AGENCY GROWTH, SALARIES AND THE PROTECTED BUREAUCRAT

In contrast to numerous assertions in the literature on bureaucratic behavior that government employees seek to promote the growth of their agencies to increase their salaries, this paper offers empirical evidence indicating the absence of a significant positive relationship between agency growth and salaries. The impact of agency growth on salaries is estimated using a random sample of individual federal white-collar employees. Inspection of civil service rules reveals that most federal employees are highly insulated from fluctuations in agency staffing or budget appropriations. The existence of a highly protected bureaucracy raises questions about the control and performance of federal workers.     

Locating a Special Population Using Random Digit Dialing

Frequently, researchers are only interested in specific subgroupsof the total population. Waksberg (1978) has designed a two-stagemethod of selecting equal-probability samples of the generalpopulation using random digit dialing. The present researchproposes and illustrates a modification of Waksberg's procedureto locate special populations which cluster geographically.Situations arising from the proposed modifications are discussedand alternative solutions suggested.     

CULTURAL DIVERSITY, DISCRIMINATION, AND ECONOMIC OUTCOMES: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Does cultural diversity affect economic outcomes? We develop an experimental framework that complements ongoing research on this question. We vary the ethnic mix of bargaining sessions to study intercultural interactions among members of U.S. Hispanic and Navajo cultures. We control for demographic differences in our subject pools and elicit beliefs directly in order to differentiate between statistical discrimination and preference‐based discrimination. Hispanic and Navajo subjects behave differently, and their behavior is affected by the ethnic composition of the experimental session. Our experimental framework can shed light on economic behavior and outcomes in societies of mixed ethnicity, race, and religion. (JEL C78, C90, Z10)     

CLIMBING TO THE TOP? FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND PROPERTY RIGHTS

This article operates at the interface of the literature on the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host countries and the literature on the determinants of institutional quality. We argue that FDI contributes to economic development by improving institutional quality in the host country. This proposition is tested within a large panel data set of 70 developing countries for the period 1981–2005. We show that FDI inflows have a positive and highly significant impact on property rights. Results are very robust and not affected by model specification, different control variables, or estimation technique. To our knowledge this is the first article to empirically test the FDI—property rights linkage. (JEL F23, O43, P48)     

THE LAGGED IMPACT OF STATE AND LOCAL TAXES ON ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR

Politicians are frequently characterized as making fiscal decisions based on a shorter time horizon than is required for full taxpayer adjustment, thus generating near term benefits and relatively high tax rates. This argument requires a negative impact of taxes on economic activity distributed over a relatively long time period. Considerable empirical evidence suggests that state and local taxes do not significantly impact the geographic distribution of economic activity; this analysis, however, finds a significant negative distributed lag impact of such taxes on capital formation. The approach emphasizes interstate tax competition in formulating the cross-section time-series estimating equation.     

System Stress and the Persistence* of Emergent Organizations

A model facilitating the prediction of organizational persistence or dissolution is presented through a series of propositions. Environmental change, community demands for service, organizational capacity, formalization, and task orientations are identified as important dimensions in determining the probability of organizational emergence, maintenance, or demise. The emergence and development of Neighbors in Need (NIN); a Seattle, Washington based welfare organization, is described to illustrate the viability of the model. NIN's career pattern shows a persistence beyond the period of environmental disruption because of the long-term progressive nature of the system's stress, NIN's formalization, and its task specificity. But a reduction in system stress, the adoption of a more diffuse goal, and the organization's failure to promote interorganizational relations with the local agencies indicates the probable demise of the NIN.     

THE PROBLEM OF INSTREAM FLOWS

To obtain a surface water right in the arid American West, private appropriators have been required to undertake actual physical diversion of the water. That requirement largely negates the role of private contacting to preserve or enhance water flows for recreational, wildlife and aesthetic purposes. In this paper a model is developed and used to examine the courts' rationale for denying private claims to instream flows. The ways in which such claims can be made amenable to the prior appropriation system are explored. The paper is motivated by the failure of public agencies to achieve an approximately optimal solution.     

The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same: Examining Gender Differences in Political Attitude Expression, 1952-2000

We examine the differences in attitude expression between menand women over the past 50 years. Using the National ElectionStudy (NES), we examine both the number of open-ended commentsexpressing like and dislike of candidates and parties and thepercentage of times women responded "don't know" to specificclosed-ended questions relating to policies, candidates, andgroups. We find that women are less likely to express as manylikes and dislikes toward the parties and candidates and aremore likely to respond "don't know" than men. It is interestingthat this difference has shown little change over the past 50years. Using models that tap traditional reasons for differencesbetween men and women, including political and psychologicalresources, we find that a political resource model diminishesthe gender effect but does not eliminate it. The continued andunabated differences between men and women in their willingnessto openly express political attitudes suggest that politicalsocialization differences between men and women have not disappeareddespite female increases in resources and other forms of politicalactivity such as voting. We show that this failure to expressattitudes in the survey situation helps explain the continuinggender differences for forms of political activity other thanvoting.