The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class1

White working‐class citizens who vote for the Republican Party have been fodder for much political discussion and speculation recently, and a debate has arisen about the role that “moral values” played in the political decision making of this segment of voters. In this article, we defend a version of the moral values claim. We show that although the Republicans’ policies are unpopular, they are bundled with an overarching moral framework that is extremely resonant to this set of voters, and we use in‐depth interviews to uncover this framework. A key feature of this framework, on which in the 2004 presidential election George W. Bush scored high and John Kerry scored low, is the appropriate attitude to wealth, which serves as an indicator for a candidate’s general moral philosophy and as a heuristic about whether the candidate will govern with working‐class voters’ interests in mind. National Election Studies data support the argument that this was a key influence on the voting decision in 2004, even controlling for voters’ partisan identification.     

"There Must Be a Reason": Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification

One of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election was the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Scholars have suggested that this belief was the result of a campaign of false information and innuendo from the Bush administration. We call this the information environment explanation. Using a technique of "challenge interviews" on a sample of voters who reported believing in a link between Saddam and 9/11, we propose instead a social psychological explanation for the belief in this link. We identify a number of social psychological mechanisms voters use to maintain false beliefs in the face of disconfirming information, and we show that for a subset of voters the main reason to believe in the link was that it made sense of the administration's decision to go to war against Iraq. We call this inferred justification : for these voters, the fact of the war led to a search for a justification for it, which led them to infer the existence of ties between Iraq and 9/11.     

The Effect of Remittances on Economic Growth in Kyrgyzstan and Macedonia: Accounting for Financial Development

Kyrgyzstan and Macedonia have experienced a reasonable increase in remittances over the last twenty‐five years. Subsequently, the extent to which remittances can be instrumental for economic development of the two countries has gained serious attention in recent development dialogues. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of remittances versus financial development on the economic growth of the two counties, complementing the burgeoning interest and focus on remittances for policy. The short‐run and the long‐run effects and the causality dynamics of remittances and financial development, are explored. The results show a long‐run positive impact of remittances on the economic growth of these countries. The impact of financial development is negative, significant only for Kyrgyzstan and not statistically significant for Macedonia. The causality results show that remittances support economic growth for Kyrgyzstan, whereas economic growth appears to propel remittances for Macedonia.     

Construction and validation of Rejection Sensitive Expectation,Perception, and Reaction Questionnaire—Partner (RSEPR-P)

The Rejection Sensitive Expectation, Perception, and Reaction Questionnaire—Partner (RSEPR-P) was developed to assess rejection expectation, perception of rejection, and reactions to perceived rejection among intimate partners. This article details the construction and validation procedures, including item pool generation, factor analysis, and the estimation of reliability and validity. The researchers examined the psychometric properties of RSEPR-P in a community sample of 151 participants. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with the final 24 items suggested four-factor loading with each subscale loading on a separate factor. The subscales had good to excellent internal consistency. In support of the convergent validity, RSEPR-P exhibited robust correlations with rejection sensitivity-personal, mindfulness, marital adjustment, and self-esteem measures. A 6-month test–retest reliability was established. RSEPR-P is proposed to have potential therapeutic and research utility.     

Co‐Op Advertising in Dynamic Retail Oligopolies

We study a supply chain in which a consumer goods manufacturer sells its product through a retailer. The retailer undertakes promotional expenditures, such as advertising, to increase sales and to compete against other retailer(s). The manufacturer supports the retailer’s promotional expenditure through a cooperative advertising program by reimbursing a portion (called the subsidy rate) of the retailer’s promotional expenditure. To determine the subsidy rate, we formulate a Stackelberg differential game between the manufacturer and the retailer, and a Nash differential subgame between the retailer and the competing retailer(s). We derive the optimal feedback promotional expenditures of the retailers and the optimal feedback subsidy rate of the manufacturer, and show how they are influenced by market parameters. An important finding is that the manufacturer should support its retailer only when a subsidy threshold is crossed. The impact of competition on this threshold is nonmonotone. Specifically, the manufacturer offers more support when its retailer competes with one other retailer but its support starts decreasing with the presence of additional retailers. In the case where the manufacturer sells through all retailers, we show under certain assumptions that it should support only one dominant retailer. We also describe how we can incorporate retail price competition into the model.