MOTIVATION CROWDING IN REAL CONSUMPTION DECISIONS: WHO IS MESSING WITH MY GROCERIES?

We present evidence of crowding out of intrinsic motivation in real purchasing decisions from a field experiment in a large supermarket chain. We compare three instruments, a label, a subsidy, and a neutral price change, in their ability to induce consumers to switch from dirty to clean products. Interestingly, a subsidy framed as an intervention is less effective than either a label or a neutrally framed price change. We argue that this provides a new explanation for crowding behavior: consumers are resistant to having the line of demarcation between public and private decision making moved in either direction. (JEL C93, Q18, Q54, Q58, H23, H41)     

EXIT FROM THE HOSPITAL INDUSTRY

We study the exit of hospitals from the market for inpatient services. More generous hospital reimbursement significantly reduces the probability of exit throughout the 1990s. Conditional on reimbursement levels, hospital efficiency was not a significant determinant in the early 1990s but in the mid‐ to late 1990s, less efficient hospitals were significantly more likely to exit. Throughout the period, high‐tech services increased the probability of survival, and for‐profit hospitals were more likely to exit. The role of Medicare as a determinant of exit became less important in the latter half of the 1990s. (JEL I11, L11)     

Masculinity and Tom Identity in Thailand

Abstract

Thai lesbian women engage local cultural meanings of masculinity in the creation of personal identities. Lesbian identity in Thailand is largely framed in terms of “butch-femme” gender role-playing, with the masculine woman referred to as tom and the feminine woman dee. According to informants, the dynamics between toms and dees differ from the normative expectations and experiences of hetero-sexuality for Thai women. Although Thai toms express their identity in terms of being “like men,” they often differ from typical Thai male attitudes in terms of attitudes towards female sexuality, masculine sensitivity, and expectations from women in terms of long-term relationships. I conclude that Thai tom-identity is positioned against both normative Thai femininity and masculinity. This paper addresses the feelings towards sexuality and self-identity of many Thai lesbians, and seeks to help health and welfare professionals be sensitive to cultural nuances of gender identity, and attitudes towards relationships and sex among lesbian Thai women.     

Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now: characterizing the swindler as an important cultural and organizational figure

ABSTRACT

The current paper revisits Anthony Trollope's Victorian novel, The Way We Live Now, focusing on the main character of Augustus Melmotte. The paper analyzes the novel and its literary figure of a corrupt financier or swindler, drawing out theoretical and pedagogical contributions for organizational and management research. Contributions are framed in terms of imaginative organizational role archetypes embodied in swindler characterizations, swindlers’ institutional work across societal elites, and the dark sides and grey areas associated with swindlers’ organizational and financial misconduct. The rise and fall of Augustus Melmotte in Trollope's Victorian English society thus finds its cultural parallels today in outsiders who challenge financial and political elites and the status quo, at high personal risk to themselves and others complicit in their schemes. The conclusions concern the importance of recognizing dynamic figures that seize immense power over organizational, financial and political cultures.     

CAN ENTRY OR EXIT EVENT STUDIES INFORM HORIZONTAL MERGER ANALYSIS? EVIDENCE FROM GROCERY RETAILING

This study estimates how prices change following the entry and exit of grocery retailers. We estimate the effects of entry (exit) by comparing affected markets to a set of unaffected markets using both a difference‐in‐difference estimator and a synthetic control estimator. We find that entry typically results in reduced prices. More surprisingly, we find that exit is frequently associated with falling prices. Our estimated effects of entry on grocery prices are similar in magnitude to estimates of merger price effects in the supermarket industry. This finding suggests that entry event studies may be a useful tool for horizontal merger analysis. (JEL L11, L4, L81)     

THE IMPACT OF TRADE COSTS ON FIRM ENTRY,EXPORTING, AND SURVIVAL IN KOREA

This study examines how changes in trade costs have affected entry, exit, productivity, and exporting in the Korean manufacturing sector. We verify several predictions of heterogeneous‐firm models of international trade. For example, falling import‐trade costs are associated with less entry and lower market shares among existing domestic firms, and higher total factor productivity for Korean manufacturing as a whole. The size of firms plays an important role in many of our results. New domestic firms are more likely to be small, but large firms are less likely to exit and more likely to have an increase in total factor productivity. (JEL F10, D24)     

How China’s flagship news program frames “the West”: Foreign news coverage of CCTV’s Xinwen Lianbo before and during Xi Jinping’s presidency

This study investigates how Xinwen Lianbo, a prestigious TV news program and a key propaganda tool of the Chinese Communist Party, framed a bloc of Western countries in its foreign news coverage in the period 2010-2015. The results of the content analysis performed in this study revealed that mixed and diverse images of the West were portrayed by the program. Interestingly, significantly more negative frames of these countries were identified after Xi Jinping took office in late 2012, which signaled a pivotal event in terms of China’s foreign policy. However, Xi’s speech to Chinese media workers on 19 August 2013 did not have additional effects on the program’s framing of the West.     

The effects of traditional news,partisan talk,and political satire programs on perceptions of presidential candidate viability and electability

This study examines how exposure to network news, partisan opinion talk, and political satire programs during the 2012 Iowa presidential caucuses affected viewers’ perceptions of candidate viability (likelihood of capturing the party nomination) and electability (likelihood of winning the general election). Programs representing these genres—ABC World News, Fox News’s Hannity, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—all framed the same candidate as the front-runner for the nomination, though each framed this candidate’s general election prospects in distinctive ways. A randomized field experiment assigned respondents to view one (or none) of the three programs as they aired. Assessments of the front-runner were significantly shaped by assignment to view television coverage, hence demonstrating the potential importance of all three media genres for the presidential nomination process.     

Lessons from The Wire: epistemological reflections on the practice of sociological research

Recent debates and controversies have highlighted several issues surrounding sociological research, which relate to the general conditions under which it is undertaken and how this is changing. There is a pressing need to respond to these issues as a whole, in particular by examining what they tell us about research practices. This article argues that a consideration of themes raised by the American television drama The Wire is useful for facilitating such a response, since it may be read as a discussion of working conditions within neoliberal societies. The following themes are pertinent here: the need to reflect upon the terms by which research is framed by funders, to take adequate time to conduct and complete research, and to encourage critical debate within research. Whilst these relate to influential epistemological discussions by Pierre Bourdieu and Michael Burawoy, this reading of The Wire is particularly helpful for highlighting the practical and inter‐relational situations in which sociological research is carried out but which tend not to receive the systematic attention they deserve.     

What affects media commentators’ views of protest actions? Evidence from the Portuguese wave of anti-austerity contention

ABSTRACT

Media attention is crucial for social movements in pursuing their goals. Opinion makers in the press, in particular, can be expected to influence how mass audiences perceive protests. Yet we still have a poor understanding of the factors that explain the level of legitimacy that media commentators award to different protest actions. To address this gap, this paper compares 45 opinion articles written by press commentators in main-interest Portuguese newspapers about two of the prominent anti-austerity demonstrations in the country: the Geração à Rasca demonstration on 12 March 2011, and the Que se Lixe a Troika demonstration on 15 September 2012. Content analysis of this corpus of articles suggests that there were important differences in the level of legitimacy that commentators awarded to each of the protests. An analysis of the way commentators framed each protest suggests the use of a similar set of frames related to the characteristics of the protest events (e.g. claims, strategy), but differential deployment of these frames across the cases. For example, the same frames were sometimes used to legitimize one protest event, and delegitimize the other, and hence could not explain the differences in commentators’ views. It was rather the different context of the protests (e.g. social, economic and political), and the way that media commentators framed that context, that explains the level of legitimacy awarded to the two protests. Because the QSLT demonstration of 15 September 2012 was a protest directed against a measure that commentators framed as unfair and unnecessary (raising the single social tax), they regarded the demonstration as being more legitimate. In turn, because the Geração à Rasca demonstration occurred in a context where austerity was framed as necessary and unavoidable, it was regarded as less legitimate.     

