Testing the Effectiveness of Big Government

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An Economist article about “Lumbering Leviathans” — governments around the world that are growing bigger and bigger with little benefit for their people — cited research from the Berggruen Governance Index. While it can be difficult to measure the efficiency of government bureaucracies, the article credits the index with devising a cross-country analysis of state capacity using objective measures, such as tax revenue, and subjective measures, such as perceptions of corruption. The Bergguen Governance Index, directed by UCLA Luskin Adjunct Professor Helmut Anheier, issues reports on its major findings as well as on individual countries. The team recently released “Tunisia’s Autocratic Resurgence” ahead of the country’s Oct. 6 elections. The report examines Tunisia’s democratic rise and possible fall in the 14 years since the “Arab Spring.”

Read the Economist article
Read the BGI report on Tunisia

 

Gilens on the Role of Money in U.S. Elections

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UCLA Luskin’s Martin Gilens was a guest on the UC Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation’s “Talking Policy” podcast on the role of money in U.S. elections. Gilens, a professor of public policy, social welfare and political science, and the author of “Democracy in America? What Has Gone Wrong and What We Can Do About It,” addressed how Americans feel about the current political system. “People are just … very unhappy with the state of our politics. They think the parties would rather fight against each other than work together to address America’s problems,” Gilens said. “And frankly, they’re right about that.” Gilens said Americans are extremely disillusioned, which is not new. “Our policy has, in many dimensions — whether it’s regulation, taxation and so on — shifted in ways that are beneficial to business and to owners and to the rich, and harmful to the middle class and to the poor.”

Listen to the podcast

 

Schools and Heat: An Extreme Challenge

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The Washington Post spoke to UCLA Luskin’s V. Kelly Turner about a new push to turn asphalt schoolyards into greener spaces that provide cooling relief at a time of rising temperatures. Turner has documented surface temperatures of 145 degrees Fahrenheit on playground asphalt, and alternatives such as rubber and artificial turf can get even hotter. “Schools are basically shade deserts,” said Turner, associate director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Yet some districts have been slow to plant trees or install shade structures, citing funding, liability, maintenance and safety issues. “Everybody knows how to design a cool space: You put in more greenery, a ton of shade, you have lots of cross-ventilation. The problem is funding,” Turner said. “Are voters prepared to really pony up the money to make our schools safe for children in 20 or 30 years?” Turner also spoke to the Associated Press, CalMatters, Hechinger Report, LAist and The Atlantic about the impact of extreme heat on school campuses.

Read the Washington Post story

 

Affordable Housing Aspirations and Hurdles

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UCLA Luskin’s Michael Lens spoke to CalMatters about Vice President Kamala Harris’ pledge to build 3 million affordable homes in her first term if she is elected president — and how a similar campaign promise made by California Gov. Gavin Newsom has fared. Harris’ plan includes tax incentives, an “innovation fund” to finance construction, repurposing federal land for housing, streamlining the permitting process — “all of the stuff we talk about at dorky academic conferences,” said Lens, a professor of urban planning and public policy. But as Newsom found, transforming the housing market from the top is difficult, thanks to pricey land, high construction costs, onerous regulations and community resistance. California officials are pushing to clear regulatory hurdles, with modest impact so far but the promise of a faster pace of home construction in the future. “That’s a precursor to making a lot of these things work,” Lens said. “We have to make housing more allowable in more places.”

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Matute on LA Metro’s Transportation Bidding Practices

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, was quoted in a Los Angeles Times story about a lawsuit by labor advocates against the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority over a $730 million contract bid to build new subway cars. The subway cars are intended to replace the city’s aging fleet and run on the D Line extension to West Los Angeles, which is scheduled to be running before the 2028 Olympics. About Metro’s bidding practices, Matute commented on an earlier $66-million contract to upgrade the city’s tap-to-pay program, in which the agency did not publicly request bids but instead modified a two-decades-old contract. “The downside of this is that Metro can use the compressed timelines of delivering transportation services and infrastructure to its advantage to constrain procurement choices,” Matute said, noting the appearance that the agency ran down the clock to limit the feasibility of other alternatives.

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Loukaitou-Sideris on Public Transit Crime

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Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, interim dean of UCLA Luskin, commented in a Chicago Tribune story on crime and violence on Chicago’s public transit system and efforts by the city and transit officials to stem crime rates that are higher than before the pandemic. While the odds of being a victim of violent crime on the Chicago Transit Authority’s “L” train system were lower in the first half of 2024, the Tribune reported that transit crime has remained “stubbornly above” pre-COVID-19 levels. “Transit is such an open environment that it is much more difficult to protect it like you protect, let’s say, airports,” Loukaitou-Sideris said. She said that visible police presence is a deterrent, but costly, and noted that police and security can’t protect every train and station. Measures such as cameras are helpful only after a crime has been committed, she said, while suggesting that improved lighting can be a deterrent to robberies and assaults.

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Shoup on Fix for L.A.’s Scary Sidewalks

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UCLA Luskin’s Donald Shoup penned an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times about L.A.’s many miles of long-neglected and broken sidewalks. In it, he describes the 2028 Olympic city as an “obstacle course,” especially for people with disabilities. Shoup points out that, despite the 2016 settlement of an Americans With Disabilities Act lawsuit in which the city agreed to spend $1.4 billion over 30 years to make sidewalks accessible, less than 1% of Los Angeles’ sidewalks have actually been repaired while millions of dollars have been paid out in sidewalk-related injury settlements. Shoup offers a solution — which he says is not new — in which owners can defer paying for sidewalk repairs until they sell their property. Longstanding California law holds property owners responsible for maintaining adjacent sidewalks, which he argues is too costly for many Angelenos. However, he writes, “fortunately, there is a fair and efficient way to solve the property owners’ cash-flow problems: pay-on-exit.”

Read the op-ed

 

Wray-Lake on California Motor-Voter Bill

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UCLA Luskin Professor of Social Welfare Laura Wray-Lake spoke to KPBS for a story about a proposed California bill designed to increase the state’s voter rolls by automatically registering eligible voters who obtain a state identification or driver’s license, or make a change of address through the DMV. The so-called motor-voter bill — SB 299 — recently passed in the state Legislature and, if signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, could potentially increase civic engagement among young people and predominantly Black, Latino, and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, according to proponents. Opponents of the bill believe it could have unintended consequences. Wray-Lake said that a number of states have successfully implemented similar legislation, citing a 2% to 3% increase in registration. She noted that California currently ranks 25th in the nation for registration of young voters. While amendments to California’s motor-voter law in 2015 implemented registration through the DMV, customers could still choose to opt out.

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Fairlie on Trend Toward ‘Pint-Size Startups’

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Robert Fairlie, chair of Public Policy at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Wall Street Journal about “pint-size startups,” new business ventures that are operating with relatively lean staffs. While the number of people taking initial steps to launch a business surged during the pandemic, the average number of employees they hired fell sharply. Reasons for this trend include pandemic-related headwinds that have slowed hiring and entrepreneurs’ decision to keep operations small to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Keeping head count down can make it easier for young businesses to adapt to the ups and downs of the economic cycle, Fairlie said. “At some stages of growth for a small business, it can be pretty valuable. They have that flexibility,” he said. “At some stages of growth, it will hurt them.” Contractors tend to be less loyal than full-time employees, who are more likely to be committed to a company’s success, Fairlie explained.

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