The partition of India in 1947 along ostensibly religious lines into India, Pakistan, and what eventually became Bangladesh resulted in one of the largest and most rapid migrations in human history. We compile district level census data from archives to quantify the scale of migratory flows across the sub-continent. We estimate total migratory inflows of 14.5 million and outflows of 17.9 million, implying 3.4 million "missing" people. We also uncover a substantial degree of regional variability. Flows were much larger along the western border, higher in cities and areas close to the border, and dependent heavily on the size of the "minority" religious group. The migratory flows also display a "relative replacement effect" with in-migrants moving to places that saw greater out-migration.
{"title":"The Big March: Migratory Flows after the Partition of India","authors":"P. Bharadwaj, A. Khwaja, Atif R. Mian","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1124093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1124093","url":null,"abstract":"The partition of India in 1947 along ostensibly religious lines into India, Pakistan, and what eventually became Bangladesh resulted in one of the largest and most rapid migrations in human history. We compile district level census data from archives to quantify the scale of migratory flows across the sub-continent. We estimate total migratory inflows of 14.5 million and outflows of 17.9 million, implying 3.4 million \"missing\" people. We also uncover a substantial degree of regional variability. Flows were much larger along the western border, higher in cities and areas close to the border, and dependent heavily on the size of the \"minority\" religious group. The migratory flows also display a \"relative replacement effect\" with in-migrants moving to places that saw greater out-migration.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115233315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The place of ethics in the curriculum of schools of public management and policy is not a settled matter. One common approach, called applied ethics, relies primarily on the work of academic philosophers and follows a two-stage process: first, work out the guiding principles (in the academy, where one is protected from worldly pressures), then apply them to the real world (where they are inevitably compromised). This essay defends an alternative approach, practical ethics, which follows John Dewey’s admonition to be guided by problems of life and practice, rather than academic disputes or disciplinary methods. The essay identifies the basic features of practical ethics, and proposes an agenda for future research. It emphasizes, above all, that practical ethics is strategic and depends crucially on the ability to exercise contingent judgment. Practical ethics takes into account the powers, opportunities, and constraints, as well as the interests (including moral interests), of human agents in particular circumstances. The picture of practical reasoning is thus at odds with the prevailing approach. The essay also addresses the peculiar position of the classroom teacher of ethics, who is not confronted by ineluctable features of real decision making, including the necessity to act and the contingencies involved in acting both effectively and well. Suggestions are offered on how the teaching of practical ethics can be improved.
{"title":"What Makes Ethics Practical","authors":"Kenneth I. Winston","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.976556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.976556","url":null,"abstract":"The place of ethics in the curriculum of schools of public management and policy is not a settled matter. One common approach, called applied ethics, relies primarily on the work of academic philosophers and follows a two-stage process: first, work out the guiding principles (in the academy, where one is protected from worldly pressures), then apply them to the real world (where they are inevitably compromised). This essay defends an alternative approach, practical ethics, which follows John Dewey’s admonition to be guided by problems of life and practice, rather than academic disputes or disciplinary methods. The essay identifies the basic features of practical ethics, and proposes an agenda for future research. It emphasizes, above all, that practical ethics is strategic and depends crucially on the ability to exercise contingent judgment. Practical ethics takes into account the powers, opportunities, and constraints, as well as the interests (including moral interests), of human agents in particular circumstances. The picture of practical reasoning is thus at odds with the prevailing approach. The essay also addresses the peculiar position of the classroom teacher of ethics, who is not confronted by ineluctable features of real decision making, including the necessity to act and the contingencies involved in acting both effectively and well. Suggestions are offered on how the teaching of practical ethics can be improved.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"436 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133353651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Why do we have human rights? What ought to be the function of such rights in the global order, and to what extent does this help define what they are? Who needs to do what to realize these rights? In response to such questions this paper develops a conception of human rights that thinks of them as membership rights in the global order. Human rights are derived from contingent but relatively abiding political and economic arrangements. This conception has some intuitive disadvantages, but makes clear how human rights can be of genuinely global relevance; can explain why the language of rights (rather than goals or values) is appropriate here in the first place; derives human rights from relatively simple foundations; and can account of the range of disagreement that persists about precisely what should count as a human right.
{"title":"What are Human Rights? Human Rights as Membership Rights in the Global Order","authors":"Mathias Risse","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1083719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1083719","url":null,"abstract":"Why do we have human rights? What ought to be the function of such rights in the global order, and to what extent does this help define what they are? Who needs to do what to realize these rights? In response to such questions this paper develops a conception of human rights that thinks of them as membership rights in the global order. Human rights are derived from contingent but relatively abiding political and economic arrangements. This conception has some intuitive disadvantages, but makes clear how human rights can be of genuinely global relevance; can explain why the language of rights (rather than goals or values) is appropriate here in the first place; derives human rights from relatively simple foundations; and can account of the range of disagreement that persists about precisely what should count as a human right.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"507 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122755589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using individual student test-score data from the School District of Philadelphia, we estimated the impact of for-profit and non-profit school management on student achievement by tracking the performance of students in math and reading from 2001 to 2006. After four years, the average student at schools managed by for-profit firms learned roughly two-thirds of a year more in math than would be expected had the schools remained under district management. However, the positive impact of for-profit management on average reading gains was smaller and not statistically significant. For non-profits, we found mainly negative impacts on student performance in both math and reading, but none were statistically significant. Treatment effects were identified using a quasi-experimental research design known as "difference-in-differences" analysis. We used as a control group the 71 schools under regular district management at which students were performing below the district median.
