Pension politics in France: Patterns of co‐operation and conflict in two recent reforms

This article looks at the political side of pension reform in France. Policy makers are caught between two contrasting pressures: increasing expenditure on the one hand, and strong public support for existing arrangements on the other. In the last few years, the government has attempted to deal with the issue on two occasions, with rather different results. First, in 1993 a pension reform was successfully adopted after negotiations with the unions. Later, in 1995 the government had to abandon plans for a second reform as a result of a massive union‐led protest movement. The article argues that the different fortunes of the two reforms are related to changes in the configuration of power between the two events. It also claims that the popularity of current pension arrangements constitutes a strong pressure on the government to adopt a negotiated solution to the pension problem.     

Mark‐to‐market: A fundamental shift in affordable housing policy

Abstract

Residential mortgage underwriting practice has serious shortcomings, including fixation on the present rather than the future. Accept‐reject decisions reflect some unknown interaction among implicit macro projections, implicit micro projections, and implicit policy toward assuming risk, and there is no way to relate the decision process to its components. As a result, there is no satisfactory way for a lender to incorporate a particular macro‐economic outlook into its underwriting standards. Further, different mortgage designs often carry markedly different degrees of risk. Most critically, accountability for underwriting decisions is obscured.

This paper proposes a fundamentally new approach to underwriting that makes full use of new technology. Under this approach, macro and micro projections of the future and the lender's policy toward risk are explicitly specified. The accept‐reject decision is automatic and transparent. Each of the parties responsible for the components of underwriting decisions can be held accountable, with the underwriter responsible only for micro projections.     

State and local governments: New initiatives in low‐income housing preservation

Abstract

Preservation of the federally assisted low‐income housing stock is a critical issue in housing policy for the 1990s. Most of the low‐income housing initiatives that emerged over the last decade at the local and state levels were in response to changing economies and housing markets, to shifts in composition of the low‐income population, and to cutbacks in federal housing assistance as well as potential losses in the federally assisted housing inventory. The expansion of housing initiatives at state and local levels has critical ramifications for federal housing policy. It is a challenge to the federal government, which has not undergone a similar dramatic change in housing assistance policies. A number of areas of a new “federal partnership” need to be explored.     

State policies and programs to preserve federally assisted low‐income housing

Abstract

Preservation of the existing assisted housing stock is likely to be a major housing issue throughout the 1990s and into the twenty‐first century. Federal legislation—the Emergency Low‐Income Housing Preservation Act and the Low‐Income Housing Preservation and Resident Homeownership Act—addresses the first wave of preservation needs and provides critically needed programs to maintain eligible units as assisted housing for the next 50 years.

This paper presents a brief review of federal preservation requirements and argues for state participation in the implementation of preservation programs. Seven areas are identified for state action, and leading state preservation programs are reviewed. Each state needs to ensure that a foundation is established to preserve these units over their useful life as decent, affordable housing. What the states learn from participating in the implementation of the federal preservation program will help them address future preservation needs and develop the capacity to manage the interdependent provision of assisted housing by the public, for‐profit, and nonprofit sectors.     

The cost‐effectiveness of the low‐income housing tax credit relative to vouchers: Evidence from six metropolitan areas

Abstract

How expensive is the Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program relative to vouchers? Are there any market conditions under which the supply‐based LIHTC could be more cost‐effective than demand‐based vouchers? This article examines these questions in six metropolitan areas—Boston, New York, San Jose (CA), Atlanta, Cleveland, and Miami. Controlling for family income and unit size, I compare the development subsidies of new‐construction LIHTC projects with the alternative 20‐year voucher cost in each area.

In general, the LIHTC is found to be more expensive than vouchers. The premium, however, varies significantly by voucher payment standard and local housing market. Assuming a payment standard of 100 percent of fair market rent, the LIHTC is only 2 percent more expensive than vouchers in San Jose, but more than twice as expensive as vouchers in Atlanta. Many factors account for these regional variations. This study emphasizes two: local market conditions and program administration.     

