New IPR Working Papers

Fall, 2009, Volume 31, Number 1

Urban Policy and Community Development

Does Changing Neighborhoods Change Lives? The Chicago Gautreaux Housing Program and
Recent Mobility Programs (WP-09-01)
James Rosenbaum, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University; and Stefanie DeLuca, Johns Hopkins University

Many policy reforms try to improve education or employment while individuals remain in the same locations—and often fail. Such policies might be fighting an uphill battle as long as individuals live in the same social contexts. Findings from Chicago’s Gautreaux Program suggest that residential mobility is a possible lever. By moving into more advantaged neighborhoods, with higher quality schools and better labor markets, mothers had improved employment, and children had access to better educational settings and jobs. However, a subsequent mobility program (MTO) was conducted with a randomized field trial, and child and family outcomes were more mixed. Rosenbaum and DeLuca speculate about what kinds of moves and social settings are required to effect improved economic and social outcomes.

Politics, Institutions, and Public Policy

Diversified Policy Choice with Partial Knowledge of Policy Effectiveness (WP-09-02)
Charles F. Manski, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University

An important objective of policy research is to provide information useful in choosing new policies. Consider a planner who must choose treatments for members of a population.  A standard exercise specifies a set of feasible treatment policies and a welfare function. The planner is presumed to know how persons respond to treatment. Unfortunately, available research typically yields only partial knowledge of treatment response, so planners cannot determine optimal policies. This paper explains why research typically provides only part of the knowledge needed to choose optimal policies, as well as how planners can cope with ambiguity and make reasonable policy choices with the knowledge available. Manski also discusses how we can reduce ambiguity, enabling better policy choices.

Framing, Motivated Reasoning, and Opinions About Emergent Technologies (WP-09-03)
James Druckman, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University; and Toby Bolsen, Graduate Student, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University

To understand how individuals form opinions about new technologies and the role of factual information in that process, the authors incorporate two critical dynamics typically ignored in extant work: competition between information and over-time processes. They present results from experiments with carbon nanotubes and genetically modified foods, showing that factual information is of limited utility: It does not have a greater impact than other background factors, it adds little power to newly provided arguments/frames, and it is perceived in biased ways once individuals form clear initial opinions. Their findings provide insight into how individuals form opinions, over time, when presented with novel technologies and also bring together various distinct literatures, including work on information, framing, and motivated reasoning.

Students as Experimental Participants: A Defense of the “Narrow Data Base” (WP-09-05)
James Druckman, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University; and Cindy Kam, Vanderbilt University

In contrast to common claims—including David Sear’s widely cited proclamation that students are a “narrow data base”—the authors argue that student subjects do not intrinsically pose a problem for a study’s external validity. They use simulations to identify situations when student subjects are likely to constrain experimental inferences and briefly survey empirical evidence that provides guidance on when researchers should be particularly attuned to taking steps to ensure appropriate generalizability from student subjects.  They conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of their findings, and a call for the burden of proof—of student subjects being a problem—to rest with critics rather than experimenters.

Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative on Congressional Campaign Web Sites, 2002–2006 (WP-09-06)
James Druckman, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University; Martin Kifer, Mathematica Policy Research; and Michael Parkin, Oberlin College

The World Wide Web is now a standard part of candidates’ campaign tool kits, with frequent visits by voters and journalists. In this paper, Druckman and his co-authors look at one of the most enduring and widely debated campaign strategies: “going negative.” Comparing campaign Web sites from more than 700 congressional candidates over three election cycles (2002, 2004, and 2006) with television advertising data, they show that candidates go negative with similar likelihoods across these media. While similar dynamics drive negativity on the Web and in television advertising, some notable differences likely stem, in part, from the fact that many candidates do not produce television ads.

Issue Engagement on Congressional Candidate Web Sites, 2002–2006 (WP-09-07)
James Druckman, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University; Cari Hennessey, Graduate Student, Northwestern University; Martin Kifer, Mathematica Policy Research; and Michael Parkin, Oberlin College

When candidates engage in robust policy debate, it gives citizens clear choices on issues that matter. Previous studies of issue engagement have primarily used indicators of campaign strategy that are mediated by reporters (e.g., newspaper articles) or indicators that might exclude candidates in less competitive races (e.g., television ads). In this study, issue engagement is examined through congressional candidates’ Web sites, which are unmediated and representative of both House and Senate campaigns.  The authors find that the saliency of issues in public opinion is a primary determinant of candidate engagement. Despite the Internet’s unique capacity to allow a greater number of issues, candidates continue to behave strategically, selecting only a few issues on which to engage their adversaries.

Education Policy

Coupling Administrative Practice with the Technical Core and External Regulation:
The Role of Organizational Routines (WP-09-04)
James Spillane, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University; Leigh Mesler, Graduate Student, Northwestern University; Christiana Croegaert, Mount Holyoke College; and Jennifer Zoltners Sherer, University of Pittsburgh

The institutional environment of America’s schools has changed substantially over the past few decades. Government regulation has focused increasingly on schools’ “technical core”—classroom instruction. In this paper, Spillane and his co-authors examine administrative response to government efforts to regulate the technical core. School leaders espouse theories that suggest their newly designed organizational routines were intended to couple the administrative with both the external environment and the technical core. Results show that school policy and classroom instruction featured prominently, if selectively, in the performance of organizational routines.

Public Sector Performance Measurement and Stakeholder Support (WP-09-08)
David Figlio, Institute for Policy Research/Northwestern University; and Lawrence Kenny, University of Florida

This paper provides the first evidence of stakeholder financial reactions to changes in performance measurements in the education sector. The authors use rich, population-based survey data to measure changes in school contributions after a major exogenous change to Florida’s school grading system in 2002. They find that schools with low grades (“D” and especially “F”) receive substantially fewer donations, especially in relatively low-income schools and those with small gifted populations. This negative reaction is present regardless of whether students have become eligible for school vouchers because of the poor grade. Similar to findings from social psychology and marketing, the results seem to reflect a general aversion to “throwing good money after bad.” (See related article on p. 4.)

These and other IPR working papers are available to download free of charge from www.northwestern.edu/ipr/publications/workingpapers.