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In this paper, I draw on two childhood ethnographies to ask basic questions about the foundation of child writing. The first question is, where does writing come from in young children's lives? Answering this question will lead us to childhood play as the foundation of writing. The second question is, how do educators negotiate an inclusive, playful classroom culture in racially divisive and neoliberal times? This question will lead to a critical consideration of forming an inclusive culture in a racially and culturally diverse classroom. In this time of uniform, mandated curricula, rampant in the United States and elsewhere, and of the dismissive attitude towards play and towards childhood diversity (e.g., in race, culture and socioeconomic class), it is worth revisiting basic questions about the beginnings of writing in childhoods. The questions are relevant whether a child is writing on paper, screen, slate, or sand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I demonstrate that existing social surveys that include genotypic markers are all limited on at least one of the following dimensions: national representativeness (versus targeted sample), genotyping platform (candidate genes v. genome-wide measures), data structure (i.e. individuals v. pedigrees), or measured phenotypes (lack of rich longitudinal socioeconomic and developmental measures). Given this, I argue that the U.S. either needs a novel, nationally representative household panel study that includes genome-wide marker data or to genotype all respondents of the existing Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I conclude by showing that such a study would be adequately powered to deploy Genetic Risk Score analysis and that, in turn, such scores could be deployed to model gene-environment interaction effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite economic growth since the recession, the gap between the richest and the poorest segments of the population remains one of the most pressing concerns of contemporary America. This paper uses IR-95/20, IR-80/20, and IR-65/35 ratios to measure the income divides between the richest and the poorest segments in the mid-to-large-sized metropolises of the U.S. Southeast, their variation across ethnicities, and their association with metropolitan level attributes such as diversity, segregation, socio-economic, and other built-environment, and labor characteristics. The income divide ratios serve as the dependent variables whereas principal components along with state-dummy variables serve as the explanatory variables in regressions analyses. The metropolises that are large, diverse, and better educated are the most income-divided whereas those with lower educated people are less divided. Metropolises with larger shares of their labor engaged in primary sectors of economy have higher income divides; this observation also holds true for African Americans and Hispanics. Metropolises that gained in intermixing during 2000-2014 are associated with a lower income divide and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing discussion in recent years about rising inequality in the U.S. Yet, this discourse, in focusing on the fortunes of the top 1%, distracted attention from the design of policy initiatives aimed at improving socio-economic conditions for the poor. This paper examines the development of anti-poverty politics and policy in the US during the Obama era. It analyses how effective the strategies and programmes adopted were and asks how they fit with models of policy change. The paper illustrates that the Obama administration did adopt an array of anti-poverty measures in the stimulus bill, but these built on existing programmes rather than create new ones and much of the effort was stymied by institutional obstacles. The expansion of the Medicaid program, which was part of the ACA, was also muted by institutional opposition, but it was a more path breaking reform than is often appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of manufacturing employment decline on the socioeconomic outcomes within and between black and white Americans since 1960. The analysis shows that manufacturing decline had a negative impact on blacks in terms of their wages, employment, marriage rates, house values, poverty rates, death rates, single parenthood, teen motherhood, child poverty, and child mortality. In addition, the decline in manufacturing increased inequality within the black community for wages and other outcomes. Similar patterns are found for whites, but to a lesser degree—leading to larger gaps between whites and blacks in wages, marriage patterns, poverty, single-parenthood, and death rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the link between culture and regional development in USA counties by explicitly including an arts variable in an attitudes-driven culture-based development (CBD) production function. The main aims of the research are (1) to revisit the standard CBD model in order to examine whether its findings from the European Union context hold also for the United States and (2) to expand the CBD standard inquiry of local development beyond economic welfare. In relation to the latter, we address in particular (1) the effect of local cultural industries on migration (as a continuation of Florida's hypothesis) and (2) the effect of culture on social well-being (alternatively measured by means of level of happiness and level of crime in terms of property theft). Our paper is, therefore, a novel contribution, providing a better understanding of the link between arts, culture and regional development and also facilitating an innovative evaluation of cultural impact relevant in the developmental debate in an extended socio-economic sense. The data used in this inquiry comprise a composite dataset, a cross section for the year 2000 at the county level combining census data with the cultural vitality index from the Western States Arts Federation and happiness variables from the general social survey panel for 2006. A three-stage least squares exploration of recursive types of a standard CBD and an extended CBD model leads to three main results: (1) the existence of a CBD cultural effect on local development is confirmed for the USA; (2) endogenous cultural industries have an effect on the mobility of human capital, and (3) the impact of cultural effects seems to be more significant when a negative Myrdalian vicious cycle is assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource-dependent communities are subject to both unstable economic patterns and environmental degradation associated with extractive industries. However, few studies have empirically analyzed these dynamics in tandem and over time. This paper explores whether Appalachian neighborhoods closer to coal waste impoundments experienced steeper poverty changes from 1990 to 2000. Impoundment failures have resulted in some of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history and scientists have expressed concerns over their growing heights and risks. Spatial regression models show that neighborhoods closer to impoundments have higher poverty increases on average, even after controlling for mining employment and other variables. These findings highlight the need for a deeper consideration of the environmental inequalities associated with the continued downturn of coal production and employment in the United States. Further, discussions about just transitions must recognize the legacy hazards and externalities associated with extractive industries - and their impacts on communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the veterinary clientele is diverse, the veterinary profession is one of the least diverse professions in the United States. Diversity is the presence of differences. In the context of inclusion, diversity refers to differences such as culture, gender, socioeconomic background, age, lived experiences, and ways of thinking. Inclusive communication increases a team's chances of performance and financial success. The key to successful inclusive communication starts with fostering a growth mindset. Having a growth mindset enables us to identify and combat our biases, expand our ability to give and receive feedback effectively, and adapt our conflict management styles. Adapting our communication strategies based on contextual clues improves outcomes, leading to open and honest discussions. Inclusive communication creates just enough friction to promote innovative problem-solving and outcomes that more closely align with the needs of the communities we serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While immigration policymaking has traditionally been the sole prerogative of nation states, research has documented increased instances of migration