Poverty and Income Transfer Policy at the State Level

This note presents a method for developing data on poverty at the state level and applies it to produce estimates of state poverty for the mid-1980s. The findings are based on four alternative measures of poverty: the official one, pretransfer poverty, prewelfare poverty and pre-state-transfer poverty, a new measure especially useful for analyzing the impact of state transfer policies on poverty. The data are reported and then used to compare the antipoverty impact of states’income support policies.     

Voter‐Approved Annexations in an Urban Growth Boundary Regime: The Impacts on Housing Values,Density, and Economic Equity

Oregon is known for its strict Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) policies. While UGBs are designed to accommodate land supply for 20 years of growth, land within UGBs must be annexed into city limits before it can be developed at urban densities and serviced. In Oregon, cities use a variety of municipal annexation and voter‐approved annexation policies (VAAPs), providing an opportunity to study how different annexation policies affect land and housing markets, and affect urban density. Previous research on annexation has not considered how annexation policy influences housing values. This paper examines how VAAPs impact land growth, housing development, and density at the city level. It also examines how VAAPs impact housing values. Based on city‐level and tax‐lot‐level statistical analyses from 107 cities outside Portland Metro area, the results suggest that VAAPs negatively impact the availability of developable land within city limits. VAAPs also positively impact residential density and housing value. Lastly, VAAPs inequitably affect housing value between relatively high‐value housing and relatively low‐value housing, posing economic equity impacts for lower value housing. These findings provide important lessons for Oregon and other states. While VAAPs may increase residential density in cities, the policies may exacerbate affordability problems.     

Institutional context and place-based policy: The case of Coventry & Warwickshire

A key problem of downscaling or transferring policies across regions is embedding these policies into a place for them to unleash the full potential of regional economies. This paper elaborates on the analytical framework of “institutional context” to bridge the gap between rich theorizations and poor empirical capture of institutions in studies of regional development. The institutional context is constituted by three pillars—regulations, organizations, and institutions—as well as by the interrelations between these pillars. Applied to the British region of Coventry and Warwickshire, a qualitative analysis of expert interviews finds institutional patterns of short-termism, moderate levels of social capital and an embryonic relational infrastructure to constrain the place-based strategy for industrial diversification. This regional case illustrates the more general challenge for regional policy in the UK of devising place-based strategies under conditions of continuous rescaling of regional governance and the implementation of a new National Industrial Strategy. In conclusion, the analysis suggests a shift from “nodal” to “linking” policies that support cross-network connections and help grow a regional field for collective action to cross-fertilize knowledge and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging industries.     

Low‐Income Dynamics in Canadian Communities: A Place‐Based Approach

ABSTRACT Canadian poverty rates have persisted at disappointingly high levels despite almost 15 years of continuous economic growth. The problem is exacerbated by some communities and neighborhoods having exceedingly high poverty, including very high rates for vulnerable demographic groups, such as aboriginals and recent immigrants. We investigate low‐income rates (poverty rates) for 2,400 Canadian “communities” over the 1981–2001 period. By focusing on communities, we fill a void in the related Canadian literature, which tends to focus on individuals, case studies, or more aggregate measures, such as provinces. Our approach allows us to assess the role of place‐based policies. Particular attention is given to communities with differing shares of aboriginal Canadians and recent immigrants. One novel feature is our analysis of both “short‐term” and “long‐term” causes of differential community poverty rates. The results suggest that community low‐income rates are more affected by initial economic conditions in the short term, with certain demographic factors becoming relatively more important in the long run.     

Location choices of undocumented migrants: Does access to higher public education matter?

We examine the impact of differences in state‐level higher education policies on location choices of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. using six years of available data over the period 2000 to 2012. The effect of greater access to higher education on the percentage of undocumented migrants residing in a state is positive, suggesting the existence of a “higher public education magnet” effect. Among states with favorable higher education policies, undocumented migrants prefer those states with larger networks, despite the likelihood of greater competition for admission to public institutions of higher education. However, undocumented migrants are reluctant to locate in states that have both large networks and unfavorable educational policies. This is possibly because the fear of attracting additional restrictive regulations dominates the positive cost‐saving effect of large networks.     

Something New or More of the Same in the Bidding Wars for Big Business?

The economic downturn that began in 2007–2008 was blamed by some commentators on neoliberalism and pro‐business policies. So we might expect U.S. state and local governments to have responded with policy changes affecting their neoliberal economic development strategies. Based on this assumption, this paper is a theoretically informed examination of recent high‐profile bidding wars in Wisconsin. The highest profile example was in 2009 when General Motors chose a plant in Michigan over Wisconsin and Tennessee for a new small car line. Wisconsin's Commerce Secretary characterized Michigan's $1.2 billion incentive offer as “absolutely crazy” (compared with his state's $409 million offer!). My main research question is how have Wisconsin state and local governments adjusted their neoliberal economic development efforts in these bidding wars given the recent economic downturn and weak economy? This paper uses the largest incentive offers in Wisconsin during the tenure of the current and previous state governors within the context of ten themes drawn from the literature to problematize the neoliberal policy of bidding for big business. It concludes by considering the implications for economic development policies.     

