U.S. Government solar policy: Appropriate roles for nonfinancial incentives

During 1975–1980, U.S. solar policy emphasized financial incentives to potential purchasers as the primary means of stimulating the introduction and spread of residential solar heating systems. This article examines the importance of nonfinancial factors in decisions to purchase residential solar heating systems during these early stages of market penetration and discusses the implications these factors have for policy design. Drawing upon research on the diffusion of innovations, on the effectiveness of income tax credits for solar heating systems, and on solar energy system purchasing decisions themselves, the argument is developed that nonfinancial factors such as system reliability, warranty protection, environmental concerns, adequate information about system costs and performance, and confidence in system suppliers and installers are at least as important as initial system cost to early purchasers. These considerations were not reflected in U.S. solar policy to the extent warranted. As a result, that policy failed to promote the balanced development of all elements essential to a viable residential solar heating industry and probably failed to alter the intentions of many prospective solar system purchasers. The reasons U.S. policymakers were relatively insensitive to nonfinancial factors are discussed and an alternative strategy for increasing the rate of market penetration of residential solar heating systems is offered.A previous paper addressing this subject was prepared for the International Conference on Energy Use Management, Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany, 26–30 October 1981. That paper served as the basis for the present article. The author wishes to thank several reviewers for their helpful and constructive criticisms of earlier versions of this article.     

Creative appropriation: academic knowledge and interventions against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo

ABSTRACT

Recent academic research has questioned assumptions about sexual violence in (post-) conflict contexts. Gender norms rather than military decision-making have been found to constitute a major underlying reason for wartime sexual violence. In this contribution, we investigate whether international organisations seeking to prevent sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo have accordingly changed their analytical perspectives and modified policies and programming. We find that many, but not all, such organisations creatively appropriate new academic work in their policy and project documents. However, incentives for continuity in the humanitarian field have slackened the pace of any substantive practical changes.     

What Can We Learn About the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program by Looking at the Tenants?

Abstract

Several recent studies have found that homeownership has positive effects on children's development. This article extends these studies by testing whether these effects depend on neighborhood conditions. This extension is important because many low‐income families that become homeowners under current policies promoting homeownership for the poor are likely to purchase homes in troubled or distressed neighborhoods.

Homeownership in almost any neighborhood is found to benefit children, while neighborhood effects are weak. This suggests that the children of most low‐income renters would be better served by programs that help their families become homeowners in their current neighborhoods instead of helping them move to better neighborhoods while remaining renters. However, the positive effects of homeownership on children are weakened in distressed neighborhoods, especially those that are residentially unstable and poor. Thus, helping low‐income families purchase homes in good neighborhoods is likely to have the best effects on children.     

The Glass Ceiling Revisited: Determinants of Federal Job Advancement

Using the results of a recent survey of federal employees and focus groups of the same population, this article extends previous research on the existence of a glass ceiling in the federal bureaucracy. Even when controlling for differences between the sexes in human capital factors, work habits, work opportunities, and personal circumstances, women who have been in the federal bureaucracy from zero to 10 years and from 20 to 30 years have not advanced in their professions as successfully as have men. In contrast to and departing from previous research, there is little evidence that a glass ceiling has been experienced among women who have worked in the bureaucracy between 10 and 20 years. Additional findings consistent with past literature include the fact that among women who have faced gender-based barriers, those who chose to have children during their careers have been especially disadvantaged. We conclude that the glass ceiling on the federal level, where apparent, has been multidimensional and quite subtle.     

Attention to Detail: The Conservative Policy Agenda

Since 2001 (if not since 1997) the Conservative party has struggled to develop a coherent set of policies with which to provide a credible alternative to the Blair government. A second successive crushing election defeat fuelled the ongoing debates in the Conservative party, between those who were convinced of the need to steer towards the centre ground, thereby reviving the Conservative's 'one nation' tradition, and those who wanted to place clear blue water between themselves and New Labour, and thus adhere to Thatcherite radicalism. The Conservatives have therefore appeared to struggle in developing clear, alternative policies on such issues as 'tax-and-spend' and public service reform and delivery. They have, however, inched hesitatingly towards a more socially liberal stance on various issues. A major problem for the Conservatives has been that the Blair governments have actually continued with, or consolidated, many policies inherited from the Conservatives in 1997, thereby making it even more difficult for the Conservatives to articulate their own distinct policy agenda. This is likely to contribute towards a third heavy defeat for the Conservative party in the next general election.     

