Comment on Jean L. Cummings and Denise DiPasquale's “The Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit: An Analysis of the First Ten Years”

Abstract

The Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit (housing credit) that Cummings and Di‐Pasquale portray is effective, efficient, and healthy. However, rapid changes in the industry have turned some of their data stale, and the absence of suitable context and information invalidate some key analyses and findings. Moreover, the researchers sometimes seem to see the glass as 10 percent empty instead of 90 percent full. A practitioners’ perspective is more positive.

The housing credit generates an array of public benefits while harnessing private investors’ business discipline. Genuinely low‐income tenants occupy the housing. The housing revitalizes low‐income communities. Properties are in good financial and physical condition. The housing credit is also cost effective. The economic fundamentals of producing low‐income rental housing, not the housing credit, necessitate substantial subsidies. A remarkably high proportion of the federal tax‐credit subsidy goes into the housing, and investor returns are modest. Nonprofit‐sponsored production appears to cost more because nonprofits are prominent in high‐cost locations and for other similar reasons, not because nonprofit developers are inefficient.     

Reconsidering individual-level heterogeneity in economic voting

This paper proposes a general theory of individual-level heterogeneity in economic voting based on the perspective that the strength of the relationship varies with factors that influence the relevance of the economic evaluation to the vote choice. We posit that the electoral relevance of the economic evaluation increases with the strength of partisanship as well as political sophistication. Given the strong correlation between partisanship and sophistication, this theoretical perspective casts doubt on extant evidence that more sophisticated voters are more likely to hold the incumbent party electorally accountable for macroeconomic performance since this result might be an artifact of failing to control for the economic evaluation being more relevant to the vote choice of stronger partisans. Our statistical investigation of this question finds no significant evidence that sophistication conditions the economic voting relationship once the conditioning effect of partisanship is included in the model. This finding suggests that individual-level heterogeneity in the strength of the economic voting relationship is largely due to stronger partisans voting more consistently with their national economic evaluation than to more sophisticated voters being more policy-oriented by holding the incumbent party more electorally accountable for macroeconomic performance.     

Human Rights, Free Movement, and the Right to Leave in International Law

This article starts from a rights-based premise: freedom ofmovement is an established human right recognised in a rangeof international instruments. The right to leave one's own countryis one aspect of this general concern with free movement. Thisarticle addresses the status of this right under internationallaw, a right that is enshrined in several different internationalinstruments and has attracted considerable attention. This articleexplores how the Human Rights Committee, the only United Nationshuman rights treaty body that has examined the right to leavein significant detail, has interpreted this right in light ofstate practice. This article considers whether internationallaw requires, or allows, states to prevent their nationals fromleaving their own states by unauthorized or irregular meansand whether such prevention could be construed as a violationof the right to leave. This article also examines whether statescan legitimately prosecute migrants when they leave their ownstates with documents that they know to be fraudulent. The legitimacyof exit visas and regulations related to holders of state secretsis also explored. Finally, this article presents some thoughtson the continuing significance of the right to leave.     

Liverpool Law Review

Liverpool Law Review -     

Voting Counts: Participation in the Measurement of Democracy

The measures of democracy commonly used in empirical research suffer notable limitations, primarily the exclusion of participation. As a result, quantitative studies may undervalue the effect of democracy on important social outcomes or misinterpret the aspect of democracy responsible for that effect. We respond by introducing and validating two variants of a new indicator, the Participation Enhanced Polity Score (PEPS), which augments institutional factors with the breadth of citizen participation. We demonstrate, using statistical evidence on democratic persistence, basic needs fulfillment, and gender equality, that no measure of democracy can be considered an accurate representation of its basic character without directly including participation as a core component. Bruce E. Moon is professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is the author ofThe Political Economy of Basic Human Needs (Cornell University Press. 1991) and two editions ofThe Dilemmas of International Trade (Westview Press, 1996, 2000). Jennifer Harvey Birdsall is a researcher for a NGO in Geneva, Switzerland. She received her B.A. in international relations and economics from Lehigh University and her M.S. in global affairs from Rutgers University-Newark. Sylvia Ciesluk is pursuing an M.A. at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She received her B.S. in economics from Lehigh University. Lauren M. Garlett is a geography teacher at Bellamy Middle School in Chicopee, Massachusetts. She received both her B.A in international relations and her M.Ed. in secondary education from Lehigh University. Joshua J. Hermias is associate director of the Global Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C. He received his B.A. in economics from Lehigh University and his M.A. in international development from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. Elizabeth Mendenhall is pursuing a Masters in International Affairs (MIA) in economic and political development at Columbia University. She received a B.A. in international relations at Lehigh University. Patrick D. Schmid is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Lehigh University. He received both his B.S. and M.S. in computer science from Lehigh University. Wai Hong Wong is a research associate at FactSet Research Systems. He received his B.A. in international relations and economics at Lehigh University. We are grateful for the helpful suggestions of Frank Davis, Bill Dixon, Chaim Kaufmann, Rajan Menon, Pamela Paxton, Larry Taylor, and the anonymous reviewers.     

Les relations de collaboration entre le secteur public et les organismes communautaires du secteur jeunesse‐enfance‐famille : Entre la sous‐traitance et la coconstruction

Sommaire: L'État incite les établissements publics et les organismes communautaires à développer et à augmenter la fréquence de leurs relations interorganisationnelles. L'État veut ainsi favoriser une intégration des services permettant une meilleure réponse aux besoins sociaux de la population. Cette étude propose une typologie permettant d'analyser les modèles de relation qui se mettent en place entre ces deux groupes d'acteurs. La recherche s'est intéressée aux interfaces dans le secteur des services sociaux à l'enfance, à la jeunesse et aux familles québécoises. Au total, 111 gestionnaires ont répondu à un questionnaire leur permettant d'évaluer leurs rapports en fonction de quatre dimensions proposées par Coston pour situer les relations entre l'État et les organismes du tiers secteur. Le modèle de relation rapporté par les répondants est celui de la coexistence. Quoique le modèle de relation rapporté par les organismes communautaires et par les établissements publics soit le même, une analyse plus nuancée des résultats permet de constater que les organismes communautaires se perçoivent appartenir à un système plus socio‐étatique (dominé par les établissements de réseau) que les répondants des établissements publics. Abstract: The government encourages public institutions and community organizations to develop and increase the frequency of their inter‐organizational relationships. In doing so, the government seeks the integration of their services in order to meet the social needs of the population more effectively. This study aims to develop a typology for analysing patterns in the relationships being established between these two groups of stakeholders. The research focused on the interfaces in the social service sector for children, youth and families in Quebec. In total, 111 managers responded to a survey that enabled them to assess their relationships on the basis of four dimensions proposed by Coston for analysing relationships between the government and third‐sector organizations. The respondents identified “coexistence” as the most common type of relationships. Although the community organizations and the public institutions identified the same type of relationships, a more nuanced analysis of the survey results reveals that community organizations see themselves as part of a system that is more “socio‐governmental” in nature (i.e., dominated by the institutions in the network) rather than “public.”