One of the most important questions rising out of the War on Terror and the end of the Cold War is how changes in a country's defense spending will affect its economic performance. Despite the significant amount of work on the defense-growth relationship, a consensus has failed to be reached within the literature as to whether a relationship does exist, its direction, and how it should be modeled. In this dissertation, the defense-growth relationship is investigated by looking at the effect of changes in the defense sector's human capital investments on growth. After theoretically deriving a human capital based model, the model is empirically tested with U.S. data for the time period 1949 to 2009. By doing so, previous scholarship on the defense-growth relationship is advanced by contributing to the theoretical foundation and theoretically deriving a model which uniquely captures the on-the-job training that enlisted soldiers and officers receive. The results show that the sector's investments have a positive effect on the economic growth of the United States. This effect is both direct and indirect. Directly, the sector's investments influence the economy's growth rate as a form of on-the-job training. The results show that approximately 18.9\% of economic growth can be attributed to the investments.Indirectly, they influence the production of a military good, which further influences general production. According to the calibrated parameters, a 1\% increase in the military good is expected to produce a 0.034\% increase in total economic output. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2011. / July 22, 2011. / defense sector, Defense spending, economic growth, military output, United States / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Eger, III, Professor Directing Dissertation; Milton H. Marquis, University Representative; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; James S. Bowman, Committee Member; David S. T. Matkin, Committee Member.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore questions about the government's contractual choice of tax collection between tax farming and tax bureaucracy. It is commonly assumed that tax collection is an inherent function of the government. However, historically governments commonly contracted with private agencies known as "tax farmers" to enhance their tax collection capacities until the nineteenth century. Tax farming is an efficient tax collection method, but it encouraged private tax collectors to exploit taxpayers to maximize their own expected return. The dissertation tries to answer the following three research questions. First, why did governments outsource tax collection to tax farmers until the eighteenth century, and why have governments fully developed their own tax bureaucracy since the nineteenth century? Second, what are the conditions under which each tax collection contract is optimized, and what are the expected values of optimal tax collection contracts? Third, what are the effects of different tax collection contracts on administrative effectiveness and procedural fairness in contemporary government? To explore these questions, I have used the theory of agency where the principal (the government) incentivizes the agent (the tax collector) to input a high level of effort to implement delegated tasks by offering performance-based compensation. Alternatively, the principal can force the agent to input a minimal necessary level of effort by setting a monitoring system with fixed compensation. The study examines the tax collection process, exploring questions about the government's contractual choice of tax collection methods, outsourcing or insourcing the tax receivables collection process. To explore this understudied aspect of the governments' tax collection process, I explore both the effectiveness and fairness of the tax receivables collection process. My first essay is from a historical perspective, my second essay address a theoretical model of the process, and my third essay examines the process empirically across the 50 states. The first essay (Chapter 2) reviews tax collection history in Europe, the Islamic world, and Asia through the lens of the theory of agency to explore the question of why tax farming had been predominant until the eighteenth century, and why government-run tax bureaucracy have been predominant since the nineteenth century. The historical analysis focuses on identifying generalizable underlying mechanisms of tax collection contracts and key exogenous factors affecting the government's choice of tax collection contract forms. The second essay (Chapter 3) analyzes optimal conditions and relative value--the net effect of costs and benefits--of tax collection contracts through the development of a formal model of tax collection underpinned by the historical review and theory of agency. The dynamic and static optimization processes will be used to generate comparative statics. The third essay (Chapter 4) measures the effects of different contract forms on administrative effectiveness and procedural fairness in tax collection. Using panel data for the years 2000 to 2011 in state governments in the U.S., I test the following key hypothesis: delinquent tax collection outsourcing is financially effective, but it negatively impacts procedural fairness, such as the taxpayer' rights, in tax collection. The results imply two things. First, in terms of the administrative effectiveness, private tax collection reduces tax administration cost, but it has no statistical effect on the recover delinquent taxes. Second, in terms of the procedural fairness, private tax collection increases the number of tax appeals filed in the tax appeal division within state tax department, but it decreases the number of tax appeals filed with outside-independent tax appeal agency. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O’D Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / July 31, 2012. / Agency Cost, Contractual Choice, Outsourcing, Tax Administration, Tax Collection, Tax Farming / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Eger, III, Professor Directing Dissertation; Randall G. Holcombe, University Representative; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; David S. T. Matkin, Committee Member.

