Perception vs. reality: The relationship between low-income homeownership, perceived financial stress, and financial hardship

This research examines how homeowners and renters were impacted by the financial crisis in 2009. We build from the hypothesis that homeownership provides people a sense of stability which decreases the extent to which they feel stressed as a result of financial hardship. Our study tests whether owning a home affected either the degree to which lower-income households experienced financial hardship or the extent to which they perceived they were financially stressed. Using a sample of lower-income borrowers who obtained affordable mortgages through the Community Advantage Program (CAP) and a comparison panel of renters, we collected data on the effects of the financial crisis. From a portfolio performance standpoint, CAP loans have performed relatively well. Our analysis of the survey data finds that, although both renters and owners experienced similar levels of financial hardship, the homeowners were less psychologically stressed overall and reported feeling more satisfied with their financial situation.     

Place matters: Contextualizing the roles of religion and race for understanding Americans' attitudes about homosexuality

As laws and policies related to homosexuality have evolved, Americans' attitudes have also changed. Race and religion have been established as important indicators of feelings about homosexuality. However, researchers have given almost no attention to how county characteristics shape Americans' attitudes. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques, we examine how personal characteristics and the religious and racial context of a county shape feelings about homosexuality drawing on data from the American National Election Survey and information about where respondents reside. We find that African Americans initially appear less tolerant than other racial groups, until we account for the geographical distribution of attitudes across the nation. Additionally, once we consider religious involvement, strength of belief, and religious affiliation African Americans appear to have warmer feelings about homosexuality than whites. Drawing on the moral communities' hypothesis, we also find that the strength of religiosity amongst county residents heightens the influence of personal religious beliefs on disapproving attitudes. There is also a direct effect of the proportion conservative Protestant, whereby people of all faiths have cooler attitudes towards homosexual individuals when they reside in a county with a higher proportion of conservative Protestants. Finally, we do not find any evidence for an African American cultural influence on attitudes.     

Grandparents' resources and grandchildren's schooling: Does grandparental involvement moderate the grandparent effect?

Recent studies have argued that grandparents have a direct effect on grandchildren's achievements, net of parental resources. However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms. One explanation is that grandchildren can benefit from the cultural resources that grandparents transmit to their grandchildren. If this is the case, one would expect strong effects in families where grandparents are highly involved in the lives of their grandchildren and weak or no effects in other families. Using new nationally representative survey data on three generations in the Netherlands, we examine if and how grandchildren's educational attainment is affected by three grandparental resources: education, occupational status, and cultural resources. We explore how these effects vary by the strength of the tie between grandparent and grandchild. We find no evidence for a main direct grandparental effect, nor do we find interactions with the strength of the tie between grandparent and grandchild. These null-findings are discussed in light of the mixed body of evidence that has been accumulated in the literature and contemporary theorizing on grandparenting.     

Early-Onset Psychiatric Disorders and Male Socioeconomic Status

We seek to integrate economic, sociological and psychological models by examining whether early-onset psychiatric disorders predict adult male socioeconomic status. Unlike most status attainment studies, we include information on major psychiatric disorders. We use data from the National Comorbidity Survey, the first survey to administer a structured psychiatric interview to a national probability sample in the U.S. Our sample includes men between the ages of 25 and 54. We find that disorders that occur before age 16 reduce educational attainment and the probability of being currently married and increase the probability of having a recent disorder, each of which is a predictor of adult male unemployment. We also find that these early-onset disorders have a direct negative effect on male employment. The estimated magnitudes of these effects are often as large as those of family background variables, suggesting that research on adult male SES should pay greater attention to mental health issues.     

