A number of recent studies have documented some of the reasons presidents issue signing statements (written pronouncements made by the president when signing a bill into law). I argue that signing statements help construct defenses – for example, for bureaucrats deciding how to implement a...

We estimate the demand for federal grants-in-aid to the states. Specifically, we analyze the flow of funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the states as a function of the structure of state political institutions, the political preferences of citizens and elected...

Substantial attention has turned to the elimination of racial health disparities, the role of race in health care provision, and the socioeconomic determinants of public health outcomes in the United States. We shift the focus to the organizational structure of minority health resources and...

Numerous recent studies have addressed how the investment choices of firms depend on elite perceptions of the quality of national regulatory regimes. Likewise, other studies show that government structures can help to support credible commitments that protect market mechanisms. We provide the...

One consequence of the president's use of rhetoric to shape the public agenda, the media, and congressional attention is less recognized: presidential rhetoric shapes the priorities of the administrative agents over whom he seeks managerial control. We present statistical tests of the managerial...

Structural choices have fundamental and continuing effects on the democratic responsiveness of public agencies. In contrast to popular accounts of the United States Attorneys' "splendid isolation," I provide structural evidence of routes to the national political oversight of the prosecution of...

The purpose of this paper is to test the direct effect of the structure of the civil service on public perceptions of corruption. Numerous studies suggest a relationship between the design of civil service systems and corruption, but few studies actually test this theoretical link. We...

This essay discusses an integrative economic theory that reconciles rank-order tournaments with the traditional public administration concern for accountability in government. Recent reforms have concentrated on organizational designs that flow from piece-rate approaches to employee compensation...

Current public health debate centers on the content and extent of health problems, appropriate solutions, and acceptable practices. This essay describes and analyzes how a number of countries are answering these questions using an emerging conceptual framework of organizational change. Special...

This paper assesses the use and value of decision-making (or deliberative) teams in the form of advisory committees for regulation by the FDA. Our theoretical framework is common principles offered in organization theory for the design of such coordination mechanisms. Specifically, we examine...