Europe and the Information Society: Problems and Challenges for Supranational1 Intervention

This article proposes that European intervention for the enhancement of the information society is legitimate and appropriate but, despite recent improvements, very difficult to design and implement. Intervention has taken three forms: 1. European-wide deregulation and liberalization of public procurement, to stimulate competition and specialization; 2. R&;D incentives, which have improved European capabilities and given academic research a chance to take off in poorer regions but which have also favored oligopolies and increased barriers to entry; and 3. Incentives offered to the less favored European regions to improve their infrastructure and to adopt strategies that would facilitate the stimulation of demand. Despite their ambitions to help the Union as a whole rapidly close the gap with the U.S. or level internal imbalances, these interventions appear insufficient as yet to do so. But even if policy results are not (yet?) visible, these interventions have put a process in motion that acts in parallel with the market forces of globalization. Although European ambitions are limited by jurisdiction due to the subsidiarity principle imposing action at the lowest possible level, supranational policies demonstrate interesting features of development policies and suggest some innovative schemes of intervention for less favored regions.     

Why Do Housing Mobility Programs Fail in Moving Households to Better Neighborhoods?

This article conceptualizes the relationship between housing instability, residential mobility, and neighborhood quality. We summarize the existing literature about residential mobility and housing instability and examine their potential interactions along three dimensions: (a) the reasons for a move, including a variety of push and pull factors; (b) mobility outcomes in terms of whether moves result in residing in a better or worse neighborhood than that of the prior residence; and, especially important for low-income households, (c) the degree to which the current move and past experiences of moving have been discretionary or forced. Housing instability is a cumulative concept, with involuntary moves at its center. This synthetic model of housing instability's impact on mobility outcomes suggests that the more instability a household has experienced, the less likely mobility moves are to occur, or, if they do occur, to be long lasting. Policy implementation may underestimate the interaction between cumulative housing instability and residential mobility in housing mobility policies. Thus, these interactions have implications for mobility policies, pointing toward a path for future research that inform policies to move low-income households toward both greater housing stability and better neighborhood outcomes.     

Framing policies to mobilize citizens' behavior during a crisis: Examining the effects of positive and negative vaccination incentivizing policies

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the issue of mobilization policies, that is, government practices directed at making the mass public voluntarily perform various behaviors for the collective benefit during a crisis. As COVID-19 vaccinations became accessible, governments faced the challenge of mass vaccination mobilization in order to achieve herd immunization. Aiming to effectively realize this goal, policy designers and regulators worldwide considered various mobilizing tools for vaccination compliance, including rewards and penalties, as they targeted vaccine opposers and hesitators, while trying to avoid the crowding-out effect among individuals who were intrinsically motivated to get vaccinated. However, the unique circumstances of the Coronavirus pandemic may have eliminated the crowding-out effect. Thus, our study explored the effect of regulation in the form of positive and negative incentivizing tools (i.e., rewards and penalties) during the coronavirus pandemic on vaccination intentions of 1184 Israeli citizens, prior to the national vaccination campaign. Results indicate that (1) both negative and positive incentives have a similar positive effect on individuals who declare they will not get vaccinated and those who hesitate to get the shot; (2) both positive and negative incentives induce the crowding-out effect; and (3) negative incentives generate a larger crowding-out effect in individuals who report preliminary intentions to get vaccinated, compared to positive ones. This emphasizes the need to avoid the crowding-out effect during the current and similar crises, and suggests considering applying a gradual and adaptive policy design in order to maximize regulatory efficacy and compliance.     

Epistemic Communities and the Diffusion of Ideas: Central Bank Reform in the United Kingdom

In May 1997 the incoming Labour government gave the Bank of England operational independence in the setting of interest rates. This reform is puzzling as it was introduced by a party whose roots lie with the trade union movement, and resisted by the Conservatives whose political support comes largely from business, the financial sector and homeowners who stand to benefit most from price stability. Economic ideas are central to explaining the outcome. The Labour Chancellor was convinced by an epistemic community of monetary experts that central bank independence would achieve New Labour's electoral goals. These political incentives were absent for the Conservatives, who preferred to set interest rates strategically to increase their popularity with voters.     