《艺圃撷余》新论——从当下研究中的问题说起

王世懋的《艺圃撷余》一书向有赞誉,但在当下的研究中,因对文献的误解或误用,我们的理解并不符合王氏原意。详考其书,王世懋坚持七子派观点的立场并未改变,但他同时也反对机械地看待格调,并从更高的立场上指示了该如何理解格调,从而对七子派的观点进行了有益的补充与修正。同时,我们在认识王世懋的身份时,除了观点上的倾向性,更要注意他作为文人所具有的特殊情趣与意蕴。     

Occupational conditions,self-care,and obesity among clergy in the United States

Prior research has shown that a variety of occupational conditions such as long work hours are associated with increased likelihood of obesity. In this study, we use the specific case of the clergy to explore how occupational conditions are linked to increased or decreased odds of being obese. We hypothesize that stressful conditions are associated with increased odds of obesity and that self-care practices are associated with decreased odds. Using the 2008/9 U.S. Congregational Life Survey’s national sample of clergy from multiple religious traditions, we find support for our hypotheses. Clergy who experience more stress, work more hours, or are bi-vocational have higher odds of obesity. Those who take a day off each week, have taken a sabbatical, or are involved in a support group experience lower odds. For Protestant clergy, being involved in a support group or taking a day off moderates the association between certain stressful occupational conditions and obesity.     

Social support and the working hours of employed mothers in Europe: The relevance of the state, the workplace, and the family

This paper studies the influence of state, workplace, and family support on the working hours of employed mothers and how these different support sources interact. Data taken from the European Social Survey 2004/2005 as well as country-specific information were used to estimate several hierarchical models. We find evidence that the availability of supportive workplace arrangements and family support positively impact the working hours of employed mothers and that state policies facilitating the traditional family have a negative effect. There is weak support for a positive relationship between state policies facilitating the dual-earner family and working hours of employed mothers. In addition, most of the sources of support appear to be complementary. Supportive family role models and supportive workplace arrangements have a reinforcing relationship, as do publicly funded child care and supportive workplace arrangements.     

Reputations in mixed-role markets: A theory and an experimental test

The traditional understanding of reputation systems is that they secure trust between strangers by publicly calling out cheaters. In modern, online markets, it is increasingly common for providers of a good to also act as consumers, and vice versa. We argue that in such mixed-role markets, reputation systems serve a second important function: They allow providers who lend out their possessions (such as their house, car or tools) to earn reputational credits that can be spent on future borrowing, especially when lending lacks monetary compensation. In an experiment that introduces a new game, “the Lending Game”, we show that, consistent with our argument, information on past lending leads subjects to lend to those who have themselves lent before, increasing overall lending. However, when lending is financially compensated, this mechanism of reciprocal lending ceases to operate.     

He said, she said: The gender wage gap according to self and proxy reports in the Current Population Survey

Roughly half the labor force data in the Current Population Survey (CPS) are provided by proxy respondents, and since 1979, men’s reliance on proxies has dropped dramatically while women’s reliance on proxies has increased. Few authors, however, have examined how combining these first-hand and second-hand reports may influence our understanding of long-term economic trends. We exploit the outgoing rotation group structure of the CPS by matching individual records one year apart, and we find that self-reported wages are higher than proxy-reported wages even after controlling for all time invariant characteristics. Furthermore, we find that changes in the use of proxy respondents by men and women since 1979 have made current estimates of the gender wage gap larger than they would have been without changes in reporting status. This suggests that the gender wage gap has closed more than previously estimated. We recommend that researchers combine self and proxy responses with great care, especially when analyzing time trends or making gender comparisons.     

消费升级下在线信任及其对在线消费行为的影响研究

以消费者购买决策理论为基础,探讨消费升级下在线信任及其对在线消费行为的影响,选取商家声誉、物流服务质量、平台功能和促销活动四个维度进行分析.研究表明:在线信任、物流服务质量、平台功能以及促销活动对在线购买意愿的正向影响显著;此外,在线信任在物流服务质量、平台功能以及促销活动对在线购买意愿的影响中起到部分中介作用,在商家声誉对在线购买意愿的影响中起到完全中介作用.当前,在消费升级环境下,线上零售商应注重声誉的打造,通过提高在线信任来降低减轻消费者风险,同时在运营中优化线上购买流程和商品陈列设置,精准匹配促销信息,保持顾客感知优势.     

