School of Public Policy
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1618
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
Browse
55 results
Search Results
Item Governance, Identity, and Counterinsurgency Strategy(2009) Fitzsimmons, Michael; Steinbruner, John D.; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The premise of most Western thinking on counterinsurgency is that success depends on establishing a perception of legitimacy among local populations. The path to legitimacy is often seen as the improvement of governance in the form of effective and efficient administration of government and public services. However, good governance is not the only possible basis for claims to legitimacy. Prompted by recent experience in Iraq, the research presented here formally considers whether in insurgencies where ethno-religious identities are politically salient, claims to legitimacy may rest more on the identity of who governs, rather than on how whoever governs governs. Specifically, this dissertation poses and tests the hypothesis that in the presence of major ethno-religious cleavages, good governance will contribute much less to counterinsurgent success than will efforts toward reaching political agreements that directly address those cleavages. The dissertation reviews and synthesizes the record of scholarship and policy regarding insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, the politics of ethnic identity, governance, and legitimacy. Building on this synthesis, it presents an analytic framework designed to formalize the terms of the main hypothesis sufficiently to enable empirical tests. It then applies that framework to brief analyses of counterinsurgent experiences in Malaya, Algeria, South Vietnam, and then of two detailed local cases studies of American counterinsurgency operations in Iraq: Ramadi from 2004-2005; and Tal Afar from 2005-2006. These Iraq case studies are based on primary research, including 37 interviews with participants and eyewitnesses. The cases examined yield ample evidence that ethno-religious identity politics do shape counterinsurgency outcomes in important ways, and also offer qualified support for the hypothesis about the relative importance to counterinsurgent success of identity politics versus good governance. However, the cases do not discredit the utility to counterinsurgents of providing good governance, and they corroborate the traditional view that population security is the most important element of successful counterinsurgency strategy. Key policy implications include the importance of making strategy development as sensitive as possible to the dynamics of identity politics, and to local variations and complexity in causal relationships among popular loyalties, grievances, and political violence.Item WHAT IS THE PRICE OF CRIME? NEW ESTIMATES OF THE COST OF CRIMINAL VICTIMIZATION(2009) Roman, Jonathan Kilbourn; Reuter, Peter; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Robust estimates of the price of crime, measured as the costs of crime to victims, inform a wide range of policy analysis. The most commonly cited studies are constrained by limited data and rely on indirect methods to estimate prices. In these studies, health statistics are used to estimate direct losses from crime, jury award data are used to estimate indirect damages from crime, and self-reported crime data are used to weight injury prevalence within broad crime categories. While the relationship between injury and damages can be observed at the individual level in civil court records, individual level data have not previously been available that link crimes and injury. Since both individual and aggregate data are combined in these studies, prior research has not corrected sampling bias, and the estimates of victimization costs have been reported only as point estimates without confidence intervals. Estimates have been developed for only a few broad categories of crime and these estimates have not been robust to study design. This study analyzes individual-level data from two sources: jury award and injury data from the RAND Institute of Civil Justice and crime and injury data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System. Propensity score weights are developed to account for heterogeneity in jury awards. Data from the jury awards are interpolated onto the NIBRS data based on the combination of all attributes observable in both data sets. From the combined data, estimates are developed of the price of crime to victims for thirty-one crime categories. Until data become available linking information about criminal incidents to jury award data, the strategy used here is likely to yield the most robust estimates of the costs to crime victims that can be generated from the jury compensation method.Item Municipal User Charges in the Era of Tax and Expenditure Limitations(2009) Sun, Rui; Reuter, Peter; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)User charges have emerged as one of the major revenue sources for municipal governments in the United States since the late 1970s. Meanwhile, a majority of states have adopted tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) in an attempt to constrain the revenue and spending levels of local governments including municipalities. In the era of TELs, how user charges perform their multiple roles in promoting local autonomy, political accountability, allocative efficiency, horizontal equity, and responsive government deserves considerable attention in the field of public finance. This dissertation explores the causes and consequences of the increased use of user charges by American municipalities. First, I provide an overview of fiscal trends in American