I'm Telling! The Content, Context, and Consequences of Children's Tattling on their Siblings

Tattling on siblings was observed in 40 families with 2- and 4-year-old children. All but 5 children reported sibling misbehaviour to parents with younger siblings tattling largely to recruit parental help in resolving conflict issues, and older siblings tattling both in the context of conflict and merely to inform parents of their siblings' misbehaviour. Parents rarely reprimanded children for tattling, but either ignored it, or responded to information in tattlers' reports regardless of context or whether older or younger children tattled. Children did not tattle equally on all sibling transgressions, but emphasized physical aggression and property damage, issues that also elicited parental discipline. Tattling is discussed in relation to children's understanding of the dynamics and moral standards of family life.     

Exploring structure-effectiveness relationships in nonprofit arts organizations

The authors examined nineteen nonprofit performing arts organizations, investigating the distribution of influence among organizational members, the grouping of volunteers and staff in organizational structures, and the effectiveness of the organizations. The organizations' effectiveness was assessed using multiple performance indicators. The analysis revealed five groupings or configurations of influence, which correlated to the organizations exhibiting the highest and lowest levels of organizational effectiveness. The authors conclude that a variety of structures are associated with good performance but structural dysfunctions are associated with organizational failure, and that members' commitment to an organization's structure is an important element of success.     

On the derivation of a full life table from mortality data recorded in five-year age groups

Mortality data are often gathered using 5-year age groups rather than individual years of life. Furthermore, it is common practice to use a large open-ended interval (such as 85 and over) for mortality data at the older ages. These limitations of the data pose problems for the actuary or demographer who wishes to compile a full and accurate life table using individual years of life. The author devises formulae which handle these problems. He also devises methods for handling mortality during the 1st year of life and for dealing with other technical problems which arise in the compilation of the full life table from grouped data.     

Monitoring the education gap in Thailand: trends and differentials in lower and upper secondary schooling

"Using 1980 census and 1987 survey data on birth cohorts to examine recent primary and secondary school enrollment trends [in Thailand], this study reports that primary enrollment is nearly universal but secondary enrollment is much less prevalent. The study assesses several factors thought to influence enrollment and finds that urban residence, parents' completion of primary school, the mother's positive attitude toward education, and the family's being comfortable economically to be associated with children's enrollment in secondary school. It also indicates that, for moderately well-off families, proximity to schools has a major influence on secondary school attendance. For the wealthiest families, however, distance is not a hindrance to attendance, and for the poorest families, having a school nearby is not sufficient to ensure attendance."     

Organization and implementation of China's national sampling survey on fertility and birth control

The Planning and Statistical Department of the State Family Planning Commission of China in July 1988 implemented a fertility and birth control survey in China on 2.16 million married women ages 15-57 using stratified, systematic, clustered, and non-proportionate sampling. 3 questionnaires were used: household, married women, and sample unit covering basic status, family planning status, general characteristics of pregnancy and contraception, population flow, deaths since 1981, and socioeconomic status. The authors suggest several international cooperative research projects including: design of fertility and contraception survey; Chinese population growth; Chinese population dynamics; dynamics of marital and family status; fertility; contraception and birth control; mortality; migration; status of the nationalities of China; population development; regional fertility status; and others. Data from the survey will be available in June 1989.     

Africa's expanding population: old problems,new policies

Sub-Saharan Africa faces an historic challenge: to achieve economic and social progress while experiencing extraordinary population growth. With an estimated 1989 population of 512 million, the 42 countries of sub-Saharan Africa have the highest birth and death rates of any major world region. While death rates have fallen since the 1960s, persistently high birth rates yield annual growth rates above 3% in many countries. The United Nations projects that the region's population will increase 2.7 times by 2025--to 1.4 billion. Throughout the region, population has outstripped economic growth since the mid-1970s. In addition, many African countries are experiencing an epidemic of AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). The extent and demographic impact of the epidemic still are unknown, but disturbing social and political effects are already being felt. The region's population growth will slow only when African couples begin to have fewer children. The average number of children per woman ranges from 6 to 8 for most countries. The Africans' preference for large families is deeply rooted in the culture and fed by the perceived economic benefits they receive from their children. Economic stagnation during the 1980s prompted many national governments to recognize that rapid population growth was hindering their socioeconomic development. The political climate has shifted away from pronatalist or laissez-faire attitudes toward official policies to slow population growth. The policy formation process--detailed here for 4 countries (Zambia, Nigeria, Zaire, and Liberia)--is ponderous and beset with political and bureaucratic pitfalls, However, policy shifts in more and more countries combined with evidence of increased contraceptive use and fertility downturns in a few countries give some hope that the region's extraordinary population growth may have peaked and will start a descent. Whatever the case, the decade of the 1990s will be crucial for the future of sub-Saharan Africa.     