Immigration,Migration, and State Redistributive Expenditures

The effect of immigration on state and local budgets is a frequent topic of both political and academic conversations. A controversial issue among scholars is whether or not immigration induces outmigration of low income native born residents, a population movement which would potentially have implications for the jurisdictional distribution of immigration's fiscal impact. It is hypothesized here that if interstate poverty migration occurred, it should cause fiscal spillovers by distributing some of the public sector burden of immigration from immigrant “host” states to neighboring states. This paper uses cross‐sectional state data from 1988–1995 to explore the relationship between immigration in neighbor states and state redistributive expenditures. The results suggest that there is a positive relationship between immigration to neighboring states and redistributive expenditures. While most discussion of the fiscal impact of immigration has focused on the effects on host states and localities, the implications of these findings are that there are fiscal spillovers to neighboring states, suggesting that fiscal impacts on host states have been over‐estimated and effects on neighboring states have been underestimated. Additionally, the implications of recent welfare reform, which gives states the opportunity to use citizenship as a criterion for program eligibility, are discussed.     

世界文化遗产的可持续保护与精准扶贫有机结合的成功实践

为了探讨贫困地区世界文化遗产的可持续保护和精准扶贫相结合的有效途径,笔者以近年来在中国云南红河哈尼梯田开展的“稻渔共作”的养殖模式为典型案例进行分析研究。结果表明,云南红河哈尼梯田“稻渔共作”养殖模式能够很好地将世界文化遗产的可持续保护和精准扶贫有机地结合起来,在品种选择、专家指导、繁殖推广、平台建设、示范参考等方面都遵循这一理念,并且产生了良好的生态效益、经济效益和社会效益,推动了云南红河当地的生态保护和少数民族群众的脱贫致富。因而,这一养殖模式对于中国乃至世界上同类性质的世界文化遗产的可持续保护,推动对当地贫困人口精准扶贫具有较强的借鉴意义。     

The Economic Status of Areas Surrounding Major U.S. Container Ports: Evidence and Policy Issues

ABSTRACT This article examines the current economic status of the areas surrounding major U.S. container ports. We define a “port district” as the geographic area within a 7.5‐mile radius of a port. Our sample includes the 10 largest container ports in the U.S. We find that when we compare port districts to their surrounding metropolitan areas, household unemployment and poverty rates are significantly higher in port districts. Thus, the same ports that serve as “economic engines” for the region and nation may be the cause of economic decline and deterioration in the immediate areas that surround them. This presents a challenge for policy makers who want to preserve the benefits of international trade while facing increasing opposition to port expansion by local communities.     

Is There a Trade and Defense Perimeter? The Regional Impacts of Trade and Defense Spending in the United States, 1978-1986

Using an expanded shift share technique to impute international trade-related industrial job change, the extent to which structural changes in trade and defense spending appear to explain state economic performance differentials is explored. The findings show there is limited support for the “trade perimeter” argument, but strong support for the hypothesized relationship between military procurement spending and state trade performance. To the extent that defense commitments, especially to private sector procurement and R & D, have operated as an informal industrial policy, particularly by guaranteeing strong domestic sales, they have enabled a significant number of states peripheral to the traditional industrial heartland to build a strong international trade posture. The conclusion offers observations on the economic development implications of these findings.     

The Appreciative System of Urban ICT Policies: An Analysis of Perceptions of Urban Policy Makers

ABSTRACT Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an important tool to promote a variety of public goals and policies. In the past years much attention has been given to the expected social benefits from deploying ICTs in different urban fields (transportation, education, public participation in planning, etc.) and to its potential to mitigate various current or emerging urban problems. The growing importance of ICTs in daily life, business activities, and governance prompts the need to consider ICTs more explicitly in urban policies. Alongside the expectation that the private sector will play a major role in the ICT field, the expected benefits from ICTs also encourage urban authorities to formulate proper public ICT policies. Against this background, various intriguing research questions arise. What are the urban policy‐makers’ expectations about ICTs? And how do they assess the future implications of ICTs for their city? A thorough analysis of these questions will provide a better understanding of the extent to which urban authorities are willing to invest in and to adopt a dedicated ICT policy. This study is focusing on the way urban decision‐makers perceive the opportunities of ICT policy. After a sketch of recent development and policy issues, a conceptual model is developed to map out the driving forces of urban ICT policies in cities in Europe. Next, by highlighting the importance of understanding the decision‐maker's “black box,” three crucial variables are identified within this box. In the remaining part of the paper these three variables will be operationalized by using a large survey comprising more than 200 European cities. By means of statistical multivariate methods (i.e., factor and cluster analysis), the decision‐makers were able to be characterized according to the way they perceive their city (the concept of “imaginable city”), their opinion about ICT, and the way they assess the relevance of ICT policies to their city. Next, a solid explanatory framework will be offered by using a log‐linear logit analysis to test the relationships between these three aspects.     

