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3061. 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

3062. 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

3063. Reducing Bias in Treatment Effect Estimation in Observational Studies Suffering from Missing Data

Author:
Jennifer Hill
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Matching based on estimated propensity scores (that is, the estimated conditional probability of being treated) has become an increasingly popular technique for causal inference over the past decade. By balancing observed covariates, propensity score methods reduce the risk of confounding causal processes. Estimation of propensity scores in the complete data case is generally straightforward since it uses standard methods (e.g. logistic regression or discriminant analysis) and relies on diagnostics that are relatively easy to calculate and interpret. Most studies, however, have missing data. This paper illustrates a principled approach to handling missing data when estimating propensity scores makes use of multiple imputation (MI). Placing the problem within the framework of the Rubin Causal Model makes the assumptions explicit by illustrating the interaction between the treatment assignment mechanism and the missing data mechanism. Several approaches for estimating propensity scores with incomplete data using MI are presented. Results demonstrating improved efficacy compared with existing methodology are discussed. These advantages include greater bias reduction and increased facility in model choice.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Economics, and Education

3064. (Re)Writing the "National Security State"

Author:
David Grondin
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal
Abstract:
Hans Morgenthau once said that “the intellectual lives in a world that is both separate from and potentially intertwined with that of the politician. The two worlds are separate because they are oriented towards different ultimate values… truth threatens power, and power threatens truth” (Morgenthau, quoted in Hill and Beshoff, 1994: xi). For Christopher Hill and Pamela Beshoff, this means that, as international relations practitioners and theorists, “Like it or not, we are 'intellectuals in politics' and 'the study of international relations is not an innocent profession'”
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Diplomacy, and National Security

3065. Abusing History: A Critical Analysis of Mainstream International Relations Theory Misconduct

Author:
Anne Marie D'Aoust
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal
Abstract:
In Political Science, the discipline of IR has been widely regarded as an “American Science” ever since Stanley Hoffman published his renowned essay in 1977. This “American Science” is mainly dominated by a single theoretical approach – that of Neorealism – which relies primarily on the concept of historical recurrence to ground its arguments. Other “new” theoretical approaches which challenge this parochialism, namely feminism, constructivism and Critical Theory, remain outside the “official boundaries” of the field. These boundaries are largely set by the Neorealist agenda and its variations, which rarely diverge from an unquestioned central rationalist-empiricist theme. Thus, with respect to its methodological and epistemological stance, Neorealist theory implicitly views History as a vast field of objective data and primary sources ready to reveal their truth to the social scientist. To test and/or prove the validity of Neorealist theory in the field of International Relations, one must refer to historical data and confront theory with “straight facts”. What I propose to do here is to analyze the ways in which the Neorealist approach to International Relations makes use of history, and subsequently to consider some crucial epistomological and theoretical debates in the field of History that are ignored by Neorealists like Waltz.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
America

3066. Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration: Reassessing Bosnia and the "Turning Point" of 1995

Author:
Séastien Barthe and Charles-Philippe David
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal
Abstract:
The conflict that ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 was one of the central international problems that the Clinton White House had to face during its first term. The “issue from hell”, as Warren Christopher famously dubbed it in 19933, was emblematic of the Clinton administration's failure, during the period of January 1993 to late summer 1995, to formulate foreign policies that could produce the results desired by the policy-makers in the West Wing.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Development
Political Geography:
United States, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Eastern Europe

3067. "Foreign Policy Is Not What I Came Here to Do" Dissecting Clinton's Foreign Policy-Making: A First Cut

Author:
Séastien Barthe and Charles-Philippe David
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal
Abstract:
Some presidents fit a pattern. But though Clinton does bear comparison with some of his predecessors, he combines elements of several types and defies (for now) definitive categorization.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Development
Political Geography:
United States and Eastern Europe

3068. International Diversification at Home and Abroad

Author:
Fang Cai and Francis E. Warnock
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We analyze foreigners' and domestic institutional investors' positions in U.S. equities. Controlling for many factors, we uncover a common preference for large firms and firms that are diversified internationally. The domestic preference for internationally diversified firms implies that investors might obtain substantial international diversification by investing at home. Using an international factor model, we show that exposure to foreign equity markets is indeed greater for domestic firms that are more diversified internationally, suggesting that at least some of the home-grown foreign exposure translates into international diversification benefits. After accounting for home-grown foreign exposure, the share of 'foreign' equities in investors' portfolios nearly doubles, reducing (but not eliminating) the observed home bias.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

3069. Foreign Participation in Local-Currency Bond Markets

Author:
Francis E. Warnock and John D. Burger
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We analyze the development of, and foreign participation in, 49 local bond markets. Countries with stable inflation rates and strong creditor rights have more developed local bond markets and rely less on foreign-currency-denominated bonds. Less developed bond markets have returns characterized by high variance and negative skewness, factors eschewed by U.S. investors. Results based on a three-moment CAPM indicate, however, that it is diversifiable idiosyncratic risk that U.S. investors appear to shun. Taken as a whole our results hint at a virtuous cycle of bond market development: Creditor friendly policies and laws can spark local bond market development that enables the development of derivatives markets and, in turn, attracts foreign participation.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

3070. That Old Time Religion: A Review of Recent Environmental Books

Author:
Steven F. Hayward
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
A slew of new and highly regarded environmental books in 2004 is testimony to the persistence of environmental apocalyticism, despite growing signs of environmental progress in the United States and the developing world. The persistence of doomsaying is an indicator of the staleness of popular environmental thought, which is increasingly removed from political reality and closed-minded toward innovative thinking about real environmental problems and their solutions.
Topic:
Development, Energy Policy, and Environment
Political Geography:
United States