FOOD AWAY FROM HOME AND CALORIC INTAKE: THE ROLE OF RESTAURANT MENU LABELING LAWS

We analyze whether local and state mandates to post calorie information on restaurant menus change the effect of consuming food prepared away from home (FAFH) on total caloric intake. Information on area demographics and the local food environment were used to construct a comparison group. For identification, we use differences in two days of dietary intake and timing variations in policy implementation. We find the effect of FAFH meals on total daily intake is reduced by 21 calories among adults and by 34 calories among young children for each year the mandate is in place. (JEL I12, I18, H75)     

DYNAMICS OF RETAIL ADVERTISING: EVIDENCE FROM A FIELD EXPERIMENT

We use a controlled field experiment to investigate the dynamic effects of retail advertising. The experimental design overcomes limitations hindering previous investigations of this issue. Our study uncovers dynamic advertising effects that have not been considered in previous literature. We find that current advertising does affect future sales, but surprisingly, the effect is not always positive; for the firm's best customers, the long-run outcome may be negative. This finding reflects two competing effects: brand switching and intertemporal substitution. We also find evidence of cross-channel substitution, with the firm's best customers switching demand to the ordering channel that corresponds to the advertising. ( JEL L2, L81, M3)     

LOST IN THE MAIL: A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON CRIME

Stealing, shirking, and opportunistic behavior in general can create barriers to the development of markets. The costs associated with such behavior are shared by both firms and individuals and can be large enough to even prevent the initiation of trade. Measurement of these costs is difficult because information is not available for transactions that fail to occur. We use a field experiment to identify opportunistic crime in a task that is important and relevant for trade: the delivery of mail. We subtly manipulate the content and information available in mail sent to households across neighborhoods that vary by income, and detected high levels of shirking and stealing. Eighteen percent of the mail never arrived at its destination, and significantly more was lost if there was even a slight hint of something additional inside the envelope. Our results demonstrate the importance of transaction costs created by crime and that not all populations are equally affected. Middle‐income neighborhoods suffer the most. (JEL C93, K42, H41, L87, O21)     

THE IMPACT OF ENTITLEMENTS AND EQUITY ON COOPERATIVE BARGAINING: AN EXPERIMENT

In some bargaining situations—for example, collaborative policy making and compulsory arbitration—a third party imposes a backstop position that differs from the status quo. Axiomatic models of cooperative bargaining presume that the status quo in such cases will have no effect on the negotiated outcome, especially if it is Pareto inferior to the backstop. Recent literatures on equity and entitlement, however, suggest that the status quo may establish a focal point that acts as an “anchor” in current negotiations, affecting any ultimate agreement. In a two‐party, two‐attribute experiment, in which subjects jointly select from up to 200 options, we find evidence (1) that the status quo matters, perhaps because of “entitlement effects” and (2) that parties prefer egalitarian outcomes to the Nash bargain. (JEL C92, D74, H44, Q58)     

ACCESS TO TECHNOLOGY AND THE TRANSFER FUNCTION OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES: EVIDENCE FROM A FIELD EXPERIMENT

Access to information may represent an important barrier to learning about and ultimately transferring to 4‐year colleges for low‐income community college students. This article explores the role that access to information technology, in particular, plays in enhancing, or possibly detracting from, the transfer function of the community college. Using data from the first‐ever field experiment randomly providing free computers to students, we examine the relationships between access to home computers and enrollment in transferable courses and actual transfers to 4‐year colleges. The results from the field experiment indicate that the treatment group of students receiving free computers has a 4.5 percentage point higher probability of taking transferable courses than the control group of students not receiving free computers. The evidence is less clear for the effects on actual transfers to 4‐year colleges and the probability of using a computer to search for college information (which possibly represents one of the mechanisms for positive effects). In both cases, point estimates are positive, but the confidence intervals are wide. Finally, power calculations indicate that sample sizes would have to be considerably larger to find statistically significant treatment effects and reasonably precise confidence intervals given the actual transfer rate point estimates. (JEL J24, O33, I23, I24)     

THE IMPACT OF HIGH-TECH CAPITAL ON PRODUCTIVITY: EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIA

This article examines the relationship between high-tech capital use and productivity. Using Australian data, some evidence is found of a positive relationship between high-tech capital use and productivity in the market sector, but there is much less evidence of excess returns. These results are robust to the use of a variety of different measures of high-tech capital. At the industry level however, the relationship is significant and positive for only some industries. This suggests that the benefits of investment in high-tech capital are not spread evenly across the economy. (JEL O3 )     