municipalities. Chapter 1 discusses the context in which municipal revenue policy is made, the definitions of user charges, the salience of the issue, and the aims and organization of the dissertation. Chapter 2 investigates the effect of TELs on municipal reliance on user charges. The analysis is based on a sample of 724 cities for the period of 1970 to 2004. I employ fixed effects regression techniques to help control for the unobserved city-level characteristics that vary across cities but are time invariant. Results indicate that the implementation of TELs leads to a substantial increase in per capita user charges. The effect becomes even more pronounced when the endogoneity of TELs is taken into account using a two-stage least squares model. This finding implies that TELs may have unintended consequences and lead to a bigger government. Results also suggest that the restrictiveness and the number of TELs make a difference and different types of TELs generate varying effects on user charge reliance. Chapter 3 examines the impact of user charge financing on municipal expenditure levels. Using a panel of 686 cities for the sewer service and 715 cities for the parks and recreation service between 1972 and 2004, I find strong evidence that a greater reliance on user charges to finance government services leads to a reduction in municipal expenditures. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of policy implications in Chapter 4.Item Should Advertising Remain a Tax-Deductible Business Expense?(2009) Wengrover, Sally Ruth; Daly, Herman E.; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Advertising expenses have been deductible ever since the income tax was enacted in 1913. Over the years, however, a number of analysts have questioned advertising's tax status. According to some, advertising creates intangible capital and should, therefore, be capitalized and amortized like other capital assets. According to other analysts, advertising does more to reduce welfare than to augment it; therefore, the deduction should be completely denied. Advertisers and their supporters, on the other hand, maintain that the deduction is entirely reasonable. This dissertation addresses some of the legal controversies involving the deduction and examines some of advertising's economic psychological, sociological and ecological effects. In Part I, Chapter 1 introduces the research question and debates the welfare implications of ad-induced economic growth. Chapter 2 considers whether advertising is, in fact, an "ordinary and necessary business expense" that is entitled to a tax deduction. Although advocates for the deduction claim that it is both ordinary and necessary, some critics argue that the deduction is, in fact, a subsidy that shifts more of the tax burden to individual taxpayers. Part II is devoted to the economic effects of advertising. Chapter 3 discusses advertising's impact on demand for the output of an individual firm, a particular industry, and all industries combined. Chapter 4 examines the effect of advertising on the competitive model; Chapter 5 evaluates advertising's influence on innovation, employment, and savings; and Chapter 6 considers the economic impact of advertising on the media. The focus in Part III is on advertising's influence on well-being. Chapter 7 examines ways that advertising affects the well-being of individuals and society. Chapter 8 surveys the impact of ad-induced materialistic values on the environment. Chapter 9 looks at a number of costs and benefits that are associated with advertising, discusses potential obstacles to changing advertising's tax status, and offers recommendations for policymakers.Item An Institutional Analysis of the Chinese Land Conversion Process(2009) Ma, Jianbo; Nelson, Robert H; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Formally, China has a highly centralized system to control the conversion of farmland to non-farming uses. Its rigidity and other problems, however, have led to a large informal and decentralized market that serves to accommodate the demand for developable land. This dissertation, based on a case study in a county on China's eastern coast, finds that the informal land market has played an essential role in promoting local economic growth, improving the financial situations of local governments and villages, and benefiting some low-income people. As far as economic efficiency is concerned, the Chinese land system functions reasonably well given the existing institutional arrangements, though at high transaction costs. However, the land conversion process, governed largely by the law of the jungle, is highly unfair because it favors the powerful, the bold and the wealthy. The recent piecemeal policies by China's national government to fix the system have produced few positive or even negative effects. The dissertation concludes that the success of future attempts to improve the land conversion system hinges on the willingness and capability of the national government to change the rules of the game in a fundamental way.Item Trade Openness and Well-Being: Do Complementary Conditions Matter?