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Begin New Search Publishing Institution Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University

11. Dynamics of Political Polarization

Author:
Peter Bearman and Delia Baldassarri
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
This article accounts for two puzzling paradoxes. The first paradox is the simultaneous absence and presence of attitude polarization, the fact that global attitude polarization is relatively rare, even though pundits describe it as common. The second paradox is the simultaneous presence and absence of social polarization, the fact that while individuals experienced attitude homogeneity in their interpersonal networks, their networks are characterized by attitude heterogeneity. These paradoxes give rise to numerous scholarly arguments. By deploying a formal model of interpersonal influence over attitudes in a context where individuals hold simultaneous positions on multiple issues we show why these arguments are not mutually exclusive and how they meaningfully refer to the same social setting. It follows that the results from this model provide a single parsimonious account for both paradoxes. The framework we develop may be generalized to a wider array of problems, including classic problems in collective action.
Topic:
Politics, International Affairs, and Political Theory

12. Why do some countries produce so much more output per worker than others?

Author:
Camelia Minoiu and Emmanuel Pikoulakis
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
To explain differences in output per worker across countries, we test for the workings of a learning-by-doing hypothesis and the hypo thesis that the effectiveness of human capital depends on the laws and institutions that promote workplace practices that allow skills to develop. The quality of laws and institutions in the workplace is measured by an index of economic security (ESI). We find that ESI is a good proxy for human capital whilst educational attainment is not. We also find that countries with high ESI use more effectively the skills of the workforce and are better at exploiting profitable opportunities in capital markets.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Political Economy

13. Politics, Public Bads, and Private Information

Author:
Glenn Sheriff
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Preferential treatment for politically influential sectors often has undesirable consequences such as increasing pollution or ecosystem degradation. Private information on firm productivity constrains the government's ability both to redistribute income and regulate public bad production. Given political economy and information constraints, this article characterizes a social-welfare maximizing policy. The optimal policy uses a single instrument to achieve both goals, making income-support subsidies contingent upon reduction of bad outputs. Output price uncertainty works to the advantage of the government, potentially eliminating some firms' information advantage.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, Government, and Human Rights

14. Do Parents Help More Their Less Well-off Children?: Evidence from a Sample of Migrants to France

Author:
Seymour Spilerman, François-Charles Wolff, and Claudine Antias-Donfut
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Through an investigation of parental motives, this paper examines how parents decide on the allocation of their resources within the family when there are several offspring. From a theoretical viewpoint, inter vivos transfers may be explained either by altruism or by an exchange motive. Though unequal sharing is expected under both hypotheses, under altruism parents should direct their assistance to less well off children. Analogously, under an exchange motive we expect support to be channeled to children who live nearby their parents. We assess the relevance of the two transfer motives using the PRI survey, conducted in 2003, on a sample of immigrants living in France. Unequal sharing is frequently observed, and children are more likely to receive financial transfers when they are in poor circumstance, but not necessarily when living in proximity to parents. This is the case even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity with fixed effects models. We also emphasize the role of cultural factors, especially religion, as determinants of the parental allocation among children.
Topic:
Civil Society, Education, and Migration
Political Geography:
France

15. Temporality and Intervention Effects: Trajectory Analysis of a Homeless Mental Health Program

Author:
Mary Clare Lennon, William McAllister, Li Kuang, and Daniel Herman
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Intervention analyses which incorporate temporality over a followup period typically note differences in the patterns of "single-curves" for each the experimental and control groups or differences in temporally-based taxonomies between experimentals and controls. But the former fails to allow for the possibility of subgroups of multiple trajectories and the latter collapses time (e.g., average spell durations) and arbitrarily creates cut-points to form its taxonomies. This paper investigates the utility for intervention research of using latent class growth analysis (LCGA). This method incorporates the more complete temporal information used by single-curve approaches to statistically identify the multiple subgroups at the heart of the taxonomic approach. We do this by reanalyzing a critical time intervention study (CTI) of homeless mentally ill men that used both single-curve and taxonomic approaches. By finding, among other things, differences between experimentals and controls in the number, sizes and patterns of latent subgroups than were found in the prior analysis, we suggest the utility of LCGA for assessing service interventions.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Education, and Human Welfare

