how to adapt that framework, the role and actions appropriate for each individual, and how to deal with unanticipated problems. The network pursued this learning in a variety of ways. Most critically, the task force used standard operating procedures to provide a form of network memory, and a command and control structure to reduce institutional and strategic uncertainty.
Creating Desirable Organizational Characteristics: How Organizations Create a Focus on Results and Managerial Authority: Donald P. Moynihan and Sanjay K. Pandey / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-027 has been published in Public Management Review.
This paper examines the factors that lead to desirable organizational characteristics by proposing a model to explain the ability of some organizations to create a focus on results and high levels of managerial authority. The New Public Management literature points to these two organizational characteristics as key steps for improving public performance and providing results-based accountability. Employing a national survey of U.S. state government health and human service agency managers, we find that political support for the organization and purposeful reform efforts do lead to desirable organizational characteristics. In addition, strong internal communication fosters a focus on results, and organizational culture shapes the decision-making authority of managers.
Bureaucratic Red Tape and Organizational Performance: Testing the Moderating Role of Culture and Political Support: Sanjay K. Pandey and Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-026
While targeting bureaucratic red tape is a component of most real-world efforts to improve the effectiveness of government agencies, academic work has not attempted to understand and develop the implications of red tape for agency performance. This paper builds upon developments in the performance management and red tape literatures to propose and test a model of performance that explicitly accounts for red tape. Our findings show that bureaucratic red tape in human resource systems and information systems impede performance. We also find that organizations with a developmental culture (characterized by flexibility, readiness, adaptability and growth) are better able to deal with negative effects of red tape than organizations that lack these cultural characteristics.
Ambiguity in Policy Lessons: The Agencification Experience: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-025 has been published in Public Administration 84(4): 1029-1050.
The policy transfer literature identifies the importance of context in shaping policy selection. However, countries with distinct contexts are pursuing the agencification of the public sector. Why? The solution to this puzzle lies in the ambiguity associated with public management ideas. This ambiguity allows policy adopters room to interpret management doctrines and experience. The result is that public management ideas that carry the same identifying label can mask variation in the understanding of the policy, the motivation for adoption, and in implementation outcomes. The process of interpretation allows policymakers in different contexts to a) adopt superficially similar policy concepts, b) overlook negative experiential learning that contradicts the policy doctrine, and c) adopt policies unsuitable to the national context.
Three Current Account Balances: A "Semi-Structuralist" Interpretation: Menzie D. Chinn and Jaewoo Lee / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-024
Three large current account imbalances the U.S. deficit and the two surpluses in Japan and in the euro area are subjected to a minimalist structural interpretation. This simple interpretation enables us to assess how much of each of the imbalances require a real exchange rate adjustment. According to the estimates, a large part of the U.S. current account deficit (nearly 2 percentage points of the 2004 deficit of 5 percent of GDP) will undergo an adjustment process that involves real depreciation in its exchange rate. For Japan, a little more than 1 percentage point of gross domestic product of the current account surplus is found to require an exchange rate movement (real appreciation) as the surpluses adjust down. For the euro area, less than half a percentage point of
its current account surplus is found to require an adjustment via real appreciation.
Current Account Balances, Financial Development and Institutions: Assaying the World Savings Glut: Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-023
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-027 is a substantial revision of this paper. Through investigation of the medium-term determinants of the current account the authors find that for industrial countries, the government budget balance is an important determinant of the current account balance. However, their empirical findings are not consistent with the argument that the more developed financial markets are, the less saving a country undertakes. There is no evidence of excess domestic saving in the Asian emerging market countries; rather they seem to have suffered from depressed investment in the wake of the 1997 financial crises. The authors find that the more developed equity markets are, the more likely countries are to run current account deficits.
Crisis Management Policy and Hierarchical Networks: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-022
In crisis situations, good public management combines the virtues of networks and hierarchies. For most complex emergencies, no single organization can comprehensively meet the challenge, so a network becomes necessary. However, networks actors often cannot act quickly, collectively and decisively, so crisis management overlays a hierarchical structure on the network of actors involved. Network characteristics such as mutual trust remain important for a successful response to the crisis, but the actors operate within a clear chain of command that emphasizes authority and standard operating procedures.
What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Performance? Dialogue Theory and Performance Budgeting: Donald P. Moynihan / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-021
Published in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. This paper examines the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) in the federal budgeting process. The early evidence on PART prompts the search for a theory of budgeting that accepts that performance information will influence decisions, but will not be used in the same way from decision to decision, as the espoused theory of performance budgeting suggests. Dialogue theory emphasizes the ambiguity of performance information and related resource allocation choices. Results of an exploratory test illustrate a variety of ways in which different individuals can examine the same program and come to different conclusions about performance and future funding requirements.
