The Case for a Participation Income: Acknowledging and Valuing the Diversity of Social Participation

Anthony Atkinson's idea of a participation income draws attention to the various ways in which people contribute to society. Current discussions on social participation go beyond paid work to include volunteering, education, and caregiving to kin. With the idea of the participation income, various forms of contribution can be highlighted and acknowledged. This article investigates how the idea of a participation income is reflected in Danish, Finnish, German and Dutch social policies. It shows that different elements of a participation income are incorporated in active labour market policies: Denmark adopted a narrow focus on paid work; Finland seeks tailor‐made solutions for the long‐term unemployed; Germany reformed many policy areas to achieve a better activation; and the Netherlands acknowledges a wide range of social participation forms. These country differences highlight that governments can adapt the idea of a participation income to achieve the focus they desire.     

Broken Promises or Selective Memory Planning? A National Picture of HOPE VI Plans and Realities

Government efforts to redevelop public housing often face a contentious gap between plans and realities. This paper compares 2014 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administrative data on housing unit counts and unit mixes for all 260 developments receiving Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) revitalization grants with data provided in the original HOPE VI grant award announcements. We find that HUD records undercount approximately 11,500 once-proposed units. The biggest changes were a 29% decline in the number of market-rate units and a 40% decline in homeownership units. The chief shortfall during implementation, therefore, was not with public housing units (although the HOPE VI program as a whole did trigger an overall decline of such units). To help elucidate the dynamics at play when the unit allocation shifts between initial grant award and implemented project, we include a series of five brief case studies that illustrate several types of unit change. Interviews with HUD staff confirm the baseline for record-keeping shifted during implementation once project economic feasibility became clearer; adherence to original unit mix proposals remained secondary. HUD prioritized its accountability to Congress and developers over its public law accountability to build the projects initially proposed to local community residents. Although these changes have sometimes been interpreted as broken promises, it is even clearer that HUD’s monitoring system exemplifies what we call Selective Memory Planning: when planners and policy makers, willfully or not, selectively ignore elements of previous plans in favor of new plans that are easier to achieve.     

Housing prices and wealth inequality in Western Europe

Abstract

Comparative political economy (CPE) has robustly examined the political and institutional determinants of income inequality. However, the study of wealth, which is more unequally distributed than income, has been largely understudied within CPE. Using new data from the World Income Database (WID), this article examines how economic, political and institutional dynamics shape wealth-to-income ratios within Western European and OECD countries. It is found that the political and institutional determinants that affect income inequality have no short- or long-run effects on the wealth-to-income ratio. Rather, the rise in wealth-to-income ratios is driven by rising housing prices, as well as price changes in other financial assets, not home ownership or national saving rates. The article concludes by examining how the changing dynamics of housing prices and wealth inequality will increasingly shape intergenerational – and associated class-based – political conflict in Western Europe.     

签订劳动合同能增加女性劳动者的工资吗？ —— 基于 CLDS2016年数据的验证

签订劳动合同的目的是保障劳动者的合法权益,但是其实施效果究竟如何,能否有效保障女性劳动者的合法权益,减少女性劳动者工作过程中的不平等待遇,还有待进一步验证。研究利用2016年中国劳动力动态调查数据,分析劳动合同签订对女性劳动者工资收入的影响。分析结果显示:劳动合同签订能够显著提高女性劳动者工资水平,并且对工资的提升作用大于男性劳动者;劳动合同签订能够有效降低女性劳动者的工作时间,提高加班收入。因此,建议要继续完善劳动合同法及相关的女性劳动权益保障政策,加大法律和政策的实施力度,采取措施提升女性的就业能力。     

Class War in the Voting Booth: Bias Against High-Income Congressional Candidates

Do Americans care how much money congressional candidates earn? We conducted three experiments to examine how candidates' incomes affect voters' perceptions of the candidates' traits and ultimately their vote intention. Subjects evaluated otherwise identical candidates with annual incomes randomly varying between $75,000, $3 million, and a candidate with no income information provided. Results from the three experiments are remarkably similar. Subjects viewed the $3 million earner as significantly more intelligent than the candidate with no income information provided, but this benefit of high income was overshadowed by significant biases against the $3 million candidate. Subjects consistently viewed the $3 million earner as less honest, less caring, and less representative of them than the other candidates. Ultimately, subjects were less likely to say they would vote for the $3 million candidate. These findings demonstrate that the campaign advantages that high-income candidates enjoy are somewhat offset by voters' initial bias against them.     

