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This paper studies the benefits of staggered wage setting in reducing strategic conflicts. It is shown that when wage setters interact strategically and dynamically, they prefer moving alternatingly, because by doing so, they are able to commit temporarily not to offset the effects of each other's action. It is also shown that synchronisation represents a better arrangement when agents are able to coordinate. These results are consistent with the presence of non-synchronous and decentralised wage decisions in the United States and the United Kingdom and the presence of synchronous bargaining (in Shunto) and coordination in wage determination in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread through the United States in 2020, states began to set up alert systems to inform policy decisions and serve as risk communication tools for the general public. Many of these systems included indicators based on an assessment of trends in numbers of reported cases. However, when cases are indexed by date of disease onset, reporting delays complicate the interpretation of trends. Despite a foundation of statistical literature with which to address this problem, these methods have not been widely applied in practice. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian spatiotemporal nowcasting model for assessing trends in county-level COVID-19 cases in Ohio. We compare the performance of our model with the approach used in Ohio and the approach included in decision support materials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We demonstrate gains in performance while still retaining interpretability using our model. In addition, we are able to fully account for uncertainty in both the time series of cases and the reporting process. While we cannot eliminate all of the uncertainty in public health surveillance and subsequent decision-making, we must use approaches that embrace these challenges and deliver more accurate and honest assessments to policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In weighing the question of whether AJE should accept preprints that have received press coverage, we need to keep in mind 3 sets of interests: the public interest, the publisher's interest, and the author's interest. During public health emergencies, such as a pandemic, the author's interests (rapid communication of scientific findings to the public) are aligned with the public interest (learning about life-saving information as early as possible). However, the interests of different parties are not always aligned. In most cases, preprinted articles do not concern matters of life or death. Widespread dissemination of studies via preprint services conflicts with the journal editor's interest in delivering fresh, original content. Dissemination of study results prior to peer review can occasionally backfire and cause unintended harm if the findings turn out to be false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of statistics to litigation and regulatory matters has become increasingly important over the last four decades. The presentation of statistical arguments to lay decision makers in an adversarial climate has introduced special, if not unique, practical and ethical issues. These were addressed by statisticians J. L. Gastwirth and J. B. Kadane, and by attorney S. L. Willborn in an American Statistical Association Invited Session chaired by the author during the 2004 Joint Statistical Meetings in Toronto. The papers that follow were prepared to summarize their remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workplace decision-making is shaped by institutionally delimited and individually appropriated logics of action. Since 1997, when President Clinton issued a White House directive that protected religious expression in the workplace, religious rhetoric and symbolism have played a more significant role in the semiotic codes through which these logics are expressed. While a growing literature has attended to the interplay between the domains of faith and work, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways elite actors negotiate the sometimes competing demands of religious convictions and workplace responsibilities. In this paper, we examine how evangelicals in positions of public leadership account for the role of faith in workplace decision-making. On the basis of our analysis of interview transcripts of 360 national leaders, we construct a taxonomy of dispositions toward faith at work along two primary axes—the expression of faith in workplace decision-making and the reception of it in various situations or by particular reference groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the theoretical and empirical implications of monetary policy making by committee under four different voting protocols. The protocols are a consensus model, where a supermajority is required for a policy change; an agenda-setting model, where the chairman controls the agenda; a dictator model, where the chairman has absolute power over the committee; and a simple majority model, where policy is determined by the median member. These protocols give preeminence to different aspects of the actual decision-making process and capture the observed heterogeneity in formal procedures across central banks. The models are estimated by maximum likelihood using interest rate decisions by the committees of five central banks, namely the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Swedish Riksbank, and the U.S. Federal Reserve. For all central banks, results indicate that the consensus model fits actual policy decisions better than the alternative models. This suggests that despite institutional differences, committees share unwritten rules and informal procedures that deliver observationally equivalent policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the sources for regulatory delay in bureaucratic decision making, testing regulatory capture, congressional dominance, and bureaucratic discretion theories of agency behavior. The empirical context concerns relicenses issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for hydroelectric dams, which have taken anywhere from just ten months to over sixteen years to be issued. The reasons for this heterogeneity in regulatory processing times can be expected to be varied and numerous and indeed we find evidence that outside interest groups, the legislature, and bureaucratic discretion are all significant in affecting regulatory processing times. Our most intriguing results concern the effects of environmental interest groups, which, despite their apparent benefit/cost motivation to hasten the relicensing process (independent of relicensing outcomes), overall end up slowing it down. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes voting in five 1982 elections in which women ran as major party candidates for high-level offices: Governor in Vermont and Iowa; and U.S. Senator in Missouri, New York, and New Jersey. Results indicate that the sex of the candidate generally has little impact on voting and that solid women candidates can attract cross-over votes, while weaker ones can lose them. The implications of these results are discussed in the concluding section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defaults often have a large influence on consumer decisions. We identify an overlooked but practical alternative to defaults: requiring individuals to make explicit choices for themselves. We study such "active decisions" in the context of 401(k) saving. We find that compelling new hires to make active decisions about 401(k) enrollment raises the initial fraction that enroll by 28 percentage points relative to a standard opt-in enrollment procedure, producing a savings distribution three months after hire that would take thirty months to achieve under standard enrollment. We also present a model of 401(k) enrollment and derive conditions under which the optimal enrollment regime is automatic enrollment (i.e., default enrollment), standard enrollment (i.e., default nonenrollment), or active decisions (i.e., no default and compulsory choice). Active decisions are optimal when consumers have a strong propensity to procrastinate and savings preferences are highly heterogeneous. Financial illiteracy, however, favors default enrollment over active decision enrollment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses issues over the consequences of the decision making of the Supreme Court regarding the administration of criminal justice for southern Afro-Americans in the U.S. from the 1930s to the 1940s. Analysis on the criminal procedure decisions of the Supreme Court; Link between the birth of constitutional law of criminal procedure and southern Afro-American defendants; Details of Supreme Court cases on the administration of criminal justice to Afro-Americans.

Background: Patient participation in clinical trials is vital for knowledge advancement and outcomes improvement. Few adult cancer patients participate in trials. Although patient.decision-making about trial participation has been frequently examined, the participation rate for patients actually offered a trial is unknown.Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis using 3 major search engines was undertaken. We identified studies from January 1, 2000, to January 1, 2020, that examined clinical trial participation in the United States. Studies must have specified the numbers of patients offered a trial and the number enrolled. A random effects model of proportions was used. All statistical tests were 2-sided.Results: We identified 35 studies (30 about treatment trials and 5 about cancer control trials) among which 9759 patients were offered trial participation. Overall, 55.0% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 49.4% to 60.5%) of patients agreed to enroll. Participation rates did not differ between treatment (55.0%, 95% CI = 48.9% to 60.9%) and cancer control trials (55.3%, 95% CI = 38.9% to 71.1%; P = .98). Black patients participated at similar rates (58.4%, 95% CI = 46.8% to 69.7%) compared with White patients (55.1%, 95% CI = 44.3% to 65.6%; P = .88). The main reasons for nonparticipation were treatment choice or lack of interest.Conclusions: More than half of all cancer patients offered a clinical trial do participate. These findings upend several conventional beliefs about cancer clinical trial participation, including that Black patients are less likely to agree to participate and that patient decision-making is the primary barrier to participation. Policies and interventions to improve clinical trial participation should focus more on modifiable systemic structural and clinical barriers, such as improving access to available trials and broadening eligibility criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 30 years of social and political pressure to diversify corporate personnel and management teams has resulted in mere black managers but neglible gain for African American men in powerful decision- making jobs in corporate America. Against this backdrop, this paper asks if constraints on blacks' corporate progress are manufactured in the work process. Using in-depth career interviews with 76 black executives, I argue that the ability to achieve top jobs is shaped by a link between opportunity structure and human capital. The structure of black managerial achievement erodes black skills over time because of role constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and tests a fuzzy multi-criteria model of arms transfer decision-making. The model is adapted to SIPRI's three main arms export patterns—hegemonic, industrial, and restrictive—and tested for its ability to predict the arms transfer strategies of the United States, France, and West Germany for importers of the Third World during the years 1950-1976. Ninety strategies are predicted, with an overall success rate of 87%. The model outperforms several naive models (including an autoregressive model) and an expected-utility model. The multi-criteria versus expected-utility tests center on the U.S.'s hegemonic pattern and indicate that the strategies chosen by the U.S. for importers of Central America were guided by geostrategic and regional stability considerations. Other analyses reveal that the differences between the success rates of the multi-criteria submodels (one submodel per exporter) are not statistically significant and that the best predictor for an exporter is the submodel prepared specifically for that exporter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a teaching method that examines the words of former President Abraham Lincoln in order to reconstruct his attitude on African-Americans, and the influence of orator Frederick Douglass on Lincoln's slavery emancipation in the U.S. It highlights Douglass's critical role on Lincoln's decision-making regarding emancipation and how they respected each other's point of view. In interpreting this relationship, students can gain perception into their mutual influences on each man's perspectives of the issues facing African-Americans during war and the early days of reconstruction. National standards, time frames, objectives, backgrounds and procedures of the lesson are also presented.

