| JPAM Preview ▪ November 2012 |
| JPAM Preview is a newsletter that calls attention to forthcoming articles in JPAM. JPAM Preview provides brief summaries of content now available digitally in Early View, Wiley's online publication system. |
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| Feature Article Do Child Development Accounts Promote Account Holding, Saving, and Asset Accumulation for Children's Future? Evidence from a Statewide Randomized Experiment Yunju Nam, Youngmi Kim, Margaret Clancy, Robert Zager, and Michael Sherraden This study examines the impacts of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) on account holding, saving, and asset accumulation for children, using data from the SEED for Oklahoma Kids experiment (SEED OK). SEED OK, a policy test of universal and progressive CDAs, provides a 529 college savings plan account to every infant in the treatment group with automatic account opening and an initial deposit. SEED OK also encourages treatment participants to open their own 529 accounts with an account opening incentive and a savings match. Using a sample of infants randomly selected from birth records (N = 2,670) and randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, this study runs probit and ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions. Analyses show significant differences between treatment and control groups in all outcome measures in the targeted accounts. Nearly 100 percent of the treatment group accepted the automatically opened state-owned account. Compared to 1 percent of the control group, 16 percent of the treatment group hold a participant-owned account. On average, the treatment group has saved significantly larger amounts in participant-owned accounts, although a difference in savings amount is modest between the two groups ($47 vs. $13). A difference in total 529 assets of $1,040 is estimated between the treatment and control groups. These early findings from SEED OK suggest that CDAs have positive effects on savings and asset accumulation for children's future development. Further research is required to test long-term cost effectiveness of CDAs. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Feature Article The Expected Impact of State Immigration Legislation on Labor Market Outcomes Julie L. Hotchkiss and Myriam Quispe-Agnoli In response to the dramatic rise in the number of unauthorized immigrants to the United States, every state has passed some form of immigration legislation. These laws appear to be predicated on a belief that unauthorized immigrants impose greater costs than benefits to state and local communities, including the labor market. The purpose of this paper is to examine some evidence on what workers should expect if the immigration legislation is successful in eliminating undocumented workers from states' labor markets. © 2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1) Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Feature Article Intensifying Social Exchange Relationships in Public Organizations: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment Morten Jakobsen and Simon Calmar Andersen In accordance with social exchange theory, prominent streams of management research emphasize the importance of reciprocal exchange relationships between organizations and their employees. When employees perceive themselves as supported by the organization, they reciprocate with increased work motivation. However, we do not know how this knowledge can be developed into management initiatives that increase public employees' perceived support, because severe endogeneity problems make it difficult to estimate the effect of organizational support on employee commitment outside the laboratory. We use a randomized field experiment involving more than 800 public employees to estimate the effect. We find no average effect of the organizational support treatment on the employees' perceived organizational support. Yet, a subgroup analysis shows a positive treatment effect when the employees' local front-line managers felt less supported prior to the intervention. We discuss the implications for theory and management practice. ©2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Feature Article The Effects of Foreclosure Counseling for Distressed Homeowners J. Michael Collins and Maximilliam D. Schmeiser In the face of the housing market downturn of the late 2000s, policymakers promoted third-party mortgage default counseling as a way to help people at risk of losing their homes to avoid foreclosure. Using a unique data set of monthly loan payments remitted to investors combined with administrative data from a national counseling agency, this study estimates the effects of default counseling on the probability that troubled mortgage borrowers will lose their homes to foreclosure. Borrowers are actually more likely to miss loan payments after receiving counseling, but the probability of losing a home to foreclosure drops after counseling, suggesting that counseling policies may be beneficial during housing crises. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Feature Article The Use and Efficacy of Capacity-Building Assistance for Low-Performing Districts: The Case of California's District Assistance and Intervention Teams Katharine O. Strunk, Andrew McEachin, and Theresa N. Westover The theory of action upon which high-stakes accountability policies are based calls for systemic reforms in educational systems that will emerge by pairing incentives for improvement with extensive and targeted technical assistance (TA) to build the capacity of low-performing schools and districts. To this end, a little discussed and often overlooked aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated that, in addition to sanctions, states were required to provide TA to build the capacity of struggling schools and Local Education Agencies (LEAs, or districts) to help them improve student achievement. Although every state in the country provides some form of TA to its lowest performing districts, we know little about the content of these programs or about their efficacy in improving student performance. In this paper, we use both quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore the actions taken by TA providers in one state-California-and examine whether the TA and support tied to California's NCLB sanctions succeeds in improving student achievement. Like many other states, California requires that districts labeled as persistently failing under NCLB (in Program Improvement year 3, PI3) work with external experts to help them build the capacity to make reforms that will improve student achievement. California's lowest performing PI3 districts are given substantial amounts of funding and are required to contract with state-approved District Assistance and Intervention Teams (DAITs), whereas the remaining PI3 districts receive less funding and are asked to access less intensive TA from non-DAIT providers. We use a five-year panel difference-in-difference design to estimate the impacts of DAITs on student performance on the math and English language arts (ELA) standardized tests relative to non-DAIT TA during the two years of the program intervention. We find that students in districts with DAITs perform significantly better on math California Standards Tests (CSTs) averaged over both treatment years and in each of the first and second years. We do not find evidence that students in districts with DAITs perform higher on ELA CSTs over the combined two years of treatment, although we find suggestive evidence that ELA performance increases in the second year of treatment relative to students in districts with non-DAIT TA. