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Icanretire-Hispanic Segment Experience (Icr-H): A Digital Educational Intervention For Improving Retirement Preparedness Among Hispanic Workers, Luisa Blanco

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We evaluated the digital program ICanRetire-Hispanic Segment Experience (ICR-H), which was tailored to Hispanics and sought to improve retirement financial planning knowledge and motivate program participants to take specific actions to prepare for retirement. To our knowledge, this is one of the first digital educational programs on retirement preparedness that was designed to meet the informational needs of Hispanics taking into account cultural influences. We evaluated the program using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in the Understanding America Study (UAS) Internet panel. We conducted an analysis of differences in means and proportions and Difference-in-Difference (DID) between treatment and control groups …

Optimal Taxation Of Cigarettes And E-Cigarettes: Principles For Taxing Reduced-Harm Tobacco Products, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

As the tax base for traditional tobacco excise taxes continues to erode, policymakers have growing interest to expand taxation to novel and reduced-risk tobacco products. Chief among the latter are electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS; commonly known as e-cigarettes), although other reduced-risk tobacco products such as heated tobacco and smokeless tobacco products are also being considered for taxation. There are many possible rationales for taxing such products: to raise revenue, to correct for health externalities, to improve public health, to correct for internalities caused by irrationality or misinformation, and to redistribute income. Although each rationale leads to a different objective …

Tax Noncompliance: The Role Of Tax Morale In Smokers’ Behavior, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Measuring and predicting compliance with tax obligations is important but challenging. Survey data from California smokers are investigated to show that several forms of tax avoidance and evasion were common. About 43% of smokers avoided taxes by purchasing cigarettes outside the state in the previous year, 15% admit to evading taxes through cross-border purchases, and 26% bought likely or certainly untaxed cigarettes in the state in the past month. Attitudinal factors involving tax morale contributed more toward explaining the variance in compliance rates than demographic or law-and-economics factors. The implications for policy are discussed.

The Impact Of A Mobile Phone-Delivered Digital Financial Education Program On Financial Behavior Among Hispanics, Luisa Blanco, Lucia Chen, Isaias Hernandez, April D. Thames, Joyce Serido

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We explored the potential of digital financial education programs among Hispanic populations, through the design and evaluation of a mobile phone delivered digital program called Mind Your Money (MYM). This program sought to improve financial knowledge and behavior among low- to-moderate income Hispanics residing in the Greater Los Angeles area. We assessed the program through a randomized controlled trial with a wait-list control group. Our digital financial education program had a higher retention rate than comparable in-person financial coaching programs. We found that our program had a positive statistical significant effect on financial capability. Participants who completed program activities were …

Systematic Review Of Racial, Ethnic And Gender Differences On Financial Knowledge In The United States, Luisa Blanco, Cruz Garcia, Rosemary Gutierrez

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We conducted a systematic review of racial, ethnic, and gender differences on financial knowledge in the United States. We reviewed journal publications that specifically study or consider racial, ethnic, and gender differences in financial knowledge during the period 2010-2021. We include in this review a total of 33 papers, where nine focus on racial and ethnic differences, 14 focus on gender differences, and 10 consider racial, ethnic, and gender differences. From the reviewed studies, we estimate the average financial knowledge racial and ethnic gap, where Whites score on average 19 percentage points higher than Blacks, 14 percentage points higher than …

Thomas Piketty’S Brief History Of Equality (2022): Beyond Tocqueville, Marx, Rawls And Piketty I And Ii, Gordon Lloyd

School of Public Policy Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Tax Evasion And Illicit Cigarettes In California: Prevalence And Demand-Side Correlates, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Unlike some areas of crime, participation in illicit tobacco markets is not rare and spans most sociodemographic groups. Measurement of the scale of illicit trade in cigarettes usually are for markets with recently increased (or continually increasing) excise taxes. This study examines survey data from adult cigarette smokers in California at a time when prices and taxes had been fairly stable for many years. Even with no recent price shocks in the market, the results indicate that one-third of cigarette packs may lack a valid tax stamp and that between 18% to 25% of smokers avoided taxes by bringing cigarettes …

Financial Stress Among Latino Adults In California During Covid-19, Luisa Blanco, Vanessa Cruz, Deja Frederick, Susie Herrera

