Nick A Theobald
Biographic Data
| ID | 4396003 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nick A Theobald |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nick A |
| FAMILY NAME | Theobald |
| SIGNATURE | THEOBALD N A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kansas |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4587-7757 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 280 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 6 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Claiming Credit in the U.S. Federal System
Based on the assumption that lawmakers can only claim credit for public goods they produce, models of intergovernmental political competition predict that states with less ability to pay for public goods will respond more favorably to the price effect of federal grants. We offer the alternative assumption that confusion over proper credit assignment allows state lawmakers to claim credit for federal production. This produces the expectation that …
Race, Bureaucracy, and Symbolic Representation
Our understanding of representation by government employees has increased considerably in the past 30 years. Scholars have found that represented groups benefit from representative bureaucracies and conclude that this benefit is a function of active representation. However, due to the aggregate unit of observation used in most of these studies and the outcome measures that are typically used as dependent variables, we argue that there are other f…
Disparate Measures
Over the past two decades, many studies have investigated the scope and significance of performance measurement in public organizations. Nonetheless, there is more to learn about the challenges facing public managers who want to measure organizational outputs and use the feedback to improve performance. Specifically, managers are often faced with redundant measures of the same output, each of which may be preferred by a different political princi…
Fiscal Federalism and Budgetary Tradeoffs in the American States
Despite the massive scale of state-level budgeting, there currently exists no theoretically grounded and empirically sound examination of budgetary tradeoffs at this level of government. In order to provide such an examination, we extend a well-accepted approach to tradeoffs at the federal level in order to accommodate the unique intergovernmental aspects of state-level budgeting. We develop expectations that need for a good, ideology of state-le…
The Many Faces of Span of Control
As an extension of the existing literature on span-of-control relationships, we propose that public bureaucracies are typically faced with multiple goals creating potential conflicts due to structural choices. In other words, optimal span of control for one goal may not be optimal for another. Findings from an analysis of nearly 600 public bureaucracies provide some evidence that structural changes designed to improve performance on one goal may …
Political Responsiveness and Equity in Public Education Finance
This study explores how politics affects the propensity of the American states to pursue equity in local outcomes. Using state education finance as an object of analysis, we develop a theoretical model that emphasizes the social welfare implications of equity versus allocative efficiency and distributive politics. We then hypothesize that the relative liberalism of a state's citizens and institutions should affect both the weight attached to equi…
Race, Bureaucracy, and Symbolic Representation
Our understanding of representation by government employees has increased considerably in the past 30 years. Scholars have found that represented groups benefit from representative bureaucracies and conclude that this benefit is a function of active representation. However, due to the aggregate unit of observation used in most of these studies and the outcome measures that are typically used as dependent variables, we argue that there are other f…
Fiscal Federalism and Budgetary Tradeoffs in the American States
Despite the massive scale of state-level budgeting, there currently exists no theoretically grounded and empirically sound examination of budgetary tradeoffs at this level of government. In order to provide such an examination, we extend a well-accepted approach to tradeoffs at the federal level in order to accommodate the unique intergovernmental aspects of state-level budgeting. We develop expectations that need for a good, ideology of state-le…
Political Responsiveness and Equity in Public Education Finance
This study explores how politics affects the propensity of the American states to pursue equity in local outcomes. Using state education finance as an object of analysis, we develop a theoretical model that emphasizes the social welfare implications of equity versus allocative efficiency and distributive politics. We then hypothesize that the relative liberalism of a state's citizens and institutions should affect both the weight attached to equi…
Disparate Measures
Over the past two decades, many studies have investigated the scope and significance of performance measurement in public organizations. Nonetheless, there is more to learn about the challenges facing public managers who want to measure organizational outputs and use the feedback to improve performance. Specifically, managers are often faced with redundant measures of the same output, each of which may be preferred by a different political princi…
Claiming Credit in the U.S. Federal System
Based on the assumption that lawmakers can only claim credit for public goods they produce, models of intergovernmental political competition predict that states with less ability to pay for public goods will respond more favorably to the price effect of federal grants. We offer the alternative assumption that confusion over proper credit assignment allows state lawmakers to claim credit for federal production. This produces the expectation that …
The Many Faces of Span of Control
As an extension of the existing literature on span-of-control relationships, we propose that public bureaucracies are typically faced with multiple goals creating potential conflicts due to structural choices. In other words, optimal span of control for one goal may not be optimal for another. Findings from an analysis of nearly 600 public bureaucracies provide some evidence that structural changes designed to improve performance on one goal may …
Political Responsiveness and Equity in Public Education Finance
This study explores how politics affects the propensity of the American states to pursue equity in local outcomes. Using state education finance as an object of analysis, we develop a theoretical model that emphasizes the social welfare implications of equity versus allocative efficiency and distributive politics. We then hypothesize that the relative liberalism of a state's citizens and institutions should affect both the weight attached to equi…
The Many Faces of Span of Control
As an extension of the existing literature on span-of-control relationships, we propose that public bureaucracies are typically faced with multiple goals creating potential conflicts due to structural choices. In other words, optimal span of control for one goal may not be optimal for another. Findings from an analysis of nearly 600 public bureaucracies provide some evidence that structural changes designed to improve performance on one goal may …
Disparate Measures
Over the past two decades, many studies have investigated the scope and significance of performance measurement in public organizations. Nonetheless, there is more to learn about the challenges facing public managers who want to measure organizational outputs and use the feedback to improve performance. Specifically, managers are often faced with redundant measures of the same output, each of which may be preferred by a different political princi…
Fiscal Federalism and Budgetary Tradeoffs in the American States
Despite the massive scale of state-level budgeting, there currently exists no theoretically grounded and empirically sound examination of budgetary tradeoffs at this level of government. In order to provide such an examination, we extend a well-accepted approach to tradeoffs at the federal level in order to accommodate the unique intergovernmental aspects of state-level budgeting. We develop expectations that need for a good, ideology of state-le…
Race, Bureaucracy, and Symbolic Representation
Our understanding of representation by government employees has increased considerably in the past 30 years. Scholars have found that represented groups benefit from representative bureaucracies and conclude that this benefit is a function of active representation. However, due to the aggregate unit of observation used in most of these studies and the outcome measures that are typically used as dependent variables, we argue that there are other f…
Claiming Credit in the U.S. Federal System
Based on the assumption that lawmakers can only claim credit for public goods they produce, models of intergovernmental political competition predict that states with less ability to pay for public goods will respond more favorably to the price effect of federal grants. We offer the alternative assumption that confusion over proper credit assignment allows state lawmakers to claim credit for federal production. This produces the expectation that …
Political science (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Economics (3 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (3 works) · Local Government Finance and Decentralization (3 works) · Public Administration (3 works) · Bureaucracy (2 works)