THE EFFECTS OF MACROECONOMIC CONDITIONS AT GRADUATION ON OVEREDUCATION

This article shows that unfavorable economic conditions at graduation decrease the likelihood of a good job‐worker match over a worker's subsequent career. Mismatch is quantified in terms of overeducation by both industry and occupation. The German Socio‐Economic Panel and region‐level unemployment rates from 1994 to 2012 are used. Instrumental variables estimates account for endogenous graduation timing. A single percentage point increase in regional unemployment causes an increase in the probability of overeducation of 1.6–1.7 percentage points for university graduates. Effects for technical tertiary education and apprenticeship graduates are smaller. Labor market entry conditions affect workers for up to 9 years after graduation. (JEL J23, J22, E32, I23)     

COMMUNICATION AND COORDINATION IN A TWO‐STAGE GAME

We study the impact of communication on behavior in a two‐stage coordination game with asymmetric payoffs. We test experimentally whether individuals can avoid a head‐to‐head confrontation by means of coordinated strategies. In particular we analyze whether and how quickly a conflict‐avoidance take turn strategy can emerge. First, our results show that players learn to solve the conflict by choosing opposite options at both stages of the game. Second, many adopt a take turn strategy to sustain coordination over time and alleviate the inequality induced by the asymmetry of payoffs. Third, communication increases the likelihood of conflict resolution regardless of whether communication is unilateral or bilateral. (JEL C91, D74, L15, H71)     

Two‐Year Follow‐up Outcomes in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: An Investigation of Relationship Satisfaction and Attachment Trajectories

Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT; The practice of emotionally focused couple therapy: Creating connection. New York, NY: Brunner‐Routledge) is an evidence‐based couple therapy that aims to create lasting change for couples (Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 6(1), 67–79). Although studies have demonstrated strong results in follow‐up (Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 28(4), 391–398), less is known about relationship functioning across time after therapy has ended. We modelled change in relationship satisfaction and attachment from pre‐therapy through 24 months follow‐up in 32 couples. HLM results confirmed a significant growth pattern demonstrating increases in relationship satisfaction and secure base behaviour and decreases in relationship specific attachment anxiety over the course of therapy and across follow‐up at a decelerated rate. These findings support the theoretical assumption that EFT helps couples engaged in therapy create lasting relationship satisfaction and attachment change.     

The Stability of Same‐Sex Cohabitation,Different‐Sex Cohabitation,and Marriage

This study contributes to the emerging demographic literature on same‐sex couples by comparing the level and correlates of union stability among 4 types of couples: (a) male same‐sex cohabitation, (b) female same‐sex cohabitation, (c) different‐sex cohabitation, and (d) different‐sex marriage. The author analyzed data from 2 British birth cohort studies: the National Child Development Study (N = 11,469) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (N = 11,924). These data contain retrospective histories of same‐sex and different‐sex unions throughout young adulthood (age 16–34) from 1974 through 2004. Event‐history analyses showed that same‐sex cohabitations have higher rates of dissolution than do different‐sex cohabiting and marital unions. Among same‐sex couples, male couples had slightly higher dissolution rates than did female couples. In addition, same‐sex couples from the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts had similar levels of union stability. The demographic correlates of union stability are generally similar for same‐sex and different‐sex unions.     

TOXIC NEIGHBORS: FORECLOSURES AND SHORT‐SALES SPILLOVER EFFECTS FROM THE CURRENT HOUSING‐MARKET CRASH

Do home foreclosures and short sales equally affect neighbors? On average, no‐default homes sell anytime up to 6 months after sales of foreclosed neighbors suffer a cumulative spillover effect of about 10%. Including the market trend, the total effect increases to 40%. Controlling for foreclosure effects, short sales do not produce additional spillover effects. We apply a modified hedonic model to estimate spillover effects on neighbors, using January 2008 to June 2009 home transactions from one of the most impacted housing markets. Our findings apply to severely “thin” markets and may not be true for stable markets. We show that accurate estimates of spillover effects require correcting for the market trend, two types of time and spatial price interdependence, and the endogenous neighborhood price. (JEL R21, R22, R31, K2)     