policymaking at sub-national levels across migrant-receiving societies. This paper examines the temporally and spatially distinctive dynamics that underscore the adoption of these policies at the county level in the United States. The study considers the implementation of migrant labor market regularizations (LRs) for the time period 2004–2014. LRs are defined as discrete arenas of policymaking at the sub-national level that affect aspects of migrant workers' status in labor markets and include laws and ordinances related to: anti-solicitation, language access, local enforcement of federal immigration law, and employment verification. Utilizing a multilevel event histories model, we analyze data from a unique dataset of over 5000 LR policies across 2959 counties in the United States, and address two research questions: (1) What are the social, economic, and political factors that influence the adoption of LRs by counties and municipalities in the United States; and (2) do policy adoption trends that occurred during 2004–2014 indicate a unique type of diffusion pattern? We find that the adoption of LRs by county governments are influenced by the racialization of immigration discourse and by policy behaviors at the municipal and state government levels, while economic characteristics of the local labor market and perceived ethnic competition from migrants have little direct impact on the probability of policy adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws on Stephen Siegel (1984) to argue that, while paving the way for constitutionalizing the free market in Lochner v. New York (1905), the reproduction cost method that the Supreme Court established in Smyth v. Ames (1898) as the preferred technique for assessing the value of a business for regulatory purposes also exposed the conventional character of any valuation exercise, against the claims of objectivity made by classical economists and mainstream jurists. The inconsistency between recognizing that "value is not a fact" and the classical laissez-faire philosophy underlying the Court's jurisprudence did not escape progressive critics, who concluded that government could legitimately fine-tune regulation in order to affect a business's value and pursue alternative socio-economic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on China’s latest national railway network planning proposal, the connectivity and accessibility indices of China’s high-speed railway network (CHSRN) in different time periods are computed to evaluate the implications of high-speed rail (HSR) for Chinese cities. An overall index for measuring the connectivity-accessibility of cities on the HSR network is proposed based on three indicators: (a) the Beta index, to reflect the connectivity of the HSR, (b) the number of reachable counties by HSR within the 500-km domain of a city, to reflect the location-based accessibility of the HSR, and (c) the population of the reachable places by HSR within the 500-km domain of a city, to reflect the potential-based accessibility of the HSR. Finally, the differences in the normalized connectivity-accessibility levels of different categories of cities are qualified to measure the impact of China’s future national HSR network on the potential development of cities. It is found that “Mid-to-Long-Term Railway Network Plan (Revised in 2016)”, if fully realized, would profoundly change the HSR connectivity/accessibility of different cities. Most notably, cities in the Yangtze River Delta would suffer the most whereas cities of the central and western regions would gain the most. This could potentially contribute to, or bring about new changes in, the socioeconomic landscapes in China. The methodological contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, an overall index to evaluate the comprehensive connectivity and accessibility levels of the HSR network is designed. Secondly, this paper investigates how to qualify the impact of the future HSR network on different tiers of cities in different time periods according to the change of the overall connectivity/accessibility index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial literature claims that the strong increase in inequality over the last decade in Western industrial countries such as the United States (US) would lead to increasing tensions between different socio-economic groups which might in turn hamper economic growth. The population’s fading hopes regarding the outlook on the future seem to confirm this. This paper qualifies this interpretation using survey data collected by the Pew Research Center for the People covering 1999-2014. Over the first decade, the decline in hope cannot be traced back to the rising inequality. However, recent data from 2014 suggest that inequality is now a major driver of a lower than ever level of hope. Hence inequality is a recent factor, not the driver of the long-term decline in hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socioeconomic disadvantage is a major correlate of low political participation. This association is among the most robust findings in political science. However, it is based largely on observational data. The causal effects of early-life disadvantage in particular are even less understood, because long-term data on the political consequences of randomized early-life anti-poverty interventions is nearly nonexistent. We leverage the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment to test the long-term effect of moving out of disadvantaged neighborhoods—and thus out of deep poverty—on turnout. MTO is one of the most ambitious anti-poverty experiments ever implemented in the United States. Although MTO ameliorated children's poverty long term, we find that, contrary to expectations, the intervention did not increase children's likelihood of voting later in life. Additional tests show the program did not ameliorate their poverty enough to affect turnout. These findings speak to the complex relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and low political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the economic sector choices of Mexican labor migrants who intended to cross the US border in 2011 using data from the EMIF Norte Border Survey. We identify migrants according to prior work experience and intended sector of work in an effort to determine what demographic and socioeconomic characteristics explain economic sector mobility. We begin by estimating a probit model with sample selection to identify migrant characteristics that explain differences between industry of employment at place of origin and the intended sector of work at their destination. We find that sector mobility is significantly more likely for migrants who are documented and those with higher educational attainment, specifically, spoken English skills. The probability that prior and intended sectors of work coincide is significantly higher for migrants who are male, married, from large households, have family in the USA and earned a higher wage prior to migration. We also estimate a multinomial probit of the choice of sector and find that work sector prior to migration is more likely to match intended sector in the agriculture, construction, transportation and trade industries and significantly less likely to match in the services sector relative to other occupational categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the social dimensions of gated communities (GCs) in US western metropolitan areas and how they contribute to segregation. We use geographically referenced data of GCs, and introduce a local metric based on social distance indices (SDI). This multivariate spatial analysis investigates homogeneity in three aspects: race and ethnicity, economic class and age between 2000 and 2010 census. The results indicate contrasting effects given different levels of geography. GCs significantly contribute to segregation patterns at a local level, and this has been locally reinforcing. Although socioeconomic segregation and ethnic status yield the most prevalent structure of local distance, gated enclaves are also significantly structured by age. The findings are considered in the context of a metropolitan decline in levels of segregation. Data also show that GCs are likely to be located within large racially homogeneous areas, and do not significantly contribute to racial segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the legal discrimination faced by children with unmarried same-sex parents, particularly in the U.S. It highlights how these children are denied a legally recognized parent-child relationship with both of their parents due to existing laws and regulations. It also explores the racial and socioeconomic disparities exacerbated by these legal barriers, as well as the real-world implications for the well-being and security of these children.

