Encouraging Residential Moves to Opportunity Neighborhoods: An Experiment Testing Incentives Offered to Housing Voucher Recipients

Substantial benefits can accrue from living in low-poverty neighborhoods, yet approximately 80% of the 2.2 million Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) recipients rent homes in moderate- or high-poverty census tracts. The Chicago Regional Housing Choice Initiative tested several ways to promote opportunity moves. It included the first experiment that tests whether two types of light-touch incentives induce opportunity moves for HCV recipients who had requested a moving voucher. Based on the 2,005 HCV recipients in the study, we found that neither the offer of a $500 grant nor the offer of a $500 grant coupled with free mobility counseling induced opportunity moves. The receipt of mobility counseling also did not boost opportunity moves. Regardless of the type of offer, 11%–12% of participants moved to opportunity neighborhoods. Despite requesting a moving voucher, half of the study participants remained in place, indicating significant barriers to moving. We offer potential reasons for the results and conclude with two recommended pilots to increase opportunity moves.     

Pivotal power brokers: Theory and evidence on political fundraising

This study examines the campaign fundraising success of Senate incumbents that have a unique, pivotal status (legislatively) in the Senate with regards to parliamentary procedures (e.g., the filibuster). Regression estimates place the fundraising advantage, in favor of certain pivotal moderates over all other Senators, at about $2.12 million (in real terms) in total contribution per 2-yr election cycle. Pivotal status is even more significant in explaining variations in PAC contribution in the U.S. Senate, given that individuals who make contributions are not likely to be as interested as PACs in ‘buying policy.’ The results also suggest that Krehbiel’s Pivotal Politics (Krehbiel, K. (1988). Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. lawmaking. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago press.) construct warrants modification, given that it offers prediction about policy outcomes and gridlock intervals without fully incorporating interest group politics of the ‘vote-buying’ or ‘policy-buying’ variety.     

Chicago political economy: A public choice perspective

George J. Stigler (Ed.), Chicago studies in political economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pages xviii + 641.     

Challenges in the Creation of Mixed-Use Affordable Housing: Measuring and Explaining Its Limited Prevalence

ABSTRACT

Mixed-use affordable housing buildings collocate residences and commercial uses. The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program provides one mechanism to fund such structures. But the literature offers little insight into the frequency of mixed-use LIHTC buildings, partly because of a lack of data identifying them, and it does not pinpoint conditions that facilitate their development. I explore these issues through a Chicago, Illinois, case study. First, I analyze imagery to create the first database of mixed-use LIHTC buildings. I show that only 5% of LIHTC structures incorporate commercial uses, and that these are concentrated in wealthier, whiter, and already retail-heavy neighborhoods. Second, I use stakeholder interviews to explain the low rate and selective location of mixed-use projects; I find that the stiffest barriers are conflicting governmental policies, difficulties securing financing in the context of a perception of weak retail demand and investor desires for reliable returns, and design constraints.     

Influence of eco-product innovation and firm reputation on corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: A mediation-moderation analysis

Eco-product innovation is a response to environmental legislation and social responsibility movements. Established agricultural manufacturers must figure out how to use green ideas and reputation to compete for business excellence. This study adopted a knowledge-based approach to examine corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage. This study also examined how eco-product innovation and reputation affect firms' competitive advantage. The proposed model was tested on 427 Nigerian agro-allied manufacturers using causal pathways and structural equation modeling. Business competition is directly and indirectly affected by corporate social responsibility, eco-product innovations, and firm reputation. Additionally, eco-product innovation partially mediated the nexus between corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage, while reputation moderated the influence of eco-product innovation. The findings suggest that manufacturers pursuing green initiatives should strive to participate in an eco-friendly competition and deal with policy pressures in order to meet environmental standards. Overall, this study adds the environment and business competition to the idea of innovation.     

The failure of federal enforcement of civil rights regulations in public housing, 1963–1971: The co-optation of a federal agency by its local constituency

This paper reports on research regarding the federal role with respect to racially discriminatory practices in public housing. It is a case study of federal efforts to deal with inadequate housing for low-income Americans, based on Public Housing in Chicago from 1963 through June 1971.Prepared for delivery at the 1972 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 8, 1972. Copyright, 1972, The American Political Science Association.     

Manufactured housing: A study of power and reform in industry regulation

Abstract

This article is a case study of the National Commission on Manufactured Housing and its attempt to reform the regulatory system. It describes the importance of manufactured housing as an affordable alternative to site‐built housing and tells how efforts to reform the regulatory system through a consensus process initially succeeded but ultimately failed.

The article shows that while the consensus process was essential to get agreement among conflicting parties, consensus will hold only when all parties are sufficiently dissatisfied with the status quo to endure the cost of change. While the short‐term prospects for reform are dim, the long‐term prospects are more promising, as a few large manufacturers offer better warranties and as programs devolve from the federal government to the states.     