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions that explore the association between specific activities fostered by DAITs and changes in districts' gains in achievement over the two years of treatment show that DAIT districts that report increasing their focus on using data to guide instruction, shifting district culture to generate and maintain high expectations of students and staff, and increasing within-district accountability for student performance, have higher math achievement gains over the course of the DAIT treatment. In addition, DAIT districts that increase their focus on ELA instruction and shift district culture to one of high expectations have higher ELA achievement gains than do DAIT districts that do not have a similar focus. © 2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Methods for Policy Analysis External Validity in Policy Evaluations that Choose Sites Purposively Robert B. Olsen, Larry L. Orr, Stephen H. Bell and Elizabeth A. Stuart Evaluations of the impact of social programs are often carried out in multiple sites, such as school districts, housing authorities, local TANF offices, or One-Stop Career Centers. Most evaluations select sites purposively following a process that is nonrandom. Unfortunately, purposive site selection can produce a sample of sites that is not representative of the population of interest for the program. In this paper, we propose a conceptual model of purposive site selection. We begin with the proposition that a purposive sample of sites can usefully be conceptualized as a random sample of sites from some well-defined population, for which the sampling probabilities are unknown and vary across sites. This proposition allows us to derive a formal, yet intuitive, mathematical expression for the bias in the pooled impact estimate when sites are selected purposively. This formula helps us to better understand the consequences of selecting sites purposively, and the factors that contribute to the bias. Additional research is needed to obtain evidence on how large the bias tends to be in actual studies that select sites purposively, and to develop methods to increase the external validity of these studies. © 2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint The Role of Economic Factors and Economic Support in Preventing and Escaping from Intimate Partner Violence Jennifer L. Matjasko, Phyllis Holditch Niolon, and Linda Anne Valle Intimate partner violence (IPV) includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats of physical or sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression by a current or former intimate partner (Saltzman et al., 2002). An ecological framework (Dahlberg & Krug, 2002) is often used to organize risk factors for IPV at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels. Individual risk factors include basic demographic factors such as younger age, low income, unemployment, and low academic achievement; a history of childhood aggressive behavior and violence in the family of origin; cognitive factors, such as attitudes condoning violence and traditional sex role beliefs; psychosocial and emotional factors, such as anger and hostility, poor impulse control, low self-esteem, career and life stress, emotional dependence, depressive symptoms, and evidence of personality disorders; and other risk behaviors such as alcohol and drug use. Relationship factors include relationship conflict and discord and social isolation. Community and society risk factors include poverty, the absence of legal or social sanctions against IPV, and social norms supportive of IPV (Valle et al., 2008). Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint What Does Research Suggest are the Primary Risk and Protective Factors for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and What is the Role of Economic Factors? Eve S. Buzawa and Carl G. Buzawa There is a well-established body of research on the risk factors associated with intimate partner violence (IPV). Risk should be understood in several dimensions: (1) the nature of abuse, (2) the severity and frequency of abusive behavior, and (3) the generality of violence and psychopathology. Nature of Abuse The totality of domestic violence encompasses different acts and behaviors, often at variance with legal system definitions, and not really aligned with current strategies and tactics. Many practitioners, researchers, and victim advocate a more comprehensive view of domestic violence focusing not just upon the physical act of domestic violence, but instead a pattern of an overall abusive relationship among intimates, to include patterns of coercive control that might sporadically lead to violence. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint Different Types of Intimate Partner Violence Likely Require Different Types of Approaches to Prevention: A Response to Buzawa and Buzawa Jennifer L. Matjasko, Phyllis Holditch Niolon, and Linda Anne Valle Buzawa and Buzawa (this issue) assert that there are different typologies of intimate partner violence (IPV) defined by the extent to which the violence is part of a general pattern of coercive control. They center their discussion on batterers, who are understood to be responsible for the most severe forms of abuse and injury. Economic factors are believed to be "only a weak predictor of violence" in these cases. Thus, they argue that, in the face of severe budget constraints, there is a need to focus on the chronically violent offender and support-coordinated services for IPV victims. We agree that there are different types of IPV distinguishable by the extent to which the violence is occurring within a pattern of general coercive control and that each type has different risk and protective factors. We also agree economic factors interact with other factors in complex ways and vary in the extent to which they predict different types of IPV. However, we argue economic factors should not be ignored as an important strategy in preventing situational couple violence (SCV) and helping victims to escape from intimate terrorists (ITs). Relying on response (rather than prevention) strategies, such as coordinated community response-for which there is limited evidence of effectiveness-is unlikely to significantly impact rates of all types of IPV. