The Cost of Discrimination in Latin America

Indigenous and linguistic minorities are in an inferior economic and social position. The ethnic concentration of inequality is increasingly being recognized in the literature. In this review, studies from six Latin American countries that estimate the costs to an individual of being an economic minority are reviewed. The studies decompose the overall earnings gap into two components. One is the portion attributable to differences in the endowments of income-generating characteristics (“explained” differences) and the other is attributable to differences in the returns that majority and minority workers receive for the same endowment of income-generating characteristics (“unexplained”). This latter component is often taken as reflecting the “upper bound” of wage discrimination. In two studies for Bolivia, one using a 1966 survey and the other a 1989 survey, decomposition of the differential between indigenous and nonindigenous earnings leads to the conclusion that most of the overall differential is due to productivity. In Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, only one-half of the earnings differential can be attributed to differences in productivity-enhancing characteristics. In Paraguay, decomposition of the overall earnings differential between monolingual Spanish speakers and Guaraní speakers shows that most of the differential is explained by human capital differences. In Brazil, however, there is a significant cost to “being non-white.” Harry Anthony Patrinos is a Senior Education Economist at the World Bank. He leads the Economics of Education Thematic Group and manages EdInvest (www.worldbank.org/edinvest), the Education Investment Information Facility. He is co-author ofDecentralization of Education: Demand-Side Financing (1997). His latest co-edited book isPolicy Analysis of Child Labor: A Comparative Study (St. Martin's Press, 1999).Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis (edited with George Psacharopoulos), was one of the first studies of the socioeconomic situation of indigenous peoples in Latin America.     

A Classification Tree Approach to the Development of Actuarial Violence Risk Assessment Tools

Since the 1970s, a wide body of research has suggested that the accuracy of clinical risk assessments of violence might be increased if clinicians used actuarial tools. Despite considerable progress in recent years in the development of such tools for violence risk assessment, they remain primarily research instruments, largely ignored in daily clinical practice. We argue that because most existing actuarial tools are based on a main effects regression approach, they do not adequately reflect the contingent nature of the clinical assessment processes. To enhance the use of actuarial violence risk assessment tools, we propose a classification tree rather than a main effects regression approach. In addition, we suggest that by employing two decision thresholds for identifying high- and low-risk cases--instead of the standard single threshold--the use of actuarial tools to make dichotomous risk classification decisions may be further enhanced. These claims are supported with empirical data from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study.     

Social constraints in the political arena: A theoretical inquiry into their form and manner

In the past three different paradigms or, more loosely, frames of reference, have been used by students of politics to interpret various dimensions of mass political participation. Each of these, which are referred to as the political socialization, the group interests and beliefs, and the political party/organization paradigms, has received empirical support for its scheme of interpretation; yet recent political events also suggest that these frames of reference may be inadequate, and may need to be complemented, if not replaced, by other schemes. The present paper outlines one such scheme, drawing upon recent writings on social networks and social influences on political participation. It relies on the metaphor of a political arena, and proposes two simple propositions to account both for conventional and unconventional participation in this arena.An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Annual Meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, New York, NY, August 1976.     

Tribes and Tribulations: Bedouin Losses in the Saudi and Iraqi Struggles Over Kuwait's Frontiers, 1921–1943

In the years following World War One the pastoral populations of northern Arabia were subjected to political pressures and economic hardships arising from the creation of French and British spheres of influence in the territories that would become the states of Jordan, Syria and Iraq, and by the aggressive expansion of the domains of the ruler of Najd, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman Al Saud. Year by year the nascent states in the region asserted more control over the vast stretches of desert and steppe that had heretofore been the domains of powerful bedouin tribes and confederations. New borders often cut across tribal territories creating complications and conflict in such matters as sovereignty, citizenship, migration, raiding and political refuge. The establishment of new customs regimes and economic policies meant that age-old patterns of trade between the settled and nomadic populations were altered, curtailed or criminalized as ‘smuggling’.

This article examines two sets of policies that Iraqi and Saudi forces employed to express political domination in the desert and steppes of Kuwait and beyond in the guise of controlling trade: the Saudi blockade of overland trade with Kuwait; and Iraq's aggressive ‘anti-smuggling’ measures that often victimized innocent bedouin. In both cases, members of bedouin tribes were harassed, attacked, pillaged and forced to alter their normal patterns of trade and migration. The eventual rise and dominance of state power resulted in the historic defeat of bedouin control in the deserts and steppes and a gradual loss of their traditional economic options. This article provides detailed evidence showing how part of this large transformation in bedouin society took place.     

1H NMR analysis of GHB and GBL: further findings on the interconversion and a preliminary report on the analysis of GHB in serum and urine

A 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) method for the determination of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and gamma-hydroxybutyrolactone (GBL) in human serum and urine using spiked samples has been developed. The method gives linear responses (correlation coefficients of 0.99 or greater) over the concentration range 0.01 mg/mL to 4.0 mg/mL in urine and 0.3 mg/mL to 2.0 mg/mL in serum. No sample pretreatment is required. Studies of the chemical interconversion of GBL and GHB showed hydrolysis of GBL to be rapid at pH 11.54, slower and less complete (30% hydrolysis) at pH 2.54 and slowest at pH 7.0, reaching 30% hydrolysis in about 40 days. No esterification of GHB was observed at any pH.