Political risk analysis for Canada and Mexico

A new methodology for political risk analysis was developed and applied to Canada and Mexico. The ideas of an interdisciplinary team of corporate and country experts were obtained in mid-1982 via a two-round Delphi inquiry on socioeconomic change and a survey on business contingencies in Canada and Mexico. The information provided by the panelists was used to describe possible future conditions in Canada and Mexico in the context of alternative U.S. and international conditions.     

Politicizing Undocumented Immigrants One Corner at a Time: How Day Laborers Became a Politically Contentious Group

This article examines how undocumented immigrants become politicized and evolved into a relatively powerful group in the United States. It does so by examining the evolution of day laborers from their humble beginnings in a Los Angeles suburb in the early 1990s into an important component of the national immigrant rights movement today. It addresses the issue by examining the strategic importance of the ‘urban' in enabling stigmatized individuals like undocumented day laborers to overcome major barriers and establish themselves as a vocal and potent group in the public sphere. It suggests that once this group gained a foothold and a sense of itself through urban relational spaces, it experienced enhanced capacities to make rights claims in local and national political arenas. The article uses a case study of immigrant activism in Pasadena and Los Angeles, California, and draws special attention to the evolution of the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON).     

The Ecology Of Neighborhood Participation and The Reproduction Of Political Conflict

Building on three years of participant observation and 30 life‐history interviews with activists in the Los Angeles community of Venice, this article introduces an ecological perspective to examine neighborhood participation and the reproduction of political conflict. As the official local space of community politics, the city‐funded Venice Neighborhood Council has experienced dramatic conflict. Observers have framed the conflict as occurring between liberal and conservative groups. Despite the history of conflict between so‐called ‘groups', the individuals involved are in flux. Venice is a complex arrangement of different neighborhoods and multiple interests. Tensions between long‐term neighborhood affiliations, formal bureaucracy and grassroots organizations affect how activists weigh competing associations embedded in the spatial landscape. The ecology of neighborhood participation underscores that conflict is not an outcome of stable substantive positions, but rather it occurs as the reassembling of overlapping and competing interests over time.     

How does female labor force participation impact on housing values?

Female labor force participation (FLFP) and household wealth are two main topics of interests to economists for long time. The objective of this study is to investigate the response of housing values, household wealth, to female labor force participation using panel level data in the U.S. states. We develop static and dynamic estimation models using state-level data in the U.S. from 2005 to 2013. The results show the FLFP rate and per capita income have a strong positive effect on housing values, while the number of units per capita has a negative effect on housing values in the state. We find that a 10% increase in FLFP will result in an increase of about 12.5% on housing values. Additionally, increasing per capita income by 10% on average will cause housing values to rise by 9%, however, a 10% rise in the number of units per capita will decrease housing values by 30%. The results assist economists and policy makers in assessing policies to optimize decisions in labor market and housing market.