DATA!

For next time: Stone, ch. 10, 11, 12.

Manipulation and Misunderstanding

• Lying with graphs (video)
• Lying with statistics

Mythical numbers:

• More on heroin addicts
• Super Bowl & domestic violence
• Other myths
• Seven times?

When you count something, you find more of it. Stone, p. 198:

The establishment of new record keeping always brings out cases, as if counting exerts some kind of magnetic force on the things being counted. Sometimes this happens because a formal count normalizes a problem thought to be rare, and so can legitimize something people were previously afraid or ashamed to discuss. This phenomenon is thought to explain one reason why reports of rape to police escalated in the 1970s. Once the women's movement made rape a public issue, rape victims were  more likely to report their experiences to the police instead of remaining silent. Moreover, counting enables victims of a stigmatized condition to come forward as group members rather than as lone individuals. Record keeping also provides a channel for reporting. Once an agency publicizes that it is keeping a count, people turn to that agency to report instances.

Hate crimes 

Counting LGTBQ+ and Household Pulse Survey

 

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Children 3 to 21 years old served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Part B, by type of disability, autism.

A puzzle whose answer I do not know:

1.  Assume an autism prevalence of one in 150 -- a very conservative estimate

2.  Find data on mental hospitals and institutions for the "retarded" here:  United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975), 84-85. Online: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p1-chB.pdf

3.  Compare the estimated number of people with autism and total population of mental hospitals and institutions for the "retarded."

            Total Population           Population/150                Total in Institutions

1940    132,164,569                  881,097                     578,222

1950    151,325,798                1,008,839                    705,375

1960    179,323,175                1,195,488                    769,682

1970    203,302,031               1,355,347                    580,956

Assembling evidence

• USA Facts
• USA.gov Stats
• Wolfram Alpha (computational database)
• Data.gov
• Statistical Abstract of US
• Historical Statistics of the US -- 1975 ed.
• Economic Indicators
• Bureau of Economic Analysis
• Nationmaster (comparative international data)
• Measuring Worth: deflators & relative values
• Symbolab statistics calculator
• Graph calculator

Demographics

• The Census
• Counting the undocumented
• 1940 Census:  actual raw data

Problem Definition and Policy Estimation

 For Thursday, read Stone, ch. 14

Stories

• Good guys/bad guys/
• Dumb guys: blaming the victim
• Horror stories

Metaphors

• Slippery slope
• Nature: tsunami, wave, tide, earthquake, tectonics
• Disease/Epidemic/Infestation
• War/Invasion
• Market/business

Causal stories (p. 208) and COVID

• Mechanical causes:  bureaucratic SOPs
• Accidental causes:  force of nature
• Intentional causes: conspiracy
• Inadvertent causes:  lab leak

Stories and metaphors help determine the gathering and interpretation of data:  watch out for motivated reasoning.

From Mother Jones:

The study, by Yale law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues, has an ingenious design. At the outset, 1,111 study participants were asked about their political views and also asked a series of questions designed to gauge their "numeracy," that is, their mathematical reasoning ability. Participants were then asked to solve a fairly difficult problem that involved interpreting the results of a (fake) scientific study. But here was the trick: While the fake study data that they were supposed to assess remained the same, sometimes the study was described as measuring the effectiveness of a "new cream for treating skin rashes." But in other cases, the study was described as involving the effectiveness of "a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns in public."

The result? Survey respondents performed wildly differently on what was in essence the same basic problem, simply depending upon whether they had been told that it involved guns or whether they had been told that it involved a new skin cream. What's more, it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more—not less—susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability.

 [/ 203

Aaron Sorkin and company explain:

Last year, the poverty rate went up -- or down.  Take your pick

Streams, Windows, and Cycles: The Politics of Policy Initiation and Agenda-Setting

FOR TUESDAY, READ STONE CHAPTERS 7,8,9

From last time:

WELFARE AND NEED

• Maslow
• Relative and Absolute
• Quality of Life Measures, disability and terminal illness

LIBERTY AND SECURITY: IS RICHER SAFER?

VAX AND MASK MANDATES

========================================================

SO HOW DO ISSUES ENTER THE AGENDA?

OFTEN PROBLEMS LURK IN PLAIN SIGHT BUT PEOPLE DO NOT RECOGNIZE THEM AS PROBLEMS.

Smoking

• Doctors and cigarettes 
• Flintstones!! 

Pesticides

• 1946 short on DDT

Equal rights

• Help wanted ads (EEOC banned in 1968, SCOTUS upholds ban in `1973)
• An actual real estate ad in Birmingham, AL

THE ISSUE-ATTENTION CYCLE -- ONE WAY BUT NOT THE ONLY WAY -- ISSUES REACH THE AGENDA

The example of smoking:

1. The pre-problem stage

2. Alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm

• The surgeon general's report

3. Realizing the cost of significant progress

Find more statistics at Statista

4. Gradual decline of intense public interest

5. The post-problem stage

Goals and Policy Initiation

 FOR THURSDAY, READ DOWNS, "THE ISSUE-ATTENTION CYCLE."

