Investigating Treatment Effects of Participating Jointly in SNAP and WIC when the Treatment Is Validated Only for SNAP

The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates several food assistance programs aimed at alleviating food insecurity. We study whether participation in both participation in both SNAP and WIC alleviates food insecurity compared with participation in SNAP alone. We bound underlying causal effects by applying nonparametric treatment effect methods that allow for endogenous selection and underreported program participation when validation data are available for one program (treatment) but not the other. We estimate average treatment effects using data from the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). FoodAPS includes administrative data to validate SNAP participation. Information on local food prices allows us to construct a food expenditure‐based monotone instrumental variable that does not require a typical instrumental variable exclusion restriction. Under relatively weak monotonicity assumptions, we identify that the impact of participating in both programs relative to SNAP alone is strictly positive, suggesting that the programs are nonredundant. This evidence can support improved design and targeting of food programs.     

Bold Policies for Economic Justice

The U.S. is characterized by a longstanding pattern of large structural racial inequality that deepens further as a result of economic downturn. Although there have been some improvements in the income gap up until around the mid 1970s, the employment gap, and the racial wealth gap - two dramatic indicators of economic security - remains exorbitant and stubbornly persistent. We offer two race-neutral programs that could go a long way towards eliminating racial inequality, while at the same time providing economic security, mobility and sustainability for all Americans. The first program, a federal job guarantee, would provide the economic security of a job and the removal of the threat of unemployment for all Americans. The second program, a substantial child development account that rises progressively based on the familial asset positioning of the child??s parents, would provide a pathways towards asset security for all Americans regardless of their economic position at birth.     

The Indonesian national family planning program

With a change in the Indonesian government in 1965 there came a change in government policy from pronatalist to limiting the birthrate. In January 1970 the government National Family Planning Cordinating Body was established. During the initial phase of the program family planning efforts have been limited to the islands of Java and Bali where family planning services are integrated into health service clinics. By the beginning of 1975 there were some 2400 clinics on Java and Bali. Family planning acceptors increased from 53,100 in 1969 to 1.5 million in 1974. The 1st phase of the program aimed at consolidating government support, winning local formal and informal leader support, introducing services into public clinic health systems, and building a viable administrative organization. The 2nd phase of the program has quantified the goal of the program, shifted from an emphasis on new acceptors to continuing users, broadened the participation of various government and nongovernmental groups, expanded the program into the private sector, and initiated a research and development program to stimulate local problem identification and resolution. By mid-1975 over 4.7 million women, or 34% of the married women between the ages of 15 and 44, had been recruited into the program. The East Java program has consistently been the most cost effective in terms of recruiting new acceptors. In terms of cost per couple year of protection, the trend has been steadily downward over the 3 years of study in the provinces of Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, and Bali where there are programs. The program needs to develop new approaches for those individuals who are not yet acceptors. Additionally, the program must concentrate on user continuation.     

Do lenders who redline make more money than lenders who don’t?

While it is widely recognized that racial minorities and residents of distressed urban communities experience relatively greater difficulty in obtaining mortgage loans, there is little consensus on the causes of such lending patterns. This study examines the relationship between lender profitability and the percentage of their loans and loan dollars that are invested in Milwaukee’s central city and to racial minorities throughout the metropolitan area. Findings suggest that to understand broader industry-wide patterns, it is important to focus on the characteristics of lending institutions themselves, particularly those that yield discriminatory lending patterns, and not solely on the income, credit rating, and other socioeconomic characteristics pertaining to the risk and profitability associated with various population groups and community areas. Policy and research implications that will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of, and more effective solutions for, urban credit availability or redlining problems are discussed.     

Heading for the Hills? Effects of Community Flood Management on Local Adaptation to Flood Risks

The Community Rating System (CRS) program was implemented by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1990 as an optional program to encourage communities to voluntarily engage in flood mitigation initiatives. This article uses national census tract‐level data from 1980 to 2010 to estimate whether CRS participation and flood risk affect a community's local patterns of population change. We employ an instrumental‐variables strategy to address the potential endogeneity of CRS participation, based on community‐scale demographic factors that predict when a tract's host community joins the CRS. The results find significant effects of the CRS program and flood risk on population change. Taken together, the findings point to greater propensity for community‐scale flood management in areas with more newcomers and programs such as CRS stabilizing population, though not especially in flood‐prone areas. We observe the CRS neither displacing population toward lower‐risk areas nor attracting more people to flood‐prone areas.     

Micro-entrepreneurship in a hostile environment: evidence from Indonesia

The contribution of micro-entrepreneurship to development has featured prominently in recent economic and policy debates. Using panel data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey over a long period (1993–2007) marked by an important economic crisis in 1997, this paper investigates the impact of financial, human and social capital on households’ participation in micro-entrepreneurship, while accounting for corruption as well as institutional and infrastructure quality. Larger urban households that have greater financial and social capital, and/or whose members have an elementary or secondary education, are more likely to participate. Corruption at the local parliament and local government levels reduces the number of participants, while higher-quality formal institutions and infrastructure boost entrepreneurship. The period is marked by a rise in participation in 2000, but communities that experienced a loss in well-being due to the crisis were less likely to participate in micro-entrepreneurship.     