This article presents a model of optimal control of corporate boards of directors. We determine when one would expect inside versus outside directors to control the board, when the controlling party will delegate decision-making to the other party, the extent of communication between the parties, and the number of outside directors. We show that shareholders can sometimes be better off with an insider-controlled board. We derive endogenous relationships among profits, board control, and the number of outside directors that call into question the usual interpretation of some documented empirical regularities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recorded music is a multibillion dollar Industry, yet little consumer research has addressed the decision-making process behind Its purchase. This study examined the responses new rock music creates in the listener and how those responses influenced the intention to later buy the music. Experimental findings revealed that the sensorial, emotional, imaginal, and analytical responses to music all had direct effects on the affective and experimential responses, which in turn influenced purchase intention. The strongest indicator of purchase intention was the need to reexperience the music. Liking the music (e.g., affective response) was not as strong an indicator of purchase intention as was the experimental response, which measures the music's ability to create an absorbing experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although colonial Americans had long valued frugality and had limited their consumption, actual demand for material comforts and imported consumer goods grew vigorously during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The nonimportation movement, primarily a politically motivated boycott of British manufactures intended to force repeal of distasteful tax laws, also reaffirmed traditional values and attempted to improve the image of products made in America. Following a discussion of the colonial market and nonimportation, this article examines conflicts between old values backed by patriotic appeals and emerging buyer preferences. The concluding section draws a few implications for understanding present-day consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the author's view on whether consumers can calculate best buys. According to the author, a number of studies have found only a limited incidence of the ability to reason proportionately. Though subjects in these studies were still in their teens, little further development would be probable with their advancement into adulthood. A discussion is presented about the differences between teens' and adult's reasoning abilities and how it affects their consumption habits and buying decisions..

