Personal Criminal Victimization in the United States: Fixed and Random Effects of Individual and Household Characteristics

The present research is concerned with multilevel modeling of personalvictimization rates. Data from the 1994 National Crime Victimization Surveyare employed. Following the routine activities and lifestyle victimizationtheory, individuals' profile and lifestyle as well as characteristics oftheir household comprise the set of explanatory variables. The results ofestimated multilevel negative binomial models, which explicitly disentanglethe unexplained heterogeneity between individuals and between households,are discussed. The estimated random effects of household characteristicsshow that the unexplained heterogeneity for the average number of personalcrimes differs across household types. Further, the individual covariateswith between households random effects become less influential the more thebase personal crime rates are high.     

Developmental Trajectories and Intentional Actions

The article turns a critical eye on problems arising from use of largesamples and complicated statistics to handle multilevel designs. I arguethat although these have a legitimate role to play in discovering causalrelations, valuable information can be lost or distorted in the processof their use. Exploratory classification and tree diagrams show howtransitional analyses can unpack effects of community, family, priormisbehavior, juvenile delinquency, and incarceration on adult criminalbehavior. The analyses showed that in the worst neighborhoods, disruptivebehavior had little discriminating power with regard to juveniledelinquency or adult crime. They showed also that good family interactionsserve as protection against crime in all types of neighborhoods. ConstructTheory, I suggest, is a way to understand the influences that seem toproduce criminal behavior.     

法律文书中的模糊词语初探

法律文书在大量使用确切性词语的同时,还必须适当选用模糊词语,选用模糊词语的目的其实也是为了更确切的表意。法律文书在表述难以具体确定的时间空间、无法或不必确定的程度范围、难于或无需准确描述的频率数量、带有预测推断性质的内容情节、不便或不宜直言的情景事实等状况时宜用模糊词语。运用模糊词语可以使法律文书的语义更确切、表述更严谨、文风更庄重、章法更协调。法律文书在使用模糊词语时一定要注意不能超越一定的“模糊度”,不能偏离具体的题旨语境,不能忽略其与确切性词语的对立统一。     

Mobilizing the Seldom Voter: Campaign Contact and Effects in High-Profile Elections

Decades of research suggests that campaign contact together with an advantageous socioeconomic profile increases the likelihood of casting a ballot. Measurement and modeling handicaps permit a lingering uncertainty about campaign communication as a source of political mobilization however. Using data from a uniquely detailed telephone survey conducted in a pair of highly competitive 2002 U.S. Senate races, we further investigate who gets contacted, in what form, and with what effect. We conclude that even in high-profile, high-dollar races the most important determinant of voter turnout is vote history, but that holding this variable constant reveals a positive effect for campaign communication among “seldom” voters, registered but rarely active participants who—ironically—are less likely than regular or intermittent voters to receive such communication.

A dynamic analysis of partisan voting: The issue salience effect of unemployment in South Korea

This paper examines the electoral effects of the salience of unemployment issue. While increasing employment volatility has spawned exciting research, evidence of how unemployment affects vote choice is inconclusive. I refine partisan voting theory by focusing on issue salience of unemployment and the dynamics of voter choice. Voters are more likely to make a transition to support left parties when they identify unemployment as the most important and salient issue. The study also examines voter heterogeneity in the link between issue salience and the propensity for transition to the left. The effect of issue salience of unemployment is more pronounced among lower income groups than their counterparts. Analysis of a transition model using the 1997 and 2002 Korean presidential election surveys finds evidence supporting my arguments.     