TRADE COSTS AND JOB FLOWS: EVIDENCE FROM ESTABLISHMENT‐LEVEL DATA

Changes in the costs of trading inputs or final goods affect establishment‐level job flows. Using a longitudinal database containing the universe of manufacturing establishments in California from 1992 to 2004, we find that a decline in input or final‐good trade costs is associated with job destruction in the least productive establishments, job creation in the most productive establishments, and an increase in the death likelihood of the least productive establishments. The evidence is consistent with predictions of models of trade with heterogeneous firms. Additionally, the evidence shows that the effects of input trade costs on establishment‐level job flows are larger than the effects of final‐good trade costs. (JEL F14, F16)     

WHEN DO SHELTER‐IN‐PLACE ORDERS FIGHT COVID‐19 BEST? POLICY HETEROGENEITY ACROSS STATES AND ADOPTION TIME

This study explores the impact of Shelter‐in‐Place Orders (SIPOs) on health, with attention to heterogeneity in their impacts. First, using daily state‐level social distancing data, we document that adoption of a SIPO was associated with a 9%–10% increase in the rate at which state residents remained in their homes full‐time. Using daily state‐level coronavirus case data, we find that approximately 3 weeks following the adoption of a SIPO, cumulative COVID‐19 cases fell by approximately 53.5%. However, this average effect masks important heterogeneity across states‐early adopters and high population density states appear to reap larger benefits from their SIPOs. (JEL H75, I12, I18)     

Offspring Migration and Parents' Emotional and Psychological Well‐being in Mexico

In Mexico, offspring migration disrupts familial norms of coresidence and geographic proximity. This article examines how an adult child's migration, both domestically and to the United States, affects the emotional and psychological well‐being of parents who remain in the place of origin. Using nationally representative longitudinal data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (N = 4,718), the authors found limited evidence that parents whose offspring emigrated to the United States experience worse outcomes than parents of offspring who did not migrate. Although they found that offspring U.S. migration was not associated with changes in parents' overall depressive syndrome, a child's U.S. migration increased the likelihood of experiencing loneliness and led to a lower likelihood of recovery from parental sadness over time. Children's domestic migration did not affect parental well‐being. These findings add to a growing body of literature that should be considered when assessing the broader impact of migration on family members who remain behind.     

Maternal Regulation of Daughters' Emotion During Conflicts From Early to Mid‐Adolescence

Primary caregivers play an important role in emotion socialization. Real‐time mother–daughter emotion socialization was examined in 45 mother–daughter dyads with early‐adolescent daughters (age M = 11.80, SD = .27) at the first observation point. Maternal supportive emotion regulation and daughters' emotions were coded during two conflict discussions, 2 years apart. With multilevel survival analysis, the likelihood of maternal supportiveness was predicted both over time, between early and mid‐adolescence, and by daughters' pubertal status. Mothers were more likely to respond to daughters' negative and positive emotions with supportiveness for daughters whose pubertal maturation occurred relatively early. Results suggest that mothers adjust their socialization of daughters' emotions according to their daughters' pubertal development.     

A Population‐Based Study of Alcohol Use in Same‐Sex and Different‐Sex Unions

The present study advances research on union status and health by providing a first look at alcohol use differentials among different‐sex and same‐sex married and cohabiting individuals using nationally representative population‐based data (National Health Interview Surveys 1997–2011, N = 181,581). The results showed that both same‐sex and different‐sex married groups reported lower alcohol use than both same‐sex and different‐sex cohabiting groups. The results further revealed that same‐sex and different‐sex married individuals reported similar levels of alcohol use, whereas same‐sex and different‐sex cohabiting individuals reported similar levels of alcohol use. Drawing on marital advantage and minority stress approaches, the findings suggest that it is cohabitation status—not same‐sex status—that is associated with elevated alcohol rates.     