Background: Engaging patients across the research trajectory supports research that is generalizable, high quality, timely and actionable. However, this approach comes with challenges and opportunities as investigators and engaged patient stakeholders encounter institutional policies around patient engagement, privacy and research participant protection.Objective: To describe the resolution and impact of quandaries arising when patient stakeholders' values and preferences conflicted with institutional policies.Methods: Case study from a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute-funded trial.Results: The first example focuses on the tension between the health care organization's requirements for background checks for all patient advisors and the funders' requirement to engage hard-to-reach populations. To create an environment of mutual trust and respect with patient stakeholders, the research team decided against imposing background checks. All 53 patient and parent advisors have served continuously for 2 years and meeting attendance exceeds 95%. The second example describes parent stakeholders' role in revising a letter informing patients about a privacy violation. Among 49 families affected by and informed about this violation, 35 (71%) agreed to participate. The third example focuses on how patient stakeholder preferences about study reminders conflict with the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act rules. While patient stakeholders strongly endorsed text message reminders, regulations and technology do not permit reminders with enough detail to ensure clarity. Although retention rates exceeded 90%, attendance at study appointments was below 75% and below 60% for minority and low socio-economic status families.Conclusion: Patient engagement positively impacts research. Resolving conflicts between patient-engaged research and existing institutional policies and regulations would allow this impact to become fully realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: patient empowerment, through which patients become self-determining agents with some control over their health and healthcare, is a common theme across health policies globally. Most care for older people is in the acute setting, but there is little evidence to inform the delivery of empowering hospital care. Objective: we aimed to explore challenges to and facilitators of empowerment among older people with advanced disease in hospital, and the impact of palliative care. Methods: we conducted an ethnography in six hospitals in England, Ireland and the USA. The ethnography involved: interviews with patients aged ≥65, informal caregivers, specialist palliative care (SPC) staff and other clinicians who cared for older adults with advanced disease, and fieldwork. Data were analysed using directed thematic analysis. Results: analysis of 91 interviews and 340 h of observational data revealed substantial challenges to empowerment: poor communication and information provision, combined with routinised and fragmented inpatient care, restricted patients' self-efficacy, self-management, choice and decision-making. Information and knowledge were often necessary for empowerment, but not sufficient: empowerment depended on patient-centredness being enacted at an organisational and staff level. SPC facilitated empowerment by prioritising patient-centred care, tailored communication and information provision, and the support of other clinicians. Conclusions: empowering older people in the acute setting requires changes throughout the health system. Facilitators of empowerment include excellent staff-patient communication, patient-centred, relational care, an organisational focus on patient experience rather than throughput, and appropriate access to SPC. Findings have relevance for many high- and middle-income countries with a growing population of older patients with advanced disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The validity of survey research has been challenged by an alarming increase in nonresponse rates over the past four decades. In reaction to the public's increasing reluctance to participate in surveys, scholars have focused on the reasons for, and consequences of, nonresponse. However, children's participation in research is a neglected area of study. We address this gap in the literature by examining parental consent to allow their children to participate in the Youth Development Study (YDS), an ongoing, multigenerational, longitudinal study. Of 411 parents contacted, 277 (67 percent) provided active consent. By estimating a population average model with GEE, we find evidence that the context of recruitment--whether the parent is being approached for the first time, how the parent responded to prior child recruitment efforts, and the provision of a monetary incentive--influences the consent decision. The parent's relationship to the child (biological vs. stepparent orother), participation in family decision-making, and history of participation in YDS surveys are also associated with consent. This research contributes to our understanding of parental consent and indicates the need for further theoretical and empirical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: We aimed to describe the sources from which youth in the USA commonly obtain alcohol, their role in selecting the brands they drink and the relationship of these variables to their indicated alcohol brand preferences. Methods: We recruited 1031 underage drinkers in the age range of 13–20 through an internet panel managed by Knowledge Networks. Respondents completed an online survey assessing their recent brand-specific alcohol use, the source of their most recently consumed alcohol and whether the respondent or another person selected the brand they drank. Results: Alcohol sources were more often passive than transactional. Nearly equal proportions of youth reported that they did versus did not choose the brand of their most recent drink. Analysis revealed that the brand preferences of passive versus active source drinkers were highly similar, as were the brand preferences of respondent versus non-respondent choice drinkers. Stratification of respondents by age did not significantly change these results. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that youth are consuming a homogenous list of preferred brands regardless of the source of their most recently obtained alcohol or who selected the brand they drank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Concern about the effects of alcohol and drug use during pregnancy is intertwined with debates about abortion. There is concern that alcohol abstinence recommendations lead women using low levels of alcohol to terminate otherwise wanted pregnancies. This study examines how women describe alcohol, tobacco and/or drug use (ATOD) as reasons for deciding to have abortions and assesses the differences between women reporting and not reporting ATOD as reasons for deciding to have an abortion. Methods: Data come from the UCSF Turnaway Study which recruited 956 women seeking an abortion at one of 30 US clinics between 2008 and 2010. Mixed methods were used and data were analyzed through thematic coding and logistic regression. Results: Nearly 5% reported ATOD as a reason for abortion. Women worried that their ATOD had affected their baby's health and that their or their partner's ATOD would influence parenting. Most women (84%) who