Laura Langbein
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4122950 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Laura Langbein |
| PRENOMES | Laura |
| SOBRENOME | Langbein |
| ASSINATURA | LANGBEIN L |
| AFILIAÇÕES | American University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3899-1543 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 43 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 407 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 43 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1978 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
I’ll Bribe You Because I Trust You
Money matters
The public personnel system, particularly the compensation system, has long faced many criticisms such as inflexibility and un-competitiveness when compared to other sectors. This is especially true for compensation systems for K-12 teachers, who also care about public service values, even if they work in the non-public sectors. We examine wage competition for teachers between the three K-12 sectors within metropolitan market areas, even with con…
Money Matters
This study explores whether public personnel systems, particularly their compensation systems, are flexible and responsive to market wages in a competitive labor market. Focusing on registered nurses, we explore whether and how the public, private nonprofit, and for-profit labor markets influence each other in determining wages. We also examine if sector plays a role in determining wages. We use American Community Survey data from 2016 and 2017 t…
Are State-Owned Enterprises Good Citizens in Environmental Governance? Evidence From the Control of Air Pollution in China
As profit-seeking corporations, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have incentives to maximize profits from economic activities. However, subject to state ownership, SOEs are expected also to be more accountable for public welfare than their private counterparts. This study examines whether SOEs’ relative provincial dominance reinforces government’s demand to reduce air pollution in China, in the context of anticorruption and performance management. …
The Anti-Social Effects of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage
Comparing the Effects of Changes in Performance Incentives and Implementation Activities on Policy Outcomes
In theory, performance rewards motivate agents to undertake activities intended to generate desired policy outcomes, especially in an authoritarian regime. This study examines implementation activities before and after the introduction of performance incentives in China. Using two measures of province-level emissions of sulfur dioxide (satellite observation and official report) from 2005 through 2010, the analysis shows weak evidence directly lin…
Linking anticorruption threats, performance pay, administrative outputs, and policy outcomes in China
Little is known about the effects of two prominent public sector reforms—anticorruption efforts and high‐powered incentive systems—on the accomplishment of policy goals in the absence of the rule of law and in the presence of an extrinsic incentive to take advantage of corruption to achieve performance targets. This study explores how performance rewards and anticorruption efforts jointly affect administrative outputs and policy outcomes. We exam…
Independent Professional Bureaucracies and Street-Level Bribery
Using cross-sectional data, studies of the relation between merit-based bureaucracies and corruption usually find that nations with more professional and politically independent bureaucracies have lower corruption. However, cross-section designs cannot test this policy claim. This study adopts a pre-test‒post-test design using lagged data comparing changes in civil service laws and implementation in eight Latin American countries from 2004 to 201…
Performance Management, High-Powered Incentives, and Environmental Policies in China
China has a highly centralized bureaucracy that is no longer strictly monitored by political loyalty but by governance performance (e.g., economic growth), rewarded with promotion and monetary incentives. In the early 2000s, environmental criteria were added to this system. As part of this effort, a high-powered performance management system was introduced in 2006. It held high-level provincial officials, who are part of the nomenklatura, persona…
The Shape of Corruption
We examine the shape of corruption within a country characterised by stable democracy and thriving legal and illegal markets: Colombia. We look at whether city officials solicit an extra payment when citizens seek to use public services. Using individual level data on bribe requests in 55 cities from 2004–2011, we find that the level of corruption is stable, but varies widely within Colombia. Our results suggest that corruption is stable at diffe…
Measuring Women-Friendly Policy in the American States
Scholars and advocates frequently rank the American states in terms of the favorability of their policy positions on a range of issues, including “women-friendliness.” We examine if this is an identifiable dimension among 32 policies selected by women's interest organizations as important “women-friendly” planks and adopted by 50 states. We identify 8 policies that cohere empirically in the adoption pattern of states. Our list suggests that if wo…
The Worldwide Governance Indicators
Aggregate indexes of the quality of governance, covering large samples of countries, have become popular in comparative political analysis. Few studies examine the validity or reliability of these indexes. To partially fill this gap, this study uses factor, confirmatory factor and path analysis to test both measurement and causal models of the six Worldwide Governance indicators. They purportedly measure distinct concepts of control of corruption…
Same‐Sex Marriage and Negative Externalities
Objectives. Conventional theory regarding externalities and personal choices implies that in the absence of negative externalities, there is no economic rationale for government to regulate or ban those choices. We evaluate whether legally recognizing (or prohibiting) same‐sex marriage has any adverse impact on societal outcomes specifically related to “traditional family values.” Methods. Using data from 1990 to 2004 in the U.S. states, with sta…
