Jobs or jails? The crime drop in Texas

Crime went down throughout the U.S. in the 1990s. Potential explanations include demographic shifts, improved economic opportunities, changes in drug markets, evolving police strategies, and an increasing prison population. Previous attempts to parcel out responsibility among these explanations are unpersuasive. Some do not consider all of the explanations, others rely on highly aggregated data, still others confuse cause and effect. An analysis of Texas counties that deals with these problems shows that the Texas crime drop was largely due to increases in the jail and prison population; property crime also dropped due to increases in real wages and wealth and in public order arrests. Further prison construction would not be cost‐effective in Texas due to declining marginal returns, but direct interventions to improve economic opportunities or make police work more proactive may be. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND THE CRITICISM OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Abstract. Debate concerning international justice has shifted during this century from issues of legality to those of welfare. Underlying present controversies are differences regarding the character of international society and of political association itself. One division separates those who accept the premises of the states system from others who look forward to a cosmopolitan world society of individuals. And where some identify international justice with conduct according to common rules, others link it with social and economic equality or the achievement of minimum levels of welfare. The idea of distributive justice reflects the view that law and government should promote the latter ends. This raises the question (explored here using some ideas of Michael Oakeshott's) whether the pursuit of distributive justice is compatible with international relations in terms of common rules.     

From Gerontocracy to Gerontonomia: The Politics of Economic Stagnation in Ageing Democracies

One in five people in the EU and nearly one in ten in the world are now aged 65 and over. This demographic transformation is one of the great successes of the twentieth century and has profoundly altered the composition of electorates in many democracies. This article explores whether and how this population ageing reshapes the relationship between democracy and capitalism. I argue that ageing changes the economic and policy priorities of a growing share of democracies’ electorates in ways that incentivise elected governments to prioritise certain social policies and economic outcomes, such as pensions and low inflation, at the expense of others, most notably greater social investments and pursuing economic growth. As a result, gerontocracies increasingly lead to what I call a ‘gerontonomia’ characterised by democratically sustained economic stagnation.     

Disparities in the Spending Needs of Highland Municipalities

A certain rough consensus holds that highland municipalities have higher spending needs than others, because of the particularly adverse conditions in which they provide essential public services. However, there is no empirical evidence to support this assertion. This study examines whether any relevant differences actually exist in the spending policies of highland and lowland municipalities. To this end, we make logarithmic estimations of per capita municipal spending in order to determine whether the indicators selected, which are based on local government powers, adequately reflect spending needs. Our results point to the special circumstances of highland districts as a key explanatory factor for higher municipal spending, along with demographic factors, locational population patterns, economic activity, subsidies, and local fiscal capacity.     

Parallel publics? Support for income redistribution in times of economic crisis

This article investigates the dynamics of support for income redistribution in Europe. With European Social Survey data spanning 2006 to 2012, it assesses whether the Great Recession resulted in substantial parallelism or increasing polarisation in preference change across various sub‐publics. After introducing hypotheses based on claims that social groups are affected differently by economic insecurity, the article proceeds in two empirical sections. First, whereas prior research suggests that hard times fuel diverging attitudinal patterns, it is found that income groups, ideological groups and educational groups did not shift differently over time during the first years of the crisis, thus providing strong evidence for the ‘parallel publics’ hypothesis in the European context and in times of economic turmoil. Next, the article addresses the extent to which change in aggregate support for redistribution came from changes in small minorities of the population, supposed to be more responsive to their economic environment. Using multilevel analysis, it is shown that the most educated significantly contributed to the overall change more than the others. As a result, they may have been partly driving the economic mood during the first years of the Great Recession.     

