State minimum wage laws: Youth coverage and impact

Federal minimum wage statutes cover only 70 percent of the work force and 30 percent of all employers. State laws are designed to close some of these coverage gaps and in some cases to set higher wage floors. Hence, differences in state wage floors and coverage should affect employment rates and wage distributions, particularly among low-skilled workers. Evidence from the National Longitudinal Ssurveys of Youth is mixed, however: State wage floors appear to have no impact on youth employment or entry wages, but coverage exemptions appear to increase both employment and wages. These observations underscore the need to include state provisions in models of minimum wage impacts, particularly for later periods (e.g., 1988–1991) when state wage floors were relatively higher.     

What to Do at Low Doses: A Bounding Approach for Economic Analysis

To quantify the health benefits of environmental policies, economists generally require estimates of the reduced probability of illness or death. For policies that reduce exposure to carcinogenic substances, these estimates traditionally have been obtained through the linear extrapolation of experimental dose-response data to low-exposure scenarios as described in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment (1986). In response to evolving scientific knowledge, EPA proposed revisions to the guidelines in 1996. Under the proposed revisions, dose-response relationships would not be estimated for carcinogens thought to exhibit nonlinear modes of action. Such a change in cancer-risk assessment methods and outputs will likely have serious consequences for how benefit-cost analyses of policies aimed at reducing cancer risks are conducted. Any tendency for reduced quantification of effects in environmental risk assessments, such as those contemplated in the revisions to EPA's cancer-risk assessment guidelines, impedes the ability of economic analysts to respond to increasing calls for benefit-cost analysis. This article examines the implications for benefit-cost analysis of carcinogenic exposures of the proposed changes to the 1986 Guidelines and proposes an approach for bounding dose-response relationships when no biologically based models are available. In spite of the more limited quantitative information provided in a carcinogen risk assessment under the proposed revisions to the guidelines, we argue that reasonable bounds on dose-response relationships can be estimated for low-level exposures to nonlinear carcinogens. This approach yields estimates of reduced illness for use in a benefit-cost analysis while incorporating evidence of nonlinearities in the dose-response relationship. As an illustration, the bounding approach is applied to the case of chloroform exposure.     

Valuation of childhood risk reduction: the importance of age, risk preferences, and perspective.

This article explores two problems analysts face in determining how to estimate values for children's health and safety risk reductions. The first addresses the question: Do willingness‐to‐pay estimates for health risk changes differ across children and adults and, if so, how? To answer this question, the article first examines the potential effects of age and risk preferences on willingness to pay. A summary of the literature reporting empirical evidence of differences between willingness to pay for adult health and safety risk reductions and willingness to pay for health and safety risk reductions in children is also provided. The second dimension of the problem is a more fundamental issue: Whose perspective is relevant when valuing children's health effects—society's, children's, adults‐as‐children, or parents'? Each perspective is considered, followed ultimately by the conclusion that adopting a parental perspective through an intrahousehold allocation model seems closest to meeting the needs of the estimation problem at hand. A policy example in which the choice of perspective affects the outcome of a regulatory benefit‐cost analysis rounds out the article and emphasizes the importance of perspective.     

Stripping in the New Millennium: Thinking about Trends in Exotic Dance and Dancers' Lives

With the increasing presence of sex and sexuality in American popular culture, the stripping industry is undoubtedly undergoing important subcultural and organizational transition. What are the implications of these changes for the individuals involved? The current paper reviews much of the literature on exotic dance to consider the potential transformations in the organization of the sex industry and how these changes may impact the lives of those involved. Specifically, I note some key differences in the literature that suggest how exotic dance has shifted. I then pose some questions for empirical inquiry. I argue that transformations in the exotic industry are creating new opportunities and challenges for women, and may be particularly deleterious for poor and minority women. I call for sociologists to investigate the consequences of organizational transferal in sexual labor, reevaluate the dynamics of agency and exploitation, and consider the potential differential impact of these trends on poor women and women of color.     

An Empirical Examination of Quality Certification in a "Lemons Market"

This article examines the effect third-party certification has on a market characterized by adverse selection. Using an original data set from the market for young thoroughbreds, we show that certification alleviates problems of adverse selection by examining the effect certification has on breeder decisions to retain or sell horses and the effect these decisions have on observed prices. Data on the racetrack performance of the horses confirm the results.     

Opportunities and Challenges for Public Libraries to Enhance Community Resilience

This study bridges a gap between public library and emergency management policy versus practice by examining the role of public libraries in the community resource network for disaster recovery. Specifically, this study identifies the opportunities and challenges for public libraries to fulfill their role as a FEMA‐designated essential community organization and enhance community resilience. The results indicate there are several opportunities for libraries to enhance community resilience by offering technology resources and assistance; providing office, meeting, and community living room space; serving as the last redundant communication channel and a repository for community information and disaster narratives; and adapting or expanding services already offered to meet the changing needs of the community. However, libraries also face challenges in enhancing community resilience, including the temptation to overcommit library capacity and staff capability beyond the library mission and a lack of long‐term disaster plans and collaboration with emergency managers and government officials. Implications for library and emergency management practice and crisis research are discussed.     

Learning from others: conditioning versus averaging

How should we revise our beliefs in response to the expressed probabilistic opinions of experts on some proposition when these experts are in disagreement? In this paper I examine the suggestion that in such circumstances we should adopt a linear average of the experts’ opinions and consider whether such a belief revision policy is compatible with Bayesian conditionalisation. By looking at situations in which full or partial deference to the expressed opinions of others is required by Bayesianism I show that only in trivial circumstances are the requirements imposed by linear averaging compatible with it.