Government information

This paper explores the roles of different levels of government in assisting the poor. Using a model incorporating utility interdependence, the paper first presents some theoretical results indicating how levels of poor relief vary with the extent of mobility of the poor under both centralized and decentralized systems of support. It then provides a survey of the empirical work on migration of the poor along with a brief historical discussion of the experience under the English Poor Laws. The concluding section turns to normative issues and contends that mobility of the poor is a basic source of inefficiency in wholly decentralized systems of support; this inefhciency, along with certain other equity considerations, establishes a role for the central government in assistance to the poor. Measures adopted to produce greater equality are, however, exceedingly unsuitable for local authorities. The smaller the locality the more capricious and ineffectual are likely to be any efforts it may make to carry out such a policy. It seems clearly desirable that all such measures should be applied to the largest possible area, and that subordinate authorities should be left to act, like the individual, from motives of selfinterest. Edwin Cannan (1896) Redistribution is intrinsically a national policy. George Stigler (1957) Financial assistance to the poor is a legitimate responsibility of states and localities. President Reagan ( 1982) *We are grateful to Anne Stevens and to the Computer

Governments worldwide are encouraging public agencies to join e-Government initiatives in order to provide better services to their citizens and businesses; hence, methods of evaluating the readiness of individual public agencies to execute specific e-Government programs and directives are a key ingredient in the successful expansion of e-Government. To satisfy this need, a model called the eGovernment Maturity Model (eGov-MM) was developed, integrating the assessment of technological, organizational, operational, and human capital capabilities, under a multi-dimensional, holistic, and evolutionary approach. The model is strongly supported by international best practices, and provides tuning mechanisms to enable its alignment with nation-wide directives on e-Government. This article describes how the model was conceived, designed, developed, field tested by expert public officials from several government agencies, and finally applied to a selection of 30 public agencies in Chile, generating the first formal measurements, assessments, and rankings of their readiness for e-Government. The implementation of the model also provided several recommendations to policymakers at the national and agency levels.

Much recent literature has been devoted to providing theoretical and empirical analysis of the proposition that government is 'too large'. Far less attention has been paid to the issue of whether tax and expenditure limitations, such as those in effect in many US. states, are an appropriate remedy to excessive government size. This paper uses conventional tools of welfare economics to analyze the welfare effects of tax limitations in an economy made up of many local governments. The conclusions are mixed: where government charges monopoly prices, tax limitation will reduce welfare; where government provides outputs that exceed those that would be competitively supplied, tax limitation may improve welfare.

The use of information and communication technologies in government has been characterized as one powerful strategy for administrative reform. From recent experiences around the world, it seems clear that in order to achieve some of the most prominent benefits of digital government the integration of information across organizational boundaries is necessary and these projects have been called " collaborative digital government" . However, these collaborative digital government initiatives face additional challenges, since many times, the required level of inter-organizational collaboration and trust is not supported by the existing institutional arrangements and management structures. In fact, many institutions found in government contexts offer incentives for single-agency work only, which produces stove-pipe systems. Based on an extensive case study in the Mexican federal government, this paper explores how certain institutions can enable or hinder cross-agency collaboration and consequently, inter-organizational information integration.

This paper details the findings from a study of airline compliance with Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations requiring that persons with disabilities not be discriminated against in the pricing of airline travel. These regulations mandate that if an airline website is inaccessible for persons with disabilities, the airline must charge the same price that is available on the website and may not charge a fee for purchasing tickets over the phone. To evaluate compliance, the websites of leading airlines were examined for accessibility in terms of the ability to check flight schedules and order tickets. Among the four airlines with barriers to accessibility on their websites, a series of phone calls were made by researchers to assess whether the DOT regulations would be followed. Two of the airlines, USAirways and United, practiced discriminatory pricing, even after being made aware of the regulations, in over one-third of the phone calls. This paper details the findings from the study and analyzes the data in terms of website accessibility, civil rights for travelers with disabilities, and policy implications.

