Patterns of Local Policy Disruption: Regulatory Responses to Uber in Ten North American Cities

Since its inception in 2009, Uber has grown into a technology behemoth, with operations in over 70 countries and 500 cities around the world. Along the way, it has successfully forced regulatory upheaval in hundreds of local taxi markets controlled by municipal authorities. In this sense, Uber is not only a market disruptor, but also a policy disruptor. This paper examines the nature of such policy disruption at the local level by reviewing regulatory responses to Uber in ten North American cities. We find that regulatory outcomes are a function of two factors: Uber’s government relations strategy, either cooperative or confrontational, and the degree to which local governments perceive Uber as complementary or harmful to the existing marketplace. We conclude by proposing a typology of regulatory responses to Uber as a basis to identify patterns in the behavior of municipal regulatory authorities and political leaders.     

How do municipal mayors and councillors communicate with other levels of government? Evidence from a multi-level survey of Canadian elected officials

While past research suggests that informal processes of dialogue play an important role in municipal intergovernmental relations in Canada, we currently know very little about their character and frequency. Who do local elected officials communicate with, and through which channels? And which municipal voices carry the most weight in these conversations? This article answers these questions from the perspective of elected politicians themselves, using a pan-Canadian survey of municipal, provincial, and federal elected representatives. Our findings confirm that municipal intergovernmental relations depend heavily on informal institutions and personal relationships and highlight the key role of municipal mayors as spokespersons and advocates for municipalities in Canadian federalism.     

Homelessness Interventions in Georgia: Rapid Re-Housing,Transitional Housing,and the Likelihood of Returning to Shelter

Since 1987, billions of dollars in homeless assistance have been allocated annually by the U.S. federal government. Yet few evaluations of homelessness interventions exist. This study analyzes the likelihood that households in Georgia returned to shelter within two years of leaving one of three interventions: rapid re-housing (RRH), transitional housing (TH), and emergency shelter (ES), with the latter serving as a reference. Using propensity scores, RRH households were matched to comparable TH and ES households. Generalized linear mixed modeling then controlled for household characteristics as well as variation between intervention implementations. We find that the likelihood of returning to shelter did not seem to be affected by whether study households were gradually transitioned or rapidly placed into housing. Additionally, the effect of TH for households without children seems highly dependent on the intervention’s implementation, which deserves further study. Our findings are generalizable to a small, better resourced segment of the general homeless population.     

Implications of Longevity Bias for Explaining,Evaluating, and Responding to Social Inequality

Social Justice Research - Longevity bias is the tendency to assume that longstanding states of the world are better and more right than their more recent (but otherwise identical) counterparts. In...