The Long-Term Effects of Military Conscription on Mortality: Estimates from the Vietnam-era Draft Lottery

Research on the effects of Vietnam military service suggests that Vietnam veterans experienced significantly higher mortality than both non-Vietnam veterans and the civilian population at large. These results, however, may be biased by non-random selection into the military if unobserved background differences between veterans and non-veterans affect mortality directly. The present study generates unbiased estimates of the causal impact of Vietnam era draft eligibility on male mortality. Using records from the Vietnam draft lottery to assign decedents born 1950-1952 draft lottery numbers, the study estimates excess mortality among observed draft eligible male decedents as compared to the (1) expected proportion of draft eligible decedents given Vietnam draft eligibility cutoffs and (2) observed proportion of draft eligible female decedents. The results demonstrate that there appears to be no effect of draft exposure on mortality (even cause-specific death rates). When we examine population subgroups—including splits by race, educational attainment, nativity and marital status—we find weak evidence for an interaction between education and draft eligibility. On the whole, these results suggest that previous research, which has shown that Vietnam-era veterans experienced significantly higher mortality than non-veterans, may be biased by non-random selection into the military and may thus overstate the need for compensatory government pensions.

Exceptional adsorption induced cluster and network deformation in the flexible metal organic framework DUT 8 Ni observed by in situ X ray diffraction and EXAFS

The gate opening mechanism in the highly flexible MOF Ni2 2,6 ndc 2dabco DUT 8 Ni , DUT Dresden University of Technology with unprecedented unit cell volume change was elucidated in detail using combined single crystal X ray diffraction, in situ XRD and EXAFS techniques. The analysis of the crystal structures of closed pore cp and large pore lp phases reveals a drastic and unique unit cell volume expansion of up to 254 , caused by adsorption of gases, surpassing other gas pressure switchable MOFs significantly. To a certain extent, the structural deformation is specific for the guest molecule triggering the transformation due to subtle differences in adsorption enthalpy, shape, and kinetic diameter of the guest. Combined adsorption and powder diffraction experiments using nitrogen 77 K , carbon dioxide 195 K , and n butane 272.5 K as a probe molecules reveal a one step structural transformation from cp to lp. In contrast, adsorption of ethane 185 K or ethylene 169 K results in a two step transformation with the formation of intermediate phases. In situ EXAFS during nitrogen adsorption was used for the first time to monitor the local coordination geometry of the metal atoms during the structural transformation in flexible MOFs revealing a unique local deformation of the nickel based paddle wheel nod

Through a Glass, Darkly: The Rhetoric and Reality of Campaign Finance Disclosure

In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court swept away long-standing limits on corporate spending in federal elections, but it also strongly affirmed the constitutionality of robust disclosure and disclaimer requirements. In the wake of that decision, many proponents of campaign finance regulation have turned their attention to disclosure as the best remaining mechanism by which to regulate money in elections. At the same time, opponents of campaign finance regulation — including the legal team behind Citizens United — have trained their sights on disclosure, filing new challenges to existing disclosure require- ments in a number of state or federal courts, although so far with only limited success. Relying on the Longitudinal Elite Contributor Database (LECD) — an original database developed by one of the authors to track the population of unique individual campaign contributors from 1980 through 2008 — this essay tests the Supreme Court’s rhetoric about disclosure, and some of the premises of our current policy debates about money in politics, against the realities of the FEC’s existing disclosure regime. In particular, we find that compliance with existing disclosure regulations is inconsistent and that the current regime fails to identify the most potentially influential players in the campaign finance system. In so doing, the current system fails to provide basic facts about how candidates (and committees) finance their campaigns. We suggest that much of what the Court and reformers assume about disclosure is wrong — that their views are premised on an effective and well-functioning disclosure regime that in fact bears scant resemblance to the system of disclosure maintained by the FEC. Correcting these misunderstandings will be critical to crafting better reform proposals. And the stakes could not be higher: disclosure may well be the only constitutionally viable and politically feasible method of regulating money in elections in a post-Citizens United world