Supply Capacity, Vertical Specialization and Tariff Rates: The Implications for Aggregate U.S. Trade Flow Equations: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-020
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2010-001 is a substantial revision of this paper. This paper re-examines aggregate and disaggregate import and export demand functions for the United States. This re-examination is warranted because income elasticities are too high to be warranted by standard theories and because they remain high even when it is assumed that supply factors are important. This finding suggests that the standard models omit important factors. An empirical investigation suggests that rising importance of vertical specialization combined with decreasing tariffs rates explains some of results. Accounting for these factors yields more plausible estimates of income elasticities, as well as smaller prediction errors.
A Primer on Real Effective Exchange Rates: Determinants, Overvaluation, Trade Flows and Competitive Devaluation: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-019
The author discusses alternative measures of effective exchange rates in the context of their theoretical underpinnings and actual construction. Focusing on contemporary indices and recently developed econometric methods, he examines the empirical characteristics of these differing series, including the exchange rates for the United States, the euro area and several East Asian countries. Case studies illustrate the issues that confront the applied economist or policymaker in using the measures of real effective exchange rates available.
Will the Euro Eventually Surpass the Dollar as Leading International Reserve Currency?: Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffrey Frankel / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-018
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-001 is a substantial revision of this paper. The euro is a plausible competitor to replace the dollar as the leading currency central banks hold, just as the dollar replaced the pound. Factors affecting the dollar's status include size of the home country, inflation, exchange rate variability and size of the relevant home financial center as measured by the turnover in its foreign exchange market. The euro's success will depend on whether the United Kingdom and enough other European Union members join euroland so it becomes larger than the U.S. economy and whether U.S. macroeconomic policy undermines confidence in the value of the dollar, in the form of inflation and depreciation. The authors presented this paper in June 2005 at a National Bureau of Economic Research conference on current account sustainability.
Child Support in the United States: An Uncertain and Irregular Income Source?: Maria Cancian and Daniel R. Meyer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-017
While most mothers with child-support orders receive support, the amount they receive varies substantially, the researchers find upon examining the situations of 14,729 Wisconsin mothers with new child support orders in 2000. Drawing on data from 2001-2003, this study finds that variation in child-support income varies year to year and within a year. More than one-third of families experienced declines or increases of $1,000 or more in support from one year to the next.
Knowledge of Child Support Policy Rules: How Little We Know: Maria Cancian, Daniel R. Meyer and Kisun Nam / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-016
People participating in a demonstration project on Wisconsin child support and welfare had little knowledge about child support policy rules. This research, one of the few that examine how much individuals know about policy rules that could affect them, suggests that poeple tend to learn policy rules through experience. The authors find less consistent support for knowledge being imparted during interactions with caseworkers. They discuss the implications of the lack of participant knowledge for policy evaluations.
Doomed to Deficits? Aggregate U.S. Trade Flows Re-Examined: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-015
This paper examines the stability of import and export demand functions for the United States from the first quarter of 1975 to the second quarter of 2001. Analysis readily identifies an export demand function, with a structural break in the import demand function in 1995 that is rectified by excluding computers and parts from the import series. The resulting point estimates confirm the persistence of the income asymmetry. One policy implication of these findings is that dollar depreciation unaccompanied by a realignment of growth trends is insufficient to substantially reduce the U.S. trade deficit.
The Puzzle of Private Rulemaking: Expertise, Flexibility, and Blame Avoidance in Regulation: David L. Weimer/ La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-014
Private regulation of transplant organs instead of traditional control by a government agency may surprise some observers, but the practice lends itself to quick decision-making by experts and lets the politicians off the hook for how organs are allocated.
What Does Increased Economic Inequality Imply about the Future Level and Dispersion of Human Capital?: Mary Campbell, Robert Haveman, Gary Sandefur and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-013
With longitudinal data on 1,200 children, the authors consider whether the persistent increase in economic inequality among families and geographic areas has implications for the levels of educational attainment of children in those situations.
Do Newly Retired Workers in the U.S. Have Sufficient Resources to Maintain Well-Being?: Robert Haveman, Karen Holden, Barbara Wolfe and Shane Sherlund / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-012
This paper explores whether older adults have the resources they need beyond Social Security to maintain economic well-being after they retire. The discussion examines motivations for accumulating wealth to save for retirement and ponders resources available upon retirement.
