Involving constituents in agency priority setting: a case study

Many government agencies have "constituents" who believe the agencies should hear and consider their needs and desires in establishing program priorities. This article describes how one involves interested constituents (consumers, industry, medical professionals, and state organizations) in the agency's annual priority-setting process. This participation has produced a number of beneficial results-some expected and some unexpected.     

Urban and agricultural soils: conflicts and trade-offs in the optimization of ecosystem services

On-going human population growth and changing patterns of resource consumption are increasing global demand for ecosystem services, many of which are provided by soils. Some of these ecosystem services are linearly related to the surface area of pervious soil, whereas others show non-linear relationships, making ecosystem service optimization a complex task. As limited land availability creates conflicting demands among various types of land use, a central challenge is how to weigh these conflicting interests and how to achieve the best solutions possible from a perspective of sustainable societal development. These conflicting interests become most apparent in soils that are the most heavily used by humans for specific purposes: urban soils used for green spaces, housing, and other infrastructure and agricultural soils for producing food, fibres and biofuels. We argue that, despite their seemingly divergent uses of land, agricultural and urban soils share common features with regards to interactions between ecosystem services, and that the trade-offs associated with decision-making, while scale- and context-dependent, can be surprisingly similar between the two systems. We propose that the trade-offs within land use types and their soil-related ecosystems services are often disproportional, and quantifying these will enable ecologists and soil scientists to help policy makers optimizing management decisions when confronted with demands for multiple services under limited land availability.     

Wage Mobility in Israel: The Effect of Sectoral Concentration

Using a unique eight-year data set, merging population census and national insurance data, the paper examines and compares patterns of wage mobility in Israel. First, the public and the private sectors are compared. Second, within each of these sectors, a distinction is made between sub-sector groupings that exhibit a high level of concentration and those that are more diffuse and unregulated. Based on alternative measures of wage mobility, the central finding of the paper is that the extent of wage mobility in a given economic sector is negatively related to the degree of concentration in that sector.     

Areas of Concentration in the Graduate Curriculum : A Three-Dimensional Model

“Areas of concentration” has been identified as an organizing concept around which the graduate social work curriculum may be restructured. The evident need for correspondence and congruence between social work practice specializations and educational areas of concentration suggests the utility of analyzing the various ways in which social work practice has been conceptualized over time. This analysis has revealed an irreducible minimum of three major dimensions of social work practice which, in various combinations, provide a three-dimensional model for identifying areas of concentration in the graduate social work curriculum.     

Constants and variables: Pareto's asymmetric distribution curve

The article sets out the classic Paretian theory of income distribution. As it does so, it seeks to highlight the constant elements in the human faculties represented, at aggregate level, by the invariability and persistence of the asymmetric income curve, and the variable elements connected with the same curve and manifest in upward and downward mobility – what Pareto calls ‘circulation’. The two theorems arising from Pareto's discovery constitute a specific theory of development which has been confirmed from two points of view: in the positive sense of development when – as in the West – the second theorem has been applied (also independently of Pareto) with the connected theory of the entrepreneur and innovation in democratic regimes; but also in the negative sense of underdevelopment, with the destruction of wealth and the consequent general impoverishment, when expropriation policies have been implemented in despotic regimes, or excessive taxation in others.     

Liberty and distribution: Macrojustice from social freedom

Social freedom, the absence of forceful interference and the central social ethical principle of the modern world, does not imply full self-ownership, as it is classically believed, without a particular interpretation or problematic extra assumptions. It can in fact admit a notable redistribution, but, along with a few facts, it requires most of it to have a particular structure. This structure is equal labour income equalization, an equal redistribution of the incomes that the individuals endowed with different capacities can earn with the same notional equalization labour which represents the degree of community, redistribution, solidarity and reciprocity in the considered society.     

Migration and the Spatial Concentration of Poverty1

Current Population Survey data are used to estimate the effects of migration of the poor and nonpoor on the spatial concentration of poverty among five categories of counties defined by county poverty rates and, separately, among nonmetropolitan high-poverty areas, central city high-poverty areas, and other areas. During the 1981–1984 period studied, migration patterns of both the poor and nonpoor consistently reinforced pre-existing poverty concentrations. High migration rates of the poor into and out of high poverty counties suggests an equilibrium condition. Implications for theory, research, and policy are discussed.     