Services and Intimate Partner Violence in the United States: A County‐Level Analysis

Despite the prevalence of intimate partner violence and its social costs, we show that many counties lack services to help victims and that community resources play a significant role in determining the likelihood of service provision. Because resources are often generated at the local level and state and federal funding usually require a grant proposal, services for victims of intimate partner violence are more likely to be available in well‐resourced areas with a major college or university in the county. Analysis of the changes in the provision of services since the Violence Against Women Act was introduced suggests that funding needs to be specifically targeted to underserved areas.     

Do Commercial Debt‐for‐Nature Swaps Matter for Forests? A Cross‐National Test of World Polity Theory1

We present cross‐national models of forest loss from 1990–2005 that examine the impact of commercial debt‐for‐nature swaps. In doing so, we find substantial support for world polity theory that poor nations that implement these swaps tend to have lower rates of deforestation than poor nations that do not implement these swaps. We also find support for another aspect of world polity theory—poor nations with higher levels of international nongovernmental organizations have lower rates of forest loss. A number of other factors, including structural adjustment, debt service, democracy, population growth, and domestic economic activity, also predict deforestation. We conclude by discussing the findings, theoretical implications, methodological implications, policy suggestions, and possible directions for future research.     

ACADEMIC PROBATION,STUDENT PERFORMANCE,AND STRATEGIC COURSE‐TAKING

We use a regression discontinuity design to study how academic probation affects outcomes and course‐taking behaviors at a large public university in the United States. Consistent with past work, students placed on probation improve their grade point average (GPA) in the subsequent semester. We document that part of this GPA improvement is attributable to strategic course‐taking, and there is significant heterogeneity in these behaviors across race. Non‐minority students placed on probation attempt fewer credits, easier courses, and are more likely to withdraw from courses in the following term. In contrast, underrepresented minorities exhibit few of these behaviors, consistent with past work that suggests black and Hispanic students are less likely to possess helpful institutional knowledge and use available support systems such as academic counseling. (JEL I20, I23)     

Disproportionality and Resource‐Based Environmental Inequality: An Analysis of Neighborhood Proximity to Coal Impoundments in Appalachia

Environmental hazards created by resource extraction impose numerous risks on rural populations, but have been understudied in quantitative analyses of environmental inequality. This study fills that gap by examining whether neighborhoods with socioeconomic disadvantages are disproportionately proximate to coal impoundments in Appalachia. Coal impoundments are large, hazardous dams that hold billions of gallons of wastewater and slurry, a sludge‐like by‐product of processing coal. I ground this study in William Freudenburg's double diversion framework, which highlights “disproportionality”—the unequal trade‐off between economic benefits and environmental costs of certain industries. Disproportionality is evident in Appalachia, where coal mining makes up a small percentage of the region's jobs, but threatens local communities through the creation of environmental hazards. Spatial regression results indicate that neighborhoods closest to impoundments are slightly more likely to have higher rates of poverty and unemployment, even after controlling for rurality, mining‐related variables, and spatial dependence. The findings also suggest that a neighborhood's proximity to past mining activity is a stronger predictor of impoundment proximity than current levels of mining employment. This article lays the groundwork for future research on resource‐based environmental inequality that considers the uneven spatial distribution of hazards created by resource extraction.     

MONETARY POLICY AND ANTI‐CYCLICAL BANK CAPITAL REGULATION

The financial crisis of 2008–2009 revived attention given to booms and busts in bank credit, and their effects on real activity. This interest sparked two different strands of research in macro. The first one focuses on monetary policy in the context of financial frictions. The second studies capital regulation in banking. To the best of our knowledge, so far these two topics have mostly been studied in isolation from each other. Thus, we still lack an understanding of how monetary policy and bank capital regulation interact in the presence of financial fragility. This paper aims to contribute to furthering this understanding. Specifically, we ask how the monetary policy rule should look like in the presence of cyclical capital requirements. We extend the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with bank capital in Aliaga‐Díaz and Olivero by introducing price rigidities in the spirit of the New‐Keynesian literature. We find that: First, anti‐cyclical requirements have important stabilization properties relative to the case of constant requirements. This is true for all types of fluctuations that we study, which include those caused by productivity, preference, fiscal, monetary, and financial shocks. Second, output and consumption volatilities present in the no regulation economy can be recovered with anti‐cyclical requirements as long as the policy rate responds only slightly to credit spreads. Third, monetary policy rules that respond to credit conditions also perform better in terms of welfare. (JEL E32, E44)     

