An official website of the United States government
This paper presents an in-depth analysis of patterns and trends in the open-source software (OSS) contributions by the U.S. federal government agencies. OSS is a unique category of computer software notable for its publicly accessible source code and the rights it provides for modification and distribution for any purpose. Prompted by the Federal Source Code Policy (USCIO, 2016), Code.gov was established as a platform to facilitate the sharing of custom-developed software across various federal government agencies. This study leverages data from Code.gov, which catalogs OSS projects developed and shared by government agencies, and enhances this data with detailed development and contributor information from GitHub. By adopting a cost estimation methodology that is consistent with the U.S. national accounting framework for software investment proposed in Korkmaz et al. (2024), this research provides annual estimates of investment in OSS by government agencies for the 2009–2021 period. The findings indicate a significant investment by the federal government in OSS, with the 2021 investment estimated at around $407 million. This study not only sheds light on the government’s role in fostering OSS development but also offers a valuable framework for assessing the scope and value of OSS initiatives within the public sector.
more »
« less
Cost-Benefit Analysis for a Quinquennial Census: The 2016 Population Census of South Africa
Abstract The question of whether to carry out a quinquennial Census is faced by national statistical offices in increasingly many countries, including Canada, Nigeria, Ireland, Australia, and South Africa. We describe uses and limitations of cost-benefit analysis in this decision problem in the case of the 2016 Census of South Africa. The government of South Africa needed to decide whether to conduct a 2016 Census or to rely on increasingly inaccurate postcensal estimates accounting for births, deaths, and migration since the previous (2011) Census. The cost-benefit analysis compared predicted costs of the 2016 Census to the benefits of improved allocation of intergovernmental revenue, which was considered by the government to be a critical use of the 2016 Census, although not the only important benefit. Without the 2016 Census, allocations would be based on population estimates. Accuracy of the postcensal estimates was estimated from the performance of past estimates, and the hypothetical expected reduction in errors in allocation due to the 2016 Census was estimated. A loss function was introduced to quantify the improvement in allocation. With this evidence, the government was able to decide not to conduct the 2016 Census, but instead to improve data and capacity for producing post-censal estimates.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1129475
- PAR ID:
- 10040110
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Official Statistics
- Volume:
- 33
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2001-7367
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
null (Ed.)Abstract We conduct a comparative welfare analysis of 133 historical policy changes over the past half-century in the United States, focusing on policies in social insurance, education and job training, taxes and cash transfers, and in-kind transfers. For each policy, we use existing causal estimates to calculate the benefit that each policy provides its recipients (measured as their willingness to pay) and the policy’s net cost, inclusive of long-term effects on the government’s budget. We divide the willingness to pay by the net cost to the government to form each policy’s Marginal Value of Public Funds, or its ``MVPF''. Comparing MVPFs across policies provides a unified method of assessing their effect on social welfare. Our results suggest that direct investments in low-income children’s health and education have historically had the highest MVPFs, on average exceeding 5. Many such policies have paid for themselves as the government recouped the cost of their initial expenditures through additional taxes collected and reduced transfers. We find large MVPFs for education and health policies among children of all ages, rather than observing diminishing marginal returns throughout childhood. We find smaller MVPFs for policies targeting adults, generally between 0.5 and 2. Expenditures on adults have exceeded this MVPF range in particular if they induced large spillovers on children. We relate our estimates to existing theories of optimal government policy, and we discuss how the MVPF provides lessons for the design of future research.more » « less
-
This paper develops a probabilistic earthquake risk assessment for the electric power transmis- sion system in the City of Los Angeles. Via a dc load flow analysis of a suite of damage scenarios that reflect the seismic risk in Los Angeles, we develop a probabilistic representation for load shed during the restoration process. This suite of damage scenarios and their associated annual probabilities of occurrence are developed from 351 risk-adjusted earthquake scenarios using ground motion that collectively represent the seismic risk in Los Angeles at the census tract level. For each of these 351 earthquake scenarios, 12 damage scenarios are developed that form a probabilistic representation of the consequences of the earthquake scenario on the components of the transmission system. This analysis reveals that substation damage is the key driver of load shed. Damage to generators has a substantial but still secondary impact, and damage to transmission lines has significantly less impact. We identify the census tracts that are substantially more vulnerable to power transmission outages during the restoration process. Further, we explore the impact of forecasted increases in penetration of residential storage paired with rooftop solar. The deployment of storage paired with rooftop solar is represented at the census tract level and is assumed to be able to generate and store power for residential demand during the restoration process. The deployment of storage paired with rooftop solar reduces the load shed during the restoration process, but the distribution of this benefit is correlated with household income and whether the dwelling is owned or rented.more » « less
-
Many high-stakes policies can be modeled as a sequence of decisions along a pipeline. We are interested in auditing such pipelines for both Our empirical focus is on policy decisions made by the New efficiency and equity. Using a dataset of over 100,000 crowdsourced resident requests for po- life-tentially hazardous tree maintenance in New York City, we observe a sequence of city government decisions about whether to inspect and work on a reported incident. At each decision in the pipeline, we define parity definitions and tests to identify inefficient, inequitable treatment. Disparities in resource allocation and scheduling across census tracts are reported as preliminary results.more » « less
-
Abstract Assessment of socio-environmental problems and the search for solutions often require intersecting geospatial data on environmental factors and human population densities. In the United States, Census data is the most common source for information on population. However, timely acquisition of such data at sufficient spatial resolution can be problematic, especially in cases where the analysis area spans urban-rural gradients. With this data release, we provide a 30-m resolution population estimate for the contiguous United States. The workflow dasymetrically distributes Census block level population estimates across all non-transportation impervious surfaces within each Census block. The methodology is updatable using the most recent Census data and remote sensing-based observations of impervious surface area. The dataset, known as the U.G.L.I (updatable gridded lightweight impervious) population dataset, compares favorably against other population data sources, and provides a useful balance between resolution and complexity.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1515/jos-2017-0013
