Urban Institute

About: Urban Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Medicaid & Population. The organization has 927 authors who have published 2330 publications receiving 86426 citations.

The Attack on Nonprofit Status: A Charitable Assessment

Abstract: American nonprofit organizations receive favorable tax treatment, including tax exemptions and tax-deductibility of contributions, in return for their devotion to charitable purposes and restrictions not to distribute profits. Recent efforts to extend some or all of these tax benefits to for-profit companies making social investments, including the creation of the new hybrid nonprofit/for-profit company form known as the Low-Profit Limited Liability Company, threaten to undermine the vitality of the nonprofit sector and the integrity of the tax system. Reform advocates maintain that the ability to compensate executives based on performance and to distribute profits when attractive investment opportunities are scarce makes for-profit entities more efficient than nonprofit counterparts. Offering more favorable tax treatment to for-profits engaging in charity would encourage greater charitable entrepreneurship, the argument goes, and provide worthwhile competition for the nonprofit sector. As matters stand, however, nonprofits can and occasionally do reward executives with performance-based compensation, and their nondistribution rules impose no obligation to make subpar investments. The existing nonprofit sector is extremely competitive, and the charitable activities of for-profits already receive favorable tax treatment. Going further and offering socially active for-profits the tax benefits equivalent to those available currently to nonprofits would create opportunities for tax arbitrage by providing tax deductions to high-bracket donors and taxable income for lightly taxed recipients. The difficulty of policing lines between nonprofit and for-profit activities of the same business entities would entail significant administrative complexity and is unlikely ultimately to succeed. And even should it succeed, the costs of offering new tax benefits to for-profit charities include not only foregone tax revenues, but also spillover effects on the charitable activities of nonprofits.

Effects of Interactions among Community Agencies on Legal System Responses to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Stop-Funded Communities

Abstract: The STOP Violence Against Women Formula Grants Program is a federal funding stream that promotes institutionalized system change in communities, such that women victims of violent crime can encounter a supportive and effective response from the criminal and civil justice systems and from victim service (VS) programs. This analysis assesses the degree to which receipt of STOP funding for nonprofit VS programs and state-level STOP program support for collaboration has led to greater community interaction and legal system outcomes. It also examines whether types of interaction among community agencies are related to post-STOP legal system responses to victims. Changed interactions among nonprofit VS programs, law enforcement, and prosecution staff members seem to lead to changes in the legal system's approach to handling domestic violence and sexual assault cases. They also assist communities in meeting the needs of victims.

Testing for Discrimination in Home Insurance: Results from New York City and Phoenix

Abstract: This paper examines the results of a paired testing study of neighbourhood-based discrimination in the provision of quotes for home insurance in New York City and Phoenix, Arizona. We examine wheth...

Familial Transmission of Educational Plans and the Academic Self-Concept: A Three-Generation Longitudinal Study.

Abstract: This research investigates the social reproduction of inequality by drawing on prospective longitudinal data from three generations of Youth Development Study respondents. It examines intergenerational influence on the relatively unexplored academic self-concept as well as educational plans, a critical component of the status attainment model. A structural equation model, based on 422 3-generation triads, finds evidence that the sources giving rise to the development of children's (Generation 3) achievement orientations do not only result from parental (G2) contemporaneous influence. Prior influences implicate grandparent (G1) educational attainment and income, grandparental expectations for the G2 adolescent, the G2 academic self-concept and educational plans measured more than twenty years earlier (in G2's adolescence), and G2 educational attainment. A familial culture emphasizing academic self-confidence and high educational expectations may be an important component of "family capital" that supports educational attainment and contributes to the maintenance of social class position in each successive generation.

What Medicare has meant to older Americans.

Abstract: In marking Medicare's 30th year in operation, it is fitting to focus on the program's successes. The fiscal pressures facing Medicare on both its own financing base and that of the Federal Government as a whole, and the rapid changes occurring elsewhere in the health care system, have led to a raft of criticisms of the program in recent years. Although Medicare could certainly be improved, pausing to reflect on the positive aspects of the program can offer some balance to the current debate on Medicare's future. Medicare is the largest public health program in the United States, providing the major source of insurance for the acute medical care needs of elderly and disabled persons. Its administrative costs are low, and it is popular with both its beneficiaries and the population as a whole. It has delivered on its promises. The success of Medicare from the perspective of older Americans can be summarized in four broad areas.