This paper was presented at the conference "Policies to Promote Affordable Housing," cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, February 7, 2002. It was part of Session 2: Affordable Housing and the Housing...

Child care and housing programs in the United States are marked by quality homogeneity, restricted eligibility, rationing, and copayments that increase as recipients' income rises. Why? I show that these programs can best be explained as attempts to reduce the child care or housing 'poverty...

Why would any group want to have a decision-making body composed of representatives? The best answer is found in the "Anti-Federalist ideal" identified by Wood [1992]: if within-group benefits are highly correlated, a legislature composed of randomly chosen representatives that maximized its own...