This study investigates if neighbourhoods can alter the strong relationship between parental background and children's adult outcomes. In particular, we examine if neighbourhood effects are heterogeneous in such a way that they are particularly important for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and if school quality has a mediating effect in this equation. Using register data and individualized neighbourhoods, we follow five full birth cohorts of individuals born from 1983 to 1987. We examine the interaction between social background and neighbourhoods in shaping (i) the risk of children relying on social welfare when they are aged 30, and (ii) the probability of belonging to the highest income decile at age 30–34. Growing up in a resource-rich neighbourhood is associated with better life outcomes. Contrary to what several neighbourhood theories predict, we find that neighbourhood effects operate similarly regardless of social background. Differences in peer composition of schools does not explain these local neighbourhood effects, whereas own school results attenuate neighbourhood effects substantially. Our findings are in contrast to results from the United States studies but are in line with historical Swedish studies; and contribute to further disentangling the various mechanisms through which the neighbourhood operates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a socioeconomic change in America in the 1970s in relation to the issue of nursing home abuse and a patient abuse-related scandal involving the John J. Kane Hospital in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The economic aspects of U.S. health care policy are addressed, along with deindustrialization, long-term care for older Americans, and America's New Deal government policies. Social rights and hospital wages in the U.S. are assessed.

Asthma in the United States has become an important public health issue, with many physicians, regulators, and scientists elsewhere expressing concern that criterion air pollutants have contributed to a rising tide of asthma cases and symptoms. This paper studies recent associations (from 2008 to 2012) between self-reported asthma experiences and potential predictors, including age, sex, income, education, smoking, and county-level average annual ambient concentrations of ozone (O3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels recorded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for adults 50 years old or older for whom survey data are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). We also examine associations between these variables and self-reported heart attack and stroke experience; all three health outcomes are positively associated with each other. Young divorced women with low incomes are at greatest risk of asthma, especially if they are ever-smokers. Income is an important confounder of other relations. For example, in logistic regression modeling, PM2.5 is positively associated ( p <0.06) with both stroke risk and heart attack risk when these are regressed only against PM2.5, sex, age, and ever-smoking status, but not when they are regressed against these variables and income. In this data set, PM2.5 is significantly negatively associated with asthma risk in regression models, with a 10 μg/m 3 decrease in PM2.5 corresponding to about a 6% increase in the probability of asthma, possibly because of confounding by smoking, which is negatively associated with PM2.5 and positively associated with asthma risk. A variety of non-parametric methods are used to quantify these associations and to explore potential causal interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many people in the United States have achieved economic stability through self-employment and are often seen as embracing the entrepreneurial spirit and seizing opportunity. Yet, research also suggests that self-employment may be precarious for many people in the lower socioeconomic strata. Drawing on a unique dataset that combines longitudinal survey data with administrative tax data for a sample of low- and moderate-income (LMI) workers, we bring new evidence to bear on this debate by examining the link between self-employment and economic insecurity. Overall, our results show that self-employment is associated with greater economic insecurity among LMI workers compared with wage-and-salary employment. For instance, compared with their wage-and-salary counterparts, the self-employed have 78, 168, and 287 percent greater odds of having an income below basic expenses, and experiencing an unexpected income decline and high levels of income volatility, respectively. We also find that differences in financial endowment and access to health insurance are key drivers in explaining the relationship between employment type and economic insecurity, as being able to access $2,000 in an emergency greatly lowers the odds of budgetary constraint, whereas lack of health insurance increases those odds. These findings suggest that formal work arrangements with wages and benefits offered by an employer promotes greater economic stability among LMI workers compared with informal work arrangements via self-employment. We discuss implications of these results for future research and policy initiatives seeking to promote economic wellbeing through entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Night-time light (NTL) data have been widely used as a remote proxy for the economic performance of regions. The use of these data is more advantageous than the traditional census approach is due to its timeliness, low cost, and comparability between regions and countries. Several recent studies have explored monthly NTL composites produced by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and revealed a dimming of the light in some countries during the national lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we explicitly tested the extent to which the observed decrease in the amount of NTL is associated with the economic recession at the subnational level. Specifically, we explore how the association between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the amount of NTL is modulated by the pandemic and whether NTL data can still serve as a sufficiently reliable proxy for the economic performance of regions even during stressful