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We study the impact of COVID-19 on stress, and especially financial stress, among Latino adults in California. We take a mixed-methods approach and rely on quantitative and qualitative data for our analysis. We recruited 84 Low and Moderate Income (LMI) Latino adults in California through the internet panel Understanding America Study (UAS), and among those who participated in the Mobile Financial Diaries (MFD) project, which took place during 2018-2019. We report findings about personal experiences during COVID-19 in October of 2020 and compared this to data collected during the period of August-October of 2018. Given the characteristics of our participants, …

Smoke Or Vapor: Regulation Of Tobacco And Vaping, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

E-cigarettes and vaping raise new questions about the risks to health from their use and how they should be regulated and taxed compared to tobacco. The latter has a long history of taxation and a more recent history of regulation in the United States. E-cigarettes, on the other hand, have only recent begun to be regulated, but by treating them as “tobacco products” the federal regulator includes them by default in the regulatory apparatus design for tobacco control and is sending the tacit message that they are just as harmful as smoking. That is not likely to be the case. …

A Community-Based Randomized Controlled Trial Of An Educational Intervention To Promote Retirement Saving Among Hispanics, Luisa Blanco, Duru O. Kenrik, Carol Mangione

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We developed and conducted a community based randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of an intervention to promote retirement saving among low and moderate income, predominantly Spanish speaking Hispanics, who do not have access to an employer sponsored retirement account. Our educational intervention provided participants with key information related to financial planning for retirement in Spanish and made use of “behavioral nudges” to encourage participants to open a federal sponsored retirement saving account, my Retirement Account (myRA). Among 142 participants (70 and 72 in control and treatment groups, respectively), we found a significant difference-in-difference (DD) on the proportion of …

Empty Discarded Pack Data And The Prevalence Of Illicit Trade In Cigarettes In California, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Illicit trade in tobacco products (ITTP) creates many harms including reduced tax revenues; damages to the economic interests of legitimate actors; funding for organized-crime and terrorist groups; negative effects of participation in illicit markets, such as violence and incarceration; and reduced effectiveness of smoking-reduction policies, leading to increased damage to health. To study the prevalence of tax avoidance and ITTP, we analyze a large, novel set of data from empty discarded pack (EDP) studies. In EDP studies, teams of researchers collect all cigarette packs discarded in publicly accessible spaces of selected neighborhoods. Packs are examined for the absence of local …

Delivering Information About Retirement Saving Among Hispanic Women: Two Facebook Experiments, Luisa R. Blanco, Luis Rodriguez

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We conducted two Facebook experiments (the first one during July 21–25, 2016, and the second during April 22–25, 2018) to determine what type of message related to injunctive norms is more effective in getting Hispanic women interested in learning about financial planning for retirement. We also explore how social media tools could be used in future interventions to promote retirement saving among Hispanic women. In both experiments, we found that a message centered on peer influence may be more successful than a message centered on familism in getting Hispanic women interested in learning more about financial planning for retirement. When …

Understanding The Racial/Ethnic Gap In Bank Account Ownership Among Older Adults, Luisa Blanco, Marco Angrisani, Emma Aguila, Mei Leng

School of Public Policy Working Papers

The observed racial/ethnic gap in bank account ownership among older adults is substantial. We investigate socio-economic, cognitive and cultural barriers underling it. As additional potential barriers are accounted for, the residual gaps in financial inclusion with respect to Whites is reduced by 19 percent for Blacks and 46 percent for Hispanics. We find that citizenship and “taste for privacy” play a limited role for both minority groups, while real asset ownership, health, cognitive ability and cultural hurdles contribute substantially to the gap. For Hispanics, language barriers explain most of the gap, while neighborhood-level socioeconomic characteristics are more salient for Blacks. …

Cigarette Taxes And Illicit Trade In Europe Online Appendix, James Prieger, Jonathan D. Kulick

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Cigarettes are highly taxed in Europe to discourage tobacco use and to fund public-health measures to mitigate the harms from tobacco consumption. At higher prices some consumers substitute more toward illicit cigarettes. We find that raising prices in any one country would lead to substantial increases in the expected illicit market share and volume in that country. This appendix contains more complete information about the data and additional regressions to which the article published in Economic Inquiry (and also available in earlier form as School of Public Policy Working Paper 60) refers.

