W e offer a theory of intertemporal bureaucratic decision making which proposes that an agency's forecast optimism is related to the extent to which it discounts future reputation costs associated with bureaucratic incompetence. Agency forecasts of the distant future are more likely to be optimistic than short-term forecasts. We claim that unstable organizations will discount reputation costs at a steeper rate than stable organizations, and therefore will produce more optimistic forecasts. We test our theory using macroeconomic forecasts produced by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) across six forecast horizons from 1979 to 2003. The statistical results are generally consistent with our theory: OMB generates more optimistic long-term forecasts than SSA. Further, differences in forecast optimism between these executive branch agencies widen as the forecast horizon increases. Our evidence suggests that more stable agencies place a premium on minimizing reputation costs. Conversely, less stable agencies are more likely to accommodate political pressures for forecast optimism. These findings underscore the importance of institutional design for understanding how executive agencies balance the conflicting goals of political responsiveness and bureaucratic competence within the administrative state.

Counting Women's Ballots On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state in the union to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. After a more than seventy-year battle, women throughout the United States secured the right to vote. The national enfranchisement of women represented the largest expansion of the electorate in American history, nearly doubling the size of the voting age population. 1 Millions of citizens who had never cast a ballot became eligible to do so. This dramatic expansion of the electorate generated a great deal of activity and uncertainty. Newspapers offered advice to new female voters. "You Can't Drag Your Husband Into The Booth When You Vote on Tuesday!" explained the Bridgeport Post (Bridgeport, CT), helpfully adding that "There Are No Mirrors Inside. .. Hubby Cannot Legally Offer You a New Hat to Vote for His Candidate." 2 Political parties and women's organizations designed "play elections" and practice voting booths to teach women how to fulfi ll their new civic obligations. 3 Cities 1 We say "nearly" because eleven states allowed women to vote in the 1916 presidential election. On the other hand, restrictive interpretations of registration rules (ratifi cation occurred after registration deadlines in a number of states) denied women access to the ballot in Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina in 1920, delaying women's participation in presidential elections in those states until 1924 (Gosnell 1930). Together with black men, many black women continued to experience systematic exclusion from the franchise until the second half of the twentieth century. 2 "You Can't Drag Your Husband Into The Booth When You Vote Tuesday!" Bridgeport (CT) Post , October 31, 1920. See also: "What the Woman Citizen Should Know" (repeated column).

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The Federal Reserve System struggled to maintain order in U.S. credit markets as rapid declines in home prices led to huge write‐downs in the value of mortgage‐backed securities held by financial institutions. The Fed could have taken a number of steps—in the mortgage market or through broader regulatory actions—to either preempt or mitigate the impact of this market disruption. Broader regulatory actions—in the mortgage market, of risk taking by financial institutions, or in the form of actions to limit the contagion of crisis—imply fundamental changes at the Fed. The network of actors with a stake in broader regulatory action is powerful and highly resistant to regulatory scrutiny. The statutory mission of the Fed—especially its commitment to stable prices—could be jeopardized by a broad and explicit mandate to provide liquidity to a wide range of vulnerable financial institutions.

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