Economic Segregation and Unequal Policy Responsiveness

Political Behavior - As levels of residential economic segregation increase in the United States, politicians may have greater incentives to focus their attention on the demands of those living in...     

Cost-utility assessment: Planning with local decisionmakers in developing countries

In the past decade countries and donor agencies have endorsed health policies which (1) give a very broad definition of health, (2) see the pursuit of health as part of the development process, and (3) emphasize the local community's and local decision-maker's participation in the planning of health projects. Despite these broad principles, health delivery systems in developing countries have access to a very limited set of resources. Health planners are faced with the dilemma of creating cost-effective programmes while recognizing the need to take into account the broad definition of health and the importance of local participation in planning. This dilemma has led to a division between those planners who put greater emphasis on the use of cost analysis techniques in which the decision-making process rests more with professional planners (often outside consultants) vs those who emphasize greater local control of the decision-making process. The purpose of this paper is to present a study in which two alternative approaches to cost utility analysis were used. Consideration was given both to the actual cost analysis strategy and to the integration of the cost variable into the total decision-making process. Finally, major emphasis was placed on including local decision-makers in the planning process and providing them with feasible and understandable decision-making tools.     

THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING PROGRAMS

Assimilating disadvantaged workers in labor markets has been the focus of national policy initiatives for at least two decades. In recent years, public policies have been formulated which will not only provide incentives for the private sector to employ the disadvantaged, but also afford the private sector a larger responsibility in formulating and implementing targeted employment programs. The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and Target Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) are two major examples. This paper initially reviews the public and private employment and training efforts between 1962 and 1982. Considerable attention is given to summarizing and evaluating the performance of these efforts, especially in light of recent program initiatives by the Reagan Administration.     

Reflections on CIA Analysis: Is it Finished?

Despite the CIA's improved analytical tradecraft and increased resources, the future of its analytic mission remains in doubt. Post-9/11 improvements have been coupled with a continued focus on current intelligence priorities that minimize attention to the development of strategic research and deeper knowledge. Simply increasing the number of analysts has not produced deeper expertise. The CIA's traditional recruitment and training methods, as well as its rewards and promotion system, encourage analysts to avoid concentrating on any single area of regional or functional expertise in favor of moving around the agency to build a successful career. A continued reliance on risk-avoidance security practices also restricts analysts' contact with non-government and foreign experts who often have needed political and cultural knowledge of intelligence topics. To rectify these inadequacies, the CIA's analytic directorate needs to develop incentives for analysts who wish to develop more strategic analysis and remove the security barriers to closer collaboration with experts outside the US government. Developing cross-agency analytic collaboration would also maximize expertise and would benefit from intelligence community-wide training programs similar to what the US military does at its senior service colleges.     

Clarity of Responsibility and Corruption

This article demonstrates that political institutions influence the level of corruption via clarity of responsibility. The key hypothesis is that when political institutions provide high clarity of responsibility, politicians face incentives to pursue good policies and reduce corruption. These incentives are induced by the electorates' rejection of incumbents who do not provide satisfactory outcomes. However, if lines of responsibility are not clear, the ability of voters to evaluate and punish politicians—as well as to create incentives for performance—declines. The findings confirm that countries with institutions that allow for greater clarity of responsibility have lower levels of corruption.     

The market needs help: The disappointing record of home energy conservation

Energy conservation is widely considered to be the most promising solution to the nation's energy problems. The dominant public policy in this field has been to encourage conservation by decontrolling energy prices and relying on consumers to respond to price increases in ways that best meet their individual needs. This policy so far has led to only small reductions in energy use within the home, and even these reductions are only partly attributable to conservation behavior. Among the many obstacles to residential conservation that have come to light, a major one is the difficulty of predicting what savings will result from any specific investment in home energy efficiency. Ten years of experience after the 1973 oil crisis raises doubts about the feasibility of residential conservation as a short-term energy strategy, and suggests that new policies are needed to improve the operation of the market for conservation investment.     

