INTRODUCTION If voters do not like federal tax policy, they can elect new representatives. At the local level, though, voters can directly deny the tax increases their elected officials propose. All but three states have a limit on either the taxing or spending abilities of local governments and, most commonly, state laws require that increases in local taxes receive a public referendum before they

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I study whether the amount of time students take to complete their bachelor's degree affects labor outcomes after graduation using a resume‐based field experiment. I randomly assign a time to degree of either 4 or 6 years to over 7,000 fictitious resumes of recent graduates and submit them to entry‐level business jobs. Resumes listing degree completion in 6 years received 1% to 2% fewer employer responses

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In this study we describe the potential of human‐centered design principles to identify burdens, reducing the effects of administrative checkpoints. Administrative checkpoints—mandatory requirements that must be satisfied in order to progress in an administrative process—have disproportionate negative effects in excluding the public from receiving public services. Mandatory interviews are one such

Non‐take‐up of social benefits is a significant policy issue caused by factors such as lack of awareness, compliance costs, and stigma. While public information campaigns, default options, and in‐person assistance are increasingly used, their effectiveness remains poorly understood. This study provides a systematic review of field experiments evaluating nudges and simple behavioral interventions on

Involvement with the juvenile justice system carries immense consequences both to detained youth and to society more broadly. Extant research on the “school‐to‐prison pipeline” has often focused on school disciplinary practices such as suspension with less attention on understanding the impact of school referrals to the juvenile justice system on students. Using novel administrative data from North

We use a baby formula “food scare” in Israel in 2003 as a plausible natural experiment to study the causal relationship between breastfeeding and mothers’ return to work after childbirth. Analysis of administrative data covering the universe of births in the country shows that first‐time mothers who gave birth shortly after the scare delayed their return to work. Their average months worked in the

Differential coverage across demographic groups in a census or survey can reduce the accuracy and representativeness of the resulting statistics. Researchers traditionally have used community‐level measures to study response behavior and coverage, which can obscure patterns for small population groups. We illustrate this using household‐level citizenship and immigration status. We construct household‐level

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A commonly expressed concern about distributional weighting in benefit‐cost analysis is that the informational burden is too high and the practical challenges insurmountable. In this paper, we address this concern by conducting distributional weighting on a number of real‐world examples, covering a range of different types of policy impacts. We uncover and explore a number of methodological issues

We study how civilian complaint investigators affect officer behavior in Chicago. We exploit quasi‐random assignment of complaints to supervising investigators and use variation in whether supervisors tend to acquire sworn affidavits that substantiate the complaints. When the assigned investigator opens more investigations through obtaining affidavits, accused officers accumulate fewer complaints in

In this essay, I seek to reconcile critical and econometric approaches to diagnosing the causes of deep racial inequalities in child welfare system outcomes. Using a series of causal diagrams and critical engagement with the counterfactual causal model, I suggest policy analysts embrace a theoretical framework for quantitative inference that recognizes the complex ways that racism impacts families

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ON RACE AS A CAUSE OF CPS INTERVENTION Berger and Harden have offered a comprehensive and compelling overview of the state of empirical research on racial inequalities in child welfare system outcomes. They show that Black children and families experience CPS intervention across a range of outcomes more frequently than White peers. They suggest four causal pathways that could account for these inequalities:

Frank Edwards has written an exceptional essay focused on reconciling critical and quantitative approaches to understanding the role of historic and contemporary racism as drivers of racial disparities in Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement in the United States. Moreover, he proposes an innovative theoretical framework with explicit empirical applications for estimating the magnitude of the

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The administrative capacity of a government matters enormously to public policy design and implementation. But it is usually taken for granted in public policy settings, a background variable left largely unconsidered. This essay argues that the fields of public policy and public management need to more directly consider threats to state capacity. A creeping threat is a tendency towards proceduralism

Work requirements are perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, America's sole federal cash assistance program for low‐income families with children. In 2025, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA) will implement policy changes intended to strengthen states’ work requirements. However, researchers’

The corporatization of local public services is an increasingly common public management reform worldwide. This study investigates whether a shift from in‐house to not‐for‐profit corporatized service provision can result in improvements across multiple dimensions of performance. To do so, we examine the staggered adoption of Arms‐Length Management Organizations (ALMOs) to provide social housing by

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Improving fairness across policy domains often comes at a cost. However, as machine learning (ML) advances lead to more accurate predictive models in fields like lending, education, healthcare, and criminal justice, policymakers may find themselves better positioned to implement effective fairness measures. Using credit bureau data and ML, we show that setting different lending thresholds for low‐

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Decentralized implementation of means‐tested social assistance programs requires significant organizational capacity among local governments. For other types of local public service, like refuse collection and utilities provision, inter‐municipal cooperation has proven capable of reducing the cost of subnational policy implementation, especially for smaller municipalities. But few impact evaluations