Iati‐Onkwehonwe: blood quantum,membership and the politics of exclusion in kahnawake∗

The decades since the 1970s have seen an ‘explosion of interest’ in the concept of citizenship, both as means to elucidating the compromises over demands of justice and membership which underlie communities and feed into definitions of citizenship, and the increasing instability of those communities and ideals in the modern era. While there have been as many contexts of the negotiation of citizenship as there are nations (whether real or imagined), within Canada some of the most intriguing discourses around belonging have occurred within First Nations. This article is an attempt to elucidate the struggles over citizenship and membership within one Canadian Aboriginal community, the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawake. Here, intertwined with issues of blood, ‘Indian status’ and entitlement, Kahnawake has been riven by contests over the meaning of ‘belonging’ and who should belong in this First Nation.     

Bundesbank‐government relations in Germany in the 1990s: From GEMU to EMU

The Bundesbank's widely‐discussed independence ascribes it only discretionary power in the realm of monetary policy, but its influence can extend into other areas of economic policy. Since the government retains the initiative in these policy realms, the Bundesbank's influence consists of being able to mould the form rather than the direction of government policy. To exercise this influence, however, the Bundesbank must have public opinion on its side. An examination of the government‐Bundesbank relationship as it touched upon the cases of Economic and Monetary Union in Germany (1990) and Europe (1990–98) reveals the extent and limitations of the Bundesbank's influence over economic policy.     

Social capital and crime in New York City's low‐income housing

Abstract

This article presents evidence that components of social capital can play a prospective role in preventing crime in low‐income housing. It develops a conceptual approach to crime prevention involving social capital, alternative forms of ownership, and environmental design considerations. The study compares five programs that house New York City's poorest, mostly minority residents. The effectiveness of social capital in preventing crime is assessed using data from surveys of 487 buildings in Brooklyn, NY, and crime data from the New York City Police Department.

Results of the analysis indicate that three components of social capital—basic participation in tenant associations, tenant prosocial norms, and a building's formal organization—were all related to reducing various types of crime in the buildings under study 6 to 12 months after social capital was measured. The effectiveness of social capital was related to alternative ownership structures, building characteristics, and housing policy.     

Canada: Compensation to Japanese‐Canadians

The Canadian government has formally apologized for the treatment of the Japanese community during the Second World War and agreed on a financial settlement to survivors.     

The excessive costs of creative finance: Growing inefficiencies in the production of low‐income housing

Abstract

The paper examines creative finance as a means of low‐income housing production and preservation. The low‐income tax credit has evolved as the main federal housing production program in recent years. But this evolution can only be understood as a last resort. The inefficiencies of this approach outweigh any advantages. High transaction costs, inappropriate targeting of benefits, and insufficient monitoring are among the problems. Recent changes in the tax credit may actually cost the government more. Furthermore, current policy in fact creates the same time bombs now exploding in the prepayment projects. Current proposals for housing reform and revitalization have positive features, but are either underfunded or still rely on creative finance. What is needed is a direct one‐ or two‐step low‐income production program.     

Unpacking the intensity of policy conflict: a study of Colorado’s oil and gas subsystem

This article applies the Policy Conflict Framework (PCF) to describe and explain the characteristics of policy conflict within the oil and gas subsystem in Colorado. We use data from a survey of policy actors to assess three cognitive characteristics of policy conflict: divergence in policy positions, perceived threats from opponents’ positions, and an unwillingness to compromise. Aggregating these indicators across policy actors in the subsystem, we find a moderately high level of policy conflict intensity, but we also find substantial variation in the characteristics of policy conflict across policy actors. To help explain this variation, we examine how interpersonal and intrapersonal attributes of policy actors relate to the characteristics of policy conflict. In particular, we find that insular policy actor networks, interest group affiliations, and rigidity of risk and benefit perceptions associate more consistently with conflict characteristics than political views, education, or experience. We conclude with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of this first application of the PCF and reiterate the need for theoretically and empirically rigorous measures of policy conflict.