Changes in Income Concentration: Taxes or Macroeconomic Conditions?

We examine the relative importance of tax rates and macroeconomic fluctuations in explaining the share of national adjusted gross income (AGI) reported by the top 0.5% of all taxpayers. Results indicate that cutting the top income or capital gains tax rate would increase the top AGI share but not by enough to increase revenues. The preponderance of evidence suggests that the top AGI share is affected more by the capital gains tax rate than by the income tax rate but that real gross domestic product fluctuations have even larger effects.     

Poverty, income distribution and CGE micro-simulation modeling: Does the functional form of distribution matter?

This paper explores income distribution modeling approaches for poverty analysis in a CGE micro-simulation context. Income distribution functional forms such as the lognormal, Pareto, beta distribution and empirical methods are currently used in CGE models in parallel with the estimation of FGT poverty indices. The particular methods or functional forms used in this context are not always clearly defined and justified. In this paper, we investigate and provide better criteria for selecting a functional distribution for poverty analysis. To achieve this, we apply parametric estimation to seven functional forms and compare the results to a purely “empirical” method. The results showed that no single form is more appropriate in all instances or for all household subgroups. The choice of a modeling approach should be motivated by a search for best fit and should be based on appropriate statistical tests. Selecting inappropriate distributional forms can lead to biased results in terms of poverty analysis. Introducing functional forms in the empirical approach can also provide greater confidence in the results obtained.

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An erratum to this article can be found at     

Political–economic equilibrium when parties represent constituents: The unidimensional case

 A political–economic environment is studied in which two parties, representing different constituencies of citizens, compete over a proportional tax rate to be levied on private endowments, to finance a public good. Although parties know the distribution of citizen traits (preferences and endowments), they are uncertain about the distribution of traits among the citizens who will turn up at the polls. This uncertainty engenders an endogenously derived function π(t ₁, t ₂) giving the probability that any one tax policy t ₁ will defeat another t ₂ in the election. Equilibrium existence theorems are proved, and the nature of equilibrium is compared with the equilibrium that exists when Downsian parties (ones whose objective is to maximize the probability of victory) face uncertainty. Both constituency-representing parties and uncertainty are needed to generate equilibria in which parties propose different policies. Received: 4 April 1995/Accepted: 2 April 1996     

Embeddedness and cohesion: regimes of urban public goods distribution

Theory and Society - Why do some urban governing regimes realize a more equal distribution of public goods than others? Local government interventions in São Paulo, Brazil, have produced...     

The Spatial Concentration of America's Rural Poor Population: A Postrecession Update

This article examines changes in concentrated poverty in the rural United States between 2000 and 2012. Using data from the decennial census and American Community Survey, we address three main objectives. First, we document changes in the number and share of counties with poverty rates above 20, 30, and 40 percent, stratifying our sample by metropolitan status. Second, we use exploratory spatial methods to identify geographic patterns in county‐level poverty dynamics between 2000 and 2012. Third, we estimate the share of the population living in high‐poverty counties, and track changes over time and by race and poverty status. Overall, we find a substantial increase in concentrated poverty since 2000. Increases in both the number of high‐poverty counties and the share of the population living in these counties were widespread, though spatially and temporally uneven in some cases. We also observe convergence in concentrated poverty between rural and micropolitan areas, and between non‐Hispanic white and Hispanic populations. Overall, we observe a reversal of the declines in concentrated poverty that occurred in the 1990s, and find that in many cases this trend began prior to the Great Recession.     

Social capital in Croatia: measurement and regional distribution

By using partial least squares path modeling, this paper develops a complex index of social capital, selects Croatia as the case for testing and validating the index, and investigates the regional distribution of social capital. The social capital index is defined as a complex hierarchical structured construct of third-order with social trust, participation, and civism as its core dimensions. The main results indicate that civism is the most important cause of social capital followed by active participation and social trust. As far as the regional distribution of social capital is concerned, there are statistically significant differences across the Croatian regions. Although the lowest or below the national average level of social capital and its dimensions can be mostly found in the least developed regions (with the exception of the capital), the highest level of social capital and its particular dimensions is not achieved in the most developed regions.     