The Use of Federal Employer Tax Credits by Temporary Help Service Firms and Their Implications for Disadvantaged Workers' Labor Market Outcomes: Sarah Hamersma and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-011
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-004 is a substantial revision of this paper. The authors examine labor market trends affecting low-skilled and disadvantaged workers: their increased participation in the temporary help services employment sector and employers' increased participation in hiring subsidy programs such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit and the Welfare-to-Work Tax Credit.
Taking a Couples Rather Than an Individual Approach to Employment Assistance: Rachel A. Gordon and Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-010
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2008-021 is a substantial revision of this paper. In contrast to the standard individualistic approach to the delivery of employment services, the authors present evaluation results for a program in which both partners in a couple relationship participate at the same time. They find that mothers had larger gains in employment and earnings and decreases in receipts via Temporary Assistance for Needy Families immediately upon program exit relative to mothers who participated as individuals, though gains lessened in the two years after program completion. Fathers show similar though weaker results.
Demand and Supply-Side Determinant of Conditional Cash Transfer Program Effectiveness: Improving the First-Generation Programs: Carolyn J. Heinrich / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-009
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-009 is a substantial revision of this paper. The effects of large-scale federal intervention to promote human capital accumulation come to light in this study of a cash-transfer program for youth in Argentina that began in the late 1990s and is a priority for additional support and protection since the 2001 economic emergency in Argentina.
The Effects of Welfare-to-Work Program Activities on Labor Market Outcomes: Andrew Dyke, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Peter R. Mueser and Kenneth R. Troske / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-008
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-005 is a substantial revision of this paper. This study uses administrative data on welfare recipients in Missouri and North Carolina to estimate the effects of participating in sub-programs of each state's welfare-to-work program. The authors find that the effects of program participation are negative in the short term and improve in the second year after participation. The results also show that more intensive training is associated with greater initial earnings losses and greater long-term earnings gains.
What Matters for Financial Development? Capital Controls, Institutions, and Interactions: Menzie D. Chinn and Hiro Ito / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-007
The authors examine links between capital account liberalization, legal and institutional development and financial development. They explore financial opening and equity market development, whether opening the goods sector is a precondition for financial opening and whether a well-developed banking sector is required for financial liberalization to lead to equity market development. / Description of data set. / Data set.
Does No Child Left Behind Place a Fiscal Burden on States? Evidence from Texas: Jennifer Imazeki and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-006
The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires states to establish goals for all students and for groups of students characterized by race, ethnicity, poverty, disability and limited English proficiency. The law requires schools to make annual progress in meeting these goals. In a number of states, officials have argued that increased federal education funding is not sufficient to cover these imposed costs. This paper uses data from Texas to estimate the additional costs of meeting the new student performance standards and finds that these costs substantially exceed federal funding.
Assessing the Use of Econometric Analysis in Estimating the Costs of Meeting State Education Accountability Standards: Lessons from Texas: Jennifer Imazeki and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-005
This assessment examines two methodologies to determine whether school districts have sufficient funds to meet accountability standards in Texas. One of the methodologies found the funds to be insufficient, while the other determined the support to be adequate. A lawsuit about the constitutionality of Texas school funding featured the two methodologies.
The Political Roots of Disability Claims: How State Environments and Policies Shape Citizen Demands: Joe Soss and Lael R. Keiser / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-004
By examining a model of welfare demand in the Social Security Disability Insurance and the Supplemental Security Income programs, the authors test the hypothesis that state environments shape aggregate rates of welfare demand. They find that in addition to citizens' needs for government assistance, the density of civil society organizations, state officials' political perspectives and programs' generosity shape citizen demands on the welfare system. They call for a model of welfare-claiming behavior that accounts for differences across programs and stages of the claiming process.
How Far Has the Dollar Fallen?: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-003
The extent of the dollar's decline relative to its peak in 2002 depends upon the composition of the basket of currencies used in calculating the dollars value. Further, the appropriate index depends upon the question being asked, with the type of price deflators used if any dependent upon the question at hand. Various measures of the dollars value are discussed, and compared, including alternative weights based on liabilities and assets, instead of the standard trade flow weights.
Enhancing Criminal Sentencing Options in Wisconsin: The State and County Correctional Partnership: Par Jason Engle and David Weimer / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-002
The State and County Correctional Partnership proposes providing Wisconsin counties with annual block grants and imposing fees for state prison time served by felons who commit less serious crimes. This policy change would seek to create an environment in which counties can find innovative ways to divert felons safely and cost-effectively from incarceration in state prisons.
