Across five studies, we found that awe increases both supernatural belief (Studies 1, 2, and 5) and intentional-pattern perception (Studies 3 and 4)-two phenomena that have been linked to agency detection, or the tendency to interpret events as the consequence of intentional and purpose-driven agents. Effects were both directly and conceptually replicated, and mediational analyses revealed that...

For decades credit rating agencies were viewed as trusted arbiters of creditworthiness and their ratings as important tools for managing risk. The common narrative is that the value of ratings was compromised by the evolution of the industry to a form where issuers pay for ratings. In this paper we show how credit ratings have value in equilibrium and how reputation insures that, in equilibrium...

Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, attention increasingly has been focused on social justice issues, mainly human health and access to services. With the Clinton executive order in 1994, Federal agencies were mandated to avoid disproportionate adverse environmental impacts to minority and low-income populations, in all agency actions, including both plans and projects. Subsequent USDOT rules e...

To assist the federal government in meeting its energy reduction goals, President Clinton’s Executive Order 12902 established the Procurement Challenge, which directed all federal agencies to purchase equipment within the top 25~ percentile of efficiency. Under the direction of DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), the Procurement Challenge’s goal is to create efficiency recommendatio...

As one of the most powerful executive actions, rulemaking by U.S. federal agencies involves all three branches and governs many issue areas, but some rules are routine others highly consequential. We build a new rule universe composed nearly forty-thousand considered listed in Unified Agenda since Spring 1995 employ an item response model with 15 raters to generate integrated estimates signific...

In 1998, the Health and Social Services Department of an Australian State government began an investigation into the use of smart card technology in the provision of certain social services. Their goal was to develop an e-health solution to the mentally and physically disabled; one that would increase efficiency and facilitate better decision making and strategic planning within the department,...

“Where I’m going there’s good energy and real excitement with so many different constituencies working to achieve the same goals”, says Robin Gorna, who takes up her new post on Feb 1 as executive director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), hosted in WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. On Jan 31, she will leave her post as executive director of AIDS Strategy...