The Employment Potential of Refugee Entrepreneurship: Soviet Jews and Vietnamese in California

Research concerning immigrant and ethnic business formation has focused almost exclusively upon the enterprises of economically motivated immigrants and long established refugees. Ignored are the businesses opened by recent refugees who, since 1975, account for 20% of the legal entrants to the United States. Because refugees have different social and demographic characteristics than economic immigrants and come to the U.S. for different reasons, they reveal distinct entrepreneurial behaviors. Relying on a sample of 67 Soviet Jewish and Vietnamese enterprises in California, this study explores the prospects for refugee self-employment. It considers the characteristics of self-employed refugees, their resources and motives for openingbusinesses, and their use of community-based sources of capital, labor, customers and information.     

Factors influencing state progress in the implementation of Public Law 99-457, Part H

Policy implementation has been an infrequently studied process although it has become increasingly evident that the implementation processes of policy development, policy approval, and policy application can shape and delay prospective implementation of legislation. The current study analyzes the implementation of P.L. 99–457 (Part H) the Education for the Handicapped Amendments of 1986. This law provides the states with planning money from the federal government to design a comprehensive interagency, multidisciplinary program of services for children with handicapping conditions and their families. Ratings were taken from key administrators and citizens knowledgeable about the law on state progress in implementing the fourteen requirements of the law and also on proposed influential conditions that might affect that implementation. Additional demographic information was obtained for the fifty states. The factor that seemed to be most influential in a subset of 35 states was the prior presence in the state of systems for interagency planning and development. Neither prior history of early childhood services, available resources, wealth of the state, or geographic region appeared to have a significant influence on policy development. There was some indication that different factors might become influential in the next phase of implementation, policy approval. It appears that progress in state policy development may be linked to the special requirements of the legislation itself and to prior availability of institutional structures that make mandated collaborative efforts more possible.     

Workers' compensation: 1984-88 benchmark revisions.

About 93.1 million workers were covered under workers' compensation laws in 1988--an increase of 11 percent from the 1984 total. Benefit amounts totaled $30.7 billion--an increase of about 56 percent since 1984. Of the total payments made under the workers' compensation program, $17.6 billion went to disabled workers, $1.6 billion to their survivors, and $11.5 billion for medical care. The Social Security Administration (SSA) is interested in measuring economic security in the United States, and workers' compensation plays a large role in that measurement. This article represents one part of our overall effort to determine the roles the various income-maintenance programs play in helping citizens of the United States achieve economic security. The figures presented here provide readers with an opportunity to review workers' compensation program operations during much of the 1980's. Workers' compensation is also important to SSA because that program is directly related to the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Since 1965, Social Security disability benefits have been subject to reduction if the beneficiary also receives workers' compensation and the combined benefits exceed 80 percent of previous earnings. In addition, SSA has been directly involved in providing income maintenance for disability from work-related diseases since 1969 when the Federal Black Lung benefits program was established.     

ISTEA: A New Direction for Transportation Policy

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA)of 1991 is likely to be remembered as one of President Bush'smost significant contributions to government decentralizationand the ideals of New Federalism. It is a landmark piece oflegislation that makes wholesale revisions in the federal government'srole in transportation policy, providing state and, especially,local policymakers with an unprecedented opportunity to determinethe future direction of the nation's surface transportationprograms. However, at the same time it decentralized authorityover project selection, it continued to expandthe number ofcrossover sanctions attached to federal transportation fundingand preempted state authority over truck weights and lengths.This underscores recent research findings that suggest thatfederalism principles are important to federal policymakersbut not necessarily more important than other competing valuesthat emanate from different political, social, and economicviews.     

The good society redux

He is coeditor (with Kenneth W. Thompson) of Truth and Tragedy: A Festschrift for Hans J. Morgenthau,and editor of The Political Morality of the IMF.He is currently writing a book on U.S. foreign policy.     

Masks of autonomy

He teaches in the department of philosophy at Fordham University in New York City. He has published widely on ethical topics.     

Urban youth under stress: Empirical identification of protective factors

Explored the influence of life stress as mediated or moderated by locus of control, family environment, social support, and coping style on psychological adjustment and school performance in 164 ninth graders from Baltimore. Gender differences in findings were shown. For boys, family cohesion was the only variable found to protect against the effects of stress. Family cohesion did not serve protective functions for girls, and along with overall social support, was associated with increased vulnerability to school problems. The report of problem-focused coping strategies exerted a number of protective functions for girls only. External locus of control was found to increase boys' and girls' vulnerability to the effects of life stress. Empirical development of interventions to improve the psychosocial adjustment of inner-city adolescents is discussed.Received Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1991. Research interests include evaluation of school mental health services, empirical development of interventions for children, and the impact of violence on urban youth.Received B.A. from Cornell University. Interests include stress and coping in children, identification of resilience factors, and evaluation of child mental health systems of care.Received Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1967. Research interests include psychophysiology, sleep disorders, and biofeedback and instrumentation.Received B.A. from Loyola College. Interested in applied work with adolescents and adults.Received M.D. from Duke University in 1968. Research interests include training in child and adolescent psychiatry, adolescent psychopathology, and the development of school mental health programs.