Current educational reform efforts are focused on enhancing school and teacher accountability as a means of improving student learning. One policy initiative resulting from these efforts is the inclusion of outcome-based teacher performance (OTP) as a component of teacher evaluations. OTP is defined as a teacher's contribution to the learning outcomes of her students. An increasingly popular method for measuring OTP is a set of statistical techniques known as value-added models (VAMs). Despite their popularity, the validity of VAM estimates of OTP has not been fully established. This dissertation contributes to the ongoing validity debate by evaluating the construct validity of VAM estimates. Specifically, construct validity is evaluated by examining the theory of the process by which teachers contribute to student learning that is implicit to VAM estimation of OTP. Embedded within each VAM is a set of theoretical implications about the teaching-learning process. In addition, the identifying conditions necessary for the estimation of OTP from observational data impose restrictions on the teaching-learning process and therefore have theoretical implications. Evaluation of these implications indicates that most are inconsistent with theoretical, empirical, and logical evidence how teachers contribute to student learning outcomes. This evidence weakens the validity of the claim that VAMs can be used to measure OTP. The degree to which this claim is weakened, however, remains a question for future research. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / July 30, 2012. / Assumptions, Production Function, Teacher Performance, Teaching-Learning Process, Value Added Models / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Eger, III, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Lance deHaven-Smith, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Carolyn Herrington, University Representative; Alysia Roehrig, Committee Member; Anastasia Semykina, Committee Member.

As state governments grapple with reconciling budgets, administrative changes, political upheaval and technological advancements public employees are confronted with years without raises, wavering objectives, heavy workloads, and the push for an increased cadre of skills. The researcher asks the question, what are the dynamics of psychological contract violations within the public sector? Psychological contracts have the potential to become an employee's assurance when the working environment seems tumultuous. Individuals utilize contracts to promulgate daily work endeavors and career aspirations. It is plausible that employees believe that their psychological contract can be a source of stability when there is organizational uncertainty. Through the use of qualitative methodology this research will interview public education and public law enforcement employees to uncover how public sector employees interpret and react to the occurrence of psychological contract violations. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2012. / November 6, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Gerald Ferris, University Representative; Frances Berry, Committee Member; Lance Dehaven-Smith, Committee Member.

Recent research on local sustainability investigates the challenges to public health triggered by health disparities and inequalities. Modern public health sectors recognize that health behavioral changes among small groups and populations are not enough to promote health equality and healthy communities. Many health professions stress that the physical environment has become a key feature for reducing health disparities and accomplishing community wealth by which the environment must be managed by social, economic, and demographic circumstances. To deal with modern public health concerns and the interests of physical environment, many local governments devise a comprehensive plan to address public health improvement. The purposes of the comprehensive plan are to integrate public health interests with local policy sectors as well as to seek developmental growth and environmental protection. While many local governments attempt to reconnect between the comprehensive plan and the goals of public health, not all local governments do provide a comprehensive plan for public health improvement. The variation among local governments can be explained by the concept of healthy urban governance which includes the nature of urban politics, collaborative actions, and existing population health status. Since healthy urban governance retains interactive processes to produce a comprehensive set of urban plans, the political market framework and urban governance are applied to help understand interactive processes in terms of inter-sectoral and inter-organizational collaboration; consensus building; and advancement of political bargaining and negotiating instead of one-single way of urban plan. This dissertation investigates four questions to explore the policy choice of comprehensive planning to explicitly address public health: 1) which local contextual factors affect the adoption of the comprehensive plan, 2) to the extent of the first question, which factors including urban politics and collaborative planning governance create the integrative set in order to incorporate public health in local policy sectors , 3) which health outcomes and factors associated with the existing population health status influence the adoption of the plan, and finally 4) to the extent of third question, what are the direct and indirect causalities among health factors, urban politics, and the adoption of the plan. In terms of the above research questions, this dissertation highlights three theoretical perspectives. The first perspective is urban politics by which a political institution takes into account the mediating effect of institutions as a product of interactive processes among elected politicians, the community, and interest groups. It is more likely for the politics in healthy urban governance to be highlighted in terms of collective will and whether or not a political institution can pursue a majority rule. Second is the multidisciplinary policy action which encompasses the joint actions among inter-sectoral and inter-organizational collaboration. This perspective suggests that, rather than bureaucratic fragmentation, health policy oriented specialization and professionalization, the multilateral policy actions should be operated in light of collective will, shared norms, and agreements. Third is a place-based population health which views population