When Do States Pursue Targeted Economic Development Policies? The Adoption and Expansion of State Enterprise Zone Programs*

Objective. The objective of this article is twofold. First, why did states adopt enterprise zones, which allow designated economically distressed areas to provide significant financial incentives to attract firms? Second, why did some states significantly increase the number of zones within the state and transform what began as a spatially targeted program aimed at helping poor places into a state‐wide incentive program aimed at improving the state's competitive position? We also demonstrate the value of examining how changes in a state's policy environment can undermine a policy innovation, namely, the adoption of place‐based economic development policies. Methods. We use event history analysis to model when states adopt enterprise zones and an event‐count model to estimate when states increase the number of enterprise zones, and thereby undermine the original intent of the program. Results. States with larger urban populations and neighboring states with enterprise zone programs are more likely to adopt enterprise zone programs. States are more likely to increase the number of enterprise zones when they have larger urban populations, more neighboring states with enterprise zone programs, professional legislatures, more centrist elected officials, and as the program ages. Conclusions. Although the adoption of enterprise zones signaled states' commitment to improve conditions in the most distressed areas of the states, that commitment gradually wanes in the face of internal political demands and external competition for investment and jobs. By extending our analysis to examine what happens after the adoption of enterprise zones, we develop a more pessimistic assessment of states' capacity to pursue spatially targeted economic development policies to help economically distressed areas.     

Marital conflict and children's functioning

Marital conflict is a key factor in adjustment problems in children. Research is reviewed indicating that conflicts are stressful for children, and increase their aggression and enmeshment in parental disputes. Field studies, supported by recent experimental tests, indicate that sensitization to destructive conflict occurs, resulting in greater reactivity. Marital conflict can disrupt parenting and attachments, increase aggression between siblings, and even impact extended family members such as grandparents. Intense, aggressive conflicts and those centering on the child are particularly destructive. By contrast, resolution much reduces negative reactions and can be detected through a variety of channels of information.     

The Changing Structure of American Gambling in the Twentieth Century

The author examines some of the factors that altered the economics and control of policy and numbers gambling, bookmaking, and casino gambling from 1900 to 1950. The factors include the emergence of black ghettoes after World War I and the consequent rise of blacks to controlling positions in numbers and policy banks; the changing ownership and activities of the national race and sports information service; the increasing use of the telephone for making sports bets; and the sudden wealth of bootleggers in the 1920's along with their growing involvement in gambling enterprises. The author concludes that these factors exercised a diverse and interrelated influence on the history of American gambling.     

Social Work, Asset-based Welfare and the Child Trust Fund

Asset-based welfare represents a new departure in British incomemaintenance policy and the Child Trust Fund is its most importantcontemporary example. This Research Note explores the claimsmade for asset-based welfare in general and for the Child TrustFund in particular. It sets out the results of an investigationinto the views of young people into potential uses which individualsmight make of the Fund. It then suggests a series of reasonswhy social workers ought to take a particular interest in thedevelopment of asset-based welfare policies and the benefitswhich might flow from them.     

United We Stand? Partnership Working in Health and Social Care and the Role of Social Work in Services for Older People

The concepts of ‘partnership’ and ‘collaboration’have become amongst the most critical themes of ‘new’Labour’s social policy, particularly in respect of thedelivery of health and social care. Although the terms are rarelyprecisely defined and hence have become problematic to analyse,in most understandings successful partnerships rely upon goodsystems of inter-professional collaboration. Through revisitingthe extensive literature on the sociology of the professions,and the nature of inter-professional working, this paper willargue that effective collaborative working within health andsocial care is hard to achieve, particularly in the light ofthe vast differences in power and culture between various occupationalgroupings, and the inherently competitive nature of professionsjostling for territory in the same areas of activity. It suggeststhat these issues cannot be resolved unless they are properlyunderstood; a rhetorical appeal to the unmitigated benefitsof ‘partnership’ alone will not produce more effectivejoint working. In addition, it notes that an appropriate rolefor social work in the context of partnership working has yetto be defined and proposes specific tasks and values that distinguishthe social worker from other related professionals.     

Factors associated with fundraising dependency among nonprofit organisations in Australia

Despite the importance of fundraising to the nonprofit sector there has been surprisingly little research on fundraising as a revenue source in Australia. Research that has been conducted both here and internationally has focused on the cost of fundraising – the proportion of fundraising expenses to total fundraising revenue, and fundraising performance – the absolute or relative amount of money raised by organisations via fundraising. This paper examines why some nonprofit organisations are more dependent on fundraising as a source of revenue than others. The paper applies multivariate techniques to examine the influence that three broad sets of factors: organisational; revenue generation model; and fundraising approach, have on what we term ‘fundraising dependency’ – the percentage of a nonprofit organisation's total revenue that is derived from fundraising activities. It finds that fundraising dependency is associated with a range of organisational characteristics (e.g. size, geographical scope of the organisation and tax status); alternative forms of revenue generation (e.g. reliance on government funding and commercial venturing) and fundraising approach (e.g. whether professional fundraising staff are employed, the use of volunteer fundraisers and the number of fundraising practices used). The results support taking a multidimensional approach to understanding fundraising dependency.     

Researching Giving and Volunteering in Australia

The giving of time and money, mainly to private nonprofit organisations is not trivial, but in Australia has been little studied. This article introduces a special issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues which draws on data collected in the largest study of giving and volunteering conducted in Australia hitherto. It seeks to establish terminological guidelines and reviews past Australian research on giving and volunteering, arguing that there has been a disproportionate interest in volunteering. It seeks to put to rest some common myths about giving and explores whether the increase in giving and volunteering can be attributed to government policy. It concludes by introducing the other papers in the collection.     

Publication rates after the first retraction for biomedical researchers with multiple retracted publications

Retraction of scientific publications can unmask scientific misconduct. We undertook a survey of publication rates, for authors with multiple retractions in the biomedical literature, to determine whether they changed after authors’ first retractions.

We collected publication and citation data from Scopus for 100 authors with multiple retractions (either >10 retractions or 2–5 retractions) in the Retraction Watch database.

Publication rates increased until the year of the first retraction and decreased rapidly thereafter. By 4 years after the first retraction, the proportion of authors actively publishing at least one paper/year was <50%, annual publication rates were <50% of the pre-retraction rate, and only 22% of authors had a publication rate >50% of their pre-retraction rate. There was no difference in the decline in publication rates between authors associated with a retraction for misconduct and those not associated with such a retraction. After the first retraction, citation rates of retracted papers declined whereas those of unretracted papers by the same authors remained unchanged.

In summary, publication rates of authors with multiple retractions, most of whom were associated with scientific misconduct, declined rapidly after their first retraction but a small minority continued to publish regularly.     

O. J. Simpson: A Threat to Internal Validity?

We examined the effects of a naturally occurring social event that had the potential to affect the results of an ongoing research project evaluating knowledge of and beliefs about battering in a simulated battered woman's homicide trial. When the O. J. Simpson murder allegations first unfolded, the study was 75% completed. The extent of media attention to issues of battering and domestic homicide necessitated the inclusion of additional research participants and more in-depth study of several related issues. Very few differences between pre-Simpson and post-Simpson participants were unearthed. For the majority of participants, the issue of domestic violence was likely not salient and was seen as a contextual factor for understanding why the homicides might have occurred, rather than as an independent focal point of substantive concern.