Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Preliminary Findings From The New Leaders For New Schools Evaluation, Paul Heaton
Preliminary Findings From The New Leaders For New Schools Evaluation, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
Effective school leadership is widely seen as a key determinant of student achievement, yet it remains unclear what constitutes an effective principal. To address the need to develop new principals to lead urban schools, the New Leaders for New Schools organization was established with the goal of ensuring high academic achievement for all students by attracting, preparing, and supporting leaders for urban public schools. This working paper presents preliminary findings on the impact of attending a school led by a K-8 school led by a New Leader. Using longitudinal student-level data collected from the six cities in which New Leaders …
Hidden In Plain Sight: What Cost-Of-Crime Research Can Tell Us About Investing In Police, Paul Heaton
Hidden In Plain Sight: What Cost-Of-Crime Research Can Tell Us About Investing In Police, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
Many state and local governments are facing significant fiscal challenges, forcing policymakers to confront difficult trade-offs as they consider how to allocate scarce resources across numerous worthy initiatives. To achieve their policy priorities, it will become increasingly important for policymakers to concentrate resources on programs that can clearly demonstrate that they improve their constituents' quality of life. To identify such programs, cost/benefit analysis can be a powerful tool for objectively adjudicating the merits of particular programs. On the surface, all such programs aim to improve quality of life, but whether they actually achieve — or will achieve — what they …
The U.S. Experience With No-Fault Automobile Insurance, Paul Heaton
The U.S. Experience With No-Fault Automobile Insurance, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
No-fault automobile-insurance regimes were the culmination of decades of dissatisfaction with the use of the traditional tort system for compensating victims of automobile accidents. They promised quicker, fairer, less-contentious, and, it was hoped, less-expensive resolution of automobile-accident injuries. This monograph considers how these plans have fared. After reviewing the intellectual and political history of no-fault auto insurance, the monograph concludes that no-fault lost political popularity because of the perception that it did not deliver the promised consumer premium cost reductions. Analysis of data from a variety of sources confirms this view, demonstrating that premiums and claim costs have become substantially …
An Analysis Of The Incidence Of Recruiter Irregularites, Paul Heaton
An Analysis Of The Incidence Of Recruiter Irregularites, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
We examine the prevalence and consequences of irregularities by military recruiters. Recruiter irregularities are uncommon — using the services' data for tracking allegations between 2007–2009, we document about 1 allegation per 1,000 applicants. Between 1 to 3 percent of the recruiter workforce is involved in substantiated allegations in a given year, with concealment or falsification representing the most common form of irregularity. Exploring Army contract data, we compare the characteristics of those signing contracts at the end of the recruiting month — when recruiters are under the greatest pressure to meet their monthly recruiting quotas — with those signed earlier …
Information Technology, Organization, And Productivity In The Public Sector: Evidence From Police Departments, Luis Garicano, Paul Heaton
Information Technology, Organization, And Productivity In The Public Sector: Evidence From Police Departments, Luis Garicano, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
We examine how information technology (IT) contributes to organizational change, labor demand, and improved productivity in the public sector using a new panel data set of police departments covering 1987-2003. While IT adoption is associated with increased administrative and organizational complexity and use of more highly educated officers, IT itself does not appear to enhance crimefighting effectiveness. These results are robust to various methods for controlling for agency-level characteristics and the endogeneity of IT use. IT investments do, however, appear to improve police productivity when complemented with particular management practices–in this case, those associated with the Compstat program.
Cash Incentives And Military Enlistment, Attrition, And Reenlistment, Paul Heaton
Cash Incentives And Military Enlistment, Attrition, And Reenlistment, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
To determine whether enlistment and reenlistment bonuses are effective in maintaining or increasing the supply of personnel to the armed forces, the authors provide an empirical analysis of bonuses' effects. They developed models to assess whether bonuses have contributed to recruiting success and retention, whether they have been used flexibly, and whether they have been used efficiently, using data for each service, but with a particular emphasis on the Army. The authors find that bonus programs have been important in helping the services meet recruiting and retention objectives and have been managed flexibly by targeting bonuses to specific groups. Bonuses …
Recruiting Minorities: What Explains Recent Trends In The Army And Navy?, Paul Heaton
Recruiting Minorities: What Explains Recent Trends In The Army And Navy?, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
Click to Read Online Since 2000, black representation among high-quality recruits in the Army has decreased, while Hispanic representation has increased; in the Navy, black representation has remained stable and Hispanic representation has increased. (Recruits are considered to be high-quality if they have graduated high school and score above average on the Armed Forces Qualification Test.) The decline in black enlistments is of concern both because black youth have traditionally been a key market segment for the Army and because Congress has expressed concern about the degree to which military enlistments proportionately reflect the population that the U.S. military defends. …
Auto Liability In Nevada Compared To Other States: Testimony For Nevada Auto Theft And Insurance Fraud Task Force, Paul Heaton
Auto Liability In Nevada Compared To Other States: Testimony For Nevada Auto Theft And Insurance Fraud Task Force, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
This briefing extends previous RAND Institute of Civil Justice research and findings by focusing on the liability situation in Nevada. The briefing was prepared as testimony for the Nevada Auto Theft and Insurance Fraud Task Force and is intended to inform the Task Force about Nevada's liability situation relative to other states.
A Synthesis Of Literature On The Effectiveness Of Community Orders, Paul Heaton
A Synthesis Of Literature On The Effectiveness Of Community Orders, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
The U.K. National Audit Office (NAO) commissioned RAND Europe to conduct this review to identify and synthesize international research about the effectiveness of community orders in reducing re-offending. In this report, we review research on ten of the common requirements contained in community orders. Through examining reviews, systematic reviews and meta-analyses we draw conclusions about the state of research in the areas of unpaid work, mental health treatment, education/skills training, drug treatment, anger management, alcohol treatment, programmes for perpetrators of domestic abuse, regular probation, intensive probation and cognitive/behavioural programming. We also assess the strength of the evidence on whether each …
Does Religion Really Reduce Crime?, Paul Heaton
Does Religion Really Reduce Crime?, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
Considerable research in sociology, criminology, and economics aims to understand the effect of religiosity on crime. Many sociological theories positing a deterrent effect of religion on crime are empirically examined using ordinary least-squares (OLS) regressions of crime measures on measures of religiosity. Most previous studies have found a negative effect of religion on crime using OLS, a result I am able to replicate using county-level data on religious membership and crime rates. If crime affects religious participation, however, OLS coefficients in this context suffer from endogeneity bias. Using historic religiosity as an instrument for current religious participation, I find a …
Oil For What?—Illicit Iraqi Oil Contracts And The U.N. Security Council, Paul Heaton
Oil For What?—Illicit Iraqi Oil Contracts And The U.N. Security Council, Paul Heaton
Paul Heaton
Over a 6½-year period the Iraqi government issued over 1300 oil contracts through the U.N. Oil-For-Food Program. This paper demonstrates that Security Council members obtained significantly more contracts than non-members and contract receipt is associated with pro-Hussein votes on resolutions. For non-permanent seat holders Council membership is associated with a 46% premium in contract value, while permanent seat holders obtained an estimated benefit of approximately $29 million each over the life of the program. A 10% increase in the probability of casting a pro-Iraq vote on the Council corresponds to $55 million in additional contracts. Contrary to median voter models, …