Intergenerational cooperation within the household: a Public Good game with three generations

We analyze cooperation of individuals in a family context, using a Public Good game. In a lab experiment, 165 individuals from 55 three-generation families (youth, parent, and grandparent) play a repeated Public Good game in three different treatments: one in which three members of the same family play each other (family), a second with the youth and two non-family members, while preserving the previous generational structure (inter-generational), and a third in which three randomly-selected players play each other (random). We find that all the age groups cooperate more when playing with relatives, indicating that family ties may have a positive relationship to contributions to the Public Good. We also find that this trend is more evident for the youths and the parents than for the grandparents. Furthermore, young individuals tend to cooperate less than older generations, especially in non-family treatments. Our results serve as evidence of the relationship between family ties and inter-generational cooperative behaviors.

     

Placement characteristics and stability: a longitudinal analysis of Norwegian children in foster homes

This paper investigates how enhanced support for foster parents, such as covering fees and providing consultants and relief, may reduce the number of replacements experienced by children in foster care. It also investigates the extent to which replacements are associated with family (kin) vs. non‐family foster parents, or with legal characteristics of the placement (i.e. forced administrative decisions vs. relief measures agreed upon by the parents). Statistical analyses of administrative data from Norway investigated the longitudinal relationships between these characteristics and the number of replacements at two levels – children (N = 16 109) and municipalities (N = 418) – over 5 years (2007–2011). The results reveal modest associations between enhanced support and fewer replacements; for example, replacement rates are lower for children placed in homes of kin than in non‐family homes. Replacements also tend to be fewer when the placement is forced rather than consensual.     

Effects of Parental Divorce on Teenage Children’s Risk Behaviors: Incidence and Persistence

It is generally difficult to separate the effects of divorce from selection when analyzing the effects of parental divorce on children’s risk behaviors. We used propensity score matching and longitudinal data methods to estimate the effects of parents’ divorce on their children’s binge drinking, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, marijuana use, and hard drug use. The children were between 12 and 18 years old in the first survey and between 18 and 24 years old in the second survey. Our results suggest that parental divorce significantly increased the probability of risk behaviors in their children. Moreover, many of these adverse impacts persisted over time, especially among teenage girls.     

Do small cities affect bird assemblages? An evaluation from Patagonia

Urban Ecosystems - Most studies about the impact of urbanization on bird assemblages are from the Northern Hemisphere and most previous research has reported that cities reduced bird species...     

Model-based clustering with determinant-and-shape constraint

Statistics and Computing - Model-based approaches to cluster analysis and mixture modeling often involve maximizing classification and mixture likelihoods. Without appropriate constrains on the...     

Emerging coherence and relations to communication among executive function tasks in toddlers: Evidence from a Latin American sample

Recent work within early executive function (EF) seems to suggest that toddlers show distinct patterns of development, involving poorly correlated performance across EF tasks and significant improvements over relatively short periods of time. The present study sought to extend these findings by investigating evidence for these patterns in toddlers and the existence of more traditional patterns of EF (e.g., correlations between tasks, links to language) when using the same tasks in a novel Latin American sample. Eighty toddlers (18–24 months) and sixty young preschoolers (30–36) months completed a battery of EF tasks, early social communication, and receptive and expressive language measures. Results indicated that toddlers showed similar distinct patterns of development (i.e., few relations between tasks and links to responding to joint attention), but by early preschool a more cohesive EF and links to language were present. Further, work demonstrated significant age (older children outperformed younger children), gender (girls outperformed boys), and socioeconomic differences (satisfied basic needs outperformed unsatisfied basic needs, but only on the snack delay). This work provides evidence for patterns of emerging EF development within this novel cultural sample (and evidence for group differences) that may be supported by communicative and representational development.     

Hurricane Katrina's Impact on African Americans' and European Americans' Endorsement of the Protestant Work Ethic

The Protestant work ethic (PWE), the belief that hard work leads to success, is a quintessentially American belief. The present research addresses a critical gap in psychological research on PWE: can a single, large-scale sociopolitical event (government's response to Hurricane Katrina) produce changes in PWE? We review evidence showing that the salience of Katrina led to a reduction in African Americans' (not European Americans') endorsement of PWE and that this result appears explained by African Americans' greater belief in the government's inadequate response to Katrina victims, who were predominately African American. The implications of differential endorsement of PWE for future expectations of societal treatment, motivation to pursue important goals, and willingness to endorse structural corrections of inequality are discussed.     

Latino Phenotypic Discrimination Revisited: The Impact of Skin Color on Occupational Status

Objective . We reexamine the issue of phenotypic discrimination against Mexicans in the U.S. labor market, originally studied by Telles and Murguia (1990) and later by Bohara and Davila (1992). We also seek to explain this topic with respect to the Puerto Rican and Cuban populations in the United States. Methods . Instead of using household income as a dependent variable, we use occupational ranking scores computed by Hauser and Warren (1996) in combination with data from the 1990 Latino National Political Survey (LNPS). The occupational rankings more accurately reflect the level of labor market discrimination faced by individuals. Furthermore, the use of the more recent LNPS allows us to update the work of previous scholars and extend the analysis to two previously unexamined Latino groups—Puerto Ricans and Cubans. Results . Our findings indicate that darker-skinned Mexicans and Cubans face significantly lower occupational prestige scores than their lighter-skinned counterparts even when controlling for factors that influence performance in the labor market. However, we find no conclusive evidence that skin-color differences impact occupational prestige scores for Puerto Ricans. Conclusions . Using earlier data, some scholars found evidence for difference in labor market performance among Mexican Americans as a function of phenotypic variations among Mexican Americans. Today, dark-skinned Mexican Americans and Cuban Americans continue to face higher levels of discrimination in the labor market, whereas dark-skinned Puerto Ricans do not, which may indicate regional differences across the three groups that need to be controlled for.     

Hierarchical clustering and matrix completion for the reconstruction of world input–output tables

Multi-regional input–output (I/O) matrices provide the networks of within- and cross-country economic relations. In the context of I/O analysis, the methodology adopted by national statistical offices in data collection raises the issue of obtaining reliable data in a timely fashion and it makes the reconstruction of (parts of) the I/O matrices of particular interest. In this work, we propose a method combining hierarchical clustering and matrix completion with a LASSO-like nuclear norm penalty, to predict missing entries of a partially unknown I/O matrix. Through analyses based on both real-world and synthetic I/O matrices, we study the effectiveness of the proposed method to predict missing values from both previous years data and current data related to countries similar to the one for which current data are obscured. To show the usefulness of our method, an application based on World Input–Output Database (WIOD) tables—which are an example of industry-by-industry I/O tables—is provided. Strong similarities in structure between WIOD and other I/O tables are also found, which make the proposed approach easily generalizable to them.

     

Nativity and Self‐Assessed Health among Pre‐Retirement Age Hispanics and Non‐Hispanic Whites1

Economic, social and familial resources are known to influence subjective health assessments. We examine the salience of nativity in determining how these resources influence self‐assessed health using a large, nationwide sample of Hispanic and non‐Hispanic white adults. The results indicate that while education, accumulated assets and marital status benefit the physical and emotional health of the native and foreign‐born, family resources and income are significant only for the native‐born. English language proficiency is a significant protective factor for both groups and is especially protective for immigrants. These surprising findings call into question previous studies stressing the positive role of the family in maintaining immigrant health.