The impact of youth characteristics and experiences on transitions out of poverty

Although the causes of intergenerational transitions from poverty have attracted the attention of economists and sociologists in recent years, there have been few attempts to integrate ideas from both disciplines. Using a sample of young adults who were impoverished as youth, this study explores the effects of a number of background characteristics such as early welfare dependency, substance abuse, teen parenthood and parent's educational attainment on the family income levels of young adults. It finds that many of these background variables have significant indirect influences on family income through intervening variables, especially the respondent's own educational attainment, welfare dependency, and work experiences.     

Red light,green light: Color priming in financial decisions

Colors are widely present in the financial decision making arena: at firms’ and data providers’ websites; television reports; newspaper publications; advertizements; security market displays, with colors such as red and green prominently employed. Our experimental analysis involves a between subject design exposing subjects to financial substance on colored backgrounds and exploring the effect on their investment decisions. We focus on financial decisions under uncertainty about probability, examining subjects’ investment valuations and the probabilities they assign to the possible outcomes.This study explores the role of color exposure as a priming factor in financial decision making. Priming is a process of activating particular connections or associations in memory prior to carrying out an action or task. The associations occur when a certain stimulus or event increases the availability of specific information categories and, as a result, affect decision making.The results indicate that red color priming emphasizes value losses of the underlying asset. To wit, subjects who were exposed to red (R) assigned higher valuations and probabilities to events involving the loss domain, than to events involving the gain domain, relatively to the valuations assigned by subjects who were exposed to green (G). The aggregated evaluation given by the R subjects when the investment payback was subject to negative (positive) underlying asset returns was higher (lower) than that of the G subjects by roughly 15% (19%) of the invested amount.     

LINKING WEALTH AND PUNISHMENT EFFECTIVENESS: PUNISHMENT AND COOPERATION UNDER CONGRUENT HETEROGENEITIES

Global and local cooperation in supplying global public goods is often insufficient. In this respect, laboratory experiments show that peer punishment is an effective cooperation-enhancing instrument. However, it is unclear whether peer punishment would facilitate cooperation and public good provision even under congruent heterogeneities in wealth and punishment effectiveness. To this end, we experimentally study the effect of peer punishment under joint heterogeneities, where either the richest or the poorest member is also the most effective punisher. We compare these joint heterogeneities to treatments with single heterogeneities in either endowment or punishment effectiveness and to a baseline symmetry treatment with homogeneous parties. We find that heterogeneity in punishment effectiveness does not matter for cooperation, whereas endowment heterogeneity reduces cooperation compared to symmetry. This is because rich members contribute a lower portion of their endowment to the public good than their poorer counterparts. We also observe that cooperation is higher under joint heterogeneities in endowment and punishment effectiveness than under endowment heterogeneity (with no differences than under symmetry). This holds even when the rich party gains less from cooperation and is the most effective punisher. (JEL C92, D74, H41)     

The Influence of Family and Community Social Capital on Educational Achievement*

Abstract It is increasingly recognized that families and communities are important in helping youths develop the knowledge and skills they need to obtain technologically sophisticated jobs, which are an emerging part of the global economy. In this paper we adopt social capital as a framework for examining the influence of family and community on promoting educational achievement among public school students. We explore more fully the role of community social capital in influencing educational performance beyond that attributed to family social capital. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS), we find that both process and structural attributes of family social capital are key factors affecting high school students' educational achievement. Process and structural attributes of community social capital also help youths to excel, though they contribute less strongly to achievement. These findings suggest that policies designed to promote educational achievement must extend beyond the school and must seek to strengthen social capital in the family and the community.     

The politics of immigration policy in Israel

"This article examines the policies adopted by the former Likud government--and largely continued by the present Labour-led coalition government which took office in the second half of 1992--to absorb the 400,000 new immigrants (most from the former Soviet Union) who arrived in Israel between 1989 and 1992. As part of that examination, we will critically review the major features of current absorption policies, such as the policy of 'direct absorption', the 'basket of absorption services' provided as a right to new immigrants, and immigration-related housing policies. In addition, we will explore the effects of employment policy on the new immigrant population." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Social workers' attitudes to the law: an Israeli perspective

Doron I, Karpel M, Or‐Chen K. Social workers' attitudes to the law: an Israeli perspective
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 95–103 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In recent years, there has been a general shift towards integration and cooperation between lawyers and social workers, both professionally and ideologically. The goal of this study was to explore the general attitudes of social workers toward the law. The hypothesis was that, due to the recent legal and professional changes in Israel, social workers would express positive attitudes towards the law. For the purpose of this study, a closed questionnaire containing 25 statements regarding the law and its relationship to social work was used. The research population consisted of 202 social workers from Haifa and the Northern region of Israel. The findings of this study support the hypothesis that there is indeed a tendency to closer ideological and professional proximity between social work and the law in Israel. However, especially regarding courts and the litigation process, their attitudes in response to the statements were relatively less favourable.     

The relation of personal resources, participation, influence, interpersonal relationships and coping strategies to occupational stress, job strains and health: A multivariate analysis

The relation of personal resources, participation, influence, interpersonal relationships and coping strategies to occupational stress, job strains and health: a multivariate analysis