WELFARE LEAVERS AND RETURNERS

This study investigates a random sample of people who left welfare and a similar sample who returned to welfare in a mid-Atlantic state in 2002. Findings show that child-care difficulties are important barriers to employment and that they are bound together with other conditions of poverty such as adverse neighborhood conditions and other deprivations. Child care provision becomes difficult when neighborhoods are infested with drugs or guns or when caregivers must spend too much time finding the means to pay bills or rent and put food on the table. For the poorest groups, all these conditions negatively impact quality of life. The study's findings suggest social policy revisions that emphasize programs to improve the children's neighborhood environment and means of socialization, supplement caregivers’ income to levels sufficient to pay for child care, and remove inadequacies or inconsistencies in government child care provision.     

Large Contests

We consider contests with many, possibly heterogeneous, players and prizes, and show that the equilibrium outcomes of such contests are approximated by the outcomes of mechanisms that implement the assortative allocation in an environment with a single agent that has a continuum of possible types. This makes it possible to easily approximate the equilibria of contests whose exact equilibrium characterization is complicated, as well as the equilibria of contests for which there is no existing equilibrium characterization.     

Substrate reinforcement and dialectal differences in Melanesian Pidgin

Stabilization of a new contact language involves a process of levelling, or the reduction of variants. One of the factors influencing which grammatical variants are retained in the process is substrate reinforcement – the existence in the substrate languages of a congruent structure with a similar function. This article illustrates substrate reinforcement in the development of the three current dialects of Melanesian Pidgin. First, evidence of earlier variability is presented and the sociolinguistic conditions that later led to greater stability are described. Second, five grammatical features that differentiate the dialects are examined. For each feature, it is shown first that at least two variants were previously in use. Then evidence is presented illustrating correspondence between the particular variant retained in the dialect and a feature of the substrate languages of that geographic area. Differing substrates reinforced different variants, and this accounts for these dialectal differences.     

Five-Hundred Life-Saving Interventions and Their Cost-Effectiveness

We gathered information on the cost-effectiveness of life-saving interventions in the United States from publicly available economic analyses. "Life-saving interventions" were defined as any behavioral and/or technological strategy that reduces the probability of premature death among a specified target population. We defined cost-effectiveness as the net resource costs of an intervention per year of life saved. To improve the comparability of cost-effectiveness ratios arrived at with diverse methods, we established fixed definitional goals and revised published estimates, when necessary and feasible, to meet these goals. The 587 interventions identified ranged from those that save more resources than they cost, to those costing more than 10 billion dollars per year of life saved. Overall, the median intervention costs $42,000 per life-year saved. The median medical intervention costs $19,000/life-year; injury reduction $48,000/life-year; and toxin control $2,800,000/life-year. Cost/life-year ratios and bibliographic references for more than 500 life-saving interventions are provided.     

Transgender experiences and transphobia in higher education

While categories like “campus climate” highlight variation across institutions, trans people's experiences also vary within an institutional context. By studying trans people's experiences in higher education, however, we can better understand and respond to the differentiated and changing needs of transgender people in other arenas. In this paper, I review key qualitative and quantitative findings along several themes: (a) disclosing trans identities, (b) trans communities, and (c) resources and career‐level support. Specifically, I use the concept of microclimates to explain how trans people encounter various forms of support and discrimination on campus. For example, someone might receive support from particular individuals, such as an advisor, or spaces, like a gender studies classroom, but not others. Researchers also report both similarities and differences between binary and nonbinary trans people, as well as between transgender men and transgender women, suggesting that there is no universal trans experience, nor a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to supporting trans students and faculty members. Challenging interpersonal and systemic transphobia requires context‐specific interventions.     

The Mindful Couple

Couples who request conjoint treatment often demonstrate relationship problems that are exacerbated by emotional reactivity. Neurobiology research has clarified the process of emotional dysregulation, and the benefit of mindful interventions in managing and preventing hyperarousal. This paper examines the mechanics of emotional dysregulation and presents a case example that demonstrates how breathing and staying in the moment were used to help de-escalate an agitated couple. Mindful interventions can be used to help couples tolerate, understand, and manage emotional states that can otherwise become destructive. These techniques are particularly useful with volatile couples, and can be used in conjunction with other therapeutic interventions.     

Quality of earnings: A key factor in financial planning

This paper presents the results of an empirical study based on the premise that, among companies with the same nominal earnings, those with higher quality of earnings will be more highly valued by investors. The price-earnings ratio should be higher for companies with better quality of earnings and lower for companies with poorer quality of earnings. The test is performed by estimating regression equations relating the price-earnings ratio to quality of earnings factors. The study should prove to be of significant value to financial decision-makers in formulating their long range plans.