This paper details the findings from a study of airline compliance with Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations requiring that persons with disabilities not be discriminated against in the pricing of airline travel. These regulations mandate that if an airline website is inaccessible for persons with disabilities, the airline must charge the same price that is available on the website and may not charge a fee for purchasing tickets over the phone. To evaluate compliance, the websites of leading airlines were examined for accessibility in terms of the ability to check flight schedules and order tickets. Among the four airlines with barriers to accessibility on their websites, a series of phone calls were made by researchers to assess whether the DOT regulations would be followed. Two of the airlines, USAirways and United, practiced discriminatory pricing, even after being made aware of the regulations, in over one-third of the phone calls. This paper details the findings from the study and analyzes the data in terms of website accessibility, civil rights for travelers with disabilities, and policy implications.

The United States Congressional Serial Set contains a wide variety of historical documents relating to natural resources and their history in the United States. It is an excellent resource for those researching historical data concerning fisheries, from extant species and ecology to economic issues. Information on resources outside the United States is also available due to the U.S. history of explorations and expansions. Charts, maps and tables are found within many of the papers and reports. There are also numerous scientific illustrations. Keywords: Fisheries, Fisheries data, Historical account, United States government data, United States Serial Set As a new marine science librarian, I'm learning and re-learning about information resources all the time. While exploring the contents of my file cabinets, I found some random fish lithographs labelled U.S. Japan Expedition and Natural History Collections in Alaska-Nelson. When my government documents expert friend, Andrea Sevetson, visited, she immediately identified them as being from the United States Serial Set, a resource that I had not used or even thought of in many years. The U.S. Serial Set is a bound series of over 15,000 volumes and contains within it nearly all of the hundreds of thousands of numbered documents and congressional reports published since 1817. While most people use it as a primary source for American history and Congressional reports, its contents range from agricultural yearbooks (aquaculture!), foreign relations (treaties!), geological surveys, and a treasure trove of historical data about the United States' fisheries. You can also find historical reports from explorations in the United States and around the world. From the Annual Reports of the Fish Commission to Commodore Perry's Expedition to the China Sea and Japan, there are lists of species, temperatures, hatcheries, maps and beautiful artwork capturing the animals, people and landscapes of the region. There is a companion set called the American State Papers that contains documents published prior to 1817. Both of these sets are available commercially as searchable online texts with indexes. Many individually scanned volumes are found in Google Books, the Hathi Trust and other locations (Sevetson, 2013, p. 3). The print version of the Serial Set is found in almost every state in the United States thanks to the Federal Depository Library Program.

While it has often been suggested that information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide an important means of increasing citizen participation (which is at the core of democratic government), few commentators have expected non-democracies to create online environments in which citizens can take an active part in political processes. In recent years, however, some non-democracies have begun to outperform countries with long-standing democratic traditions in terms of e-participation development. According to the 2010 United Nations (UN) e-government survey, Bahrain outranks France, Kazakhstan beats Sweden and Malaysia ranks higher than Germany. This article sets out to understand the recent rise of e-participation initiatives in non-democracies. Drawing on comparative longitudinal data from the UN e-government surveys, we tested the assertion that international drivers of change are competing with the dominant focus on domestic factors, especially in the non-democratic world, and are influencing the patterns of reform. The empirical analysis demonstrated important differences between the drivers of change in democratic and nondemocratic countries and found economic globalization to be the strongest predictor of e-participation initiatives in non-democratic countries. In conclusion, we argue that economic globalization alters the context of e-participation and necessitates a re-examination of many of its premises and tenets.

A popular opinion among scholars and commentators seems to be that military administration was a constraint to socioeconomic and political development. Some of these scholars have attributed the causes of the persistent socioeconomic and political crisis to the prolonged stay of the military in government in some African countries. Whereas these assertions are generally tenable, there are some exceptions. A cursory examination of the performances of some military administrations, either at the national or subnational level, has revealed that some military administrators actually contributed to socioeconomic developments. From the foregoing, this paper examines the programmes, policies, and patterns of administration of Commodore Gbolahan Mudashiru in Lagos State between 1984 and 1986. The paper attempts to disprove the generalisation that military rule in Nigeria was a complete failure, particularly in the light of what has emanated from the civilian regimes since 1999. To ascertain its objectives, the paper adopts the biographical and historical methods of data collection and interpretation. Information is gathered from media reports and government documents.

