Keeping a Home: Changing Mortgage Markets and Regional Economic Distress

Abstract

In the relatively affluent post World War II period, homeownership in the United States has risen steadily to include an increasing segment of the working class. Although the extension of homeownership has helped to attenuate some of the inequalities of class and to integrate the more affluent segments of the working class into the social and political mainstream, economic and political events are threatening this historic trend. Dependent upon long term financing, homeownership has two components: keeping as well as buying a home. High and persistent rates of unemployment in old industrial areas have meant the loss of stable incomes for skilled workers, and with it, rising rates of home mortgage delinquency and foreclosure. To examine the threat to continued homeownership, this paper locates homeownership in its structural context, at the intersection of major changes in financial institutions (deregulation) as well as local economic and industrial change.

Our research suggests that regional economic difficulties are being exaccerbated by national deregulatory trends. We found that deregulation has facilitated a general movement from a local to a nonlocal mortgage market. This includes the growth and privatization of the secondary mortgage market and the repositioning of lenders in the local market. We found that delinquent homeowners with locally held and serviced mortgages were better able to negotiate forebearance with their lenders for reasons ranging from the ability to exert public pressure to the economic self-interest of local lenders. Except for FHA mortgages, delinquent homeowners with nonlocal mortgages were penalized. For blue collar workers, the loss of a home more than the loss of a job removes an important class buffer thus reversing a post World War II trend.     

Moving beyond dualism: A dialogue with Western European and American Indian views of spirituality, nature, and science

Western European and Native American approaches to spirituality, nature, and science have implications for policy decisions now and into the Twenty First century. This essay explicates traditional American Indian and Western European philosophic and spiritual views of nature in order to promote dialogue and inform choices that are crucial regarding the future of the biosphere. A concept of nature, then, is more than just an explanation of how living things interact with one another. It also serves as a reference point for deciphering the meaning of existence itself. Jeremy Rifkin     

Propagation of Uncertainty in Risk Assessments: The Need to Distinguish Between Uncertainty Due to Lack of Knowledge and Uncertainty Due to Variability

In quantitative uncertainty analysis, it is essential to define rigorously the endpoint or target of the assessment. Two distinctly different approaches using Monte Carlo methods are discussed: (1) the end point is a fixed but unknown value (e.g., the maximally exposed individual, the average individual, or a specific individual) or (2) the end point is an unknown distribution of values (e.g., the variability of exposures among unspecified individuals in the population). In the first case, values are sampled at random from distributions representing various "degrees of belief" about the unknown "fixed" values of the parameters to produce a distribution of model results. The distribution of model results represents a subjective confidence statement about the true but unknown assessment end point. The important input parameters are those that contribute most to the spread in the distribution of the model results. In the second case, Monte Carlo calculations are performed in two dimensions producing numerous alternative representations of the true but unknown distribution. These alternative distributions permit subject confidence statements to be made from two perspectives: (1) for the individual exposure occurring at a specified fractile of the distribution or (2) for the fractile of the distribution associated with a specified level of individual exposure. The relative importance of input parameters will depend on the fractile or exposure level of interest. The quantification of uncertainty for the simulation of a true but unknown distribution of values represents the state-of-the-art in assessment modeling.     

Multinomial and conditional logit discrete-choice models in demography

Although discrete-choice statistical techniques have been used with increasing regularity in demographic analyses, McFadden's conditional logit model is less well known and seldom used. Conditional logit models are appropriate when the choice among alternatives is modeled as a function of the characteristics of the alternatives, rather than (or in addition to) the characteristics of the individual making the choice. We argue that this feature of conditional logit makes it more appropriate for estimating behavioral models. In this article, the conditional logit model is presented and compared with the more familiar multinomial logit model. The difference between the two techniques is illustrated with an analysis of the choice of marital and welfare status by divorced or separated women.     

The Simple Bind and Discontinuous Change

The author argues that families usually respond to internal and external demands for change in terms of leaps or transformations to new and different adaptive structural arrangements. Such transformations unavoidably have stress and disruption as a prelude. Transformations are precipitated by paradoxical injunctions called “simple binds”. The presence of “double binds” lead to the disqualification of, and failure of transformations. Symptomatic behaviour of family members can be seen as a product of failed transformations.     

Comparisons of Gambling and Alcohol Use Among College Students and Noncollege Young People in the United States

Abstract

Objective: Gambling and alcohol use were compared for college and noncollege young adults in the US population. Participants: Participants were 1,000 respondents aged 18 to 21. Methods: Data were analyzed from a representative household sample of US young people aged 14 to 21 years old. Telephone interviews were conducted between August 2005 and January 2007. Results: After taking into account gender, age, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, college student status did not predict gambling, frequent gambling, or problem gambling. In contrast, being a college student was associated with higher levels of alcohol use and problem drinking. Being male was the strongest predictor of both problem gambling and problem drinking. Blacks were less likely than whites to drink heavily; yet they were more likely than whites to gamble heavily. Conclusion: Young males should be targeted for prevention and intervention efforts for both problem gambling and problem drinking regardless of college student status.     

Assessing the Differences in Distance of Interstate Migration, 1980

Abstract

Distance is an integral dimension of migration; yet, in recent years, ignored in migration research except as a control variable. This study examines distance of 1975–80 interstate migration and several explanations for the relations between distance and characteristic of migrants and locations. While earlier research provides only a few findings to replicate, the literature is replete with suggestions concerning the relation between distance and both areal and individual characteristics. These include that distance represents transportation costs, psychic costs — e.g., separation from family and friends and cultural dissimilarity of areas — intervening opportunities and competing migrants, geographic scope of labor market and diminishing information about opportunities.

Observations are individual records from the 1980 one-in-ten-thousand PUMS files. The sample is restricted to nonblack, noninstitutionalized head of households, age 25 to 64 in 1980. Respondents must be civilians and residing in the contiguous 48 states in both 1975 and 1980. Individual characteristics include distance of migration, sex, age, marital status, nativity, education, personal income, occupation, employment status and student status. Most location characteristics are from County Statistics File 2. These characteristics include average wage, per capita income, unemployment, average number of days per year below freezing and variables on local government taxes, educational expenditures, health expenditure and welfare expenditures. Additionally, we use proportion of the population born in state of origin residing at destination as a measure of information flow between origin and destination. We correct for sample selection bias in restricting the study to migrants.

We find outmigration is shaped by characteristics of individuals; however, distance of migration is shaped by characteristics at locations. Findings lend support to an interpretation of distance reflecting psychic costs and information and are consistent with a cost/benefit view of factors contributing to distance of migration.