Social Europe and Experimental Governance: Towards a New Constitutional Compromise?: Jonathan Zeitlin / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-001
This paper examines the normative and empirical debates surrounding the use of the Open Method of Coordination in European social policy. The Open Method of Coordination is an experimental approach to European Union governance based on benchmarking national progress toward European objectives and organized mutual learning. Its potential benefits include reconciling the pursuit of common European concerns with respect to legitimate national diversity and encouraging cross-national learning through comparison of different approaches to similar problems across the European Union's 25 member states.
Understanding Racial Disparities in Health: The Income-Wealth Paradox: Audra T. Wenzlow, John Mullahy and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-008
The authors examine the ways in which racial differences in health vary over the income-wealth distribution, comparing the self-reported health status of non-Hispanic whites with those of individuals of other races and ethnicities.
The Impact of State Government Fiscal Crises on Local Governments and Schools: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-007
This paper discusses budgetary problems facing state governments, and explores the relationship between state government fiscal conditions and potential impacts on municipal governments and school districts. It examines how state budget cuts have affected the state funding of municipal governments and how these governments are likely to respond to reductions in state funding. The paper discusses the possibilities that the state government budget crisis will increase unfunded mandates imposed on local governments or result in an implicit shifting of costs from the state to local governments. A version of this paper was published in State and Local Government Review, vol. 36, no. 2, (Spring 2004): 86-102.
Institutionalizing Neutrally Competent Policy Analysis: Resources for Promoting Objectivity and Balance in Consolidating Democracies: David L. Weimer/ La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-006
The creation of institutions that foster objective policy analysis can be eased if the organizations emphasize resources that include reputations of neutral competence, independence, use of professional norms, participation in international organizations and transparency. This essay outlines the logic of designing institutions based on these resources, illustrates their use and speculates on applying them in consolidating democracies.
Public and Private Regulation of Organ Transplantation: Liver Allocation and the Final Rule: David L. Weimer/ La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-005
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2006-013 is a substantial revision of this paper. Private regulation governs how organs from cadavers are allocated. This process led to a change in the rules that more clearly define public and private roles. Several liver transplant centers prompted the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to adopt a national process for sharing organs. This paper examines the politics behind the decision and finds that private regulation makes effective use of stakeholders' technical expertise when changing the rules.
The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR): A Solution to Wisconsin's Fiscal Problems or a Prescription for Future Fiscal Crises?: Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-004
Facts do not support arguments in favor of an amendment to Wisconsin's constitution to limit government spending and taxing authority. The amendment's proposal to tie growth in per-capita or per-pupil spending to the rate of inflation means public expenditures would become a smaller part of the economy even as the cost of those services, especially health care and education, increase faster than inflation. The author goes back to 1986 and calculates how much Wisconsin governments could have spent under TABOR. He finds that results would include reductions in programs that help the state's most vulnerable residents, a downsizing of the University of Wisconsin System and restrictions in school districts' ability to provide quality education.
SCHIP Expansion and Parental Coverage: An Evaluation of Wisconsin's BadgerCare: Barbara Wolfe, Thomas Kaplan, Robert Haveman and Yoonyoung Cho / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-003
La Follette School Working Paper No. 2005-030 is a revision of this paper. In the wake of the expansion of Wisconsin's public health-insurance program, this research explores the extent to which a program like Wisconsin's BadgerCare reduces the proportion of the low-income population without health-care coverage.
The Political Economy of School Choice: John F. Witte, Arnold F. Shober, Paul A. Schlomer, Par Jason Engle / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-002
This analysis of the complex political economy of school choice, primarily as it has developed in Wisconsin, focuses on how various forms of choicemagnet and private contract schools, open enrollment, vouchers and charter schoolsinteract and compete with each other.
Macroeconomic Management and Financial Stability: The Implications for East Asia: Menzie D. Chinn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2004-001
The determinants of economic and financial linkages between developed and developing countries, with special focus on East Asia, are explored. The paper discusses recent efforts to reform the international financial architecture, and the conclusion discusses prospects for adjustment in light of the empirical relationships identified.
Dolphins and Tuna, Shrimp and Turtles: An American Tale or Policymaking Goes Global?: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2003-005
The internationalization of what was once purely a matter of domestic policy and the domestication of what was once foreign policy leads to what might be regarded as a considerable expansion of policy networks or, more plausibly, conflict between policy networks. This paper explores the evolution of international and domestic policy networks. (HTML only.)
Policy Transfer Versus Varieties of Capitalism in Environmental Policy: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2003-004
This paper considers why interest in transfer policies from one country's government to another nation seems to be increasing.
Changing Regulatory Systems: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2003-003
Discussions about national regulatory styles tend to compare the United States to other nations, and differences are often portrayed as other nations being harmonious and mutually accommodating and the United States as being adversarial and conflict-ridden.