The Cartography of Opportunity: Spatial Data Science for Equitable Urban Policy

As evidence of the contextual effects of place upon individual outcomes has become increasingly solid over time, so too have urban policies and programs designed to connect underserved people with access to spatial opportunity. To this end, many attempts have been made to quantify the geography of opportunity and quite literally plot it on a map by combining evidence from studies on neighborhood effects with spatial data resources and geographic information systems (GIS) technology. Recently, these opportunity maps have not only become increasingly common but their preparation has been encouraged and facilitated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A closer look at the foundations and methods that underlie these exercises offers important lessons I examine the practice of opportunity mapping from both theoretical and methodological perspectives, highlighting several weaknesses of the common methods. Following this, I outline a theoretical framework based on Galster’s categorization of the mechanisms of neighborhood effects. Using data from the Baltimore metropolitan region, I use confirmatory factor analysis to specify a measurement model that verifies the validity of the proposed theoretical framework. The model provides estimates of four latent variables conceived as the essential dimensions of spatial opportunity: social-interactive, environmental, geographic, and institutional. Finally, I develop a neighborhood typology using unsupervised machine learning applied to the four dimensions of opportunity. Results suggest that opportunity mapping can be improved substantially through a better connection to the empirical literature on neighborhood effects, a multivariate statistical framework, and more direct relevance to public policy interventions.     

Do Neighborhood Effects on Low-Income Minority Children Depend on Their Age? Evidence From a Public Housing Natural Experiment

We analyze data from a natural experiment involving Denver public housing that quasirandomly assigns low-income Latino and African American youth to neighborhoods. Intent-to-treat and treatment-on-treated models reveal substantial effects of neighborhood socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and safety domains on youth and young adult educational, employment, and fertility outcomes. Effects are contingent on when a youth was first assigned to public housing and the neighborhood characteristic in question. Benefits from neighbors of higher occupational prestige are stronger if a child begins experiencing them at a younger age, whereas negative consequences of neighborhood crime are only manifested for teens. Neighborhood effect sizes apparently depend on the interaction among exposure duration, disruption effects of mobility, and developmental stage-specific differences in vulnerability to the given neighborhood effect mechanism operative. Our results hold powerful and provocative implications for where assisted housing should be developed and how applicants should be assigned to neighborhoods.     

分家与分家单研究

在中国分家是有其特定含义的,仅指兄弟之间以及兄弟与父母之间的分家,而不包括女儿在内.分家行为是属于民事行为,主要属于处分行为.分家行为本身也是一项法律事实.从本质上看,分家单不具有合同的根本属性,不是合同,只是一般的民事协议.分家单只要有主体、客体和内容三要素就能成立.分家单的效力表现在三个方面:从财产的归属方面看,有权利证明的效力.对当事人而言,产生约束力.依法成立并生效的分家单,对于在其上签名的当事人有约束力,应当自觉遵守.从诉讼过程来看,有证据效力.对于分家单中记载的对父母赡养义务的分配,原则上有效.     

台湾地区的东南亚新娘问题分析

早在上世纪七八十年代就有东南亚女性嫁到中国台湾.上世纪90年代以来,大量东南亚女性通过中介公司远嫁台湾.这种特殊的人口迁移现象源于台湾地区人口中的性别比失衡、台湾当局推行"南向"政策以及台湾与东南亚经贸关系日益密切等因素.这些跨区婚姻对于台湾解决适婚男女比例不平衡、提高人口出生率、增加劳动力起了一定的作用,但也带来一些社会问题.为此,台湾当局与民间组织采取了相关的辅助措施,以帮助东南亚新娘尽快适应台湾生活,促进"新台湾之子"的健康成长.     

Contracting out local road and park services: economic effects and their strategic,contractual and competitive conditions

ABSTRACT

The economic rationale for contracting out local services is increasingly contested by empirical research. This article aims to contribute to this literature, first by scrutinising the economic effects of contracting out in local road and park services and, second, by exploring how characteristics such as markets, contracts, municipal strategies and contracting history influence these outcomes. Drawing on original survey data from Danish municipalities, we find that competitive tendering has on average reduced costs. Further analysis shows that savings are not associated with lower quality, thus indicating that ‘quality shading’ was not taking place. Another finding is that municipalities that repeatedly contract the services experience smaller savings, suggesting that competitive tendering is subject to declining marginal returns. Finally, we find that larger municipalities and those emphasising expenditure cuts realise larger savings, whereas the characteristics of markets and contracts do not seem to explain variations in cost savings.