Janet Rothenberg Pack

Foreign Aid and the Question of Fungibility

This paper analyzes whether the foreign assistance provided for specific categories of expenditure is shifted among them, contrary to the wishes of donors. It also considers whether aid reduces the tax effort of recipient governments. Econometric results are presented for the Dominican Republic that show that the fungibility of aid has resulted in a thwarting of the intentions of donors. An attempt is made to account for the observed differences in behavior of individual countries in altering expenditures. Copyright 1993 by MIT Press.

Is Foreign Aid Fungible? The Case of Indonesia

This paper considers whether foreign aid given for specific categories of expenditure is fungible among them and whether aid reduces tax effort by the recipient government. Models developed to analyze the fiscal relations among different levels of government in the United States are applied to analysis of the impact of foreign aid. Econometric analysis of data for Indonesia reveals that aid is largely spent as the donors intended, that aid does not lead to a reduction in tax effort, and that aid is not diverted to nondevelopment current expenditures. Copyright 1990 by Royal Economic Society.

Privatization of public-sector services in theory and practice

The last ten years have seen a marked increase in the analysis and implementation of private-sector alternatives to the production of public-sector services. The impetus for privatization has two sources: (1) opposition to further growth of the public sector, and (2) the belief that the private sector would be a more efficient producer. Yet as privatization moves beyond the acquisition of intermediate goods and services (payroll processing and housekeeping services, for example) to more complex public outputs (such as education, social security, public safety, the postal system, for example), it is subject to increasing challenge on both efficiency and equity grounds. Nonetheless, private alternatives to public production are finding increased acceptance.

Poverty and Urban Public Expenditures

Cities in the US bear a disproportionate responsibility for the public expenditures that grow out of poverty because they contain disproportionate numbers of the poor and because a substantial part of the public expenditures associated with poverty are financed from local resources. The research reported here estimates how large these poverty-related expenditures are and how the fiscal burdens differ for the populations of cities with high and low poverty rates. A major finding is that the largest poverty-related expenditure burdens come from indirect poverty expenditures-additional expenditures on police, fire, courts, general administrative functions-rather than from primary poverty functions like public welfare, health and hospitals.

Privatization and cost reduction

In this paper several examples of government contracts with private firms are examined to see how experience conforms to a principal-agent model of cost minimization via competitive bidding and how important are the many qualifications to the model. Fifteen cases of local government contracting are examined.

Urban land-use models: The determinants of adoption and use

This paper delineates the conditions under which computerized land-use models have been adopted and used in the activities of a number of regional planning agencies. Our discussion is based on intensive case studies of planning agencies and the group includes both model adopters and nonadopters.We find that the presence of advocates of model adoption and of persons interested in their continued refinement and use are of paramount importance in the decision to adopt a model and in its subsequent incorporation into the life of the planning agency. However, although the presence of an advocate is by-and-large sufficient for model adoption, the continued interest of agency staff is necessary but far from sufficient in determining how and to what extent the model will in fact be exercised. At this stage both political and organizational factors become important. Moreover, it is at the use stage, rather than at the consideration of adoption, that the characteristics of the model receive more careful scrutiny and shortcomings become more important.

The political policy cycle: Presidential effort vs. presidential control

After disentangling presidential budget proposals from budgetary changes attributable to fluctuations in the economy and to congressional action, we find consistent evidence for a presidential macroeconomic policy cycle attuned to the elctoral cycle. Proposed budgets are more expansionary in election years than at other times. The Congress, however, also plays a significant role in determining fiscal outcomes. Its budgets are systematically related to those of the President and in general reinforce presidential efforts to respond to the electoral cycle.Although Presidents generally propose quite conservative budgets, their proposals are more expansionary in presidential election years than in other years. The Congress, which generally adopts an expansionary fiscal policy ratifies this proposed macroeconomic policy electoral cycle by adopting even more expansionary budgets in presidential election years than they do at other times.

The states' scramble for federal funds: Who wins, who loses?

Interstate differences between federal expenditures and receipts are very large, generally favoring the southern and western states. The more slowly growing states of the northeast and midwest point to these imbalances as one source of their economic difficulties. The major source of disparity lies in revenue patterns, not in expenditure allocations. Reallocating federal expenditures on an equal per capita basis would reduce regional disparities in flows of federal funds by only about 25 percent. The principal regional beneficiary of equalized expenditures would be the midwest states of the Great Lakes region. However, contrary to the expectations of proponents of such redistribution, the southeastern states would also be major beneficiaries while the larger states of the mideast and New England would be hurt. Selective expenditure changes might be targeted more effectively to individual regions or states; but finding consistent, generally acceptable principles upon which to base such changes is a formidable problem.

Announcements from APPAM

The Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) selected winners for four distinguished awards: the Exemplar Award; the Steven D. Gold Award; the APPAM & ICPA-Forum Comparative Award; and the Best Dissertation in Public Policy and Management. These awards were presented to the winners at the Association’s 2014 Fall Research Conference held in Albuquerque, NM, November 6 through 8. Isabel Sawhill, Brookings Institution, was selected as the winner of the Exemplar Award. The Exemplar Award recognizes the work of an individual who has made major contributions to public policy by valuing the knowledge resident in academia and using research and analysis to craft innovative solutions to policy problems. This award serves to recognize extraordinary skills in policymaking and acts as a counterpart to those awards recognizing outstanding research. Ronald C. Fisher, Professor of Economics and Adjunct Professor of Accounting and Information Systems, Michigan State University, was selected as the winner of the Steven D. Gold Award. The Steve Gold Award recognizes a person who has made a significant contribution to public financial management in the field of intergovernmental relations and state and local finance. The award is given annually by APPAM, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Tax Association, in memory of Steve Gold, an active member of all three organizations whose career and life tragically were shortened by illness. Global Expansion of Renewable Energy Generation: An Analysis of Policy Instruments was selected as the winner of the APPAM & ICPA-Forum Comparative Award. The authors of the winning paper were Sanya Carley, Associate Professor, Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA); Jennifer Brass, Assistant Professor, SPEA; Elizabeth Baldwin, Ph.D. Candidate, SPEA; and Lauren M. MacLean, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Urban Spatial Transformation: Philadelphia, 1850 to 1880, Heterogeneity to Homogeneity?

The study of the socioeconomic differentiation of urban residential patterns has occupied generations of social scientists. Sociologists, economists, and political scientists adduce a strong relationship between residential patterns and human behavior. Moreover, the residential patterns established early in the city’s development are also believed to influence the evolution of future social and spatial organization (Hurd, 1903; Hoyt, 1939; Hoover and Vernon, 1959). Economists and political scientists have been preoccupied with the rapid suburbanization of the urban population since the end of World War II and the fragmentation of the metropolitan area into independent political jurisdictions (ACIR, 1965; Margolis, 1961; Oates, 1971; Tiebout, 1956; Pack and Pack, 1978).