This paper presents and analyzes the results of a recent field experiment in which residential electricity customers in Washington State with price-responsive in-home devices could use those devices to change their electricity consumption autonomously. Doing so also required an important institutional change: the regulatory institutions had to change to allow dynamic pricing. Customers could choose a retail pricing contract from a portfolio of contracts, instead of the fixed, regulated retail rate. Here we focus on the results of the real-time contract, under which homeowners participate in a double auction with a market clearing occurring every five minutes. These customers saved money, and their peak demand (and pressure on infrastructure at peak capacity) fell by 15 percent. Moreover, this combination of technology and institutional design enabled decentralized coordination, and we use complexity science to interpret results that show that the real-time market outcomes were those of a self-organizing and scalable complex adaptive system. We also draw policy implications from these results.
{"title":"Beneficial Complexity: A Field Experiment in Technology, Institutions, and Institutional Change in the Electric Power Industry","authors":"L. Kiesling, D. Chassin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1417580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1417580","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents and analyzes the results of a recent field experiment in which residential electricity customers in Washington State with price-responsive in-home devices could use those devices to change their electricity consumption autonomously. Doing so also required an important institutional change: the regulatory institutions had to change to allow dynamic pricing. Customers could choose a retail pricing contract from a portfolio of contracts, instead of the fixed, regulated retail rate. Here we focus on the results of the real-time contract, under which homeowners participate in a double auction with a market clearing occurring every five minutes. These customers saved money, and their peak demand (and pressure on infrastructure at peak capacity) fell by 15 percent. Moreover, this combination of technology and institutional design enabled decentralized coordination, and we use complexity science to interpret results that show that the real-time market outcomes were those of a self-organizing and scalable complex adaptive system. We also draw policy implications from these results.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"171 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116125977","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}
There is virtually no systematic cross-national research on relations on party-firm relations. This paper approaches the subject through the study of the political contributions of 960 firms in Australia, Canada and Germany. Institutional variation does little to explain the differences between the countries. By contrast, the ideological distance between the principal competitors in each party system provides a more convincing explanation. Institutional variation is a less convincing explanation. In Canada, there was little ideological difference between the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals. This allowed the dominance of pragmatic behaviour, including widespread hedging by making payments to both parties. The distance between the Liberal-National Coalition and Australian Labor Party is more significant. Although firms react to changes in power they tend to plump for one party or the other, rather than hedging. In Germany, the later reform of the Social Democratic Party underpins a more ideological basis for party-firm relations. Hedging and payments to the left are rare and strongly associated with left-wing government.
{"title":"Ideology, Institutions and Strategy in Party-Firm Relations: Quantitative Studies of Australia, Canada and Germany","authors":"I. McMenamin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1413088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1413088","url":null,"abstract":"There is virtually no systematic cross-national research on relations on party-firm relations. This paper approaches the subject through the study of the political contributions of 960 firms in Australia, Canada and Germany. Institutional variation does little to explain the differences between the countries. By contrast, the ideological distance between the principal competitors in each party system provides a more convincing explanation. Institutional variation is a less convincing explanation. In Canada, there was little ideological difference between the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals. This allowed the dominance of pragmatic behaviour, including widespread hedging by making payments to both parties. The distance between the Liberal-National Coalition and Australian Labor Party is more significant. Although firms react to changes in power they tend to plump for one party or the other, rather than hedging. In Germany, the later reform of the Social Democratic Party underpins a more ideological basis for party-firm relations. Hedging and payments to the left are rare and strongly associated with left-wing government.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"176 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115478981","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}
