Fuel Tax versus Vehicle-Miles-Traveled Fee

2015 ◽  
Vol 2531 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirini Kastrouni ◽  
Konstantina Gkritza ◽  
Shauna L. Hallmark ◽  
W. Robert Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Efficiency ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Vehicle Miles Traveled ◽  
Fuel Tax ◽  
Funding Mechanism ◽  
Vulnerable Households ◽  
Vmt Fee

The vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee has been widely suggested as an alternative funding mechanism to the current state of practice, the fuel tax per gallon. The VMT fee has drawn researchers' and policy makers' attention, particularly regarding its equity performance in various social groups. With the introduction of the concept of vulnerable households, and with the use of socioeconomic-, geographic-, and vehicle-specific attributes from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey, the social groups in the United States that were most likely to be affected under each funding mechanism were identified through the estimation of three-stage least squares models at the national level. The results showed that households located in states with lower fuel taxation operated vehicles of lower fuel efficiency and thus contributed a larger portion of revenues generated by the fuel tax. In contrast, households with higher fuel-efficiency vehicles or with a higher average income generated more trips annually and thus would pay higher VMT fees at the household level. The study also examined whether the identified vulnerable households at the national level were different at the state level. With the use of the state of Iowa as a case study, the results suggested that, despite some similarities in the characteristics of the vulnerable households at the two levels of analysis, the development of state-specific models was statistically supported.

scholarly journals Evidence from the Kaduna State Health Accounts on the pattern of sub-national health spending in Nigeria, 2016

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. e001953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chukwuemeka Emmanuel Azubuike ◽  
Yewande Kofoworola Ogundeji ◽  
Nuha Butawa ◽  
Nneka Orji ◽  
Paul Dogo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Expenditure ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
National Level ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Health Spending ◽  
The State ◽  
State Health ◽  
Health Accounts ◽  
Vulnerable Households

Health accounts provide accurate estimates of health expenditure, which are important for effective resource allocation and planning in the health sector. In Nigeria, four rounds of health accounts have been conducted at the national level. However, the national estimates do not necessarily reflect realities at the subnational level and may only provide limited information for decision making at that level. This study highlights the pattern of health spending in Kaduna State from the 2016 Health Accounts, with a view to providing more reliable evidence for decision making in the state.Health accounts expenditure surveys were administered to government, donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private health insurance organisations and employers in the health sector for the reference year 2016. Household health expenditure was derived from a household survey administered across a representative sample of 1024 households selected from six local government areas across the three senatorial districts in the state. We estimated disease expenditure by deploying a health provider survey across a sample of 100 health facilities. Analysis was conducted using Microsoft Excel, Stata and the Health Accounts Production Tool.Findings show that current health expenditure (CHE) accounted for only 7% of the total health expenditure in 2016. Out-of-pocket spending among households was about 81% of CHE, compared with a national average of 71.5% of CHE between 2010 and 2014. The health expenditure findings highlight several policy imperatives for the Kaduna State Health System. Primary among these is the heavy dependence on out-of-pocket financing for health, which has negative implications on vulnerable households. A shift to pooled prepaid mechanisms would reduce the financial burden on the most vulnerable households in Kaduna State. In addition, considering the government’s current contribution to health expenditure, there is a strong need for increased government prioritisation of the Kaduna State health sector.

scholarly journals Regional Infoveillance of COVID-19 Case Rates: Analysis of Search-Engine Query Patterns (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry C Cousins ◽  
Clara C Cousins ◽  
Alon Harris ◽  
Louis R Pasquale
Keyword(s):  
Search Engine ◽  
Explanatory Variable ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
National Level ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Significance Level ◽  
Case Rate ◽  
Query Patterns

BACKGROUND Timely allocation of medical resources for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) requires early detection of regional outbreaks. Internet browsing data may predict case outbreaks in local populations that are yet to be confirmed. OBJECTIVE We investigated whether search-engine query patterns can help to predict COVID-19 case rates at the state and metropolitan area levels in the United States. METHODS We used regional confirmed case data from the New York Times and Google Trends results from 50 states and 166 county-based designated market areas (DMA). We identified search terms whose activity precedes and correlates with confirmed case rates at the national level. We used univariate regression to construct a composite explanatory variable based on best-fitting search queries offset by temporal lags. We measured the raw and z-transformed Pearson correlation and root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the explanatory variable with out-of-sample case rate data at the state and DMA levels. RESULTS Predictions were highly correlated with confirmed case rates at the state (mean <i>r</i>=0.69, 95% CI 0.51-0.81; median RMSE 1.27, IQR 1.48) and DMA levels (mean <i>r</i>=0.51, 95% CI 0.39-0.61; median RMSE 4.38, IQR 1.80), using search data available up to 10 days prior to confirmed case rates. They fit case-rate activity in 49 of 50 states and in 103 of 166 DMA at a significance level of .05. CONCLUSIONS Identifiable patterns in search query activity may help to predict emerging regional outbreaks of COVID-19, although they remain vulnerable to stochastic changes in search intensity.

