Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-131)

This dissertation studies the effect of a transparency reform on legislators' behavior. In order to specify how and why the transparency reform would have an impact, it builds a theoretical framework based on a theory of legislative behavior. The expectations are tested against the behavior of the Chilean Lower House legislators before and after a transparency reform. The theoretical expectations derive from a theory of legislative behavior based on reelection-oriented legislators organized in parties. This theoretical framework has two central features. First, position avoidance is taken explicitly into account. Second, from previous work on comparative representation, legislators may establish programmatic and non-programmatic linkages with their constituencies. In line with the literature, legislators who follow a programmatic linkage strategy are expected to adopt positions closer to their electoral constituency. Furthermore, as legislators build such positions from their roll call, I expect that legislators, when cross pressured between their party and their constituency, will be more likely to side with their constituency. I argue that cross-pressured legislators may also avoid taking a position, as it does not influence observed party unity and does not imply voting against the constituency. Thus, reliance on position avoidance introduces a wedge between the public position taken by legislators and their effective position which has not been previously studied. I tested my hypotheses with observational data of the behavior of the Chilean Lower House members as a transparency reform took place in 2004, halfway through the legislative term. The case provides additional advantages to empirical assessment of my hypotheses, as legislators are allowed to abstain during any vote, and this option is recorded. The results provide evidence of the complex impact of transparency reform on legislators' behavior. There is some evidence of a positive impact of transparency as it provides incentives for legislators to adopt public positions closer to their electoral constituencies. But the results on the use of position avoidance raise concerns as the observed moderation may partly be the result of obfuscation rather than of improved responsiveness. In particular, the strategic use of abstentions enables legislators to build a moderate reputation without having to support their constituencies´ preferences on all issues.

A central tenet of industrial organization is that market concentration leads to higher prices. At the same time, there is a growing awareness that the market for health care is unique due to its complexity, and it is often difficult for consumers to make fully informed decisions. Might information frictions exacerbate market power in concentrated markets and lead to higher prices? While a growing literature seeks to address this question in a number of contexts, this dissertation focuses on the lack of price transparency in health care. I argue that the inability of consumers to compare prices is a major factor leading to high prices when health care is provided by the private market. In Chapter 1, I use a dataset covering all private medical claims in a state to examine the introduction of a state-run website providing detailed information about out-of-pocket prices for a subset of medical procedures. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation across procedures available on the website as well as the timing of the introduction, I use a difference-in-difference approach and find significant savings for both consumers and insurers. Part of the effect is due to consumers switching to lower cost providers. However, there is a small but significant supply-side effects in the long-run, i.e. there are lower negotiated prices. These lower prices benefit all insured individuals including those that do not use the website. Supply-side effects reduce price dispersion and are especially relevant when medical providers operate in concentrated markets. A relatively small fraction of consumers actually used the price transparency website when it was available. Therefore, it is important to understand why more consumers aren't using the price transparency tool and what would happen if more consumers were informed about prices. Answering this question requires a structural model, which is the focus of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. In Chapter 2, I study demand for health care services when at least some consumers lack full information about prices. By exploiting the variation from the introduction of the website, I am able to separately identify consumer price sensitivity and the degree of uncertainty about prices. I also explicitly model the decision to use the price transparency website when it is available. This structural approach yields two main advantages over the reduced-form approach. First, the model can be used to examine what would happen if more consumers were incentivized to use the price transparency website. Second, the model provides insight into the welfare effects of price information. Finally, the reduced-form evidence that there is a supply-side effect of the website when even a small fraction of consumers are informed motivates a more in depth analysis of the supply-side. Chapter 3 combines the demand model of Chapter 2 with a model of bargaining between medical providers and insurers to examine how price transparency affects equilibrium prices. Model estimates and difference-in-differences estimates both imply that the website reduces health care spending by 3 to 4 percent. I then use the model to examine the effects of price transparency more generally. In counterfactual simulations, I find that price transparency would generate a substantial reduction in equilibrium prices if a larger fraction of consumers in the market were informed. Combining the price transparency website with high cost sharing would give individuals more incentive to use the price transparency tool, reducing health care spending by 18 percent. My research is intended to inform the policy debate surrounding the value of health care price transparency tools. In sum, I argue that while the value of price transparency tools is modest when only a small fraction of consumers are incentivized to use the tools, the savings become quite substantial when enough consumers are informed about prices.

