A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE NATIVITY WEALTH GAP*

We investigate the relative wealth position of immigrant households residing in Australia, Germany, and the United States. In Germany and the United States, wealth differentials stem from differences in the educational attainment and demographic characteristics of the native and immigrant populations, rather than income differentials. In contrast, the small nativity wealth gap in Australia exists because immigrants to Australia do not translate their relative educational and demographic advantage into a wealth advantage. Overall, we find substantial disparity in the economic well‐being of immigrant and native families which is largely consistent with domestic labor markets and immigration policies. (JEL F22, D31)     

EMPIRICAL UTILITY FUNCTIONS AND RANDOM DEVICES: AN EXPERIMENT

The primary purpose of the present experiment was to examine the effects on the empirical derivation of executive's utility functions caused by the use of random device analogues. The results indicate that utility functions obtained using a random device analogue imply more risk aversion than when these functions are determined by simulating actual decision situations. Furthermore, there is also evidence that the bias is directly related to the monetary amounts involved.     

ANTITRUST POLICY AND MERGERS: THE WEALTH EFFECT OF SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

Many believe that antitrust policy has had a dramatic impact on merger strategies in the United States. For this to be true, enforcement of antitrust laws must affect a wide range of firms, not just those firms whose mergers are contested. This study tests whether or not firms engaged in uncontested mergers are affected by antitrust enforcement, as signalled by Supreme Court decisions. Using event study methodology, we find that antitrust policy against mergers was binding during the 1960s and 1970s as it ulowered the value of targets in ucontested ongoing mergers.     

THE SUPPLY OF CHILDREN'S TIME TO DISABLED ELDERLY PARENTS

This study develops and tests a model of supply of children's time to disabled elderly parents, using data from the National Long-Term Care Survey. The model, which assumes strategic behavior among relatives, offers predictions about effects of changes in the price of paid personal care, parent's wealth, kid's wage rates, public in-kind subsidies of personal care, and parent's relative bargaining power on care provided by children. Although several statistically significant relationships are obtained, the evidence does not generally indicate that children's provision of care to parents is guided by a strategic bequest motive.     

EFFECTS OF INTERVIEWER GENDER, INTERVIEWER CHOICE, AND ITEM WORDING ON RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS CONCERNING SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

We examined factors influencing responses to questions on sexualbehavior among adult respondents 18–49 years old (unweightedN = 2,030) obtained through a random-digit dialing survey. Basedon self-disclosure and perceived control the ory, we hypothesizedthat giving people a choice in selecting the gender of theirinterviewer rather than being assigned an inter viewer, andusing questions that are "supportive" of what may be perceivedof as nonnormative behavior (enhanced items), would increasedata quality relative to, respectively, matched-or opposite-genderinterviewer conditions and standard worded items. The enhanceditems facilitated responding to a number of sensitive topics.However, the effects of item wording on item response are oftenmediated by interviewer conditions. The "choice" results suggestthat giving respondents greater control decreases question threat.However, the overall findings argue for matching respondentsand interviewers on gender over opposite-gender interviewersor allowing respondents to select their interviewer's gender.Wording and interviewer manipulations reduced the discrepanciesbetween men's and women's self-reports of sexual behavior, butthey did not eliminate them, and in some cases they had no effect.The present findings suggest that males tend to be influencedby variations in item wording, interviewer gender, and respondentcontrol across a somewhat wider range of sexual topics. In general,the findings recommend matching respondents and interviewerson gender and the use of more supportive wording in sexual behaviorquestions. However, for assessment of some topics (e.g., sexualviolence) in particular segments of the population (e.g., men),other procedures, such as increasing respondent control, maybe a better choice. Overall, the data support the view thatin terms of preferred procedures, not all sexual topics arecreated equal.     

Between inequality and difference: the creole world in the twenty‐first century

A major theme in contemporary social theory is the questioning and destabilization of boundaries – self/other, culture/nature and gender being the most obvious areas. Not least for this reason, creole identities, ostensibly premised on openness and mixing, deserve renewed attention. Although the term creolization, as borrowed from linguistics, is sometimes used in a broad comparative sense, the creole world refers to the outcome of a particular historical experience, namely that of displacement, slavery, emancipation and its aftermath reverberating into the present. Key terms are uprootedness, cultural mixing and creole languages existing in diglossic situations with metropolitan ones. Creole intellectuals in the Caribbean have celebrated the cultural creativity characteristic of these societies but have been criticized for ignoring class, racism and gender issues. By embracing the egalitarianism and openness of creoledom, they have become vulnerable to criticism of being handmaidens of neoliberalism or neocolonialism. Controversies over creole identity are related to fundamental questions in anthropology. Drawing on material mainly from the Indian Ocean region, in this article I attempt to create a dialogue between debates over creole identity and theoretical questions raised in social and cultural theory concerning the relationship between cultural difference and social inequality.