Browsing by Department "LBJ School of Public Affairs"
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Item A Roadmap to the Innovation Hub of the Hill Country(2020) Pedigo, StevenTo further its pursuit of economic resiliency, Boerne/KendallCounty requires a deliberate, collaborative strategy for business expansion, startup and enterprise development, talent attraction/retention, and destination development. Guided by Steven Pedigo, faculty director of the LBJ Urban Labat the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at UT-Austin, and with the financial support of the IC2 Institute, the BoerneKendall County Economic Development Corporation (BKCEDC)has spent the past year engaging with residents, business executives, community leaders, and elected officials on how to build Kendall County into a creative and innovation hub for theTexas Hill Country. The result is this five-year strategy.An environmentally responsible community with an appreciation for its singular quality of life, Boerne/Kendall County is the creative and innovation hub for the Texas Hill Country.Item Advancing Immigrant Incorporation in Austin, TX(2021) Wasem, Ruth; Escajeda, Aaron; Perez, Ana; McConnell, Micaela; Uruchima, TaniaAustin is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States and is identified as an emerging gateway for immigrants. The single largest source country for immigrants to Austin continues to be Mexico, but immigrants from Asia are increasing in numbers and relative proportion. Immigrants from Africa doubled over the past decade and make up 4 percent of the foreign-born population. In other words, Austin’s foreign-born residents are increasingly diverse. This report serves to inform the City of Austin as it advances its immigrant incorporation efforts and focuses on five policy areas that the City of Austin can advance: 1) leadership and governance; 2) civic engagement and inclusivity; 3) economic prosperity and job growth; 4) livability; and 5) community resilience.Item Affordable Housing: Challenges and Opportunities in Texas(University of Texas at Austin, 2023-02) Cole, Allan; Greenberg, Sherri; Pedigo, Steven; Pope, Mandy; Mueller, Elizabeth; Way, Heather; Wegmann, Jake; Smith, Kayla; Gilliam, LanceItem After the Responsible Stakeholder, What? Debating America’s China Strategy (February 2019)(Texas National Security Review, 2019-02) Brands, Hal; Cooper, ZackItem Against the Great Powers: Reflections on Balancing Nuclear and Conventional Power (November 2018)(Texas National Security Review, 2018) Colby, ElbridgeItem Alliance Commitment in an Era of Partisan Polarization: A Survey Experiment of U.S. Voters (Winter 2023/2024)(Texas National Security Review, 2024) Bäcker-Peral, Verónica; Park, GeneItem Allies and Artificial Intelligence: Obstacles to Operations and Decision-Making (Spring 2020)(Texas National Security Review, 2020) Lin-Greenberg, ErikItem America Faces the Stakes and Style of a Cold War in Asia (May 2018)(Texas National Security Review, 2018-05) Schake, KoriItem America's Recovery from the 2020 "Shecession": Building a Female Future of Childcare and Work(YWCA, 2020-10) DeFrancesco Soto, Victoria M.COVID-19 is a public health and economic crisis, and women are bearing the brunt of the resulting economic devastation. Americans are living through the country’s first “shecession”. Over the last 50 years, women and mothers have become an inextricable part of the American labor force. Social and economic policies, however, have not kept pace with the advancement of women. And women of color are shouldering the heaviest burden of the nation’s systemic failures and inequities. Women in America have endured a decades-long childcare and workforce support crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has simply brought the role of women in the US workforce into stark relief.Item America's Relation to World Order: Two Indictments, Two Thought Experiments, and a Misquotation (August 2018)(Texas National Security Review, 2018) Bobbitt, PhilipItem America’s Alliances After Trump: Lessons from the Summer of ’69 (Spring 2021)(Texas National Security Review, 2021) Ford, Lindsey; Cooper, ZackItem An Analysis of Title Insurance Data(2016-12) Eaton, David; Gao, XueTexas, along with other states where the government sets title insurance rates, has significantly higher prices than states that allow more competition. On a per-policy basis, Texas’s decision to set prices and restrict innovation adds from $292 (in 2001 dollars) to $1,663 (in 2016 dollars) in costs for the average purchaser of title insurance policies of $1 million dollars or less. The higher costs in Texas apply to all title charges, as well as to subsets such as lender’s title insurance, lender’s title insurance plus endorsement, and simultaneous owner’s and lender’s title insurance. These higher prices are being paid by Texas consumers and businesses because price competition essentially ceases to exist when the state sets, i.e., promulgates, title insurance rates. Texas’ mandate of comprehensive service coverage in its premium (versus only risk premium being required in some other states) does not account for the higher costs in Texas. Our analysis indicates that the promulgation of rates in Texas is a strong determinant that explains the state’s higher title-related charges. By requiring the promulgation of title rates, Texas transfers wealth from property owners directly to title agents and title underwriters, with no additional value to the property owners. The system functions as a ‘reverse Robin Hood transfer.’ It is unclear why the Texas Legislature requires the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) to set rates for title policies when it allows competition in all other lines of insurance. The promulgation of title rates provides no known benefits to Texas property owners; it is just an additional cost for title insurance in Texas reflecting the absence of price competition that makes it more expensive and difficult for Texans to purchase land or properties. While it benefits the title insurance industry, there is no benefit to consumers who fare much better in nearly every other state. Our analysis seeks to explain different title-related charges among 50 states and the District of Columbia, based on three independent databases, including a national HUD-1 settlement cost database created by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2001, a set of closing cost quotations from a Bank of America website collected in 2016, and a set of Stewart Title cost quotations, computed twice from Stewart Title websites, once in 2010 and once in 2016. Our estimates in this study are based on a validated and robust methodology for determining the cost imposed on all Texas corporations or persons who purchase property resulting from Texas’ lack of competition in the title insurance sector. While it is difficult to estimate exactly how much higher title insurance costs are in Texas because the state sets title insurance rates, it is possible to compute a lower bound for the total amount of additional money paid to title agents and underwriters. There are two ways of doing so. In both cases, the promulgated rate is significant; it is the best explanatory variable for the difference between what property owners in Texas pay versus owner in states that do not mandate a lower bound for title insurance costs. One estimate of the lower bound of the cost to consumers is based on the 2001 HUD-1 data. The total title charges per policy in a state with promulgated rates was on average $292 higher than the per policy total title charges in a state with no active price regulation, expressed in 2001 dollars and not including inflation from 2001 to 2016. The second estimate of the lower bound of the cost to consumers is based on the 2016 data. Overall, several variables—regulation type, service coverage, loan amount and states’ characteristics—can explain between 35 percent and 71 percent of the variance in title charges. The best estimate available from this study for the additional cost for an average property purchaser for a lender’s title insurance policy due solely to the promulgation of title insurance rates is $1,663 per promulgated policy, expressed in 2016 dollars. Over the decades the Texas Legislature has created supplemental title charges that agents and underwriters can impose on property owners, even though the supplemental charges are in excess of the mandated rates. Supplemental charges further increase title costs to Texas property owners as all supplemental title charges raise title costs above and beyond the mandated Texas title rates. The 2013 cost to Texas property purchasers from the Texas Legislature’s authorization of supplemental endorsements was $40,891,270, expressed in 2013 dollars. This study did not try to estimate the differences between Texas and the other states for mortgages over $1 million, and there are many such mortgages, particularly in commercial real estate transactions. Texas’ excess title charges increase as the value of the mortgage increases, so the additional cost of promulgation for mortgages over $1 million would increase the total above the calculations presented here. The conclusions of this report rely on three independent databases noted above covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The results using each of the three independent databases are consistent. The title charges of interest (the dependent variables) in these three databases include total title charge, premium plus endorsement, lender’s (mortgagee’s) title insurance plus endorsement, lender’s title insurance, and simultaneous owner’s and lender’s title insurance. Based on these three independent databases, this report evaluates four sets of potential explanatory variables (independent variables) to explain why title charges vary among the states: loan amount; types of premium regulation; number and type of title premium service coverage; and state characteristics. The results are summarized above and explained in detail in the following sections of this report.Item Applying Method to Madness: A User's Guide to Causal Inference in Policy Analysis (Summer 2020)(Texas National Security Review, 2020) Blankshain, Jessica D.; Stigler, Andrew L.Item Arms Control for Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2023)(Texas National Security Review, 2023) Lamberth, Megan; Scharre, PaulItem Art Investment Collections: A New Model for Museum Finance?