This dissertation examines administrative roles within the context of everyday public administration. Specifically, it studies the relationship between administrative roles assumed by public administrators and (1) the perceived presence of administrative discretion, (2) individual level beliefs regarding involvement in policy formulation and (3) tenure with organization. This dissertation has a three-fold purpose. First, it delineates the types of roles assumed by public procurement specialists. Second, it tests whether administrative discretion, beliefs regarding participation in policy formulation and organizational tenure are significant in explaining the assumption of certain types of roles. Finally, the dissertation evaluates the implications for the public procurement process of the predominance of certain roles. vi The theoretical logic for this dissertation draws on the theory of representative bureaucracy and role theory. ... It is found that administrative discretion, individual expectations and organizational tenure are indeed important predictors of the assumption of administrative roles. Administrators who believe that they have access to relatively high levels of discretion and those who believe they should be involved in policy formulation are more likely to assume a representative type role. On the other hand, with increased tenure public administrators are less likely to assume a representative type role. / by Alexandru Vasile Roman. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-272).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-128). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Frankfurt am Main, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 333-348).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-128). Also available on the Internet.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-09-25Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:34:34Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ferreira_amjfc_me_mar.pdf: 2731278 bytes, checksum: 5db6686402f140171582dddbaa0e0856 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / As Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) se fazem presentes em todas as atividades do cotidiano humano. Ambientes digitais na Web estão sendo criados pelas organizações públicas e privadas para apresentar informações sobre economia, política, educação, dentre outros, permitindo assim maior visibilidade das suas atividades. Nesse sentido, os órgãos governamentais, com os recursos tecnológicos oferecidos pela Web, estão propiciando o acesso de dados públicos e informações da administração pública em sítios oficiais e ambientes colaborativos com o intuito de contemplar a transparência pública. Assim, definiu-se esta pesquisa com o objetivo de investigar de que modo o Second Life (SL) pode potencializar o acesso, o uso e a disseminação de dados públicos para a promoção da transparência pública. De característica exploratória, descritiva e analítica procurou-se embasamento teórico em bibliografia nacional e internacional sobre os temas: internet, Web 2.0, ambientes colaborativos, redes sociais, elementos de estrutura de sítios da Web com foco em conteúdo direcionado a transparência pública, dados abertos e e-gov. No SL foram analisados ambientes com informações governamentais, como a NIC e a biblioteca arquivo NASA CoLab e o Ontário Careers. No SL, utilizando as ferramentas que ele oferece, foi criado um espaço denominado Green House, com o intuito de reunir objetos e conteúdos informacionais sobre temas relacionados às iniciativas de transparência pública no Brasil. Nesse ambiente foram apresentados sítios oficiais do governo e livros digitais, possibilitando o acesso dessas informações na Web. No contexto da Ciência da Informação e com os recursos oferecidos pela plataforma SL, foi possível verificar que esse ambiente é propício para disponibilizar informações públicas... / The Information Technology and Communication (ICT) is present in all human daily activities. Digital environments on the Web are being created by public and private organizations to provide information on economics, politics, education, among others, allowing greater visibility of its activities. Thereby, government agencies, using technological resources offered by the Web, are offering public data and information of the public administration at official sites and collaborative environments in order to address the public transparency. Thus, this research set up with the aim to investigate how Second Life (SL) can enhance the access, use and dissemination of public information to promote public transparency. Characteristic of exploratory, descriptive and analytical tried to theoretical foundation in international and national literature on the topics: internet, Web 2.0, collaborative environments, social networks, design elements of Web sites with targeted content focused