Universal Preschool: Much to Gain but Who Will Pay?: Barbara Wolfe, Scott Scrivner / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2003-002
This paper explores ways to finance a preschool program that would be universally available to all 4-year-olds in the country. Experts say that 4-year-olds have much to gain from a stimulating and nurturing preschool
experience, and mounting evidence suggests that these benefits accrue to society on a much larger scale as well.
The Devil May Be in the Details: How the Characteristics of SCHIP Programs Affect Take-Up: Barbara Wolfe, Scott Scrivner with Andrew Snyder / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2003-001
The paper explores whether the specific design of a states Childrens Health Insurance Program has contributed to its success in meeting two objectivesnamely, whether the program has been successful in reducing the proportion of the targeted population that is uninsured and whether this has been accomplished without a significant reduction in private coverage.
Thirty Years of Business and Politics: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2002-005
The author examines the state of research on the relationship between business and politics.
Spots and Leopards: The Capacity of Systems to Change; First Impression: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2002-004
A consideration of David Vogel's book National Styles of Regulation.
In the Shadows of Social Democracy? U.S. Unions in a Time of Adversity: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2002-003
The author suggests that the idealized European image of the social democratic labor union often does not exist, which means that American unions perhaps don't fall quite so short in contrast.
Globalization, Internationalization and U.S. Interest Groups: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2001-003
The claims that globalization affects the balance of power among interest groups, increases the structural power of some interests, alters public policy preferences and may shift the site of decision-making should not be deemed hardened truths.
Importing Cooperation: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2002-002
in the late 1990s, Wisconsin adapted an environmental governance model from the Netherlands and Bavaria to create Green Tier, a comprehensive approach to environmental protection that creates a new governance structure to improve the performance of agriculture and industry.
Health Inequality between Black and White Women: Yu-Whuei Hu and Barbara Wolfe / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2002-001
The authors examine the inequality in health status between black and white women and to explore the extent to which such differences are associated with observed dissimilarities in characteristics such as insurance status, utilization of care, and socioeconomic status.
The Dual Motives of Interest Group Research: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2001-002
Scholars look at interest groups in two ways. Political science informs the first. It examines who makes up the groups and why they act, and determines the consequences of their actions. The second method is more sociological, with an eye toward the relationship between the state and societal interests.
Lost in the Balance: How State Policies Affect the Fiscal Health of Cities: Howard Chernick and Andrew Reschovsky / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2001-001
Fiscal problems in central cities, disparities with suburbs and how state governments cope are addressed in this examination of intergovernmental aid in California, New York and Wisconsin. The authors offer recommendations for new policy at the federal, state and local levels that could improve the fiscal health of central cities.
Searching for a Way off Welfare: A Structural Competing Risk Model of AFDC Durations: Geoffrey L. Wallace / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2000-003
The author's analysis considers how the search for a job or a marriage partner might affect participation in Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
Internationalization, Globalization and Policy Making: The Case of U.S. Agriculture: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2000-002
With agriculture as the context, the author looks at how globalization and internationalization affect U.S. domestic policy networks and communities.
Globalization, Internationalization and Policy Networks in the U.S.: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 2000-001
Scholars should pay more attention to how world events affect politics in the United States, especially with increasing globalization and internationalization. This paper looks at how globalization and internationalization can affect U.S. policy networks -- the people, interest groups and institutions that interact when making public policy.
Accountability and Internationalization: Graham K. Wilson / La Follette School Working Paper No. 1999-001
Those who see globalization as a threat to the nation state's power should remember to distinguish it from internationalization, the nation state's transfer of authority to another organization. In contrast, globalization is international influence on public policies or economies.
Private and Public Education in Wisconsin: John Witte, Christopher A. Thorn and Kim A. Pritchard / La Follette School Working Paper No. 1995-002
An update to a 1994 paper, this report describes the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and data; the participating families and students; outcomes after five years; and responses to earlier evaluations. (No PDF available; HTML only.)
Fifth-Year Report: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: John Witte, Troy D. Sterr and Christopher A. Thorn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 1995-001
An update to a 1994 paper, this report describes the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and data; the participating families and students; outcomes after five years; and responses to earlier evaluations. (No PDF available; HTML only.)
Fourth-Year Report: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: John Witte and Christopher A. Thorn / La Follette School Working Paper No. 1994-001
This report describes the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and data; the participating families and students; and outcomes after two years; and responses to earlier evaluations. It gives an update on the choice schools and offers conclusions and recommendations. (No PDF available; HTML only.)