Collaborative Research: Places, Poverty and State Capacity: Local State Responses to Recession and Socioeconomic Well-Being, 2001-2012

这一合作研究项目将考察地方政府在多大程度上改善了全国的社会经济福祉，以及它们是否在2008年至2011年经济衰退后为复苏做出了贡献。调查地方政府对就业增长、收入增长、脱贫攻坚等社会经济指标的影响。研究人员将集中精力检验三个广泛的假设：(1)地方政府的能力(规模、行政/财政资源和政策干预)与他们所服务的人口的幸福感呈正相关。(2)能力与地方政府对大衰退的反周期(主动)反应有关。(3)在地方政府采取反周期反应的地方，未来的社会经济福祉会有所改善。这些假设中的每一个都将针对50个州的县级单位内的所有地方政府和县政府。尽管县政府在就业规模上超过了联邦文职政府，但社会科学家几乎忽略了它们。调查人员建立的地方政府数据库将通过使用政府普查和其他二级数据扩展到经济衰退后时期。对于县政府，将使用跨越2001-2008年的独特的主要纵向数据。该项目将具有跨社会科学的理论意义和广泛的实用价值，适用于美国各地的社区和家庭，因为他们面临着大衰退后地方政府的潜在削减。该项目将在政治社会学和长期存在的贫困与地方文学之间建立一座新的桥梁，这是一种解决跨越社会学、地理学、经济学和区域科学的国家以下差距的传统。该项目将解决有关政府在促进全国公众福祉方面所扮演的角色的基本社会科学问题。它将为旨在经济衰退后复苏的政策提供信息。数据中记录的是奥巴马刺激计划期间当地公共就业的变化，这将使研究人员能够衡量它们对贫困的影响，并评估以地方为基础(以地方为中心)的政策是否有助于扶贫。该项目将为研究生和本科生提供教育和培训机会，并将加强数据基础设施，以详细研究地方政府，并为未来的研究提供福祉。

This collaborative research project will examine the degree to which local governments improve socioeconomic well-being across the nation and whether they contribute to recovery following the recession of 2008 to 2011. The impacts of local governments on employment growth, income growth, poverty alleviation, and other socioeconomic indicators will be investigated. The researchers will focus their efforts on tests of three broad-ranging hypotheses: (1) Capacity (size, administrative/fiscal resources, and policy interventions) of local governments is positively related to the well-being of the populations they serve. (2) Capacity is related to countercyclical (proactive) local government responses to the Great Recession. (3) Where local governments took countercyclical responses, future socioeconomic well-being improved. Each of these hypotheses will be addressed for all local governments within county-area units across 50 states and for the county governments. Although county governments exceed federal civilian government in employment size, social scientists have all but ignored them. A local government database constructed by the investigators will be extended for the post-recession period through the use of the Census of Governments and other secondary data. For county governments, unique primary longitudinal data spanning 2001-2008 will be used.The project will have theoretical significance across the social sciences and broad utility for communities and families across the U.S. as they face potential cuts to their local governments in the aftermath of the Great Recession. The project will create a new bridge between political sociology and the longstanding poverty-and-place literature, a tradition addressing subnational disparities that spans sociology, geography, economics, and regional science. The project will address fundamental social science questions about the role of government in promoting public well-being across the nation. It will inform policies aimed at post-recession recovery. Captured in the data are local public employment changes during the Obama stimulus-package period that will enable the researchers to measure their impact on poverty and to also assess whether place-based (locally centered) policies helped in poverty alleviation. The project will provide education and training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, and it will enhance the data infrastructure for detailed studies of local governments and well-being for future research.