Trends in the economic status of the elderly, 1976-2000

The economic well-being of elderly Americans (aged 65 or older) improved between 1976 and 2000. Overall, poverty rates fell during this period, median real income rose, and median income relative to the working-age population was relatively stable. Most population subgroups shared in the reduced poverty rates; however, the economic status of elderly Hispanics did not improve. This article attempts to explain those economic trends by identifying changes in five sources of income for the elderly and analyzing the changes in the context of demographic changes in the elderly populations over the past 25 years. As a result of increased longevity, for example, larger proportions of elderly men and women are now 80 or older, and smaller proportions are 65 to 69. Hispanics and Asian Americans make up a larger share of the elderly population and whites a smaller share. The fraction of women who are married has increased, the fraction who are widowed has fallen, and the fraction who are divorced has grown. Such demographic changes can greatly affect the economic status of subgroups as well as the overall elderly population. Of the five sources of income for the elderly, Social Security remains the most prevalent and important. While both the rate of receipt and the share of aggregate income from Social Security benefits stayed relatively steady over the past 25 years, the average real Social Security benefit increased because of rising wages. Income from assets, the second most important source of income for the elderly, fluctuated. Because the elderly are more likely to hold interest-bearing assets such as bonds rather than stocks, their asset income is responsive to changes in nominal interest rates and bond yields. Receipt of pension income increased during this period, although it leveled off during the 1990s. Factors contributing to this pattern include enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which increased protections of pension benefits for spouses, and improved labor market opportunities for blacks and women. In recent years, defined contribution pension plans have become more prevalent than defined benefit plans, but the full effect of this change on pension income may not yet be apparent. After decades of decline, labor force participation rates of older men leveled out in the mid-1980s and then increased. For older women, the trend before the mid-1980s was flat, but since then rates have risen substantially. The increased use of part-time jobs or self-employment to ease the transition into retirement, the economic expansion of the 1990s, and the liberalization of the Social Security earnings test may all have contributed to those trends. Although the percentage of elderly people with earnings has increased only modestly in the past few years, the share of income from earnings has grown substantially--from 16 percent of income in 1984 to 23 percent in 2000. Finally, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits are indexed for inflation but not for growth in real wages. As real incomes of the elderly rose, therefore, fewer elderly persons were eligible to receive SSI or, for those receiving SSI, were eligible for smaller benefits. The proportion of elderly persons receiving public assistance, primarily SSI, declined from 11 percent in 1976 to 5 percent in 2000.     

Economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity: Some cross-country evidence

While much attention has been devoted to analyzing how the institutional framework and entrepreneurship impact growth, how economic policy and institutional design affect entrepreneurship appears to be much less analyzed. We try to explain cross-country differences in the level of entrepreneurship by differences in economic policy and institutional design. Specifically, we use the Economic Freedom Index from the Fraser Institute to ask which elements of economic policy making and the institutional framework are conducive to the supply of entrepreneurship, measured by data on entrepreneurship from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. We find that the size of government is negatively correlated and sound money is positively correlated with entrepreneurial activity. Other measures of economic freedom are not significantly correlated with entrepreneurship.     

Re-evaluation of the Importance of the Public Service: Tasmania's Collaborative Program

In considering what should be the role of government in a community like Tasmania we need to understand the context within which we are working. We are a small population that is almost without exception a branch economy. No major corporations are based here – we have branch offices or divisions of major companies. We lack a managerial class – headquarters and management staff are based elsewhere – decisions made by the level of management based in our state do not take the welfare of the state into account. Our private sector does not have the capital and quite clearly the capacity to take up the challenge posed by a reduction of government services or a contraction of services. When public sector jobs are cut in Tasmania they stay cut. The private sector does not step into the breach and create jobs. Tasmania has always relied, to a large extent, on the public sector for its economic viability – with the contraction of public sector funding, the viability of the state's economy has been seriously eroded.     

China’s Political Stability: Global Comparisons

Throughout most of the 20th Century, China had suffered tremendous economic and human losses due to political instability. It is in the most recent decades that the Chinese people have managed to live with political stability. The economic benefits of political stability can hardly be overstated. Yet, China’s political stability is by no means assured. Is China stable or unstable? Is the Chinese regime strong or fragile? To answer these questions, this study has selected a total of 12 sets of publically available indices to measure political instability and placed China on a global scale of comparisons with all the others, both advanced and developing, in the world. It also makes specific comparisons between China and the other four countries of the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The findings of our global comparisons give China no reasons for celebration. However, China has no reasons for paranoia either. China has indeed faced many threats or challenges to political stability, but, as our study demonstrates, China is no more politically unstable or fragile than many others. Ignoring or underestimating the ripple effect of any destabilizing world event will do China no good, but overreactions also serve China’s interests poorly as fear or paranoia can be highly contagious.     