The impact of international migration on fertility: an econometric population model

The authors develop an econometric model to examine the impact of migration on fertility in Greece in the period 1968-1986. In the model, the fertility equation is considered within a simultaneous equation system, and international migration is included as an explanatory factor of both fertility and per capita income. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Individual irrationality and social welfare

Individual preferences inconsistent with personal welfare caused neither by ignorance nor by a positive consideration for the welfare of others are defined as (welfare) irrational. Sources of irrationality (rigid adherence to moral principles, excessive fear of danger, excessive tempetation of pleasure, revenge, inertia, faulty telescopic faculty, the fallacy of diminishing marginal utility of utility, etc.) are discussed. An evolutionary explanation of irrationality is suggested and some implications for individual decision and social policy indicated.I am grateful to two anonymous referees for comments.     

Policies over time and pareto optimality

This paper is concerned with sequences of policies that occur over time in voting models and planning procedures. The framework for our analysis includes assumptions that are satisfied by models in the corresponding literatures, together with other standard assumptions for microeconomic analysis that involve time. The starting point for our analyses is the prespective that results from combining the following (widely held) views: 1) certain voting models and planning procedures can be interpreted as being non-tatonnement or sequential processes (where each policy in the sequence that is generated is actually experienced by voters or consumers) and 2) an alternative being Pareto optimal in any given period (temporal Pareto optimality) is the appropriate efficiency criterion only if the alternative is the final outcome from a tatonnement process-and that, otherwise, one should examine the efficiency of the entire path (using intertemporal Pareto optimality). Our first observation about the planning literature is that is has (by and large) neglected the efficiency criterion that is appropriate for the discrete-time procedures that can be interpreted as non-tatonnement or sequential processes-and that, what's more, such trajectories will (in general) fail to meet this criterion. Our second observation identifies some results that can be used to establish that some of these trajectories will at least be ultimately intertemporally Pareto optimal. In our discussion of voting theory, we review Buchanan's opposition to requiring (social) choice consistency for voting procedures-and his argument for this position on (Pareto) efficiency grounds. We then consider voting procedures that can be interpreted as non-tatonnement or sequential processes and arrive at the conclusion that, in these cases, (i) majority rule cycles are intertemporally Pareto inefficient and (ii) achieving intertemporal Pareto optimality requires choice consistency. We then go on to show that related observations apply to Kramer's normative conclusions about his dynamical model of political equilibrium — and identify some further references where similar observations apply. In the final part of our discussion of voting models, we arrive at the further conclusion that, in the most relevant cases, a trajectory that stays in the temporal Pareto set is not necessarily more desirable (on efficiency grounds) than one that doesn't.This paper has been improved by helpful comments and suggestions that have been provided by Kenneth Arrow, an anonymous referee, and the editor who handled the paper.Peter Coughlin gratefully acknowledges financial support provided by (i) National Science Foundation Grant No. SES-8409352, and (ii) the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (with support from National Science Foundation Grant No. BNS-8700864 and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation).     

Social choice theory in the case of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities

Part I of this paper offers a novel result in social choice theory by extending Harsanyi's well-known utilitarian theorem into a multi-profile context. Harsanyi was contented with showing that if the individuals' utilities u _i are von Neumann-Morgenstern, and if the given utility u of the social planner is VNM as well, then the Pareto indifference rule implies that u is affine in terms of the u _i. We provide a related conclusion by considering u as functionally dependent on the u _i, through a suitably restricted social welfare functional (u ₁,...,u _n)u=f(u ₁,...,u _n). We claim that this result is more in accordance with contemporary social choice theory than Harsanyi's single-profile theorem is. Besides, harsanyi's initial proof of the latter was faulty. Part II of this paper offers an alternative argument which is intended to be both general and simple enough, contrary to the recent proofs published by Fishburn and others. It finally investigates the affine independence problem on the u _i discussed by Fishburn as a corollary to harsanyi's theorem.The authors are indebted to L. Haddad, A. Sen and two anonymous referees for useful written comments. They also benefited from stimulating remarks in seminars and helpful conversations with their colleagues. The usual caveat of course applies. One of the authors acknowledges partial financial support from the ARI Communication of the C.N.R.S., Paris.