health as differently shaped by existing physical, social, and environmental conditions. Moreover, this view concentrates on the presumption that the creation of efficient and effective interaction among people, environment, and economy comes first so as to increase high accessibility toward physical activities; so as to promote social inclusion; and so as to enhance social connectivity. In five published data sources (i.e, 2011 survey of `Comprehensive Planning For Public Health', U.S Census Bureau, National Population Health in Wisconsin Health Institute, Municipal Year Book), Heckman Selection Model and Path analysis are utilized as analytical methods. The empirical results explore whether urban politics, collaborative planning governance, and place-based population health influence the adoption of the comprehensive plan and the integrative sets of the plan. The empirical evidence shows that the adoption and integrative set of the comprehensive plan for public health improvement are a product of the willingness of local politics which represent governmental responsibility and accountability; a product of inter-sectoral policy collaboration; a product of collective action between local planning agencies and health departments; a product of poorly-shaped community health status; and a result of the mediating role of political institutions with community health status. This dissertation suggests that the combination of entire urban plan and the goals of public health is an aggregated preference of citizen, local politics, governing bodies, interest groups, and existing population health status, and physical environment. To achieve the comprehensive set of the urban plan, the local politics should have not only a strong willingness to commit but also a mediating role reflecting community-wide needs of population health. On the other hand, the administrative function of both planning and health agencies should create a collective will to reduce organizational and policy sectoral goal conflicts, resulting in multidisciplinary policy commitments and formulation of an integrative set of urban plan. Lastly, this dissertation provides an agenda for future research. First, the effects of regional organizations and state governments can be expanded by the assumption that the benefits of physical environment cannot be isolated. Regional-wide organizations, as much as the unit of local government, can have a critical role in attracting the collective actions of local governments which attain the summative benefits of improved public health. Second, while this dissertation tests the policy output of local government, the policy outcome of the comprehensive plan for public health must be investigated in the future. Since the data for the adoption and integrative set of comprehensive plan are restricted in 2011, testing health outcomes cannot be attributed to the effect of the plan. To establish a synthesis of theoretical and analytical models, this dissertation will be expanded from analysis of policy output of local government to analysis of policy outcomes as improved public health. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2012. / May 25, 2012. / Physical Environment, Public Health, Smart Growth, Sustainability, Urban Governance / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Laura Arpan, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Keon-Hyung Lee, Committee Member; Christopher Coutts, Committee Member.

This dissertation contributes to the public policy literature by examining energy policy in the U.S. In a three paper format, this dissertation investigates different dimensions of energy policy. First, it covers both policy process and policy analysis. Second, it covers different levels of governance in the U.S. All three levels of governance, national, state and local levels, are covered in this study. Third, it examines different aspects of energy policy, including network interactions among policy actors, environmental impacts and growth of green jobs. In the first paper, I investigate the formation of networks among the clean energy NGOs in the U.S. With network data collected on the hyperlinks from the websites of these NGOs, testable hypotheses are proposed to test the driving mechanisms for the energy policy networks in the U.S. In the second paper, I evaluate the effectiveness of these policy tools in reducing carbon emissions in electric power sector. With a panel data set for 48 continental states from 1990 to 2008, three fixed-effect panel regressions are estimated to test the impacts of these policy tools on total carbon emissions, electricity generation and carbon intensity. In the third paper, I examine the short-term direct employment effects of state and local clean energy and climate policies in U.S. metropolitan areas (MSAs) in year 2006. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O’D Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2012. / June 1, 2012. / Enegy Policy, Governance / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; John T. Scholz, University Representative; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

There is a vast literature concerning the political control that elected officials have over agency actors in the development of bureaucratic policymaking outputs. In the context of rulemaking, I theorize that, while political signals play a role in agency response, bureaucratic decision-making is also influenced by agency attention, institutional design and path dependency. Furthermore, I suggest that managers use different strategies in terms of the magnitude and timeliness of their response according to the uncertainty surrounding the aforementioned influences. I use a three-level random intercepts poisson model with quasi-likelihood estimation to analyze an original dataset containing 35 years of rulemaking activity for centralized contracting rules in Florida. I also conduct a qualitative analysis to examine how the nature of rulemaking changes over time. The results suggest that, in addition to political signals, agency attention, path dependency and institutional design also influence bureaucratic response. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2012. / March 28, 2012. / bureaucratic response, contracting-out, institutional design, organizational attention, public agency, rulemaking / Includes bibliographical references. / Kaifeng Yang, Professor Directing Dissertation; Christopher Reenock, University Representative; Frances Berry, Committee Member; Ralph Brower, Committee Member; Richard Feiock, Committee Member.

