Performance and prize decomposition in contests

This paper focuses on the effect of additive contest decomposition on performance: winning probabilities and efforts of the contestants. Our main result provides a sufficient condition for invariance of contest performance to the decomposition of a contest, when the sum of the possibly differently valued prizes in the segmented contests is equal to the value of the prize in the original grand contest and the relative prizes in the sub-contests are equal for every contestant. It is shown that this condition is satisfied by the commonly used exponential logistic contest success functions. With these functions the contest designer does not have an incentive to split the prize and create additive, segmented sub-contests. We then prove that when the additive contest decomposition is asymmetric, contest decomposition may adversely affect the designer; that it, reduce the total efforts of the contestants.     

Causality between transnational terrorism and tourism: The case of Spain

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to devise a methodology for estimating the impact of transnational terrorism on tourism. Using monthly data from 1970–1988, we estimate the relationship between terrorism and tourism for Spain. We find that terrorist events have had a significant negative impact on the number of tourists visiting Spain. A typical incident is estimated as scaring away just over 140,000 tourists when all monthly impacts are combined. Moreover, the causality is unidirectional: terrorism affects tourism, but not the reverse.     

Terrorist success in hostage-taking missions: 1978–2010

This article investigates the determinants of logistical and negotiation successes in hostage-taking incidents using an expanded dataset that runs from 1978 to 2010. Unlike an earlier study, the current study has a rich set of negotiation variables in addition to political, geographical, and organizational variables associated with the perpetrators or targets of the attacks. The 33 years of data permit a split into two subperiods: 1978–1987 and 1988–2010, before and after the rise of religious fundamentalist terrorist groups. Logistical success depends on resource and target vulnerability proxies, while negotiation success hinges on bargaining variables. Among many novel findings, democracy significantly hampers logistical success throughout the entire period. Kidnappings, tropical climates, and high elevations foster logistical success. Religious fundamentalist terrorists’ logistical advantage during 1978–1987 was lost during 1988–2010. Abducting protected persons, making demands on the host country, and staging incidents in a democracy limit negotiation success for the terrorists. If terrorists moderate or replace one or more demands, the likelihood of negotiation success for the terrorists goes up.     

PROGRAMS FOR PROMOTING PARENTING OF RESIDENTIAL PARENTS: Moving From Efficacy to Effectiveness

This article reviews prevention programs that target primary residential parents as change agents for improving children's postdivorce adjustment. First, we review parental risk and protective factors for children from divorced families, including parenting quality, parental mental health problems, interparental conflict, and contact with the nonresidential parent. Following a discussion of brief informational interventions, we describe the findings of evaluations of three multisession, skill-building interventions for divorced parents. Impressive evidence is presented that parenting is a modifiable protective factor and that improving parenting leads to improvements in children's postdivorce adjustment. We then discuss, in greater detail, the New Beginnings Program, which we highlight because it has shown repeated, immediate effects on children's mental health outcomes as well as long-term effects on a wide array of other meaningful outcomes, such as diagnosis of mental disorder in the past year, externalizing problems, alcohol and drug use, and academic performance. Also, mediational analyses have shown that program-induced changes in parenting accounted for changes in mental health outcomes. The remainder of the article describes a research and action agenda that is needed to successfully implement the New Beginnings Program in domestic relations courts.     

DO PARENT EDUCATION PROGRAMS PROMOTE HEALTHY POSTDIVORCE PARENTING? CRITICAL DISTINCTIONS AND A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE

Most parent education programs are designed to improve child well-being following divorce by changing some aspect of parenting. However, there has been relatively little discussion of what aspects of parenting are most critical and the effectiveness of programs to change different aspects of parenting. This paper addresses these issues by: 1. Distinguishing three aspects of post-divorce parenting that have been targeted in parent education programs; 2. Reviewing evidence of the relations between each aspect of parenting and the well-being of children and; 3. Critically reviewing evidence that parent education programs have been successful in changing each aspect of post-divorce parenting.     

The many faces of counterterrorism: an introduction

This article sets the stage for the special issue by describing the many faces of counterterrorism policy. The article highlights some key concepts??e.g., domestic and transnational terrorism, and alternative types of counterterrorism policies??that are applied throughout the special issue. The two data sets exploited in this issue??s empirical contributions are also described. Next, each of the 12 articles is introduced and briefly summarized. The main conclusions and insights of the articles are distilled and placed in perspective.     

Sandler, Freedman and Telhami: Religion in Israeli Politics The Religious-Secular Divide in Israeli Politics

The following is the edited text of a Sadat Forum held at the Brookings Institution on February 23, 1999. The cosponsors are the Brookings Foreign Policy Program and the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland.     

Rent-seeking and pesticide legislation

This paper provides a test of the Appelbaum and Katz (1987) rent-seeking model, in which rents are endogenous. The Appelbaum-Katz model is theoretically modified to correspond to our empirical application, in which rent-seeking and rent-avoiding coalitions are attempting to influence legislators' votes on pesticide regulations. Probit estimations are used to analyze the legislators' votes on two bills to amend pesticide legislation (a proxy for rent). Empirical results generally support the rent-seeking determinants identified in the model. Tobit estimation is used to investigate campaign contributions by the coalitions to the legislators. These contributions are a proxy for rent-seeking activities. Again, the model is supported.