The Educated Russian's Curse: Returns to Education in the Russian Federation during the 1990s

Abstract. This paper uses a representative sample of the Russian Federation, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to estimate the returns to education in this ex‐communist country. We tackle this classic issue in labor economics with the realistic expectation of obtaining results for Russia comparable in quality and reliability to those available in developed countries and other economies in transition. Using standard regression techniques we find that the returns to education in Russia are quite low compared with those reported in the literature on countries throughout the world, in almost no specification reaching higher than 5 per cent. Moreover, there is virtually no improvement in returns to education in the 1992–99 period, a result somewhat at odds with other studies using Russian data from similar time periods. When we instrument our main regressor using policy experiments from the 1960s, we find comparable results. We also perform a selectivity correction and discover even lower returns to education for men, although they become slightly higher for women. Additionally, we find extremely low returns to tenure, which can even become negative in certain specifications.     

Ranked Items Auctions and Online Advertisement

We study auctions for a set of commonly‐ranked items where each buyer has unit demand. This setting has promising applications in areas such as keyword auctions in the search engine advertising industry, the sale of quality‐ranked raw materials, etc. An auction mechanism suitable for this setting is the simultaneous pooled auction (SPA), where each bidder simultaneously submits a single bid and is allocated an object based on the rank of his bid among all the bids. We study how to improve the seller's expected revenue by enforcing a reserve price in an SPA. We find that the use of an appropriate reserve price may significantly increase the seller's revenue, especially when the number of items for sale is relatively large compared to the number of participating bidders. One inherent problem in the SPA is that some bidders may incur ex post losses; that is, they pay more than what they value the received objects. We propose a tailored VCG mechanism that generates the same expected revenue as the SPA does, while bidders do not incur any ex post loss. We also discuss the potential applications of this research to keyword auctions.     

Intra‐household Allocation of Time to Household Production Activities: Evidence from Swedish Household Data

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to study the intra‐household allocation of time to different household production activities using Swedish cross‐sectional household data. The Tobit model is rejected in favor of the Cragg model, suggesting that an empirical model has to take into consideration that allocation of time within the household is determined by two separate processes. Moreover, the results indicate that valuable information concerning the intra‐household allocation of time may be missing when household production is defined as the sum of different household activities, but there is no indication that statistically significant effects are wiped out in an aggregated analysis.     

Preparing for Elite Political Participation Simulations and the Political Socialization of Adolescents

Objective. We ask: How do socialization experiences shape adolescent perceptions of and the performance of gender in political leadership roles? We examine a political simulation, Model United Nations, which attracts academically motivated students aspiring to elite roles in politics and government. Methods. Using observational and survey data, we explore adolescent behavior in the simulation as both a learning experience and as a reflection of students' perceptions of leadership behavior. Results. Three critical observations emerge. First, the Model United Nations is a domain in which young women do not play an equal part. Female delegates take far fewer speaking turns. However, contextual factors, including membership on a committee that deals with less masculine issues and on a committee with a female chair, increase the likelihood of female turn‐taking. Second, though participants come to the event with very similar motivations, young women leave less satisfied with their personal effectiveness than do young men. Finally, female delegates are judged less favorably by themselves and others and thus as less successful in the simulation. Conclusions. These findings have normative implications for the recruitment of young women to politics.     

Multiple-Stage Decision-Making: The Effect of Planning Horizon Length on Dynamic Consistency

Many decisions involve multiple stages of choices and events, and these decisions can be represented graphically as decision trees. Optimal decision strategies for decision trees are commonly determined by a backward induction analysis that demands adherence to three fundamental consistency principles: dynamic, consequential, and strategic. Previous research (Busemeyer et al. 2000, J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 129, 530) found that decision-makers tend to exhibit violations of dynamic and strategic consistency at rates significantly higher than choice inconsistency across various levels of potential reward. The current research extends these findings under new conditions; specifically, it explores the extent to which these principles are violated as a function of the planning horizon length of the decision tree. Results from two experiments suggest that dynamic inconsistency increases as tree length increases; these results are explained within a dynamic approach–avoidance framework. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Four Decades of Trends in Attitudes Toward Family Issues in the United States: The 1960s Through the 1990s

This article examines trends in family attitudes and values across the last 4 decades of the 20th century, with particular emphasis on the past 2 decades. The article focuses on attitudes toward a wide range of family issues, including the roles of men and women, marriage, divorce, childlessness, premarital sex, extramarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, and unmarried childbearing. More generally, the article considers trends in 3 broad contemporary values: freedom; equality; and commitment to family, marriage, and children. Five data sets are used for the article: Monitoring the Future, General Social Survey, International Social Science Project, Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children, and the National Survey of Families and Households. These 5 data sets reveal substantial and persistent long‐term trends toward the endorsement of gender equality in families, which may have plateaued at very high levels in recent years. There have also been important and continuing long‐term trends toward individual autonomy and tolerance toward a diversity of personal and family behaviors as reflected in increased acceptance of divorce, premarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, remaining single, and choosing to be childless. At the same time, marriage and family life remain important in the cultural ethos, with large and relatively stable fractions of young people believing that marriage and family life are important and planning marriage and the bearing and rearing of children.     

Role Balance Among White Married Couples

We generate models predicting wives' and husbands' feelings of overall balance across roles. Drawing on fine‐grained data about marital lifestyles and time use, we find few predictors that are the same for both partners. Both report greater role balance when their level of parental attachment to children is higher and when their marital satisfaction is greater, but gendered time use gives rise to important differences. Wives report greater balance when they have more paid work hours but have fewer of these hours on weekends. Wives' balance is also greater when they feel less financial strain, have less leisure time alone with their children, more couple leisure alone with their husbands, and more social network involvement. Husbands' contribute to wives' balance when they report more relationship maintenance in the marriage and more leisure with their children at those times when wives are not present. Husbands' own role balance increases as their income rises, but it decreases as their work hours rise. Husbands' balance also rises with more nuclear family leisure, and it lessens as their leisure alone increases. Our discussion highlights the ways that gendered marital roles lead to these different correlates of balance.     

Computer‐Based Career Planning Systems: Dreams and Realities

The authors look back more than 30 years to those who introduced the use of the computer as an important new tool to assist students in the area of career development. To what extent have dreams been realized and concerns allayed? Rapid advances in technology, not included in the authors' vision, have transformed the world into a different place. How have these advances affected the use of computers in counseling? The article concludes with a list of current concerns, along with recommendations for further action and research.