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Full-Text Articles in Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Growing Disparities Among Greater Boston Communities During The 1990s, David Terkla Dec 2011

Growing Disparities Among Greater Boston Communities During The 1990s, David Terkla

David G. Terkla

During the 1990s, rich communities in the Greater Boston area got richer, and the richest made gains that were proportionally greater than the gains made by those communities only slightly less rich. At the same time, the poorest communities stayed poor, and in fact became more poor in comparison with communities slightly less poor. This dynamic is even more striking when the ten poorest communities are compared and contrasted with the ten wealthiest communities. Census figures show a rapidly expanding differential between the communities of the Greater Boston area. As a commonwealth, we should be considering policies designed to ameliorate …


Clean Energy In Massachusetts: Already Strong, This Emerging Sector Is Poised For Greater Growth, David Levy, David Terkla Dec 2011

Clean Energy In Massachusetts: Already Strong, This Emerging Sector Is Poised For Greater Growth, David Levy, David Terkla

David G. Terkla

This article reviews Massachusetts’ clean energy sector in the context of the industry nationally and worldwide. We also suggest policy options to enhance the sector’s potential for the Massachusetts economy.


Massachusetts’ Clean Energy Cluster, David Levy, David Terkla Dec 2011

Massachusetts’ Clean Energy Cluster, David Levy, David Terkla

David G. Terkla

The renewable energy industry in Massachusetts is identified through a “top-down” and “bottom-up” processes to determine the total employment and boundaries of this sector. Related sectors are also identified that are linked to the core renewable energy sector in the state and policies for enhancing this cluster are suggested.


The Boston Mpo Planning Process And Low-Income Suburban-To-Suburban Transportation Needs, Phillip Granberry, Michael Landon, David Terkla Dec 2011

The Boston Mpo Planning Process And Low-Income Suburban-To-Suburban Transportation Needs, Phillip Granberry, Michael Landon, David Terkla

David G. Terkla

The rapid evolution in the Boston MPO transportation planning process is discussed as well as its particular application to the suburban-suburban transportation needs of low income individuals. The results of two experiments designed to improve access to transportation for low income suburban individuals are discussed and policy suggestions are made for improving such access.


What's Up With The Economy?, Barry Bluestone Dec 2011

What's Up With The Economy?, Barry Bluestone

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.


Housing And The U.S. Economy, Barry Bluestone Dec 2011

Housing And The U.S. Economy, Barry Bluestone

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.


The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2009: Positioning Boston In A Post-Crisis World, Barry Bluestone, Chase Billingham, Jessica Herrmann Dec 2011

The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2009: Positioning Boston In A Post-Crisis World, Barry Bluestone, Chase Billingham, Jessica Herrmann

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.


The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2010: Taking Stock In An Uncertain Time, Barry Bluestone, Chase Billingham, Jessica Casey, Anna Gartsman Dec 2011

The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2010: Taking Stock In An Uncertain Time, Barry Bluestone, Chase Billingham, Jessica Casey, Anna Gartsman

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.


A New "Grand Bargain" For The Commonwealth, Barry Bluestone Dec 2011

A New "Grand Bargain" For The Commonwealth, Barry Bluestone

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.


The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2011: Housing’S Role In The Ongoing Economic Crisis, Barry Bluestone, Chase Billingham Dec 2011

The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2011: Housing’S Role In The Ongoing Economic Crisis, Barry Bluestone, Chase Billingham

Barry Bluestone

No abstract provided.


El Paso Economic Development System Review & Recommendations, Edward Feser Nov 2011

El Paso Economic Development System Review & Recommendations, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

This report, commissioned by the City of El Paso, recommends that El Paso city government undertake a substantial reform of its economic development effort and that public and private sector stakeholders in the broader El Paso region mobilize to create an organizational vehicle for the kind of public‐private collaboration that is driving innovative economic development in many other major city‐regions in the United States. The analysis also calls for a stronger integration of physical, land use, and economic development planning activities in the city and region, consistent with a trend in international best practice in local and regional economic development.


