Digital Commons Network^™

Are Satisfied Citizens Willing To Pay More? Public Sector Consumerism As Equitable Social Exchange., Brian Collins, Hyun Kim

Brian K. Collins

Treating citizens like customers is a common prescription for public managers, but citizens differ from customers —citizens engage in equitable social exchange that balances individual preferences and assessments with willingness-to-pay for public amenities. This article examines whether citizen satisfaction with the quality and quantity of public amenities drives a citizen’s willingness-to-pay for more public provision. Analysing data from a Texas municipality’s satisfaction survey, the authors found that a decrease in satisfaction with the quantity of public amenities is associated with an increase in willingness-to-pay, but quality assessments show no relationship. Such behaviour highlights differences between customers and public sector consumers, …

Taken For Granted? Managing For Social Equity In Grant Programs., Brian Collins, Brian Gerber

Brian K. Collins

Managing for social equity performance has long been a goal without much guidance for public managers. We examine social equity performance in the context of indirect governance through the administration of grant programs and, more specifically, the matching of policy responses (grant funding) to social needs. Grant program managers must allocate funding to match needs while also ensuring accountability, but common administrative models that rely on competition can undermine social equity performance. We develop a unique framework to analyze the relative social equity performance of four models of grant administration in general. These models are defined by whether competitions or …

What’S The Problem In Public Sector Workforce Recruitment? A Comparative Analysis Of The Public, Nonprofit, And Private Sectors., Brian Collins

Brian K. Collins

Public sector workforce recruitment is problematic, but the nature of that problem is not clearly defined. Workforce recruitment is essentially a matching problem that requires managers to recruit desired employees in available labor pools. This research asks whether sectoral differences and competition for labor affect whether public managers frame the major problem of workforce recruitment as the size, qualifications, or work ethic of the labor pool. Using survey data from about 2,300 managers from two US states, problem attributions are modeled using multinomial logit. The findings suggest that the public and nonprofit sectors find it more problematic to recruit qualified …

Redistributive Policy And Devolution: Is State-Administration A Road Block (Grant) To Equitable Access To Federal Funds?, Brian Collins, Brian Gerber

Brian K. Collins

Over the last several decades, block grants have been a key instrument by which policy authority is devolved from federal to state governments. Whether the block grant approach produces more effective redistributive policy management (on equity or efficiency grounds) is an open and central question. We focus on the equity dimension by positing an explanatory framework that links access to federal block grant funding to the transaction costs associated with intergovernmental grant contracting. We argue that grant access is a function of both state-level institutional choices and the administrative capacity of local governments—which combine to influence the salient transaction costs …

The Political Economy Of Corporate Taxation., John Williams, Brian Collins

Brian K. Collins

Theory: We propose a theory of corporate taxation in the United States that builds on dynamic optimal taxation models. The theory is consistent with structural dependence theories (Lindblom 1977) in that expectations by investors of future tax policy limit policy maker options, primarily because corporate tax policy is time inconsistent. This theory contrasts with pluralistic models of corporate taxation because it recognizes the collective action problem facing business.

Hypotheses: We offer three propositions. First, effective corporate tax rates will be exogenous to aggregate business interests, and instead should cause the organization and activity of business. Second, a shock in effective …