Framing:

  

Equity and Equalities (Stone, ch. 2)

• Opportunity and result (See LBJ 1965 at Howard University, at 0.40).
• Economic background v. demographic background
• Membership and noncitizens
• Merit and a very current example
• Arithmetic equality and equal satisfaction of need
• THE DILEMMA OF DIFFERENCE (Martha Minow's book on the topic)

EFFICIENCY:  AT WHAT?  FOR WHOM?

WELFARE AND NEED

• Maslow
• Relative and Absolute
• Quality of Life Measures, disability and terminal illness

LIBERTY AND SECURITY

IS RICHER SAFER?

SO HOW DO ISSUES ENTER THE AGENDA?

Markets and Public Policy

WRITING ASSIGNMENT

NEXT WEEK, WE DISCUSS GOAL-SETTING AND POLICY INITIATION.  READ STONE 2-6 FOR TUESDAY, THE DOWNS ARTICLE FOR THURSDAY.

MORTGAGES, MORAL HAZARD. AND INFORMATION ASYMMETRY

RATING AGENCIES

DODD-FRANK REFORMS AND ... UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.

COMPETITION

• "CROWDING OUT"
• OTHER FORMS OF GOVERNMENT/MARKET COMPETITION

COMPETITION AMONG AGENCIES AND LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT:  FEATURE OR BUG?

• CHECKS, BALANCES, AND THE "DOUBLE SECURITY' OF FEDERALISM
• LABORATORIES OF DEMOCRACY
• FRAGMENTATION OF AUTHORITY: THE CASE OF KATRINA AND COVID TURF WARS
• INFORMATION SILOS
• REGULATORY RACE TO THE BOTTOM?  
• COMPETITION ON SUBSIDIES AND TAXES:  TAX CREDITS AND GEORGIA MOVIEMAKING; STADIUM CONSTRUCTION

INTEREST AND POLITICS (SCHUCK, P. 216)

FROM JQ WILSON, THE POLITICS OF REGULATION

REGULATORY CAPTURE AND IRON TRIANGLES

STIGLER, THEORY OF ECONOMIC REGULATION

First Assignment, Fall 2021

 Choose one:

1. See page 57 of Stone, and undertake the exercise that she suggests in the passage that starts “When you confront a political issue…” and ends with “read between the lines and interpret.” Pick a current policy issue, and identify two political figures who take different positions. “Read between the lines” and infer their answers to Stone’s questions.

2. Fifty years ago, Max Singer wrote a landmark article titled “The Vitality of Mythical Numbers.” Write your own version about a current issue. That is, identify a dubious statistic that features prominently in policy debate, carefully explain why it is problematic, and spell out how it has distorted deliberations over the issue. 

3.  After reading the Downs essay on the issue-attention cycle, take an issue from recent years (not including COVID), and explain how it progressed through the cycle.

Instructions:

• Document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head.
• Essays should be double-spaced and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page.
• Cite your sources with endnotes in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Turn in essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Friday, October 1. I reserve the right to dock late essays one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

Incentives, Disincentives, Expections

• For Thursday, reach Schuck, ch. 7.
• WRITING ASSIGNMENT
• DC PROGRAM
• DREIER ROUNDTABLE OP-ED

POLICYMAKERS

• ELECTEDS:  Reelection, institutional power, good public policy
• BUREAUCRATS: Job security, professional and organizational loyalty,good public policy

CITIZENS

AFFECTED PARTIES

MISMATCH OF INCENTIVES AND DESIRABLE OUTCOMES:

• COLLECTIVE GOODS
• COLLECTIVE ACTION
• TIME HORIZONS

MORAL HAZARD

From Investopedia:

[One] moral hazard that contributed to the financial crisis was the collateralization of questionable assets. In the years leading up the crisis, it was assumed lenders underwrote mortgages to borrowers using languid standards. Under normal circumstances, it was in the best interest of banks to lend money after thoughtful and rigorous analysis. However, given the liquidity provided by the collateralized debt market, lenders were able to relax their standards. Lenders made risky lending decisions under the assumption they would likely be able to avoid holding the debt through its entire maturity. Banks were offered the opportunity to offload a bad loan, bundled with good loans, in a secondary market through collateralized loans, thus passing on the risk of default to the buyer. Essentially, banks underwrote loans with the expectation that another party would likely bear the risk of default, creating a moral hazard and eventually contributing to the mortgage crisis. 

