The impact of the term spread in US monetary policy from 1870 to 2013

In this paper, we apply a novel econometric approach joint with an exhaustive revision of the main events in the history of US monetary policy in order to check the effectiveness of monetary policy focused on interest rates. Unlike the traditional cointegration approach, this new methodology allows us to break with the rigidity of traditional approaches in favour of letting the series be cointegrated, and the spread is able to follow a long-memory process; i.e., it does not necessarily need to be I(0) and also rejects the assumption that interest rates could follow the dichotomy I(0)/I(1). To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first applications of the Fractionally Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive (FCVAR) model (Johansen and Nielsen (2012) and Nielsen and Popiel (2016)). Aiming to achieve this goal, we use two databases, i.e., the Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database and Shiller’s database. Our results cannot reject the Expectations Hypothesis of Term Structure in this time period, and more importantly, we also find that the long-term rate drives the long-run relationship, contributing to the total proportion to the common trend; the persistence of the spread shows us effective control power over interest rates by the Fed.     

El reconocimiento de la norma perversa y sus consecuencia en los juicios de las personas

Resumen

Tres grupos de estudiantes universitarios se enfrentaron a un caso escrito en el que debían juzgar algunos de sus personajes. Dichos casos escritos representaban una situación justa (Grupo Control 1), una situación injusta (Grupo Control 2) y una situación con los rasgos definidos por Fernández-Dols (1992) como «norma perversa»: una norma explícita e incumplible que un grupo asume o sufre por propia iniciativa o por iniciativa de otro grupo (Grupo Experimental). Los juicios de los sujetos fueron diferentes en cada condición y los juicios del Grupo Experimental se ajustan a algunas de las predicciones teóricas sobre cómo las personas perciben las situaciones de norma perversa y sus protagonistas.     

Procesos escabrosos en Psicología Social: el concepto de norma perversa

Resumen

Se analiza el peso relativo del nivel de violencia marital observada, y de la responsabilidad atribuida a los progenitors por sus conflictos, en la predicción de la violencia de pareja. De esta forma, se estudia el papel de la interpretación de la experiencia violenta en el proceso de transmisión. La investigación se llevó a cabo con sesenta parejas de universitarios. Los resultados confirman la importancia de la responsabilidad que se atribuye a los progenitores en la predicción de la transmisión de la violencia de pareja. Asimismo, sugieren que una interpretación de la violencia interparental más favorable al progenitor del mismo sexo sitúa a los hijos en una situación de mayor riesgo.     

Un modelo psicosociológico para el estudio de la salud mental

Resumen

Un número elevado de estudios ha demostrado que la mayoría de las personas recuerda con gran vividez las circunstancias en las que tuvieron noticia de sucesos sorprendentes y de gran trascendencia. Algunos autores han asumido que estos recuerdos, llamados «recuerdos-destello» (flashbulb memories), implican la existencia de un mecanismo neural especial. Otros, sin embargo, han cuestionado tal hipótesis y han argumentado que este tipo de recuerdos deben ser considerados como productos de los mecanismos ordinarios de memoria. El objetivo de este estudio fue identificar los hipotéticos mecanismos ordinarios que pudieran explicar la creación de estos recuerdos sin necesidad de apelar a mecanismos especiales. Mediante el uso de un cuestionario, analizamos los recuerdos de las circunstancias, la singularidad, el grado de impresión y la cantidad de repetición de dos sucesos nacionales de gran relevancia: el intento de golpe de estado de 1981 (23-F) y la muerte del general Franco (20-N). Nuestra hipótesis fue que el factor básico para la creación de «recuerdos-destello» es el grado de elaboración y distintividad de codificación de la noticia y su contexto, y que dicho grado es propiciado por la gran cantidad de recursos atencionales que se genera cuando en un suceso concurren con fuerza el factor sorpresa y el factor impacto emocional. Los resultados confirmaron esta hipótesis.     

Race,ethnicity, gender,and generational factors associated with the coming‐out process among gay,lesbian, and bisexual individuals

Age at coming out among gay/lesbian/bisexual (GLB) persons and sexual debut with same‐gendered partners has typically been investigated in samples that do not reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of these communities. Addressing this limitation, data were collected from a diverse sample of men and women attending large‐scale GLB community events in New York and Los Angeles in 2003 (N = 2,733). Compared to older cohorts, younger cohorts (18–24 year olds) of both men and women reported significantly earlier ages for sexual debut with same‐gendered partners, and earlier ages for coming out to themselves and to others. Also, women began the process at later ages than men, as they reported coming out to themselves and sexual debut with a same‐gender partner approximately two years later than men. There were no racial or ethnic differences in age out to self or others; however, people of color were less likely to be out to their parents. Service providers, sexuality educators, and researchers should attend to the diversity in experience of coming out among GLB populations as they relate to the individuals’ gender, age, and racial and ethnic backgrounds.     

