Pipeline or Pipedream: Gender Balance Legislation’s Effect on Women’s Presence in State Government

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Shannon McQueen

Abstract Can legislation encouraging women’s political involvement impact women’s desire to run for elected office? Eleven states have passed legislation to promote equal gender representation on appointed government boards, and many argue this legislation will also develop a pipeline of women candidates to run for elected office. This paper is the first scholarly work to assess if gender balance legislation (GBL) increases the number of women candidates and women legislators within a state. I use a nonparametric generalization of the difference-in-differences estimator and find very little evidence that GBL significantly impacts women’s representation at the state level. Results are consistent across multiple outcome variables and different model specifications, including two-way fixed effects, generalized synthetic control, and synthetic control models. The insignificant impact of GBL speaks to the need to thoroughly investigate which institutional reforms adequately feed the female candidate pipeline.

Author(s):  
Ramesh Pandita

Participation of women in the electoral process of India as contestants has been very abysmal since the inception of the electoral process of the country. Present study has been conceived in view of the demands raised by various political parties and different women organizations about introducing and passing of women’s reservation bill in the parliament so as to secure at least 33 % seats for women candidates across the country. In the present study attempt has been made to see how far women candidates have been given representation by national and state level political parties during all the general elections held in India since independence. The other areas covered in the study include the distribution of political parties during all the general elections held, female candidate fielded by parties in proportion to male candidates, their success rate, votes secured, forfeited deposits etc. the study is purely based on secondary data, retrieved from the official website of the Election Commission of India on October 21, 2013. The multiparty system in India has somewhere become the areas of concern, which in fact has heralded an era of coalition politics in country, where the number has grown exponentially and as of now more than 2000 political parties stand registered with the Election commission of India. On average mere 6.90 % women candidates have been chosen to parliament during each general election, while as on average 4.49 % women contestants have been fielded in each general election. Scenario of state political parties is more worrisome and in case of independent contestants the situation is quite displeasing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S802-S802
Author(s):  
Regina A Shih ◽  
Esther M Friedman ◽  
Bonnie Ghosh-Dastidar ◽  
Jose Escarce

Abstract Medicaid has been at the forefront of policy efforts to “rebalance” long-term services and supports (LTSS) from institutional toward home- and community-based services (HCBS). The Balancing Incentives Program (BIP), authorized under the Affordable Care Act, sought to increase spending on HCBS relative to total LTSS among states that were spending less than 50% of total Medicaid LTSS dollars on HCBS each year. BIP’s benchmark for states to spend more than 50% of LTSS on HCBS was meant to improve states’ infrastructure to ensure an equitable, consumer-friendly process to access HCBS. For the first time, we quantified how states performed on HCBS expenditures. We analyzed state-level HCBS expenditure data for states eligible for BIP (n=35) from 2008 to 2015, which includes several years both before and after BIP implementation. We examined the effect of BIP on HCBS expenditures as a percent of total LTSS spending using fixed-effects modeling which controls for stable characteristics of states and years. We find that BIP states increased HCBS spending relative to non-BIP states, and this effect continued to grow over our study period. In the first year after BIP implementation, BIP states increased spending by 1.8% relative to non-BIP states. The difference in spending between BIP and non-BIP states is even larger in subsequent years (4.8% in year 2, 5.3% in year 3, and 5.8% in year 4). Results indicate that BIP prompted increased state-level spending that continued to rise several years after initial implementation of BIP.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Topher McDougal ◽  
Talia Hagerty ◽  
Lisa Inks ◽  
Stone Conroy