British Trade Unions and European Union Integration in the 1990s: Politics versus Political Economy

This article evaluates the changing assessments within the British trade union movement of the efficacy of European Union integration from the viewpoint of labour interests. It argues that there has been a marked further 'Europeanisation' of British trade unionism during the 1990s, consolidating an on-going process which previous research shows began in earnest in the mid 1980s. A shift in trade union economic policy assessments has seen the decisive abandonment of the previously dominant 'naive' or national Keynesianism. While there remain important differences in economic perspective between unions, these are not such as would create significant divisions over the question of European integration per se , the net benefits of which are now generally, though perhaps not universally, accepted. The absence of fundamental divisions is evident from a careful assessment of the debates about economic and monetary union at TUC Congress. The Europeanisation of British trade unionism needs to be seen within the context of an emergent regionalism, in Europe and elsewhere. It can best be understood as a rational response by an important corporate actor (albeit one whose national influence has been considerably diminished in recent decades) to globalisation and a significantly changing political economy environment.     

Demographic change and the demand for environmental regulation

Environmental regulation in the United States has increased pollution abatement expenditure as a percentage of gross national product from 1.7 percent in 1972 to an estimated 2.6 percent in the year 2000. This rise in regulation has coincided with demographic and economic changes that include rising educational levels, a growing minority population, an aging population, and decreasing employment in polluting industries. This paper examines whether these trends have contributed to increasing aggregate demand for environmental regulation. New evidence on voting on environmental ballots in California, local government environmental expenditures across the United States, and 25 years of congressional voting on environmental issues is examined to document the demographic correlates of environmental support. Minorities and the more educated are more pro‐green, whereas manufacturing workers oppose environmental regulation. While demographics help explain observed differences in environmental support and thus can help predict long trends in the “average voter's” environmentalism, environmentalism varies substantially year to year unrelated to population demographics. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Explaining individual-level support for privatization in European post-Soviet economies

Abstract. This article explores the sources of individual-level variation in support economic privatization in seven European post-Soviet countries. It tests economic utilitarian and psychological explanations of variations in support for economic privatization. The economic utilitarian explanation posits that individuals seek to maximize their potential material gains from economic liberalization. The psychological explanation posits that if individuals are generally risk averse, they are not likely to support economic privatization. These hypotheses are then tested using two separate regression models. The first model estimates pooled data from across all seven European post-Soviet economies. The second model is a pooled analysis that interacts country-specific dummy variables with each of the independent variables in order to examine the country-specific effects of the responses. The results show that the economic utilitarian and psychological explanations are both strong predictors of why some support and others oppose privatization in the seven European post-Soviet countries.     

Income of retirement-aged persons in the United States

This article reviews the composition and level of retirement income in the United States and how this has changed over time, focusing on two overlapping but distinct groups--the entire population aged 65 or older, and recent retirees. Changes in the composition of income of the aged over the past 20-30 years, including greatly expanded Social Security and pension coverage and an increasing number of persons with retirement savings, have improved the economic status of the aged not only in comparison with the aged in earlier years, but also in comparison with younger adults who derive most of their income from earnings. New retired workers are better off than the total aged population in several respects. The younger cohorts now in the labor force will spend more of their working lives in the more favorable conditions now present than was true of past new beneficiaries or the aged as a whole. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to expect that today's workers will enjoy more and larger pensions and increased income from savings to supplement their Social Security benefits when they retire.     

National protest agenda and the dimensionality of party politics: Evidence from four East-Central European democracies

Contemporary democracies show considerable differences in the issue composition of their protest politics, which tends to remain relatively stable over time. In countries like Germany or the Czech Republic, the vast majority of protests have been mobilised around sociocultural issues, such as human rights, peace, nuclear power or the environment, and only a tiny portion of protest has focused on economic issues. At the opposite extreme, protest in France or Poland usually has a strongly economic character and voices demands relating to material redistribution and social policy. What lies behind the cross-country differences in national protest agendas? In this article, the national protest agenda depends on what issues mainstream political parties are contesting: the content and strength of the master-issue dimension. In reference to the literature on the multidimensional political space and niche political parties, one should expect that there is a substitutive effect; where the stronger a specific master-issue dimension is in party politics, the less salient that issue dimension is in protest politics. This substitutive effect results from the tendency of electoral politics to reduce political conflict to a single-dimension equilibrium, which decreases the importance of other issues and relegates the contest over secondary, niche issues to the realm of policy-seeking strategies, with protest being a common type of this political strategy. In party systems where single-dimension equilibrium does not exist and the master-issue dimension is weaker, the same dynamics result in a more convergent relationship between party and protest politics and a greater similarity between the protest- and party-system agendas. To investigate this theory, the national protest agendas in four countries are examined. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia show four combinations of two crucial factors that are not available in the old Western democracies: the content and the strength of the master-issue dimension. The study draws on an original dataset of protest events organised in the four countries between 1993 and 2010, and on qualitative and quantitative data on issue dimensions of party politics obtained from studies on party politics and expert surveys. The results show that in the Czech Republic, where the master-issue dimension has remained strongly economic, protest has been predominantly sociocultural. In Poland between 1993 and 2001 and Hungary between 1993 and 2006, the master-issue dimensions are strongly sociocultural, while protest is predominantly economic. There is no single-dimension equilibrium in party politics in Slovakia or in post-2001 Poland and mainstream parties compete on both economic and sociocultural issues. Consequently, the substitutive dynamics between party and protest politics is weaker and the issue agendas in party and protest arenas are here more alike.     