pandemic periods. For this reason, we use the states of the US and quarterly periods within 2014–2021 as a case study. We start with building a linear mixed effects model linking the state-level quarterly GDPs with the corresponding pre-processed NTL data, additionally controlling only for a long-term trends and seasonal fluctuations. We intentionally do not include other socio-economic predictors, such as population density and structure, in the model, aiming to observe the 'pure' explanatory potential of NTL. As it is built only for the pre-COVID-19 period, this model demonstrates a rather good performance, with R2 = 0.60, while its extension across the whole period (2014–2021) leads to a considerable worsening of this (R2 = 0.42), suggesting that not accounting for the COVID-19 phenomenon substantially weakens the 'natural' GDP–NTL association. At the same time, the model's enrichment with COVID-19 dummies restores the model fit to R2 = 0.62. As a plausible application, we estimated the state-level economic losses by comparing actual GDPs in the pandemic period with the corresponding predictions generated by the pre-COVID-19 model. The states' vulnerability to the crisis varied from ~8 to ~18% (measured as a fraction of the pre-pandemic GDP level in the 4th quarter of 2019), with the largest losses being observed in states with a relatively low pre-pandemic GDP per capita, a low number of remote jobs, and a higher minority ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, vaccination against the virus has been implemented and has progressed among various groups across all ethnicities, genders, and almost all ages in the United States. This study examines the impacts of socioeconomic status and political preference on COVID-19 vaccination in over 443 counties in the southwestern United States. Regression analysis was used to examine the association between a county's vaccination rate and one's personal income, employment status, education, race and ethnicity, age, occupation, residential area, and political preference. The results were as follows: First, counties with higher average personal income tend to have a higher vaccination rate (p < 0.001). Second, county-level vaccination is significantly associated with the percentage of Democrat votes (β = 0.242, p < 0.001). Third, race and ethnicity are vaccine-influencing factors. Counties with more Black residents have lower vaccine acceptance (β = -0.419, p < 0.001), while those where more Hispanics or Native Americans reside are more likely to accept vaccines for health protection (β = 0.202, p < 0.001; β = 0.057, p = 0.008, respectively). Lastly, pertaining to the age difference, seniors aged 65 and older show substantial support for vaccination, followed by the median age group (all p < 0.001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the association between neighborhood socioeconomic ascent from 1990 to 2010 and charter school openings from 2010 to 2016 using a national sample of school attendance boundaries in the U.S. We first index school attendance boundaries into typologies according to their demographic profiles in 2010, and changes along multiple components of socioeconomic status from 1990 to 2010. We then examine whether charter schools were increasingly opening in neighborhoods that experienced SES ascent and find notable variation between different types of neighborhoods where charters expanded. When charters opened in ascendant neighborhoods, they located proportionally more often in racially and socioeconomically diverse urban areas compared to prior years. Results provide a rich descriptive portrait of the neighborhood context of recent charter expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research in the sociology of taste has focused primarily on the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in modulating patterns of cultural choice. This has led to a general neglect of the role of age as a structuring factor in its own right. In this paper, we turn our attention to cross-sectional and over-time differences in expressions of cultural taste across age groups. We concentrate on the phenomenon that Bryson (1996) has referred to as “symbolic exclusion”: namely, the (differential) propensity of persons to express dislike for certain cultural styles. Comparing musical dislikes from the 1993 General Social Survey data to a replication of the same instrument in 2012, we find that, overall, Americans are less likely to express dislikes across most musical categories, with the most substantial declines observed for Rap and Heavy Metal, especially among college-educated young adults. The exceptions to this pattern are the Country, Folk, and Religious styles, all of which are more likely to be disliked in 2012 than they were in 1993, and Rock and Classical music, both of which are increasingly rejected by high-status young people at the same time that they are less likely to be rejected by their same-status older counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Highlights and Abstract This article Examines the global financial crisis through the larger lens of the optimal models of growth for the Anglo-American political economies., Offers a concise yet thorough synthesis of two major explanations-the debt-driven growth hypothesis and the financial instability hypothesis-of the global financial crisis., Analyzes substantial empirical evidence for both hypotheses, calling into question the utility of the widely cited debt-driven growth hypothesis., Offers a novel interpretation of how the financial instability hypothesis can in fact be interpreted as showing the potential for stabilizing the neoliberal model of growth through macroprudential financial regulation., Outlines the major elements and institutions of macroprudential regulation and examines both the potential and pitfalls of this approach., For many, the 2008 global financial crisis ( GFC) signaled the end of neoliberalism. This article argues that the crash was less the exhaustion of the free market model as a problem of excessive credit. Focusing on Anglo- American economies, this article explores two competing hypotheses-debt-driven growth and financial instability. The rationale and empirical evidence for both are reviewed, showing that the financial instability hypothesis, with its emphasis on