Marginal Effects In Multivariate Probit And Kindred Discrete And Count Outcome Models, John Mullahy Oct 2011

Marginal Effects In Multivariate Probit And Kindred Discrete And Count Outcome Models, John Mullahy

John Mullahy

Estimation of marginal or partial effects of covariates x on various conditional parameters or functionals is often the main target of applied microeconometric analysis. In the specific context of probit models, estimation of partial effects involving outcome probabilities will often be of interest. Such estimation is straightforward in univariate models, and Greene, 1996, 1998, has extended these results to cover the case of quadrant probability marginal effects in bivariate probit models. The first purpose of this paper is to extend these results to encompass the general multivariate probit (MVP) context for arbitrary orthant probabilities. It is suggested that such partial …


Poverty Measures And Anti-Poverty Policy, Francois Bourguignon, Gary S. Fields Oct 2011

Poverty Measures And Anti-Poverty Policy, Francois Bourguignon, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Amartya Sen has made fundamental contributions to the study of distributional aspects of economic growth and decline. Among his pathbreaking works are his lectures on the economics of inequality (Sen, 1973), his article on the axiomatics of poverty measurement (Sen, 1976), and his book on anti-poverty policy in the context of famines (Sen, 1981). This paper is concerned with one of these areas, namely, the measurement of poverty and the implications for anti-poverty policy. In the 1960's and 1970's those who were working in the poverty field held a number of somewhat incompletely articulated views as to the extent …


Estimating The Effects Of Changing Social Security Benefit Formulas, Gary S. Fields, Olivia S. Mitchell Oct 2011

Estimating The Effects Of Changing Social Security Benefit Formulas, Gary S. Fields, Olivia S. Mitchell

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] The U.S. Social Security system faces serious financial difficulties in both the short and the long run. The short-run problem is that the system has very meager financial reserves. In the long run—after the year 2010, when the post-World-War-II baby-boom generation reaches retirement age—the financial problems of Social Security will intensify because of population aging and the consequent decline in the ratio of workers to retirees.

These problems have led to proposed reforms aimed at assuring the financial stability of the system. The question addressed here is: what effects would these reforms have on three variables—retirement ages, retirement incomes, …


Responsabilidades Dos Agentes Públicos, Prof. Dr. Eloi Martins Senhoras Sep 2011

Responsabilidades Dos Agentes Públicos, Prof. Dr. Eloi Martins Senhoras

Elói Martins Senhoras

No abstract provided.


Employment Generation And Poverty Alleviation In Developing Economies, Gary S. Fields Sep 2011

Employment Generation And Poverty Alleviation In Developing Economies, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] We know well that the East Asian economies have achieved higher economic growth rates than those in any other region of the world and that production for world markets has featured as a hallmark of the East Asian successes. This paper has three purposes: first, to present comparative data showing that the rates at which employment opportunities improve and poverty is reduced mirror countries' differential growth experiences; second, to examine differences in labour market institutions, demonstrating that those in East Asia have similarities more likely to lead to higher output performance and shared improvements in living conditions; and third, …


The Impact Of Government Policies On Urban Employment In Small Economies, Gary S. Fields Sep 2011

The Impact Of Government Policies On Urban Employment In Small Economies, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] Most of the policies intended to affect urban employment are not specifically employment policies nor are they specifically urban. Rather, the amount of urban employment, the composition of that employment, and the returns from it are determined by a whole host of policies. To review them all in a short paper is an impossible undertaking. The criterion by which I decided which policies to consider is policy-relevance, asking which set of policies is apt to have the largest impact on employment.


Evaluating The Environment For Public-Private Partnerships In Asia-Pacific: The 2011 Infrascope, Manisha Mirchandani, Vanesa Sanchez, Manoj Vohra, Michael Regan Aug 2011

Evaluating The Environment For Public-Private Partnerships In Asia-Pacific: The 2011 Infrascope, Manisha Mirchandani, Vanesa Sanchez, Manoj Vohra, Michael Regan

Michael Regan

Preface This document comprises a summary and analysis of a benchmark index and learning tool that assesses the capacity of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to carry out sustainable publicprivate infrastructure partnerships, as of June 2011. The methodology is based on a similar study of Latin America and the Caribbean published in 2009 and 2010. The index was built by the Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the Economist Intelligence Unit and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the ADB. An Economist …


Can Health Insurance Reduce School Absenteeism?, Ryan Yeung Aug 2011

Can Health Insurance Reduce School Absenteeism?, Ryan Yeung

Ryan Yeung

Enacted in 1997, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) represented the largest expansion of U.S. public health care coverage since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid 32 years earlier. Although the program has recently been reauthorized, there remains a considerable lack of thorough and well-designed evaluations of the program. In this study, we use school attendance as a measure of the program’s impact. Utilizing state-level data and the use of fixed-effects regression techniques, we conclude that SCHIP has had a positive and significant effect on state average daily attendance rates, as measured by both SCHIP participation and eligibility rates. …


Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan Jul 2011

Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Response argues that as ATS jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool – attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top – raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must …


Democracy In The Woods: Property Rights In India’S Forests And Forestlands, Prakash Kashwan Jun 2011

Democracy In The Woods: Property Rights In India’S Forests And Forestlands, Prakash Kashwan

Prakash Kashwan

No abstract provided.