ORGANIZING THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY IN TEXAS: THE LEGACY OF SAUL ALINSKY

This paper examines the political activities of the Industrial Area's Foundation (IAF) network in Texas. Two major research questions are addressed. The first is whether or not the political program of the IAF can empower the Mexican-American community and influence the policy-making process. The second is whether or not their efforts can have a lasting impact on the social and economic problems that plague the Mexican-American population. The evidence put forth reveals that the IAF network has been successful in mobilizing the Mexican-American com- munity and has established a significant record of political vitories. Despite these gains, however, there is reason to doubt the network's ability to counter larger structural problems facing minority communities such as poverty and unemployment. Questions concerning the future of the IAF's style of neighborhood politics are raised in the context of their political ideology, goals, alliances and the difficulties encountered when organizing the poor.     

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.     

Latin America's Fledgling,Fumbling Democracies

By a small majority, Latin Americans are disposed toward preferring democracy over other forms of government, and for now almost all leaders in the region hold office from elections not military coups. Still, most Latin Americans quite correctly do not believe democracy has generally served their interests, that is, produced the jobs, houses, food, justice, and opportunities more and more people tell pollsters they want for themselves and their families. Personal observations and many studies, by the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and others, confirm Latin America's unequaled inequalities and in many respects virtual economic stagnation as far as most people are concerned. The problem is not mainly bad individual leaders or foreign predators, as is often charged, but incompetent governance generally and the inability or refusal of Latins themselves to match their desires with the protracted effort needed to achieve their aspirations. Institutions and paternalistic thinking that go back for centuries persist in adapted forms and today are not only not producing for the majority but dragging Latin America farther and farther behind more successfully reforming countries, particularly in Asia. Latins have it in their power to change things, if they will.     

The economic status of the aged.

This article discusses what is known about the economic status of the aged. Numerous complexities involved in the assessment of their status are discussed. Compared with most other recent assessments, this study finds a less favorable status for the aged relative to other age groups. The focus is on an examination of detailed age groups, rather than summary aged and nonaged groups--thus providing a more complete picture of age differences. More than most other assessments, this study stresses uncertainty about the relative status of the aged and emphasizes what we do not know. It stresses that better adjustments for differences in needs among age groups and other subgroups of the population are necessary. It emphasizes that consistency between the definition of resources and the specification of needs is essential. Also discussed is the vulnerability of the aged to economic risks. Major findings include: Median cash income is highest for middle-aged family units and lowest for the oldest and youngest units. The poverty rate for aged persons is above the rates for other adult age groups, but below the rate for children. When noncash income is considered in addition to cash income, the income of the aged tends to improve relative to that of the nonaged, but serious measurement problems exist. When wealth is considered in addition to cash income, the economic status of the aged improves relative to that of the nonaged.     

Dictators, development, and the virtue of political instability

A large body of literature stresses the benefits of regime stability for economic growth in poor countries. This view, however, discounts the gains from threats to regime security when populations living under dictatorial regimes cannot benefit from the disciplining of political competition available to voters in democracies. This paper applies a model of economic growth to study the sources of the differences in economic performance and repression policy among dictatorships as well as the parallel in dictatorial regimes of the benefits achieved through political competition in democracies. Threats to the security of dictatorial regimes are shown to be a means of benefiting the population through the responses of the regime.