EXPECTATIONS AND WELFARE WORK: WIN IN NEW YORK CITY

Work requirements for welfare recipients have done l i t t l e to reduce the welfare rolls. The usual explanation that limited skills and openings prevent recipients working is unpersuasive, since low-skilled work seems to be quite widely available. This study of the Work Incentive (WIN) program, the main welfare work program, in New York City found that whether recipients work depends mainly on whether WIN seriously expects them to. Thus, the welfare work problem is more political than economic.
It lies in our reluctance to obligate recipients to function socially as we would other people.     

Agenda Setting in Emergent R&D Policy Subsystems: Examining Discourse Effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act

The literature on government responsiveness to societal issues is extensive but provides a mixed assessment of effectiveness. We examine this issue in the case of policy addressing effective and safe management of research and development in the emerging field of nanotechnology. Specifically, we examine the agenda setting effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (the Act), a piece of legislation designed to be implemented by a network of actors in the nanotechnology research and development policy subsystem. We adopt a public values lens in our examination of discourse related to societal concerns. Policy documents from Congress, an agency, and federal funding recipients are examined. Findings suggest a narrowing of public values discourse around more specific societal concerns in the documents crafted after the Act was passed.     

Barriers to Integrating New Urbanism in Mixed-Income Housing Plans in Chicago: Developer,Housing Official,and Consultant Perspectives

This article explores the barriers to implementing mixed-income development plans that incorporate the social (income) and physical (new urbanism) mixing goals of HOPE VI. I examine a comparative case study of three HOPE VI planning efforts in Chicago, Illinois, that exhibit different results. I draw from 25 in-depth interviews across three primary types of actors involved in the development process: developers, housing officials, and consultants. This research uses the perspectives of these key actors to identify the barriers that constrain the implementation of new urbanist designs. Current research indicates that mixed-income developments vary in their degree of income mixing and how new urbanist strategies are implemented. However, there is little consensus on why this is so. Findings indicate implementation of new urbanism is constrained by limited interagency coordination, restrictive design policies, low community buy-in, and exclusive marketing and occupancy practices. Overall, the research offers lessons learned from which I recommend changes in planning practices to assist actors in the consistent implementation of new urbanism in mixed-income developments.     

The Chicago Fire of 1871: a bottom-up approach to disaster relief

Can bottom-up relief efforts lead to recovery after disasters? Conventional wisdom and contemporary public policy suggest that major crises require centralized authority to provide disaster relief goods. Using a novel set of comprehensive donation and expenditure data collected from archival records, this paper examines a bottom-up relief effort following one of the most devastating natural disasters of the nineteenth century: the Chicago Fire of 1871. Findings show that while there was no central government relief agency present, individuals, businesses, corporate entities and municipal governments were able to finance the relief effort though donations. The Chicago Relief and Aid Society, a voluntary association of agents with a stake in relief outcomes, leveraged organizational assets and constitutional rules to administer aid.     

Policy Transfer among Local Governments: An Information–Theory Approach

We argue that the burgeoning literature on policy transfer suffers from the lack of an analytical framework that would facilitate understanding and, thus, theory–building. We suggest that policy transfer be conceptualized as occurring through a communications and information framework and that it focus on information networks that include producers, senders, and facilitators of information, as well as recipients. We apply this framework to an illustrative study of how British local–authority officials involved in the area of urban regeneration policy learn from each other's experience.
Utilizing this approach, the results of our case study yield several testable hypotheses for future study. In particular, they direct us towards the importance of informal networks in the policy–transfer process, towards an examination of the motivations of producers, senders, and disseminators of information, and towards the difficulty all participants in the network have in assessing the quality and validity of the information they receive.     

The potential for work enforcement: A study of WIN

Given the impediments around them, can welfare recipients be required to work? Most analysts have answered no. They say the recipients are usually kept from employment by socioeconomic barriers, such as insufficient jobs, and the disincentives to work inherent in welfare. Studies of recent AFDC work programs make them look promising but do not directly address the potential for work enforcement. This article, a cross-sectional study of state WIN programs in 1979, suggests that work requirements could raise work levels substantially despite the impediments. But requirements probably do not improve the quality of jobs recipients are able to get. Therefore, enforcement serves the goal of integration, but to achieve greater economic equality will require additional reforms.     

Strengthening the Intergovernmental Grant System: Long-Term Lessons for the Federal–Local Relationship

This study investigates the longitudinal political and administrative problems associated with federal–local government relations. The findings demonstrate four primary challenges of the system of federal grants-in-aid that hinder the relationship of policy design at the federal level and policy implementation in local communities: the politics of decentralization, subnational capacity, program accountability and program adaptability. A case study of the Community Development Block Grant, as assessed by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and the General Accounting Office between 1974 and the present, is included to demonstrate the application of these problems within the system. Although the "evolution of devolution" can greatly benefit the recipients of public services at the local level, it often operates within an unorganized and ineffective system that public managers at all levels of government must continue to develop.     

Why are the highly educated more sympathetic towards welfare recipients?

Stigmatising stereotypes about welfare recipients play a crucial role in building public support for welfare retrenchment. Existing literature finds that the highly educated are more sympathetic towards welfare recipients. This is surprising given the economic advantage associated with educational attainment. Furthermore, educational attainment has increased even as sympathy for welfare recipients has declined. I address these puzzles using three decades of British survey data and find that it is the socially liberal attitudes rather than the economic advantage associated with higher education that explains why this group is sympathetic towards welfare recipients. These findings reveal an educational cleavage in stereotypes about welfare recipients, which is based on non-economic concerns, and has implications for support for welfare retrenchment and policies such as increased conditionality. This cleavage is weaker in more highly educated regions, implying that there are diminishing returns from increasing educational attainment in terms of sympathetic attitudes towards welfare recipients.     

Environment-shaping: An Alternative Approach to Applying Foreign Development Assistance

Development assistance has a chequered past, in large part because planning for development assistance is historically such a fractured enterprise internally, and so disassociated from development assistance recipients’ assets and needs. The authors of environment-shaping offer an alternative development programme planning methodology that highlights above all else the ever-important relationship between development assistance and the environment into which it is offered. The authors employ an asset-based, rather than a traditional deficit-based, approach to assessing the environment for which development assistance will be formulated. The authors then highlight the power of perceptions in the creation of policy programming and in identifying and reinforcing opportunities for positive feedback loops within the recipient environment as critical to truly ‘sustainable’ development.     

Making Something Out of Nothing: Welfare Reform and a New Race to the Bottom

The 1996 welfare-reform law has been characterized as a significantact of devolution. For some, this devolution will free statesto become "laboratories of democracy" that develop better welfarepolicies; for others, it will provoke a debilitating "race tothe bottom" where states will reduce benefits out of fear ofbecoming "welfare magnets" that attract recipients from otherstates. This article suggests that neither "laboratories ofdemocracy" nor "race to the bottom" does justice to the complexitiesof the 1996 reforms. In the case of the former, new federalmandates limit state action and states face informal pressuresto "keep up" with one another in developing new restrictionsso that they can avoid becoming "welfare magnets." In the caseof the latter, we find limited empirical support for the existenceof welfare migration that is supposed to be provoking a "raceto the bottom." We find that there is limited welfare migrationbecause the real value of welfare benefits to recipients doesnot vary nearly as much as common portrayals suggest. Giventhese realities, welfare reform may produce a procedural raceto the bottom that turns the myth of migration into a self-fulfillingprophesy.     

Evaluating the effects of changes in AFDC: Methodological issues and challenges

Analysts are commonly called upon to perform the difficult task of evaluating the effects of specific changes in public policy upon the behavior of individuals, such as a change in the provisions of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program relating to the benefits of those in the program who find work. When charged with such a task, analysts commonly try to answer the question by tracing the behavior of a fixed panel of individuals, comparing the experience of the group before and after the change in policy. That approach, however, risks major errors; in the case of the AFDC program, for instance, changes in the work benefit provisions affected the decisions of some who might have come into the program, a consequence that would not be picked up by a fixed panel of initial recipients. Cross-sectional data drawn independently from a general population at points in time before and after a policy change can often provide a more valid measure of the effects of the policy change than can panel data; moreover, cross-sectional data are usually less expensive and more readily available.     

Health of the nation: an individual or a corporate social responsibility? A preliminary investigation into consumer perceptions

• Britain is increasingly mirroring a number of nations in terms of the continued growth in prevailing levels of illnesses related potentially to human food consumption. As this issue fast becomes global, the question of whose responsibility it is, has come to the forefront of the debate. Other groups, apart from the Governments with direct involvement in this crisis are the Consumers and the Marketers. Using the food industry as the basis, the study primarily focuses on the consumers' perceptions of the nature and the extent of the problem. To investigate, three products used in the study are placed on a continuum; Chocolates represent one end and Genetically manufactured foods the other. Fast foods are represented in the middle. This framework highlights variations in consumer perceptions based on product differences: manufacturers have been held responsible for the provision of pertinent information in the case of genetically manufactured products; in the context of fast foods and Confectionery both manufacturers and consumers have been seen as responsible for consumers' existing consumption patterns.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Revenue Diversification: Fiscal Illusion or Flexible Financial Management

This study examines the trends in revenue diversification in approximately 240 suburban municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan region between 1988 and 1997. It then tests a model of revenue diversification's impact on tax effort using data from 1993 to 1997, and separated by home rule and non–home rule municipalities. Trends show that suburbs with higher increases in diversification tend to be home rule, younger, less residential, experiencing more growth, less reliant on property taxes, and more reliant on sales taxes. Model estimates show that communities with more revenue diversification have lower tax effort when controlling for other determinants of tax effort, and this effect is stronger in non–home rule municipalities.