Government and the distribution of skills

Individuals' life chances in the future will very much depend on how we invest in our children now. An optimal human capital model would combine a high mean with minimal variance of skills. It is well-established that early childhood learning is key to adult success. The impact of social origins on child outcomes remains strong, and the new role of women poses additional challenges to our conventional nurturing approach to child development. This paper focuses on skill development in the early years, examining how we might best combine family inputs and public policy to invest optimally in our future human capital. I emphasize three issues: one, the uneven capacity of parents to invest in children; two, the impact of mothers' employment on child outcomes; and three, the potential benefits of early pre-school programmes. I conclude that mothers' intra-family bargaining power is decisive for family investments and that universal child care is key if our goal is to arrive at a strong mean with minimal variance.

Perry Municipal Waterworks, Independent Auditor's Reports, Basic Financial Statement and Supplementary Information, Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2005

Other Audit Reports - Utilities

State Government E-Commerce Study Encouraging the Use of Electronic Financial Transactions With the Citizens of Iowa, January 20, 2006

This report was produced in compliance the 2005 Iowa Acts, Chapter 52 passed by the Eighty-First General Assembly, Session One (2005), requiring that it be submitted to the General Assembly by January 20, 2006. The legislative language mandating the report reads as follows: “It is the intent of the general assembly to encourage the use of electronic transactions with regard to the state's dealings with the citizens of Iowa and other persons. The department of administrative services shall develop recommendations, including proposed legislation, to encourage the use of electronic commerce, including the acceptance of credit card payments, with regard to transactions involving the state. The department shall consult with the state treasurer, state entities currently accepting credit card payments, and any other state entities identified as considering the acceptance of credit card payments when developing the recommendations. The department shall deliver a report to the general assembly by January 20, 2006, including any recommendations, proposed legislation, and other related information, including cost information associated with credit card payments.”

Evansdale Municipal Water Works, Independent Auditor's Reports, Basic Financial Statement and Supplementary Information, Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2005

Other Audit Reports - Municipal Utilities

La immigració i els efectes en el comportament empresarial: una anàlisi a nivell municipal de Catalunya

En aquest context de canvi econòmic i dels ritmes d’arribada dels fluxos migratoris, aquest treball aborda els efectes de la població immigrant sobre les empreses manufactureres localitzades en ciutats catalanes amb més de 1.000 habitants durant el període 2000-2008. El desenvolupament empíric posa especial èmfasi en la localització d’empreses i la població immigrada així com l’impacte que exerceix sobre el comportament de les empreses. Per tal de recollir les dades hem treballat amb tres bases de dades diferents: dades ofertes per Idescat, INE i Sistema de Anàlisis de Balances Ibéricos. En especial aquesta darrera base ha ofert informació a nivell individual de les empreses el qual ha requerit un procés de depuració complex i exhaustiu a través de programació estadística. En la literatura sobre els impactes econòmics dels immigrants predominen els treballs que han abordat un impacte sobre el mercat de treball, posant especial èmfasis en els diferencials salarials i la reducció de la bretxa salarial en funció del temps de residència dels immigrants. En canvi, en poques ocasions s’ha analitzat l’efecte de la immigració sobre el comportament de l’empresa. L’objectiu d’aquest treball és analitzar l’impacte dels entorns amb població immigrant a les ciutats catalanes i de forma més específica amb el creixement de les empreses locals i l’evolució dels seus nivells d’eficiència. Els objectius concrets que volem analitzar són els següents: i) mostrar les principals conclusions de la literatura ii) observar les pautes de localització d’immigrantsiii) mostrar les pautes de localització de les empreses iv) analitzar si les ciutats catalanes amb una major població immigrant presenten un impacte positiu o negatiu sobre el creixement de les empreses locals i l’evolució dels seus nivells d’eficiència a través d’eines economètriques.

Executive Order Number Fourteen, September 21, 1984

Set the maximum percentage of federal funds allotted to Iowa that may be spent on municipal Wastewater treatment works at 20%.

Policy Making in Divided Government. A Pivotal Actors Model with Party Discipline.