on public transparency, open data and e-gov. SL were analyzed in environments that provide government information such as the NIC and the library file and NASA CoLab Ontario Careers. In SL, using the tools it offers, a space was created called Green House, in order to gather information about objects and subjects related to public transparency initiatives in Brazil. In this environment were available official government sites and digital books, enabling access of information on the Web in the context of Information Science and the resources offered by the SL platform, we found that the environment is conducive to providing public information and to enhance access to public data, because, in addition to reference information from government agencies, makes it possible for avatars, partially sheltered with their identity, to collaborate with criticisms and suggestions on... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Ricardo César Gonçalves Sant'Ana / Coorientador: Silvana Aparecida Borsetti Gregório Vidotti / Banca: Plácida Leopoldina Ventura Amorim da Costa Santos / Banca: Maria Elisabete Catarino / Resumo: As Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) se fazem presentes em todas as atividades do cotidiano humano. Ambientes digitais na Web estão sendo criados pelas organizações públicas e privadas para apresentar informações sobre economia, política, educação, dentre outros, permitindo assim maior visibilidade das suas atividades. Nesse sentido, os órgãos governamentais, com os recursos tecnológicos oferecidos pela Web, estão propiciando o acesso de dados públicos e informações da administração pública em sítios oficiais e ambientes colaborativos com o intuito de contemplar a transparência pública. Assim, definiu-se esta pesquisa com o objetivo de investigar de que modo o Second Life (SL) pode potencializar o acesso, o uso e a disseminação de dados públicos para a promoção da transparência pública. De característica exploratória, descritiva e analítica procurou-se embasamento teórico em bibliografia nacional e internacional sobre os temas: internet, Web 2.0, ambientes colaborativos, redes sociais, elementos de estrutura de sítios da Web com foco em conteúdo direcionado a transparência pública, dados abertos e e-gov. No SL foram analisados ambientes com informações governamentais, como a NIC e a biblioteca arquivo NASA CoLab e o Ontário Careers. No SL, utilizando as ferramentas que ele oferece, foi criado um espaço denominado Green House, com o intuito de reunir objetos e conteúdos informacionais sobre temas relacionados às iniciativas de transparência pública no Brasil. Nesse ambiente foram apresentados sítios oficiais do governo e livros digitais, possibilitando o acesso dessas informações na Web. No contexto da Ciência da Informação e com os recursos oferecidos pela plataforma SL, foi possível verificar que esse ambiente é propício para disponibilizar informações públicas... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The Information Technology and Communication (ICT) is present in all human daily activities. Digital environments on the Web are being created by public and private organizations to provide information on economics, politics, education, among others, allowing greater visibility of its activities. Thereby, government agencies, using technological resources offered by the Web, are offering public data and information of the public administration at official sites and collaborative environments in order to address the public transparency. Thus, this research set up with the aim to investigate how Second Life (SL) can enhance the access, use and dissemination of public information to promote public transparency. Characteristic of exploratory, descriptive and analytical tried to theoretical foundation in international and national literature on the topics: internet, Web 2.0, collaborative environments, social networks, design elements of Web sites with targeted content focused on public transparency, open data and e-gov. SL were analyzed in environments that provide government information such as the NIC and the library file and NASA CoLab Ontario Careers. In SL, using the tools it offers, a space was created called Green House, in order to gather information about objects and subjects related to public transparency initiatives in Brazil. In this environment were available official government sites and digital books, enabling access of information on the Web in the context of Information Science and the resources offered by the SL platform, we found that the environment is conducive to providing public information and to enhance access to public data, because, in addition to reference information from government agencies, makes it possible for avatars, partially sheltered with their identity, to collaborate with criticisms and suggestions on... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre