The duality of poverty: a replication of Mani et al. (2013) in Colombia

Theory and Decision - Scarcity acts as a mental burden that disrupts how people process information and make decisions (Mullainathan and Shafir in Scarcity: Why having too little means so much....     

Conjugal Role Definitions,Value of Children and Contraceptive Practice*

This study deals with the differential impact of conjugal role definitions on contraceptive practice and the value attached to children. A modified version of Motz's Role Conception Inventory was used to ascertain conjugal role definitions of the 433 married women included in the sample. Contraceptive practice was measured by the stage in the wife's childbearing history at which reliable contraception was initiated, and the value of children was determined by responses to statements concerning the costs and rewards of parenthood. The findings indicate that both reliable contraceptive use and the value attached to children are related to the wife's definition of appropriate role behavior. However, the extent of the impact of role definitions is a function of the wife's educational background and the economic circumstances of the family.     

The Enhanced Double Digest Problem for DNA Physical Mapping

The double digest problem is a common NP-hard approach to constructing physical maps of DNA sequences. This paper presents a new approach called the enhanced double digest problem. Although this new problem is also NP-hard, it can be solved in linear time in certain theoretically interesting cases.     

Labor force participation of working mothers and family formation: Some further evidence

This paper offers additional insight and evidence on the well-documented inverse relationship between female employment and fertility. Interviews with 388 working mothers from a probability sample in Robeson County, North Carolina, provide the data for testing the hypothesized relationships. Generally, the results indicate that lower fertility, lower desires and expectations, and earlier use of birth control are associated with work before the first birth and with employment of the longest duration. The timing of the first birth was not differentiated by variations in work experience. The results are conditional in that the relationships hold more for whites than for blacks or Indians.     

Family Subsystems Predicting Adolescents’ Perceptions of Sibling Relationship Quality Over Time

This study examined associations between parents’ relationship conflict and parent–adolescent triangulation, and changes in adolescents’ perceptions of sibling affection and hostility. The goal was to learn whether conflict in parents’ relationships spills over to siblings’ relationships, or whether siblings compensate by becoming less hostile and more affectionate. Using a subsample (N = 400) from the Flourishing Families Project (FFP), we found a trend for mother–adolescent triangulation predicting an increase in sibling hostility across 2 years. Fathers’ reports of relationship conflict were related to increased levels of initial sibling hostility, but predicted a marginal decrease in hostility over time. Findings support increased understanding of parenting dynamics associated with changes in sibling relationship quality, and have the potential to inform clinical practice.     

Linking inventory efficiency,productivity and responsiveness to retail firm outperformance: empirical insights from US retailing segments

This paper establishes an empirical model linking a retail firm’s inventory management effectiveness to superior competitive operational performance for specific product-line retail segments. Using 16?years of US retail firm financial data from the COMPUSTAT Fundamentals database across 12 distinct competitive retailing segments, we develop and test a time-series model that links several inventory management execution measures to the competitive operational outperformance of retail firms. The analysis presented provides strong evidence that measures of inventory management performance are not ‘one size fits all’ for the retail industry, and helps to explain why extant research has had difficulty linking inventory control policy effectiveness to operational performance advantages in retailing. We discuss the implications of these empirical findings on the study of inventory policy execution, and offer some guidance for further research.     

Trajectories of Early Binge Drinking: A Function of Family Cohesion and Peer Use

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we tested latent growth models examining whether the number of friends using alcohol and family cohesion were linked with trajectories of binge drinking (N = 3,342) from adolescence (average age 15.06) into young adulthood (average age 27.93). Adolescents with higher family cohesion had lower rates of binge drinking in adolescence (b = ?.07, p < .05), while those with more friends drinking alcohol were more likely to binge drink in adolescence (b = .51, p < .001), young adulthood (b = .22, p < .001), and had increasing trajectories of binge drinking across 14 years (b = ?.29, p < .001). Clinically, we discuss Multiple‐Family Group Interventions as a potential approach.