Illustrating the Implications of How Inequality is Measured: Decomposing Earnings Inequality by Race and Gender

This paper makes three distinct contributions: it presents a novel modification to an established methodology for assessing inequality using the CPS ASEC data, it illustrates how valuable a multi-metric inequality analysis is by reconciling some open questions regarding the trend in inequality and the role of the composition of income along the distribution, and it provides a baseline assessment of the trend in earnings inequality for four distinct groups of income earners. The evolution of earnings inequality from 1995 to 2010 is compared to increasing inequality in total income as documented by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez to show that earnings inequality has followed a qualitatively similar, though less extreme trend. In the process, the disconnect between the trend in the Gini coefficient and inequality assessed via the share of income going to the top 1 % of income earners is reconciled through the use of several alternative inequality indices. Finally, the evolution of the earnings distribution for black women, black men, white women, and white men are considered separately, which shows that there are important differences in the experience of inequality. The main findings are that only white men have experienced changes in within-group earnings inequality that parallel the changes in inequality seen in the overall distribution. By contrast, black income earners have seen no notable increase in within-group inequality by any measure, suggesting that they may rightly perceive growing inequality as primarily a between-group phenomena.     

Children of misfortune: early adversity and cumulative inequality in perceived life trajectories

Adversity early in life may alter pathways of aging, but what interpretive processes can soften the blow of early insults? Drawing from cumulative inequality theory, the authors analyze trajectories of life evaluations and then consider whether early adversity offsets favorable expectations for the future. Results reveal that early adversity contributes to more negative views of the past but rising expectations for the future. Early adversity also has enduring effects on life evaluations, offsetting the influence of buoyant expectations. The findings draw attention to the limits of human agency under the constraints of early adversity-a process described as biographical structuration.     

Follower reactions to leader trust violations: A grounded theory of violation types,likelihood of recovery,and recovery process

This paper explores how trust is violated and restored in the leader–follower relationship by analyzing rich stories in everyday trust violation situations. The results suggest a dichotomy of how violations affect trust and its propensity for repair. Recoverable violations are common occurrences from which trust can be recovered, although repeated instances of this type can destroy trust beyond recovery. The process of recovery involves leaders first openly discussing the violation(s) and then providing plans to avoid future violations. Conversely, irrecoverable trust violations destroy trust to such a degree that it cannot be restored and followers withdraw from the relationship. The study advances our understanding of trust violations by showing that recoverable violations include violations based on integrity, competence, and benevolence. Additionally, the typology of trust violations in these unique relationships promotes further investigation.     

Brother correlations in earnings in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compared to the United States

The correlation in economic status among siblings is a useful “omnibus measure” of the overall impact of family and community factors on adult economic status. In this study we compare brother correlations in long-run (permanent) earnings between the United States, on one hand, and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) on the other. Our base case results, based on very similar sample criteria and definitions for all countries, show that this correlation is above 0.40 in the United States and in the range 0.14–0.26 in the Nordic countries. Even though these results turn out to be somewhat sensitive to some assumptions that have to be made, we conclude that the family and community factors are more important determinants of long-run earnings in the United States than in the Nordic countries. Received: 27 July 2000/Accepted: 7 March 2001 All correspondence to: Anders Bj?rklund. Comments from two referees, conference participants at ESPE2000 and the Canadian Employment Research Forum, seminar participants in Aarhus, Uppsala, Bonn, and Stockholm are gratefully acknowledged. We thank NOS-S for financial support. The Swedish data collection was also supported by HSFR and SFR. The Finnish data were obtained with support from the Yrj? Jahnsson Foundation. We thank Tom Erik Aab? for preparing the Norwegian data, and Esben Agerbo for computational assistance with the Danish data. Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch.     

A Production–Inventory Model for a Push–Pull Manufacturing System with Capacity and Service Level Constraints

We study a hybrid push–pull production system with a two‐stage manufacturing process, which builds and stocks tested components for just‐in‐time configuration of the final product when a specific customer order is received. The first production stage (fabrication) is a push process where parts are replenished, tested, and assembled into components according to product‐level build plans. The component inventory is kept in stock ready for the final assembly of the end products. The second production stage (fulfillment) is a pull‐based assemble‐to‐order process where the final assembly process is initiated when a customer order is received and no finished goods inventory is kept for end products. One important planning issue is to find the right trade‐off between capacity utilization and inventory cost reduction that strives to meet the quarter‐end peak demand. We present a nonlinear optimization model to minimize the total inventory cost subject to the service level constraints and the production capacity constraints. This results in a convex program with linear constraints. An efficient algorithm using decomposition is developed for solving the nonlinear optimization problem. Numerical results are presented to show the performance improvements achieved by the optimized solutions along with managerial insights provided.     

