Six years after its inception, the Massachusetts linked deposit program (LDP) has grown to become a sizable and stable part of the Treasurer's investment program. By the spring of 1984, when the research for this study was undertaken, there were $114 million of LDP deposits outstanding, at 72 of the state's approximately 400 banks. In spite of its size, however, and contrary to recommendations by both special commissions that program implementation include careful monitoring and evaluation, there has never been a systematic evaluation or review of the Massachusetts LDP.

The rationale for an LDP is straightforward: by giving preference in awarding public deposits to banks whose loan portfolios contain a relatively large amount of loans in specific publicly-designated categories, public funds would be channeled to those banks most likely to put them to socially desirable uses, and banks would have an incentive (the prospect of obtaining increased public deposits at favorable rates) to alter their overall loan portfolios in socially-desired directions. By following the lead of state Treasurers in Illinois, Missouri, and Colorado in adopting an LDP, the Treasurer of Massachusetts sought to utilize a promising mechanism for making banking institutions responsive to the public interest as well as to the interests of their shareholders and depositors.

In fact, the recommendation by the Special Commission on State Investment that Massachusetts establish an LDP was a highly qualified one. The Commission emphasized that the program's ability to promote its stated objective would depend on the nature of the LDP adopted: "...it is crucial that [an LDP] be well-designed, well-implemented, and well-publicized."

This report presents the results of a systematic analysis of the extent to which the operation of the Massachusetts LDP meets the three-part standard articulated by the Special Commission on State Investment. After a short Introduction, Part II reviews the historical evolution and present structure of the Massachusetts LDP. Part III summarizes the methods and the results of a quantitative analysis of all of the bids by, linked deposit scores of, and LDP awards to the banks that participated in the program during 1983 (the most recent year for which complete data were available). Part IV contains a systematic evaluation of each of the major aspects of the Massachusetts LDP's design and implementation. Because one goal of this project, which was undertaken with the cooperation of the Treasurer's office, was to identify desirable changes in the program's structure and operation, a number of constructive proposals for strengthening and improving the Massachusetts LDP are included. Part V offers a brief conclusion.

A previous report by the present author, "Private Banks and Public Money: An Analysis of the Design and Implementation of the Massachusetts Linked Deposit Program" [published by the McCormack Institute in early 1985] presented the initial results of the first systematic review and evaluation of the Massachusetts LDP that had been undertaken since the program's inception. This report identified serious deficiencies in every program aspect reviewed. Its most important single finding was that there was in fact no linkage between the scores and awards — that is, that the size of the deposits awarded to individual banks was unrelated to the LDP scores calculated for those banks by the Treasurer.

Private Banks and Public Money included a number of constructive proposals for strengthening and improving the Massachusetts LDP. In response, the Treasurer's office implemented a number of significant changes in the forms and procedures used for the May 1985 cycle of bids and awards. The present report describes and evaluates the design and implementation of these modifications. The principal conclusion that emerges from the analysis presented in the body of this report is that although significant improvements were introduced in May 1985, the two major conclusions of our previous study remain valid: (1) "there is [still] in fact no linkage in the Massachusetts linked deposit program as it is currently operated" and (2) "the Massachusetts LDP [still] falls far short of being 'well-designed, well-implemented, and well-publicized' — that is, it [still] fails to meet the three-part criterion originally set forth by the Special Commission on State Investment."

By turning his attention on the inner city, Porter has helped to reinforce the emerging sense that it is important to concentrate on the assets of such locations rather than on their liabilities. This perspective differs from the social welfare model which focuses on the liabilities of the inner city as opposed to its assets. In looking at the competitive advantage of the inner city, it is important to note that such neighborhoods are predominantly made up of racial and ethnic minorities, and have suffered from levels of disinvestment and social disorganization not common in other locales. It is also clear that the bettering of economic conditions is quite important to residents of such communities and, specifically to African-American residents of inner city neighborhoods, the bettering of economic conditions has been a priority for at least five decades. 3 This priority was revealed strongly in the author's book entitled, Cities, Suburbs and Blacks (with James E. Blackwell).

In examining Porter's model on the competitive advantage of the inner city for business development, I will consider as well the impact of race on business and economic development in inner cities. In so doing, I will compare and contrast Porter's work with those of authors such as Cornel West, James Blackwell, Timothy Bates, and my own work. It is my goal to gain a preliminary understanding ofthe viability of Porter's model when the seemingly intractable variable of race is in the mix. Further, I seek to determine whether Porter's model can accelerate the growth and development of business opportunities for racial and ethnic minorities who remain the primary residents of inner city neighborhoods throughout the United States.