{"title":"Impact of For-Profit and Non-Profit Management on Student Achievement: The Philadelphia Experiment","authors":"P. Peterson, Matthew M. Chingos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1019024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1019024","url":null,"abstract":"Using individual student test-score data from the School District of Philadelphia, we estimated the impact of for-profit and non-profit school management on student achievement by tracking the performance of students in math and reading from 2001 to 2006. After four years, the average student at schools managed by for-profit firms learned roughly two-thirds of a year more in math than would be expected had the schools remained under district management. However, the positive impact of for-profit management on average reading gains was smaller and not statistically significant. For non-profits, we found mainly negative impacts on student performance in both math and reading, but none were statistically significant. Treatment effects were identified using a quasi-experimental research design known as \"difference-in-differences\" analysis. We used as a control group the 71 schools under regular district management at which students were performing below the district median.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131827390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We document a negative relationship between population size and inequality in the cross-country data. We propose an explanation built on the existence of a size effect in the political economy of redistribution, particularly in the presence of different channels of popular request for redistribution, e.g. “institutional” channels and “revolutions”. Based on the assumption that the threat of revolution is directly related to the number of people that may attempt to revolt, the theory predicts that the stylized fact initially uncovered by the paper can be refined as follows: there is a negative relationship between population size, and its geographical concentration, and post-tax inequality in non-democracies. We subject these predictions to extensive empirical scrutiny in a cross-country context, and the data robustly confirm these patterns of inequality, population, and the interaction with democracy.
{"title":"Inequality, Redistribution, and Population","authors":"Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1083714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1083714","url":null,"abstract":"We document a negative relationship between population size and inequality in the cross-country data. We propose an explanation built on the existence of a size effect in the political economy of redistribution, particularly in the presence of different channels of popular request for redistribution, e.g. “institutional” channels and “revolutions”. Based on the assumption that the threat of revolution is directly related to the number of people that may attempt to revolt, the theory predicts that the stylized fact initially uncovered by the paper can be refined as follows: there is a negative relationship between population size, and its geographical concentration, and post-tax inequality in non-democracies. We subject these predictions to extensive empirical scrutiny in a cross-country context, and the data robustly confirm these patterns of inequality, population, and the interaction with democracy.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115757892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We develop a simple, n-country model to consider the costs and benefits of joining a monetary union. Our factor-OCA framework encompasses different approaches and allows us to consider the optimal composition of a monetary union for all the potential members. We illustrate the model in practice with various simulations and we develop two empirical applications based on expanding EMU and on whether there would be a benefit to deepening Nafta to be a monetary union. While some commentators have called for a one-world currency, we find full monetary integration has costs for some countries and benefits for others, perhaps explaining why this remains a controversial issue.
{"title":"Deciding on Monetary Integration: An Operational Approach","authors":"A. Powell, F. Sturzenegger","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1019014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1019014","url":null,"abstract":"We develop a simple, n-country model to consider the costs and benefits of joining a monetary union. Our factor-OCA framework encompasses different approaches and allows us to consider the optimal composition of a monetary union for all the potential members. We illustrate the model in practice with various simulations and we develop two empirical applications based on expanding EMU and on whether there would be a benefit to deepening Nafta to be a monetary union. While some commentators have called for a one-world currency, we find full monetary integration has costs for some countries and benefits for others, perhaps explaining why this remains a controversial issue.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133490759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Effective leadership is needed in times of public health and safety crisis, yet the empirical research on what it means to be an effective crisis leader is scarce. We present a new measure, the Crisis Leader Efficacy in Assessing and Deciding (C-LEAD) scale, to further research on this important topic. C-LEAD captures the self-efficacy of an individual to perform two critical crisis leader behaviors, assessing information and making decisions, in the face of the ambiguity, high stakes, and urgency present in crises. In addition to the psychometric properties of the C-LEAD scale, we demonstrate evidence of its factor structure and discriminant validity from two related constructs - general leader efficacy and procedural crisis preparation. In particular, we found that C-LEAD more accurately predicts decision-making difficulty in a crisis context than general leadership efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
{"title":"Measuring the Efficacy of Leaders to Assess Information and Make Decisions in a Crisis: The C-LEAD Scale","authors":"C. N. Hadley, Todd L. Pittinsky, Weichun Zhu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.976554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.976554","url":null,"abstract":"Effective leadership is needed in times of public health and safety crisis, yet the empirical research on what it means to be an effective crisis leader is scarce. We present a new measure, the Crisis Leader Efficacy in Assessing and Deciding (C-LEAD) scale, to further research on this important topic. C-LEAD captures the self-efficacy of an individual to perform two critical crisis leader behaviors, assessing information and making decisions, in the face of the ambiguity, high stakes, and urgency present in crises. In addition to the psychometric properties of the C-LEAD scale, we demonstrate evidence of its factor structure and discriminant validity from two related constructs - general leader efficacy and procedural crisis preparation. In particular, we found that C-LEAD more accurately predicts decision-making difficulty in a crisis context than general leadership efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130301561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines how increased voter ethnicization, defined as a greater preference for the party representing one's ethnic group, affects politician quality. If politics is characterized by incomplete policy commitment, then ethnicization reduces average winner quality for the pro-majority party with the opposite true for the minority party. The effect increases with greater numerical dominance of the majority (and so social homogeneity). Empirical evidence from a survey on politician corruption that we conducted in North India is remarkably consistent with our theoretical predictions.