Race,job training,and economic development: Barriers to racial equity in program planning

This article examines barriers to implementing government programs designed to redress racial economic exclusion. The authors review the current urban employment environment, and the need for more extensive job training and education programs targeting young African Americans. A case study is presented of the implementation of one such program in Ohio, the High Unemployment Population Program. It demonstrates that the most well designed program can fail if staff charged with implementation are not committed to its goals. In the current racially charged environment of the country, this barrier to implementation is likely to affect many new government programs throughout the 1990s. The article concludes with several recommendations for successful program implementation.     

Reform of the shareholding system for collective assets,residents' participation,and community debts risk

The reform of the shareholding system for collective assets (SSCA) has made clear the community members' rights to collective assets and their possessory rights, while changes in the residents' rights may alter their behaviors and community interests. In this study, the Difference-in-Differences estimation method is used to examine the impact of the SSCA reform on residents' participation in community governance. With residents' participation as the mediating factor, the mediating effect model is used to study the impact of the reform on community debts risk (CDR). When the household, community, and economic variables are controlled, the probability of residents in communities that have undergone reform being willing to participate in community governance is 5.6% higher than those in communities that have not. The results are significant at the 5% level. In terms of CDR, the SSCA reform has significantly reduced the debts–assets ratio by 7.9%. These findings have passed a series of robustness tests. This conclusion provides new ideas for promoting communities' democratic participation and debts risk management.     

Racial dilemmas in Malaysia: A message for South African development

The article addresses aspects of Malaysia's development. The economic policies of the Malaysian government have been influenced significantly by political, economic and cultural factors resulting from the racial composition of the country. The government which is effectively controlled by the Malays, as distinct from the large Chinese and Indian communities, has tried since independence from the United Kingdom in 1957 to satisfy the aspirations of different racial and cultural groups. The policies implemented for over thirty years, including racial power‐sharing, and the problems that have been encountered, may offer valuable insights and lessons for the framers of economic development policy in South Africa. The experience of Malaysia demonstrates the immense difficulty of reconciling the conflicting claims of different racial groups and the effects that particular policies may have on development     

Insurance redlining and the process of discrimination

Insurance redlining and the racially discriminatory consequences of the sale of property insurance have been documented in several cities throughout the United States. In this study teams of “testers”—comparably qualified insurance consumers who differed only in the racial composition of the neighborhood of the homes they sought to insure—contacted three Milwaukee area insurance companies regarding the possibility of purchasing insurance for their homes. Though no blatantly discriminatory behavior was exhibited, agents representing these companies expressed a clear preference to pursue business in white communities and placed additional barriers in the way of testers from nonwhite neighborhoods. These findings parallel changes in other institutional sectors of the housing industry where blatantly discriminatory behavior has generally given way to more subtle forms of bias. Policy recommendations are offered to reduce existing racial disparities in the availability of insurance and to open up housing markets in general for minorities.     

The impact of changes in local labor market conditions on estimates of occupational segregation

Recent work by labor economists has suggested that differential labor market treatment of minorities (e.g., occupational segregation) may vary across local labor markets. This study assesses whether changing economic conditions in a local labor market affects the degree of occupational segregation by race and gender in the United States. Our empirical analysis finds evidence that the relative occupational structures of white women and black males are systematically related to changes in certain local labor market conditions.     

Transitions from Welfare and the Employment Prospects of Low-Skill Workers

This study examines the effects that labor market conditions and welfare policy changes had on single mothers' welfare participation and economic outcomes using longitudinal, individual-level data from the 1992 and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The study uses special versions of the SIPP panels that include state and county identifiers and links the individual information to county-specific measures of low-skill employment opportunities and state measures of welfare policies. It estimates transition models of program entry and exit and regression models of economic outcomes. The study finds that employment conditions and welfare benefit levels were significant determinants of single mothers' welfare participation and economic success over the period 1992-95. However, it does not find statistically distinguishable differences in participation and economic success between states that did and did not reform their welfare programs through waivers to the federal rules.     

The Politics of Resistance: Informal banks in the Caribbean

Informal banks are as relevant as they were in slave times because they are creating financial alternatives for marginalized people. I explore this issue with an empirical study of 398 business people in the slums of Jamaica and Guyana. I use intersectionality theorizing to explain that poor women organize local banks as a form of contestation against the threat of violence, partisan and informal politics. Women from poor communities mobilize economic resources through mutual aid to resist dependence on corrupt political systems and exclusionary financial institutions. I argue that the banker ladies reorganize money markets for themselves and others. By organizing inclusive financial programs the banker ladies also build social capital through managing locally-based economic resources.     