reported alcohol as a reason binge drank or had an alcohol-problem symptom in the month before discovering their pregnancy. Sixty-one percent who reported drugs as a reason used drugs, with 88% using more than once/week. Although two-thirds smoked tobacco, no woman reported tobacco alone as a reason. Ninety-eight percent of women reporting ATOD as a reason had unintended pregnancies. Conclusion: Women reporting ATOD as a reason drink at levels exceeding a low threshold and do not appear to be terminating otherwise wanted pregnancies. Thus, findings are inconsistent with hypotheses that abstinence recommendations and punitive policies lead women using low levels of alcohol or using drugs to terminate otherwise wanted pregnancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article considers the judicial penchant for formula-based decision making, evident in all fields of law. My analysis is based on a distinction between legal constructs, doctrines, or rules on the one hand, and formulas, tests and criteria designed as tools for the application of such constructs on the other hand. Further, I focus on the strategic and political aspects of formulas. The design and retention of a formula can be strategically motivated, as formulas have a distancing effect, enabling judges to make substantive decisions under a facade of objectivity. The judicial replacement of an operating formula can operate a signaling device; by transforming a legal formula, the judge proclaims to all available audiences that the revolution is of such proportions that it requires a rethinking of previous modes of reasoning. The Article also identifies a possible link between the longevity of a formula in public law and the well-being of the constitutional ethos of the legal system in which the formula has evolved. These aspects are considered in the context of the formulas used to apply the political question I justiciability doctrine, a doctrine directly linked to perceptions of the role of the judiciary in the public decision-making sphere. The analysis of the life of justiciability formulas in the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom offers insights into the interface between law and politics, inherent to public law, and serves to emphasize the utility of the study of legal form as an aid to normative study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study from the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory which examines the influence of federal advisory committees on the decision of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve or not the pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices for marketing in the U.S. The influence of committee advice on FDA decision making were estimated by the researchers using the 1997-2006 drug and device approval data. The study finds out that there is an increase in the probability of FDA approval due to increase in the proportion of committee members who vote for drug approval. The study also notes that the increase in the proportion of committee members voting for approval lessens the time it takes for the FDA to agree a drug or device application after consultation.

Lindblom's 1959 article on incrementalism is one of the most cited works in social science. This article examines and probes five of the theory's basic, underlying assumptions in light of current empirical and theoretical approaches. The five assumptions are: (1) the limited nature of rationality and the weak powers of human cognition, (2) the emphasis on practical reason and applied knowledge, (3) partisan mutual adjustment conceived as interactions and conflicts among singular, distinct, and disconnected entities, (4) policy decisions made incrementally can be remediated and reversed, and (5) the United States political system is taken as the model for incremental politics. In our assessment, incrementalism holds up quite well with more recent thinking on public policy process with respect to the first and second assumptions. The third assumption has been confronted by new work on networks. The fourth has been challenged by theories on path dependency. The fifth assumption betrayed a national focus and strong value consensus -- globalization and "culture wars" have rendered it untenable. The article therefore gives only qualified support for the continued relevance of incrementalism as a theory of the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hartley, T. W., and Glass, C. 2010. Science-to-management pathways in US Atlantic herring management: using governance network structure and function to track information flow and potential influence. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 67: 1154–1163.Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) are crucial members of the ecosystem and economy of the Northwest Atlantic, and a challenging species for management, which in the United States is a multistakeholder process, involving commercial and recreational fishing interests, conservation organizations, state and federal governments, and other interested parties. Given the large number of stakeholders, fisheries management has been conceptualized as a governance network, through which multiple parties access the decision-making process and seek to influence the process or outcome. Network analysis is employed to assess the access pathways for scientific information, i.e. collaborative acoustic-survey data, into stock-assessment decisions and the development process for the fisheries management plan. The governance network map was constructed for US Atlantic herring management in 2006 and 2007. The pathways of information flow in the network showed that participants in the collaborative acoustic survey were well connected to the stock-assessment and fisheries-management processes and decision-makers, particularly through key individuals bridging between the industry, science, and management communities. Heavy reliance on those individuals serving a bridging role made the network connectivity vulnerable, however. The network structure also demonstrated significant influence potential for acoustic-survey information. Ramifications for science-to-management pathways in fisheries are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article evaluates the impact that states have on local governance decisions. We suggest that when states impose constraints on less politically costly tools for funding local services cities turn to cooperation with other local governments. Cooperation is politically and administratively less desirable than other solutions to the problems associated with fragmentation: diseconomies of scale and jurisdictional externalities. But when states constrain those other mechanisms, the relative merits of cooperation increase. At the margins, more cities should cooperate and cooperate more deeply in such situations. Using a sample of 3,664 cities across 49 states, we find that in three examples of these policy tool tradeoffs, our theory is generally supported. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the political consequences of contracting out by the U.S. government. It contends the negative influence of contractors in the decision making of government agencies. It theorizes that contracting out increases the efforts of lobbying the administrative state. Furthermore, it also discovers the frequent interaction of the organized interests and government managers during the contracting period.