This article critically analyzes some unconstitutional defects that exist in the statutory norms on the principle of publicity of administrative orders and its direct and essential supporting or complementary documents, after the enactment of the 19.653 Act, better known as the "Probity Act", in 1999. After reviewing the scope of the right of access to administrative acts and information, based on the aforesaid principle, this article draws from some subsequent juridical norms both statutory and regulatory which deal with the principle of government publicity, to come up with a general view on the aforementioned right. In this context, this article also deals with the juridical background information (constitutional, statutory, regulatory, theoretical, judicial and administrative) to identify those defects and finally reflects on the issue of administrative publicity and secret.

This article critically analyzes some unconstitutional defects that exist in the statutory norms on the principle of publicity of administrative orders and its direct and essential supporting or complementary documents, after the enactment of the 19.653 Act, better known as the "Probity Act", in 1999. After reviewing the scope of the right of access to administrative acts and information, based on the aforesaid principle, this article draws from some subsequent juridical norms both statutory and regulatory which deal with the principle of government publicity, to come up with a general view on the aforementioned right. In this context, this article also deals with the juridical background information (constitutional, statutory, regulatory, theoretical, judicial and administrative) to identify those defects and finally reflects on the issue of administrative publicity and secret.

This is the fixed version of an article made available by an organization that acts as a publisher by formally and exclusively declaring the article "published". If it is an "early release" article (formally identified as being published even before the compilation of a volume issue and assignment of associated metadata), it is citable via some permanent identifier(s), and final copy-editing, proof corrections, layout, and typesetting have been applied.

This paper aims to provide a composite sketch of the executive utilization of information technologies and its relation to agencies' use of such technologies in state and local government organizations in Arizona. The data were collected through mail surveys by a group of faculty members and graduate students at the School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University. The findings show that (I) regardless of their functional managerial responsibilities, executives surveyed in the study all reported involvement in decision making concerning information technology acquisition and management: (2) organizations that enjoy a higher level of information technology use tend to have managers who have positive attitudes toward information technology (IT); (3) executives' personal familiarity (personal use of) with information technology has only limited correlation with the organizations' technology adoption and use; (4) executives' attitudes toward, and personal involvement in, information technology, are directly related to their educational background and age. The paper concludes that positively shaped attitudes toward information technology on the part of public organization managers are essential in determining public organizations' technological innovation and service provision. Such attitudes do not grow with age, but are obtainable by way of education.

The objective of this article is to explore the experience of reconciling the strategic information system (IS) management with the radical transition of the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure in Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) between 1998 and 2003. This investigation will be beneficial for the implementation of IT projects, as well as the comprehension of the organizational and managerial issues related to the discontinuity of IT development in office automation. This paper conducts an interpretative approach by means of qualitative methodsnamely through participatory observation and in-depth interviews with fourteen informantsto reveal the managerial issues and their implications on the adoption of electronic government (e-Government). Through the method of content analysis, this study reviews the process of decision making, implementation, and other issues emerging as a result of the adoption of new technologies in public authorities, such as the cognition of the employee toward the benefits and effectiveness of IS in public authorities. Learning from this case, this article identifies key lessons and provides suggestions regarding the managerial issues related to the discontinuity of technologies in the workplace. These goals are achieved through reflexive exploration of the sense-making process among civil servants. In addition, this study shares the experience and suggestions with a government CIO through the proposition of a

This paper uses 1940-80 time-series data and a multiproduct, mulliinput aggregate translog profit fl'lJlelion to estimate the structure of Argentine agricultural tedmology. Estimates of own-price supply elasticity ranged between 0 and 15, and derived demand elasticities were between-1 and-2. Given the authors' estimates of price wedges due to currency overvaluation, trade restrictions, and domestic taxes, the-implications of eliminating any one of these policy-induced wedges would be to• increase: production of the. various agJicultural commodities from as little as 5 percent to as much as l 00 percent.

This bibliography is based on the Russell J. Bowen Collection at Georgetown University, contains more than 5,000 entries, and is classified according to 372 headings and subheadings. Text includes author index, list of titles, and list of sources. Major classificatory divisions include national intelligence establishments, collection of information, research and analysis, counterintelligence, covert action, subversion, intelligence support, legal and moral consideration, and criticisms and exposes. A second part arranges such intelligence-related topics as anticommunist and other extremist movements, assassinations, censorship, escape and evasion, foreign relations, law enforcement, political dissent and secret societies, psychological warfare, unconventional warfare, warfare, wars, and weapons.

