Public Policy Commons^™

Essays On Applications Of Behavioral Decision Making In Public Management And Policy, Navid Ghaffarzadegan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This is a three-essay dissertation on examination of behavioral decision making phenomena in the contexts of public management and policy analysis. I study how policymakers, government employees, and citizens behave, make decisions and learn from decision outcomes. I move toward prescriptive analysis and offer solutions that can improve government performance.

Business As Usual : The Nonprofit Sector In The U.S. National Elite Network, Scott Vincent Dolan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Research on the structure and distribution of power in the United States has focused mostly on the relative power of business, and has largely neglected the nonprofit sector. This is despite evidence that points to the emergence and growth of large-scale, bureaucratic, and elite-led nonprofit organizations. When the political role of the nonprofit sector has been examined, it has come predominantly from two sets of literature: the civic engagement/social capital tradition or the interest group tradition. I argue that both sets of literature, however, start with faulty assumptions about the nature of power and politics, and thereby fail to situate …

Metropolitan Fragmentation Vs. New Regionalism And The Evolving Nature Of Metropolitan Governance : An Analysis Of Growth Politics And Policy In The Capital Region Of Upstate New York, Paul Thomas Knudson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Development in the urban and metropolitan context continues to be a vibrant area of scholarship and debate in the social sciences. This study continues and augments this research by examining two overarching issues: first, how development at the local level is impacted by fragmented political structures and inter-municipal relations, and second, the extent to which local, non-profit organizations and state agencies whose policies involve land-use planning and environmental conservation, are addressing issues of uneven- and parochial-centered development as a by-product of political fragmentation.

Residence Restriction Legislation, Sex Crime Rates, And The Spatial Distribution Of Sex Offender Residences, Kelly M. Socia

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Residence restrictions are one of the most recent, and most controversial, public policies seeking to protect community members from registered sex offenders (RSOs) reentering society following incarceration. Residence restriction policies prohibit RSOs from living within a given distance of certain places where children might gather (e.g., schools, daycares, parks, and playgrounds). In doing so, the expectation is that RSOs will have a harder time finding and approaching young children whom they can sexually assault, thus driving sexual recidivism rates down. These policies, first passed in 1995 at the state level and in 2005 at the county and local level, have …

Addressing Nonsystematic Factors Contributing To The Underrepresentation Of Minorities As Jurors, Elizabeth Neeley

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right of criminal defendants to “a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” An “impartial jury” requires the jury be selected from a representative cross-section of the community. But how is a fair cross-section determined? In Duren v. Missouri, the Supreme Court outlined a three-pronged test defendants must satisfy to establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement:

(1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a “distinctive” group in the community; (2) that the …

Faith-Based Organizations In A System Of Behavioral Health Care, Mark Dekraai, Denise Bulling, Nancy C. Shank, Alan J. Tomkins

Nancy Shank Publications

Through community service activities, and ministries to members within their congregations, faith communities will encounter individuals with behavioral health needs. This article suggests that faith communities have inherent resources that can enhance the reach and effectiveness of behavioral health systems. A framework is presented that will create a bridge of understanding about how behavioral health can leverage faith organization assets and how faith organizations can actively assist adults, children and families with behavioral health needs within the context of their faith and their community.

Statedata: The National Report On Employment Services And Outcomes, John Butterworth, Allison Cohen Hall, Frank Smith, Alberto Migliore, Jean Winsor, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Daria Domin

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Policy shifts over the past 20 years have created an agenda for sustained commitment to integrated employment for individuals with disabilities. But despite these clear intentions, unemployment of individuals with disabilities continues to be a major public policy issue. Labor force statistics for December 2010 indicate that 28 percent of working-age adults with disabilities are employed, compared with 70 percent of people without disabilities. Labor force data also indicate that workers with disabilities have experienced significantly higher levels of job loss and hardship during the recession of the late 2000s. For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), the disparity …

Community-Based Operations Research: Introduction, Theory And Applications, Michael P. Johnson Jr.

Public Policy and Public Affairs Faculty Publication Series

Community-based operations research is the name of a new sub-discipline within operations research and the management sciences. CBOR synthesizes previous practice and research traditions within OR/MS to address problems within the public sector that are often of a localized nature, that address the concerns of citizens affiliated through characteristics of race, ethnicity and class and other ties and that are solved using diverse qualitative and quantitative methods. Solutions to these problems are developed and implemented by formal and informal organizations, and embody a critical perspective towards traditional notions of decisionmakers, stakeholders and analytic methods. The most proximate antecedents of CBOR …

Disabilities Through The Capability Approach Lens: Implications For Public Policies Handicap Au Travers De L’Approche Par Les Capabilités: Quelles Implications Pour Les Politiques Publiques ?, Jean-Francois Trani, Parul Bakhshi, Nicol Bellanca, Mario Biggeri, Francesca Marchetta

Brown School Faculty Publications

This paper explores the contribution of the capability approach of Amartya Sen and other authors to policy making in the specific case of disability policy. After reviewing existing models, their translation into action and their limitations in this regard, the paper introduces a new policy framework based on the capability approach. In particular, we introduce a new measure of functionings and capabilities. We investigate ways of measuring the gap between functionings, what people are able to do and be, and capabilities – the valuable practical opportunities people have and choose from. The possibility of the elaboration of such a disability …

Outcomes, Adaptations And Performance: A Local Evaluation Of Shelter Plus Care, Sloan R. Herrick