不确定性、意识形态与国际冲突——为什么独裁政治与民主政治难以和平共处

所有政治人都面临着程度各不相同的不确定性,不确定性的程度受因果知识和信息的拥有量的影响。独裁政治的存在基础是国民具有高度的不确定性。意识形态有助于统治者增加和维持国民的不确定性,而实施思想独裁有助于保持意识形态的垄断地位,从而巩固不确定性。如果国际上的民主政治能够降低国民的不确定性,那么统治者或者觊觎政权的竞争者将培植攻击民主国家的意识形态的力量;民主国家也知道这一点,它将努力消灭独裁政治制度。因此独裁政治与民主政治难以和平共处。     

Adolescent girls’ race/ethnic status, identities, and drive for thinness

Using data from 7272 adolescent US girls, we explore how girls’ race/ethnic group status affects their bodyweight, perceptions of overweight, and weight control practices. We hypothesize that a girl’s race/ethnic status influences her basic identity which in turn prompts her to adopt or reject a “drive for thinness.” After controlling for family and peer support, school engagement, family SES, maturation, and family structure, we find that girls’ race/ethnic status influences their susceptibility to the thinness ideals of mainstream culture. African American girls weigh more than Asian, Hispanic, or White girls, but at any given weight they perceive themselves as overweight and attempt to control their weight less. Asian American and White girls invest most in thinness dynamics. Some evidence also suggests girls from lower SES families are less driven to be thin. Our results affirm the utility of viewing material bodies as “situations” that are experienced and interpreted in accord with identity group relations and dynamics.     

Cultural capital,teacher bias,and educational success: New evidence from monozygotic twins

In this paper we use new data on Danish monozygotic (MZ) twins to analyze the effect of cultural capital on educational success. We report three main findings. First, cultural capital has a positive direct effect on the likelihood of completing the college-bound track in Danish secondary education. Second, cultural capital leads teachers to form upwardly biased perceptions of children's academic ability, but only when their exposure to children's cultural capital is brief (as in oral and written exams) rather than long (as in grades awarded at the end of the school year). Third, we find that the positive direct effect of cultural capital on educational success is higher for children from high-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds than for those from low-SES backgrounds. This result suggests that high-SES children are more likely to be in schooling contexts that enable them to convert cultural capital into educational success.     

近百年来美国学术刊物孔子影响西渐研究

近百年来,美国学术刊物就孔子影响的西渐问题作了大量研究。这些研究以孔子思想在西欧启蒙时期的传播和接受为重点,兼顾孔子在中国的主导地位和西欧之外的西行足迹。国内孔子研究界既可了解美国学界的相关动态,亦可从中获取有益的启示。     

网络环境中知识产权穷竭原则的诉讼适用

网络信息交易中,杂糅着知识产权、信息财产权与信息服务的交易,其相互间界限模糊、常被混淆,导致诉讼中知识产权穷竭原则对网络环境的适用成了问题.针对其产生的原因加以分析,知识产权穷竭原则具有适用于网络环境的正当性,对其适用障碍也可以克服,进而可以确定其适用条件,包括:信息知识产品销售的前后手中始终只有一份复制件;信息知识产品产生于知识产权人授权或其他合法原因;知识产权人获得必要的报酬.     

