Does Culture Affect Divorce? Evidence From European Immigrants in the United States

This article explores the role of culture in determining divorce by examining country-of-origin differences in divorce rates of immigrants in the United States. Because childhood-arriving immigrants are all exposed to a common set of U.S. laws and institutions, we interpret relationships between their divorce tendencies and home-country divorce rates as evidence of the effect of culture. Our results are robust to controlling for several home-country variables, including average church attendance and gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, specifications with country-of-origin fixed effects suggest that immigrants from countries with low divorce rates are especially less likely to be divorced if they reside among a large number of coethnics. Supplemental analyses indicate that divorce culture has a stronger impact on the divorce decisions of females than of males, pointing to a potentially gendered nature of divorce taboos.     

Characterizing referenda with quorums via strategy-proofness

The paper works with a formal model of referenda, where a finite number of voters can choose between two options and abstention. A referendum will be invalid if too many voters abstain, otherwise the referendum will return one of the two options. We consider quorum rules where an option is chosen if it is preferred by the majority of voters and if at least a certain number of voters (the quorum) votes for the alternative. The paper characterizes these rules as the only referenda which are strategy-proof over certain preferences.     

Capitalism Takes Command: The Social Transformation of Nineteenth-Century America

R. Po‐chia Hsia, Society and Religion in Münster, 1535–1618? (1984), xiv+306 (Yale University Press, £22.50).

David Sabean, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (1984), x+250 (Cambridge University Press, £22.50).

William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth‐Century France. State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc (1985), xvii+375 (Cambridge University Press, £30.00).

K. D. M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor. Social Change and Agrarian England 1660–1900 (1985), x+464 (Cambridge University Press, £30.00). Alun Howkins, Poor Labouring Men. Rural Radicalism in Norfolk 1870–1923 (1985), xiv+225 (Routledge &; Kegan Paul for History Workshop Series, paperback £7.95).

William Reddy, The Rise of Market Culture. The French Textile Trade, 1750–1900 (1984), viii+406 (Cambridge University Press, £25.00).

Neville Kirk, The Growth of Working‐Class Reformism in Mid‐Victorian England (1985), xiii+369 (Croom Helm, £22.50).

Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz‐Gerhard Haupt (eds), Shopkeepers and Master Artisans in Nineteenth‐Century Europe (1984), xii+283 (Methuen, £17.50).

Marzio Barbagli, Sotto lo Stesso Tetto: Mutamenti della famiglia in Italia dal XV al XX secolo (1984), 5+557 (I1 Mulino, Bologna, n.p.)‐ (Under the Same Roof: Changes in the Family in Italy from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century.)

David I. Kertzer, Family Life in Central Italy, 1880–1910: S hare cropping, Wage Labor and Coresidence (1984), vii+250 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, n.p.).

Rose L. Glickman, Russian Factory Women: Workplace and Society, 1880–1914 (1984), xiii+325 (University of California Press, £26.20).

David J. Jeremy (ed.), Dictionary of Business Biography (1984), I and II, 878 and 690 (Butterworths, £65.00 per volume).

John Turner (ed.), Businessmen and Politics: Studies of Business Activity in British Politics, 1900–1945 (1984), 200 (Heinemann, £18.50).     

Finely Resolved On‐Road PM2.5 and Estimated Premature Mortality in Central North Carolina

To quantify the on‐road PM_2.5‐related premature mortality at a national scale, previous approaches to estimate concentrations at a 12‐km × 12‐km or larger grid cell resolution may not fully characterize concentration hotspots that occur near roadways and thus the areas of highest risk. Spatially resolved concentration estimates from on‐road emissions to capture these hotspots may improve characterization of the associated risk, but are rarely used for estimating premature mortality. In this study, we compared the on‐road PM_2.5‐related premature mortality in central North Carolina with two different concentration estimation approaches—(i) using the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model to model concentration at a coarser resolution of a 36‐km × 36‐km grid resolution, and (ii) using a hybrid of a Gaussian dispersion model, CMAQ, and a space–time interpolation technique to provide annual average PM_2.5 concentrations at a Census‐block level (～105,000 Census blocks). The hybrid modeling approach estimated 24% more on‐road PM_2.5‐related premature mortality than CMAQ. The major difference is from the primary on‐road PM_2.5 where the hybrid approach estimated 2.5 times more primary on‐road PM_2.5‐related premature mortality than CMAQ due to predicted exposure hotspots near roadways that coincide with high population areas. The results show that 72% of primary on‐road PM_2.5 premature mortality occurs within 1,000 m from roadways where 50% of the total population resides, highlighting the importance to characterize near‐road primary PM_2.5 and suggesting that previous studies may have underestimated premature mortality due to PM_2.5 from traffic‐related emissions.     

