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One-third of the developing world's population lives in urban slums and the absolute number of slum residents grew from 650 million in 1990 to 863 million in 2012. Although negative impacts of slum living conditions on several dimensions of slum residents' lives are well documented, much less research exists on why slums emerge and grow in the first place. This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of local political conditions and slum policies on slum growth. Using a regression discontinuity design in close municipal elections in Brazil, I show that victories by a center-left, pro-poor party led to both more slum upgrading policies and a higher share of slum housing. I further show evidence indicating that the pro-slum incentive effect from slum upgrading policies was the main mechanism behind this party's effect on slum growth. By highlighting the relevance of local institutional conditions for understanding where slums are more likely to grow, these findings innovate over traditional explanations based on the role of rural-urban migration and rapid urban economic growth. This paper's evidence on the potential incentive effect of slum upgrading policies on slum growth does not imply that slums upgrading efforts should stop. Given the solid evidence on the positive impacts of slum upgrading programs on the lives of the poor, these programs should continue to develop, and governments should consider, for example, complementing slum upgrading efforts with policies expanding the supply of non-slum housing.

"Trade: Determinants of Policies" published on by Oxford University Press.

Examines the impact of blacks' electoral & interest group resources on city affirmative action policies, using ordinary least square regression to analyze secondary data from a 1986 nationwide survey of local US governments. Net of region of the country, government structure, & economic conditions, black interest group resources (% black & civil rights organizations) are key factors in securing comprehensive affirmative action in employment policies. Black electoral resources (political incorporation) influence the comprehensiveness of affirmative action in contracting policies. These findings suggest that the link between black population share & black municipal employment may be due to the political pressure that large black populations exert on elected officials to pass comprehensive employment policies. The presence of local civil rights organizations may provide an additional avenue for blacks to influence local politicians. That black elected officials influence policies governing contracts may be due to the lucrative nature of city contracts, suggesting that when the stakes are high enough, local politics may still be divided along racial lines. 1 Table, 1 Appendix, 33 References. Adapted from the source document.

In this article we examine the determinants of European Union (EU) migration policies. We look at the passage of six pieces of migration and immigrant integration legislation in the fifth European Parliament (1999–2004). Based on the sixty-one roll-call votes on these bills we create a "migration score" for each Member of the European Parliament. We then use regression analysis to investigate the determinants of these scores. We find that the strongest determinants of policy outcomes on migration issues in this arena are the left-right preferences of EU legislators. These are stronger predictors than the economic preferences of national parties' constituents or the economic interests or political preferences of the member states.

This paper presents new data, in the form of four indices, on liberalization policies and the independence of regulators for a cross section of countries. These indices are combined with a comprehensive set of performance, institutional and political data to analyze both the determinants and the impact of telecommunications policies. We find that liberalization policies are negatively associated with the degree to which countries have an interventionist tradition, but not with the partisan ideology of reforming countries per se. We also find that countries where the institutional endowment constrains less the behavior of the executive bodies, and countries with a stronger incumbent, are more prone to create truly independent regulatory agencies. There is weak evidence that the creation of independent regulatory agencies has a positive effect on network penetration when we take into account the endogeneity of regulatory independence.

International migration is not simply a result of individuals' search for better opportunities, but is also linked to a complex series of economic and geopolitical processes. It is also an especially important interpretive key through which to understand the long history of globalization. For Castles and Miller, migration is a collective action that increasingly changes the social, political, economic, and cultural landscape of the world. According to Mauss, it is a fait social total. Over the last 20 years, an increasing number of countries have experienced a prolonged transition in the nature of the migration to which they are subject: countries that were historically lands of emigration are becoming lands of immigration, for example Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Societies, and especially destination and departure countries, are inextricably interrelated through this phenomenon.

Linear multiple regression analysis is applied to state-level data to compare the merits of two alternative explanations of why some states have a greater propensity than others to adopt state growth-management programs: the spread of necessity & the emulation of virtue. An index of state growth-management program adoptions is regressed on indicators of necessity -- sociospatial dislocations within the state -- & of virtue -- past policy orientations toward growth patterns & processes, & generalized innovativeness of the policy system. Results suggest that it is not just the magnitude & urgency of growth pressures which lead to innovative policies, but also the particular character of those pressures, & in particular, the deviation of contemporary sociospatial trends from traditional patterns. 3 Tables. Modified HA.