Linking Women's Descriptive and Substantive Representation in the United States
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Worldwide Governance Indicators And Tautology
Aggregate indexes of the quality of governance, covering large samples of countries, are widely used in research and in aid policy. Few studies examine the validity of these indexes, however. This paper partially fills this gap by examining empirically the dimensionality of the Worldwide Governance Indicators. The six indexes purportedly measure distinct concepts of control of corruption, rule of law, government effectiveness, regulatory quality,…
Claire L. Felbinger
Claire L. Felbinger passed away suddenly at her home on Wednesday, May 28, due to a complication from multiple sclerosis (MS). At the time of her death, she had been employed at the Japan International Transport Institute
Beyond random assignment for internal validity and beyond social research for random assignment
Productivity in the Workplace
Public School Music
Efficiency, Accountability, and Private Government
Objective. This study evaluates the impact of residential community associations (RCAs) on RCA property values by testing competing theoretical expectations about the efficiency and accountability of RCAs with empirical evidence. Method. We use pooled data on 195 units in six RCAs in one city, regressing sales price on RCA fees, a proxy for the importance of professional management compared to community involvement, previous property values, and …
Productivity in the Workplace
Both formal theory and experimental evidence have shown that repeated interactions among actors foster norms of trust and cooperation. But real-world empirical evidence regarding the substantive effects of repeated interaction is scant and fails to disentangle the components of “social capital.” Using data from a 1994 survey of urban police in three Caribbean countries, clustered by police stations, we regress measures of time spent on police wor…
Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty
This article explores the roots of white support for capital punishment in the United States. Our analysis addresses individual-level and contextual factors, paying particular attention to how racial attitudes and racial composition influence white support for capital punishment. Our findings suggest that white support hinges on a range of attitudes wider than prior research has indicated, including social and governmental trust and individualist…
Responsive bureaus, equity, and regulatory negotiation
Rulemaking agencies commonly delegate the implementation and enforcement of rules to affected parties, but they rarely delegate rulemaking authority. Regulatory negotiation is an example of this uncommon behavior. Compared to conventional rulemaking, regulatory negotiation is thought to be an attempt to make bureaucracy more responsive to affected stakeholders, especially when the rulemaking concerns politically complicated and technical issues. …
Brent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter
Sports in School
Objectives . Previous research looks at the impact of school sports on participants’ delinquency, but not at the impact on delinquency in schools; further, it does not control for school size or for unobserved school‐level variables. This research fills that gap. It uses social capital theory to frame the impact of sports programs on both participants and nonparticipants. Social capital theory predicts that group cohesion will increase cooperativ…
Money and Access
Political scientists have pointed out that access is an important motivation for campaign contributions, but their evidence to date is based largely on case study observations, on the opinions of participants and observers, and on inferences from indirect quantitative evidence. This paper provides more direct quantitative evidence on the topic, using data from the Commission on Administrative Review of the House of Representatives in the 95th Con…
Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty
This article explores the roots of white support for capital punishment in the United States. Our analysis addresses individual-level and contextual factors, paying particular attention to how racial attitudes and racial composition influence white support for capital punishment. Our findings suggest that white support hinges on a range of attitudes wider than prior research has indicated, including social and governmental trust and individualist…
Linking Women's Descriptive and Substantive Representation in the United States
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Political Efficacy of Lobbying and Money
This paper sheds empirical light on the effectiveness of both sides of the gun lobby in affecting votes in the House on the McClure-Volkmer bill. It examines the impact of elite and grass roots lobbying, in addition to the influence of campaign contributions. The results show that, at least on this issue, the NRA's and Handgun Control's prevote campaign contributions affected member's subsequent votes, even when other variables, including ideolog…
Regulatory Negotiation versus Conventional Rule Making
Based on a survey of participants in eight negotiated rule makings at the Environmental Protection Agency and in six comparable conventional EPA rule makings, we find that, when the rule is negotiated, there is greater satisfaction with the substance of the final rule (e.g., net benefits to the respondent's organization, general effectiveness/efficiency) and with the overall process. Participants in negotiated rules also learn more, but they face…
Pay, Productivity, and the Public Sector
Much disagreement over the status of public pay arises from the comparisons made. governments compare equivalent jobs while economists compare equivalent workers. We pursue a compromise: we apply the economists' model of salary determination of statistically equivalent workers to a sample restricted to people in equivalent jobs-electrical engineers in the public and private sectors. We also explicitly consider the possibility that privatesector w…
Rethinking ward and at-large elections in cities