Managing “forced” technology transfer in emerging markets: The case of China

This paper explores how foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) manage risks associated with “forced” technology transfer (“FTT”) policies in emerging markets. Although MNCs are increasingly exposed to appropriability risks from these policies, how they respond is relatively understudied in international business (IB) research. We explore this topic based upon a survey and interviews with Western MNCs doing business in China, as well as a discussion about the recent US-China trade war. We find that, as traditional IB theory would predict, internally-oriented strategies (e.g., internalization, maintenance of informal intellectual property (IP), and control of technological centrality and sophistication) are often used to respond to FTT policies; however, the risks from such policies can sometimes be more efficiently managed by externally-oriented strategies (e.g., non-market activities and reliance on formal IP). We discuss how the co-evolution of MNCs' risk management strategies alongside changing value chains, IP institutions, and conditions determining the leverage of FTT policies appear to contribute to this phenomenon. We argue that IB research should more prominently recognize the role of externally-oriented strategies, not only internally-oriented ones, in managing the complex IP-related institutional challenges present in emerging markets today.     

法国工程师教育中的口语测试方式研究

口语测试是法国预科教育的重要特色之一。在对法国预科教育中口语测试的含义,对工程师教育模式下的口语测试方式的历史以及口语测试的试题形式、组织方式、评价标准、效度和信度进行了研究的基础上,以北京航空航天大学中法工程师学院的教学实践为例进行数据统计分析,研究发现,口语测试在工程师预科教育,尤其是中国的工程师教育中非常重要,从而为中国的工程师教育提供了借鉴。     

Scenario-Based Risk Assessment of Multi-Use Chemicals: Application to Solvents

The risk through chemical exposure is commonly characterized by ratios of exposure concentrations and effect levels (risk quotients). For chemicals with many different applications such as solvents, however, in addition to the risk quotients of different exposure situations it is useful to determine the corresponding numbers of exposed individuals, that is, not only the magnitude but also the extent of the risk. To this end, the Scenario-Based Risk Assessment (SceBRA) method has been developed that makes use of a large set of scenarios, each of which describes a typical situation regarding handling a solvent or solvent-containing product. The scenarios cover the life-cycle steps of production, distribution, and use of solvents. For each scenario, SceBRA provides the risk quotient, r, and the number of exposed individuals, N. This study investigated seven solvents that are used in large amounts in Switzerland. For each solvent, characteristic distributions of r and N values were calculated, making it possible to compare different solvents with respect to their risk profile. Graphical representations of the r, N data provide an informative way for analyzing and communicating the results of SceBRA.     

How are employees of the nonprofit sector motivated? A research need

This article reviews research on motivation of employees in the nonprofit sector, with a major emphasis on the motivation of teachers and hospital nursing staff. Although both areas are widely researched in the nonprofit sector, empirical motivation research conducted in schools and hospitals is certainly not extensive. Nevertheless, based on these limited research findings, we derive potential hypotheses for future research in schools and hospitals.     

Improving social psychiatric treatment in residential programmes for emerging dependence groups in Europe: cross-border networking, methodological innovations and substantive discoveries

A mini-symposium series of papers presenting the results of the European Commission-supported Biomed II project is introduced. The project accomplished a cross-border scientific networking engaging 31 European residential treatment programmes. The results showed that scientific development is best served by a flexible bureaucratic approach. 'Old' science and the 'new' science ways of working were balanced. 'History' and 'social networks' are the key concepts signalling the project knowledge gains. A treatment sample (N=723) was extracted from a database of 1028 current European cases. Non-drug-specific characteristics are as important as drug-specific characteristics in distinguishing emerging dependence groups. The project networking created a process that increased the level of involvement of science and the service communities. To sustain the gains of the project, a reaching out of existing European treatment services to extended family and friendship networks with a history of dependence-related problems will be required.