Framing ‘drug prevention’ for young people in contact with the criminal justice system in England: views from practitioners in the field

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the work of Rein and Schon (1993. “Reframing Policy Discourse.” In The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, edited by F. Fischer, and J. Forester, 145–166. London: UCL Press., 1996. “Frame-Critical Policy Analysis and Frame-Reflective Policy Practice.” Knowledge and Policy: the International Journal of Knowledge Transfer and Utilization 9 (1): 85–104), we explore the ways in which ‘young people’, ‘vulnerability’, ‘risk’, ‘prevention’ and ‘prevention practice’ were defined and framed by practitioners engaged in the design, delivery and commissioning of drug prevention interventions for young people in contact with the criminal justice system. We argue that practitioners describe their work in terms of both a preventative frame – based on a ‘deficit’ model – and a transformative praxis frame, more in line with an increasing shift towards ‘positive youth justice’ where practitioners aspire to actively involve the young person in a process of change. The implications of those, often competing, frames are discussed in relation to the development of prevention approaches and the challenges in designing drugs prevention for this group of young people. The paper is based on interviews and focus groups with thirty-one practitioners in England and is part of the EU funded EPPIC project (Exchanging Prevention Practices on Polydrug Use among Youth in Criminal Justice Systems 2017–2020).     

IS MORE COMPETITION ALWAYS BETTER? AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF EXTORTIONARY CORRUPTION

Using a laboratory experiment, we assess whether increasing competition among public officials reduces extortionary corruption. We find that increasing the number of providers has no effect on bribe demands when citizens' search costs are high, but it increases corruption when search costs are low. The effect is absent in a parallel setting framed as a standard market, which we attribute to citizens using a nonsequential search strategy as opposed to sequential search in the corruption setting. We conclude that efforts to reduce search costs, such as infrastructure investments, are preferable to anti‐corruption policies aimed at increasing the number of providers. (JEL D73, D49, C91)     

The framed right to participate in municipal youth councils and its educational impact

This study describes the phenomenon of framed participation, which constrains children's participation frameworks within a confined area of decision-making. It draws on interviews and focus groups with 32 children who participated in eight Israeli municipal youth councils, ranging in age from 13 to 18. In addition, five interviews were conducted with adult leaders of youth councils. The study showed that council activities remained confined to the particular municipal department responsible for them and comprised mostly the organization of leisure activities, such as parties, performances, and group trips for youth. Yet, almost all the children participating in the study perceived the organization of leisure activities as “meaningful” participation, which “succeeds”, “empowers”, and “leads”. The adult leaders acknowledged the framed participation and, while critical of it, preferred to remain within the comfort zone of their professional responsibility. We argue that when framed participation entails the organization of popular activities, in which the municipality invests considerable resources, the ensuing positive experiences may frame the children's rights consciousness and critical thinking. We also discuss the institutional conditions that may shape framed participation, and the role of human rights education in building children's capacity to mobilize their participation rights.     

SELECTIVE RECOGNITION: HOW TO RECOGNIZE DONORS TO INCREASE CHARITABLE GIVING

Recognizing donors by revealing their identities is important for increasing charitable giving. Using a framed field experiment, we show that all forms of recognition that we examine increase donations relative to the baseline treatment, and recognizing only the highest or only the lowest donors has the strongest and significant effect. We argue that selective recognition creates tournament‐like incentives. Recognizing the highest donors activates the desire to seek a “positive prize” of prestige, while recognizing the lowest donors activates the desire to avoid a “negative prize” of shame. We discuss how selective recognition can be used by charities to increase donations. (JEL C93, D64)     

Wives' Relative Wages,Husbands' Paid Work Hours,and Wives' Labor‐Force Exit

Economic theories predict that women are more likely to exit the labor force if their partners' earnings are higher and if their own wage rate is lower. In this article, I use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 2,254) and discrete‐time event‐history analysis to show that wives' relative wages are more predictive of their exit than are their own or their husbands' absolute wages. In addition, I show that women married to men who work more than 45 hours per week are more likely to exit the labor force than are wives whose husbands' work approximately 40 hours per week. My findings highlight the need to examine how women's partners affect women's labor‐force participation.     

Troubling the ‘Happy Family’: US Liberalism and Narratives of Transnational Adoption and Immigration from China

This essay connects adoption and immigration from China by considering the relationship between the adoptee and the Chinese nanny hired to care for her. I examine news media alongside Wendy Lee’s 2008 novel, Happy Family, which portrays the adoptive family through the perspective of a Fujianese immigrant domestic worker. Transnational adoption from China emerged in the early 1990s as undocumented immigration from the Fujian province rose, representing a major shift in Chinese immigration. These practices have been apprehended divergently in mainstream discourses. This essay approaches the family as a site of neoliberal privatization that frames adoption in terms of inclusion into US national ideologies of race, gender, and class, while undocumented immigration from China has been framed through exclusion. I argue that the nanny destabilizes the construction of the family as a space of depoliticized inclusion through her labor, revealing the neoliberal inequalities that shape both adoption and immigration.     

