The disparate labor market impacts of monetary policy

Employing two widely used approaches to identify the effects of monetary policy, this paper explores the differential impact of policy on the labor market outcomes of teenagers, minorities, out‐of‐school youth, and less‐skilled individuals. Evidence from recursive vector autoregressions and autoregressive distributed lag models that use information on the Federal Reserve's contractionary initiatives indicate that the employment‐population ratio of minorities is more sensitive to contractionary monetary policy than that of whites. The ratio falls primarily because of an increase in unemployment and not because of a decline in labor force participation. Monetary policy appears to have a disproportionate effect on the unemployment rate of teenagers, particularly African American teenagers. Their employment‐population ratios fall because of increased difficulty in obtaining employment. The larger responses are not caused by their higher likelihood of having been employed in industries and occupations that are more sensitive to contractionary monetary policy. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Evaluating the Devolution Revolution1

This article provides an evaluation of the impact of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. The evidence clearly shows that PRWORA has had a major impact on the poverty population and the welfare system. The data analyzed identify those policy areas in which positive changes can be identified, along with implementation and design problems that need reform. The data also show that while some states have made considerable progress in implementing the law, many are lagging.     

Drug booms and busts: poverty and prosperity in a Nicaraguan narco-barrio

Abstract

The income generated by the drug economy can often be substantial for the different parties involved, even at the lowest rung of this illicit trade. Yet the drugs trade is also a notoriously volatile activity, meaning that drug-related prosperity is highly prone to boom-and-bust cycles. Drawing on ongoing longitudinal ethnographic research in urban Nicaragua, this article explores the consequences of the cyclical nature of the drugs trade, tracing its unequal patterns of capital accumulation, as well as what happened to those who benefited from the drug economy when it became more exclusive and then subsequently moved on elsewhere.     

Why “I” became a combatant: A study of memoirs written by Nepali Maoist combatants

This article analyzes combatants’ accounts of their engagement with the Communist Party of Nepal, Maoist—CPN (M). We use Self-Categorization Theory (SCT) as a framework and thematic analysis as a method to examine how social relationships and contextual factors contributed to political party identification during the ten-year-long Maoist insurgency in Nepal. Based on the study of autobiographical narratives written by Nepali Maoist combatants, we demonstrate that a) key social and political experiences cumulatively evoked feeling positively inclined to partisan attachment; b) CPN (M) party ideology, which was presented as a cure-all to socio-political difficulties, actuated the predisposed people’s partisan alignment; c) families were largely unsupportive of their members’ intention to take part in the war; and when they participated, the family responded with antagonism; and d) party ideologues of the CPN (M), who met the partisan-leaning individuals as close friends, accelerated and sustained their friends’ motivation to become involved in the armed conflict. Together the findings culminate in a view that engagement with CPN (M) during the insurgency occurred despite resistance from family and increased exponentially because of societal and political experiences, the strong appeal of party ideology, and social network dynamics.     

Psychological Barriers to a Peaceful Resolution: Longitudinal Evidence from the Middle East and Northern Ireland

Does individual-level exposure to political violence prompt conciliatory attitudes? Does the answer vary by phase of conflict? The study uses longitudinal primary datasets to test the hypothesis that conflict-related experiences impact conciliation. Data were collected from Israeli Jews, Palestinians, and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Across both contexts, and among both parties to each conflict, psychological distress and threat perceptions had a polarizing effect on conciliatory preferences. The study highlights that experiences of political violence are potentially a crucial source of psychological distress, and consequently, a continuing barrier to peace. This has implications in peacemaking, implying that alongside removing the real threat of violence, peacemakers must also work toward the social and political inclusion of those most affected by previous violence.     

A Biopsychosocial Model of Body Image Concerns and Disordered Eating in Early Adolescent Girls

Body image and eating concerns are prevalent among early adolescent girls, and associated with biological, psychological and sociocultural risk factors. To date, explorations of biopsychosocial models of body image concerns and disordered eating in early adolescent girls are lacking. A sample of 488 early adolescent girls, mean age = 12.35 years (SD = 0.53), completed a questionnaire assessing depressive symptoms, self-esteem, body mass index (BMI), sociocultural appearance pressures, thin-ideal internalization, appearance comparison, body image concerns and disordered eating. Structural equation modelling was conducted to test a hypothetical model in which internalization and comparison were mediators of the effect of both negative affect and sociocultural influences on body image concerns and disordered eating. In addition, the model proposed that BMI would impact body image concerns. Although the initial model was a poor fit to the data, the fit was improved after the addition of a direct pathway between negative affect and bulimic symptoms. The final model explained a large to moderate proportion of the variance in body image and eating concerns. This study supports the role of negative affect in biopsychosocial models of the development of body image concerns and disordered eating in early adolescent girls. Interventions including strategies to address negative affect as well as sociocultural appearance pressures may help decrease the risk for body image concerns and disordered eating among this age group.     

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Delinquency: DF Analysis of NLSY Kinship Data

This paper follows earlier research (Rowe et al., 1992) in evaluating the basis of family influences on adolescent delinquent behavior. Delinquency is measured in a number of different ways to account for important theoretical distinctions that exist in the delinquency literature. We use recently identified kinship structure in a large national data set—the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—to estimate genetic and shared environmental influences on self-reported delinquency scores. Our analytic model is based on DF analysis, a regression procedure used to estimate parameters reflecting genetic and environmental influence. Results suggest a consistent and moderate genetic basis to sibling similarity in delinquency and little evidence of a shared environmental basis. A large amount of variance is attributable to nonshared influences and/or measurement error. Our findings suggest that the search for environmental influences on adolescent delinquency should focus on those that are not shared by siblings.