financial (credit) cycles, offers the more compelling explanation. The main flaw of the neoliberal growth model is a tendency for excessive credit growth, producing crashes that wipe out gains in the real economy. The solution is macroprudential financial regulations-broad controls on financial markets to smooth the credit cycle. Implementing macroprudential financial controls could 'save' neoliberalism by securing its more robust output while limiting the disruptive financial shocks that serve to undercut that dynamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-innovations are being recognized as fundamental means to foster sustainable development, as well as to create new business opportunities. Nowadays, the eco-innovation concept is gaining ground within both academic and practitioner studies with the attempt to better understand the main dynamics underlying its nature and guide policymakers and companies in supporting its development. This paper contributes to the extant literature on eco-innovation by providing a comprehensive overview of the evolution of a specific type of eco-innovations that are playing a crucial role in the current socio-economic agenda, namely low-carbon energy technologies. Accordingly, we focus our attention on the related patenting activity of different countries and organizations over time, as well as on influencing policy initiatives and events. Hence, we collected 131,661 patents granted at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (U.S.PTO.) between 1971 and 2010, and belonging to the “Nuclear power generation”, “Alternative energy production”, and “Energy conservation” technological classes, as indicated by the International Patent Classification (IPC) Green Inventory. Our findings report the development trends of low-carbon energy technologies, as well as identify major related environmental programs, historical events, and private sector initiatives explaining those trends, hence revealing how these different circumstances have significantly influenced their development over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of data limitations, virtually all studies of later-generation descendants of immigrants rely on subjective measures of ethnic self-identification rather than arguably more objective measures based on the countries of birth of the respondent and his ancestors. In this context, biases can arise from "ethnic attrition" (e.g., U.S.- born individuals who do not self-identify as Hispanic despite having ancestors who were immigrants from a Spanish-speaking country). Analyzing 2003-2013 data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), the authors show that such ethnic attrition is sizeable and selective for the second and third-generation populations of key Hispanic and Asian national origin groups. In addition, the results indicate that ethnic attrition generates measurement biases that vary across groups in direction as well as magnitude and that correcting for these biases is likely to raise the socioeconomic standing of the U.S.-born descendants of Hispanic immigrants relative to their Asian counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An enhanced economic philosophy, conscious capitalism, is ascending in the United States and gaining traction in helping corporations redefine their approach to business. This article analyzes and evaluates conscious capitalism, integrates it with biblical economics and the social justice faith tradition, and explores its relationship to business education. Business education researchers have the opportunity to integrate conscious capitalism ideas into business curriculum to give students ideas that broaden their understanding of an enhanced model of capitalism and the ways capitalism can do good. Additionally, there is opportunity for Christian business professors to integrate the social justice themes of mishpat, hesed, and shalom into business and economics curriculum and teach about stakeholder integration, higher purpose and values, leadership, culture, and management. Conscious capitalism is not perfectly aligned with a Christian worldview, nor has it sought to be, and as it emerges, more research can help confirm its efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African countries experience many complex public health challenges that, to tackle, require coordinated, multi-stakeholder, collaborative partnerships at local and global levels. The African nurse diaspora is a strategic stakeholder, contributor, and liaison to public health interventions, given their roots in the continent, their professional connections in the west, and their ability to build an extensive network of global partners. Using a descriptive qualitative approach that amplifies the voices of the Africa nurse diaspora, this study provides an insider view of the continent's public health priorities and what roles the diaspora can play to improve health and population outcomes. Findings show that Africa's high disease burden is generally preventable but compounded by enduring socioeconomic challenges. Against this situation, African-born nurses in the diaspora are uniquely positioned to mobilize both local and global stakeholders in coordinated global health policy interventions and actively engage communities in preventive care while earning their trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Low socioeconomic status (SES) in early and late life has been associated with lower late-life cognition. Less is known about how changes in SES from childhood to late life are associated with late-life cognition, especially among diverse populations of older adults.Methods: In a multi-ethnic sample (n = 1353) of older adults, we used linear regression to test associations of change in comprehensive measures of SES (financial, cultural, and social domains) from childhood to late life with semantic memory, episodic memory, and executive function. We tested whether the association between SES trajectory and late-life cognition differed by populations who resided in the U.S. during childhood or immigrated to the U.S. as adults.Results: Participants with low childhood/high late-life financial capital had better semantic memory (β = 0.18; 95% CI: 0.04, 0.32) versus those with low financial capital in both childhood and late life, regardless of childhood residence. We