House poor in Los Angeles: examining patterns of housing-induced poverty by race,nativity, and legal status

Housing affordability in the United States is generally operationalized using the ratio approach, with those allocating more than thirty percent of income to shelter costs considered to have housing affordability challenges. Alternative standards have been developed that focus on residual income, whether income remaining after housing expenditures is sufficient to meet non-housing needs. This study employs Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey data to consider racial/ethnic, nativity and legal status differences in one residual income standard. Logistic regression analyses of housing-induced poverty focus on whether there are differences among five distinct groups: US born Latinos, Non-Hispanic Whites, and African Americans, authorized Latino immigrants, and unauthorized Latino immigrants. Results suggest that: (1) Latino natives are significantly more likely to be in housing-induced poverty than African Americans and Latino immigrants, and (2) unauthorized Latino immigrants are not more likely to experience the outcome than other groups. The present work extends previous research. First, the results provide additional evidence of the value of operationalizing housing affordability using a residual income standard. Alternatives to the ratio approach deserve more empirical attention from a wider range of scholars and policymakers interested in housing affordability. Second, housing scholarship to date generally differentiates among Latinos by ethnicity, nativity, and citizenship. The present study contributes to emerging research investigating heterogeneity among Latinos by nativity and legal status.     

Comment on Michael A. Stegman,Walter R. Davis,and Roberto Quercia's “The Earned Income Tax Credit as an instrument of housing policy”

Abstract

The article by Stegman, Davis, and Quercia is a careful, comprehensive analysis of the current impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on the housing cost burdens of working families. Its major proposal, a graduated supplement to the EITC to reflect housing costs, is compared with my broader concept of addressing severe cost burdens through supplements to major income support programs. Criticisms of my concept, chiefly administrative difficulties and incompatibility with the EITC benefit structure, are discussed.

My primary concerns are that Stegman, Davis, and Quercia's proposal does not sufficiently target families with severe housing costs and that the formula for calculating the additional benefit does not reflect diverse housing costs throughout the country and provides the smallest increases to the recipients with the lowest incomes. However, it is more important to generate discussion of the reality that “income policy IS housing policy” than to argue about details.     

Korean elites: Social networks and power

During the period of rapid industrialisation, Korean business elites sought to establish a ruling alliance of state officials, politicians, business owners, and professional managers that formed a social coalition to influence the state and society as a whole, reinforced through extensive social and political networks with various ruling groups. The elite community has generated a high degree of self-recruitment and social closure through school, marriage and kinship networks. In this way, the leading sector of the Korean business elite has formed complex, often contingent, relations with the state elite, and acts as an integral part of the upper class in society.     

New Challenges for Thailand: Labour and Growth after the Crisis

Exploring the relationship between labour and economic growth in Thailand over the past half century, the article shows that Thailand can no longer rely on an extensive growth regime based on abundant and cheap labour. We argue that Thailand is at a critical juncture and that Thailand cannot avoid shifting to an intensive growth regime based on increases of labour productivity in order to control labour costs and, unlike past regimes, seek ways to ensure that the benefits of growth are better shared.     

JUVENILE WAIVER AS A MECHANISM OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION: A FOCUS ON HUMAN CAPITAL*

The historic transformations of the criminal justice system must be justified and interpreted through the effects on criminals (Maruna and Immarigeon, 2011). The push for harsher sentencing policies for juvenile offenders specifically through the use of juvenile waiver to criminal court is one such policy that is not well understood in terms of its effects on offenders, especially in terms of broader outcomes beyond recidivism. We use data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, which consists of a sample of adolescent offenders followed for 7 years postadjudication, to investigate the effect juvenile waiver has on human capital acquisition and yield among 557 adolescents from Maricopa County, Arizona. By using various matching specifications, our findings demonstrate that juveniles transferred to adult court experience no deleterious effects on human capital in terms of educational acquisition compared with similar youth retained in the juvenile system, yet they still earn considerably less income 7 years postadjudication. These results suggest that an important and unintended collateral consequence of juvenile waiver is an increase in social stratification potentially through labeling and labor market discrimination.     

中国银行业收入结构转型的影响因素研究

文章选取了中国14家商业银行2000—2008年样本数据,运用panel data模型对影响中国商业银行收入结构转型的因素进行回归分析。结果表明,总资产收益率、股东权益比率和银行非利息业务收入、手续费收入占比成显著正比关系,在信贷资产规模一定的情况下,银行从事非传统业务可以获得多样化收益,权益资本充足的银行更愿意从事广义的表外业务,边际净利息比率对非利息收入比重和手续费收入占比分别有显著负、正向影响,净利息边际收入越低的银行越迫切的需要通过更多的投资银行、担保等非传统业务以获得总体收入水平的稳定增长,而银行净资产收益率、总资产规模、流动资产、损失贷款率对非利息收入比重和手续费收入占比没有显著影响,并针对问题提出相应政策建议。     

我国个税项目扣除问题研究

科学设置个税项目扣除条款,是实现混合税制模式的前提条件。取消现有一刀切式的＂起征点＂方式,必须依循法的人本理念、正义价值、公平和效益原则,兼顾各地区、个人特点和我国国情。研究个税项目扣除问题,关键是要对个人有用所得、劳动所得适用较高的扣除,限制无用所得、资本所得的扣除,禁止第三人在内的各行为主体利用个税项目扣除诈取可得利益,最终实现个税法缓解两极分化矛盾,实现共同富裕的宏观调控功能。     

关于完善我国个人所得税法的设想

我国个人所得税法虽经历次修改但仅是局部微调,没有弥补现行个税法的根本缺陷,我国个人所得税法的改革和完善仍任重而道远。本文借鉴国外个人所得税法改革的合理成分,在分析我国个人所得税法缺陷的基础上,提出应在分类征收模式向分类与综合相结合的征收模式转变;减少累进税率级次,降低最高边际税率;实行税收特别措施;采用基本扣除与专项扣除相结合的方式,建立弹性税制,推广税收指数化和加强征管五个方面予以完善。     

我国所有制结构演变与居民收入差距的关联性分析

改革开放以来,我国所有制结构演变特别是非公有经济的发展拉大了居民收入差距,二者之间存在正关联性:不同所有制企业分配体制的差异带来收入差距的扩大;产权性质和政策因素导致企业经济效益存在差别;所有制结构演变对居民就业、资产性收入和地区居民收入差距产生重要影响,是造成个人收入差距扩大的重要因素。