(2008-05-15) Guzman, Julio A; Graham, Carol; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the last three decades, most of the existing literature using regression analysis to explore the effects of trade on development has conferred the first one a leading role in directly determining cross-country differences on income. Indeed, this should come at surprise, since what trade theory predicts and what results from General Equilibrium Models (an econometric-alternative quantitative tool) recently display are not completely aligned with conventional empirical evidence at hand. According to these sources, the effects of trade liberalization on welfare are indirect, transmitted through several channels, and dependent on multiple initial conditions. Much of such discrepancy may be due to measurement error and omitted variable problems, data limitations, and methodological shortcomings presented in regression analysis. On one hand, there is agreement over the fact that conventional proxies of trade openness contain severe measurement errors. In addition, data on control variables affecting well-being and believed to be correlated with trade became available just recently. On the other hand, and more importantly, the search for a possible contingent or conditional relationship between free trade and well-being has not been a priority in the agenda of mainstream literature with the exception of sporadic and isolated studies, despite the fact that trade theory has long recognized that possibility. Using newly developed policy-oriented measures of trade integration built with information from tariff rates, non-tariff-barriers, and subsidies, and controlling by multidimensional policy areas beyond those found in conventional literature, this study finds evidence of a contingent relationship between trade openness and well-being. More specifically, this investigation arrives at two conclusions. First, unilateral or one-way-street trade liberalization is not associated with higher levels of well-being, showing neither a direct impact nor a conditional one in the presence of complementary conditions. Second, gains in international market access, or multilateral trade openness, do not alone guarantee the achievement of higher levels of well-being, but do demonstrate significant potential for development in the presence of favorable internal conditions, such as those linked to business competitiveness and market efficiency, the promotion and respect of political rights among the citizenry, and the less concentrated distribution of economic and social opportunities.Item THE COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING IMPACT OF THE BALTIMORE EMPOWERMENT ZONE(2008-04-28) Clinch, Richard; Nelson, Robert H; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The federal Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community (EZ/EC) Initiative was the major urban initiative of the Clinton administration. It sought to replace the Reagan and the first Bush administrations' reductions in support for urban programs and passive focus on addressing urban issues through people-based policies and market and tax incentives. Baltimore was one of six cities selected for a full Empowerment Zone. One of the core goals of the federal EZ/EC Initiative was to create sustainable community capacity. Baltimore's implementation strategy was recognized as the most community driven of all of the Zones. This dissertation examines the experience of the Empowerment Zone in building sustainable community development capacity in the form of community organizations to implement programs and presents lessons learned to guide future community capacity building efforts. This dissertation used a detailed literature review, interview, focus group, records review and case study approach to answer the question - Can a federal policy create sustainable community capacity? The Baltimore Empowerment Zone was partially successful in creating or enhancing community development capacity in six urban neighborhoods in Baltimore. Five of the six community organizations - in the case of the Baltimore Empowerment Zone these were called village centers -- formed or participating in the Empowerment Zone effort operated throughout the ten year federal funding period and four remained in operation after the end of the program. This dissertation examined the internal (community) and external (economic, social, and political) factors that influenced each village centers' efforts to build sustainable development community capacity.Item Socio-Technical Transition as a Co-Evolutionary Process: Innovation and the Role of Niche Markets in the Transition to Motor Vehicles(2008-04-25) Birky, Alicia Kim; Ruth, Matthias; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Significant reductions in greenhouse emissions from personal transportation will require a transition to an alternative technology regime based on renewable energy sources. Two bodies of research, the quasi-evolutionary (QE) model and the multi-level perspective (MLP) assert that processes within niches play a fundamental role in such transitions. This research asks whether the description of transitions based on this niche hypothesis and its underlying assumptions is consistent with the historical U.S. transition to motor vehicles at the beginning of the 20th century. Unique to this dissertation is the combination of the perspective of the entrepreneur with co-evolutionary approaches to socio-technical transitions. This approach is augmented with concepts from the industry life-cycle model and with a taxonomy of mechanisms of learning. Using this analytic framework, I examine specifically the role of entrepreneurial behavior and processes within and among firms in the co-evolution of technologies and institutions during the transition to motor vehicles. I find that niche markets played an important role in the development of the technology, institutions, and the industry. However, I also find that the diffusion of the automobile is not consistent with the niche hypothesis in the following ways: 1) product improvements and cost reductions were not realized in niche markets, but were achieved simultaneously with diffusion into mass markets; 2) in addition to learning-by-doing and learning-by-interacting with users, knowledge spillovers and