observed a significant interaction in the association of verbal episodic memory and cultural capital by childhood residence (p = 0.08). Participants with a foreign childhood residence had higher verbal episodic memory if they had low childhood/high late-life cultural capital (β = 0.32; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.63), but lower verbal episodic memory if they had high childhood/low late-life cultural capital (β = - 0.40; 95% CI: - 0.94, 0.13). Having high lifecourse social capital was associated with better verbal episodic memory scores among those with a U.S. childhood (β = 0.34; 95% CI: 0.14, 0.55), but lower verbal episodic memory among those with a foreign childhood (β = - 0.10; 95% CI: - 0.51, 0.31).Conclusions: High financial and cultural capital in late life is associated with better cognition, regardless of early childhood SES or childhood residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both groundwater lateral flow (GLF) and human water regulation (HWR) significantly impact hydrological processes, climate, and even socioeconomic sustainable development. Reasonably representing these processes in climate system models is vital for improving hydrological predication and climate modeling. In this study, schemes including GLF and HWR were implemented into the Flexible Global Ocean‐Atmosphere‐Land System model grid‐point version 3 (CAS‐FGOALS‐g3) to investigate the hydroclimatic effects of GLF and HWR. Three groups of simulations using CAS‐FGOALS‐g3 were conducted for the period from 1976 to 2010. Comparisons between the simulations and the observations show their good performance in reproducing the hydrological processes. Results show that soil moisture and latent heat flux increased when GLF was included in the western United States, northern Australia, and northern South America, along with a shallower water table depth. The largest increases in latent flux are located in regions without water and energy limitations. Increased summer precipitation occurred in the western United States due to the wetting and cooling effects of GLF. Latent heat flux significantly increases in three key regions of the world (central United States, north China plain, and northern India), caused by wetting surface soil due to irrigation. The atmosphere also responded to HWR, with cooling at the 850 hPa level over northern India and Pakistan. Decreased precipitation occurred in India because the upward movement was weaker as a result of HWR. GLF can replenish the groundwater depression cone caused by overexploitation, especially in thick aquifers. Plain Language Summary: Groundwater lateral flow and human water regulation significantly impact hydrological processes and climate. In this study, we implemented the schemes including groundwater lateral flow and human water regulation into the Flexible Global Ocean‐Atmosphere‐Land System model to investigate the hydroclimatic effects of groundwater lateral flow and human water regulation. Comparisons between the simulations and the observations show their good performance in reproducing the hydrological processes. Groundwater lateral flow can replenish the groundwater depression cone caused by overexploitation, especially in thick aquifers. Human water regulation weakens the upward movement in India and reduces the summer precipitation. Both groundwater lateral flow and human water regulation affect soil moisture and energy fluxes at the land surface. These results suggest that groundwater lateral flow and human water regulation, which are generally simplified or excluded in climate system models, may provide missing parts for modeling water and energy fluxes and improving water management. Key Points: Schemes including groundwater lateral flow and human water regulation were coupled with CAS‐FGOALS‐g3 to study the hydroclimate effectsBoth groundwater lateral flow and human water use affect land energy fluxes by changing soil moistureHuman water use weakens the upward movement in India and reduces the summer precipitation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes an American models of judicial activism or minimalism and reflects on the role that courts play or should play in interpreting and adjudicating health-related claims. Topics discussed include provision of health goods and services; aspects of health-related litigation in the U.S.; and enforcement of socio-economic rights.

This study analyses the socioeconomic and demographic make‐up of Koreans in Los Angeles metropolis, the largest hub of Koreans in the United States, to better understand the decentralized concentration of Koreans by addressing their within‐ and among‐group variations. By employing the rarely used measures of correspondence and typology analyses, we delineate the boundaries for Korean clusters using Getis and Ord G* local statistic, wherein each cluster's neighborhood and demographic characteristics are compared to gain nuanced insights of within‐group variations, and its evolution during 1970–2010. Cluster level analysis of Koreatown suggests that even though it was classified as a Korean cluster, Korean Americans were unevenly distributed across these clusters, with underrepresentation in white‐dominant neighborhoods, whereas much of their intraurban spaces were shared with Hispanics. All clusters except extended Koreatown exhibited Li's ethnoburb‐style spatial patterns. The Koreatown and suburban clusters were also distinct in terms of their demographic/ethnic, socioeconomic, educational, age/life cycle, and housing characteristics, suggesting socio‐spatial polarization. Our analysis, challenges the commonly perceived notion of Koreans being a homogenous group and Asians being model minorities. We illustrate significant within‐group differences among the Koreangelos. We, thus, propose innovative measures to analyze population groups to flesh out rich narratives of America's fast changing social geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the multigenerational family safety net of African Americans and Whites in the U.S. Topics discussed include socioeconomic resources of black and white multigenerational families; race differences in socioeconomic resources of multigenerational families and Black-White disparities such as in labor force participation, homeownership and college attainment.