Rethinking Disclosure in the Wake of McCutcheon v. FEC

Earlier this spring, the Supreme Court delivered yet another blow to campaign finance regulation. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the Court invalidated the federal “aggregate limits” —or statutory restrictions on the amount any single individual can contribute to all federal candidates, parties, and committees combined. This decision was the latest in a string of decisions handed down by the Roberts Court removing restrictions on the flow of money into politics. McCutcheon is likely to drive significantly more money into the coffers of federal candidates, political parties, and other political committees. While the overall limit on the amount any individual could donate to such entities in a single election cycle was $123,200 prior to McCutcheon, wealthy individuals may now be able to contribute over$3.5 million in a single cycle. Much of the post-McCutcheon commentary has focused on the decision’s likely impact on the “base limits” that continue to cap contributions to individual campaigns, political parties, and other political committees. On its face, the decision left the base limits untouched. The majority skirted the issue—at least for now. But less noted in the aftermath of McCutcheon was the fact that the Court went out of its way to affirm the constitutionality of campaign finance disclosure. The Chief Justice’s opinion asserted that disclosure “offers a particularly effective means of arming the voting public with information” and in addition provides “robust protections against corruption.” Indeed, every member of the current Court but Justice Thomas has now signaled strong approval of disclosure. In light of such support from the Supreme Court, disclosure appears to be on firm constitutional footing. But is the Court right about the effectiveness of disclosure? Does disclosure about campaign financing actually arm the public with the information needed to make informed choices and hold candidates and elected officials accountable? We question the view that the system of disclosure—at least as it is presently constituted—is able to effectively advance the interests the Court has identified in the campaign finance sphere. Instead, we argue that the way campaign finance information is collected, maintained, and disseminated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is in need of serious improvement before disclosure stands a chance of matching Chief Justice Roberts’ rhetoric. Although media accounts in recent elections have focused on shadowy super-PAC and nonprofit donors, the bulk of money in American elections still flows directly from private donors to the campaign coffers of political candidates. All of this money—which will almost certainly increase in light of McCutcheon—is subject to disclosure under a system that is in theory quite robust. But the current disclosure regime suffers from a number of limitations that impede the interested electorate’s ability to understand who is financing American elections, and to what potential ends. Since the late 1970s, federal law has required individual donors to report their first and last names, occupation/employer, and address with a contribution over $200. Despite this requirement, FEC records are plagued with a series of problems: selective compliance (i.e., donors who do not uniformly comply with disclosure requirements), valid nonresponse (i.e., donors who supply information that is vague), and dissimulation (i.e., donors who supply misleading information that masks their true identity or interests). Perhaps more importantly, the current disclosure regime fails to track the contributions of unique donors within elections as well as across entities and time. Overall, the FEC’s disclosure data obscures rather than illuminates the biggest and most consistent donors to American elections. What should be done? Three simple solutions—each of which the FEC could implement without congressional action—would significantly improve the quality of campaign finance disclosure data. First, standardize disclosure forms. At present, the FEC advises candidates and committees to collect basic disclosure information, but it does not provide these entities with a standardized way to collect that information. A standardized form—like the ones used by other federal agencies to collect basic socio-demographic information—would greatly improve the quality of disclosure data and potentially reduce the burden of disclosure for campaign managers. For instance, the FEC’s disclosure form could model its question on occupation/employer after the United States Census Bureau’s long form questionnaire. On the long form questionnaire, respondents are asked to select their industry from a pre-defined list and then are prompted to describe their main employment duties. The nested structure of the Census Bureau’s question allows government employees, researchers, and others to accurately categorize the workforce of the American population. Second, itemize by individual donors rather than by individual contributions. Provide donors with a unique donor identification number so that journalists, researchers, and the engaged electorate can identify the biggest and most consistent donors to federal elections. This unique donor identification number could potentially be released with wholly or partially de-identified FEC data. In other words, other identifying information like full names could be stripped from the files before being publicly released, thus mitigating concerns about privacy. Third, release basic information about who finances American elections in an easy-to-comprehend format. If campaign finance disclosure is to serve as an “effective means of arming the voting public with information,” it must be released in a format that the engaged electorate can quickly comprehend and potentially use to inform vote choice. At present, the bulk of the FEC’s disclosure data is contained in large-scale databases that are available for download on its website. But a more effective disclosure regime would allow voters to interactively explore the contours of political influence in American elections by, for example, showing voters how much their House representative received from big dollar contributors and what industries these contributors represent. Taken together, these small and simple recommendations—along with still other actions we have recommended—could go a long way toward arming the electorate with the sort of effective disclosure information that the Roberts Court envisions. In a post-McCutcheon landscape, an accurate, well-maintained, and accessible database of donors could be the public’s last viable hope for regulating political money

Diversifying the Donor Pool: Did Seattle's Democracy Vouchers Program Reshape Participation in Municipal Campaign Finance?

The Democracy Voucher program in Seattle was designed to broaden representation in the campaign finance system and expand participation from marginalized communities. By providing four, twenty-five-dollar vouchers to every registered voter in Seattle that voters could, in turn, assign to the candidate(s) of their choice, this radical first-in-the-nation public financing system aimed to dramatically reshape the way local elections are funded. In this paper, we investigate whether the Democracy Voucher program increased involvement from underrepresented groups and created a more representative donor pool for local elections. By comparing the demographic and geographic composition of participants in the program (“voucher users”) to the composition of Seattle residents who made cash contributions in the election (“donors”), we evaluate the impact of this public-financing program. Voucher users are less likely to be high-income and more likely to come from poor neighborhoods compared to donors. However, older residents are over-represented among voucher users, and there is little difference in the racial composition of cash donors and voucher users. Although voucher users remain demographically unrepresentative of the electorate, our analysis suggests that the program is shifting the donor pool in an egalitarian direction relative to the pool of cash donors. This analysis of an innovative public policy offers lessons for other municipalities and for the national conversation on the influence of political money