interacting with suppliers were critical in this process; 3) cost reductions were not automatic results of expanding markets, but rather arose from the strategies of entrepreneurs based on personal perspectives and values. This finding supports the use of a behavioral approach with a micro-focus in the analysis of socio-technical change I also find that the emergence and diffusion of the motor vehicle can only be understood by considering the combination of developments and processes in multiple regimes, within niches, and within the wider technical, institutional, and ecological complex (TIEC). For the automobile, the process of regime development was more consistent with a fit-stretch pattern of gradual unfolding and adaptation than one of niche proliferation and rapid regime renewal described in the literature.Item What Type of Fiscal Decentralization System Has Better Performance?(2007-12-07) Liu, Chih-hung; Reinhart, Carmen; Zinnes, Clifford; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The conventional wisdom of fiscal decentralization advocates is that fiscal decentralization can facilitate the economic development of a country. In addition, the World Bank and IMF have identified over sixty countries where decentralization is an important element of development strategy. However, with the proliferating implementation of fiscal decentralization, the actual outcome has varied from country to country. A major barrier to understanding is the lack of well-defined theoretical framework to empirically measure fiscal decentralization in a policy relevant way. The most widely used measurement is the ratio of sub-national government expenditure/revenue to total government expenditure/revenue. But this indicator is criticized too simple to capture the dimensions of fiscal decentralization. Specifically, it ignores key qualitative dimensions, such as taxing power, borrowing power and the independence of local officials, which are also very important to implementing fiscal decentralization. The primary contribution of this dissertation is a novel theoretical framework for empirical measurement of fiscal decentralization. The research question is: what types of fiscal decentralization system produce better economic performance? We go beyond the traditional way of measuring a country's fiscal decentralization, treating it instead as a system with its own institutional design. Adopting this method requires us investigate the institutional arrangement for fiscal decentralization in a country. The institutional arrangement we review in detail includes: supra-national government, federal or unitary state, numbers of tiers of governments, taxing power, borrowing power, and independent local official. These components have also been recognized by many economists and policy analysts. What is original to this work is that, after identifying these institutional arrangements, we can group different countries with similar institutionally similar fiscal decentralization systems together in broad categories by using cluster analysis. We are then in a position to measure the successes of each cluster according to several indicators, such as: economic performance, fiscal performance, and governance performance. An inter- and intra-cluster comparison and one empirical model thus give a snapshot of the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic performance. The ultimate goal, for policy analysis, is to be able to distinguish the desirable institutional arrangements of fiscal decentralization from the less desirable ones.Item Did State Renewable Portfolio Standards Induce Technical Change In Methane Mitigation in the U.S. Landfill Sector?(2007-11-28) Delhotal, Katherine Casey; Ruth, Matthias; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Landfill gas (LFG) projects use the gas created from decomposing waste, which is approximately 49% methane, and substitute it for natural gas in engines, boilers, turbines, and other technologies to produce energy or heat. The projects are beneficial in terms of increased safety at the landfill, production of a cost-effective source of energy or heat, reduced odor, reduced air pollution emissions, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However, landfills sometimes face conflicting policy incentives. The theory of technical change shows that the diffusion of a technology or groups of technologies increases slowly in the beginning and then picks up speed as knowledge and better understanding of using the technology diffuses among potential users. Using duration analysis, data on energy prices, State and Federal policies related to landfill gas, renewable energy, and air pollution, as well as control data on landfill characteristics, I estimate the influence and direction of influence of renewable portfolio standards (RPS). The analysis found that RPS positively influences the diffusion of landfill gas technologies, encouraging landfills to consider electricity generation projects over direct sales of LFG to another facility. Energy price increases or increased revenues for a project are also critical. Barriers to diffusion include air emission permits in non-attainment areas and policies, such as net metering, which promote other renewables over LFG projects. Using the estimates from the diffusion equations, I analyze the potential influence of a Federal RPS as well as the potential interaction with a Federal, market based climate change policy, which will increase the revenue of a project through higher energy sale prices. My analysis shows that a market based climate change policy such as a cap-and-trade or carbon tax scheme would increase the number of landfill gas projects significantly more than a Federal RPS.