The Administrative System Of The European Union-From Concept To Reality, Lucica Matei, Ani Matei Jun 2011

The Administrative System Of The European Union-From Concept To Reality, Lucica Matei, Ani Matei

Ani Matei

At the beginning of the 21st century,

the European Union (EU) governance and

administration are undergoing some significant

transformations, not without obstacles, from concept

to reality, revealing characteristics that aim both the

European and national elements in a permanent

interpenetration, whose complexity is superior

to other processes and phenomena specific for

the construction of a United Europe. The major

objective of the current paper is to substantiate and

describe systemically the process of affirmation and

transformation of the EU administration as a core

pillar of European governance. A doctrinal overview

on the debated topic reveals an atypical concept in

terms …


The Employee Free Act Choice: Economic Consequences And Political Implications, Peter Dreier Jun 2011

The Employee Free Act Choice: Economic Consequences And Political Implications, Peter Dreier

Peter Dreier

No abstract provided.


Why Advocates For Economic And Racial Justice Need The Employee Free Choice Act, Peter Dreier, Gary Flowers Jun 2011

Why Advocates For Economic And Racial Justice Need The Employee Free Choice Act, Peter Dreier, Gary Flowers

Peter Dreier

No abstract provided.


Changes In The Labor Market, Vernon Briggs May 2011

Changes In The Labor Market, Vernon Briggs

Vernon M Briggs Jr

[Excerpt] The service-oriented economy has an undeservedly bad reputation. The notion of a service-oriented economy somehow conjures up an impression of a nation of "hamburger flippers." That's not where the growth in employment is coming in the service sector. In fact, the greatest increases in the service sector are coming in the professional and technical areas. Fully one-third of the growth in employment since 1972 has occurred in the professional-technical worker classification. Eighty percent of the managerial jobs in the United States are in the service sector. As a consequence, the changes require a better prepared labor force than we've …


Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs May 2011

Illegal Immigration And The Dilemma Of American Unions, Vernon Briggs

Vernon M Briggs Jr

[Excerpt] Over its long and often turbulent evolution, the American labor movement has confronted few issues as persistently and as difficult has those related to subject of immigration. By definition, immigration affects the size of the labor force at any given time as well as its geographical distribution and skill composition. These vital influences, in turn, affect national, regional and local labor market conditions. Most immigrants directly join the labor force upon entering the country, as do eventually most of their family members. Hence, organized labor never has ignored immigration trends. As Samuel Gompers, one of the founders of the …


Behavioral Responses To Programmatic Features Of States' Children's Health Insurance Programs, Carole Gresenz, S. Edgington, M. Laugesen, Jose Escarce Apr 2011

Behavioral Responses To Programmatic Features Of States' Children's Health Insurance Programs, Carole Gresenz, S. Edgington, M. Laugesen, Jose Escarce

Carole Roan Gresenz

No abstract provided.


Tradeoffs Between Public And Private Insurance Under Recent Chip Expansions To Higher Income Children, Carole Gresenz, S. Edgington, M. Laugesen, Jose Escarce Apr 2011

Tradeoffs Between Public And Private Insurance Under Recent Chip Expansions To Higher Income Children, Carole Gresenz, S. Edgington, M. Laugesen, Jose Escarce

Carole Roan Gresenz

No abstract provided.


Discussões Sobre A Aplicabilidade Restrita Da Lei De Improbidade Administrativa, Prof. Dr. Eloi Martins Senhoras Apr 2011

Discussões Sobre A Aplicabilidade Restrita Da Lei De Improbidade Administrativa, Prof. Dr. Eloi Martins Senhoras

Elói Martins Senhoras

No abstract provided.


Medical Expenditure Measures In The Health And Retirement Study, Dana Goldman, Julie Zissimopoulos, Yang Lu Mar 2011

Medical Expenditure Measures In The Health And Retirement Study, Dana Goldman, Julie Zissimopoulos, Yang Lu

Yang Lu

This paper reviews out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenditure measures collected in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Medical expenditures are an important cost of poor health. Medical expenditure measures are important for understanding retirement decisions, financial preparation for retirement, and predicting the consequences of health care reform, particularly Medicare reform. Despite the comprehensiveness of the HRS, there are always limitations to what can be learned from population interviews. To assess the quality of current HRS measures of OOP spending, we compare various measures of OOP spending across survey waves to the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey …