A SEMIPARAMETRIC DISCRETE CHOICE MODEL: AN APPLICATION TO HOSPITAL MERGERS

We propose a computationally simple semiparametric discrete choice estimator to model rich consumer heterogeneity. We assume groups of observably similar consumers have similar preferences, but allow preferences to vary freely across these groups. Model flexibility is easily adjusted by setting a single tuning parameter; we suggest a cross‐validation method to do so. We analyze the model's properties in the context of hospital mergers, both analytically and via a Monte Carlo analysis. The model performs well for policy relevant substitution and welfare measures, even if misspecified, when the tuning parameter is set within the neighborhood of the value chosen by cross validation. (JEL C14, D12, I11, L41)     

Research Note: Religious Affiliation and Poverty Explanations: Individual,Structural, and Divine Causes

Abstract

Prior studies of people's explanations for poverty have relied upon individual, structural, and fatalistic explanations. This paper explores an additional explanation for poverty, divine intervention. Using a sample of 360 college students, I show that divine intervention is a distinct explanation for poverty. I then examine if or how six religious groups—conservative, African American, and mainline Protestants, Catholics, the nonaffiliated, and those with “other” beliefs—differ in their views of individual, structural, and divine explanations for poverty. Results show that members of conservative Protestant denominations are more individualistic than Catholics and the nonaffiliated. African American Protestants were significantly more structuralist than conservative Protestants. African American Protestants are more likely than conservative Protestants, and both are more likely than Catholics, the nonaffiliated, and those with “other” beliefs, to believe that divine intervention is an important explanation for poverty.     

Is relationship and marriage education relevant and appropriate to child welfare?

Child welfare professionals (CWPs) have historically been ignored as a potential delivery system of relationship and marriage education (RME). Based on a sample of 1015 CWPs from two states, the current study shows that CWPs believe promoting healthy couple and marital relationships is relevant to the families they serve and their work, and that they are open to receiving RME training. Results from structural equation modeling indicate that CWPs' beliefs about the relevancy and appropriateness of RME may be influenced by their current RME ability and comfort level, their beliefs about the state of marriage and the prevalence of couples in their current caseload of families they serve. Implications related to promoting RME within child welfare and engaging CWPs in RME training are discussed.     

Envisioning emerging nanotechnologies: a three-year panel study of South Carolina citizens

This article reports results from a three-year panel study of a nonrandom sample of 76 South Carolina citizens, recruited from a variety of walks of life, and their impressions of emerging nanotechnology. This discussion focuses on material from depth interviews conducted alongside a baseline opinion and awareness inventory at the beginning of the study, the most intensive data-gathering phase. These results are placed in the context of data from three additional surveys conducted at about equal intervals over the three years, plus exit interviews from 21 of the 34 individuals who completed the entire study. The results give insight into popular thinking about technology but little indication of strong emerging concerns, a trajectory of amplification of those concerns, or opinion polarization over time, despite some awareness of risks and potential ethical dimensions. Nanotechnology may stand out more as an example of risk attenuation than of risk amplification, consistent with most results from national surveys.     

A Philosopher's War on Poverty of the Stimulus Arguments: A Review of Fiona Cowie's What's Within? Nativism Reconsidered

In What''s Within? Nativism Reconsidered 1999 Fiona Cowie addresses three questions: (1) What is nativism? (2) What is meant by calling some trait “innate”? and (3) What types of evidence should be offered when claiming innateness? This review concentrates on these questions as they pertain to Chomsky''s faculties-based account of language acquisition. In particular, this review focuses on Cowie''s critique of three versions of the poverty of the stimulus argument (POSA): (1) the a posteriori POSA, (2) the logical problem POSA, and (3) the iterated POSA. In addition, counter arguments to her critique, and Cowie''s response, in turn, to some of those counter arguments, are also reviewed.     

Southern assumptions: normalizing racialized structures at a university in the Deep South

Informed by critical race theory (CRT), we examine how African-American and white college students, at a predominantly white, structurally diverse, Southern US university, understand their cross-racial experiences. Black–white interactions are understood within the context of the so-called ‘post-racial’ environment, against the backdrop of high-profile cases of racial injustice, and within the added context of the historical legacy of slavery and Jim Crow segregation in the rural Southern United States. Our study suggests that many students, regardless of race, recognized the persistence of racial segregation, especially in nightlife and campus Greek letter organizations (GLOs). African-American students were the most vocal and troubled by this division. Unexpectedly, however, students appeared to take for granted that in the American South, racism is persistent and indestructible. Building on Bell’s (1991) notion of racial realism and Bonilla-Silva’s (2013) notion of naturalization, we expand the view that racism is inherent or related to individual preference, to place and time, with a construct we term southern assumptions. Southern assumptions are the mechanisms in which participants connect collective historical racism in the south to the race problems of today.