Vast, but disparate, literatures study hospice care, but none explains how government policy affects the dying experience of terminally ill patients and their families. This topic is of the utmost significance as there are important unanswered questions that fall under the purview of public administration, and may be in conflict with its principles of truth, efficiency, effectiveness and equity. This dissertation is formatted as three related essays in the area of hospice care. The first essay informs government policy in end-of-life care with insights from government policy in child care. The methodology consists of trend analysis in order to better understand the elder care choices of adult children who have elderly parents or relatives that need hospice care. The methodology is focused on married households and the data was extracted from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The study finds that married households in the middle income bracket are less likely to bring their elderly relatives into their homes as long as the Medicare hospice benefit remains a viable alternative to the demands that hospice care at home may impose on household income and in labor participation. Trend analysis of median household income and Child and Dependent Tax Credit demonstrate that the tax code can be an effective tool in promoting hospice care at home. The second essay studies how the Medicare Hospice Program affects the financial viability of the hospice organization, and in turn, affects the survival of terminally ill patients. The methodology consists of Panel-Corrected Standard Errors regression technique and focuses on the organizational effects rather than on the individual effects on length of stay. The study finds that the liquidity of the hospice organization and investment in human capital in the form of nurses influence how long a patient stays in hospice care. The assessment of the hospice organization's financial health is a novel development as well as beachhead for extending the theory of non-profit financial management into hospice care. The third and final essay analyzes whether government policy on aging has an effect on the distribution of firms, non-profit or for-profit, offering hospice care. The essay analyzes hospice care organizations from a population ecology perspective and tests a resource-partitioning model in order to explain the interorganizational relationships between generalist and specialist organizations. The methodology applied is fixed effects regression and the essay links the resources in the environment with the organization and patient outcomes. The study finds that the age of the generalist form of hospice organization providing core services increases the length of stay. This finding runs counter to the literature that promotes dying at home as the way to increase survival time during hospice care. The three essays share the goal of better understanding the effect that Medicare hospice policy has on the end of life. The end outcome of the essays show that government policy in the form of the Medicare hospice benefit may in fact undermine the hospice care philosophy or self-determination and dying in our own terms. This dissertation is the first to consider that government policy in the form of hospice care may have evolved into a health program that counters rather than supports the axioms of the hospice philosophy. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O' D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / March 6, 2013. / Financial Management, Hospice, Lenght of stay, Nonprofit, Political Economy, Resource Partitioning / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Eger, III, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Lance de Haven-Smith, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Susan C. Losh, University Representative; William G. Weissert, Committee Member; William Earle Klay, Committee Member.