This study investigates the link between Southwest U.S. border crossings and labor market tightness, measured by the job openings to unemployed ratio, over nearly 25 years (2000 to 2024). Analyzing monthly data, it finds a strong positive correlation, suggesting that increased border crossings strongly align with greater job availability. Exploiting data across different presidential administrations

We evaluate the long‐term effects of receiving the Uruguayan Plan de Atención Nacional a la Emergencia Social (PANES), a large unconditional cash transfer program, on outcomes for young and unborn children. We use a rich dataset that matches program administrative data to vital natality data and educational records 8 to 12 years after the beginning of the program. Overall, we find small and barely

The decades‐long rise of economic inequality in the U.S. has led to a growing body of literature examining the role of policy in shaping income differences. We examine one such policy: occupational licensing regulations. Licensing can restrict employment and reduce market competition, which can then inflate wages for those in licensed professions. Existing research demonstrates that occupational licensure

Reforms that reduce spousal support after divorce are generally thought to reduce the bargaining power of alimony recipients as well as their incentives to participate in the traditional model of household specialization. Using the U.S. Time Use Survey and exploiting a series of recent reforms in several U.S. states that reduced the rights of eligible spouses, we find that wives surprised by the reforms

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Goldhaber, D., & Goodman Young, M. (2024). Course grades as a signal of student achievement: Evidence of grade inflation before and after COVID-19. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 43, 1270–1282. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22618 In the final paragraph of the “Evolution in Grades and Test Results Over Time” section, the text “Thirty-one percent to 39% (depending on subject) of Level 1 students

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The United States deported nearly 400,000 unauthorized immigrants under the Secure Communities (SC) interior immigration enforcement program between 2008 and 2014. This paper uses variation in the intensity of deportations across immigrants’ country of origin and city of residence to assess the labor market consequences of SC on foreign‐born women. We find no effect on the total number of employed

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Since 2014, millions of Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries. There is only one accessible land crossing along the Brazil–Venezuela border (Pacaraima) and the Brazilian highway system limits migrants to one route through the Amazon for almost 1000 km. Using this event as a quasi-random treatment, we find that refugee migration increased malaria incidence in Pacaraima, but this was limited

The last few decades have seen rapid growth in the size of the Veterans Affairs Disability Compensation (VADC) program, which provides tax-free cash benefits to veterans with disabilities connected to military service. Given this recent growth, VADC is on pace to eclipse Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) to become the largest U.S. disability program by expenditures. Although there are decades

On the labor markets, recent decades were characterized by structural supply‐side reforms in many countries. Following its hawkish reforms from the 2000s, Germany has recently made a dovish turnaround. Conditions in basic income support for unemployed became more generous, combined with a focus on qualification and development. Before, a temporary moratorium on sanctions had been imposed, providing

Many public service organizations engage in commercialization, or market-oriented strategies designed to generate non-public revenue for the organization. Managers and policymakers sometimes choose to “buy” these commercialization strategies by setting up separate organizations, ostensibly to avoid inefficiencies associated with coordinating market activity within an organization designed for public

The 2014 Medicaid expansion excluded Americans who were 65 years old and older, but they could still be affected via spillover effects. Using Medicare administrative data, we test for spillovers in Medicare spending and Medicaid coverage among low-income Medicare beneficiaries. We analyze two cohorts: those under 65 in 2014, who could have been induced by the expansion to take up Medicaid before joining

Peck, L.R. (2024). Why SNAP Works: A Political History—and Defense—of the Food Stamp Program by Christopher Bosso. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023, 257 pp., $24.95 (US) (Hardcover). ISBN 978–0520392816. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 43(2), 644–648. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22576 The book review misspelled the book author's name. The author is Christpher Bosso (not

The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of the socioeconomic effects of earthquakes. We begin with a thorough literature review. Following this, we assess policy measures taken in response to major earthquakes, drawing on existing research to formulate insights and recommendations that policymakers can use to effectively navigate the risks in the aftermath of such disasters.

We conducted a randomized control trial to study the impact of two information messages aimed at reducing the stigma associated with mental illness on the willingness to seek mental health care among adults in Nepal. The first intervention shares information about the prevalence of mental health issues and the efficacy of treatment. The second intervention shares information about the mental health

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We build a vehicle purchase and disposal model to analyze a policy that links a new electric vehicle (EV) purchase subsidy with a used gasoline vehicle scrappage requirement. We evaluate the policy based on changes in sales, scrappage, subsidy dollars spent, and emissions reductions. We find that linking a purchase subsidy with a scrappage requirement is expected to result in fewer new EV sales and

In 2012, the Obama administration issued the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by executive order. Since then, more than 800,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived as children have benefited from renewable 2‐year reprieves from deportation and work permits. In 2017, the Trump administration announced it would end DACA—an announcement immediately followed by court challenges. We

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