PACs, lobbies and political conflict
Productivity in the Workplace
Both formal theory and experimental evidence have shown that repeated interactions among actors foster norms of trust and cooperation. But real-world empirical evidence regarding the substantive effects of repeated interaction is scant and fails to disentangle the components of “social capital.” Using data from a 1994 survey of urban police in three Caribbean countries, clustered by police stations, we regress measures of time spent on police wor…
Same‐Sex Marriage and Negative Externalities
Objectives. Conventional theory regarding externalities and personal choices implies that in the absence of negative externalities, there is no economic rationale for government to regulate or ban those choices. We evaluate whether legally recognizing (or prohibiting) same‐sex marriage has any adverse impact on societal outcomes specifically related to “traditional family values.” Methods. Using data from 1990 to 2004 in the U.S. states, with sta…
Linking anticorruption threats, performance pay, administrative outputs, and policy outcomes in China
Little is known about the effects of two prominent public sector reforms—anticorruption efforts and high‐powered incentive systems—on the accomplishment of policy goals in the absence of the rule of law and in the presence of an extrinsic incentive to take advantage of corruption to achieve performance targets. This study explores how performance rewards and anticorruption efforts jointly affect administrative outputs and policy outcomes. We exam…
Sports in School
Objectives . Previous research looks at the impact of school sports on participants’ delinquency, but not at the impact on delinquency in schools; further, it does not control for school size or for unobserved school‐level variables. This research fills that gap. It uses social capital theory to frame the impact of sports programs on both participants and nonparticipants. Social capital theory predicts that group cohesion will increase cooperativ…
Efficiency, Accountability, and Private Government
Objective. This study evaluates the impact of residential community associations (RCAs) on RCA property values by testing competing theoretical expectations about the efficiency and accountability of RCAs with empirical evidence. Method. We use pooled data on 195 units in six RCAs in one city, regressing sales price on RCA fees, a proxy for the importance of professional management compared to community involvement, previous property values, and …
Comparing the Effects of Changes in Performance Incentives and Implementation Activities on Policy Outcomes
In theory, performance rewards motivate agents to undertake activities intended to generate desired policy outcomes, especially in an authoritarian regime. This study examines implementation activities before and after the introduction of performance incentives in China. Using two measures of province-level emissions of sulfur dioxide (satellite observation and official report) from 2005 through 2010, the analysis shows weak evidence directly lin…
Responsive bureaus, equity, and regulatory negotiation
Rulemaking agencies commonly delegate the implementation and enforcement of rules to affected parties, but they rarely delegate rulemaking authority. Regulatory negotiation is an example of this uncommon behavior. Compared to conventional rulemaking, regulatory negotiation is thought to be an attempt to make bureaucracy more responsive to affected stakeholders, especially when the rulemaking concerns politically complicated and technical issues. …
Measuring Women-Friendly Policy in the American States
Scholars and advocates frequently rank the American states in terms of the favorability of their policy positions on a range of issues, including “women-friendliness.” We examine if this is an identifiable dimension among 32 policies selected by women's interest organizations as important “women-friendly” planks and adopted by 50 states. We identify 8 policies that cohere empirically in the adoption pattern of states. Our list suggests that if wo…
Are State-Owned Enterprises Good Citizens in Environmental Governance? Evidence From the Control of Air Pollution in China
As profit-seeking corporations, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have incentives to maximize profits from economic activities. However, subject to state ownership, SOEs are expected also to be more accountable for public welfare than their private counterparts. This study examines whether SOEs’ relative provincial dominance reinforces government’s demand to reduce air pollution in China, in the context of anticorruption and performance management. …
The Anti-Social Effects of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage
Independent Professional Bureaucracies and Street-Level Bribery
Using cross-sectional data, studies of the relation between merit-based bureaucracies and corruption usually find that nations with more professional and politically independent bureaucracies have lower corruption. However, cross-section designs cannot test this policy claim. This study adopts a pre-test‒post-test design using lagged data comparing changes in civil service laws and implementation in eight Latin American countries from 2004 to 201…
Shirking and Ideology
A repeated finding in political science is the influence of a representative's so-called ideology on roll call voting in the U.S. House and Senate. Many of these studies attempt explicitly to separate the impact on roll call voting of "personal" ideology from that of constituency ideological preferences. In these studies, personal ideology is viewed as a form of shirking in which members pursue their own policy preferences rather than those of th…
The Validity of Student Evaluations of Teaching
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button
The impact of complexity and reform on congressional committee output
Program Evaluation
Ecological Inference
This paper considers the possible effects of making inferences about individuals from aggregate data. It assumes a knowledge of regression analysis, and explores the utility of techniques designed to make the inferences in causal modelling more reliable, including a comparison between ecological regression models and ecological correlation