THE ROLE OF INFORMATION ON RETIREMENT PLANNING: EVIDENCE FROM A FIELD STUDY

Many households neglect the pivotal task of planning for retirement. Proposals to stimulate employees to save for retirement in the workplace include tax subsidies, which are costly, and using automatic defaults, which may not complement the heterogeneous preferences of savers. This randomized field study shows that an information‐based intervention increases reported retirement plan participation, emergency savings, and using a budget. Employees offered access to education increased actual retirement deferrals by $26 per month. These results suggest that retirement education programs may be an effective strategy to increase retirement planning and saving behavior. (JEL J26, D14, D91)     

PERCEIVED IMPACT OF DEFAMATION: AN EXPERIMENT ON THIRD-PERSON EFFECTS

This paper explores the intersection of libel law and communicationtheory that occurs when libel juries assess the effect of adefamatory communication on others. The third-person hypothesissuggests that people often assume others will be more affectedby potentially persuasive communications than they are themselves.An experiment was conducted in which students were exposed toa variety of defamatory newspaper articles. The results confirmedseveral predictions. First, readers estimated that others wouldbe more affected by defamatory messages than the readers themselveswould be. Second, this effect was magnified as the "others"became progressively more distant from these readers. Third,when the defamation was attributed to a negatively biased sourcethe effect was also accentuated: readers themselves discountedthe message, while assuming others would be even more influenced.It is suggested that courtroom assessments of the effects ofdefamatory communications on others may be influenced by suchthird-person perceptions.     

WAR OF ATTRITION: EVIDENCE FROM A LABORATORY EXPERIMENT ON MARKET EXIT

We report an experiment designed to study whether inefficient firms are systematically driven from overcrowded markets. Our data set includes a series of 3,800 wars of attrition of a type modeled by Fudenberg and Tirole in 1986. We find that exit tends to be efficient and exit times conform surprisingly well to point predictions of the model. Moreover, subjects respond similarly to implementations framed in terms of losses as they do to those framed in terms of gains. (JEL D21, L11, C92)     

THE IMPACT OF LABOR CONTRACTS: EVIDENCE FROM BRAZIL

The conventional Keynesian model suggests that frictions created by nominal wage contracts generate a positive relationship between inflation and output. On the other hand, the New Classical/Real Business Cycle theory claims that firms and workers base their employment behavior, and hence output, on the marginal product of labor ignoring the efficiencies of fixed nominal wage contracts. Using Brazilian data, where nominal wages were indexed by law, tests show that fixed nominal wage contracts insignificantly affected output. Thus, the data support the view that fixed nominal wages play an insignificant role in determining the evolution of output. ( JEL E31)     

THE IMPACT OF PERCEIVED BACKGROUND RISK ON BEHAVIORAL HEALTH: EVIDENCE FROM HURRICANE KATRINA

I explore the hypothesis that Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 raised perceived background risks, which had spillover effects on behavioral health outcomes of mental health and substance use. I estimate the effect that Katrina had in the nondamaged storm surge region, in time intervals leading up to and after the hurricane, compared to areas impervious to hurricanes. I find causal evidence that Katrina increased poor mental health days by 18.8% for the first month after Katrina, and increased smoking among lifetime smokers until 2007. Effects were larger in counties with disproportionate risk to storm surge and for low‐educated individuals. (JEL D81, I12, Q54)     

EFFECTS OF CARBON REDUCTION LABELS: EVIDENCE FROM SCANNER DATA

We investigate the effects of carbon reduction labels using a detailed scanner data set. Using a difference‐in‐differences estimation strategy, we find that having a carbon label has no impact on detergent prices or demand. We also investigate possible heterogeneous effects of carbon labels using the synthetic control method. We find no evidence to indicate that the prices for the counterfactual detergents without the label would have been any different from the prices of the carbon‐labeled detergents. We investigate the reasons for these results and conclude that the specific design of the carbon label is responsible for its lack of success. (JEL D12, D83, L15, Q54)     

LIMITS OF THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL INFORMATION ON THE VOLUNTARY PROVISION OF PUBLIC GOODS: EVIDENCE FROM FIELD EXPERIMENTS

Previous work has demonstrated the effect of social information in the voluntary provision of public goods in the field. In this article, we demonstrate the boundary conditions of the effect. We show that when social information is too extreme, it ceases to influence individual contributions. The results highlight a natural limitation of the social information effect, and provide a characterization of the most effective levels for an organization to use. (JEL M31, H41, D64)     

THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL RACIAL COMPOSITIONS ON NEIGHBORHOOD RACIAL COMPOSITIONS: EVIDENCE FROM SCHOOL REDISTRICTING

I use data surrounding public school redistricting to study how school racial compositions affect neighborhood racial compositions. This redistricting followed from the end of court‐ordered busing for racial desegregation, significantly changing the racial composition of the assigned school for many neighborhoods. Over a 5‐year period, the impact of an increase in the percent black of the assigned elementary school on the percent black of the neighborhood was positive. The effects increased over time, consistent with a simple model of short‐run neighborhood racial dynamics. These results have implications for potential effects of school racial desegregation policy changes on neighborhood racial compositions. (JEL H75, I28, R23)     

THE EFFECT OF INCENTIVE‐INDUCED RETIREMENT ON SPOUSAL RETIREMENT RATES: EVIDENCE FROM A NATURAL EXPERIMENT

We identify, quantify, and explain the impact of incentive‐induced early retirement (ER) of husbands on their wives' probability to retire within 1 year, using administrative data from the Netherlands. Our identification strategy is based on a policy intervention by which targeted individuals working at the central government level became unexpectedly and temporarily eligible for very generous ER benefits. This retirement window of opportunity implied for interested workers that transitions from the current job into full retirement had to be effected swiftly and irreversibly. We find that induced ER of husbands increased their wives' probability to retire by 10 percentage points. This is a strong and robust local average treatment effect. Partly, the effect runs through wives at ages when they may have been eligible for ER programs themselves. (JEL C26, J26, J120, J140)     

THE IMPACT OF SKILL ON UNION MEMBERSHIP:

A worker's occupation and industry position in the economy primarily determine gender differences in union membership. However, the data reveal that these economic structural factors are not alone responsible. A specific strategy for rethinking the problem examines bargaining power; skill has been identified as a central factor in worker power. Feminists maintain that gender mediates manual skill's effect on union membership. Logistic regression techniques that test for gender interaction effects support the feminist perspective. Manual skill produces lower rates of union membership for women than men with comparable skills.     

INFORMING RETIREMENT SAVINGS DECISIONS: A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON SUPPLEMENTAL PLANS

Although supplemental saving plans can be an important part of an individual's financial security in retirement, contribution rates remain low, particularly among those with lower salaries and less education. We report findings from an intervention that provided information on key aspects of the employer‐provided supplemental saving plans to older public employees in North Carolina. Among workers participating in a supplemental plan, individuals who received an informational flyer increased their contributions in the months following the intervention relative to the control group. In contrast, individuals who were not enrolled in a retirement saving plan were not moved to begin contributing to a supplemental plan. The results suggest that informational interventions can induce workers who are already engaged in the saving process to reassess their level of retirement preparedness. (JEL C93, D14, D9)     

THE IMPACT OF OWI ON BROADCASTING

A MARKED difference between the public opinion situation facinginformation specialists in this war and that in 1917 is thefact that during the last twenty-five years radio has come ofage. Never before have governments had available for use suchan important instrument of propaganda. Has the OWI taken fulladvantage of its potentialities? Mr. Landry was asked to appraiseAmerica's use of this weapon since Pearl Harbor. For ten years the author has been observing American radio fromthe platform of the radio editorship of Variety. He has listenedto and analyzed thousands of radio broadcasts. At present heis director of program writing for CBS and also a member ofthe Writers War Board.     

A DESIGN OF NORMATIVE SOCIOLOGY BASED ON THE RATIONAL CHOICE PARADIGM

Abstract  In this paper, I metatheoretically examine a design of normative sociology. Normative sociology is the normative-scientific study in sociology. The substance of normative science is the conceptual examination of values or value judgments. According to Coleman (1974) and Faran, (1989) et al., sociologists should contribute to normative science by using ideas from general sociological theory. There is a useful traditional enterprise for this aim in sociology; that is the study of the problem of order, particularly the study of it based on the rational choice paradigm. Seiyama (1992) points to the limits of the rational choice paradigm. I propose three aims of social theory, and claim that the study of the problem of order based on this paradigm is useful when our purpose is normative model-building. I call the problem of order as a subject of the study for this purpose the value-theoretical problem of order. This examination can clear up some of the theoretical confusion surrounding the problem of order and show the methodological basis of normative sociology based on the rational choice paradigm.