This article presents a formal model of policy decision-making in an institutional framework of separation of powers in which the main actors are pivotal political parties with voting discipline. The basic model previously developed from pivotal politics theory for the analysis of the United States lawmaking is here modified to account for policy outcomes and institutional performances in other presidential regimes, especially in Latin America. Legislators' party indiscipline at voting and multi-partism appear as favorable conditions to reduce the size of the equilibrium set containing collectively inefficient outcomes, while a two-party system with strong party discipline is most prone to produce 'gridlock', that is, stability of socially inefficient policies. The article provides a framework for analysis which can induce significant revisions of empirical data, especially regarding the effects of situations of (newly defined) unified and divided government, different decision rules, the number of parties and their discipline. These implications should be testable and may inspire future analytical and empirical work.

City of Mapleton and Mapleton Municipal Electric, Auditor of State's Report on Reaudit, For the Period July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2003

City Audit Report - Reaudit

Government Spending and Re-election

Does additional government spending improve the electoral chances of incumbent political parties? This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on this question. Our research design exploits discontinuities in federal funding to local governments in Brazil around several population cutoffs over the period 1982-1985. We find that extra fiscal transfers resulted in a 20% increase in local government spending per capita, and an increase of about 10 percentage points in the re-election probability of local incumbent parties. We also find positive effects of the government spending on education outcomes and earnings, which we interpret as indirect evidence of public service improvements. Together, our results provide evidence that electoral rewards encourage incumbents to spend part of additional revenues on public services valued by voters, a finding in line with agency models of electoral accountability.

Fiat Money, Intrinsic Properties, and Government Transaction Policy

Why do people coordinate on the use of valueless pieces of paper as generally accepted money? A possible answer is that these objects have intrinsic properties that make them better candidates to be used as media of exchange. Another answer stresses the fact that unconvertible fiat money will not easily appear unless there is a centralized institution that favors its use. The main objective of the paper is to analyze these questions. In order to do this, we take a model of commodity money in which fiat money does not play any significant role and modify it to examine under which circumstances fiat money might come to circulate as medium of exchange. Some of the results obtained from the model differ in a rather substantial way from previous related literature.

Una escola municipal de música per al Prat de Llobregat : anàlisi del seu valor públic

Aquest estudi es proposa analitzar el valor públic del projecte d’Escola Municipal de Música del Prat de Llobregat. A aquest efecte, s’enfoca la mesura del valor públic des de múltiples perspectives d’acord amb els treballs de diversos autors. Després d’observar el procés de concreció del projecte i interpretar les característiques i previsions del servei, podem concloure que es tracta, d’entrada, d’un projecte amb valor públic i que el procés seguit n’ha afegit més. D’altra banda, també constatem que hi ha certs aspectes als quals caldrà estar atents durant el seu desplegament.

Perry Municipal Waterworks, Independent Auditor's Report, Basic Financial Statements and Supplementary Information, Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2006

Other Audit Reports - Utilities

O Exercício da Ética Profissional Na Administração Publica Caboveriana: Um estudo de caso na Câmara Municipal da Praia À Luz da Percepção dos seus funcionários

Este trabalho tem por objectivo proceder a avaliação do exercício da ética Profissional na Câmara Municipal da Praia, a partir da percepção dos seus funcionários. A sua base teórica-empírica foi alicerçada em literaturas que diligenciaram temas ligados à ética em geral e, em particular, profissional, bem como aspectos ligados ao serviço público. O processo que caracterizou a pesquisa foi o estudo de caso, com estudo exploratório e descritivo, e uma abordagem quanti-qualitativa. A população alvo foi composta de oitenta funcionários que ocupam cargos efectivos e a amostra ficou definida em quarenta funcionários. Os dados foram obtidos com utilização de fontes primárias e secundárias. Os dados de fontes primárias foram adquiridos através de aplicação de questionários composto maioritariamente de questões fechadas. Relativamente às fontes secundárias foram utilizadas informações obtidas junto da Direcção dos Recursos Humanos da Câmara Municipal da Praia. Para o tratamento dos dados foram utilizados os dados descritivos – interpretativos, as análises de conteúdo e documental. Os resultados do estudo mostraram que os funcionários efectivos da Câmara Municipal da Praia tendem a se comportarem eticamente e que a ética faz parte do comportamento dos funcionários no ambiente de trabalho.

Evansdale Municipal Water Works, Independent Auditor's Reports, Financial Statement and Supplementary Information, Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2006

Other Audit Reports - 28E Organizations