Gone to war: have deployments increased divorces?

Owing to the armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, members of the US military have experienced very high rates of deployment overseas. Because military personnel have little to no control over their deployments, the military setting offers a unique opportunity to study the causal effect of major disruptions on marital dissolution. In this paper, we use longitudinal individual-level administrative data from 1999 to 2008 and find that an additional month in deployment increases the divorce hazard of military families, with females being more affected. A standard conceptual framework of marital formation and dissolution predicts a differential effect of these types of shocks depending on the degree to which they are anticipated when a couple gets married. Consistent with this prediction, we find a larger effect for couples married before 9/11, who clearly expected a lower risk of deployment than what they faced post 9/11.     

PRIMING THE CHARITABLE PUMP: AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF TWO‐STAGE RAFFLES

We experimentally study two‐stage self‐financing raffles in which participants can buy tickets in two stages. In all raffles, one half of the proceeds are donated to a local charity and the raffle winner wins the other half. The mechanisms differ by what happens to the tickets purchased in the first stage. In the complete draw down two‐stage raffle, the first stage tickets are eliminated from the active pool of tickets, while in the no draw down raffle they remain in the active pool. We find that both two‐stage raffles initially perform better than the standard one‐stage 50–50 raffle. Over time, the aggregate contribution level in the complete draw down raffle declines and approaches that of the one‐stage raffle, while in the no draw down raffle contributions are stable and remain higher than those in the other two mechanisms. In both two‐stage raffles, we observe a positive correlation between the proceeds of the first stage and the number of tickets bought in the second stage. Our results are at odds with a standard warm glow model of giving, and also cannot be explained by the joy of winning or learning about bidders' types. (JEL C72, C92, D64)     

The fertility transition around the world

In this paper, we study the evolution of the distribution of fertility rates across the world from 1950 to 2005 using parametric mixture models. We demonstrate the existence of twin peaks and the division of the world’s countries in two distinct components: a high-fertility regime and a low-fertility regime. Whereas the significance of twin peaks vanishes over time, the two fertility regimes continue to exists over the whole observation period. In 1950, about two thirds of the world’s countries belonged to the high-fertility regime and the rest constituted the low-fertility regime. By the year 2005, this picture has reversed. Within both the low- and the high-fertility regime, the average fertility rate declined, with a larger absolute decline within the high-fertility regime. Visually, the two peaks moved closer together. For the low-fertility regime, we find both β- and σ -convergence but we cannot establish any convergence pattern for the high-fertility regime. Our results support the idea of conditional convergence where the condition is the successful initiation of the fertility transition. The results are less supportive of the existence of a unique high-fertility equilibrium.     

The Mass Emigration Context of Lithuania: Patterns and Policy Options

Lithuania represents one of the rare cases in which a state with relatively high standards for maintaining population statistics is experiencing mass emigration. In light of the policy initiatives undertaken by the Lithuanian government to address the issue of emigration, this study aims to improve our understanding of how, in this mass emigration context, emigration events are connected to specific socio‐economic characteristics of individuals and variation in local socio‐economic conditions. We analyse census and vital registration data covering the whole working‐age population of Lithuania during the period 2011‐2012. Our findings indicate that when assessing the likelihood of emigration events, individual‐level characteristics such as employment status, educational attainment, and prior migration experience are highly relevant. However, the importance of these characteristics differs by gender. We also detect considerable spatial variation in emigration rates across Lithuanian municipalities. Our outcomes provide new insights for the development of cohesive migration policies in Lithuania.     

Disentangling the Effects of an Adult Model's Eye Gaze and Head Orientation on Young Infants' Processing of a Previously Attended Object

In order to disentangle the effects of an adult model's eye gaze and head orientation on infants' processing of objects attended to by the adult, we presented 4‐month‐olds with faces that either (1) shifted eye gaze toward or away from an object while the head stayed stationary or (2) that turned their head while maintaining gaze directed straight ahead. Infants' responses to the previously attended and unattended objects were measured using eye‐tracking and event‐related potentials. In both conditions, infants responded to objects that were not cued by the adult's head or eye gaze shift with more visual attention and an increased negative central (Nc) component relative to cued objects. This suggests that cued objects had been encoded more effectively, whereas uncued objects required further processing. We conclude that eye gaze and head orientation act independently as cues to direct infants' attention and object processing. Both head orientation and eye gaze, when presented in motion, even override the effects of incongruent stationary information from the other kind of cue.     