16. Routes into Networks: The Structure of English Trade in the East Indies, 1601-1833

Author:
Emily Erikson and Peter Bearman
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Drawing on a remarkable dataset compiled from ships' logs, journals, factory correspondence, ledgers, and reports that provide unusually precise information on each of the 4,572 voyages taken by English traders of the East India Company (hereafter EIC), we describe the EIC trade network over time, from 1601 to 1833. From structural images of voyages organized by shipping seasons, we map the (over time and space) emergence of dense, fully integrated, global trade networks: of globalization before globalization. We show that the integration of the world trade system under the aegis of the EIC was the unintended by-product of systematic individual malfeasance (private trading) on the part of ship captains seeking profit from internal Eastern trade.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United Kingdom

17. Parental Wealth Effects on Living Standards and Asset Holdings: Results from Chile

Author:
Florencia Torche and Seymour Spillerman
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
This paper examines aspects of the replication of inequality across generations and attempts to assess the extent to which parental resources influence the life chances and living standards of adult children. We expect household wealth to be a critical matter, especially in a society in which there is a weak public safety net or in which the credit market is inefficient. In the former case, families need to self-insure--accumulate savings to smooth consumption expenditures over periods of income fluctuation, such as might result from illness or job loss. In the latter case, financial wealth is necessary in order to finance large expenditure items (e.g., a home, a new business) or to provide collateral in seeking a bank loan for such an expenditure.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
South America

18. Fresh Starts: School Form and Student Outcomes

Author:
Peter Bearman and Christopher Weiss
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Seemingly endless tinkering and adjustment of the structure of education in the United States over the past century has led to the adoption of different school forms at different times. Currently the middle school is the dominant form of schooling for the middle years of education; however, the middle school is a relatively new form that replaced the junior high school, which itself replaced previous schooling forms. Despite the rhetoric of policymakers and practitioners, little research has considered what school forms work for what kinds of adolescents across what dimensions. In this article, we show that for both academic and non-academic outcomes, how school systems structure the transition from 8th to 9th grade makes almost no difference. Where differences appear, they are small and point to the benefits of school transitions for providing fresh starts to adolescents in socially difficult situations. The policy implications are correspondingly clear: the optimal school structure for any school district is the one that maximizes building space, reduces crowding, and achieves administrative rationality.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Education
Political Geography:
United States

19. Policymaking and Caseload Dynamics: Homeless Shelters

Author:
William McAllister
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Many social problems can be understood as “conceptual caseloads”, e.g., people in poverty, and actual programmatic caseloads are a major, specific concern for policymakers and public administrators. Thus, a crucial and fairly general concern is how caseloads—whether conceptual or programmatic—can be reduced. To address this concern, officials often fall back on politically or intuitively attractive ideas—preventing people from entering caseloads, for example. Failure to incorporate caseload dynamics, however, may mean prevention and other caseload reduction policies will deliver much less than promised, and may cause caseloads to grow. In this paper, we first show how caseload size depends only on the number of entrants to a caseload and the rate at which people leave a caseload. With this framework in mind, we then address two common, seemingly appropriate policy responses: preventing entrants and hastening leaving. However, we show how too little is now known about homeless prevention to pin high hopes on its utility and that some social welfare problems, like homelessness, may be too inhospitable for prevention's logic. We then explain how allocating resources to hasten leaving is not as straightforward as policymakers have assumed but rather must recognize caseload dynamics to avoid unintended growth. We conclude by explaining some limits and opportunities in using caseload dynamics for policymaking.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, Government, and Poverty

20. Measuring Economic Disadvantage During Childhood: A Group-Based Modeling Approach

Author:
Mary Clare Lennon, Robert L. Wagmiller, Philip M. Alberti, and J. Lawrence Aber
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Recent research suggest that child well-being and subsequent status attainment are influenced not only by the overall magnitude of exposure to family economic disadvantage during childhood, but also by the age of exposure and significant changes in family economic circumstances. Unfortunately, traditional measures of children's economic deprivation – such as, permanent and transitory income, persistent or cumulative poverty, and the number and length of poverty spells – fail to differentiate between exposure to disadvantage at different stages in childhood and largely ignore how family economic circumstances are changing over time. In this paper we propose a new method for assessing economic disadvantage during childhood that captures both children's overall levels of exposure to economic disadvantage and their patterns of exposure. This new method, which takes advantage of recent advances in finite mixture modeling, uses a longitudinal latent class model to classify children into a limited number of groups with similar histories of exposure to family economic disadvantage. Using this new methodology, group membership can be related to both family background characteristics and achievement in childhood and early adulthood, making it possible both to assess how family characteristics affect patterns of exposure to disadvantage during childhood and directly test alternative theories about the effect of different patterns of exposure on achievement. In this paper the relationship between background factors – such as race, parental education, and family structure – and group membership is investigated, as is the association between group membership and achievement in early adulthood. The use of this technique is demonstrated using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Development, and Economics