Downscaling,Upgrading or Linking? Ways to Realize Micro‐Insurance

Micro‐insurance is seen by many as a promising tool to improve the social protection of low‐income earners. This assumption is supported by the positive experience of existing micro‐insurance schemes. At the same time, however, many schemes have failed to organize sustainable insurance arrangements that are affordable for the poor and near‐poor. The question is thus which institutions are best able to arrange for micro‐insurance. Formal institutions such as public agencies or commercial companies are usually too distant in social and spatial terms from the target group of micro‐insurance and face severe difficulties in downscaling. Informal institutions, however, such as self‐help groups or grassroots NGOs, usually lack the know‐how, experience and capacities to design and manage insurance arrangements. They need powerful partners to upgrade. An alternative would be that formal and informal institutions cooperate in providing micro‐insurance. This article argues that such a linking approach is superior to both the downscaling and upgrading approach.     

Asymptotic Tail Properties of Student's t-Distribution

We investigate the asymptotic behavior of the probability density function (pdf) and the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of Student's t-distribution with ν > 0 degrees of freedom (t _ν for short) for ν tending to infinity when the argument x = x _ν of the pdf (cdf) depends on ν and tends to ± ∞ (?∞). To this end, we consider the ratio of the pdf's (cdf's) of the t _ν- and the standard normal distribution. Depending on the choice of the argument x _ν, the pdf-ratio (cdf-ratio) tends to 1, a fixed value greater than 1, or to ∞. As a byproduct, we obtain a result for Mill' ratio when x _ν → ?∞.     

The role of cognitive load in effective strategic issue management

Firms have different ways of addressing issues emerging from outside their regular calendar-driven strategy processes. These practices tend to be unstructured, organization specific, and highly dependent on the characteristics of the strategic issues themselves. Building on three dimensions of cognitive load—intrinsic, germane, and extraneous cognitive load—we extend existing research on strategic issue management by showing how different team-level choices in strategic issue processing and organizational congestion interact in their effects on a firm's strategic issue management performance. Based on an in-depth analysis of all 92 strategic issue decisions in a large multinational firm during a three-year period, we find that organizational disturbances influence strategic issue initiation by top management, which in turn influences the quality of strategic issue management practices and subsequent performance outcomes. We conclude by providing recommendations for managers on how they can decrease the sensitivity of their companies' strategic issue systems to external disturbances.     

Using crushed waste bricks for urban greening with contrasting grassland mixtures: no negative effects of brick-augmented substrates varying in soil type,moisture and acid pre-treatment

Ecological restoration aims at supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services, and urban greening is a great opportunity to achieve this goal. This is facilitated by species-rich seed mixtures based on local provenances, which are designed for certain nutrient and moisture regimes based on functional plant traits. Such grassland mixtures might be cultivated on crushed waste bricks, which would be a new component of water-holding urban substrates. Thus, we studied the effects of brick quantity and quality, acid pre-treatment of bricks, soil type and moisture on biomass of designed seed mixtures. Three greenhouse experiments were conducted, with substrates consisting of different brick ratios (5% vs. 30%), brick types (clean production waste vs. demolition material), and brick treatments (acid vs. control) tested on three trait-based mixtures and a non-regional commercial standard mixture. The trait-based mixtures included information on specific leaf area, seed mass and grass-to-legume ratio. There were no negative effects of demolition bricks, soil texture and moisture on grassland biomass. Acid-treated clean porous bricks improved biomass production of the standard and intermediate mixtures, while the effect was minimal with demolition bricks. Designed seed mixtures had a biomass similar to the standard mixture under dry conditions but did not benefit from high moisture like the standard mixture. In conclusion, waste bricks are a useful additive for urban restoration substrates to save raw material, and specifically designed regional mixtures can replace commercial grassland types on these substrates.

     

Balancing inclusion and exclusion among Somali migrants in Germany

We discuss the balancing acts of inclusion and exclusion by analysing how Somali migrants in Germany attempt to manoeuvre between various norms, individual interests and various social networks. Building on Glick Schiller and Caglar (2016), whose work on urban sociabilities emphasizes social relations in which people act as equals, we argue that ethnic (self-)identification is important as it serves as a basis for boundary-making and for bonding within and bridging and linking between groups. Thus, a focus on sociability and ethnic identification (as a category of praxis) can, in some cases, go hand in hand. Moreover, we argue that inclusion into local Somali communities, which is often discussed in public discourse as leading to exclusion from German society, helps to establish connections. Simultaneously, exclusion through racism can lead to (self-)isolation of Somalis, but also places pressure on younger Somalis in particular to forge alliances with non-Somali Germans to stabilize their situation. Balancing social inclusion and exclusion among Somali migrants in Germany therefore can have ambiguous and at times paradoxical outcomes.