Watershed educational and informational efforts have largely neglected to inform one important group of decision-makers: local government officials. The Internet Watershed Educational Tool (InterWET) was developed to help inform local officials about water resources, using as a case study the Spring Creek Watershed in central Pennsylvania. Utilizing the “microworlds” concept, InterWET consists ...

The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to characterize the bridge material selection decisions of highway officials across the United States. Understanding product choices by utilizing the AHP allowed us to develop strategies for increasing the use of timber in bridge construction. State Department of Transportation engineers, private consulting engineers, and local highway officials w...

This research aims to identify the relationship between job satisfaction, psychological well-being and Perceived Organizational Support amongst prison officials. 190 officials working in one state prison and one privately-run prison were evaluated using the Job Satisfaction Questionnaire¹, Psychological Well-being Scale² and Scale of Perceived Organizational Support³. The main results show a si...

Cognitive biases are heuristics that shape individual preferences and decisions in a way at odds with means-end rationality. The effects of cognitive biases on governing are underexplored. We study how election administrators’ cognitive biases shape their preferences for e-voting technology using data from a national survey of local election officials. The Technology Acceptance Model, which emp...

The Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to characterize the bridge material selection decisions of highway engineers and local highway officials across the United States. State Department of Transportation engineers, private consulting engineers, and local highway officials were personally interviewed in Mississippi, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin to identify how various factors determin...

Non-collusive corruption, i.e., corruption that imposes an additional burden on business activity, is particularly widespread in low-income countries. We build a macroeconomic model with credit market imperfections and heterogeneous agents to explore the roots and consequences of this type of corruption. We find that credit market imperfections, by generating rents for the incumbent entrepreneu...

This article examines the process of emergence and consolidation of an expat community of over 2000 Polish EU Institutions officials in Brussels. This group appears quite alienated both from other Polish migrants in Belgium and from the local population. At the same time, they constitute a strongly integrated community. The objective of the present analysis is to explain the drivers and the dyn...

On September 13, 2006, CDC officials were alerted by epidemiologists in Wisconsin and Oregon that fresh spinach was the suspected source of small clusters of Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7 infections in those states. On the same day, New Mexico epidemiologists contacted Wisconsin and Oregon epidemiologists about a cluster of E. coli O157:H7 infections in New Mexico associated with fresh spin...

During June-July 2004, public health officials in Pennsylvania were notified of cases of the parasitic disease cyclosporiasis among persons associated with a residential facility (e.g., residents, staff, and volunteers). CDC confirmed the diagnosis of Cyclospora cayetanensis infection by examining stool specimens from multiple patients. By early July, local public health officials had been noti...

In response to failures of central planning, the Chinese government has experimented not only with free-market trade zones, but with allowing non-profit foundations to operate in a decentralized fashion. A network study shows how these foundations have connected together by sharing board members, in a structural parallel to what is seen in corporations in the United States. This board interlock...