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.

Introducing the nonprofit Program Classification System : The Taxonomy we've been waiting for

Abstract: The National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute has developed a system to classify the programs, services, and activities of public charities, called the Nonprofit Program Classification (NPC) System. Designed to serve a wide range of potential users, the system has been used to code the activities of each organization, as reported in Part III—Program Service Accomplishments of its Form 990. Currently, codes from the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) system are used to classify nonprofit organizations according to their organizational purpose. Frequently, however, the questions that are asked by researchers, nonprofit organizations, and the public are focused on what an organization does rather than the type of organization. This article describes the development of the system and its strengths and limitations. Using both the NPC and NTEE systems, researchers will be able to develop a more complete portrait of nonprofit organizations and their activities.

Instructional Quality and Student Learning in Higher Education: Evidence from Developmental Algebra Courses

Abstract: Little is known about the importance of instructional quality in American higher education because few recent studies have had access to direct measures of student learning that are comparable across sections of the same course. Using data from two developmental algebra courses at a large community college, I found that student learning varies systematically across instructors and was correlated with observed instructor characteristics including education, full-time status, and experience. Instructors appeared to have effects on student learning beyond their impact on course completion rates. A variety of robustness checks suggested that these results do not appear to be driven by nonrandom matching of students and instructors based on unobserved characteristics or censoring of the dependent variable due to students who dropped the course before the final exam.

Preserving And Strengthening Medicare

Abstract: Any restructuring or reform of Medicare should first and foremost preserve the integrity of the program. Contrary to current rhetoric, Medicare offers mainstream medical care for the most difficult-to-insure Americans, and over the past ten years its record of holding down costs has been better than that of the private insurance sector. For the very long term, when demographic changes place even greater pressures on Medicare, all dimensions of the program need to be considered in the search for a long-range solution, including asking beneficiaries and/or taxpayers to contribute more to the program. Expansion of managed care choices should certainly be part of any restructuring, but careful attention to improving the basic fee-for-service Medicare program—which will continue to serve a majority of beneficiaries for many years to come—also is needed.

Will Automatic Enrollment Reduce Employer Contributions to 401(K) Plans

Abstract: Many employers match employee contributions to 401(k) plans. However, the employer cost of continuing this practice may increase rapidly as trends towards automatic enrollment boost employee participation. This paper examines the relationship between employer matching behavior and automatic enrollment. Using a sample of large 401(k) plans, we find that match rates are about 7 percentage points lower among firms with automatic enrollment than among those without automatic enrollment, even controlling for firm characteristics. So while auto-enrollment increases the number of workers participating in private pensions, our findings suggest it might also reduce the level of pension contributions.

Privatized housing and the development of condominiums in central and eastern europe: the cases of poland, hungary, slovakia, and romania

Abstract: This paper looks at the housing sector reform in Central and Eastern Europe and examines the progress to date in housing privatization and policies aimed at improving the management and condition of the existing housing stock through the establishment and operation of the condominium form of ownership. The paper compares and analyzes approaches taken in four countries with regard to four issues: (I) the legal framework and implementation strategies; (2) the role of local government housing strategies in supporting the development of viable condominium associations; (3) property management of privatized housing; and (4) financing rehabilitation and capital repair projects for condominiums. Findings include the need for a clear legal framework, competition in the property management market, more supportive local government policies, and public sector support in tackling rehabilitation finance issues.