Spatial Analysis of the Causes of Fertility Decline in Prussia

This article contributes to the geographic analysis of fertility decline in the demographic transition in Europe. We reanalyze Galloway, Hammel, and Lee's (1994) Prussian data with spatial analysis methods. Our multivariate analysis provides evidence of the predictive effect of both economic and cultural variables. Furthermore, even after all of the observable economic, social, and cultural variables have been controlled for, our findings show that a significant unexplained geographic clustering of fertility decline remains. We then specify spatial econometric models, which show that in addition to economic and cultural factors, socio‐geographic factors such as being adjacent to areas of sharp fertility decline are also needed to understand the pattern of fertility decline. These results provide new support for the role of social diffusion in the process, while allowing for the direct structural effects of economic change.     

Trajectories of Employment Gaps of Refugees and Other Migrants: Evidence from Austria

This paper analyzes the labor market integration of non-European refugees originating from middle- and low-income countries for the period of 2009–2018 in Austria. We assess their probability of being employed relative to Austrian natives and compare it with that of other non-European migrants and European refugees and other immigrants from low- and middle-income non-EU countries. We draw on a register-based panel dataset covering the complete labor market careers of all individuals residing in Austria. We control for macrolevel explanatory variables (e.g., the labor market situation at the time and the place of settlement) and individual characteristics. The analysis shows that initial refugee employment gaps relative to natives are large in the first years, when labor market access is difficult. After a period of 7 years, the unconditional gap between refugees and natives declines to 30 percentage points, similar to that of other migrants, but the gap is still decreasing. After controlling for a set of explanatory variables, the conditional gap amounts to only 10 percentage points at that time. Moreover, our analysis provides insights into differences in employment gaps across population subgroups of immigrant groups and natives by gender, age, education level, and types of employment.

     

Enabling Opportunism: Revenue Sharing when Sales Revenues are Unobservable

We consider a supply chain with a supplier that sells to a retailer under a revenue‐sharing arrangement. Demand is uncertain and unobservable to the supplier. We assume that the retailer is rational, that is, the retailer behaves opportunistically and underreports sales revenues to the supplier whenever such underreporting is profitable. Assuming the supplier has the ability to audit the retailer and learn about the actual sales revenues, we show that the supplier will never find it optimal to audit to the point that ensures truthful reporting for all demand realizations. By committing to an auditing policy, the supplier can exploit retailer opportunism and derive profits that at times even exceed those that could be obtained when dealing with a retailer that always strictly adheres to the agreed‐upon contract terms. We also show that the retailer's opportunistic behavior can increase total supply chain profits.     

Enabling disruptive innovations through the use of customer analysis methods

The theory of disruptive innovation has had a profound effect on academic literature and management mindsets. Nevertheless, the processes that are required to develop disruptive innovations are not yet well understood. An essential part of creating disruptive innovations is gathering the right information on potential and current customers. The research questions that are addressed in this paper deal with the suitability of customer analysis methods for providing this information. The customer analysis model that is formulated in this paper summarizes the results of a literature review regarding the requirements of customer analysis for the success of disruptive innovations. With insights on context, customers, constraints and effects, the model reveals what information is needed to successfully shape the disruptive innovation process. Following the literature on disruptive and radical innovation, a group of eight customer analysis methods is selected and assessed. The analysis reveals that none of the existing methods can generate all of the required information. By combining and modifying the associated methods, the requirements of the proposed model and, by extension, the market can be met. Managers who follow the suggestions of this paper will develop a better understanding of current and potential customers and, therefore, unveil the potential of disruptive innovations.     

MVE, MCD, and MZE: A simulation study comparing convex body minimizers

Summary: In a recent work (Paris Scholz, 2002), a new robust estimator for convex bodies has been proposed, based on the estimation of a zonoid of a distribution. This so–called minimum volume zonoid estimator (MZE) is similar in type to the well–known robust approaches of the minimum volume ellipsoid (MVE) and the minimum covariance determinant (MCD), all three seeking for a subset of given data for which some criteria are minimized. We investigate the similarity between these three concepts by comparing which subsets are chosen to be the optimal ones.