Mobile Banking As A Mechanism To Increase Access To Financial Services, Luisa Blanco, C. Andrew Bosque, Xizhu Wang

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We study the determinants of mobile banking adoption, with a special interest on how mobile banking can increase access to financial services among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. In our analysis, we use survey data from two different sources: 1) Survey of Consumers' Use of Mobile Financial Services (SCUMFS) We conduct a regression analysis and Oaxaca Decomposition to determine the explanatory factors of racial and ethnic gaps in bank account ownership. We find that minorities are less likely to use mobile banking than Whites in the NSUUH, but more likely to adopt mobile banking according to SCUMFS, …

The Importance Of Transportation, Broadband, And Intellectual Infrastructure For Entrepreneurship, James E. Prieger, Heng Lu, Habi Zhang

School of Public Policy Working Papers

This empirical study uses a unique panel dataset to investigate the link between regional entrepreneurship and infrastructure. This topic is vital for understanding the factors that facilitate entrepreneurship, yet it receives scant scholarly attention. It is of particular value to policy makers because entrepreneurship is crucial for economic growth. We therefore examine how broadband infrastructure (internet connectivity), intellectual infrastructure (human capital), and transportation infrastructure (roads, bridges, and intermodal facilities) affect the establishment of new businesses in the United States. We primarily focus on broadband infrastructure, which is the least explored of these factors in the literature. We find that all …

Mobile Data Roaming And Incentives For Investment In Rural Broadband Infrastructure, James Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Mobile broadband Internet access is highly important to the American economy and millions of users. There were almost 200 million mobile broadband connections by the end of 2013 in the United States, far more than the number of fixed broadband connections (FCC, 2014a, Table 1). The economic activity created by the provision and usage of mobile broadband is sizeable, and has been documented at the national level (Gruber and Koutroumpis, 2011; Thompson and Garbacz, 2011; Katz, 2012) and specifically for rural areas (Whitacre, Gallardo, and Strover, 2014). The benefits of mobile broadband—and indeed the entire broadband ecosystem—depend on investment in …

The Philosophical Case For The Commercial Republic, Gordon Lloyd

School of Public Policy Working Papers

No abstract provided.

How To Read Thomas Piketty's Capital, Gordon Lloyd

School of Public Policy Working Papers

No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Case Of The American Commercial Republic, Gordon Lloyd

School of Public Policy Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Targeted Enforcement Against Illicit Trade In Tobacco Products, James Prieger, Jonathan D. Kulick, Mark A. R. Kleiman

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Illicit trade in tobacco is a substantial and growing problem in the U.S., causing loss of tax revenue, damage to public health, and threats to public safety. Decisions about enforcement against ITTP involve tradeoffs among competing objectives. Good policy design can improve the terms of those tradeoffs but cannot eliminate them. We examine questions about the allocation of enforcement resources against ITTP, and its distribution across activities, individuals, and organizations: in particular, whether and how to differentially target ITTP that involves violence or support for terrorism. We consider the problem of developing effective strategies for enforcement, applying both lessons from …

The Growth Of The Broadband Internet Access Market In California: Deployment, Competition, Adoption, And Challenges For Policy, James E. Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

This report examines the great progress made in availability and adoption in the broadband market over the past few decades and shows how Californian residents and businesses have come to use broadband widely. The policy issues involved with continuing the tremendous strides already made are discussed, along with recommendations for policy-makers.

The report begins by documenting the rapid growth of Internet usage in the U.S. and California. There is a review of the current state of competition in voice and broadband markets, discussing the decline of traditional telephone service, which is rapidly approaching irrelevance, and the rise of wireless and …

The Growth Of The Broadband Internet Access Market In California: Deployment, Competition, Adoption, And Challenges For Policy (Research Brief), James E. Prieger

School of Public Policy Working Papers

This report is a brief version of a longer study of the California broadband market (Paper 63). Readers interested in more background information, more empirical analysis, and more complete documentation of sources and methodology can refer to the longer report, which is available at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/sppworkingpapers/63/.