Perceptual basemaps reloaded: The role basemaps play in eliciting perceptions

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-166
Author(s):  
Paulina Bounds ◽  
Charles J. Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Striking Difference ◽  
Perceptual Dialectology ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Perceptual Maps

This article describes the influence of various basemaps in Perceptual Dialectology, on the national and state levels. The 180 perceptual maps of the United States and Tennessee were divided into six types of basemaps; tabulated results show that basemaps play a different role on the national and state level. On the national level, basemaps that have features reminiscent of boundaries (state lines or interstates) bias the respondents’ answers. On the state level, on the other hand, the map features do not seem to influence the results in any discernible way: at times the informants seemingly go against the details present on the basemap. This striking difference indicates that, though the respondents rely on basemap details at the national level, where they may not have enough experience with the whole country, they don’t pay much attention to the state-level basemap details as they follow their own more detailed ideas about perceptions.

Distance Education and the Role of the State: A Sweden/USA Perspective

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Hansson ◽  
Paul Mihailidis ◽  
Carl Holmberg
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Distance Education ◽  
Federal Policy ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
State And Local

This study aims to comparatively explore the role of the state (federal policy) in distance-education initiatives in the higher education communities of Sweden and the United States. In a globalized context, education institutes now have the capabilities to provide education and educational resources more efficiently and to a wide-ranging and diverse audience. Within the education sector and distance education, the role of the state and federal policy becomes increasingly important, in terms of how distance-education platforms are developed and implemented in institutions of higher education. The first section of this article provides an overview of the United States and Sweden's current higher education and distance-education landscapes, focusing on the role of the state and federal policy with respect to the funding and overall aims of distance education. The development of distance education in Sweden is highly related to political goals and policies, the top down/domestic/‘inside’ approach. The governing body dictates the funding and policy for distance education, and implementation is left to the university body. In the United States, the landscape differs in that no one federal institution provides direct funding or unified guidelines for developing distance education, but universities are left to their own devices and capabilities for implementation. In Sweden, high ambitions and goals are set at the national level, but the educational organizations are changing only slowly. The pressures on the education organizations are high because of steadily decreasing funding and fewer and fewer staff in relation to students. In the United States, education functions primarily as a state and local responsibility. In conclusion, the article aims to exploit the differences between the two countries' role of the state (federal policy) in distance-education policy, and present a middle ground which would be most balanced for distance education, entailing some federal supervision with the allowance for a certain level of autonomy in regards to development, implementation, funding and longevity.

Liberals Possess More National Consensus on Political Attitudes in the United States: An Examination Across 40 Years

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 935-943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ondish ◽  
Chadly Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
National Level ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Nationally Representative

Do liberals or conservatives have more agreement in their political attitudes? Recent research indicates that conservatives may have more like-minded social groups than do liberals, but whether conservatives have more consensus on a broad, national level remains an open question. Using two nationally representative data sets (the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies), we examined the attitudes of over 80,000 people on more than 400 political issues (e.g., attitudes toward welfare, gun control, same-sex marriage) across approximately 40 years. In both data sets, we found that liberals possessed a larger degree of agreement in their political attitudes than did conservatives. Additionally, both liberals and conservatives possessed more consensus than did political moderates. These results indicate that social–cognitive motivations for building similarity and consensus within one’s self-created social groups may also yield less consensus on a broad, national level. We discuss implications for effective political mobilization and social change.

Mapping Influence: Partisan Networks across the United States, 2000 to 2016

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Reuning
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Critical Component ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
State Party ◽  
Over Time

The parties as networks approach has become a critical component of understanding American political parties. Research on it has so far mainly focused on variation in the placement of candidates within a network at the national level. This is in part due to a lack of data on state-level party networks. In this article, I fill that gap by developing state party networks for 47 states from 2000 to 2016 using candidate donation data. To do this, I introduce a backboning network analysis method not yet used in political science to infer relationships among donors at the state level. Finally, I validate these state networks and then show how parties have varied across states and over time. The networks developed here will be made publicly available for future research. Being able to quantify variation in party network structure will be important for understanding variation in party–policy linkages at the state level.

Medigap: Should Private Insurers Pay Public Rates and Who Should Make the Decision?

