DOES IT PAY TO GET AN A? SCHOOL RESOURCE ALLOCATIONS IN RESPONSE TO ACCOUNTABILITY RATINGS

This paper examines whether school districts, and individual schools, respond to ratings from the accountability system by reallocating resources across or within schools. Our empirical work follows three identification strategies, a regression discontinuity for schools on the rating boundaries, a “rating shock” analysis for schools that face a change in rating when the state changed its accountability system, and a school fixed effects strategy. We find that school districts provided incentives for their schools to achieve higher ratings under the early accountability system, but under the later system they appear to have abandoned this strategy. In addition, the rating shock results suggest that some effort was directed towards assisting lower performing schools under the new regime. Finally, we find that in the early period incremental funds were used as much for ancillary purposes as instruction.

Local Revenue Hills: Evidence from Four U. S. Cities

We provide estimates of the impact and long-run elasticities of tax base with respect to tax rates for four large U.S. cities: Houston (property taxation), Minneapolis (property taxation), New York City (property, general sales, and income taxation), and Philadelphia (property, gross receipts, and wage taxation). Results suggest that three of our cities are near the peaks of their revenue hills; Minneapolis is the exception. A significant negative effect of a balanced budget increase in city property tax rates on city property base is interpreted as a capitalization effect and suggests that marginal increases in city spending do not provide positive net benefits to property owners. Estimates of the effects of taxes on city employment levels for New York City and Philadelphia -- the two cities for which employment series are available -- show the local income and wage tax rates have significant negative effects on city employment levels.Local Taxation, City Fiscal Policy, Urban Economic Development

The Internet, Bank Structure and Small Business Lending

The advent of the Internet has opened many opportunities for bankers to access new customers, increase convenience and expand product ranges in many markets, including that of small businesses. Yet anecdotal evidence reveals that smaller banks are reluctant to employ Internet technology in the small business market for fear of damaging the customer relationship developed through personal contact. These smaller, more simply structured banks tend to specialize in small business lending, possessing a comparative advantage in that market (Craig and Hardee, 2001). This is particularly so in relationship driven credits where personal knowledge of the borrower is paramount over financial ratios produced through credit scoring models (Berger and Udell, 1995, 1994). However, with technological advances, large banks have captured a greater share of the small business loan market (Ely and Robinson, 2001; Mester, 1997). Furthermore, large complex financial institutions have made greater inroads in establishing an Internet presence on the World Wide Web and have the most ambitious online banking agendas (Furst, Lang and Nolle, 2000). Within the financial services industry consolidations are ongoing and information technologies rapidly improve. The result is much larger, complex banks participating more in small business lending (SBL) relative to the fewer small, simply structured ones—in contrast to what older evidence reveals (Ely and Robinson, 2001). Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to determine if, with advanced technologies along with the changing face of the industry, bank structure continues to impact SBL; and if specifically Internet banking “levels the playing field†in that market. We define an Internet bank as any commercial bank maintaining a World Wide Web site on which banking transactions may be conducted electronically. These range from basic Internet services such as account inquiries to total financial management of a customer?s assets

The Impact of Bank Structure on Small Business and Small Farm Lending

This paper empirically explores the impact of bank size, holding company affiliation and the degree of branching on small business and farm lending through a conceptual analysis encompassing private information asymmetries inherent in these bank dependent borrowers. The study expands the literature by removing the influence of capital constraints in bank dependent lending through comparing real estate secured to non real estate loans in a reduced form model. Furthermore, it encompasses an allocation analysis over bank dependent loans, its large loan counterpart and other assets. Overall the findings indicate that not only small banks, but instate and more particularly one bank holding company banks devote more of their assets to small business and farm loans. Banks owned by out-of-state holding companies do not. Low to moderately branched banks are also active in these markets. In this respect the smaller, more simply structured bank may possess a relative advantage in the bank dependent loan market arising from the capacity to mitigate acute informational asymmetries

Subchapter S, An Entrepreneurial Survival Strategy for Small Banks

With the passage of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, many small banks throughout the United States became eligible to reorganize as a Subchapter S corporation. This allows these banks to eliminate double taxation, and increase shareholder value. Consequently, employing this entrepreneurial survival tool extends “new life†to the small bank. Accompanying this strategy are differences in corporate governance, primarily more concentration of ownership. Thus, this paper examines the behavior of Subchapter S banks as compared to banks of similar size in order to determine significant performance differences. It also focuses on bank structure and small business lending activity, an area of high asset concentration in small banks. Overall, we find shareholder value appears to increase in a Subchapter S banking organization through higher earnings, larger dividend payout ratios, and similar risk measures. We find little differences in these banks in relation to small business lending. The implications are that a small bank’s survival rate will be higher in the consolidation process by employing the Subchapter S strategy