Does Oil Hinder Democratic Development?: A Time-Series Analysis, Luisa Blanco, Kelsey J. O'Connor, Jeffrey B. Nugent

School of Public Policy Working Papers

The resource curse is a topic studied intensively in both economics and political science. Much of the focus is now on whether oil affects democratic institutions. We further the debate through the use of additional measures of democracy and multiple time-series estimation strategies. We find no robust long-run effect of oil rents per capita on Polity, Civil Liberties, or Political Rights. Many comparable studies were restricted to Polity. We also use different country and period samples to respond to the findings that the effects of oil abundance may differ in Latin America, the Middle East, in mature oil producers, or …

Cigarette Taxes And Illicit Trade In Europe, James E. Prieger, Jonathan D. Kulick

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Cigarettes are highly taxed in Europe to discourage tobacco use and to fund public-health measures to mitigate the harms from tobacco consumption. At higher prices (more precisely, at higher differentials between licit and black-market prices) consumers substitute more toward illicit cigarettes. Illicit retail trade in cigarettes (IRTC) includes counterfeiting and smuggling—either of legally purchased products, from lower-tax to higher-tax jurisdictions, or of entirely non-tax-paid cigarettes. The existing literature includes claims that taxes are not an important factor determining the scale of IRTC. We investigate these claims with data from 1999–2013 in the European Union. We find that while the simple …

Hispanic Immigrant Workers In Paradise: Malibu Day Laborers In A Time Of Insecurity, Luisa Blanco, Daniel Morrison, George Carlsen, Lila Carlsen, Ashley Chaparro, Erick Molina

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Taking a multidisciplinary approach, we conducted a study consisting of written surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews with men and women who were seeking employment through the MCLE at the time of the study and who were predominantly Hispanic immigrants. The results of this study offer insight into the ways in which this population benefits from the services of the MCLE, their labor conditions, financial and saving behavior, and overall wellbeing. Our findings clarify how this population in Malibu negotiates short-term labor relationships in the context of continuing economic instability, where we provide a better understanding of the intersecting inequalities …

Unintended Consequences Of Cigarette Prohibition, Regulation, And Taxation, Jonathan D. Kulick, James E. Prieger, Mark A. R. Kleiman

School of Public Policy Working Papers

Abstract Laws that prohibit, regulate, or tax cigarettes can generate illicit markets for tobacco products. Illicit markets both reduce the efficacy of policies intended to improve public health and create harms of their own. Enforcement can reduce evasion but creates additional harms, including incarceration and violence. There is strong evidence that more enforcement in illicit drug markets can spur violence. The presence of licit substitutes, such as electronic cigarettes, has the potential to greatly reduce the size of illicit markets. We present a model demonstrating why enforcement can increase violence, show that states with higher tobacco taxes have larger illicit …

Crime, Institutions And Sector-Specific Fdi In Latin America, Luisa Blanco, Isabel Ruiz, W. Charles Sawyer, Rossitza Wooster

School of Public Policy Working Papers

In this article, we explore how crime and institutions affect the flow of capital in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Latin American and Caribbean countries in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors during the 1996-2010 period. We use three different variables related to violent crime: homicides, crime victimization, and an index of organized crime. We find that there is a correlation between the institutional and crime variables, where the significance of institutional variables tends to disappear when the crime variables are added to the model. We find that higher crime victimization and organized crime are associated with …

The Impact Of Research And Development On Economic Growth And Productivity In The U.S. States: Online Appendix, Luisa Blanco, James Prieger, Ji Gu

School of Public Policy Working Papers

This online appendix accompanies the article forthcoming in the Southern Economic Journal. This appendix contains additional information on the data and methodology used in the article, as well as results from additional and supplementary estimations.

Evaluating The Impact Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act’S Btop Program On Broadband Adoption, James Prieger, Janice A. Hauge

School of Public Policy Working Papers

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) spent $4.7B during 2009-2013 to, int. al, increase broadband adoption in underserved communities. We characterize the BTOP grants and examine the impact of the awards on broadband adoption. Econometric specifications controlling for award endogeneity related to observed and unobserved county-level factors find that spending is apparently associated with increased broadband adoption. Further investigation, however, reveals that the impacts of spending are nonlinear and even nonmonotonic over the range of county-level BTOP spending in the data. Controlling for trends to reduce the potential for spurious correlation between spending and outcomes …