AbstractNigeria’s ethnically and religiously diverse Middle Belt has experienced recurrent eruptions of violence over the past several decades. Disputes between pastoralists and farmers arise from disagreements over access to farmland, grazing areas, stock routes, and water points for both animals and households. Although relatively low in intensity, this form of violence is widespread, persistent, and arguably increasing in its incidence. This study seeks to answer the question: How has farmer-pastoralist conflict affected state internally-generated revenues (IGR)? The literature on the effect of violence on sub-national fiscal capacity is slim to none. We use a synthetic control approach to model how IGR for four conflict-affected states – Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Plateau – would have developed in the absence of violence. To account for the endogeneity criticism commonly leveled at such synthetic control analyses, we then use a fixed-effects IV model to estimate IGR losses predicted by the synthetic control analysis as a function of farmer-pastoralist fatalities. Our conservative estimates for percentage reduction to annual state IGR growth for the four states are 0%, 1.2%, 2.6%, and 12.1% respectively, implying that IGR is likely much more sensitive to conflict than GDP. In total, the four study states of Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Plateau are estimated to have lost between US$719,000 and US$2.3 million in 2010 US dollars, or 22–47% of their potential IGR collection during the period of intense.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-362
Author(s):  
Jennifer Wolak

AbstractWhen women are represented on the campaign trail and in elected office, women in the electorate have been shown to report greater engagement in politics. However, most evidence of the effects of descriptive representation on women's empowerment is drawn from surveys from the 1980s and 1990s. I update these studies to consider how women candidates and officeholders affect the political knowledge, interest, and participation of other women in the electorate. Using responses from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study from 2006 to 2014, I find that both men and women are more politically knowledgeable when represented by women in Congress and in state government. Considering political engagement, I find little evidence that women are more politically interested or participatory when residing in places with more female officeholders or candidates. Women's political presence as candidates and officeholders does not uniquely encourage other women to engage in political life.


2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Gupta ◽  
Daniel P. Lynch

ABSTRACT Using a new hand-collected database on state department of revenue (DOR) expenditures, this study examines the association between changes in state corporate tax enforcement expenditures and state-level tax collections during the 2000–2008 time period. The results, after addressing endogeneity concerns using a changes specification and state fixed effects, suggest a $1 increase (decrease) in current period corporate enforcement is associated with an $8 to $11 increase (decrease) in state tax collections two years into the future. The association appears to be attenuated in states with restrictive tax policies (i.e., unitary/combined reporting and related-party add-back provisions) suggesting that enforcement and restrictive tax policies could serve as substitutes. JEL Classifications: H26; H71; H72. Data Availability: Enforcement data were hand collected from state revenue department annual reports and by contacting state corporate income tax personnel. All annual reports are publicly available.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanika Mahajan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) on farm sector wage rate. This identification strategy rests on the assumption that all districts across India would have had similar wage trends in the absence of the program. The author argues that this assumption may not be true due to non-random allocation of districts to the program’s three phases across states and different economic growth paths of the states post the implementation of NREGS. Design/methodology/approach – To control for overall macroeconomic trends, the author allows for state-level time fixed effects to capture the differences in growth trajectories across districts due to changing economic landscape in the parent-state over time. The author also estimates the expected farm sector wage growth due to the increased public work employment provision using a theoretical model. Findings – The results, contrary to the existing studies, do not find support for a significantly positive impact of NREGS treatment on private cultivation wage rate. The theoretical model also shows that an increase in public employment work days explains very little of the total growth in cultivation wage post 2004. Originality/value – This paper looks specifically at farm sector wage growth and the possible impact of NREGS on it, accounting for state specific factors in shaping farm wages. Theoretical estimates are presented to overcome econometric limitations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (S4) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Hannah Abelow ◽  
Cassandra Crifasi ◽  
Daniel Webster

This article argues that state government actors concerned about gun violence prevention should prioritize enactment of robust firearm purchaser regimes at the state level. First, the article outlines the empirical evidence base for purchaser licensing. Then, the article describes how state governments can design this policy. Next, the article assesses the likelihood that purchaser licensing legislation will continue to be upheld by federal courts. Finally, the article addresses the implications of this policy, aimed at curbing gun deaths, for equally important racial justice priorities. Taken together, these various considerations indicate that purchaser licensing policies are among the most effective firearm-focused laws state governments can enact to reduce gun deaths within the existing federal legislative and legal frameworks.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 22-23
Author(s):  
Latarsha Chisholm ◽  
Akbar Ghiasi ◽  
Justin Lord ◽  
Robert Weech-Maldonado