Intensive fostering: An independent evaluation of MTFC in an English setting

This paper presents the results of an independent evaluation of the Multi-dimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) programme for young offenders in England, where it is known as Intensive Fostering (IF).

Methods

A quasi-experimental, mixed methods study was carried out at the three pilot sites, with a total sample of 47 at follow up. Young people sentenced to IF were compared to a similar group, matched on the eligibility criteria for IF, the majority of whom were sentenced to custody. The groups were well-matched in terms of their characteristics and criminal histories. Official data on reconviction were collected at baseline and one year after entry to the IF placement or release from custody (Stage 1), and further data on programme completion and secondary outcomes were collected via interviews with young people and parents and questionnaires to professionals at baseline and follow up. Official data on reconviction were also collected one year after exit from the IF placements (Stage 2).

Results

At Stage 1 the IF group were less likely to be reconvicted, had committed fewer and less serious recorded offences, on average, and took longer to commit their first recorded offence. At this point the IF group were more likely to be living with their families and less likely to be in custody than the comparison group. However by Stage 2 no significant differences in patterns of reconviction remained.

Conclusions

IF successfully contained a high-risk group in the community, but the effects of the intervention washed out once they left their foster placements. Environmental effects on entry to and exit from the IF placements may help to explain the results at both stages.     

The blame game: news,blame, and young homicide victims

Media have represented blame in homicide cases as attributable to a victim or an offender; we provide a more nuanced category of shared blame. We examine stories covering young homicide victims to demonstrate how shared blame is operationalized in print news, noting stark differences across a victim’s race and gender. We conduct a content analysis of the Orlando Sentinel newspaper and police reports from Seminole County and Sanford, Florida, from 2000 to 2012. Stark racial and gender differences are apparent in the way the content is framed and how the victims are depicted. The newspaper’s representation of young African American males is consistent with existing stereotypes of the “criminal black man.” We discuss the larger implications of our findings and how our results apply to high-profile killings of young homicide victims including Trayvon Martin.     

Globalizing ‘Girl Power’: Corporate Social Responsibility and Transnational Business Initiatives for Gender Equality

The recent emergence of ‘transnational business feminism’ [Roberts, A. (2014). The political economy of ‘transnational business feminism’. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 17(2), 209–231] accompanied by numerous ‘transnational business initiatives for the governance of gender’ [Prügl, E., &; True, J. (2014). Equality means business? Governing gender through transnational public–private partnerships. Review of International Political Economy, 21(6), 1137–1169] constitutes a significant area of debate in the feminist political economy literature. In this paper I focus on the confluence of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda with the visibility of gender issues in development and the resultant corporate agenda for the promotion of women and girls’ empowerment. The paper draws on two gender-focused World Bank collaborations with private sector actors: the Global Private Sector Leaders Forum and the Girl Effect campaign. The paper argues that the dominant model of corporate citizenship inscribed within the discourse of transnational business initiatives is framed in terms of capitalizing on the potential power of girls and women, achieving an easy convergence between gender equality and corporate profit. I suggest that the construction of an unproblematic synergy between these goals serves to moralize corporate-led development interventions and therefore does not challenge corporate power in the development process, but instead allows corporations to subscribe to voluntary, non-binding codes and cultivate a socially conscious brand image.     

Gone Fishin': A Framing Analysis of the Fight Over a Small Town's City Seal

This study is a framing analysis of regional and national newspaper, Internet, and Associated Press news coverage of a legal dispute over the inclusion of a fish symbol on the city seal in the small town of Republic, Missouri. Analysis of news articles revealed 4 frames. First, news reports framed the dispute as trivial. Second, news accounts framed the plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city as a religious outsider because of her Wiccan beliefs. Third, news accounts framed the dispute in terms of grassroots support for the fish symbol and outside meddlers who opposed the fish symbol. The fourth frame cast the dispute in terms of a battle or holy war.