Wayne State University Theses

Individual outcomes and barriers to program implementation for Shelter Plus Care are presented in an exploratory study investigating the impact of a permanent supportive housing program - Shelter Plus Care - in Detroit, a city that faces unique challenges and complicated needs. Individual outcomes including improved housing stability, increased income and reports of enhanced self-sufficiency suggest the program is achieving the goals projected by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Despite positive outcomes for individual consumers, barriers to program implementation emerged as thematic problems for organizations running the program. The study provides recommendations that may increase the …

Mujeres Y Bienestar: Un Estudio Comparativo De Chile Y Uruguay, Jennifer Pribble

Political Science Faculty Publications

Es ampliamente reconocido por economistas, cientistas políticos y sociólogos que las mujeres constituyen una proporción muy alta de la pobreza mundial. A pesar de las marcadas diferencias de género entre los pobres latinoamericanos, los análisis de los Estados de bienestar de Ia región se han concentrado primordialmente en explicar las diferencias en los niveles del gasto socialo total. Este enfoque ha dejado de lado una variable importante en los regímenes de bienestar latinoamericanos: el carácter de género en las políticas sociales. Este trabajo pretende cubrir esa brecha. Mediante un análisis comparativo de Chile y Uruguay, las páginas que siguen exploran …

Corporate Speech In The Wake Of Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, Eric Groonwald

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This paper provides an overview of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court case and subsequent ruling. Discussion includes the impact on corporate electoral speech, current disclosure and disclaimer laws and reform options.

Gains, Losses, And Life Goals Identified By Caregivers Of Individuals With Disabilities In The United States, Sharon A. Raver, Anne M. P. Michalek

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

It is often reported that caregivers of individuals with disabilities experience stress as they manage caregiving responsibilities while they make the effort to balance family and work. Thirty-one caregivers of individuals with an array of disabilities in the United States completed a qualitative survey in this pilot study that asked them to identify their gains and losses from providing care and to identify their life goals. The gains from caregiving were identified as enhanced empathy and compassion, and the losses as strained family relationships, and less personal time. The most commonly identified life goals were experiencing happiness and achieving financial …

Sector-Switching In Transition Economies: A Case Study Of Kazakhstan's Health Care Sector, Dariga Chukmaitova

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The dissertation examines the economic and behavioral factors influencing 'sector-switching' in Kazakhstan's health care industry. Sector-switching involves doctors moving from the national to the private system, which is not well established, thereby raising questions about why the switch occurs. It addresses the question: why health care professionals in Kazakhstan switch from the public sector to similar jobs in the private or nonprofit sectors? This study addresses a key issue in public management (sector switching) and also offers insights into the dynamics of the transition from a centralized economy to a market economy. As such, its findings have `real-world' applications beyond …

Returning Attention To Policy Content In Diffusion Study, John M. Fulwider

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Policy diffusion research pays virtually no attention to policy content. Yet we should expect content to shape the adoption of any policy--this is what legislators and policy makers, after all, fight about. Thus the extent and speed of diffusion likely critically depend on policy content, which the current literature virtually ignores. This dissertation shows how we can better understand policy diffusion by taking policy content seriously. Paying attention to policy content, including how it is debated and understood by legislators, has immediate payoffs in the sense that two literatures largely ignored until now by diffusion researchers-- policy typologies and policy …

Public Policy, Human Instincts, And Economic Growth, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

Alfred Marshall famously insisted that economics is more like biology than physics. Societies are organic ecologies that evolve and produce organized but unplanned complexity (Hayek 1979). Although no public policy reliably produces economic growth across all ecosystems, a key element unites diverse institutions and policies that do seem to work: they all are reasonably compatible with human instinct. Institutions that build on the basic instinct for self-betterment (as in markets) have a much easier time in achieving success than institutions that oppose it (as in communism). Instincts, like gravity, are a force of nature. Adam Smith theorized, for example, …

A Reexamination Of Us Heroin Policy, Daniel Fogel

CMC Senior Theses

Misguided drug policy in the United States has led to many severe social and economic problems that have burgeoned over the past century.  I analyzed heroin policy specifically, investigating new treatment methods and alternative decriminalization policies that would ameliorate some of these problems.

Public Dollar Private Owners; Tax Subsidies For New Stadiums In Professional Sports, Grant J. Bunnage

CMC Senior Theses

The growing popularity of North American professional sports over the last twenty years directly coincides with the recent trend of urban communities using tax dollars to publically subsidize professional football, baseball, and basketball stadiums. Communities across North America invest substantial amount of public tax dollars in private facilities in light of a consensus among policy analysts that the economic impact of the new stadium is greatly exaggerated. The economic impact of new stadiums has been extensively researched, the focus  of this paper rather, is to examine the impact publically subsidized facilities built in the last twenty years have on the …

Three Essays On Financial Markets And Monetary Policy, Abeba Siraj Mussa

Dissertations

The global financial crisis triggered by fallout from the sub-prime mortgage market in the U.S. has led economists to focus attention on the role of monetary policy in the crisis. The question of how monetary policy affects the financial sector is the key to the current debate over the role financial stability should play in the monetary policy decisions. As a contribution to this debate, my dissertation examines the link between monetary policy and three main financial sectors - the banking sector, the stock market, and the housing market.

The first essay examines whether the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) …

Unmas 2010 Annual Report, Unmas

Global CWD Repository

Our work in helping to protect and empower local communities contributes to wider humanitarian, peace and development dividends, and delivers concrete and measurable results. Our success stories are the product of the generous support provided by UN Member States’ funds allocated by the UN General Assembly for the mine action components in seven peacekeeping operations, and by donors’ considerable extra-budgetary funding support. Despite challenges, 16 donor governments, the European Union (EU), the Common Humanitarian Trust Fund for Sudan (CHF) and students from Pace University in New York contributed to the Voluntary Trust Fund for Assistance in Mine Action (VTF). The …