Is the belief in divine control associated with the generalized sense of personal control? Using data from a 2005 nationally representative survey of 1, 800 adults in the United States, I test two competing views: the relinquished control versus the personal empowerment hypotheses. Results support the relinquished control hypothesis. Individuals who believe in divine control tend to report significantly lower levels of personal control--but that association is contingent upon other dimensions of the religious role. Specifically, I observe a significantly stronger negative association between belief in divine control and personal control among individuals who report lower levels of subjective religiosity and less frequent praying and attendance activities. Moreover, the interrelationships among these four dimensions of the religious role reveal important suppression effects in their influence on personal control. I discuss the ways that these observations contribute to theoretical views about the complex interactions among religious precepts, practices, and generalized expectancies of personal control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some committees are made up of experts, persons who care both about the matter at hand and about coming across as able decision makers. We show that such committees would like to conceal disagreement from the public. That is, once the decision has been reached, they show a united front to the outside world. Also, if such committees are required to become transparent. for example, by publishing verbatim transcripts of their meetings, members will organize premeetings away from the public eye. A large part of the article is dedicated to a case study of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee in the United States. It provides suggestive evidence supporting our theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most manufactured goods entail the involvement of three parties, a manufacturer, an intermediary and a customer. Usually, the manufacturer warranties his/her product against defects to the intermediary, who in turn extends this warranty to the customer. Here, we consider the manufacturer's warranty to the intermediary providing the free replenishment of failed items within a specific period. Specifically, we focus on the matter of how manufacturer and intermediary arrive upon a unit price per item that the manufacturer can levy against the intermediary. First, we discuss two equitable scenarios; one in which both manufacturer and intermediary strive for fairness with a common probability distribution about the number of unit failures within a prescribed warranty period, and the other wherein manufacturer and intermediary have different distributions, but they arrive upon a consensus by a process of co-operation. Then, we discuss the adversarial scenario wherein each strives to maximize his/her expected utility without knowledge of the other's utilities and without using a common distribution. This latter scenario is perhaps the more realistic one, in the sense of what is done in practice. However, a discussion of the equitable scenario may be useful in matters of litigation pertaining to warranty claims and violations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses how the institutional context of decision making on three-judge panels of the federal Court of Appeals affects the impact that gender and race have on judicial decisions. Our central question is whether and how racial minority and women judges influence legal policy on issues thought to be of particular concern to women and minorities when serving on appellate panels which decide cases by majority rule. Proper analysis of this question requires investigating whether women and minority judges influence the decisions of other panel members. We find that the norm of unanimity on panels grants women influence over outcomes even when they are outnumbered on a panel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legal basis of informed consent in Texas may on first examination suggest an unqualified affirmation of persons as the source of authority over themselves. This view of individuals in the practice of informed consent tends to present persons outside of any social context in general and outside of their families in particular. The actual functioning of law and medical practice in Texas, however, is far more complex. This study begins with a brief overview of the roots ot Texas law and public policy regarding informed consent. This surface account is then contrasted with examples drawn from the actual functioning of Texas law: Texas legislation regarding out-of-hospital do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders. As a default approach to medical decision-making when patients lose decisional capacity and have failed to appoint a formal proxy or establish their wishes, this law establishes a defeasible presumption in favor of what the law characterizes as "qualified relatives" who can function as decision-makers for those terminal family members who lose decisional capacity. The study shows how, in the face of a general affirmation of the autonomy of individuals as if they were morally and socially isolated agents, space is nevertheless made for families to choose on behalf of their own members. The result is a multi-tier public morality, one affirming individuals as morally authoritative and the other recognizing the decisional standing of families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed consent is one of the most important