The New Policy on Hyperandrogenism in Elite Female Athletes is Not About “Sex Testing”

In April 2011, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) updated their regulations regarding elite female athletes with hyperandrogenism: Women whose testosterone levels crossed into the male range could not compete with other women unless it was shown that they are resistant to the effects of testosterone. Although the new rule is a marked improvement over past attempts to ensure that men were not trying to compete as women in elite competition, several criticisms have been leveled against the new regulations. Here we offer our reactions to claims that the new regulation promotes a sex-verification test, claims that intersex athletes will automatically be disqualified from competition, and proposals to either divide athletes based on variables beyond sex or completely eliminate sex groupings. Although elite sports can never achieve a perfectly level playing field, there should be parameters to which athletes must conform for a given sport. Yet elite athletes themselves should play a decisive role in what is best for their sport.     

Validation of a Measure of Intimate Partner Abuse With Couples Participating in Divorce Mediation

Critics of court mandated divorce mediation have raised awareness of the need for screening measures to assess intimate partner abuse. This study validates a new instrument that is a revised version of the Partner Abuse Scales developed by Walter Hudson in the 1990s. The Relationship Behavior Rating Scale (RBRS) correlates highly with the original scales and subscales developed from the original and RBRS items have equally high reliability. The new scale is a reliable measure for intimate partner abuse in divorce mediation.     

Hope and activism in the ivory tower: Freirean lessons for critical globalization research

Abstract

This paper uses Freirean theory and field studies of counter-globalist campaigns to add greater lucidity and normative deliberateness to our understanding of resistance to neo-liberal globalism. A difficult tension exists between complete submersion in movement struggles, versus a mythical position of objective analytic detachment. We sketch out the basis for a productive dialogue between these two competing pulls of political engagement and analytic objectivity. To do this, we draw from the writings of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian thinker famous for his theories of popular education. Freire's writings have not seriously entered academic studies of globalization, even though activists in the ‘globalization-from-below’ camp frequently draw on his words for inspiration. We seek to remedy this omission, and construct a dialogue between Freire and social movement struggles on four dualisms centred on epistemology, normativity, methodology and strategy. In each dualism, we outline how Freirean concepts can help redefine these binaries as productive tensions to be developed, rather than conflicts to be suppressed. These insights are not intended as a theoretical injunctive delivered from upon high, but are used in dialogue with examples from global justice campaigns in order to clarify what is already taking place on the ground. Identifying Freirean priorities can also encourage openings for more emancipatory approaches to critical globalization scholarship. While academics cannot engineer resistance to neo-liberal globalism from the top down, they can contribute their research energy and resources, becoming more actively engaged in the process of envisaging alternatives.     

Colonial laboratories,irreparable subjects: the experiment of ‘(b)ordering’ San Juan's public housing residents

This article provides a genealogy of the discourses that shaped the public housing policies of the mid-twentieth century in the US island colony of Puerto Rico. In the 1950s and 1960s, a conversation arose between government officials, social science experts, and the local press about how to fix social inequalities by ‘ordering’ mostly black and mulato, economically dispossessed families residing in shantytowns and barrios. This led to the establishment of caseríos (housing projects) as places where the government would attempt to ‘modernize’ residents through architectural design, planning, and social betterment programs. Because the caseríos did not address the structural causes of inequalities of power and wealth in the island, they failed in lifting residents out of poverty. From the mid-1960s onwards, a host of writings blamed caserío dwellers for the failure of the projects, attributing it to their purportedly dysfunctional – and nearly incorrigible – ‘culture of poverty’. This perpetuated a particular characterization of Puerto Rican economically dispossessed people as incapable of political or social agency without the guidance of elite Puerto Ricans and the ‘benevolent’ American colonial metropolis. It also led to the subsequent ‘bordering’ of caseríos spaces with walls and checkpoints, which in turn reproduced the branding of public housing residents as irreparably dysfunctional and ‘criminal’.