Altered resources, disturbance, and heterogeneity: A framework for comparing urban and non-urban soils

We propose a framework of key concepts useful in understanding how urban soils can contribute to general ecological theory. The major factors that can cause urban soils to be different from soils in non-urban ecosystems are identified and related to the familiar state factor approach. We evaluate directly altered resource availability, and the role of stress in mediating resource availability in urban ecosystems. Modified groundwater and stream flow, and atmospheric deposition of nitrogen and base cations are particularly important resource fluxes to soils in urban ecosystems. Disturbance can be conceptualized in the same way in urban as in non-urban ecosystems. However, in addition to biophysical disturbances familiar to ecologists studying wild lands, demographically and socially mediated changes in ecosystem structure must also be considered. These changes include human migration and population structure, institutional shifts, and the effects of human health. Finally, spatial heterogeneity, including fragmentation and differential connectivity, integrates the effects of resources and disturbance, and has an effect on subsequent resource availability and susceptibility to disturbance. Layers of heterogeneity include not only the geomorphic template, but urban climate, biotic composition, buildings and infrastructure, and demographic-social patterns. The complex layering of natural and social factors that constitute urban heterogeneity permit the continuation of important ecological processes, as well as modify ecological fluxes involving soils. We present a modification of the state factor approach as an expanded framework for the study of urban soils. The understanding of urban soils can contribute to general ecological theory by testing the generality of important ecosystem drivers and their linkage with social processes in an under investigated ecosystem type that is increasing in extent and impact worldwide.     

东京一极集中及其城市辐射研究

东京作为日本的首都,既是日本政治、经济、文化与交流的中心,也是与纽约、伦敦、巴黎等齐名的世界城市,其辐射早已跨越本土波及全球。本文首先从宏观上考察了东京在世界城市体系中的地位,并从时空上明确了日本国土结构演变过程中东京一极集中与金字塔型城市体系;为了弄清辐射源的特质,聚焦东京都市圈核心——东京都剖析了其产业结构及主导产业的特质,接着侧重辐射角度分析了东京对东京圈、首都圈产业发展、产业结构升级的带动作用,以及东京特大都市圈城市网络空间的特色、活力及魅力。     

Ethnic Concentration and Nonprofit Organizations: The Political and Urban Geography of Immigrant Services in Boston,Massachusetts

This article considers the geographic distribution of nonprofit organizations serving immigrants across municipalities within the Greater Boston area in an effort to identify variations in the levels of assistance available to major foreign‐born populations in the region. The analysis relies on data from the Census and the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Results suggest that geographic context matters, including immigrant settlement patterns, racial heterogeneity, and fiscal and institutional characteristics of towns and cities, in shaping availability of nonprofit resources to immigrants. These findings highlight large socio‐spatial disparities in immigrant services and challenge the wisdom of devolving responsibility for such assistance to local governments and ultimately nonprofits, as new entrants settle in larger numbers in areas previously unaffected by immigration and ill‐prepared to address immigrant needs. The research contributes to debates on the rescaling of immigrant policy and service provision and literature on the geography of integration by engaging with scholarship in urban and political geography.     

The State of Media Ownership and Media Markets: Competition or Concentration and Why Should We Care?

This article presents a global overview of the state of communications media ownership and markets. The primary issue at stake is whether or not markets and ownership are becoming more or less concentrated. After reviewing contrasting views on this issue, I suggest that the question turns on whether or not we consider 'numerical diversity' (the number of channels available in any given area) versus 'source diversity' (a measure of the number of media owners in any given area). Drawing on recent data I suggest that while there is undoubtably greater 'numerical diversity', we are seeing – within countries, regionally and globally – greater concentration at the level of 'source diversity'. While new media, especially the Internet, open up unprecedented opportunities for people to access and distribute information, the emergence of a powerful nexus between both 'old' and 'new' media means that the character of media ownership and markets still matters greatly. This nexus of ownership and market power spans different segments of the media and is qualitatively different from previous times. These factors have an important influence on the evolution of media technologies and markets, the work of media professionals and the character of information and media content.