This dissertation provides an analysis and evaluation of factors influencing states to enact inpatient health care transparency laws between 1971 and 2006 inclusive, using event history analysis. The primary research question investigates "What factors influence a state legislature to enact a health care transparency law?" To narrow the scope of study, I focus on factors influencing states to enact health care transparency laws to collect and publicly report inpatient data. The Unified Model of State Policy Innovation, developed by F.S. Berry and W.D. Berry (1990, 1999), provides the framework for the study hypotheses and the analysis of inpatient health care transparency law enactments by states. The Unified Model of State Policy Innovation posits a unified explanation for state policy adoptions. The model unifies the internal determinants and regional diffusion approaches of analysis for state policy adoption. This study tests eight hypotheses using event history analysis (EHA). EHA is an analytical technique that allows for the testing of a state government innovation theory that incorporates internal determinants and regional influences on state policy adoption. Although there are numerous methods to conduct event history analysis, this study uses the Cox proportional hazards model (also known as Cox regression). Cox regression is a popular method for studying time-to-event data for policy adoption and diffusion studies. This study's quantitative analysis provides support for legislative ideology and unified party control of state government acting as factors influencing inpatient health care transparency law enactments by states. Additionally, the health care crisis and neighbors variables were statistically significant, but in an opposite direction than predicted. The findings of this research suggest that state adopters of an inpatient health care transparency law are more likely to enact an inpatient health care transparency law when the state government is increasing in liberalism and when unified political party control of the governor and the governorship of both houses of the state legislature is increasing. To generate new insights into the enactment of inpatient health care transparency laws, I conduct a case study of a national health care data professional association using several techniques, including telephone interviews. The qualitative analysis provides support for professional associations and policy champions as diffusion agents for inpatient health care transparency law enactments by states. This dissertation supports variables traditionally used in policy adoption research including legislative ideology and unified political party control in state government. However, it will be interesting to see whether internal determinants such as professional associations gain traction over the traditional regional diffusion influences such as states sharing borders as factors influencing state policy adoption. Meanwhile, as evidenced in this study, there continues to be support for a model incorporating both internal and regional influences to explain policy adoption by states. The theory of policy innovation and diffusion to predict the factors influencing the spread of policies and the use of Berry & Berry's (1990, 1999) Unified Model of State Policy Innovation prosper as their applicability to numerous public policy areas, including health care, are continually demonstrated. Similarly, event history analysis and specifically the Cox regression method continue to gain support as their value as analytical methods and appropriateness for use in public policy studies is repeatedly demonstrated. The outlook for the future of the health care transparency movement looks promising. The health care transparency movement promotes improved access to information, patient empowerment, improved patient safety and quality of care, improved provider accountability, and lower health care costs. This movement is not a fad, but rather a permanent change being implemented in all health care settings across the United States. Improved health through reliable, accessible data and data-supported decisions is increasingly becoming the norm and less an idealistic scenario to be realized in the distant future. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O’ D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / March 21, 2013. / cox regression, event history analysis, policy adoption, policy diffusion, public reporting, transparency / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances Stokes Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; Carol Weissert, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Keon-Hyung Lee, Committee Member.

The purpose of internal audit, according to the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), is to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of an organization's risk management, control, and governance processes. Weaknesses in any of these areas pose a threat to the organization's legitimacy with its stakeholders. Many organizations worldwide are required to adopt internal audit. However, other institutions, like American municipalities, are not. A municipality's decision to adopt internal audit is the responsibility of local leadership. Current economic pressures require that leaders consider a cost/benefit analysis before making a decision. Defining the costs of internal audit is relatively easy, but measuring its benefits is more elusive. This research examines whether the results of external audits may be used as an objective measure of internal audit benefits. The literature on internal audit quality does not identify externally derived measures that are independent of the function. This dissertation fills this gap. A logit model is used with data from 162 Florida cities to determine whether the presence of an internal audit reduces the likelihood of a city receiving findings in the independent external annual audit of their financial reports. The results are evaluated using legitimacy theory. Examining internal audit through this framework explains the difficulty in measuring the effectiveness of internal audit. The results indicate that objectively defining the benefits of internal audit may not be possible. They indicate instead that internal audit benefits, while real, may largely be abstract or symbolic. The internal audit role is best viewed as deterrent in nature. This poses challenges to those attempting to identify objectively measurable benefits. The implication is that municipal leadership should seek to understand the conceptual nature of the internal audit function before making resource allocation decisions. The loss of benefits from cuts to or elimination of the internal audit function may not be evident until sometime after making those funding decisions. The results of this research demonstrate the importance of internal audit, as well as the need for more investigation to further understand the nature of its effects. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O' D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2013. / June 18, 2013. / Audit, Governance, Internal Audit, Legitimacy, Local Government, Municipal / Includes bibliographical references. / James Bowman, Professor Directing Dissertation; Gerald Ferris, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member; Brad Gomez, Committee Member.