When governments go wrong + institutional alternatives

Readings due before class on Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Required

Important: This looks like a ton of reading, and there is a lot, but note that many of these things are shorter videos or tweets. Listen to the podcasts passively while doing other stuff, like driving or doing the dishes.

The materials in the institutional alternatives section are foundational to public administration economics and the whole reason the nonprofit sector is folded into the public sector in this program. They’re long and old and stilted and full of math, so please don’t spend an inordinate amount of time on them. Remember your grad school reading skills—read the introduction and conclusion, look around in the middle for things that look interesting, and make sure you understand the gist of what’s going on.

When governments go wrong

• Noah Smith on why we should worry about race, culture, and politics when thinking about economics
• Excerpt from Martin Luther King’s May 8, 1967 interview with NBCDr. King gave an in-depth interview with NBC a year before he was assassinated. If you’re interested, you can view the full interview, or read some commentary about his claim that his dream had turned into a nightmare.
  
  
• Adam Ruins Everything, “The Disturbing History of the Suburbs”, October 4, 2017Yes, a CollegeHumor video. Seriously.
  
  
• Aaron Glantz and Emmanuel Martinez, “Kept out: For people of color, banks are shutting the door to homeownership,” Reveal, February 15, 2018
  • Alternatively, listen to the podcast version of this story, which goes in more depth and is really fantastic: “The red line: Racial disparities in lending,” Reveal, February 17, 2018
• Emma Roller’s interview with Mehrsa Baradaran, “How the U.S. Government Locked Black Americans Out of Attaining the American Dream,”, Splinter, October 11, 2017Mehrsa is LDS, btw.
  
  
• Hamilton, et al., “Umbrellas Don’t Make it Rain: Why Studying and Working Hard Isn’t Enough for Black Americans”Darrick Hamilton et al., “Umbrellas Don’t Make It Rain: Why Studying and Working Hard Isn’t Enough for Black Americans” April 2015, http://econ.hunter.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/seminar2016-darity2.pdf.
  
  
• This American Life, “The Problem We All Live With, Part One,” episode 562, July 31, 2015
• This American Life, “The Problem We All Live With, Part Two,” episode 563, August 7, 2015

Institutional alternatives

Important: The PDFs of the articles and chapters are posted on Learning Suite.

• Chapter 5 in Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic PerformanceDouglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
  
  
• Olaf Corry, “Defining and Theorizing the Third Sector”Olaf Corry, “Defining and Theorizing the Third Sector,” in Third Sector Research, ed. Rupert Taylor (New York: Springer, 2010), 11–20, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-5707-8_2.
  
  
• Chapters 1 and 2 in Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective ActionElinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
  
  
  • This one is super long and game theoretical. You can skim through lots of it (especially the mathy sections). But it’s also pretty foundational to public administration, so it is important. Make sure you get the gist of what’s happening, but don’t strain yourself with all the tiny details.

Not required, but highly recommended

• Destin Jenkins, “Who Segregated America?,” Public Books, December 21, 2017