Ambivalence and Control: State Action Against the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

Models that purport to explain the interplay between dissidents and the state generally assert, either explicitly or implicitly, that the path from state interests to action to outcomes is a linear one. Using the case of the United Klans of America (UKA) in North Carolina, I argue that state efforts to exert social control upon a perceived threat are shaped by a range of internal and external contingencies. In particular, I undertake a comparative analysis of two state agencies to demonstrate how a particular mechanism—ambivalence, here conceptualized as the relational consequence of a mismatch between organizational culture and organizational goals—leads to distinct, and sometimes heterogeneous, actions and outcomes not directly traceable to organizational mandates. Findings lend insight into how endogenous organizational processes shape contentious political outcomes in potentially divergent ways.     

Neighborhood context and racial differences in early adolescent sexual activity

Evidence suggests that African American youths initiate sexual activity at earlier ages than do European American or Latino youths. Using data from a multilevel study in Chicago, we developed and tested a neighborhood-based model of the timing of first adolescent intercourse that emphasizes the impact of neighborhood structural disadvantage and collective efficacy on early sexual activity (at ages 11 to 16). In turn, we explored the extent to which neighborhood factors account for racial differences in the timing of first intercourse. The findings indicate that demographic background, family processes, peer influences, and developmental risk factors account for about 30% of the baseline increased likelihood of early sexual onset for African American youths compared with European American youths. However, a significant residual racial difference remained even after we considered a host of micro-level factors. Neighborhood-level concentrated poverty largely explained this residual racial difference. Collective efficacy also independently contributed to the delay of sexual onset. No significant baseline difference in age of sexual initiation was found between Latino and European American youths.     

Effect of family structure on life satisfaction: australian evidence

How do family arrangements affect subjective well-being? We investigate this issue using data pooled from the IsssA and HILDA, both large, representative national samples of Australia (pooled n=38 447). Our regression analysis of cross-sectional and panel data examines how large are the differences in life satisfaction according to marital status and cohabitation. We find that women and men in formal marriages experience higher levels of life satisfaction than do people in other family arrangements. Moreover, both multiple tests in the cross-section, and tests controlling for prior happiness in the panel analysis, suggest that this is a causal relationship. Aggregating up the levels of life satisfaction generated by different marriage and cohabitation arrangements across a lifetime, suggests that a life-long marriage is the most satisfying. Early divorce followed by an enduring second marriage is little worse (because little time is spent outside the married state). But divorce without remarriage, or long lasting cohabitation without formal marriage, reduce the lifetime sum of subjective well-being by 4–12% for both women and men.     

Inequality and welfare evaluation of heterogeneous income distributions

This paper establishes the principles that should govern the welfare and inequality analysis of heterogeneous income distributions. Two basic criteria – the equity preference condition and the compensation principle – are shown to be fundamentally incompatible. The paper favours the latter, thereby vindicating the traditional method of dealing with heterogeneous samples. However, inequality and welfare comparisons will usually be well defined only if equivalent incomes are obtained using constant scale factors; and researchers will need to distinguish clearly between inequality of nominal incomes and inequality of living standards. Furthermore, household observations must always be weighted according to family size.     

An efficient polynomial space and polynomial delay algorithm for enumeration of maximal motifs in a sequence

In this paper, we consider the problem of enumerating all maximal motifs in an input string for the class of repeated motifs with wild cards. A maximal motif is such a representative motif that is not properly contained in any larger motifs with the same location lists. Although the enumeration problem for maximal motifs with wild cards has been studied in Parida et al. (2001), Pisanti et al. (2003) and Pelfrêne et al. (2003), its output-polynomial time computability has been still open. The main result of this paper is a polynomial space polynomial delay algorithm for the maximal motif enumeration problem for the repeated motifs with wild cards. This algorithm enumerates all maximal motifs in an input string of length n in O(n ³) time per motif with O(n) space, in particular O(n ³) delay. The key of the algorithm is depth-first search on a tree-shaped search route over all maximal motifs based on a technique called prefix-preserving closure extension. We also show an exponential lower bound and a succinctness result on the number of maximal motifs, which indicate the limit of a straightforward approach. The results of the computational experiments show that our algorithm can be applicable to huge string data such as genome data in practice, and does not take large additional computational cost compared to usual frequent motif mining algorithms. This work is done during the Hiroki Arimura’s visit in LIRIS, University Claude-Bernard Lyon 1, France.     

The heterogeneous impact of pension income on elderly living arrangements: evidence from China’s new rural pension scheme

This paper investigates the impact of pension income on living arrangements of the elderly. Taking advantage of a unique opportunity due to the recent establishment and expansion of the New Rural Pension Scheme in China, we explicitly address the endogeneity of pension status and pension income through a fixed-effect model with instrumental variable approach by exploiting exogenous time variation in the program implementation at county level. We find an overall positive effect of pension income on independent living as well as considerable heterogeneity. The positive income effects of the NRPS are concentrated among the elderly with adult children living nearby, of higher socio-economic status, and with better health at baseline; for other groups, the effects are insignificant. We also find that more generous programs exhibit larger effects. Our results highlight that living arrangement is multidimensional in rural China.     

Does It Matter How We Assess Standard of Living? Evidence from Indian Slums Comparing Monetary and Multidimensional Approaches

As part of Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations have set targets of upgrading slums and reducing poverty in all its dimensions by 2030. Policies towards improving the living conditions of slum-dwellers require proper assessment of their standard of living as well as understanding the associated characteristics. In this paper, using slum-level primary household survey data from three largest Indian cities, we, first, assess the standard of living of slum dwellers using both monetary and non-monetary approaches and then explore how various household and spatial characteristics are consistently or differently associated with both forms of assessments. We use standard monetary indicators, but to assess non-monetary standard of living, use a counting approach framework and justify the selection of specific indicators in the context of slums. Our analysis yields some interesting observations as some characteristics are differently associated with monetary and non-monetary living standards, which should affect policy designs in slums.