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint Intimate Partner Violence – Response to Matjasko et al. Eve S. Buzawa and Carl G. Buzawa We do not contest the points raised by Matjasko et al. in their assessment of risk factors. However, we believe there are several key issues where our opinions may differ. First, are our relative priorities as to how resources intended to intervene in cases of interpersonal violence are allocated. The realistic goal is how to prioritize finite and typically woefully inadequate resources. Matjesko et. al. focus on the need to alleviate poverty because statistically poor people are more plagued by intimate partner violence (IPV). Allocation of economic assistance to victims beyond providing short-term shelters may pose devilishly difficult dilemmas in developing a legally and ethically proper strategy to allocate scarce funds. For example, should funds be limited to victims whose cases reach the attention of the criminal justice system? If so, then the majority of victims who simply leave successfully or get a divorce, rather than contact the police, would not qualify. Alternatively, if formal prosecution of offenders is not required, then how would the authenticity of claims for support be determined? Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Policy Retrospectives Spurring Job Creation in Response to Severe Recessions: Reconsidering Hiring Credits David Neumark The adverse effects of the Great Recession on U.S. labor markets are hardly news. Figure 1 shows the decline in job creation (net job growth) beginning in 2006 followed by sharp declines in jobs in 2008 and 2009, and the corresponding dramatic changes in unemployment rates. The continued stagnation of job growth since the Great Recession formally ended has made job creation the prevailing mantra in both Washington, DC, and state capitals. This paper considers policies that could be used to boost job growth during and after a severe recession by changing labor demand incentives for employers or labor supply incentives for workers. Specifically, the paper focuses on subsidies to employers to hire workers (hiring credits), and subsidies to individuals to enter the labor market (worker subsidies, in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC, in the United States). Both types of policies have been used extensively in the past, at both the federal and state level, although a central motivation of hiring credits targeting the disadvantaged can also be viewed as redistributing jobs, and the EITC has the explicit distributional goal-quite distinct from job creation-of increasing incomes of low-income families. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Professional Practice Open Government Initiatives: Challenges of Citizen Participation Angela M. Evans and Adriana Campos The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests [ . . . ] it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection (Hamilton et al., 2008, Federalist No. 71, p. 1788). Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Professional Practice Does Measuring Performance Lead to Better Performance? Mary Bryna Sanger Performance measurement-documenting whether an organization is reaching its goals-has become a growth industry in the United States. But it is not clear what the current vogue for performance measurement has actually produced, especially for municipal governments. In fact, our research suggests that performance measurement rarely leads to improved government performance or more efficient and accountable municipal management. Calls for the demonstration of governmental performance have become ubiquitous in the United States in recent years (Kelman, 2007; Marr, 2009; Radin, 2006; Van Dooren & Van de Walle, 2008). Citizens are demanding better results from government at a time when resource constraints are increasing, and the level of trust in government at all levels is at an historic low (National Performance Management Advisory Commission, 2010). The recent downturn of the U.S. economy and the decline in revenue for cities and states have only increased the demand for more efficient governance. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Professional Practice Notes on the APPAM-Moscow Conference Improving the Quality of Public Services: A Multinational Conference on Public Management Douglas J. Besharov, Aexey Barabashev, Karen Baehler, and Jacob Alex Klerman In June 2011, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, in association with Moscow's National Research University-Higher School of Economics, and the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, held an international research conference in Moscow on "Improving the Quality of Public Services and Public Management." Attendees came from more than 22 nations, including Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ninety-two papers were presented on public management and its ability to improve the quality of public services. The most common topics were performance measurement and management, citizen participation, and transparency and anti-corruption efforts in post-socialist countries. Other topics included e-government, inter-agency collaboration, program evaluation, public–private partnerships, privatization, performance contracting, leadership, administrative modernization, networks, and the continuing relevance of the New Public Management paradigm. Many of the papers also explored the role of civil society in post-socialist countries. All of the conference papers can be found at: ">http://umdcipe.org/conferences/Moscow/moscow_papers.html">http://umdcipe.org/conferences/Moscow/moscow_papers.html. Two of the papers are published in this volume (Evans & Campos, 2013; Sanger, 2013). Forthcoming in JPAM 32(1). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Journal of Policy Analysis and Management is published by Wiley Periodicals on behalf of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Editor-in-Chief: Maureen Pirog ▪ Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs (and) University of Washington, Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs Managing Editors: Robert Kaestner ▪ University of Illinois at Chicago Christopher (Kitt) Carpenter ▪ University of California, Irvine | |
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