How Much Economic Sharing in American Federalism?

1963 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Cohen ◽  
Moeton Grodzins

We present in this paper an economic analysis of American federalism as a system of shared functions. Recent political studies have suggested that the federal, state and local governments may be viewed as closely meshed parts of a single system. Functions are not neatly parceled out among the many units, or along the three planes, of the federal system. Rather, it is difficult to find any governmental activity performed by a given plane of government which does not involve the other planes in important and continuing responsibilities. Decision-making power, as well as administration, is shared. Formally, as in grant-in-aid programs, and informally, as in the cooperation of federal, state, and local law enforcement officers, the three planes of government work substantially as one in the fulfillment of common purposes.It is possible to formulate an economic counterpart to the hypothesis of political sharing, as follows: Despite apparent diversities in the fiscal activities of the federal government, on the one hand, and state-local governments, on the other, an essential consistency marks the economic impacts of these two planes of government. In political analysis the sharing hypothesis relies for demonstration on descriptive studies of the common involvement of the federal, state, and local governments in the entire range of their activities. More quantitative criteria can be applied in testing economic impacts.Three types of economic impacts of government can be distinguished: on the allocation of resources between public and private use; on the level of aggregate demand (income and employment); and on the distribution of income among households. These are the major categories of economic impact with which the economist deals. They are distinct areas: the resource-shifting effect of government, for example, is analytically separate from the equalization-of-income effect.

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 436-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. De Lorenzo

AbstractDisaster preparedness and response have gained increased attention in the United States as a result of terrorism and disaster threats. However, funding of hospital preparedness, especially surge capacity, has lagged behind other preparedness priorities. Only a small portion of the money allocated for national preparedness is directed toward health care, and hospitals receive very little of that. Under current policy, virtually the entire funding stream for hospital preparedness comes from general tax revenues. Medical payers (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance) directly fund little, if any, of the current bill. Funding options to improve preparedness include increasing the current federal grants allocated to hospitals, using payer fees or a tax to sub- sidize preparedness, and financing other forms of expansion capability, such as mobile hospitals. Alternatively, the status quo of marginal preparedness can be maintained. In any event, achieving higher levels of preparedness likely will take the combined commitment of the hospital industry, public and private payers, and federal, state, and local governments. Ultimately, the costs of pre- paredness will be borne by the public in the form of taxes, higher healthcare costs, or through the acceptance of greater risk.


2020 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Farris

PolicyMap is an online geographic information system (GIS) mapping tool that aggregates many types of data for users to create maps and reports for research, grant applications, health policy, market surveys, and other applications. Currently, it incorporates over 37,000 data indicators from more than 150 public and private agencies to power the platform. Although the data are amassed from many different sources, they are cleaned and normalized to reduce redundancy and maintain integrity. In addition to federal, state, and local governments, PolicyMap is used by educational institutions, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and health care systems to help make impactful decisions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110343
Author(s):  
Eunju Kang

Instead of asking whether money matters, this paper questions whose money matters in public education. Previous literature on education funding uses an aggregate expenditure per pupil to measure the relationship between education funding and academic performance. Federalism creates mainly three levels of funding sources: federal, state, and local governments. Examining New York State school districts, most equitably funded across school districts among the 50 states, this paper shows that neither federal nor state funds are positively correlated with graduation rates. Only local revenues for school districts indicate a strong positive impact. Parents’ money matters. This finding contributes to a contentious discourse on education funding policy in the governments, courts, and academia with respect to education funding and inequality in American public schools.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geiguen Shin

Abstract Contemporary U.S. federalism particularly since the late1960s has evolved over the course of pluralism alternating exercisable governmental powers between the federal and state governments. The complexity of the power relationship has been observed in a variety of policies during the past quarter-century as has the discussion of whether or not contemporary U.S. federalism has developed in a way that increase effective public policy performance. Focusing mainly on the period of the past 50 years of U.S. federalism history, this article suggests that federalism dynamics have not exercised either constant liberal or conservative influence on public policy performance. Instead, this article suggests that the clear functional responsibility between the federal government and state and local governments have characterized contemporary U.S. federalism-more federal responsibility for redistribution and more state and local responsibility for development, which in turn increased public policy performance. This feature has been quite substantial since 1970s. As a result, this article suggests that despite the increased complexity of the U.S. federal system, it has evolved in such an appropriate way that would increase the efficiency of federal system by dividing a clear intergovernmental responsibility on major policy platforms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Skillman ◽  
Caitlin Cross-Barnet ◽  
Rachel Friedman Singer ◽  
Christina Rotondo ◽  
Sarah Ruiz ◽  
...  