The Death of Cyberspace Lawrence Lessig* 1999 is an oddly rich year for remembering, m Berlin, the chy that is my home this year, it is the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is the fiftieth anniversary of the rebirth of Germany. It is the fiftieth anniversary of ...

Electronic government (e-government) is a concept that has been adopted in most countries for the purposes of providing government services digitally, improving transparency between government and citizens and enabling additional communication channels with the government. Although e-government readiness in most countries is at a high level, adoption of e-government services is still considered tentative. A critical review of the literature suggests that this may be linked to citizens' trust in government and e-government. As such, there is a need to investigate the role of trust in e-government adoption. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was conducted in order to observe research design, methodologies and approaches adopted in these studies as well as limitations identified and recommendation for future studies. The findings highlight that quantitative techniques and survey research methods appear to have been much preferred over other available alternatives such as qualitative techniques and interview methods or mixed methods in studies relating to trust in e-government adoption.

Electronic government procurement (eGP) is quickly becoming an essential piece of national e-government programs, since it enables active transparency and favors efficient vendor relationships; however, little attention has been paid to the need for periodical measurement of eGP portals' performance and goal satisfaction. Although maturity levels schemes have been proposed for other domains, most notably ITrelated, to the best of our knowledge no maturity level model of eGP has been widely deployed yet. This article presents the e-Government Procurement Observatory Maturity Model (eGPO-MM), which focuses on both legal and institutional arrangements, and portals' technical aspects; the model consists of two Leverage Domains, seven Key Domain Areas, and 25 Critical Variables, which are valued with a weighted scoring system that produces quantitative indicators about portal capabilities and allows direct comparisons. The model was used to evaluate eGP portals from 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean; the measurements are presented, and fit well with previous rank perception, leading to a good reception by participant agencies. eGPO-MM has already allowed to identify areas for joint action and fostered knowledge-sharing among governments, including identification and dissemination of e-procurement best practices; it also established clear reference points to allow each agency to determine a roadmap to higher e-procurement maturity.

Federal records management faces many challenges today. Too few records, both in the traditional formats and the newer electronic ones, are being appraised or transferred to the National Archives when required. Although the National Archives and Records Administration has several major initiatives underway to remedy the problem, additonal actions must be taken as well.

University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund. University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges and thanks the University of Alberta Libraries for its financial support of this book, which allows for the electronic edition to be available as an Open Access title. e r w ▶ This collection is dedicated to government information librarians whose commitment to democratic engagement, professional values, and intellectual curiosity inspire stewardship and service for the betterment of the public good. Special thanks go to

Business enterprises face significant obstacles in their quest to interact with public administrations and governments across Europe, such as bureaucracy, ambiguous procedures, functional disintegration, vague authority structures and information fragmentation. The recent trend towards the delivery of electronic services by governments ("e-government") and the development of integrated and customer-oriented mechanisms ("one-stop government") are efforts to overcome these problems. However, all related efforts focus on the national scene of each country and do not address the needs of businesses when they enter into cross-border processes. This paper presents the objectives, the overall approach and the architectural model of the CB-BUSINESS project, which aims to develop, test and validate an intermediation scheme that integrates the services offered by government, national and regional administration agencies as well as commerce and industry chambers of European Union and Enlargement countries in the context of cross-border processes.

Inherent complexity of the e-Government application domain is also reflected in the workflows of e-Government service provision. This paper reports on how some real examples e-Government service workflows were modeled in a simple and structured fashion by recognizing and re-using recurring segments. Such an approach, drawing from current workflow modeling trends, presents important potential to facilitate e-Government workflow modeling by enabling systematic and rapid design of new service workflows, as well as progressive construction of a repository of e-Government workflow segments that could also host best practice workflows.