ethical and legal principles in the United States, including Texas, and reflects a profound respect for individuals and their ability to make decisions in their own best interest. It is also a critical underpinning of medical practice, although how it is actually carried out has not been well studied. A survey was conducted in the private practices and a hospital in the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Texas to ascertain how physicians, patients and patient's family members perceive and demonstrate the elements of informed consent. In-depth interviews of twelve physicians, three patients and three family members were earned out. For physicians, consent was an explicit and implicit aspect of virtually all medical practice. Physicians would seek patient input concerning medical decisions whenever possible and might also discuss care choices with families. However, they often made decisions based upon what they perceived as the patient's best interests. Patients expected the physician to involve them in the decision process, but whether they turned to family members, or even others to assist them, varied considerably. Although Texas physicians respect the competent patient as the primary decision maker, they may bypass a formal surrogate decision maker to gain input from others, including their own view of what is in the patient's best interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article throws light on the different approaches to informed consent and truth telling in the U.S., Hong Kong and mainland China. There appear to be some interesting similarities. Each of these approaches finds some place for family authority and direction by the physician. Each incorporates some form of therapeutic privilege for the physician. Each attempts to protect the interest of the patient. These similarities, however, are overwhelmed by quite distinct approaches to the appropriate role to be played by patients. their families, and physicians in medical decision-making. In addition, these approaches are set within quite different cultural and moral assumptions.

This study examines the decision-making process for Hispanic families living in the United States who have a child with a hearing loss. Twenty-nine families in four geographical areas shared their experiences in searching for appropriate interventions and making choices regarding communication and education. We explored the impact of language, culture, minority status, and access to information and services on the decision-making process. The results indicate that the deliberations of Hispanic parents are often complicated by language and cultural barriers and by limited access to information, resources, and a full range of options. The communication method chosen tended to be the one recommended by professionals, usually a combination of spoken English and sign language. Parents frequently expressed the hope that their child would learn Spanish as well. These subjects displayed a higher degree of assertiveness in obtaining services for their children than other studies have suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract Analogical, or case-based reasoning has received quite a bit of attention in the literature on foreign policy decision-making. There has been little attention paid to whether analogical reasoning does indeed predominate or to what degree abstract reasoning plays a role in the decision-making process. If decision-makers do not primarily reason by analogy (an empirical question), then the focus on such reasoning runs the risk of ignoring important aspects of problem formulation and the scope of possible solutions considered. Hence, this article investigates the degree to which decision-makers employ analogical and abstract reasoning. The empirical data are from the Senate hearing regarding the first American program for development aid. This case permits an empirical assessment of the consensus in the foreign aid literature that the Marshall Plan was the central analogy for this aid. In addition, it has been argued that in public discourse, decision-makers should be expected to use analogies as justifications for their preferences. The study finds a preference for explanation-based reasoning and discusses some of the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the context within which the Ohio State University conflict in sociology department arose, the process by which the dispute became defined as a moral or ethical one for those who disagreed with the actions of the chairman and the impact on those involved applicants, each of whom had strengths and weaknesses. In the spring of 1967, professor Hans Zetterberg was named Chairman of the sociology department. Later that year, Zetterberg announced through the department newsletter, called the Weekly Message. The main criterion for salary increases and promotions is creative development of knowledge, demonstrated in writing and orally in teaching and related scholarly activities. In addition to the elitist perspective and the clumsy manner in which the new salary structure was created, some other disturbing factors were involved. Zetterberg had few conversations with faculty he placed in invited or frozen categories about their work, their plans for research and publication, or their teaching before he sent their letters. Also, the lack of congruence between his decisions and the earlier statement, concerning salary decisions and promotion developed in the document, especially the statement regarding the importance of teaching, became a major issue.

