Popular financial reports are reports distributed to citizens and other interested parties who lack a background in formal government financial reporting but who desire an overview of the government's financial status and activities. This paper examines the current state of local government popular financial reporting in the U.S. The results of a survey of large cities and counties indicate that 75 percent of these local governments have issued popular financial reports and that the types of reports and methods of distribution vary. Many of the reasons for providing popular reports relate to providing information and improving transparency and accountability by providing more user friendly financial reports. This paper concludes with a discussion on popular financial reporting in the context of government transparency and accountability, and offers a research agenda for continued study of the topic.

There has been little policy effort to address sea level rise in coastal states in the U.S. It is important to examine, at the state level, how the multitude of different (and changing) actors with different preferences and perspectives contribute to such inertia. This study examines statelevel legislative inaction with regards to sea level rise. Using Kingdon's multiple streams framework, we draw a picture of the policy landscape in Virginia as one where the problem of sea level rise is perceived as a low priority, with little consensus on achievable policy solutions, and is politically controversial. We find that policy inertia in Virginia is a result of (1) fractious viewpoints regarding sea level rise as a problem, (2) a lack of clear consensus on policy solutions, and (3) conflicting perspectives of the role of the state.

The United States currently imprisons more citizens than any other Western nation. Over the last few decades, the trend across the United States has been to increase penalties for many offenses. This increase in state punitiveness has likely contributed to the existing state of mass incarceration. If there are certain factors that enhance a state's penchant for punitiveness, identifying these factors can offer a better understanding of mass incarceration and why certain policy choices are made. Drawing from theories of social control and racial threat, we test social and economic explanations for variations in state punitiveness across several dimensions. We find the effect of the independent variables is not uniform across the dimensions, suggesting there is a difference in how criminal justice policy decisions are made depending on the policy area in question. This finding begs for further investigation into the issue of state punitiveness.The United States's incarceration rate has grown exponentially over the last few decades. In the 1960s and early 1970s, declines in prison populations, the dominance

The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010 resulted in the largest oil spill in U.S. waters. In the aftermath of the explosion, many sought answers to what appeared to be a lack of effective oversight of the well's owner, British Petroleum (BP). Using multi-actor principal-agent theory as our framework, we examine the relationships between citizens, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), BP, and BP's partners in the drilling operation. We find that principal-agent theory provides important insights into the case, and that a lack of monitoring, coupled with the willingness of MMS to align its goals with the oil industry rather than the public interest, resulted in a lax regulatory environment that allowed BP to operate largely without public oversight.La explosión de la plataforma petrolífera Deepwater Horizon en Abril del 2010 resultó en el derrame petrolero más grande en aguas estadounidenses. Luego de la explosión, muchos buscaron respuestas a lo que pareció ser una falta de planeación efectiva por parte del dueño del yacimiento, British Petroleum (BP). Usando una la teoría del agente-principal con múltiples actores como marco teórico, examinamos la relación entre ciudadanos, el Servicio de Manejo de Minerales (SMM), BP, y los socios de BP en la perforación de los pozos petrolíferos. Encontramos que la teoría del agente-principal provee importantes perspectivas sobre el caso; y que la falta de monitoreo, junto con la intención de el MMS de alinear sus intereses con los de la industria petrolera en lugar del interés público, resultó en un ambiente regulatorio laxo que permitió a BP continuar con sus operaciones en gran parte sin una vigilancia regulatoria.