Determining the magnitude of climate change effects is crucial for informing national economic strategies, forest management and offsetting increasing carbon emissions. This study synthesizes predicted climate change impacts and future biosecurity threats to New Zealand's plantation forests. Projected productivity increases for radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don), the main commercial forest species in New Zealand, are slight due to changing climatic conditions. However including photosynthetic effects from increasing CO 2 , productivity gains across New Zealand averaged 19 per cent by 2040 and 37 per cent by 2090. This increased productivity results in marked increases in wind risk due to trees becoming taller and more slender. The average season length with 'very high and extreme' climatic fire risk increases by 71 per cent up to 2040 and by 83 per cent up to 2090. Currently, the most significant biotic disturbances in New Zealand plantations come from two needle cast diseases, for which climate projections show slight increases or decreases depending on the disease and region. Although insect pests currently cause little damage to New Zealand plantations, damage may increase in the future with projected increases in population and host susceptibility. It has not been possible to fully account for the effects of any new introductions of pests and pathogens and evidence from other countries with a significant resource of planted forests suggest this should not be underestimated. Potentially invasive weedy and damaging tree species are likely to expand their range under climate change and compete more strongly with plantations.

This article explores how an alternative multichannel management strategy can improve the way governments and citizens interact. Improvement is necessary because, based on empirical data from various sources, the conclusion can be drawn that there is a gap between the communication channels governments prefer and those that citizens prefer. Governments may be too much guided by rational arguments like the cost efficiency of channels while citizens may choose channels depending on, e.g., task characteristics, personal characteristics or situational factors. In order to close the existing gap and to increase understanding about how different channel types may be positioned in multichannel management, this article proposes an alternative multichannel management strategy that takes both the citizen's and the government's perspective into account. This strategy is based on differences in channel types and channel modes via which governments and citizens interact.

conducts research in health and environmental effects of environmental pollutants and develops methodologies and technologies that will improve environmental quality. The office informs the general public of its research results and transfers its methods and technologies to those communities of users charged with carrying out environmental improvements. This article supports EPA's policy for free dissemination of research results and finds it consistent with legislative and administration requirements and court interpretations relating to user fees. The conclusion is that it is not feasible for ORD to establish a user fee program for its publications. Environmental regulations are the basic mission of the agency, and to achieve its goals, there must be a mechanism in place to pmvide information to those who are being regulated. The Center for Environmental Research Information (CERI) is responsible for the management of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Office of Research and Development (ORD) publications program. In addition, it is responsible for the warehousing and free distribution of OFUYs publications and the distribution of selected Superfund documents to other Federal agencies, to state and local governments, and to industries and businesses that are regulated by the agency? EPA's primary mission is the issuance of regulations covering environmental pollutants. To bring about effective compliance with these regulations, it is essential that the regulated community be provided the information it needs regarding environmental standards and methods by which these standards may be met. To assure that this information is available,

The ding-dong charade of Edo St ate Council for Arts and Culture Performing Troupe (ESCFAACPT) cannot be divorced from the vacillating condition the establishment had been experiencing since its establishment. This condition is fore-grounded, first, on the cacophony of nomenclature that the council had been associated with, and second, on the mindset of the various governors that have ruled the state since its inception. Another aspect of this discourse would be the achievements of the troupe, and the calibre of artists it had bred and accommodated over the years. Deploying historical-analytic and interview methods, this study is anchored on performance studies and historicity as proposed by Richard Schechner (2013). It advocates that successive governments since the middle of the nineteen nineties had suppressed performance and creativity in the ESCFAACPT through neglect and disinterestedness. This has made the troupe to become ineffective, ineffectual, and incapable of adapting to modern techniques in arts and cultural administration, management and performance, which are vital for its survival and success in contemporary performance.

For the first time ever, Executive Order 12958 signed in 1995 established a process to greatly reduce the huge number of classified federal records accumulated since world war II. Although some progress was made under it, subsequent orders and legislation significantly decreased its effectiveness. The U.S. government must take certain actions now to reverse this trend.

PurposeThe current study seeks to present and examine the strategies, management and dissemination of information on social media platforms by Israeli government organizations and agencies.Design/methodology/approachThe article uses the “Case Study” approach, through semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted with directors in charge of the use of social media in government departments.FindingsThe findings indicate that government agencies tend to favor Facebook over other social network platforms, in order to reach the widest possible audience. They do this by adhering to the platform's limitations, such as regularly using sponsored advertising to increase reach and visibility, and also by publishing visual content, such as videos and images, at the expense of text. In addition, the impact of respondents to adopt social media outweighs the use and importance awarded to traditional government websites. A clear preference is evident toward cultivating and strengthening existi...