Intergenerational effects of shifts in women’s educational distribution in South Korea: Transmission, differential fertility, and assortative mating

This study examines the intergenerational effects of changes in women’s education in South Korea. We define intergenerational effects as changes in the distribution of educational attainment in an offspring generation associated with the changes in a parental generation. Departing from the previous approach in research on social mobility that has focused on intergenerational association, we examine the changes in the distribution of educational attainment across generations. Using a simulation method based on Mare and Maralani’s recursive population renewal model, we examine how intergenerational transmission, assortative mating, and differential fertility influence intergenerational effects. The results point to the following conclusions. First, we find a positive intergenerational effect: improvement in women’s education leads to improvement in daughter’s education. Second, we find that the magnitude of intergenerational effects substantially depends on assortative marriage and differential fertility: assortative mating amplifies and differential fertility dampens the intergenerational effects. Third, intergenerational effects become bigger for the less educated and smaller for the better educated over time, which is a consequence of educational expansion. We compare our results with Mare and Maralani’s original Indonesian study to illustrate how the model of intergenerational effects works in different socioeconomic circumstances.     

声誉租金、社会信任结构与家族制企业

本文研究的是家族制企业的决定因素。运用契约理论,本文构建了一个社会信任结构的金字塔模型。该模型表明,信息不对称的世界里存在着信息租金,对信息租金的不同的配置方式对企业的组织形式和社会科层具有不同的影响。特别是,本文证明,中介组织、政府、法律体制与文化信念对社会中的组织形式具有重要影响。     

Gender,status, and psychiatric labels

We examine a key modified labeling theory proposition—that a psychiatric label increases vulnerability to competence-based criticism and rejection—within task- and collectively oriented dyads comprised of same-sex individuals with equivalent education. Drawing on empirical work that approximates these conditions, we expect the proposition to hold only among men. We also expect education, operationalized with college class standing, to moderate the effects of gender by reducing men’s and increasing women’s criticism and rejection. But, we also expect the effect of education to weaken when men work with a psychiatric patient. As predicted, men reject suggestions from teammates with a psychiatric history more frequently than they reject suggestions from other teammates, while women’s resistance to influence is unaffected by their teammate’s psychiatric status. Men also rate psychiatric patient teammates as less powerful but no lower in status than other teammates, while women’s teammate assessments are unaffected by their teammate’s psychiatric status. Also as predicted, education reduces men’s resistance to influence when their teammate has no psychiatric history. Education also increases men’s ratings of their teammate’s power, as predicted, but has no effect on women’s resistance to influence or teammate ratings. We discuss the implications of these findings for the modified labeling theory of mental illness and status characteristics theory.     

Does social diversity impede sound economic management? An empirical analysis, 1980–2012

Several celebrated scholars argue that diverse preferences and coordination failure due to ethnic and cultural diversity hamper the social cohesion necessary for good economic management, leading to development failure. Using several measures of diversity, we find that higher levels of ethno-linguistic and cultural fractionalization are conditioned positively on higher economic growth by an index of economic freedom, which is often heralded as a good measure of sound economic management. High diversity in turn is associated with higher levels of economic freedom. We do not find any evidence to suggest that high diversity hampers change towards greater economic freedom and institutions supporting liberal policies. The effect of diversity, moreover, is conditioned positively by higher democracy. Our results raise serious doubt about the centrality of social diversity for explaining economic failure, nor is there evidence to suggest that autocratic measures are required under conditions of social diversity to implement growth-promoting policies. This is good news because history and culture seem to matter less than rational agency for ensuring sound economic management.     

The optimism trap: Migrants’ educational choices in stratified education systems

Immigrant children's ambitious educational choices have often been linked to their families' high level of optimism and motivation for upward mobility. However, previous research has mostly neglected alternative explanations such as information asymmetries or anticipated discrimination. Moreover, immigrant children's higher dropout rates at the higher secondary and university level suggest that low performing migrant students could have benefitted more from pursuing less ambitious tracks, especially in countries that offer viable vocational alternatives. We examine ethnic minority's educational choices using a sample of academically low performing, lower secondary school students in Germany's highly stratified education system. We find that their families' optimism diverts migrant students from viable vocational alternatives. Information asymmetries and anticipated discrimination do not explain their high educational ambitions. While our findings further support the immigrant optimism hypothesis, we discuss how its effect may have different implications depending on the education system.