In this paper we incorporate interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Behavioral and Political Sciences), and suggest a framework for analysis of mechanisms of governance of agro-ecosystem services. Firstly, we present a new approach for analysis and improvement of governance of agro-ecosystem services. It takes into account the role of specific institutional environment (formal and informal rules, distribution of rights, systems of enforcement); and behavioral characteristics of individual agents (preferences, bounded rationality, opportunism, risk aversion, trust); and transactions costs associated with ecosystem services and their critical factors (uncertainty, frequency, asset specificity, appropriability); and comparative efficiency of market, private, public and hybrid modes of governance. Secondly, we identify spectrum of market and private forms of governance of agro-ecosystem services (voluntary initiatives; market trade with eco-products and services; special contractual arrangements; collective actions; vertical integration), and evaluate their efficiency and potential. Next, we identify needs for public involvement in the governance of agro-ecosystem services, and assess comparative efficiency of alternative modes of public interventions (assistance, regulations, funding, taxing, provision, partnership, property right modernization). Finally, we analyze structure and efficiency of governance of agro-ecosystems services in Zapadna Stara Planina – a mountainous region in North-West Bulgaria. Post-communist transition and EU integration has brought about significant changes in the state and governance of agro-ecosystems services. Newly evolved market, private and public governance has led to significant improvement of part of agro-ecosystems services introducing modern eco-standards and public support, enhancing environmental stewardship, desintensifying production, recovering landscape and traditional productions, diversifying quality, products, and services. At the same time, novel governance is associated with some new challenges such as unsustainable exploitation, lost biodiversity, land degradation, water and air contamination. What is more, implementation of EU common policies would have no desired impact on agro-ecosystem services unless special measures are taken to improve management of public programs, and extend public support to dominating small-scale and subsistence farms.
本文结合跨学科的新制度和交易成本经济学(结合经济学、组织学、法学、社会学、行为学和政治学),提出了农业生态系统服务治理机制分析的框架。首先,我们提出了一种分析和改进农业生态系统服务治理的新方法。它考虑到具体体制环境的作用(正式和非正式规则、权利分配、执行制度);个体行为主体的行为特征(偏好、有限理性、机会主义、风险厌恶、信任);与生态系统服务及其关键因素(不确定性、频率、资产特异性、可占用性)相关的交易成本;以及市场、私人、公共和混合治理模式的比较效率。其次,我们确定了农业生态系统服务的市场和私人治理形式(自愿倡议;生态产品和服务的市场贸易;特别合同安排;集体行动;垂直整合),并评估他们的效率和潜力。接下来,我们确定了公众参与农业生态系统服务治理的需求,并评估了其他公共干预模式(援助、法规、资金、税收、供应、伙伴关系、产权现代化)的相对效率。最后,我们分析了保加利亚西北部山区Zapadna Stara Planina农业生态系统服务治理的结构和效率。后共产主义转型和欧盟一体化给农业生态系统服务的状态和治理带来了重大变化。新发展的市场、私人和公共治理使部分农业生态系统服务得到显著改善,引入了现代生态标准和公共支持,加强了环境管理,减少了生产集约化,恢复了景观和传统生产,实现了质量、产品和服务的多样化。与此同时,新型治理也带来了一些新的挑战,如不可持续的开发、生物多样性丧失、土地退化、水和空气污染。此外,欧盟共同政策的实施不会对农业生态系统服务产生预期的影响,除非采取特殊措施来改善公共项目的管理,并扩大公众对主导小规模和自给自足农场的支持。
{"title":"Governing of Agro-Ecosystem Services","authors":"Hrabrin Bachev Храбрин Башев","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1412295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1412295","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we incorporate interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Behavioral and Political Sciences), and suggest a framework for analysis of mechanisms of governance of agro-ecosystem services. Firstly, we present a new approach for analysis and improvement of governance of agro-ecosystem services. It takes into account the role of specific institutional environment (formal and informal rules, distribution of rights, systems of enforcement); and behavioral characteristics of individual agents (preferences, bounded rationality, opportunism, risk aversion, trust); and transactions costs associated with ecosystem services and their critical factors (uncertainty, frequency, asset specificity, appropriability); and comparative efficiency of market, private, public and hybrid modes of governance. Secondly, we identify spectrum of market and private forms of governance of agro-ecosystem services (voluntary initiatives; market trade with eco-products and services; special contractual arrangements; collective actions; vertical integration), and evaluate their efficiency and