As federal, state, and local governments continue to test innovative approaches to health care delivery, the ability to produce timely and reliable evidence of what works and why it works is crucial. There is limited literature on methodological approaches to rapid-cycle qualitative research. The purpose of this article is to describe the advantages and limitations of a broadly applicable framework for in-depth qualitative analysis placed within a larger rapid-cycle, multisite, mixed-method evaluation. This evaluation included multiple cycles of primary qualitative data collection and quarterly and annual reporting. Several strategies allowed us to be adaptable while remaining rigorous; these included planning for multiple waves of qualitative coding, a hybrid inductive/deductive approach informed by a cross-program evaluation framework, and use of a large team with specific program expertise. Lessons from this evaluation can inform researchers and evaluators functioning in rapid assessment or rapid-cycle evaluation contexts.


Government increasingly relies on nonprofit organizations to deliver public services, especially for human services. As such, human service nonprofits receive a substantial amount of revenue from government agencies via grants and contracts. Yet, times of crises result in greater demand for services, but often with fewer financial resources. As governments and nonprofits are tasked to do more with less, how does diversification within the government funding stream influence government-nonprofit funding relationships? More specifically, we ask: How do the number of different government partners and the type of government funder—federal, state, or local—influence whether nonprofits face alterations to government funding agreements? Drawing upon data from over 2,000 human service nonprofits in the United States, following the Great Recession, we find nonprofit organizations that only received funds from the federal government were less likely to experience funding alterations. This helps to illustrate the economic impact of the recession on state and local governments as well as the nonprofit organizations that partner with them.


Author(s):  
Dean A. Dabney ◽  
Richard Tewksbury

Chapter 2 presents the methods of the current study. Three fieldwork projects in two cities are explained, including one researcher’s embeddedness with a plain-clothes, street crime unit, one researcher’s 10 month inclusion with a narcotics investigation unit, and one author’s 18 months of participant observation with a major city’s homicide investigation unit. Additionally, in-depth interviews with 15 federal, state and local law enforcement authorities were conducted. These three sources of data are integrated and triangulate the data used for the analysis.


2019 ◽  
pp. 184-208
Author(s):  
David M. Struthers

This chapter examines the World War One period in which the federal, state, and local governments in the United States, in addition to non-state actors, created one of the most severe eras of political repression in United States history. The Espionage Act, the Sedition Act, changes to immigration law at the federal level, and state criminal syndicalism laws served as the legal basis for repression. The Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and other anarchists took different paths in this era. Some faced lengthy prison sentences, some went underground, while others crossed international borders to flee repression and continue organizing. This chapter examines the repression of radical movements and organizing continuities that sustained the movement into the 1920s.


Author(s):  
Benjamin Ginsberg

Many Academics Who are troubled by the growing power of administrators on their campuses believe that their jobs are protected by tenure and their campus activities by academic freedom. Hence, they believe that they, personally, have little to fear from the advent of the all-administrative university. Yet, these unworried professors might do well to fret just a bit. Tenure does not provide absolute protection, and at any rate only about 30 percent of the current professorate is tenured or even on the tenure track. The remaining 70 percent are hired on a contingent basis and can be dismissed at any time. The question of academic freedom is more complex and more dispiriting. In recent years, the federal courts have decided that deanlets, not professors, are entitled to academic freedom. This proposition may be surprising to academics, who, usually without giving the matter much thought, believe they possess a special freedom derived from the German concept of Lehrfreiheit, which they think protects their freedom to teach, to express opinions, and to engage in scholarly inquiry without interference from university administrators or government officials. It certainly seems reasonable to think that professors should possess Lehrfreiheit. Academics play an important part in the production, dissemination, and evaluation of ideas, and a free and dynamic society depends on a steady flow of new ideas in the sciences, politics, and the arts. The late Chief Justice Earl Warren once opined that American society would “stagnate and die” if scholars were not free to inquire, study, and evaluate. Accordingly, he said, academic freedom “is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned.” Despite Chief Justice Warren’s endorsement, professors’ ideas and utterances do not have any special constitutional status. Like other Americans, professors have free speech rights under the First Amendment. In a number of cases decided during the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court made it clear that the First Amendment offered professors considerable protection from the efforts of federal, state, and local governments to intrude on their freedom of speech and association.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document