Faculty Working Papers, Schar School of Policy and Government
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This collection contains working papers by faculty members of the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.
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Item Partisan Patterns in the Aftermath of Terror: Civil Liberties, Spending and the Centrality of Fear(2007-11-09T20:07:29Z) Mayer, Jeremy D.; Koizumi, Naoru; LaPorte, ToddAmong the most reliable patterns in American partisan, public opinion is the consistent antipathy towards higher government spending exhibited by Republicans compared to Democrats. This gap in public opinion has grown, not shrunk in the recent era. Another consistent divide in partisan public opinion is the tendency by Democrats to favor civil liberties more than "law and order" Republican. Our paper examines whether American citizens follow these partisan patterns in the context of the war on terror. Specifically, do Democrats and Republicans remain divided in predictable ways when asked about spending more to protect our civil infrastructure against terrorism, and about limiting civil liberties in order to more effectively fight terrorism? We find that partisanship does not influence views on sacrificing civil liberties in the fight on terror, and is less influential than fear of terrorism on the spending questions.Item On Specification in Spatial Econometric Models(2007-11-05T19:25:39Z) Paelinck, Jean H.P.Specification problems in spatial econometrics are particularly important, given the high complexity of the spatial – and temporal – relations involved; moreover asymmetry, heterogeneity, spatial bias, add to the number of problems to be solved. The author brought together a number of unpublished working papers in which he considers non-linear spatial dynamics, 0-1 and integer problems, finite automata and potentialized partial difference equations, topics he calls “non-standard” spatial econometrics, and presents solutions to the parameter estimation problems they raise. His only intention is to provoke reactions and discussion about highly debatable topics in spatial econometrics.Item A Bibliometric Note on Isserman’s Panegyric Statistics(2007-10-31T14:22:10Z) Sarafoglou, NikiasAs a rule, in anniversary celebrations, papers and the related statistics are presented in a positive perspective and even mild self-critical assessment is usually minimized. The 50th anniversary of Regional Science Association International (RSAI) was not an exception to this the rule. Andy Isserman in his Paper in Regional Science (PiRS) article (2004) for the anniversary of RSAI presented panegyric statistics for the history of RSAI related publications. In this context I have reviewed the presentation of Isserman’s assessment of the impact of RSAI research as reflected in the citation data. As a first assessment this which could lead one to draw misleading conclusions about the current state and the history of RSAI publications and their impact.Item The Politics of “Entrepreneurial” State Economic Development Policy(2007-06-20T14:48:54Z) Hart, David M.“Entrepreneurial” state economic development strategies, which focus on nurturing home-grown high-technology and other high-growth businesses, lack immediate payoffs for politically powerful constituencies, a condition that would seem likely to limit their political appeal compared to the alternative “locational” strategy of attracting large investments from elsewhere. Nonetheless, many states have added programs with entrepreneurial attributes to their economic development portfolios in recent years. This paper explores how the political obstacles to such programs have been overcome, using a set of sixteen brief case studies. In a few cases, an institutional innovation in the policy-making process drew in new participants who provided ideas for and support to programs with entrepreneurial elements. More commonly, the preferences of the executive branch officials, especially governors, appear to have been critical to the enactment and implementation of such programs. The finding suggests that ED policy-making may be more technocratic than is commonly believed, and that the educational efforts of policy experts, who generally favor entrepreneurial ED strategies over locational ED strategies, have been fruitful and should be sustained.