Ammonium Fluoride as a Hydrogen-disordering Agent for Ice

The removal of residual hydrogen disorder from various phases of ice with acid or base dopants at low temperatures has been a focus of intense research for many decades. As an antipode to these efforts, we now show using neutron diffraction that ammonium fluoride (NH4F) is a hydrogen-disordering agent for the hydrogen-ordered ice VIII. Cooling its hydrogen-disordered counterpart ice VII doped with 2.5 mol% ND4F under pressure leads to a hydrogen-disordered ice VIII with ~31% residual hydrogen disorder illustrating the long-range hydrogen-disordering effect of ND4F. The doped ice VII could be supercooled by ~20 K with respect to the hydrogen-ordering temperature of pure ice VII after which the hydrogen-ordering took place slowly over a ~60 K temperature window. These findings demonstrate that ND4F-doping slows down the hydrogen-ordering kinetics quite substantially. The partial hydrogen order of the doped sample is consistent with the antiferroelectric ordering of pure ice VIII. Yet, we argue that local ferroelectric domains must exist between ionic point defects of opposite charge. In addition to the long-range effect of NH4F-doping on hydrogen-ordered water structures, the design principle of using topological charges should be applicable to a wide range of other 'ice-rule' systems including spin ices and related polar materials.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Is Gifted Education a Bright Idea? Assessing the Impact of Gifted and Talented Programs on Achievement

In this paper we determine how the receipt of gifted and talented (GT) services affects student outcomes. We identify the causal relationship by exploiting a discontinuity in eligibility requirements and find that for students on the margin there is no discernable impact on achievement even though peers improve substantially. We then use randomized lotteries to examine the impact of attending a GT magnet program relative to GT programs in other schools and find that, despite being exposed to higher quality teachers and peers that are one standard deviation higher achieving, only science achievement improves. We argue that these results are consistent with an invidious comparison model of peer effects offsetting other benefits. Evidence of large reductions in course grades and rank relative to peers in both regression discontinuity and lottery models are consistent with this explanation.

A two-dimensional model of the plasmasphere: refilling time constants

A two-dimensional model of the plasmasphere has been developed to study the temporal evolution of plasma density in the equatorial plane of the magnetosphere. This model includes the supply and loss of hydrogen ions due to ionosphere-magneto-sphere coupling as well as the effects of E x B convection. A parametric model describing the required coupling fluxes has been developed which utilizes empirical models of the neutral atmosphere, the ionosphere and the saturated plasmasphere. The plasmaspheric model has been used to examine the time it takes for the plasmasphere to refill after it has been depleted by a magnetic storm. The time it takes for the plasmasphere to reach 90% of its equilibrium level ranges from 3 days at L = 3 during solar minimum to as high as 100 days at L = 5 during solar maximum. Refilling is also dependent on the month of the year, with refilling requiring a longer period of time at solar maximum during June than during December for L > 3.2.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31025/1/0000702.pd

Perioperative safety of two-team simultaneous bilateral total knee arthroplasty in the obese patient

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although the rates of perioperative morbidity and mortality with simultaneous bilateral total knee arthroplasty remain a concern, multiple studies have shown the procedure to be safe in selected patient populations. Evidence also remains mixed regarding the outcomes of total knee arthroplasty in obese patients. The purpose of this paper is to compare the rates of perioperative morbidity and mortality in consecutive obese patients undergoing two-team simultaneous bilateral total knee arthroplasty and unilateral total knee arthroplasty.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The records on all two-team simultaneous total knee arthroplasties and unilateral total knee arthroplasties from October 1997 to December 2007 were reviewed. A total of 151 patients with a body mass index (BMI) >30 undergoing two-team simultaneous total knee arthroplasty and 148 patients with a BMI >30 undergoing unilateral total knee arthroplasty were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed to determine perioperative morbidity and mortality as well as one-year mortality rates.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Preoperative patient characteristics did not show any significant differences between groups. The simultaneous bilateral group had significantly longer operative times (127.4 versus 112.7 minutes, p < 0.01), estimated blood loss (176.7 versus 111.6 mL, p = 0.01), percentage of patients requiring blood transfusion (64.9% versus 13.9%, p < 0.01), length of hospital stay (3.72 versus 3.30 days, p < 0.01), and percentage of patients requiring extended care facility usage at discharge (63.6% versus 27.8%, p < 0.01). No significant difference between unilateral and bilateral groups was seen in regards to total complication rate, major or minor complication subgroup rate, or any particular complication noted. Doubling the variables in the unilateral group for a staged total knee arthroplasty scenario did create significant increases over the simultaneous data in almost every data category.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Two-team simultaneous total knee arthroplasty appears to be safe in obese patients, with similar complication rates as compared to unilateral procedures. Two-team simultaneous total knee arthroplasty also appears to have potential benefits over a staged procedure in the obese patient, although more study is required regarding this topic.</p