Community is not a Place but a Relationship<Superscript>1</Superscript>: Lessons for Organizational Development

The premise of this article is that organizations need to be “organized” differently if we want to re-invigorate the power of community in contemporary life. A central theme within the current reform movement toward restorative justice is the devolution of authority from formal governmental systems to community. In order to effectively socialize young people, communities and families must perform certain functions well. As more and more societal activities take place within organizations, we face the dilemma that the weakened communities create a demand for increasing involvement of public organizations in the life of the community. Yet modern organizations do not effectively perform functions unique to families and communities. Drawing on insights from a unique community-system partnership in restorative peacemaking circles, this paper argues we may need to reinvent our organizations so that they learn to behave as members of the community. ¹This apt phrase and fundamental insight about the meaning of community came from the seminal article by Paul McCold and Benjamin Wachtel (1998).     

How Many Balance Functions Does it Take to Determine a Utility Function?

Call b your balance function at wealth W if you are indifferent between W and a 50–50 lottery with outcomes x and b(x). Given one b, u is arbitrary on one side of W but then determined on the other. Given two b‘s, u is arbitrary between the two W′ s but then determined elsewhere. Additional properties of u restrict the b’s but do not ordinarily make u unique. Contradictions can occur. Given three b′ s, an algorithm is developed using minimal domains of definition that determines the relative utility of the W’s. If it is irrational, then the set S generated by applying all combinations of b’s to W′ s is dense and u is determined. If finitely many b’s are rationally related, then S is discrete, a further algorithm determines it, the values of u on S are equally spaced, and u is arbitrary between any two adjacent points of S but then determined elsewhere. Infinitely many balance functions determine u unless they are rationally related in a uniform way.JEL Classification: D81     

An Empirical Investigation of the Assumptions of Risk-Value Models

Do participants make decisions consistent with risk-value tradeoffs? One hundred and five undergraduate business students made risk and preference judgments about lottery pairs in a series of paper surveys. The data indicate that the participants’ responses were generally consistent with the key assumptions of risk-value models, but that some extensions of the theory would improve this consistency. In particular, we find that modifying the risk assumptions of the risk-value theory so they are consistent the concept of the reflection of the risk attitude in the domains of gains and losses increases the agreement between the theory and the participants’ responses.     

What is Loss Aversion?

A behavioral definition of loss aversion is proposed and its implications for original and cumulative prospect theory are analyzed. Original prospect theory is in agreement with the new loss aversion condition, and there utility is capturing all effects of loss aversion. In cumulative prospect theory loss aversion is captured by both the weighting functions and the utility function. Further, some restrictions apply for the weighting functions involved in the latter model.We are indebted to Michèle Cohen and Peter Wakker for helpful comments. The suggestions of an anonymous referee have improved the presentation of the paper.     

A Note on the Portfolio Selection Problem

In this note we provide new results of interest in the portfolio choice problem when the risky opportunities are correlated: for a general vector (X₁, X₂,..., X_n) of risky opportunities we give new conditions for stochastic comparison among different portfolios choices and new necessary and sufficient conditions to characterize the portfolio which gives the maximal expected utility.     

The Effects of Divorce on Men’s Employment and Social Security Histories

Analyses of the economic consequences of divorce have emphasized the negative effect of divorce for women. For men, consequences of divorce are most often believed to be social or psychological. This is not consistent with an economic literature showing the positive effects of marriage on men’s wages. Using a nationally representative life-history survey among men in the Netherlands, this paper reanalyzes the possible negative effects of a divorce for the careers of men. Complete life histories provide information on upward and downward occupational mobility as well as on unemployment and disability. Multivariate event history models show that after divorce, men experience an increased chance of becoming downwardly mobile, an increased chance of becoming unemployed, and an increased chance of becoming disabled. Additional analyses are done to assess whether these effects are spurious, due to the influence of earlier problems that men experienced in their lives, as measured by indicators of employment problems, health problems, and problems in social relationships. While these variables have an effect on the future career, they are not strong enough to eliminate the divorce effect. Implications are discussed for different theoretical hypotheses about the importance of marriage and divorce for men’s employment. Kalmijn, M., 2005, Les effects du divorce sur les histoires professionnelle et socio-médicale des hommes, Revue Européenne de Démographie, 21: 347–366.     

The impact of family structure transitions on youth achievement: Evidence from the children of the NlSY79

We investigated the sensitivity of measures of cognitive ability and socioemotional development to changes in parents' marital status using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979. We used several scores for each assessment, taken at different times relative to parents' marital transitions, which allowed us to trace the effects starting up to five years before a parent's change in marital status and continuing for up to six years afterward. It also allowed us to correct for the unobserved heterogeneity of the transition and nontransition samples by controlling for the child's fixed effect in estimating the time path of his or her response to the transition. We found that children from families with both biological parents scored significantly better on the BPI and the PIAT-math and PIAT-reading assessments than did children from nonintact families. However, much of the difference disappeared when we controlled for background variables. Furthermore, when we controlled for child fixed effects, we did not find significant longitudinal variation in these scores over long periods that encompass the marital transition. This finding suggests that most of the variation is due to cross-sectional differences and is not a result of marital transitions per se.     

The Effect of Veteran Status on Mortality among Older Americans and its Pathways

This research examines excess mortality among American veterans age 70 years or older during a two-to-three year interval from 1993/94 to the end of 1995. Using a structural hazard rate model, we analyzed data on a sample of respondents age 70 or over from the Survey of Asset and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old (AHEAD). We found that at age 70, older veterans have a slightly higher death rate than their nonveteran counterparts, implying a mortality crossover right before this age. Such excess mortality among veterans increases considerably with age, when other factors are held equal. The direct and indirect effects of veteran status on mortality by means of physical and mental health mostly perform in opposite directions, and such effects vary greatly in magnitude and direction as a function of age. The intervening effects of physical and mental health status decrease substantially with increasing age. Many of the mechanisms inherent in the excess mortality among older veterans are not captured by variations in their health status, especially among the oldest-old. A more extensive study on this topic is urgently needed.