Bartels, book review, inequality, Policy, politics
In General, Policy, Pseudo-Academic, Quantitative Research on March 1, 2010 at 9:05 am
I recently read and presented on Larry M. Bartels’ 2008 book, Unequal Democracy in a class that I’m taking this semester. I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone interested in policy, political science, or inequality. I was particularly struck by Bartels’ ability to translate complex quantitative models into a story about partisan differences in economic policy that anyone can understand.
Bartels uses concrete data and advanced statistical methods to show that there has been a consistent trend in the United States where low and middle-income individuals fared better economically under Democratic administrations, while only the affluent benefited under Republican administrations. He shows that this is not a coincidence; the income disparity under Republicans and Democrats is larger than what would be observed by chance, or due to exogenous events. He uses time-series data, multiple regression, probits, and other methods familiar only to those who have taken a course in advanced quantitative methods, but he uses those methods to tell an artful story that seems to engage the reader, regardless of his or her training in statistical models. Read the rest of this entry »
education, funding, inequality, lottery, Policy
In General, Opinions, Policy on February 23, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Every once in a while, I come up with an idea to solve a problem that I’m often not an expert in, but that seems to make sense. I like to run these ideas by others to get their input and hopefully come up with an even better idea. I recently started re-reading Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities. I first read this excellent book on the inequalities in the American education system when I was a sophomore in college eight years ago. At that point, I was too overwhelmed byKozol’s description of the state of schools in East St. Louis and Chicago to respond with ideas on how to change the situation. This time I approached the text with the eye of a policy analyst and I had an idea… Read the rest of this entry »
efficiency, health, Policy
In Opinions, Policy on February 3, 2009 at 11:13 am
Within the current world of policy and administration, efficiency has become an important if not overarching goal. Arguments for privatization and program elimination have been based almost solely on whether or not a program is efficient. The PART program under the administration of George W. Bush rated programs at various levels of efficiency and then based their budget recommendations on these ratings (whether or not these ratings were based more on ideology than actual science will be addressed in another, future post). There seems to be one area, in which, the concern for efficiency has been ignored; healthcare. Read the rest of this entry »