Objectives: Schools are thought to have an important impact on adolescent behaviors, but the mechanisms are not well understood. We hypothesize that there are measurable constructs of peer- and teacher-related extrinsic motivations for adolescent behaviors and sought to develop measures of school culture that would capture these constructs.Methods: We developed several survey items to assess school behavioral culture and collected self-reported data from a sample of adolescents age 14-17 attending high school in low income neighborhoods of Los Angeles. We conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to inform the creation of simple-summated multi-item scales. We also conducted a cultural consensus analysis to identify the existence of shared pattern of responses to the items among respondents within the same school.Results: From 1159 adolescents, six factors were identified: social culture regarding popular (Cronbach's alpha = 0.84) and respected (alpha = 0.83) behaviors, teacher support (alpha = 0.86) and monitoring of school rules (alpha = 0.85), valued student traits (alpha = 0.67) and school order (alpha = 0.68). Cultural consensus analysis identified a shared pattern of responses to the items among respondents at 8 of the 13 schools. School academic performance, which is based on standardized test results, is strongly correlated with social culture regarding popular behaviors (Pearson's correlation coefficient r = 0.64), monitoring of school rules (r = 0.71), and school order (r = 0.83).Conclusions: The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses did not support a single, overall factor that measures school culture. However, the six identified sub-scales might be used individually to examine school influence on academic performance and health behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (2003–2014) were used to both investigate trends in Asian American middle class status attainment before, during, and after the Great Recession and compare such attainment to that of non-Hispanic Whites. Using three different operational definitions of the middle class, we show that middle class size estimates during recession and post-recession were lower than pre-recession estimates for both Asian Americans and Whites. For all three periods, Asian Americans were substantially less likely to have achieved middle class status compared with Whites. The racial gap did not narrow or widen due to the Great Recession. Our analysis also found that basic demographic and socioeconomic differences explained a little over a quarter of this middle class attainment gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Low-income and minority communities often face disproportionately high pollutant exposures. The lead crisis in Flint, Michigan, has sparked concern about broader socioeconomic disparities in exposures to drinking water contaminants. Nitrate is commonly found in drinking water, especially in agricultural regions, and epidemiological evidence suggests elevated risk of cancer and birth defects at levels below U.S. EPA's drinking water standard (10 mg/L NO3-N). However, there have been no nationwide assessments of socioeconomic disparities in exposures to nitrate or other contaminants in U.S. drinking water. The goals of this study are to identify determinants of nitrate concentrations in U.S. community water systems (CWSs) and to evaluate disparities related to wealth or race/ethnicity.Methods: We compiled nitrate data from 39,466 U.S. CWSs for 2010-2014. We used EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) to compile CWS characteristics and linked this information with both city- and county-level demographic data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau. After applying multiple imputation methods to address censored nitrate concentration data, we conducted mixed-effects multivariable regression analyses at national and regional scales.Results: 5.6 million Americans are served by a CWS that had an average nitrate concentration ≥ 5 mg/L NO3-N between 2010 and 2014. Extent of agricultural land use and reliance on groundwater sources were significantly associated with nitrate. The percent of Hispanic residents served by each system was significantly associated with nitrate even after accounting for county-level cropland and livestock production, and CWSs in the top quartile of percent Hispanic residents exceeded 5 mg/L nearly three times as often as CWSs serving the lowest quartile. By contrast, the percent of residents living in poverty and percent African American residents were both inversely associated with nitrate.Conclusions: Epidemiological evidence for health effects associated with drinking water above 5 mg/L NO3-N raises concerns about increased risk for the 5.6 million Americans served by public water supplies with average nitrate concentrations above this level. The associations we observed between nitrate concentrations and proportions of Hispanic residents support the need for improved efforts to assist vulnerable communities in addressing contamination and protecting source waters. Future studies can extend our methods to evaluate disparities in exposures to other contaminants and links to health effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictions of dangerousness are more often wrong than right, use information they shouldn't, and disproportionately damage minority offenders. Forty years ago, two-thirds of people predicted to be violent were not. For every two "true positives," there were four "false positives." Contemporary technology is little better: at best, three false positives for every two true positives. The best-informed specialists say that accuracy topped out a decade ago; further improvement is unlikely. All prediction instruments use ethically unjustifiable information. Most include variables such as youth and gender that are as unjust as race or eye color would be. No one can justly be blamed for being blue-eyed, young, male, or dark-skinned. All prediction instruments incorporate socioeconomic status variables that cause black, other minority, and disadvantaged offenders to be treated more harshly than white and privileged offenders. All use criminal history variables that are inflated for black and other minority offenders by deliberate and implicit bias, racially disparate practices, profiling, and drug law enforcement that targets minority individuals and neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David R. Godschalk, professor emeritus in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, passed away in early 2018. In this essay we reflect on Dave's planning scholarship and practice. We discuss his main contributions in 4 prominent areas. First is the importance of public participation and collaboration for the planning and governance of communities. He argued for democratizing and recasting public participation, with planners working alongside community members coproducing plans and incorporating uncertainty, new information, and different viewpoints. Second is Dave's focus on the tenets of the comprehensive plan and its core element, the land use plan. In the plan, central principles of livable urban forms and model planning processes can be integrated and translated to practice. With academic collaborators and practitioners he pioneered theoretical and empirical research on what constitutes a high-quality plan, a fundamental question at the heart of planning. Third is his research demonstrating how spatial planning can be used for hazard mitigation and urban resilience. This work forged a new generation of planning academics and practitioners who focused on hazard plans for predisaster mitigation and postdisaster recovery at multiple governmental levels. Finally, fourth is his personal involvement in planning-related institutions that he helped create, lead, or steer. In his various roles as scholar, teacher, mentor, collaborator, supervisor, planning director, and elected official, Dave touched the lives of many who now build on his contributions in creating better communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the framework of critical quantitative intersectionality, the purpose of this study is to examine the multifaceted impacts of Southeast Asian female students’ race or ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status on math achievement score and intention to enter higher education. This study found that math achievement scores of Southeast Asian students were significantly higher than those of other race or ethnicity groups. However, Southeast Asian female students’ intention to pursue higher education was significantly lower