Socioeconomic status, sexual behavior, and differential AIDS mortality: evidence from Côte d’Ivoire

Lack of knowledge about differential AIDS mortality seriously hampers the study of the economic impact of AIDS in developing countries. We derive HIV infection risk differentials by age, education, and other microeconomic characteristics using the Ivorian Demographic and Health Survey. Our model is based on econometrically estimated equations using commonly available variables, therefore it can be used whenever such a survey is available but there is no representative information about HIV infection by socioeconomic group. For instance, we found that educated people have a higher risk of HIV infection, because they are more likely to have several sexual partners. However, this effect is partly offset by a higher probability of condom use relative to less educated people. The identification of the socioeconomic characteristics of low and high risk groups seems indispensable to set up adequate AIDS prevention and therapy policies in developing countries.

Unpacking the effects of repression: the evolution of Islamist repertoires of contention in Egypt after the fall of President Morsi

The military coup against president Morsi in July 2013 sparked the largest wave of Islamist mobilization in Egypt’s modern history. As the ousted president’s supporters took to the street in what became known as the ‘anti-coup’ movement, they were met with fierce repression. This article retraces the contentious dynamics in the summer of 2013 in a nested research design and with a focus on contentious repertoires. Drawing on data for over 2400 protest events and debunking the myth of a swift defeat of the anti-coup protests, we show how repression, besides affecting protest levels, markedly changed the quality of contention. Most notably, three transformative events involving massive repressive violence impacted on protest spaces, tactics and timing: rather than binary notions of escalation vs. demobilization, adaptive mechanisms of decentralization, diversification and substitution dominated the anti-coup movement’s reaction to repression. Centralized mass protests evolved into smaller, more flexible, and highly decentralized forms that were better fit to skirt the regime’s repression efforts. Our findings have important implications for the theorization of the protest–repression-nexus. They prompt scholars to conceive of repression and backlash as multi-layered phenomena and study their effects in a disaggregate framework.     

Identifying Mother–child Interaction Styles Using a Person‐centered Approach

Parent–child conflict in the context of a supportive relationship has been discussed as a potentially constructive interaction pattern; the current study is the first to test this using a holistic analytic approach. Interaction styles, defined as mother–child conflict in the context of maternal sensitivity, were identified and described with demographic and stress‐related characteristics of families. Longitudinal associations were tested between interaction styles and children's later social competence. Participants included 814 partnered mothers with a first‐grade child. Latent profile analysis identified agreeable, dynamic, and disconnected interaction styles. Mothers' intimacy with a partner, depressive symptoms, and authoritarian childrearing beliefs, along with children's later conflict with a best friend and externalizing problems, were associated with group membership. Notably, the dynamic style, characterized by high sensitivity and high conflict, included families who experienced psychological and relational stressors. Findings are discussed with regard to how family stressors shape parent–child interaction patterns.     

Decomposition of urban atmospheric carbon in Sonoran Desert soils

Urban atmospheres can have high concentrations of particulate organic carbon (oC) but the rate and fate oC deposition in near-urban ecosystems are rarely quantified. We collected atmospheric particulate matter in Phoenix, AZ and applied these samples to Sonoran Desert soils in a series of laboratory incubation experiments. The addition of fine particulate matter (<2.5 μm aerodynamic diameter) increased microbial respiration in soils collected from the interspaces between desert shrubs. The increase in soil respiration was equivalent to 25% to 30% of the added oC. In contrast, we did not detect increases in respiration when coarse particulate matter (>2.5 μm aerodynamic diameter) was added to interspace soils, suggesting that coarse particulate oC is recalcitrant to microbial decomposition. Due to comparatively higher background levels of C mineralization, we rarely detected changes in microbial respiration when fine or coarse particulate oC was added to soils collected beneath shrub canopies. We measured total atmospheric C concentrations within and surrounding Phoenix and, using inferential methods, estimated rates of deposition that ranged from 0.02 to 0.58 mg C m⁻² d⁻¹ for fine particles and from 0 to 6.15 mg C m⁻² d⁻¹ for coarse particles. Results show that fine atmospheric particulate matter deposited at low rates downwind of Phoenix is a labile oC substrate for soil heterotrophs. In contrast, oC deposited at higher rates as coarse particulate matter may accumulate in soils due to slow microbial decomposition rates.     

Removing the anonymity axiom in assessing pro-poor growth

The recent focus on ‘pro-poor growth’ led also to an intense debate on how exactly to define and to measure pro-poor growth. All suggested measures have in common that they are based on the anonymity axiom. Such a perspective may provide a very incomplete picture given that the common objective of most studies investigating the pro-poorness of growth is to test whether specific policy reforms where beneficial to the initially poor or not. I suggest a new concept of pro-poor growth which removes the anonymity axiom, and, using an illustration based on data from Indonesia and Peru, I check whether the assessment of pro-poor growth is different when an anonymous and a non anonymous approach to pro-poor growth is used. I also suggest an original decomposition of poverty changes over time which links both concepts. The results show that the choice of the approach has a drastic impact on the interpretation of the data.     

The Impact of Contract Manufacturing on Inventory Performance: An Examination of U.S. Manufacturing Industries

In recent years, a growing number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have transferred their manufacturing processes to specialized firms, known as contract manufacturers. In so doing, contract manufacturers can reduce an OEM's production costs and provide OEMs with flexibility in the production process. We examine another potential reason for the use of contract manufacturing—the potential for efficiency gains from inventory reductions. Employing econometric models and data representing manufacturing industries in the USA, we provide statistical evidence that contract manufacturing can lead to lower industry‐wide inventory levels, after controlling for other relevant factors. Key managerial implications are derived from the analysis.