WHAT MOTIVATES POLITICAL PREFERENCES? SELF‐INTEREST,IDEOLOGY, AND FAIRNESS IN A LABORATORY DEMOCRACY

Substantial prior literature has established that subjects in laboratory experiments are typically willing to sacrifice their own well being to make financial allocations more equal among participants. We test the applicability of this result in an environment that contains some of the key contextual issues that are usually excluded from more abstract games, but which might be important in situations involving income redistribution. Our general finding is that votes for a redistributive tax are almost entirely in accordance with self‐interest: above‐average earners vote for low tax rates and below‐average earners vote for high tax rates. A measure of subjects' preferences for fairness or equality, their self‐reported economic ideology, is not directly related to their voting behavior in this experiment. Because the ideology measure should be correlated with any intrinsic preferences regarding inequality aversion, we conclude that any preferences for fairness or inequality that our subjects possess are not strong enough to overcome self‐interest in this context. We do, however, find evidence for a possible indirect effect of ideology on choice behavior in that more conservative subjects tend to be more responsive to their self‐interest than the more liberal subjects. (JEL C90, D63)     

STOP‐GO MONETARY POLICY

We propose and estimate several discrete choice models of monetary policy decision‐making that feature time‐varying inertia. The models permit us to account for three stylized facts characterizing monetary policymaking in the United States: (1) target interest rates are gradually adjusted in small discrete movements, (2) there are some long stretches of time in which rates are repeatedly moved, and (3) there are other long stretches in which the policy rate does not change. The models are used to account for delayed monetary policy responses to the recession of 2001 and to the housing‐driven expansion of 2003–2006. (JEL E52, E58, E65)     

Child Support Obligations and Low‐Income Fathers

Using the 1994–1998 waves of the Current Population Survey—Child Support Supplement (N =5,387), the aims of this study are to document child support obligation rates of nonresident fathers, to examine the effect of the obligation rate on child support compliance, and to calculate the trade‐off between fathers’ financial responsibility and children's well‐being, paying particular attention to low‐income fathers. The results indicate that low‐income fathers have high child support obligation rates, which significantly reduce their child support compliance. Although lowering the obligation rate for these fathers may improve their compliance, it does not fully offset the lowered obligation amounts and leads to a 30% net payment loss for welfare mothers and a 43% loss for nonwelfare mothers. Policy implications are discussed.     

INTERPERSONAL CONTEXT AT WORK AND THE FREQUENCY,APPRAISAL, AND CONSEQUENCES OF BOUNDARY‐SPANNING DEMANDS

Compared to job‐specific conditions, the interpersonal context of work has received less attention from work–family scholars. Using data from a 2007 U.S. survey of workers (N = 1,286), we examine the impact of workplace social support and interpersonal conflict on work–family conflict and exposure to boundary‐spanning demands—as indexed by the frequency that workers receive work‐related contact outside of normal work hours. Findings indicate that workplace social support is associated negatively with work‐to‐family conflict, while interpersonal conflict at work is associated with higher levels of work‐to‐family conflict. Results also indicate that both supportive and conflictive work contexts are associated with more frequent exposure to boundary‐spanning demands. However, workers in supportive contexts are more likely to appraise these demands as beneficial for accomplishing work tasks, and are less likely to appraise them as disruptive to family roles. By contrast, workers in conflictive contexts are more likely to appraise demands as disruptive to family roles, and are less likely to appraise them as beneficial for paid work. Consequently, our findings underscore the resource and demands aspects of interpersonal work contexts and their implications for the work–family interface.