EMPIRICAL ADVANCES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY

Editor's Note: I wish to thank Coeditor Mark Zupan, who took responsibility for organizing and implementing both the special symposium on public choice and the processing of papers through the refereeing and editorial process for this special section. On behalf of all the editors, I also would like to express thanks to Carolyn Williams, editorial coordinator, for taking on yet another responsibility in arranging the conference symposium meetings and the management of the files. The symposium on public choice was held at Lake Tahoe during the 1993 WE A meetings. The many efforts of authors, referees, editors and staff have resulted in an exciting complement to this year's Economic Inquiry offerings.     

Unionism and voter turnout

Conventional wisdom suggests that union members and their families are more politically active, and more likely to vote, than nonmembers. This study presents, to our knowledge, the first systematic empirical examination of that conventional wisdom. Results suggest that union members are more likely than nonmembers to vote in a general election, and that union campaign efforts increase voter turnout generally. There is no evidence, however, that union family members are more likely to vote than nonmembers, or that union status affects an individual’s likelihood of voting in a primary election. The authors wish to thank Robert Perloff, Donna Sockell, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This study was partially supported by a Columbia University Graduate School of Business Faculty Research Fellowship and a Faculty Research Grant from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Business.     

Rights as alternative game forms

The paper analyzes the problem of modeling rights using extensive game forms with perfect information. Three dimensions of rights – protocol, autonomy and power – are identified and it is shown, that under a certain condition, the effectivity function captures completely all rights relevant aspects of a game form. The condition under which this is possible is interpretable both as a particular formulation of individual liberty and as a rejection of consequentialism. I wish to express my debt to Professor A.K. Sen and P.K. Pattanaik for several helpful discussions on rights as game forms. I also wish to thank professors N. Balke, M. Dasgupta, M. Davis, J. Hadar, A. Sengupta, and W.M. Thomson for their comments.     

Congressional support for unions’ positions across diverse legislation

Organized labor has become increasingly active in national politics. This development has encouraged research into union political activities, particularly in the area of legislative politics. But little research has been published on the basis of congressional support for union positions on diverse public policy items. This paper has examined the correlates of congressional support for unions’ positions across 33 roll-call votes taken in the first session of the 98th Congress. Empirical analyses suggest that certain factors, such as legislators’ party affiliation and constituents’ ideology, are consistent correlates of such support across diverse legislation. The authors wish to thank John Delaney and Jack Fiorito for their generous comments on a previous version of the paper. They also wish to thank the union lobbyists who granted interviews. A Faculty Research Grant from the Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, provided partial support.     

An alternative characterization of the uniform rule

We consider the problem of allocating some amount of a commodity among a group of agents with single-peaked preferences. We show that the uniform rule is the only rule satisfying equal treatment of equals, Pareto efficiency, and strategy-proofness. This characterization strengthens two interesting results due to Sprumont (1991). Our method of proof involves only elementary arguments.I wish to thank Professor William Thomson for his enormous efforts in supervision. I am grateful to Professor Marcus Berliant and Hideo Konishi for their useful remarks and especially to an anonymous referee for insightful comments. All remaining errors are my own responsibility.     

Approaching adulthood: the maturing of institutional theory

I summarize seven general trends in the institutional analysis of organizations which I view as constructive and provide evidence of progress in the development of this perspective. I emphasize corrections in early theoretical limitations as well as improvements in the use of empirical indicators and an expansion of the types of organizations included and issues addressed by institutional theorists.

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Profiles of union organizers from manufacturing and service unions

This study uses data on 229 organizers from eight unions to assess differences in characteristics of organizers employed by manufacturing and service unions. The results suggest that a new breed of organizer is entering the labor movement through service unions-organizers who are younger, more highly educated, more socially mobile, and have less experience in the union movement than organizers from manufacturing unions. This article is based on data collected for a dissertation written at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. I gratefully acknowledge the support of committee members David Lewin, James Kuhn, Casey Ichniowski, and Seymour Spilerman of Columbia and Charles A. O’Reilly III of the University of California at Berkeley. I thank John Delaney for his many helpful insights and suggestions during the course of my research and Shannon Ratcliff and Rick Fuentes for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This research was financially supported by the Industrial Relations Research Center and the Management Institute at Columbia University and the Department of Management at Texas A&M University.     