Race and the Housing Cycle: Differences in Home Equity Trends Among Long-Term Homeowners

During the past decade, housing markets across the United States experienced dramatic upheaval. Housing prices rose rapidly throughout much of the country from 2000 until the start of 2007 and then fell sharply during the next 2 years. Many households lost substantial amounts of equity during this downturn; in aggregate, U.S. homeowners lost $7 trillion in equity from 2006 to 2009. Aggregate home equity holdings had fallen back to 2000 levels by early 2009. Whereas this intense volatility has been well documented, there remain unanswered questions about the variation in experiences across racial groups, particularly among those who purchased their homes before the boom and kept them through the collapse of the market. Did this housing market upheaval widen the already large racial and ethnic gaps in housing wealth? Using the American Housing Survey, we analyze differences in the changes in home equity experienced by homeowners of different races and ethnicities between 2003 and 2009. We focus on homeowners who remained in their homes over this period, and find that blacks and Hispanics gained less home equity than whites and were more likely to end the period underwater. Black–white gaps were driven in part by racial disparities in income and education and differences in types of homes purchased. Latino–white disparities were most dramatic during the market’s bust.     

Policy Tool Interactions and the Adoption of State Renewable Portfolio Standards

We contribute to extant policy theory by focusing on interrelationships between existing policies and innovation. In particular, we call attention to the link between supply‐side incentives and demand‐side innovation, which has not been systematically investigated. Our research expectation is that supply‐side policies generally will complement demand‐side policy, leading to a positive impact on the adoption of demand‐side innovations. We test this idea by examining adoptions of renewable portfolio standards (RPS), a demand‐pull approach targeted to renewable energy generation by utilities, in the American states from 1991 to 2008. Event history models show that an index of supply‐side financial incentives has a strong positive influence on RPS adoption. We do not find support for the hypothesis that this effect is contingent on in‐state carbon‐based energy generation. In conclusion, we argue that the study of policy adoption needs to give greater consideration to the interrelationships among policy instruments.     

Mandatory Versus Incentive-Based State Zoning Reform Policiesfor Affordable Housing in the United States:A Comparative Assessment

To break the chain of exclusionary zoning and produce affordable housing, mandatory state zoning reform policies have been in place for a couple decades in the United States. Their success is often constrained by local resistance and noncompliance. Some scholars argue that the lack of incentives to communities for affordable housing production is one of the main reasons for their resistance to state mandates. At present, no incentive-based state zoning reform policy is at work except in Massachusetts. Inclusionary zoning policies do offer incentives to developers but not to communities. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of mandatory state policies and Massachusetts's incentive-based policy and offers policy insights for the future.     

The Renter Squeeze: Minority and Low-Income Renters Feel Pressures from Housing Boom and Weak Labor Market

The housing market boom over the last decade has been welcomed by most Americans as a positive economic phenomenon, with beneficial effects on families and neighborhoods. However, this housing boom, while benefiting homeowners, has hurt America's renting population, a population among which minorities and the poor are vastly overrepresented. As rents have risen, renters have been forced to commit a greater percentage of their resources to simply keeping their homes, and thus found it difficult to invest in their own properties. Steady or falling incomes have exacerbated this bind, while a worsening public education and transportation system has added to the burden, particularly for poor and minority renters. The Federal government has failed to respond to this growing crisis, instead choosing to cut or curtail major renter‐assistance programs.     

Heterogeneity in Income: Effects of Racial Concentration on Foreclosures in Los Angeles,California

ABSTRACT

The United States continues to be defined by racial concentration, where most racial/ethnic groups live apart from each other. For homeownership, neighborhoods with large proportions of racial minorities are often linked to negative outcomes for minority homeowners; this was particularly the case during the Great Recession. However, middle and upper income ethnic neighborhoods, or resurgent neighborhoods, have grown in numbers because of a concentration of immigrants, federal policies favoring professionals, ethnic-specific resources, and affluence. In 2007, about 37% of Los Angeles, California, Latino tracts were resurgent and 53% of Asian tracts were resurgent. This study finds that homeowners in resurgent neighborhoods had lower default/foreclosure rates and predicted probabilities than those in low-income neighborhoods. Asian resurgent neighborhoods had the lowest predicted probabilities of default or foreclosure, followed by Latino resurgent and White middle-class neighborhoods. There were also discrepancies among Asian neighborhoods based on nativity. Consequently, it is important to recognize that minority neighborhoods are heterogeneous, with differing impacts on homeownership opportunities when examined by class.