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Full-Text Articles in Public Policy

Civic Responsibility And Patterns Of Voluntary Participation Around The World, Mary Alice Haddad Nov 2006

Civic Responsibility And Patterns Of Voluntary Participation Around The World, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

This article seeks to explain why different types of volunteer organizations are prevalent in different countries. It hypothesizes that patterns of volunteer participation are a function of citizen attitudes toward governmental and individual responsibility for caring for society. Those countries (e.g., Japan)—where citizens think that governments should be responsible for dealing with social problems—will tend to have higher participation in embedded volunteer organizations, such as parent-teacher associations. Those countries (e.g., the United States)—where citizens think that individuals should take responsibility for dealing with social problems—will tend to have more participation in nonembedded, organizations, such as Greenpeace. These hypotheses are tested …


Congestion Pricing: The Answer To America's Traffic Woes?, Ryan Yeung Dec 2005

Congestion Pricing: The Answer To America's Traffic Woes?, Ryan Yeung

Ryan Yeung

Congestion results in losses in productivity, added delivery time, extra costs for consumers, as well as damage to the environment. The most obvious solution to traffic congestion is to build more roads, but the prevailing thought among experts is that adding supply is not an effective long-term solution. Another approach is congestion pricing, where motorists are charged different prices based on demand. A literature review supports congestion pricing’s effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Perhaps most importantly, a number of case studies suggest that congestion pricing is politically feasible.


Single-Period Location Models For Subsidized Housing: Project-Based Subsidies, Michael Johnson Dec 2005

Single-Period Location Models For Subsidized Housing: Project-Based Subsidies, Michael Johnson

Michael P. Johnson

Large urban public housing authorities (PHAs) in the US have abandoned the traditional model of highrise public housing developments and increasingly use lower-density project-based subsidized housing as well as tenant-based housing subsidies to provide affordable shelter. PHAs generally apply practitioner expertise to locate subsidized housing and do not identify housing alternatives using prescriptive planning models that optimize policy criteria and incorporate well-defined stakeholder impacts. Using policy characteristics and estimated economic impacts of subsidized housing, a new single-period multi-objective integer programming model for location of project-based subsidized housing is developed. Data requirements, relationships with standard planning models, solution characteristics and sensitivity …


Decision Models For Location Of Community Corrections Centers, Michael Johnson Dec 2005

Decision Models For Location Of Community Corrections Centers, Michael Johnson

Michael P. Johnson

Community corrections centers (CCCs, or `halfway houses') represent a community-based justice strategy intended to reintegrate offenders into civil society. Site selection for these facilities is complicated by negative perceptions of CCC impacts on the part of potential host communities. I solve the CCC-location problem through the use of a framework based on value-focused thinking and quantitative decision models. The first of two mathematical models for CCC location is a novel integer programming formulation that incorporates neighborhood characteristics and equity considerations; the second is a straightforward application of the analytic hierarchy process. These models are applied to a case study in …


Punctuated Equilibrium In Limbo: The Tobacco Lobby And U.S. State Policy Making From 1990 To 2003, Michael S. Givel Dec 2005

Punctuated Equilibrium In Limbo: The Tobacco Lobby And U.S. State Policy Making From 1990 To 2003, Michael S. Givel

Michael S. Givel

Since the mid-1980s, U.S. tobacco policy has been an intense and acrimonious issue between antitobacco advocates and the tobacco industry. In the United States, the tobacco industry has responded to heightened state antitobacco litigation, adverse public opinion, and public health advocacy by aggressively mobilizing against tobacco taxes and regulations. This article examines whether these tobacco policy trends can be generalized to punctuated equilibrium theory ideas that policy monopolies are stable over long periods and usually change because of sharp and short-term exogenous shocks to the policy system. From 1990 to 2003, there was a sharp mobilization by health advocates in …