INQUIRY

The following interview with Gary Orfield was conducted in May 2004. Gary Orfield is a professor of education and social policy at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He is the director of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation, and co‐director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project. Professor Orfield is the author of numerous books and publications, and has been consistently involved in government and court proceedings dealing with issues related to his research. He has been called to testify in civil rights suits by the US Department of Justice and many civil rights, legal services, and educational organizations. In 1997, Professor Orfield was awarded the American Political Science Association's Charles Merriam Award for his “contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research.”     

Is the U.S. unique in the decline of private sector unionism?

The U.S. is not unique in the decline of private sector unionism. Contrary to assertions of the “unique school,” unionism in the private sectors of Canada and Western Europe has also declined and for the same reason, structural changes in the labor market. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” Sherlock Holmes. I acknowledge in particular the critique of my colleague, Neil Sheflin. I thank, too, for their useful comments, Larry Adams of the U.S. Department of Labor, Noah Meltz, of the University of Toronto, Alexander Troy, and my colleagues Jack Cullity, Stanley Kaish, and Peter Loeb. I appreciate the research support received from the Research Council, the International Program, and the Dean of the Graduate School — Newark of Rutgers University.     

The commodification of leisure: The case of the model airplane hobby and industry

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of capitalist production on a leisure activity. It demonstrates that as commodities produced for exchange become the predominant objects used in a leisure activity, the leisure activity itself is reshaped. A case study of the model airplane hobby and industry illuminates this process. The history of the hobby is one of gradual control loss by hobbyists and control gain by capital.I would like to thank Drs. Dale Dannefer and Michael Yarrow, and the editors and reviewers ofQualitative Sociology for their comments on earlier versions of this paper; and Dr. Ava Baron, who was most helpful in this research from beginning to end. I would also like to thank the following for their cooperation in this research: Maurice and Dave Gherman, Robert Reder, William Winter, Walter Caddel, Walter Armatys, Douglas Pratt, John Dewey, John Worth, Richard Kidd, Edward Packard, the numerous other people in the industry who responded to my inquiries and survey; The New York Public Library, The Free Library of Philadelphia, and Hobby Publications, Inc.     

Labor Supply of Retiring Couples and Heterogeneity in Household Decision-Making Structure

This paper analyzes the labor market participation behavior of retiring couples in Norway. To account for the unobserved heterogeneity in decision-making structure within the household, I formulate a mixed model by assuming there are two types of households, the cooperative type and the non-cooperative type. I assume that non-cooperative households behave according to a Stackelberg game with the male as the leader, while cooperative households engage in a cooperative bargaining process. The estimation results show that more than half of the households are of the non-cooperative type.*Part of this paper was written while I was working at Department of Economics, University of Oslo and the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research. I would like to thank Eivind Bernhardsen, John K. Dagsvik, Erik Hernæs and Steinar Strøm for their insightful comments. I am grateful to two anonymous referees and the editor, Professor Shoshana Grossbard, for providing valuable comments that greatly improve this paper. Financial support from the Research Council of Norway (project 140082/530) is gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Nonverbal decoding skill and attention to nonverbal cues: A research note

A measure of differential preference for attending to three channels of nonverbal communication was developed, with which scores for differential attention to face, body, and voice tone were generated for 17 college subjects. These scores were correlated with subjects' nonverbal decoding accuracy in the same three channels as measured by a standard test of decoding nonverbal cues. Significant positive relationships between channel preference and accuracy were found for the two video channels; no relationship was found for the audio channel.This research was conducted while both authors held National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships at Harvard University. They wish to thank Robert Rosenthal for advice, Peter L. Rogers for technical assistance and Myron Wish for valuable criticisms of an earlier draft.     

The “other woman”

Based on interviews with 26 single women who have had long-term intimate relationships with married men, a power continuum of management styles is derived. At one end are women who are hyper-submissive; at the other end, women who are hyper-dominant. Reasons for ending the relationship and the role of the other woman in that decision are discussed. The kind of ending is classified into three types: the shock-out, the drag-out, and the peter-out. Author's Note: I wish to thank the women I interviewed. Without their words, there could be no study. To protect the identity of these women I have altered names, places, and occupations in this article.     

