Fiscal Austerity and Rental Housing Policy in the United States and United Kingdom, 2010–2016

After the 2008 global financial crisis, both the United States and the United Kingdom introduced austerity policies targeted at particular elements of their national budgets. The purpose of this article is to compare the nature of this retrenchment; the similarities and differences in how it was implemented; and its initial impacts on one of the expenditure areas particularly affected: affordable rental housing programs and housing support for low-income households. Using a wide range of data sources, we find evidence of political and fiscal policy analogies in the timing and forms of the initial policy choices and how these were modified in the face of economic and political pressures. There are considerable similarities both in the instruments used to reduce housing expenditures and in the early impacts on support mechanisms and recipients. However, we find different histories and trajectories of support between the two countries that suggest that the longer term differences in outcomes may be more important.     

Evaluating California’s Housing Element Law,Housing Equity,and Housing Production (1990–2007)

Since 1969, California’s Housing Element Law has required that municipalities address housing equity and housing production. In California, housing equity means that a municipality has planned for the future production of low-income housing that is priced from 0 to 120% of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s median family income, and market-rate housing that is priced higher than 121%. For a purposive sample of municipalities (Sacramento and Los Angeles regions, 1990 to 2007, n = 53), this research found that as compliance with the law increased, the sample experienced deficient low-income housing production but surplus market-rate housing production. Mixed-effects models indicated that compliant municipalities were associated not only with increased low-income housing production but also with decreased annual housing production in comparison to noncompliant municipalities. While these associations contrast with Lewis, they suggest that municipal compliance may support California’s goal of providing housing equity but may also constrain California’s overall housing production.     

Job–Worker Balance and Income Match in the United States

This study uses journey-to-work data from urban census tracts across the United States to investigate whether people living and working in the same area is related to job–worker balance or to the income from jobs. The results indicate that more people live and work in the same commute shed if there is job–worker balance and income matching.     

Cohousing For Whom? Survey Evidence to Support the Diffusion of Socially and Spatially Integrated Housing in the United States

Cohousing is a resident-led neighborhood development model that clusters private dwelling units around collectively owned and managed spaces, with potential to address long-term social and environmental challenges in American metropolitan regions. To date, however, the cohousing model has been slow to diffuse beyond a demographically narrow following. This limited following may signal to policymakers that cohousing is an unappealing housing model, and therefore an impractical policy objective. Drawing from a survey of 1,000 American residents, the results of a multivariate regression model suggest that (a) many of the characteristics of the current resident population of cohousing in the United States have no statistical association with the individuals who indicate interest in cohousing nationwide; (b) other characteristics serve as better predictors of interest in cohousing; and therefore (c) the slow diffusion of cohousing is likely the consequence of inaccessibility rather than low appeal. Overcoming these challenges demands shifts in policy.     

Explaining United States–China relations: neoclassical realism and the nexus of threat–interest perceptions

How to understand and explain the evolutions as well as predict the future directions of bilateral relations between the United States and China has become an imperative task for both policy makers and academic scholars. Borrowing insights from neoclassical realism, this paper suggests a three-stage, perceptual model of ‘threat–interest’ to explore the dynamics of Sino–US relations from 1949 to 2015. It argues that the nature of US–China relations, either cooperation or competition, is mainly shaped by the perceptions of leaders regarding security threats and economic interests between the two nations. How to manage their perceptions regarding each other and how to find a balance between cooperation and competition are the key issues for leaders in both the United States and China to manage bilateral relations in the future. The next decade or two may be the best or the worst times for US–China relations.     

Determinants of the probability and timing of commercial casino legalization in the United States

The adoption of lotteries by state governments has received significant attention in the economics literature, but the issue of casino adoption has been neglected by researchers. Casino gambling is a relatively new industry in the United States, outside Nevada and New Jersey. As of 2007, 11 states had established commercial casinos; several more states are considering legalization. We analyze the factors that determine a state’s decision to legalize commercial casinos, using data from 1985 to 2000, a period which covers the majority of states that have adopted commercial casinos. We use a tobit model to examine states’ fiscal conditions, political alignments, intrastate and interstate competitive environments, and demographic characteristics, which yields information on the probability and timing of adoptions. The results suggest a public choice explanation that casino legalization is due to state fiscal stress, to efforts to keep gambling revenues (and the concomitant gambling taxes) within the state, and to attract tourism or “export taxes.”     

South Korea under the United States–China rivalry: dynamics of the economic-security nexus in trade policymaking

With the advent of the Trump administration and the subsequent U.S.–China trade conflict, South Korea's trade policy is under immense pressure. The KORUS FTA has been pushed for renegotiation while the China–South Korea trade relations have stumbled after the THAAD deployment to South Korea. This challenge can be characterized by the economic-security nexus shifted from positive to negative: that is, South Korea is compelled to either sacrifice its economic benefits in favor of security interest or vice versa. In contrast to Japan that seeks to retain TPP as a way of benefitting from a regionwide trade integration and balancing both Trump unilateralism and Chinese mercantilist influence, South Korea is forced to play a more complex game. Given its deep yet asymmetric economic interdependence with China and North Korean security threats, South Korea needs to accommodate China while at the same time courting US engagement in resolving the North Korean nuclear problems.     