Abstract Racial/ethnic disparities have been well documented in long-term care literature. As the population ages and becomes more diverse over time, it is essential to identify mechanisms that may eliminate or mitigate racial/ethnic disparities. Culture change is a movement to transition nursing homes to more home-like environments. The literature on culture change initiatives and quality has been mixed, with little to no literature on the use of culture change initiatives in high Medicaid nursing homes and quality. The purpose of this study was to examine how the involvement of culture change initiatives among high Medicaid facilities was associated with nursing home quality. The study relied on both survey and secondary nursing home data for the years 2017-2018. The sample included high Medicaid (85% or higher) nursing homes. The outcome of interest was the overall nursing home star rating obtained from the Nursing Home Compare Five-Star Quality Rating System. The primary independent variable of interest was the years of involvement in culture change initiatives among nursing homes, which was obtained from the nursing home administrator survey. The final model consisted of an ordinal logistic regression with state-level fixed effects. High-Medicaid nursing homes with six or more years in culture change initiatives had higher odds of having a higher star rating, while facilities with one year or less had significantly lower odds of having a higher star rating. Culture change initiatives may require some time to effectively implement, but these initiatives are potential mechanisms to improve quality in high Medicaid nursing homes.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aria Asadi Eskandar ◽  
Murali Raman

Most of the international e-Government benchmarking studies have focused on national government websites such as portal of ministries at the national level. This paper examines the level of sophistication of e-Government websites for different states in Malaysia, as opposed to a national level assessment, both in terms of the breadth and depth of e-Government service offering. This paper adds to the existing body of knowledge in relation to e-Government web portal assessment in two ways. First, studies pertaining to e-Government in Malaysia focus mainly on implementation issues at the Federal/National level– The authors examined State level implementation of e-Government services. Secondly, they used a predetermined instrument to assess the sophistication level of State government web portals, by consolidating different measurement items from our review of literature over the past ten years. The authors analyzed the website for a total of thirteen states in Malaysia, in relation to six different dimension measures of e-Government service offerings, as prescribed by literature. These six dimension measures are the extent of transparency, interactivity, usability and accessibility of the portal, citizen participation, security and privacy, and maturity level of services. A content analysis of the web portal was done, using a predetermined instrument developed based on our review of literature on this topic, in the past ten years. Their findings suggest that different State Governments in Malaysia demonstrate different levels of maturity in relation to the six dimensions measured.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0013161X2110373
Author(s):  
Benjamin Creed ◽  
Huriya Jabbar ◽  
Michael Scott

Purpose: School choice policies are expected to generate competition leading to improvement in school practices. However, little is known about how competition operates in public education—particularly in charter schools. This paper examines charter-school leaders’ competitive perception formation and the actions taken in response to competition. Research Methods: Using Arizona charter-school leaders’ responses to an original survey, Arizona Department of Education data, and the Common Core of Data, we examined the factors predicting the labeling of a school as a competitor. We estimated fixed effects logistic regression models which examine factors predicting the labeling of competitor schools and of top competitors. We used logistic regression models to understand charter-school leaders’ responses to competition. Findings: We find charter-school leaders in Arizona perceived at least some competition with other schools, and their perceptions vary by urbanicity. While distance between schools mattered generally for labeling a school as a competitor, distance did not factor into labeling “top competitor” schools. Student outcomes did not predict competition between schools, but student demographics were associated with labeling a school a competitor. Charter-school leaders responded to competition through changes in outreach and advertising rather than curriculum and instruction. Competitive responses were related to the respondent school’s quality and the level of perceived competition. Implications for Research and Practice: We found charter-school leaders perceive competition and respond by changing school practices. Responses typically focus on marketing activities over productive responses. The novel state-level analysis allows us to test the effects of local market conditions typically absent in the literature.


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