Development through Harambee: Who wins and who loses? Rural self-help projects in Kenya

Organization of rural communities for participation in development is a critical need in many Third World countries. This study examines local development through self-help, Harambee, in three districts in Kenya for its impact on equity issues. Data from six locations representing Kenya's smallholder farmers in varying ecological and demographic circumstances suggest that Harambee projects have provided important benefits across socioeconomic strata within communities while increasing regional and ethnic differentiation. Moreover, Harambee projects have drawn higher levels of support from more affluent households than from poorer ones. Although it does not alter fundamental inequities in economic and political structures, and sometimes reinforces them, Harambee is a useful strategy for mobilizing local-level resources for the benefit of the community.     

Labor market racial discrimination against black women

Conclusion The data we have reviewed describe black women as having achieved parity with white women and indicate that this conclusion is not seriously affected after controlling for the direct and indirect effects of differences in time worked. However, the economic position of black women is not uniform throughout the economy. Black women have advanced primarily in public sector jobs and these advances have been made primarily by the youngest cohorts. Progress in the private sector has been much slower. Claims that a “new labor market” exists for black women ought to be carefully qualified, for their progress is impressive primarily when they are compared to white women—another disadvantaged group. Both groups of women are falling farther behind men in terms of relative earnings.16 Furthermore, it may be quite erroneous to interpret small differences in earnings between black and white women as evidence that black women do not suffer racial discrimination, as the following example illustrates.     

Do political connections affect corporate poverty alleviation decisions? Evidence from China

Programs to alleviate poverty by corporations are increasingly popular as a new form of corporate social responsibility. This study examines how the political connections of a firm's chairperson are associated with decisions to alleviate poverty based on a sample of listed Chinese firms from 2016 to 2018. We find that the chairperson's political connections increase the probability of participation and the amount of investment in programs to alleviate poverty. This positive relationship is mainly manifested in firms with high agency costs and low regional economic conditions. In addition, the chairperson's political connections are not related to the efficiency of the poverty alleviation program. Politically connected firms receive less government recognition with an increase in investment in poverty alleviation. Our findings are consistent with the notion that firms participate in poverty alleviation programs for reciprocal favor exchanges, but they fail to manage these programs efficiently.     

Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Effects of Psychiatric Disorders on Employment

Prior research on the disability burden of mental disorders has focused on the non-Latino white population, despite the growing size and importance of racial/ethnic minorities in the labor market and in the US population as a whole. This paper is one of the first to test for racial/ethnic differences in the effects of mental disorder on employment outcomes with data from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiological Studies (CPES). We find that recent psychiatric disorder is associated with a reduction in the likelihood of employment for men of all racial/ethnic groups relative to non-Latino whites with the possible exception of Caribbeans. These findings are driven by the effects of anxiety and affective disorders. For females, only affective disorders appear to detract from employment overall. Much larger negative effects are found for Latino women with anxiety disorders.     

The case for gender mainstreaming Botswana's privatisation process

Botswana embarked on privatisation in 2000 but the programme is yet to be implemented. The objectives of privatisation are to promote citizen economic empowerment and to benefit all. Admittedly, these are well-intended objectives. However, we pose a question: ‘How are these objectives going to be achieved?’ To answer this question, this paper audits the Privatisation Policy of Botswana and Privatisation Master Plan to assess the extent to which they are gender inclusive, and concludes that they are gender blind and do not address the gender dimensions of privatisation. The paper also reviews secondary data such as poverty maps and concludes that women suffer socio-economic disenfranchisement and would not equally benefit from privatisation. In addition, women would disproportionately suffer its adverse effects. For privatisation to produce fair outcomes, there is a need to make it gender inclusive. Making it gender inclusive would ensure the participation and empowerment of socio-economic minorities such as women.     

塔塔尔族聚居区生计转型与可持续发展研究

塔塔尔族是我国人数较少民族之一,其聚居区生计转型与可持续发展关系到民族团结平等与社会和谐。农村改革以来,塔塔尔族聚居区传统的牧猎生计方式遇到了前所未有的挑战;而与此同时,随着融入现代化发展的进程,又为其经济、社会发展带来了新的机遇。本文首先对生计转型与可持续发展的关系进行了理论阐述;然后对塔塔尔族聚居区的基本概况和生计转型面临的困境,以及生计转型与可持续发展的有利条件进行了分析;最后提出了其发展思路与对策建议。     

Community action by the urban poor: Democratic involvement,community self-help or a means of social control?

This is the first of two papers, in which we examine the nature and effectiveness of formal channels for encouraging community action and participation among low-income groups in Bogotá (Columbia), Mexico City (Mexico) and Valencia (Venezuela). We are concerned with the forms of community participation among the poor, how demands are channelled to the state, the formal organization of community links with the state, and the origins of community action programmes. Organizations to facilitate popular participation in barrio upgrading have existed since the late 1950s, most of which have been imposed from the top down. We argue that the poor have derived few benefits from these government-inspired organizations although they have sometimes given resources to local communities for the first time. The primary purpose behind these organizations is to legitimate the political system and to encourage compliance with urban policy. Greater power over decision-making has not increased among local groups.