Mapping the use of knowledge in policymaking: barriers and facilitators from a subjectivist perspective (1990–2020)

Policy Sciences - The use of knowledge and evidence in policymaking is a recurrent topic of research due to its scientific and policy relevance. The existing and expansive body of literature has...     

The upper part of the earnings distribution in the United States: how has it changed?

This article uses Social Security Administration data to examine changes in the upper end of the earnings distribution over the period 1982-1995. These data provide a unique opportunity for analyzing those changes because they come directly from W-2 forms and are not topcoded--obvious advantages over data typically provided by surveys such as the Current Population Survey. Although they do not provide some of the information necessary to explain what one observes occurring at the top of the earnings distribution (no educational attainment information, for example), these data are sufficient for describing in great detail what happened to high earners through the 1980s and into the 1990s. This analysis clearly demonstrates the extent to which earnings are concentrated at the top of the distribution. The study's findings reinforce those of Feenberg and Poterba (2000) by showing that the very highest earners--those in the upper 1 percent--experienced the largest relative increase in earnings share from 1982 to 1995. Even within that upper 1 percent, those with earnings in the upper 0.1 percent were the ones driving the increase in the group's earnings share. Perhaps not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the highest earners are white men who are in the middle to latter part of their working lives. Women have made strides toward entering this elite group of earners but still form a very small percentage of the group relative to their size in the working population. Very few blacks are in the extreme upper tail of the earnings distribution, and they have made very little progress (in absolute terms) over the period 1982-1995 in increasing their numbers. In contrast, persons of racial/ethnic backgrounds other than white or black have increased their presence among top earners. They went from being relatively underrepresented in the top 0.1 percent in 1982 to being overrepresented by 1995; that is, they accounted for a larger share of the top 0.1 percent of earners than they did of the entire working population. Finally, the study also finds that the percentage of overall wage and salary earnings from Social Security-covered employment that is not taxed for the purposes of Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance because of the taxable maximum generally increased over the 1982-1995 period. Wage and salary earnings above the taxable maximum rose at a faster rate than is the average wage.     

Racial Resentment,Electoral Loss,and Satisfaction with Democracy Among Whites in the United States: 2004–2016

Political Behavior - Satisfaction with democracy is a critical supporting element of any democratic process, though a robust literature demonstrates that such satisfaction is contingent on numerous...     

Ideology,economic interests,and congressional roll-call voting: Partisan instability and Bank of the United States legislation, 1811–1816

We introduce a wrinkle into the study of Congressional roll-call voting by focusing on a period of partisan instability in American History: the Era of Good Feelings. During deviations from normal periods of two-party rule, the dominant model of voting behavior, the ideological model, loses precision in correctly classifying individual votes. We contend that a “pooled” voting model – comprised of both ideological and economic variables – performs better than the basic ideological model during these unstable periods. When party mechanisms no longer constrain or structure actions, we believe the “electoral connection” is especially important, and, thus, economic-based constituency factors must be included in models of vote choice. To explore this belief, we focus on a particularly contentious issue – the rechartering of the Bank of the United States (BUS) – which was dealt with before and after a partisan decomposition occurred in the House. Using measures developed by Poole and Rosenthal (1985, 1997), we find that the vote on the First BUS in 1811, during a stable partisan period, is organized along ideological lines. By 1816, the two-party system collapsed, and we do not find the vote on the Second BUS to exhibit much ideological structure. Conversely, we find that our pooled model predicts the vote on the Second BUS quite well, providing a substantial improvement in fit over the basic ideological classification.     

An Imperative to Act: Boarding the Relief Flights of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Biafra (1967–1970)

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) humanitarian politics of intervention during its relief operation in the Nigeria–Biafra conflict (1967–1970). The humanitarian response to the conflict was a foundational moment for everyday humanitarianism marking a shift from “traditional” state-oriented humanitarianism to an expansion in scope, actors, and practices operating outside of the formal structures of the state. By examining recently declassified archival records, I trace the ICRC’s shifting categorizations of victims in a changing humanitarian landscape. The article makes two main contributions: First, I demonstrate empirically how the Nigeria–Biafra conflict challenged the ICRC’s definition of humanitarian engagement and understandings of victimhood. Second, I argue that the ICRC had a clearer understanding than usually conveyed of how the Biafran leadership used the language of humanitarianism and victimhood to deploy an international response. Conclusively, I reflect on what the history of the ICRC in Biafra can teach scholars of contemporary humanitarianism.