Density,Distance, and Division: Rural Poverty in a Developing‐Country Context

The 3Ds, namely, density, distance, and division, are important for regional economic development and are integrated into a “3D” analytical framework in the 2009 World Development Report. Few empirical studies have examined the relevance of the 3D framework for explaining rural poverty in a developing‐country context. The effects of density on poverty are seldom studied, and distances to different layers of city centers on poverty may vary across different contexts. This paper aims to fill these gaps. Examining the case of Guizhou Province in China and adopting methods of the ordinary least square, instrument variable, and spatial econometrics, we find the evidence of the 3D framework for explaining rural poverty at the county level. Population density has a negative effect on rural poverty, while division, as measured by share of the ethnic minority population, has a positive effect. The effects of distance are mixed. Distance to Guiyang, which is the provincial political‐economic center of Guizhou province, has a negative effect on rural poverty, whereas distance to the local city center has no effect. These results can provide important policy implications for local poverty‐alleviation.     

Urban Growth Boundaries and Betterment: Rent‐Seeking by Landowners on Melbourne's Expanding Urban Fringe

Melbourne's Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) was legislated in 2002 and expanded substantially in 2010. Although based on strategic planning goals, UGBs have the capacity to influence land and housing markets. Landowners on the rural–urban fringe are a stakeholder group directly impacted by UGB policy, with multiple interests in containment policies and any land‐value effects. Following the 2010 expansion, substantial windfall profits to “instant millionaire” Melbourne landowners were openly reported. This paper critically interprets claims made by landowners in 264 public submissions responding to the proposed UGB expansion, and to an accompanying new policy instrument, the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC). The GAIC was, in effect, a hypothecated tax on betterment expected to result from the UGB shift. Landowners commonly expressed fears that the UGB shift would not result in claimed value increases. On this basis, the GAIC was revised such that it is—at least in intention—a system wherein the tax is to be paid by housing developers and passed forward to homebuyers. The paper argues that the series of changes to the UGB and GAIC, including the modified “purchaser pays” system, may be understood as a response to rent‐seeking policy pressures from existing landowners as “insiders.” Although the unpopularity of the GAIC with landowners might have been anticipated, the outcome appears to legitimise their misinterpretation of the premise of development gain. A broader implication is that rent‐seeking behaviour by existing property owners can determine whether and how strategic planning policies are implemented.     

Poverty,Innovation Capacity,and State Economic Development in the Knowledge Economy: Evidence from the U.S.

We examine poverty's effect in two ways. First, we study the relationship between poverty and capacity for innovation in the U.S. states; second, we study the combined effects of poverty and innovation capacity on U.S. state economic output and employment. Because many of the relationships among poverty, innovation capacity and economic performance are simultaneous, we employ the Arellano Bond Difference GMM estimator to estimate various models using panel data (1980–1999). The findings reveal a negative indirect effect of socio‐economic need (poverty) on human and U.S. state and local financial innovation capacity, though there is no empirical link between poverty and federal financial capacity. We find no statistically significant evidence of the contemporaneous effect of poverty on state economic performance, holding innovation capacity constant. This suggests that poverty primarily affects state economic performance indirectly through reduction of innovation capacity. Overall, our findings suggest that U.S. officials ought to be concerned about the role poverty plays in diminishing their state economies' capacity to innovate.     

秦巴山区、武陵山区集中连片扶贫调查及可持续发展模式比较研究

退耕还林与集中连片扶贫是近年来政府实施西部大开发战略的重要举措。通过对秦巴山区、武陵山区两大退耕还林和集中连片扶贫区的调查,分析指出两地区长期贫困落后的原因相似,既包括自身的自然生态、经济、人文三大系统恶性循环,也包括政府制度供给偏向的影响。根据两地区扶贫开发的现状,提出从国家层面应进一步加大对集中连片贫困地区基础设施建设和民生事业的投入;从地方政府层面应结合实际推进制度创新,做好统筹规划,制定适合区域环境要求的扶贫开发策略;在具体实践层面应通过财政转移支付、税收政策及专项资金扶持等发展生态旅游业、特色农业等新兴产业,采取以经济效益、生态效益和社会效益有机结合的扶贫模式,实现区域经济社会的可持续发展。     

Solving the Problems of Economic Development Incentives

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the research literature relevant to economic development incentives provided by state and local governments, and recommends reforms in these incentives. I argue that the main problem with current incentive policies is that state and local governments often provide incentives that are not in the best interest of that state or local area, for example that are excessively costly per job created, or that provide jobs that do not improve the job opportunities of local residents. I suggest that reforms should be “bottom‐up” rather than “top‐down.” Regulation of incentives by the federal government may prevent both desirable and undesirable incentives. “Bottom‐up” reforms would include more information on incentive offers, a budget constraint on the volume of incentives, stronger standards for job quality and job accessibility for the local unemployed, and better benefit‐cost analyses of incentives.     