2004 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
Edwin Caldie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Healthcare Cost ◽  
Healthcare Costs ◽  
Cost Allocation ◽  
Senior Citizens ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Allocation Policy ◽  
Simple Question

The most complex issues in the field of healthcare policy can often be reduced to the simple question “who is going to pay?” Legislatures, whether at the state or national level, are generally the entity responsible for allocating healthcare costs. When a legislative body acts to allocate healthcare costs, it simultaneously amends a society-wide, interwoven web of regulation and incentives that is steeped in decades of tradition. Further, and perhaps more importantly, healthcare cost allocation affects each individual in our society on an intimate level. Medicare is one of the most controversial elements in this grand scheme of cost allocation policy.Medicare serves approximately 37 million senior citizens in the United States. Of course, Medicare benefits are limited. With minor exceptions, Medicare fully covers only the first ninety days of hospitalization for an eligible citizen. After such period, a Medicare-eligible citizen may draw upon a non-renewable lifetime reserve, which provides Medicare hospitalization coverage for an additional sixty days.

Dance in America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Van Dyke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Equity ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
Financial Security ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Concert Dance

A variety of data show that men now lead the concert dance field in the United States. Not only do they receive jobs as performers and choreographers out of proportion to their representation as dance students, they also more readily achieve acclaim and financial security. Men stand out among dance artists because there is a paucity of them, giving them a professional advantage. This chapter examines funding at the state and national level, including Guggenheim Fellowships, MacArthur Grants, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships to see to whom funding goes. Various awards are also scrutinized for gender equity, including the Dance Magazine Award, Capezio Dance Award, Kennedy Center Honors Award, and the National Medal of the Arts. In addition, teaching and choreographing opportunities for men and women are compared.

scholarly journals Regional Infoveillance of COVID-19 Case Rates: Analysis of Search-Engine Query Patterns

10.2196/19483 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. e19483
Author(s):  
Henry C Cousins ◽  
Clara C Cousins ◽  
Alon Harris ◽  
Louis R Pasquale
Keyword(s):  
Search Engine ◽  
Explanatory Variable ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
National Level ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Significance Level ◽  
Case Rate ◽  
Query Patterns

Background Timely allocation of medical resources for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) requires early detection of regional outbreaks. Internet browsing data may predict case outbreaks in local populations that are yet to be confirmed. Objective We investigated whether search-engine query patterns can help to predict COVID-19 case rates at the state and metropolitan area levels in the United States. Methods We used regional confirmed case data from the New York Times and Google Trends results from 50 states and 166 county-based designated market areas (DMA). We identified search terms whose activity precedes and correlates with confirmed case rates at the national level. We used univariate regression to construct a composite explanatory variable based on best-fitting search queries offset by temporal lags. We measured the raw and z-transformed Pearson correlation and root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the explanatory variable with out-of-sample case rate data at the state and DMA levels. Results Predictions were highly correlated with confirmed case rates at the state (mean r=0.69, 95% CI 0.51-0.81; median RMSE 1.27, IQR 1.48) and DMA levels (mean r=0.51, 95% CI 0.39-0.61; median RMSE 4.38, IQR 1.80), using search data available up to 10 days prior to confirmed case rates. They fit case-rate activity in 49 of 50 states and in 103 of 166 DMA at a significance level of .05. Conclusions Identifiable patterns in search query activity may help to predict emerging regional outbreaks of COVID-19, although they remain vulnerable to stochastic changes in search intensity.

What can sociologists of globalization and development learn from Nicos Poulantzas?

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 284-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason C. Mueller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Social Relation ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation States

Several decades ago scholars studying the state, political economy, and power relations were obliged to engage with the ideas of Nicos Poulantzas. Today, his ideas are hard to find in most sociological theorizing—particularly in the United States. This trend is unfortunate, but not unavoidable. This article proposes that we reconsider the insights of Poulantzas as well as the growing community of scholars building a neo-Poulantzasian approach for studies on international politics, economics, and the state. I discuss Poulantzas’s prescient but often neglected work on the internationalization of capital and nation-states, along with his theoretical approach to studying the state as a social relation. After highlighting their significance I focus on several neo-Poulantzasian analytical concepts that have extended his insights in creative ways. I argue that Poulantzas and contemporary neo-Poulantzasians offer ideas that are ripe for exploration, elaboration, and incorporation into multiple burgeoning and interrelated areas of inquiry for sociology and beyond. These include studies on the political-economy of development, studies on internationalization and its effect on national-level governance, and studies of the state in the (semi-) periphery. If successful, this article will provoke scholars to engage in innovative transdisciplinary research grounded in the unique and underexplored theories of Nicos Poulantzas.

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