Ecological Regression versus Homogeneous Units
Ecological Inference
Program Evaluation
Discovering Whether Programs Work
The Section 8-Existing Housing program's administrative fee structure
The impact of complexity and reform on congressional committee output
Money and Access
Political scientists have pointed out that access is an important motivation for campaign contributions, but their evidence to date is based largely on case study observations, on the opinions of participants and observers, and on inferences from indirect quantitative evidence. This paper provides more direct quantitative evidence on the topic, using data from the Commission on Administrative Review of the House of Representatives in the 95th Con…
An Analysis of Case Processing Complexity in Public Bureaus
The Political Efficacy of Lobbying and Money
This paper sheds empirical light on the effectiveness of both sides of the gun lobby in affecting votes in the House on the McClure-Volkmer bill. It examines the impact of elite and grass roots lobbying, in addition to the influence of campaign contributions. The results show that, at least on this issue, the NRA's and Handgun Control's prevote campaign contributions affected member's subsequent votes, even when other variables, including ideolog…
PACs, lobbies and political conflict
Grounded Beefs
Recently in an attempt to improve the quality and appearance of airport food and merchandise, both concessionaires and airport officials have made a concentrated effort to change the way they do business (Weinstein and Madrigal, 1991; Finney, 1991) They are shying away from selling hackneyed tourist items and stale hotdogs. They are changing the type of merchandise they carry and are offering brand name products. Wellknown merchandise is replacin…
The Validity of Student Evaluations of Teaching
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button
Shirking and Ideology
A repeated finding in political science is the influence of a representative's so-called ideology on roll call voting in the U.S. House and Senate. Many of these studies attempt explicitly to separate the impact on roll call voting of "personal" ideology from that of constituency ideological preferences. In these studies, personal ideology is viewed as a form of shirking in which members pursue their own policy preferences rather than those of th…
Rethinking ward and at-large elections in cities
Pay, Productivity, and the Public Sector
Much disagreement over the status of public pay arises from the comparisons made. governments compare equivalent jobs while economists compare equivalent workers. We pursue a compromise: we apply the economists' model of salary determination of statistically equivalent workers to a sample restricted to people in equivalent jobs-electrical engineers in the public and private sectors. We also explicitly consider the possibility that privatesector w…
Ownership, empowerment, and productivity
This paper uses a sample of professional engineers employed in the public and private sector to investigate the effect of sector employment, indicators of task complexity, organization size, number of rules, importance, and attentiveness and agreement among various principals (customers or clients, peers, mid- and top-level management, and politicians) on both employee discretion and a subjective measure of employee productivity. The results show…
Regulatory Negotiation versus Conventional Rule Making
Based on a survey of participants in eight negotiated rule makings at the Environmental Protection Agency and in six comparable conventional EPA rule makings, we find that, when the rule is negotiated, there is greater satisfaction with the substance of the final rule (e.g., net benefits to the respondent's organization, general effectiveness/efficiency) and with the overall process. Participants in negotiated rules also learn more, but they face…
Responsive bureaus, equity, and regulatory negotiation
Rulemaking agencies commonly delegate the implementation and enforcement of rules to affected parties, but they rarely delegate rulemaking authority. Regulatory negotiation is an example of this uncommon behavior. Compared to conventional rulemaking, regulatory negotiation is thought to be an attempt to make bureaucracy more responsive to affected stakeholders, especially when the rulemaking concerns politically complicated and technical issues. …
Brent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter
Sports in School
Objectives . Previous research looks at the impact of school sports on participants’ delinquency, but not at the impact on delinquency in schools; further, it does not control for school size or for unobserved school‐level variables. This research fills that gap. It uses social capital theory to frame the impact of sports programs on both participants and nonparticipants. Social capital theory predicts that group cohesion will increase cooperativ…
Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty
This article explores the roots of white support for capital punishment in the United States. Our analysis addresses individual-level and contextual factors, paying particular attention to how racial attitudes and racial composition influence white support for capital punishment. Our findings suggest that white support hinges on a range of attitudes wider than prior research has indicated, including social and governmental trust and individualist…
Productivity in the Workplace
Public School Music
Efficiency, Accountability, and Private Government
Objective. This study evaluates the impact of residential community associations (RCAs) on RCA property values by testing competing theoretical expectations about the efficiency and accountability of RCAs with empirical evidence. Method. We use pooled data on 195 units in six RCAs in one city, regressing sales price on RCA fees, a proxy for the importance of professional management compared to community involvement, previous property values, and …
Political science (35 obras) · Economics (29 obras) · Law (22 obras) · Business (19 obras) · Law (16 obras) · Politics (14 obras) · Public economics (13 obras) · Sociology (13 obras) · Mathematics (9 obras) · Psychology (9 obras)