than that of Southeast Asian males as well as being the lowest among all female students. The school organizational characteristics used in this study did not mediate or differentiate the intersectionalities related to Southeast Asian female students. The patterns held regardless of schooling contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I construct an optimal growth model with overlapping dynasties to investigate how much the rate at which an economy absorbs new immigrant dynasties could motivate current voters to favour greater reliance on deficit finance of government expenditures through intertemporal shifts in factor taxation. The model demonstrates that even if voters are altruistically linked to their descendants, rising immigration, coupled with declining birth rates may explain the growth in public debt and unfunded liabilities in the United States since the early 1980s, as well as the large increases in debt projected by the Congressional Budget Office over the next few decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Although rare, primary central nervous system (CNS) tumors are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Texas is a representative sample of the United States population given its large population, ethnic disparities, geographic variations, and socio-economic differences. This study used Texas data to determine if variations in incidence trends and rates exist among different ethnicities in Texas. Methods Data from the Texas Cancer Registry from 1995 to 2013 were examined. Joinpoint Regression Program software was used to obtain the incidence trends and SEER*Stat software was used to produce average annual age-adjusted incidence rates for both nonmalignant and malignant tumors in Texas from 2009 to 2013. Results The incidence trend of malignant primary CNS tumors in whites was stable from 1995 to 2002, after which the annual percent change decreased by 0.99% through 2013 (95% CI, -1.4, -0.5; P =.04). Blacks and Asian/Pacific Islanders showed unchanged incidence trends from 1995 to 2013. Hispanics had an annual percent change of -0.83 (95% CI, -1.4, -0.2; P =.009) per year from 1995 through 2013. From 2009 to 2013, the incidence rates of nonmalignant and malignant primary CNS tumors were highest among blacks, followed by whites, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians/Alaskan Natives. Conclusions Consistent with the 2016 Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States report, the black population in Texas showed the highest total incidence of CNS tumors of any other race studied. Many factors have been proposed to account for the observed differences in incidence rate including geography, socioeconomic factors, and poverty factors, although the evidence for these external factors is lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Permanent income (PI) is an enduring concept in the social sciences and is highly relevant to the study of inequality. Nevertheless, there has been insufficient progress in measuring PI. We calculate a novel measure of PI with the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Advancing beyond prior approaches, we define PI as the logged average of 20+ years of post-tax and post-transfer (“post-fisc”) real equivalized household income. We then assess how well various household- and individual-based measures of economic resources proxy PI. In both datasets, post-fisc household income is the best proxy. One random year of post-fisc household income explains about half of the variation in PI, and 2-5 years explain the vast majority of the variation. One year of post-fisc HH income even predicts PI better than 20+ years of individual labor market earnings or long-term net worth. By contrast, earnings, wealth, occupation, and class are weaker and less cross-nationally reliable proxies for PI. We also present strategies for proxying PI when HH post-fisc income data are unavailable, and show how post-fisc HH income proxies PI over the life cycle. In sum, we develop a novel approach to PI, systematically assess proxies for PI, and inform the measurement of economic resources more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite widespread perceptions of elite US sport as meritocratic, there is little empirical research on the social origins of those who play college and professional sports in the US or how these vary by race. We use the case of American football, linking Entertainment and Sports Programming Network's national recruit rankings data on incoming college football players from 2007-2016 (N=929) with 2000 US Census data. Our study compares hometown socioeconomic and demographic indicators for black and white college athletes and then for those drafted into the National Football League. Findings show that the socioeconomic and demographic profiles of the hometowns producing elite football athletes vary by both athlete race and draft status. Black draftees come from denser, more socioeconomically disadvantaged and blacker hometowns than black non-drafted athletes, while white draftees come from less socioeconomically disadvantaged hometowns than white non-drafted athletes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the concept of infrastructure offers geographers a useful framework to understand the resilient influence of financial markets on the socioeconomy. An infrastructural perspective reframes the politics of financial markets by considering them as vital systems that are deeply integrated with the real economy. This helps explain the successful reframing of regulatory debates away from action that might shrink financial markets, and instead toward incremental change and technical fixes that end up supporting the growth of the system. The infrastructural perspective also allows us to consider financial markets as technical systems that are inherently limited in their capacity to process financial transactions, which in turn helps explain their tendency to fail. Comparing the flow of speculative trades through financial markets to the flow of traffic through congested roads, the article employs a case study of the 1987 US stock market crash and its regulatory aftermath. It suggests that in the wake of the 1987 crash, which was caused by an inability to process trades fast enough, US regulators found it politically impossible to impose any significant limits on speculative trading. Wary of market congestion contributing to another financial accident, regulators instead expanded the speculative capacity of the markets. But just as expanded road systems attract more autos and produce an array of externalities, enhanced market capacity only attracts more speculation and related externalities, not least a deepening of speculative financialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We propose a method to decompose the young adult mortality hump by cause of death. This method is based on a flexible shape decomposition of mortality rates that separates cause-of-death contributions to the hump from senescent mortality. We apply the method to U.S. males and females from 1959 to 2015. Results show divergence between time trends of hump and observed deaths, both for all-cause and cause-specific mortality. The study of the hump shape reveals age, period, and cohort effects, suggesting that it is formed by a complex combination of different forces of biological and socioeconomic nature. Male and female humps share some traits in all-cause shape and trend, but they also differ by their overall magnitude and cause-specific contributions. Notably, among males, the contributions of traffic and other accidents were progressively replaced by those of suicides, homicides, and poisonings; among females, traffic accidents remained the major contributor to the hump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review focuses on the widening disparities in death rates by socioeconomic class. In recent years, there has been a major increase in the availability of data linking mortality risk and measures of socioeconomic status. The result has been a virtual explosion of new empirical research showing not only the existence of large inequities in the risk of death between those at the top and those at the bottom of the socioeconomic distribution, but also that the gaps have been growing. This assessment of the empirical research finds a consistent pattern of growing disparities within the United States. However, this widening gap in death rates does appear to be a uniquely American phenomenon, as the disparities by socioeconomic class appear to be stable or even declining in Europe and Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]