 

COGNITIVE BIASES

TRUST AND CREDIBILITY

• OF INCENTIVES AND DISINCENTIVES
• OF INFORMATION

Structure and Political Culture (or, Gov 20 Redux!)

 For Tuesday, read Schuck, ch. 5-6.

Which instrument?  "A policy may be cost-ineffective because it uses the wrong tool" (Schuck, 54).

• Direct bureaucratic administration (public schools)
• Government corporations and GSEs (Postal Service)
• Regulation (admin. rules)
• Insurance (FDIC; FSLIC and RTC)
• Information (websites)
• Taxes and Tax expenditures (mortgage interest)
• Grants and contracts (see the true size of government)
• Loans and loan guarantees (SBA)
• Vouchers
• Private cause of action

Some problems with various instruments:

• Equity
• Accountability (e.g., DeJoy)
• Information, Disinformation, Misinformation, and Persuasion
• Direct expenditure cost
• Unanticipated consequences, "invisible victims"
• Legal authority of the level of government

Which leads to DECENTRALIZATION (Schuck, 95)

• 1 federal government
• 50 states
• 3,301 counties
• 35,748 cities, towns, and other general-purpose governments
• 51,296 special-purpose governments (e.g., school districts)
• For a total of 90,126 US governments  (even more if you count Puerto Rico,  Guam, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands)
  
  

But wait, there's more!

• Bicameralism and separation of powers
• Plurality in the executive
• Independent regulatory commissions at the federal level
• Statewide elected officials (see California and Texas
• Citizens as policymakers: initiative and referendum

What is political culture?

• Individualism and Rights Talk
• US Polarization
• Distrust of experts

• Religion and Moralism

Success and Failure, Outputs, Outcomes, and Instruments

For Thursday, read Schuck, ch. 4 and email me your brief (250 words max) reflections.

What is success?  What is failure?

The public has mixed views of government performance.

Decentralization -- more on Thu

Output and Outcomes

Outputs	Outcomes
Output is what the activity creates at its end.	Outcome is the level of performance that occurred because of the program.
Outputs are immediate products.	Outcomes are results that may take months or years.
Outputs are easy to measure (e.g., payments)	Outcomes are usually hard to measure. Controversy over the desired end state Operational definitions Data scarcity Time and accountability Causality/"Noise"
Outputs are within direct control of the managers.	Outcomes are not within direct control of the program/program managers.

Some outputs of a HIV/AIDS program: Number of HIV/AIDS workshops and  participants Number of prophylactics sent out. Number of community awareness meetings

Some outcomes: Increased knowledge of HIV/AIDS Increased treatment success Decreased incidence and prevalence

The distinction is not always airtight.  UC administrators and students may have very different ideas about what counts as an outcome:

Cost-Benefit Analysis can literally be a matter of life and death (Schuck 43-51).  

It is both common and controversial:  see issues of race and disability.

Instruments of policy (abbreviated from Schuck 80-83):

• Direct bureaucratic administration (public schools)
• Government corporations and GSEs (Postal Service)
• Regulation (admin. rules)
• Insurance (FDIC; FSLIC and RTC)
• Information (websites)
• Taxes and Tax expenditures (mortgage interest)
• Grants and contracts (see the true size of government)
• Loans and loan guarantees (SBA)
• Vouchers
• Private cause of action

Market and Polis

Why public policy scholars need to know a bit of everything.

 For Tuesday, read Schuck, ch. 1-3.

Both economics and politics deal with problems of scarcity and conflicting preferences. Both deal with persons who ordinarily act rationally. But politics differs from economics in that it manages conflict by forming heterogeneous coalitions out of persons with changeable and incommensurable preferences in order to make binding decisions on everyone. Political science is an effort to make statements about the formation of preferences and nonmarket methods of managing conflict among those preferences; as a discipline, it will be as inelegant, disorderly, and changeable as its subject matter.

-- James Q. Wilson, The Politics of Regulation

From Stone:                Market Model            Polis Model

Unit of Analysis	Individual	Community
Motivations	Self-interest  (paradox of voting)	Altruism & self-interest
Public Interest	Sum of individual Interests	Shared, community interests (inc. future generations)
Chief conflict	Self-interest v. self-interest	Self-interest v. public interest (commons problems, externalities)
Source of ideas & preferences	Self-generation	Influences from others & society
Nature of social interaction	Competition	Cooperation & competition
Criteria for individual Decision	Max gain, min. cost	Loyalty, group interest, public interest
Building blocks of social action	Individuals	Groups & organizations
Nature of information	Accurate, complete, available	Ambiguous, interpretive, incomplete, manipulated
How things work	Laws of matter	Laws of passion (human resources are renewable & expandable)
Sources of change	Market exchange	Ideas, persuasion, alliance, pursuit of power, self-interest and public interest