{"title":"Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption","authors":"A. Banerjee, R. Pande","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.976548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.976548","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines how increased voter ethnicization, defined as a greater preference for the party representing one's ethnic group, affects politician quality. If politics is characterized by incomplete policy commitment, then ethnicization reduces average winner quality for the pro-majority party with the opposite true for the minority party. The effect increases with greater numerical dominance of the majority (and so social homogeneity). Empirical evidence from a survey on politician corruption that we conducted in North India is remarkably consistent with our theoretical predictions.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124458805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper provides the first real-world evidence of Giffen behavior, i.e., upward sloping demand. Subsidizing the prices of dietary staples for extremely poor households in two provinces of China, we find strong evidence of Giffen behavior for rice in Hunan, and weaker evidence for wheat in Gansu. The data provide new insight into the consumption behavior of the poor, who act as though maximizing utility subject to subsistence concerns, with both demand and calorie elasticities depending significantly, and non-linearly, on the severity of their poverty. Understanding this heterogeneity is important for the effective design of welfare programs for the poor.
{"title":"Giffen Behavior: Theory and Evidence","authors":"R. Jensen, Nolan Miller","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.310863","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.310863","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides the first real-world evidence of Giffen behavior, i.e., upward sloping demand. Subsidizing the prices of dietary staples for extremely poor households in two provinces of China, we find strong evidence of Giffen behavior for rice in Hunan, and weaker evidence for wheat in Gansu. The data provide new insight into the consumption behavior of the poor, who act as though maximizing utility subject to subsistence concerns, with both demand and calorie elasticities depending significantly, and non-linearly, on the severity of their poverty. Understanding this heterogeneity is important for the effective design of welfare programs for the poor.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123296951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The most widely accepted explanation for the rally-round-the-flag phenomenon is a relative absence of elite criticism during the initial stages of foreign crises. In this study we argue that the nature and extent of elite debate may matter less than media coverage of any such debate, and that such coverage is heavily influenced by commonly held professional incentives and norms that lead journalists to strongly prefer certain stories over others. We also argue that not all messages in this debate matter equally for public opinion. Rather, the persuasiveness of elite messages depends on their credibility, which, in turn, arises out of an interaction between the sender, receiver, and message. Hence, only by understanding the interactions between elites, the public, and the press can we account for variations in public responses to presidential foreign policy initiatives. We test our theory by examining public opinion data and network news coverage of all major U.S. uses of military force from 1979 to 2003. We content analyze all congressional evaluations of the president and the executive branch of government from the three network evening newscasts within 60-day time periods centered on the start date of each use of force. Our results offer strong support for the theory.
{"title":"Crossing the Water's Edge: Elite Rhetoric, Media Coverage and the Rally-Round-the-Flag Phenomenon, 1979-2003","authors":"M. Baum, Tim J. Groeling","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.963131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.963131","url":null,"abstract":"The most widely accepted explanation for the rally-round-the-flag phenomenon is a relative absence of elite criticism during the initial stages of foreign crises. In this study we argue that the nature and extent of elite debate may matter less than media coverage of any such debate, and that such coverage is heavily influenced by commonly held professional incentives and norms that lead journalists to strongly prefer certain stories over others. We also argue that not all messages in this debate matter equally for public opinion. Rather, the persuasiveness of elite messages depends on their credibility, which, in turn, arises out of an interaction between the sender, receiver, and message. Hence, only by understanding the interactions between elites, the public, and the press can we account for variations in public responses to presidential foreign policy initiatives. We test our theory by examining public opinion data and network news coverage of all major U.S. uses of military force from 1979 to 2003. We content analyze all congressional evaluations of the president and the executive branch of government from the three network evening newscasts within 60-day time periods centered on the start date of each use of force. Our results offer strong support for the theory.","PeriodicalId":110014,"journal":{"name":"John F. Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Paper Series","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2007-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116628844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}