Dispersed vs. Centralized Policy Governance: The Case of State Early Care and Education Policy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jenkins, Jade Marcus; Henry, Gary T.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Irvine; Vanderbilt University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muw003
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 709-725
• 关键词: EARLY-CHILDHOOD EDUCATION; organizational-factors; Welfare policy; UNITED-STATES; POLITICS; QUALITY; implementation; COORDINATION; EMPLOYMENT; devolution

摘要

Policy and public management scholars have long theorized about the fragmentation of policy governance across numerous agencies, yet the effects of concentrated or dispersed governance on outcomes of the target population are largely unknown. Child policy is a policy field where dispersion has raised particular concerns, leading several states to consolidate governance for children's programs in recent years. After presenting arguments both for and against the dispersion of policies across agencies, we estimate the effect of dispersion of state-level early childhood education policy governance on children's reading skills. Using a unique nationally representative, longitudinal data set of young children merged with rich state-level data, we use instrumental variables estimation to address potential endogeneity of state governance policies. Our findings indicate that there is a significant positive effect of dispersed governance on children's reading skills in kindergarten. The returns to dispersion diminish above four agencies. Future research in this area should explore the specific mechanisms through which policy governance affects child outcomes.