This issue portrays the plight of public policies that are subject to conflicting goals—on the national, state, and international levels.

On the national level, welfare reform gave the 50 states considerable discretion in the design of their welfare programs. Some states chose policies with a primary goal of reducing the welfare rolls. Other states chose policies with a primary goal of raising incomes and reducing poverty instead.

Not surprisingly, the different bundles of reforms selected by the different states have led to diverging consequences. For instance, work requirements and federal time limits have reduced welfare use; however, only work incentives (cash supplements) have allowed working welfare recipients to earn incomes that are higher than those previously received from welfare alone. Meanwhile, the effects of welfare reform on children are less clear.

We are only now beginning to understand the economic and family consequences of welfare reform, even as federal policymakers debate stronger work requirements, as state policymakers review their own programs, and as many welfare recipients begin to reach their time limits. Jeffrey Grogger, Lynn Karoly, and Jacob Klerman urge policymakers to base their expectations for future reforms on the known consequences of the reforms of the recent past.

On the state level, California has made commendable progress in its decades-long effort to meet its air quality goals. However, recent policies adopted by the state have overlooked some cost-effective programs and focused instead on the goal of promoting new automotive technologies, which may be environmentally pristine but also tremendously expensive. Lloyd Dixon, Steven Garber, and Isaac Porche offer six recommendations to point the state down a more promising road.

On the international level, the information revolution has become subject to conflicting policy goals around the world. In China and Russia, the tension is between economic development and political stability; in Latin America, between economic integration and national autonomy; and in the greater Middle East, between economic investment and cultural resistance to the West. Where possible, RAND researchers suggest how to overcome these obstacles.

—John Godges