The Economist highlights a new study by Prof. Chris Warshaw that analyzed how accurately the policies of local leaders reflect their constituents’ views. “They found that the most ideologically liberal cities end up spending twice per capita as much as the most conservative cities, have higher taxes and less regressive tax systems,” The Economist reports.
Sam Sturgis of CityLab examines a new study by MIT Professor Chris Warshaw that shows that municipal governments, regardless of their structure, tend to mirror the ideological preferences of their electorate. The researchers, “aggregated a collection of nationwide survey results to determine the political leanings of 1,600 U.S. cities and towns,” Sturgis writes.
Contessa Gayles writes for CNN Money about Promise Tracker, an app developed at MIT that helps to determine whether politicians keep campaign promises. Promise Tracker is being piloted in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte this fall to monitor the mayors of those cities.
“Where noncompetes are not enforced, there’s a more open labor market — companies compete for talent,” said Professor Matthew Marx in this New York Times article by Steven Greenhouse. Marx sites California’s ban on noncompetes as a major reason for Silicon Valley’s success.