Urban Governance in Africa Today: Reframing,Experiences, and Lessons

Progress in analysing the instrumental view of governance as an engine for growth, poverty reduction, and inclusive development has been held back by the difficulty in framing governance. This essay seeks to address this problem by 1) reframing urban governance 2) evaluating its aims, processes, and outcomes, and 3) explaining those outcomes on the basis of which some lessons are teased out. Using examples from Africa and an institutional political economy approach (based on institutional economics, Marxist political economics, Georgist political economics, and Polanyian political economy), I show that, overall, while urban economies are growing; both urban poverty and inequality levels have risen substantially. Urban governance has paved the way for new forms of urban development that only benefit the few. Not only are there differences in how urban services and resources are experienced, accessed, and controlled but the varieties are also socially differentiated. I argue that the underlying reasons for this disjuncture between “urban governance” in theory and “actually existing urban governance” are 1) difficulties in implementing urban governance theory consistently in practice, 2) problems arising because urban governance theory has been implemented in practice, 3) tensions that would entangle most policies which do not address historical and structural economic issues, 4) restrictive assumptions, and 5) incoherence among the different dimensions of urban governance. To resolve these contradictions, I put the case for major structural and institutional change involving: 1) the re‐ordering of the roles of the state, market, and society as institutions of change; 2) re‐working the relationships that bind together land, labour, capital, and the state, and 3) re‐organising the channels for keeping the attainment of the ends of urban governance in check.     

城乡建设用地增减挂钩政策实施后复垦农民满意度研究——基于渝东南少数民族地区扶贫乡镇的调研

城乡建设用地增减挂钩是国家优化城乡用地结构与开展扶贫攻坚的重要政策,复垦是该政策的重要环节,复垦农民满不满意是衡量该政策有效性的重要指标。本文通过对重庆市复垦阶段的政策与流程梳理,结合对渝东南少数民族地区扶贫乡镇的实地调研,构建了复垦农民满意度指标体系,采用模糊综合评价法对政策实施细则改变前后的满意度差异进行了分析和评价。研究结果表明,通过对政策进行调整后,复垦农民对“经济补偿”与“环境改善”的满意度有了较大提高,但在“政策宣导”、“复垦实施”、“政府服务”及“法律保障”等方面仍有改善的空间。最后从复垦农民满意度的角度出发,在补偿方式、权益保障等方面对增减挂钩政策提出了优化建议。     

家庭经济禀赋、政策认知与农户宅基地流转意愿——基于江西省456份问卷调查

构建科学有效的宅基地流转机制是一个迫切需要解决的基础性课题。笔者利用江西省456户农户的实际调查数据,运用Logit回归模型研究家庭经济禀赋、政策认知对农户宅基地流转意愿的影响。研究结果表明：家庭经济禀赋中非农收入比重、家庭存款、家庭人均年收入对农户宅基地流转意愿具有显著正向影响;政策认知中“一户一宅”认知、流转规定认知程度对农户宅基地流转意愿具有显著负向影响。为此,应进一步提高农户非农就业机会,改善农民务工经商的就业环境、应加快制定“一户一宅”的配套制度,构建更加合理和更具有操作性的宅基地流转政策体系。     

石灰岩贫困山区农户土地利用转型影响因素研究

石灰岩山区因土地利用存在可用面积少和可利用方式有限等诸多问题,容易导致农村贫困问题产生,研究石灰岩贫困山区影响农户土地利用转型的因素,探讨与现代农业发展相适应的土地利用模式有助于缓解石灰岩贫困山区的贫困问题。本文基于广西壮族自治区环江毛南族自治县洛阳镇的问卷调查数据,运用二值选择Logit模型从农户土地利用结构、土地利用权属和土地利用方式三个方面着手,系统分析现阶段影响农户土地利用转型的因素。研究结果表明：政府的土地承包政策依然是影响农户土地利用转型的主要因素;而农户自身的家庭类型、个人特征、资源禀赋、经济因素则分别通过农户不同方面的土地利用转型需求影响农户的土地利用行为。当地政府应以农村土地“三权分置”政策为基本原则,根据石灰岩山区的特殊背景,从差异化修正完善农村土地承包政策、健全农村土地流转市场等方面合理引导农户土地利用行为,提高土地利用效率,实现土地资源的可持续利用。