potential. Next, we identify needs for public involvement in the governance of agro-ecosystem services, and assess comparative efficiency of alternative modes of public interventions (assistance, regulations, funding, taxing, provision, partnership, property right modernization). Finally, we analyze structure and efficiency of governance of agro-ecosystems services in Zapadna Stara Planina – a mountainous region in North-West Bulgaria. Post-communist transition and EU integration has brought about significant changes in the state and governance of agro-ecosystems services. Newly evolved market, private and public governance has led to significant improvement of part of agro-ecosystems services introducing modern eco-standards and public support, enhancing environmental stewardship, desintensifying production, recovering landscape and traditional productions, diversifying quality, products, and services. At the same time, novel governance is associated with some new challenges such as unsustainable exploitation, lost biodiversity, land degradation, water and air contamination. What is more, implementation of EU common policies would have no desired impact on agro-ecosystem services unless special measures are taken to improve management of public programs, and extend public support to dominating small-scale and subsistence farms.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125694268","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 propose and empirically examine a comprehensive measure of institutional trading frictions to include the dimensions of price impact, quantity of execution, return dynamics, speed of execution or order splitting, and trading commissions. Our empirical analysis reveals that various hidden components of institutional trading frictions such as adverse selection and clean-up costs are persistent and could add significantly to previously measured directly observable components of transaction costs. Our simultaneous system of equations accounts for the endogeniety in institutional order aggressiveness based on potentially superior information as well as order splitting strategies in the implementation stage to reduce transaction costs. Order aggressiveness, market conditions and other stock characteristics are associated with significant variations in trading frictions.
{"title":"Institutional Trading Frictions","authors":"C. Chiyachantana, P. Jain","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1287215","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1287215","url":null,"abstract":"We propose and empirically examine a comprehensive measure of institutional trading frictions to include the dimensions of price impact, quantity of execution, return dynamics, speed of execution or order splitting, and trading commissions. Our empirical analysis reveals that various hidden components of institutional trading frictions such as adverse selection and clean-up costs are persistent and could add significantly to previously measured directly observable components of transaction costs. Our simultaneous system of equations accounts for the endogeniety in institutional order aggressiveness based on potentially superior information as well as order splitting strategies in the implementation stage to reduce transaction costs. Order aggressiveness, market conditions and other stock characteristics are associated with significant variations in trading frictions.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"147 12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129908090","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}
Many people have recognized the fundamental flaws in the mainstream economic theory. At the same time, most people feel that it is unlikely to develop an economic theory that is both relevant and analytical tractable. It is often thought that social problems are too complex to be described by a simple mathematical theory. Whether or not a system is complex to the human mind depends on whether we can detect simple mathematical structures among various factors in a system. Recently, a mathematical theory of economics of social and biological systems has been derived from the laws of statistical thermodynamics. The main result is a formula of variable cost as a mathematical function of product value, fixed cost, uncertainty, discount rate and project duration. From this formula of variable cost, together with fixed cost and volume of output, we can compute and analyze the returns and profits of different production systems under various kinds of environment in a simple and systematic way. The results are highly consistent with the empirical evidences obtained from the vast amount of literature in economics and biology. Furthermore, by putting major factors of production into a compact mathematical model, the theory provides precise insights about the tradeoffs and constraints of various business or evolutionary strategies that are often lost in intuitive thinking.