(RGK Center: Summer Fellowship Program, 2009-07-17) Coslor, EricaThis article examines the conflicting views about whether to consider artwork as a financial asset and suggests a modified museum finance strategy that would not raise stakeholder concerns about selling art in the permanent collection. By encouraging museums to begin a separate investment collection, artworks may ethically be sold to generate operating or other expenses. This strategy brings up issues of governance, accountability, and conflicts of interest, but if done correctly, it could leverage the art market access of museums to create a hedge for other types of endowment assets, while still upholding museum association guidance that works in a museum’s permanent collection are never to be sold in order to fund operating expenses.Item Artificial Intelligence, International Competition, and the Balance of Power (May 2018)(Texas National Security Review, 2018-05) Horowitz, Michael C.Item The arts and civic participation : a case study of Marfa, Texas(2007-05) Hart, Alison, 1976-; Lincove, Jane ArnoldA growing body of research suggests that people who participate in the arts are significantly more likely to be involved in civic life. Marfa, a small and remote town in far West Texas, hosts an unusually robust community of artists, and is uniquely suited to examine the relationship between the arts and civic participation. Using evidence from conversations with Marfa citizens, formal survey results and an analysis of social capital and arts literature, this report argues that the arts community in Marfa, Texas positively affects some aspects of local civic health and creates opportunities for even greater civic enhancement. In a national landscape of scarce funding for the arts, this report provides artists and arts leaders ways to articulate their value in the realm of civic participation and provides Marfa residents a new way to understand the function of the arts in their town.Item Assessing National Service Outcomes: A Multilevel Approach(0000-00-00) Vaaler, Margaret L.; Frumkin, PeterThe present study uses hierarchical linear modeling and a large sample of AmeriCorps members (N = 1,376) and AmeriCorps programs (N = 108) to examine the determinants of national service outcomes at the individual and program levels. We found several demographic variations in civic engagement and trust, tolerance and life skills, including race variations in gains in constructive group interactions and personal behavior in groups post-service. Programmatic characteristics have important influences on AmeriCorps members’ civic engagement, tolerance, and trust post-service. Furthermore, the level of support of members that programs offer is a key component to success of AmeriCorps programs. We conclude that the impact of national service could be improved through a better and deeper understanding of the interaction of individual and program level influences on AmeriCorps members’ outcomes. Successfully managing the recruitment of members and the delivery of quality programs in the future will depend on how well the interactions of individual and program-level determinants are understood.Item Assessing Soviet Economic Performance During the Cold War: A Failure of Intelligence? (February 2018)(Texas National Security Review, 2018-02) Trachtenberg, MarcItem Assessing the Structure of Organizational Fields: A Multilevel Latent Class Analysis as a Tool for Institutional Analysis(RGK Center: Summer Fellowship Program, 2009-07-17) Barringer, SondraWithin organizational research a question researchers are often interested in is the “why” question. A question that is not focused on as frequently is the how question. I argue in this paper that as researchers we need to pay more attention to how organizations are behaving within organizational fields before we begin to answer the why questions and in order to do this researchers need to expand their methodological tool kits. This analysis examines how institutions within the field of higher education have responded to the changing environmental conditions. Using multilevel latent class analysis I show that there are a number of distinct strategies that the organizations within this field are pursing as well as distinct deviations between the behavior of public and nonprofit institutions. This analysis of the changes occurring in the field of higher education demonstrates the ability of MLCA to break the organizational field down into more manageable units which allows for a deeper understanding of the ways in which these fields are changing over time. MLCA makes organizational fields more manageable both empirically and conceptually resulting in a more accurate assessment of the critical dynamics within the organizational fields