Proposed fiscal year 1997 budgets for social and behavioral science research

COSSA is the advocate in Washington for the social and behavioral sciences. He also chairs the Coalition for National Science Funding. He has testified before Congress many times and has written and spoken extensively on legislative-executive relations, the federal budget process and science policy, particularly as it affects the social and behavioral sciences. This report was prepared by the author with the assistance of the COSSA staff.     

Pigou, Coase, common law, and environmental policy: Implications of the calculation debate

The implications of the calculation debate are explored for Pigouvian, Coasean, and common-law liability approaches to externality problems. There is no escaping Hayekian-Misean information problems, but the institutional setting within which environmental policies are resolved affects the domain of third-party calculation. The calculation required is likely to be significantly less under common-law arrangements than under administrative processes. The primary implication for environmental policy is that increased reliance on competitive market processes and the common law in copying with externality problems may be more effective than attempts to improve current administrative approaches.     

The 1992, 1994 and 1996 elections: A comment and a forecast

A model of the two-way relationship between elections and the economy, previously estimated on historical data for 1916–1988, is applied to the United States elections of 1992, 1994, and 1996. The 1992 result was a surprise to the model since the economy had performed reasonably well that election year. The midterm elections of 1994 were accurately forecast. The Republicans took control of Congress not because of unusual circumstances but because of a normal midterm cycle. President Clinton's chances in 1996 look dim given the current modest growth rate and an electoral bias favoring Republican presidential candidates. But an alternative model, keyed more to the voters choosing Clinton to balance the Republican Congress, gives him a reasonable chance of reelection.     

SEMATECH and collaborative research: Lessons in the design of high-technology consortia

This article reviews the experience of SEMATECH as a model for high-technology research consortia. SEMATECH's original aims of developing next-generation manufacturing technology proved hard to achieve, and the program has refocused on generic technology and the equipment industry infrastructure. Though more modest, these new objectives have produced significant tangible results. The study considers the reasons for the change and implications for consortium design. This is contrasted with the history of other major collaborative research programs in Japan, Europe, and the United States.     

Gender and developmental differences in adolescents' conceptions of moral reasoning

Eighth graders, 11th graders, and college sophomores wrote open-ended essays that characterized their own approaches to moral reasoning. Their essays were scored for the presence of various themes. Students also responded to three dilemmas from the Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1979). Students then rated their own use of justice and care orientations in moral reasoning, using a previously developed instrument (Ford and Lowery, 1986; Lyons, 1983). Characterizations of moral reasoning became more multifaceted and thorough with grade, and correlated with many traditional measures of moral reasoning. Males and females showed some, but relatively few, differences in characterizing their own moral reasoning, although females tended to respond more thoroughly to the open-ended task. Gender differences, when they occurred, were mostly found on measures that assessed so-called feminine issues or concerns, but not on traditional measures of moral reasoning. Characterizations of moral reasoning clustered into five dimensions, raising questions about the utility of the constructs of justice and care orientations.The first and third authors received financial support from a Ford-Mellon grant made to Carleton College. Results of this study were presented at the 1990 meeting of the Society for Research in Adolescence.Received Ph.D. in Psychology and M.S.E. in Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, and has research interests in the development of reasoning skills, decision making, and conceptual development.Received Ph.D. in Counseling and Guidance from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and has research interests in adolescent development and adolescent psychopathology.Received B.A. in Psychology from Carleton College in 1990. Has interests in adolescence and chemical dependence.     

Adolescent depression: Why more girls?

Although there has been evidence for some time of a sex difference in depression, relatively little research has examined the developmental process by which women come to be at greater risk than men for depression. In this paper, the developmental pattern of depressed affect is examined over early and middle adolescence, with a special focus on the patterns of boys as compared to girls. In addition, a developmental model for mental health in adolescence is tested for its power in explaining the emergence of gender differences in depression. Longitudinal data on 335 adolescents randomly selected from two school districts were used to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that girls are at risk for developing depressed affect by 12th grade because they experienced more challenges in early adolescence than did boys. The sex difference in depressed affect at 12th grade disappears once early adolescent challenges are considered.This research was supported in part by grants MH30252/38142 to A. Petersen. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of study participants and staff. Portions of this material were presented in a symposium at the 1988 meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, and one at the 1989 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.Received Ph.D. from University of Chicago in 1973. Research interest in biopsychosocial development in adolescence, with a focus on sex differences in mental health.Research interests include adolescent mental health, and parent and peer relationships.Received Ph.D. in psychology from The Pennsylvania State University. Research interests include development of affective and conduct disorders, especially sex differences in these problems.