{"title":"The Economy of Social and Biological Systems: A Physical Theory","authors":"J. Chen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1407771","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1407771","url":null,"abstract":"Many people have recognized the fundamental flaws in the mainstream economic theory. At the same time, most people feel that it is unlikely to develop an economic theory that is both relevant and analytical tractable. It is often thought that social problems are too complex to be described by a simple mathematical theory. Whether or not a system is complex to the human mind depends on whether we can detect simple mathematical structures among various factors in a system. Recently, a mathematical theory of economics of social and biological systems has been derived from the laws of statistical thermodynamics. The main result is a formula of variable cost as a mathematical function of product value, fixed cost, uncertainty, discount rate and project duration. From this formula of variable cost, together with fixed cost and volume of output, we can compute and analyze the returns and profits of different production systems under various kinds of environment in a simple and systematic way. The results are highly consistent with the empirical evidences obtained from the vast amount of literature in economics and biology. Furthermore, by putting major factors of production into a compact mathematical model, the theory provides precise insights about the tradeoffs and constraints of various business or evolutionary strategies that are often lost in intuitive thinking.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115739249","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}
Pub Date : 2009-05-02DOI: 10.1017/S1744137410000032
M. Dincecco
This paper performs a systematic analysis that examines institutional fragmentation in terms of customs tariffs within states west of the Rhine from 1700 to 1815 and between states east of the Rhine from 1815 to 1871. Internal customs zones are measured in two ways: physical size and urban population. Both methods use 175 sample cities as described by De Vries (1984) in England, France, the Netherlands, and Spain as the basic unit of account. The results indicate that customs zones west of the Rhine were small prior to the French Revolution but grew dramatically from 1789 onwards. They thus provide definitive evidence of divided authority in Ancien Regime Europe. The measurement of external customs zones uses 117 sample cities in the German and Italian territories. The findings indicate a remarkable degree of institutional consolidation between states east of the Rhine over the 1800s.
{"title":"Fragmented Authority from Ancien Régime to Modernity: A Quantitative Analysis","authors":"M. Dincecco","doi":"10.1017/S1744137410000032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137410000032","url":null,"abstract":"This paper performs a systematic analysis that examines institutional fragmentation in terms of customs tariffs within states west of the Rhine from 1700 to 1815 and between states east of the Rhine from 1815 to 1871. Internal customs zones are measured in two ways: physical size and urban population. Both methods use 175 sample cities as described by De Vries (1984) in England, France, the Netherlands, and Spain as the basic unit of account. The results indicate that customs zones west of the Rhine were small prior to the French Revolution but grew dramatically from 1789 onwards. They thus provide definitive evidence of divided authority in Ancien Regime Europe. The measurement of external customs zones uses 117 sample cities in the German and Italian territories. The findings indicate a remarkable degree of institutional consolidation between states east of the Rhine over the 1800s.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124185245","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}
In this paper we explore the relationship between the individual decision to become an entrepreneur and the institutional context. We pinpoint the critical roles of property rights and the size of the state sector for entrepreneurial activity and test the relationships empirically by combining country-level institutional indicators for 44 countries with working age population survey data taken from the Global Enterprise Monitor. A methodological contribution is the use of factor analysis to reduce the statistical problems with the array of highly collinear institutional indicators. We find that the key institutional features that enhance entrepreneurial activity are indeed the rule of law and limits to the state sector. However, these results are sensitive to the level of development.
{"title":"Entrepreneurial Entry: Which Institutions Matter?","authors":"R. Aidis, S. Estrin, T. Mickiewicz","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1391795","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1391795","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we explore the relationship between the individual decision to become an entrepreneur and the institutional context. We pinpoint the critical roles of property rights and the size of the state sector for entrepreneurial activity and test the relationships empirically by combining country-level institutional indicators for 44 countries with working age population survey data taken from the Global Enterprise Monitor. A methodological contribution is the use of factor analysis to reduce the statistical problems with the array of highly collinear institutional indicators. We find that the key institutional features that enhance entrepreneurial activity are indeed the rule of law and limits to the state sector. However, these results are sensitive to the level of development.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114331066","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}
Human social life is uniquely complex and diverse. Much of that complexity consists of culturally transmitted ideas and skills that underpin the operation of institutions that structure our social life. Considerable theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the role of cultural evolutionary processes in the evolution of institutions. The most persistent controversy has been over the role of cultural group selection and gene-culture coevolution in early human populations the Pleistocene. We argue that cultural group selection and related cultural evolutionary processes had an important role in shaping the innate components of our social psychology. By the Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have lived in societies structured by institutions, as do modern populations living in simple societies. The most ambitious attempts to test these ideas have been the use of experimental games in field settings to document human similarities and differences on theoretically interesting dimensions. These studies have documented a huge range of behavior cross-culturally, although no societies so far examined follow the expectations of selfish rationality. These data are at least consistent with operation of cultural group selection and gene-culture coevolution operating in the deep tribal past and with the contemporary importance of cultural evolution in the evolution of institutions and institutional diversity.
