Rethinking the State-Local Relationship: Local Economic Development

Examines issues involved in shifting responsibility for redevelopment and enterprise zones from the state to localities, including relaxing local funding constraints to give localities more authority and incentives to support the most effective programs

Business Relocation and Homegrown Jobs, 1992-2006

Based on updated data, confirms findings from a 2007 study that the relocation of businesses into and out of California accounts for a very small share of the state's job gains and losses. Includes comparisons with other states and with in-state moves

Dialing While Fishtailing: How Mobile Phones, Hands-Free Laws, and Driving Conditions Interact to Affect Traffic Fatalities

Most rich countries in the world and four US states require drivers talking on mobile phones to use hands-free devices. However, previous research has failed to arrive at a consensus on the effect of mobile phones on traffic accidents yet has concluded that the effect of hands-free and hand-held phones on accidents is similar. This paper uses state-level data from 1997-2005 on mobile phone ownership, traffic fatalities, and hands-free laws and finds that (1) mobile phones contribute to traffic fatalities and (2) hands-free laws appear to reduce fatalities. Specifically, mobile phone ownership results in a large and statistically significant increase in traffic fatalities in bad weather or wet road conditions, with no effect in good weather or dry road conditions. Laws requiring drivers to use hands-free technologies while talking reduce traffic fatalities in adverse conditions, and the effect grows stronger and becomes statistically significant the longer the law is in effect, although these longer-term effects are based solely on New York, which in 2001 became the first state to have a hands-free law. The analysis relies on microdata from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System to estimate effects for traffic fatalities in different conditions and to isolate fatalities unlikely to be affected by confounding changes in alcohol policies or graduated licensing laws.mobile phones; cell phones; traffic fatalities; hands-free laws; driving; safety; accidents

Do California's Enterprise Zones Create Jobs?

Examines how the state's enterprise zone program, which offered incentives in economically distressed areas, affected job and business creation in 1992-2004. Considers elements of relative success such as marketing and outreach and suggests improvements

Does Local Business Ownership Insulate Cities from Economic Shocks?

We assess a prominent argument for local economic policies that favor locally-owned businesses – namely, that locally-owned firms are more likely to internalize the costs to the community of decisions to reduce employment and hence help to insulate cities from adverse economic shocks. We test this argument by examining how establishment-level employment responses to economic shocks are affected by establishment ownership. We find evidence hat some types of local ownership do insulate regions from economic shocks, although the clearest benefits do not come from small, independent businesses, but instead from corporate headquarters and, to a lesser extent, from small, locally-owned chains.employment stability, employment shocks, local ownership

Driving Change: Reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled in California

Assesses benefits and challenges of a 2008 strategy to integrate higher-density development, investments in alternatives to solo driving, and pricing incentives, as well as the state's experience with implementing it. Includes policy recommendations

Business Climate Rankings and the California Economy

Examines California's varied rankings across business climate indices and the links between economic, wage, and employment growth and the factors measured in the indices, such as productivity, taxes and costs, welfare and transfer policies, and geography

What Do Business Climate Indexes Teach Us About State Policy and Economic Growth?

State business climate indexes capture state policies that might affect economic growth. State rankings in these indexes vary wildly, raising questions about what the indexes measure and which policies are important for growth. Indexes focused on productivity do not predict economic growth, while indexes emphasizing taxes and costs predict growth of employment, wages, and output. Analysis of sub-indexes of the tax-and-cost-related indexes point to two policy factors associated with faster growth: less spending on welfare and transfer payments; and more uniform and simpler corporate tax structures. But factors beyond the control of policy have a stronger relationship with economic growth.

Ideology and Opportunity in Social Work During the New Deal Years

As the country moved from a dominant ideology of voluntarism towards the welfare state during the New Deal years, conflicts and compromises occurred within the social work profession that required a definition of the role the profession would assume with relation to the public sector of social welfare. The nature of the relationship that evolved between social work and government, and the accommodations made by each during the New Deal years, and particularly around the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, are examined