Our five-year budget projection indicates that if expenditure trends continue without dramatic restructuring - particularly in the "non-discretionary" accounts - the Commonwealth faces a steady rise in annual deficits that could exceed $700 million in fiscal 1993 and may escalate beyond $1.3 billion by 1995. Between now and 1995, total expenditures are estimated to increase by 32%, whereas revenues will grow by only 24%.

The 1980's was a period when state-local spending in Massachusetts, propelled by the infusion of double-digit tax revenue yields, increased by about 72% (from $10.8 billion to $18.6 billion), an average rise of 9% each year. State spending excluding direct local aid distributions between the 1981 and 1989 fiscal years increased from $4.8 billion to $9.6 billion, or by over 12% on average per year. As a result, the state share of state-local spending increased from 45% to 52% of the total. By contrast, spending by cities and towns climbed by only 50% (from $6 billion to $9 billion) during this same period, or by 6% on average per year.

The study shows that currently eight major cost centers dominate the state's spending priorities. They are like giant termites, eating away at a revenue stream with limited growth potential. If their total allocation over the current fiscal year had not been essentially level-funded (on the basis of proposed major policy and program changes), they would have added more than one billion dollars to the Governor's recommended budget for the 1991 fiscal year. Even as submitted, the $8,039 billion in budgetary requests for seven major cost centers, excluding pensions, is $2.0 billion over actual expenditures for these same purposes just four years ago, a jump of over 34%. The major cost centers account for 68% of the Governor's entire budget submission for next year as compared with 62% of total spending in the 1989 fiscal year. Estimated spending for all purposes other than the major cost centers, on the other hand, will be about 13% below actual expenditures for these same purposes two years ago.

But is the fiscal condition of the Commonwealth stable, albeit fragile? Or would a careful reading of the numbers transmit another message?

The purpose of this report is to measure the Commonwealth's financial health against a generally accepted list of performance indicators in order to render an independent judgment about the state's fiscal progress and condition.

When children are learning about their community, they are learning about themselves. As a result, they are motivated and involved. They learn new skills and practice previously-learned ones with more enthusiasm and energy. Many activities in this manual provide opportunities to practice basic skills of the social scientist—mapping, interviewing, observing, interpreting, comparing, contrasting, and others.

The reason I am tired, as you know, is that tomorrow morning the Civil Rights Commission will consider a staff recommendation with respect to the Minority Set-Aside Program in the federal government-those three programs that are ongoing. There is a lot of attention on that. I just want to say to you that the commission's concerns are not to put people out of business. The commission's concerns for the most part-the majority of the commission's, I think-are that, if there are going to be small business programs, they should be available to all Americans and not be based on ethnicity or gender and that, if there are going to be remedies for discrimination, they should be given to those who are victims of discrimination; and people should understand that there can be beneficiaries and victims on both sides of the ledger. It is a kind of affirmative action program.

The William Joiner Center's follow-up investigation into the status of Vietnam and Vietnam-Era Veterans indicates that, far from diminishing, the physical, psychological, economic, and educational problems faced by Vietnam and Vietnam-Era veterans are becoming more acute and that in many cases these problems extend to the lives of their children.

Other descriptions of the SHC case management staff include: nearly 93% female; 97% white, primarily having SHC their first professional employer since college. In fact, 60.7% of the staff are younger than 24 years old, and nearly 79% are under 29 years of age. Just under half of the 28 case managers we talked to selected case management as their first job choice, but 60.7% indicated that they wanted to make a career in the human services working with the lederly. The tough economic times in human services was the reason most often given for accepting a position at SHC by those less eager to work with elderly or in case management. Therefore, for an agency serving urban elderly we have for the most part young white females with limited employment experience. The implications of this cultural homogeneity is a subject for further research, but is an area for policy examination and attention by SHC.

To further test whether this staff description was applicable to other home care corporations and hence a matter for DEA review, we surveyed home care corporations throughout the Commonwealth. Every home care corporation in Massachusetts completed the survey. Results presented in Table 1 indicate a substantially wider spread in the ages of case managers than found at SHC. In fact, 52% of the 492 case managers identified in the study were under 30 years old. Only 28% were under 25 years old compared to 60.7% at SHC. (At the same time, only 10% of the state sample were over 55 years old.) Further descriptions of the case manager population statewide, however, do show some similarities to SHC. For example, 82% of the case managers in the agencies surveyed were female, and 93% were white (the others being 6% black, 0.6% Hispanic, 0.4% Cape Verdian) . Regarding job turnover, two agencies did not provide responses and two very small agencies reported very low turnover. Still, in averaging the job turnover rate for the twenty-five responding agencies the average tenure was 2.19 years — better, but not substantially different from SHC.

