IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/povpop/v5y2013i1p88-114.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Inequality and State Policy Adoption: Predatory Lending, Children's Health Care, and Minimum Wage

Author

Listed:
  • William W. Franko

Abstract

This article argues that considering the economic status of various politically active groups in society is an important and often overlooked aspect of representation. Economic status is linked closely with economic need, which is especially important for the disadvantaged. Income affects the types of government programs people are influenced by and rely on; for example, government health care and public housing policies are more likely to directly influence the poor while those with higher economic status may never have an experience with these programs. This suggests that different levels of political activity by various groups in society can have an influence on lawmakers' decisions regarding how to address certain issues. Using a relative index of economic inequalities in participation for each of the 50 states over time, I examine whether housing, health care, and wage equity policies are more beneficial to the disadvantaged when levels of participation inequality are low. Time‐series cross‐sectional (TSCS) analyses are used to understand the relationship between state participation bias and the favorability of policy outcomes for the poor. The results of this study have important implications for how political power can be used to control the policy process.

Suggested Citation

  • William W. Franko, 2013. "Political Inequality and State Policy Adoption: Predatory Lending, Children's Health Care, and Minimum Wage," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(1), pages 88-114, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:povpop:v:5:y:2013:i:1:p:88-114
    DOI: 10.1002/pop4.17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pop4.17
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pop4.17?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Craig Volden, 2006. "States as Policy Laboratories: Emulating Success in the Children's Health Insurance Program," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 294-312, April.
    2. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    3. Colleen M. Grogan & Elizabeth Rigby, 2009. "Federalism, Partisan Politics, and Shifting Support for State Flexibility: The Case of the U.S. State Children's Health Insurance Program," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 39(1), pages 47-69, Winter.
    4. David S. Lee, 1999. "Wage Inequality in the United States During the 1980s: Rising Dispersion or Falling Minimum Wage?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 977-1023.
    5. Berry, Frances Stokes & Berry, William D., 1990. "State Lottery Adoptions as Policy Innovations: An Event History Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 395-415, June.
    6. Emily Blank & Padma Venkatachalam & Lawrence McNeil & Rodney Green, 2005. "Racial discrimination in mortgage lending in Washington, D.C.: A mixed methods approach," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 9-30, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher B Goodman & Megan E Hatch, 2023. "State preemption and affordable housing policy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(6), pages 1048-1065, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amy Y. Li, 2017. "Covet Thy Neighbor or “Reverse Policy Diffusion”? State Adoption of Performance Funding 2.0," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 58(7), pages 746-771, November.
    2. Valente, Thomas W. & Pitts, Stephanie & Wipfli, Heather & Vega Yon, George G., 2019. "Network influences on policy implementation: Evidence from a global health treaty," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 188-197.
    3. Srinivas C. Parinandi, 2020. "Policy Inventing and Borrowing among State Legislatures," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 852-868, October.
    4. Chun-Fang Chiang & Jason M. Kuo & Megumi Naoi & Jin-Tan Liu, 2020. "What Do Voters Learn from Foreign News? Emulation, Backlash, and Public Support for Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 27497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Felix Strebel & Thomas Widmer, 2012. "Visibility and facticity in policy diffusion: going beyond the prevailing binarity," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 45(4), pages 385-398, December.
    6. Armin Mertens & Christine Trampusch & Florian Fastenrath & Rebecca Wangemann, 2021. "The political economy of local government financialization and the role of policy diffusion," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 370-387, April.
    7. Nathan M. Jensen Washington University, Rene Lindstadt, Trinity College Dublin, 2009. "Leaning Right and Learning from the Left: Diffusion of Corporate Tax Policy in the OECD," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp290, IIIS.
    8. Juan Luis Gómez-Reino & Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2021. "Evidence on economies of scale in local public service provision: a meta-analysis," Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization 2103, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    9. Côme Billard & Anna Creti & Antoine Mandel, 2020. "How Environmental Policies Spread? A Network Approach to Diffusion in the U.S," Working Papers 2020.12, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    10. Fabrizio Gilardi, 2010. "Who Learns from What in Policy Diffusion Processes?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 650-666, July.
    11. Juan Luis Gómez-Reino & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2013. "An international perspective on the determinants of local government fragmentation," Chapters, in: Santiago Lago-Peñas & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Challenge of Local Government Size, chapter 2, pages 8-54, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Maryann P. Feldman & Lauren Lanahan & Iryna V. Lendel, 2014. "Experiments in the Laboratories of Democracy," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 28(2), pages 107-131, May.
    13. Evan M. Mistur & John Wagner Givens & Daniel C. Matisoff, 2023. "Contagious COVID‐19 policies: Policy diffusion during times of crisis," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 40(1), pages 36-62, January.
    14. Fabrizio Gilardi & Charles R. Shipan & Bruno Wüest, 2021. "Policy Diffusion: The Issue‐Definition Stage," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 21-35, January.
    15. James W. Stoutenborough & Matthew Beverlin, 2008. "Encouraging Pollution‐Free Energy: The Diffusion of State Net Metering Policies," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1230-1251, December.
    16. Alejandro Quiroz Flores & Farhana Liza & Husam Quteineh & Barbara Czarnecka, 2021. "Variation in the timing of Covid-19 communication across universities in the UK," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-25, February.
    17. Timothy Callaghan & Steven Sylvester, 2019. "Autism spectrum disorder, politics, and the generosity of insurance mandates in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-22, May.
    18. Lanahan, Lauren & Feldman, Maryann P., 2015. "Multilevel innovation policy mix: A closer look at state policies that augment the federal SBIR program," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1387-1402.
    19. Derek Glasgow & Shuang Zhao & Saatvika Rai, 2021. "Rethinking Climate Change Leadership: An Analysis of the Ambitiousness of State GHG Targets," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(4), pages 398-426, July.
    20. Maryann Feldman & Lauren Lanahan, 2013. "State Science Policy Experiments," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, pages 287-317, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:povpop:v:5:y:2013:i:1:p:88-114. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1944-2858 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.