Editorial comment

The special issue of theJournal of Gambling Behavior, dedicated to a discussion of compulsive gambling and the law, represents a first effort in addressing some of the many complicated issues on this topic. Articles by experts on compulsive gambling—written by legal authorities, a treatment provider, and victims of the disorder—are included to present the broadest possible forum to analyze the turmoil the idea of compulsive gambling is having on the American legal system. Included are an historical account of how changing laws affect compulsive gamblers, problems facing the expert witness, effects of civil service policies and military law, comparisons of U.S. and English legalization debates, lottery issues, concerns of a lawyer representing casinos, and personal accounts by those who are suffering from this disorder.I. Nelson Rose is an Associate Professor of Law at Whittier College School of Law as well as a licensed attorney. Professor Rose is recognized as the nation's leading authority on gambling and the law.Dr. Valerie C. Lorenz has specialized in research, education and treatment of compulsive gamblers since 1973. She has extensive experience in military, state and federal courts, having served as a qualified expert witness on compulsive gambling.     

Parenthood or nonparenthood: A comparison of intentional families

A sample of the intentionally childless was compared with a sample of parents who exerted an equal amount of control over their family size by planning the number, timing, and spacing of their children. While both the childless and the parents expressed high levels of marital and life satisfaction, the intentionally childless were significantly more satisfied with their marital relationships. The childless were less conforming, had higher self-esteem, and were equally as empathic as the parents. The childless and the parents were markedly similar with regard to background factors and in their perceptions of their childhood and of their parents' relationship.The authors wish to thank Linda Gorin Sibner for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.Bonnie Burman received a B.A. and a M.S.W. from UCLA. She is currently a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Southern California. Diane de Anda is associate professor, School of Social Welfare, UCLA. Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. de Anda, UCLA, School of Social Welfare, 405 N. Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA. 90024.     

Contemporary Social Work Practice with Veterans: An Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue is a historical marker for contemporary social work practice with veteran populations. The editors requested papers from private, public, and academic settings that illustrate the special needs of veterans. The articles in this issue address the impact of military culture and the veteran identity, diversity, eras of service, access to care, and different stages psycho-social development on clinical practice. This introduction places the articles submitted in the context of historical and current trends in veterans’ research concluding with a call to recognize resilience inherent in this population. It is hoped that this issue will serve as a tool for clinicians, researchers, and educators to improve upon their work as well as bring a new generation to serve and support those who served.     

Nonverbal cues employed in discriminating between disabled persons and actors

Undergraduate subjects were seen to accurately discriminate between simulating actors and genuinely disabled males confined to wheelchairs. Judgments were based on skill in manipulating the wheelchair, poorer muscular development of the disabled, and on appearance of clothing. Implications for research on the disabled employing actors was discussed.This study was supported by a grant from the York University Faculty of Arts awarded to the first two authors. The project was performed as the third author's Honours thesis. The authors wish to thank all participants for their cooperation and assistance in making this research possible. The authors also wish to thank Gail Kenyon, Coordinator of the Centre for Handicapped Students who helped recruit participants for the videotaping and to Lucie Cantrell, Executive Officer of the York University Counselling and Development Centre who arranged for the use of the Centre's facilities and equipment.     

Re-Framing and de-Pathologizing Behavior in Therapy for Children Diagnosed with Psychosocial Disorders

The increasing number of children diagnosed with psychosocial disorders reflects a trend toward pathologizing behavior that is unusual, challenging or extreme. Although these behaviors may match items on the symptom lists for various disorders, a therapist must first consider the origin and context of those behaviors for an individual child through a non-pathological lens. This paper proposes a framework for understanding the behavior of difficult children based on core issues rather than diagnostic symptoms: arousal/excitability, range of focus, perfectionism, intensity, interpersonal sensitivity, sensory sensitivity, cognitive/perceptual style, perception of time, reaction style, and affiliation/integrity. Each trait is examined from two perspectives: how it can lead to or be interpreted as a problem, and how a therapist can re-frame the trait and build on it to identify effective interventions. This approach affirms children’s strengths and upholds social work values.Barbara Probst, Adjunct Professor is affiliated with Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University, NY, USA.Address correspondence to Barbara Probst, MSW, LCSW, Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University, Neperan Road, Tarrytown, NY 10591, USA; e-mail: barbprobst@aol.com