In 1996, under Chapter 205 of the 1996 Acts and Resolves, the Massachusetts legislature authorized the Institute to undertake a study *to review and explore possible cost savings within the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project" and report its findings to the House and Senate Committees on Ways and Means and the Joint Committee on Transportation.

In devising the scope of study, our focus has been on analyzing costs of the project through the prism of good public policy — that is, to identify the interests of the Commonwealth, as the ultimate owner of the project, in its size and scope, current status, and expected outcomes. Our team consisted of experienced public policy analysts recruited from within the ranks ofthe Institute and outside. It included experts on engineering and construction industry practices in the Commonwealth, but with no past or current involvement in the CA/T program.

With this focus and objective, we did not play the role of a financial auditor or an evaluator of the engineering designs. We did not play the role of an in-depth evaluator ofmanagement practices as would an outside management expert. Nor did we attempt to duplicate the legally mandated reviews of the numerous federal and state agencies with continuing responsibly for project oversight. Our role, then, has been that of a neutral broker.

The starting point for this review was the cost estimates contained in the Massachusetts Highway Department Finance Plan for the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, dated September 30, 1996, which estimated the overall cost of the project at $10.4+ billion when completed. $4.9 billion has been spent as of June 30, 1996.

With the realization that the spectrum is in fact limited has come the task of choosing more judiciously among competing demands for space. Cable television has facilitated that task because cable alleviates two opposing strains on the electromagnetic spectrum — the fact that each frequency is better suited for some purposes than for others, and the fact that the demand for some frequencies exceeds the supply. However, even though cable grew out of the need to deal with the demands of limitation, the impetus for rapid growth has come from the opposite direction. It is the possibility of abundance that cable and the newer technologies offer that has fueled the drive to fill what seems like an insatiable demand for newer forms of communication and information.

In recent years, the city has not faced the challenge of greater local discretion in housing policy (made available by the abdication of the federal government), addressed the worsening condition in the stock, or offered solutions to problems of affordability. As a result your tenure with the council begins not in the mode of fine-tuning a reasonably good machinery, but at a point when the situation requires developing from scratch a city housing policy and the machinery to implement it.

The areas encompassed by this document attest to the magnitude and scope of the problem of moving young people into the labor market. Assuming a need to be able to work through the maze of studies on youth and work, a plan of action was pursued. This plan is explicated in the organization of this document which is divided into three sections.

Academics and housing analysts recognize four major aspects of the housing problem: affordability (ratio of housing costs to income), adequacy (including quality and overcrowding), neighborhood conditions, and availability. Over the past decade, the nature of the country's housing problem has undergone some important transformations.

Until ten years ago the phrase "housing problem" conjured up images of low quality housing and overcrowded conditions that were principally the concern of low-income and minority people. By the late 1970s, however, a new aspect of the housing problem-affordability-had become fixed in the American consciousness. Since that time there has been general agreement among housing analysts that the burden of housing costs relative to income has gotten worse, while overall quality has improved. Although blacks and other minorities have benefited from these improvements, their housing situations remain considerably worse than those of the general population.

The second objective is to ascertain whether a systematic relationship exists between duration and frequency of unemployment and the immediate causes for the occurrence of a spell of unemployment. Four such causes are recognized: (1) involuntary job loss; (2) voluntary job leaving or quitting; (3) new entry into the labor market; and (4) reentry into the market after a period of withdrawal.

The third objective is to determine what proportion of the differences in the incidence or probability of black, Hispanic, or white unemployment can be accounted for by differences in the labor market characteristics that are assumed to determine employability and what proportion cannot be so accounted for and may therefore be due to labor market discrimination.

The fourth objective is to assess the changes that occur in these dimensions of unemployment over time, particularly those that occur over the business cycle's periods of recession and recovery.

The major research on these topics is not yet completed inasmuch as a richer data base has recently become available and is in the process of being made ready for use. Nevertheless, some preliminary results are in hand and are reported herein. This is the first of several reports in this ongoing research. The results reported here are based primarily on data from the Current Population Survey files for 1980, 1982, and 1985, and on previously unpublished geographic survey data for the same period compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data used is for the Boston Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) rather than for the city of Boston itself. Whereas the population of the Boston SMSA is in excess of 2 million persons, the city of Boston is just over one-fourth that amount, around 600,000. Thus, the data reflects economic activity in the entire area of which Boston is the hub. When Boston is referred to hereinafter it is to be understood as the Boston SMSA.