论垄断对我国职业群体收入的影响及对策

垄断是市场经济的产物,在我国经济转轨过程中,垄断又呈现出其特殊形态,即行政性垄断。行政性垄断行业存在职工工资及其他收入的不合理性现象,又会造成职业群体收入差距过大。行政性垄断已对职业群体利益均衡产生了消极影响,破坏了社会分配秩序。必须通过深化改革、强化竞争机制等措施限制行政性垄断,调整职业群体收入的差距,从而实现社会分配的公平和效益。     

当前我国居民收入分配不公的原因透视及治理对策

透视中国的四次收入分配过程 ,可见 ,市场竞争的初始条件的差异、政府的再分配政策、以及各种违法犯罪活动是形成收入分配不公的主要原因。为此 ,应建立城乡居民最低生活保障制度、完善个人所得税制、扩大就业机会、增加农民收入、支持中西部发展以及加强权力监督和整顿市场秩序等切实可行的对策 ,来解决收入分配不公 ,缩小收入差距 ,确保社会主义市场经济的效率与公平协调统一 ,促进国民经济的健康发展。     

Subsidized housing and neighborhood racial transition: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Popular wisdom has it that the development of project‐based assisted housing will cause whites to flee or avoid the surrounding neighborhood, leading to rapid racial transition. This article examines the question of whether the development of several types of project‐based, federally assisted housing had an impact on neighborhood racial transition during the 1980s. In general, the development of assisted housing in a neighborhood did not lead to racial transition, nor did it approach levels suggesting “white flight” in the few instances where racial transition did occur.

The results of our analysis suggest that one of the major criticisms of project‐based assisted housing—that it contributes to racial segregation by causing white flight—is not supported by empirical evidence.     

Homeownership counseling performance: How can it be measured?

Abstract

Homeownership counseling encompasses several educational activities. Early approaches focused on reducing the risk of default and foreclosure among participants in government‐assisted mortgage programs, but more recent approaches have focused on increasing homeownership opportunities among low‐income and minority households. Unfortunately, little is known about the effectiveness of these approaches in terms of the number of new homeowners and the mitigation of default risk. To address that gap, this article presents a theoretical and methodological framework to evaluate counseling efforts.

A successful counseling program is defined as one that assists a household with a low long‐term probability of ownership in buying a home and reducing its default risk. We concede that the methodological requirements for evaluating counseling are somewhat restrictive. However, if we establish an evaluation procedure using these goals as a framework, we can more accurately determine the effects of counseling on the sustainability of low‐income homeownership.     

Judges as agents of social change: Can the courts break the affordable housing deadlock in metropolitan areas?

Abstract

Nowhere is the chasm between the races more apparent than in the physical division of metropolitan areas between inner‐city poverty and suburban affluence. Thus far, public policy efforts to introduce metropolitan perspectives into local land use regulations have been unsuccessful. The series of New Jersey Mount Laurel decisions lays out a possible path for introducing comprehensive regional planning by deploying the constitutional power of state courts. Relying on the allied professions of economics and city planning, the New Jersey Supreme Court eliminated the legal barriers to affordable housing in the suburbs.

Questions have been raised over courts’ ability to reform local government powers, but many traditional objections to the effectiveness of judicial reform seem to have been overcome in the New Jersey litigations and legislations. State courts can play an indispensable role in solving regional land use problems if they secure the support of community leadership groups.