{"title":"Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems","authors":"P. Richerson, J. Henrich","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1368756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1368756","url":null,"abstract":"Human social life is uniquely complex and diverse. Much of that complexity consists of culturally transmitted ideas and skills that underpin the operation of institutions that structure our social life. Considerable theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the role of cultural evolutionary processes in the evolution of institutions. The most persistent controversy has been over the role of cultural group selection and gene-culture coevolution in early human populations the Pleistocene. We argue that cultural group selection and related cultural evolutionary processes had an important role in shaping the innate components of our social psychology. By the Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have lived in societies structured by institutions, as do modern populations living in simple societies. The most ambitious attempts to test these ideas have been the use of experimental games in field settings to document human similarities and differences on theoretically interesting dimensions. These studies have documented a huge range of behavior cross-culturally, although no societies so far examined follow the expectations of selfish rationality. These data are at least consistent with operation of cultural group selection and gene-culture coevolution operating in the deep tribal past and with the contemporary importance of cultural evolution in the evolution of institutions and institutional diversity.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123704060","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, unlike the vast existing literature on political trust, focuses on trust in post-socialist countries, and more specifically on their emerging elites, rather than on their general populations. Studying emerging elites is important in the context of establishing democracy and the survival of democracy. We stipulate that political trust is significantly determined by historical legacy: type of socialist regime, accounting for path dependence and thus, for pre-socialist legacies. Utilizing individual-level data from an institutional survey, we find that distinguishing between different types of socialism is instrumental in explaining trust of emerging elites. Our findings have implications for policies aimed at fostering political trust in post-socialist countries and more importantly for discerning future patterns of political and social developments.
{"title":"Political Trust of Emerging Elites and Initial Conditions: The Effect of Varieties of Socialism","authors":"Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl, Eszter Simon","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1263248","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1263248","url":null,"abstract":"This paper, unlike the vast existing literature on political trust, focuses on trust in post-socialist countries, and more specifically on their emerging elites, rather than on their general populations. Studying emerging elites is important in the context of establishing democracy and the survival of democracy. We stipulate that political trust is significantly determined by historical legacy: type of socialist regime, accounting for path dependence and thus, for pre-socialist legacies. Utilizing individual-level data from an institutional survey, we find that distinguishing between different types of socialism is instrumental in explaining trust of emerging elites. Our findings have implications for policies aimed at fostering political trust in post-socialist countries and more importantly for discerning future patterns of political and social developments.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130690269","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 underlying logic of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) suggests that federal programs should be evaluated based on empirical evidence that they actually produce the intended outcomes. This study applies the same logic to GPRA itself, investigating empirically whether GPRA may have increased the availability and use of performance information in federal agencies. Better GPRA performance reporting is correlated with greater availability and use of several kinds of performance information by federal managers in the programs and operations they supervise. The results are statistically significant and relatively large. Correlations are especially significant for types of activities GPRA sought to encourage, such as output and outcome measures and use of performance information to allocate resources, set priorities, and develop measures and goals. These findings are consistent with the theory that GPRA has indeed prompted improvements in the availability and use of performance information in the federal government.
{"title":"Has GPRA Increased the Availability and Use of Performance Information?","authors":"J. Ellig","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1366039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1366039","url":null,"abstract":"The underlying logic of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) suggests that federal programs should be evaluated based on empirical evidence that they actually produce the intended outcomes. This study applies the same logic to GPRA itself, investigating empirically whether GPRA may have increased the availability and use of performance information in federal agencies. Better GPRA performance reporting is correlated with greater availability and use of several kinds of performance information by federal managers in the programs and operations they supervise. The results are statistically significant and relatively large. Correlations are especially significant for types of activities GPRA sought to encourage, such as output and outcome measures and use of performance information to allocate resources, set priorities, and develop measures and goals. These findings are consistent with the theory that GPRA has indeed prompted improvements in the availability and use of performance information in the federal government.","PeriodicalId":383948,"journal":{"name":"New Institutional Economics","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124241034","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}