This study explores the relationship between local government dissemination of COVID-19 information and partisanship. The unit of analysis is all official county government websites in the United States. In particular, we investigate if there is a correlation between the overall partisanship of a county and whether a county government's website (1) mentions COVID-19 and (2) provides safety instructions concerning COVID-19. We hypothesize that mass partisanship will impact the probability that a county government's website provides information related to the coronavirus. We find that a larger share of Democratic voters in a county is associated with an increase in the probability that a county government's website mentions COVID-19 and provides safety instructions for its residents. The results hold even after controlling for population density, internet subscriptions and COVID-19 cases and deaths. The finding indicates that citizens' access to information, even on matters of public health, are partially a consequence of partisanship. Resumé Cette étude explore la relation entre la diffusion d'informations sur la COVID-19 par les gouvernements locaux et la partisanerie. L'unité d'analyse est l'ensemble des sites Web officiels des gouvernements de comté aux États-Unis. En particulier, nous cherchons à savoir s'il existe une corrélation entre la partisanerie générale d'un comté et le fait que le site Web d'un gouvernement de comté 1) mentionne la COVID-19 et 2) donne des instructions de sécurité concernant la COVID-19. Nous émettons l'hypothèse que la partisanerie de masse aura un impact sur la probabilité que le site Web d'un gouvernement de comté fournisse des informations relatives au coronavirus. Nous constatons qu'une plus grande proportion d'électeurs démocrates dans un comté est associée à une augmentation

This study explores the relationship between local government dissemination of COVID-19 information and partisanship. The unit of analysis is all official county government websites in the United States. In particular, we investigate if there is a correlation between the overall partisanship of a county and whether a county government's website (1) mentions COVID-19 and (2) provides safety instructions concerning COVID-19. We hypothesize that mass partisanship will impact the probability that a county government's website provides information related to the coronavirus. We find that a larger share of Democratic voters in a county is associated with an increase in the probability that a county government's website mentions COVID-19 and provides safety instructions for its residents. The results hold even after controlling for population density, internet subscriptions and COVID-19 cases and deaths. The finding indicates that citizens’ access to information, even on matter...

Reviews LISR considers for review reference works, periodicals, dissertations, research methods texts, computer software, and professional literature concerning the research process and applications of research. Views expressed are those of the reviewers and do not necessarily reflect views of the Board of Editors or publisher. Anyone wishing to write reviews or suggest titles should contact Marilyn Domas White , LISR Reviews Editor,

Importance of the Study At a time when public library e-government service provision continues to expand, it is critical for the Indiana State Library and Indiana public libraries to fully assess their role as egovernment service providers in order to manage current needs and allocate financial and other resources for future e-government service development. While there is widespread realization that the public library community is expending considerable resources in order to meet demands for increased e-government services, there is limited information available on the estimated costs, broadband needs and obstacles, and the resulting benefits of this service role. Additionally, there is little guidance available for developing future opportunities including recommendations and next steps for more successful e-government service provision. Goals and Objectives This report provides findings of a study designed to assist the Indiana State Library in (1) identifying the range of costs public libraries incur in their provision of e-government services; (2) describing the benefits that result for Indiana residents, libraries, and government agencies; (3) evaluating access to high-speed broadband in libraries; (4) assessing the usability of the IN.gov web portal for e-government services; and (5) providing recommendations for how public libraries in Indiana can continue to improve their e-government service provision. Data Collection Activities The study team employed a multi-method research design in order to collect data for this project. These methods included:  Web-based survey,  Activity log case studies,  Interviews with state agency representatives,  Focus groups with library staff,  Phone interviews with library directors, and  A usability analysis of IN.gov. The use of multiple methods was designed to ensure reliable data and a thorough representation of the diversity of Indiana public libraries. While not included in the original tasking, phone interviews and the usability analysis of the IN.gov web portal were included in order to strengthen the project's findings.