BATTER UP! MORAL HAZARD AND THE EFFECTS OF THE DESIGNATED HITTER RULE ON HIT BATSMEN

American League batters have been hit by pitches 10% to 15% more frequently than National League batters since the designated hitter rule was introduced in 1973. This evidence is consistent with the idea that the American League s adoption of the designated hitter rule created a classic moral hazard problem. Because they are not required to appear at the plate, American League pitchers can throw at opposing hitters with greater impunity (i.e., at lower cost) than National League pitchers who must take their turns at bat and, hence, bear more of the costs of their own actions. (JEL D81, J28)     

Customer-based discrimination against major league baseball players: Additional evidence from All-star ballots

This paper extends the analysis of [Hanssen, A., Andersen, T., 1999. Has discrimination lessened over time? A test using baseball's All-star vote. Economic Inquiry 37, 326–352] using All-star votes from 1990 through 2000 to investigate customer-based discrimination in Major League Baseball (MLB). The previous findings of no evidence of customer-based racial discrimination against minority players are confirmed. However, the evidence suggests that after controlling for player and team characteristics, Blacks and Latinos were actually preferred by MLB All-star voters during the 1990s. Initial evidence suggests that over the sample period the bias for Blacks came from voters in the South and Midwest, the bias for Latinos came from voters in the Midwest and West, while there was residual bias for White players in the South.     

POSTMODERN THOUGHT IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION:

Perspectives in sociology are currently being reassessed in light of postmodernism, which has been associated with the abandonment of faith in the social self and scientific inquiry. As an emergent problematic, postmodernism stands in sharp contrast to a modernist pragmatic (and innocent) conception of symbolic interactionism — which is centered in the Meadian conception of prosocial selves. However, this article identifies some "late-modern" interactionists — Goffman, Stone, Becker, Lemert, and Mills— who, in providing a corrective for an innocent pragmatic inquiry into the self, created a foundation for contemporary inquiry into the social. This corrective entailed a reconceptualization of the self as the focal point of the situated act and, specifically, its changing definition from cooperative and reflective to strategic and imaginary. While we suggest that their work represented a loss of innocence in interactionism, it did not create a loss of faith in scientific inquiry into the self and social action. Rather, the work of the late modernists has inspired a reconstruction of scientific inquiry into the social that encompasses, but is not encompassed by, postmodernism.     

MULTIPRODUCT PRICING IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: A PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS

The empirical analysis of multiproduct pricing lacks clear theoretical guidance and appropriate data, which often render traditional regression‐based analyses impractical. Under these circumstances the factors underlying price variation can be inferred using a new methodology based on principal components. Analyzing ticket, parking, and concession pricing in Major League Baseball with this methodology demonstrates that general demand shifts are the primary factor, but explain only half of overall price variation. Also important are price interactions deriving from demand interrelationships between goods and attempts to maximize the capture of consumer surplus in the presence of heterogeneous demand. (JEL D40, L11, L13)     

论政治制度的要素结构

政治制度是功能繁多、覆盖面大、构造复杂的社会制度。它由政治理念、政治主体、政治规则、政治机构、政治设备五种要素构成,每一要素又是由若干要素构成的子系统。     

SYMBOLS, STORIES, AND PRACTICES: New Empirical Directions in the Study of Religious Meaning

Over the past three decades, there has been a growing interest in religion's special meaning-making function. At the same time, scholars have become increasingly sensitive to the fact that the meanings evoked by religious symbols, stories, and practices are not universally shared and that they vary by social context. To date, sociologists of religion interested in the problem of shared meaning have not employed methods that can bring together diverse religious meanings and social settings in the same research design. As a result, their work has produced few empirical generalizations upon which a long-term research agenda might be built. In other subdisciplines, such as cultural sociology, researchers have employed new quantitative methods that can empirically connect variations in cultural meanings to variations in social context. This article calls for importing these methodological advances into the sociological study of religious meaning.
There is an enormous irony in the fact that God is in his heaven in the social sciences—or at least a very important section of the social sciences [sociology]—even as he seems to be vanishing from the altars. Michael Harrington, The Politics at God's Funeral     

Conceptualizing Religion and Spirituality: Points of Commonality, Points of Departure

Psychologists' emerging interest in spirituality and religion as well as the relevance of each phenomenon to issues of psychological importance requires an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of each construct. On the basis of both historical considerations and a limited but growing empirical literature, we caution against viewing spirituality and religiousness as incompatible and suggest that the common tendency to polarize the terms simply as individual vs. institutional or 'good' vs. 'bad' is not fruitful for future research. Also cautioning against the use of restrictive, narrow definitions or overly broad definitions that can rob either construct of its distinctive characteristics, we propose a set of criteria that recognizes the constructs' conceptual similarities and dissimilarities. Rather than trying to force new and likely unsuccessful definitions, we offer these criteria as benchmarks for judging the value of existing definitions.     

The Role of Cohabitation in Asset and Debt Accumulation During Marriage

Research has found that married individuals who cohabited only once before marriage with their future spouse (i.e., “spousal cohabiters”) have a distinctive financial advantage: they accumulate more wealth over time than individuals who married without ever cohabiting (i.e., “directly married”). Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and growth curve models, the present study attempts to identify the source of spousal cohabiters’ wealth advantage. We find that marriage is associated with gains for financial and nonfinancial wealth, increasing home equity, and decreasing debt over time. Spousal cohabiters begin marriage with more debt than the directly married. Conditional on education, income, and other key factors, spousal cohabiters pay down their debt faster and generate greater home equity over time thereby accumulating more wealth than the directly married. This pattern of financial behavior among spousal cohabiters explains some, but not all, of their financial advantage over married persons who never cohabited prior to marrying. Given the increasing prevalence of cohabitation among young adults, these results offer important insights into the long-term economic outcomes associated with premarital cohabitation.     

Work Roles, Management and Perceived Well-being for Married Women within Family Businesses

The study uses the National Family Business Survey and is grounded in the systemic Sustainable Family Business Model. It investigated the relationship between management activity of married women within family businesses and perceived well-being controlling for work roles, family context, personal and financial resources. Statistical analyses indicated that successfully achieving the most important family goal was positively related to management activity. Low-income women performed more management than did those with other income levels. Successfully achieving family goals, having lower education, less competition between family and business resources, no family cash flow problems, and higher management activity contributed to positive perceived well-being. Well-being increased at a decreasing rate as income increased.This study reports results from the Cooperative Regional Research Project, NE-167R, ‘Family Businesses: Interaction in Work and Family Spheres,’ partially supported by the Cooperative States Research, Education and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Experiment Stations at University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Illinois, Purdue University (Indiana), Iowa State University, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Montana State University, University of Nebraska, Cornell University (New York), North Dakota State University, The Ohio State University, The Pennsylvania State University, Texas A & M University, Utah State University, The University of Vermont, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (for The University of Manitoba).