Since 1978, the vote reported for House incumbents in the American National Election Studies (NES) has been significantly higher than the actual incumbents' vote in the districts surveyed; in NES surveys before 1978, the reported vote was much closer to the actual vote. The prime suspect for the source of this bias is the new question format introduced in 1978 and used in all subsequent studies. We document the problem and review the results of several question-wording experiments that confirm the superior accuracy of a format that does not mention the candidates' names over the ballot format currently in use. We also find evidence that a modified version of the ballot format may reduce the pro-incumbent bias, so that improvement may be possible without a major interruption of the post-1978 NES times series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws from the theory of representative bureaucracy to examine women's contributions to policy making in the federal Senior Executive Service (SES). Since women's life experiences differ in meaningful ways from those of men, the theory posits, they will make decisions differently than their male colleagues. Although scholars commonly assume that SES members influence policy, we know very little about executive women's attitudes and behavior. By using a survey administered to federal executives across the entire federal government, this article tests the conditions under which SES women are likely to press for women's interests and provide substantive representation to American women. The results indicate that women executives are most likely to adopt female friendly attitudes when they work in an agency or department with an office devoted to women's issues and when higher percentages of elite women are positioned within the organization's leadership ranks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) does not easily fit into the institutional structures, functions, and political realities of the American system. Weaknesses of GPRA; Structures of decision making in the United States; Imperatives of decision making functions; Politics and policy making in the American political system.

This article proposes a guideline for press-government relations in the U.S. In the U.S., it had been established that the mass media look to government officials as the source of daily news. When making professional decisions about who and what the media should cover, the corporate values and the central aims of the owners must be embedded. One legacy in the U.S. is the idea that a strong and adversarial press must be ready to raise its own against government officials. The press is also considered as a democratic watchdog.

This article determines the investment decision rules for public firms in the U.S. The authors asserted that the public sector firm should use the same cutoff rate as a private firm would use if faced with the same project. Private firms use discount rates that are higher than the risk-free rate because of the positive covariance of their projects' cash flows with those of other cash flows in the economy and public enterprises should also account for the covariance effect. The derivation of asset prices in a mixed economy is similar to that of prices in a pure private economy. The structures of values in the private sector of the mixed economy is identical to that in the pure private economy. The analysis of stock prices in the mixed economy has shown that the structure of private sector prices is similar to that in a pure private economy.

The article presents information on the recommendations made by a committee of the National Research Council (NRC) to control chemical pollution in the environment. Of 34 recommendations advanced to aid the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in improving its decision-making processes, 19 deal with the collection and dissemination of information. The report summary states that openness in decision making will improve the quality of the information used to make the decision and will facilitate implementation and acceptance of the decision.

Focuses on African American survival mechanisms that shape and foster coping skills at the individual, family, community and organizational levels. Traditional African cultural patterns; Problem solving strategies; Implications for social work practice; Intervention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews national trends in the organization of corporate giving to human services agencies, examines how corporations make funding decisions, and reports the results of a case study of philanthropic giving among 29 companies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The study found that most corporations use an informal rather than a formal process for making funding decisions, with many firms relying on tradition, social contacts, and intuition to guide allocations. Suggestions that social services administrators can use to enhance development planning at their agencies are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now a marriage gap in presidential voting in the United States, with married people voting about 10%-15% more Republican than unmarried people. This voting difference developed in the 1972 election, and it is also evident in party identification. The proportion of unmarried people has doubled since 1964, so this cleavage is important. The gap can be explained statistically in terms of race and income, but still may give politicians the opportunity to gain votes by appealing to voters on the basis of family issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do polls become part of the political process through which decisions are made and issues resolved? Case studies of the development and outcome of political controversies, like Watergate, can go a long way toward clarification of the direct and indirect impacts of the polls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]