The impact of ethnicity on attitudes toward health care reform in New Mexico

Latinos tend to have significantly lower levels of access to general and top quality medical care than do non-Latino whites, and although disparities in access to health care have diminished for all other minority groups over time, they have widened for Latinos. Given these trends, current attempts to provide universal health care at both the national and state levels across the United States have large implications for the health status of Latinos. The objective of this analysis is to determine whether Latinos have different attitudes regarding health reform than non-Latino whites. Our data are from a statewide random digit dialing telephone survey of New Mexico residents, age 18 and older, conducted in the Fall of 2007. With a Latino population of 44% and ongoing health care reform efforts by the state legislature, New Mexico is an ideal location for this analysis. After controlling for a host of individual level factors, our findings suggest that while Latinos are less likely to identify health care as a salient state issue relative to the economy and crime, they are more likely than non-Latino whites to believe affordable health care programs are important. Finally, Latinos view employers, more than government or individuals, to be responsible for expanding health care coverage.     

Policy relevant heterogeneity in the value of statistical life: New evidence from panel data quantile regressions

We examine differences in the value of statistical life (VSL) across potential wage levels in panel data using quantile regressions with intercept heterogeneity. Latent heterogeneity is econometrically important and affects the estimated VSL. Our findings indicate that a reasonable average cost per expected life saved cut-off for health and safety regulations is 7 million to7 million to 8 million per life saved, but the VSL varies considerably across the labor force. Our results reconcile the previous discrepancies between hedonic VSL estimates and the values implied by theories linked to the coefficient of relative risk aversion. Because the VSL varies elastically with income, regulatory agencies should regularly update the VSL used in benefit assessments, increasing the VSL proportionally with changes in income over time.     

Demand for health risk reductions: A cross-national comparison between the U.S. and Canada

Using a large stated preference survey conducted across the U.S. and Canada, we assess differences in individual willingness to pay (WTP) for health risk reductions between the two countries. Our utility-theoretic choice model allows for systematically varying marginal utilities for avoided future time in different adverse health states (illness-years, recovered/remission years, and lost life-years). We find significant differences between Canadian and U.S. preferences. WTP also differs systematically with age, gender, education, and marital status, as well as a number of attitudinal and subjective health-perception variables. Age profiles for WTP are markedly different across the two countries. Canadians tend to display flatter age profiles, with peak WTP realized at older ages.     

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry: List Experiment Misreporting*

Objective. List experiment respondents may misreport the number of list items that they associate with in order to associate themselves with a socially desirable test item or to disassociate themselves from a socially undesirable test item. Tests for such misreporting were conducted. Methods. List experiments from the 1991 National Race and Politics Survey, the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, and the 2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project were analyzed or reviewed. Results. Evidence suggested that some respondents deflated their report more than necessary to avoid association with a socially undesirable test item. Conclusions. List experiments may provide inaccurate estimates of the percentage of the population to which the test item applies, but the direction of bias is predictable.     

Trade, education, and innovation: Prospects for the U.S. economy

This paper examines international trade issues as vital indicators of the economic prospects of the United States and other developed economies. In particular, it challenges misuses of the doctrine of mutual gains from trade and instead argues that comparative advantage does not guarantee increases in benefits to both trading partners—especially when one partner seeks to distort the market mechanism in its favor. In the face of such mercantilist or protectionist practices, efforts to advance innovation, without retaining manufacturing jobs, will not ensure continued prosperity, as the number of jobs entailed in the invention process is small compared with the number of jobs associated with manufacturing an innovative product for mass consumption. These matters call for the urgent rethinking of trade policy by the United States and other developed nations, if they are to balance their imports and exports and ensure continued economic growth.     

A Diamond-Stiglitz approach to the demand for self-protection

The existing research concerning the relationship between risk aversion and prudence and the demand for self-protection assumes that the loss variable follows a Bernoulli distribution, and that changes in the level of self-protection are mean preserving. The analysis here replaces these two very strong conditions with ones which are more general. When doing this, the method of analysis is also significantly modified. This modification includes representing a change in the level of self-protection using the procedure developed by Diamond and Stiglitz (Journal of Economic Theory 8:337-360, 1974) for representing a change in risk. This alternate representation allows the existing findings to be generalized considerably, and also simplifies the analysis.     

Interplay between Friends' Aggression and Friendship Quality in the Development of Child Aggression during the Early School Years

The aim of this study was to investigate the unique and combined role of friendship quality and friends' aggression in regard to the persistence of young children's physical aggression from kindergarten to grade 2. The sample included 1555 children (808 girls) assessed annually using teacher ratings. Two theoretical perspectives (i.e., the social learning and the social bonding perspectives) served as frameworks to guide the analyses and interpret the results. In line with the social learning perspective, friends' aggression was related to a significant increase in children's physical aggression. However, in line with the social bonding perspective, good friendship quality played both a compensatory and a protective role, by, respectively, reducing children's initial level of physical aggression and by mitigating, albeit marginally, the associations between friends' and children's physical aggression. These results suggest that fostering a positive relationship between friends in the early school years may decrease physical aggression even if the friends are aggressive.