Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating Labor Market Performance: Employment Reallocation And Productivity Growth In Russia, John S. Earle

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sustainability: Think Globally, Act Locally, Shannon Axtell

Metroscape

A brief look at developing concepts of sustainability and sustainable development, both from an international as well as an Oregon perspective. Addresses the difficulties faced by cities in their efforts to formulate specific goals and policies for sustainability, and cites several Oregon projects and initiatives that have sustainability as their focus.

The Path Ahead: Future Enrollments In Portland Public Schools, 2001-2010, Based On October 2001 Enrollments, Portland State University. Population Research Center

School District Enrollment Forecast Reports

This report provides a school Enrollment Forecast, including demographic information, for Portland Public Schools. The report considers several factors that are likely to affect the school district's enrollments between the present and 2010, including the future number of births, net migrants, and the proportion of school-age children and youth enrolled in the public schools. This is the third annual report that forecasts future enrollments for the Portland Public Schools. Previous annual reports were based on October 1999 and October 2000 enrollments; this report relies on October 2001 enrollments. To take into account a variety of demographic and enrollment possibilities, this …

The Transformation Of Civic Institutions And Practices In Portland, Oregon, 1960-1999, Steven Reed Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation I examine how the organizational framework for civic life in Portland, Oregon, changed between 1960 and 1999 and identify several key aspects of the transformation.

The most basic change has been in the type of organizations involved in civic issues. In 1960 civic life in Portland was dominated by traditional civic organizations: fraternal and benevolent organizations, women's clubs, voluntary and charitable organizations, ethnic cultural groups, and direct social service organizations. By 1999 traditional civic organizations were displaced by advocacy oriented organizations: identity interest groups, neighborhood associations, citizen interest organizations, and social service organizations that advocated for causes. …

A Frontline Decision Support System For Georgia Career Centers, Randall W. Eberts, Christopher J. O'Leary

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 emphasizes the integration and coordination of employment services. Central to achieving this aim is the federal requirement that local areas receiving WIA funding must establish one-stop centers, where providers of various employment services within a local labor market are assembled in one location. A major challenge facing staff in these centers is the expected large volume of customers resulting from relaxed program eligibility rules. Nonetheless, resources for assessment and counseling are limited. To help frontline staff in one-stop centers quickly assess customer needs and properly target services, the U.S. Department of Labor has …

Exchange-Rate Systems And Interest-Rate Behavior: The Experience Of Hong Kong And Singapore, Yiu Kuen Tse, Paul S. L. Yip

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper we consider the implications of the two different exchange-rate systems in Hong Kong (HK) and Singapore (SP) on the economic performance of these two economies. While HK has a pegged exchange-rate regime under a currency board system (CBS), SP has a managed-float system with monitoring band. We examine whether the managed-float system of SP provides an advantage over the rigid CBS of HK in mitigating the recession caused by the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), and the implications of the differences in the exchange-rate systems on interest-rate behaviour. Our empirical results show that the monitoring band system in …

The Implications Of Technology Networks On Diffusion And Economic Growth, Hing-Man Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

After the record-breaking run of high-speed growth in the United States during the late 1990s, a pressing question is Has anything fundamental changed in our growth engine? This paper examines an IT-led endogenous growth model driven by technology diffusion. Diffusion is in turn driven by network effect embodied in new technologies. The equilibrium long-term growth rate is however found to be independent of such technology networks. A novelty in our model is that innovation is discontinuous and it is separated by periods of diffusion. This (IT) network-diffusion is shown to be Sigmoid, and diffusion speed is slower than socially optimal.

A Modified Family Of Power Transformations, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

A modified family of power transformation, called the Dual Power Transformation, is proposed, which overcomes the truncation problem of the Box-Cox power transformation. The new transformation possesses properties similar to those of the Box-Cox power transformation. It generates a rich family of distributions that is seen to be very useful in modeling and analysis of economic durations and medical/engineering event-times. Further, it gives rise to transformed (regression) models such that all the standard asymptotic results of the maximum likelihood theory apply. Empirical results presented are more favorable to the new transformation than to the Box-Cox power transformation in terms of …

G-Portal : A Map-Based Digital Library For Distributed Geospatial And Georeferenced Resources, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As the World Wide Web evolves into an immense information network, it is tempting to build new digital library services and expand existing digital library services to make use of web content. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of G-Portal, a web portal that aims to provide digital library services over geospatial and georeferenced content found on the World Wide Web. G-Portal adopts a map-based user interface to visualize and manipulate the distributed geospatial and georeferenced content. Annotation capabilities are supported, allowing users to contribute geospatial and georeferenced objects as well as their associated metadata. The other …

Optimal Organizational Design In A Dichotomous-Choice Project Selection Model, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies collective decision making in the context of a project selection model. We derive the optimal decision architecture when marginal decision costs are present, and investigate the circumstances under which the hierarchy and polyarchy exist as optimal sequential architectures. Our analysis extends previous results on optimal committee decision-making to a sequential setting, and further demonstrates the fragility of the hierarchy and polyarchy as optimal architectures.

Leadership Antecedents Of Informal Knowledge Acquisition And Dissemination, Siu Loon Hoe, Steve Mcshane

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Knowledge management is emerging as one of the leading influences on an organisation’s survival and competitive advantage (Blumentritt & Johnston 1999). Knowledge management is concerned with the effective acquisition, sharing, storage and utilisation of knowledge (Huber 1991; Saffady 1998). Corporate leaders are increasingly aware of the notion that an organisation’s long-term survival depends on its ability to generate new knowledge and continuously learn from the environment. The importance of a superior organisational learning capability as a source of competitive advantage is a common refrain among both managers and scholars (e.g. Kohli & Jaworski 1990; Nonaka 1991; Quinn 1992; Slater & …

The Impact Of Housing Prices On Aggregate Consumption: Evidence From An East Asian City-State, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using aggregate consumption data for Singapore, this paper rejects the life-cycle/permanent income and myopia hypotheses as explanations for aggregate consumption behavior. We confirm the presence of liquidity constraints from the asymmetric reaction of consumption to income increases vis-a-vis income declines. When we allow for asymmetric response, anticipated house price increases appear to have a dampening effect on aggregate consumption while declines in expected house price growth also had a negative effect on consumption, although the results are statistically insignificant. There is no evidence that the housing price increases have produced either wealth or collateral enhancement effects on consumption.

The Decision Of African American Students To Complete High School: An Application Of The Theory Of Planned Behavior, Larry Davis, Icek Ajzen, Jeanne Saunders, Trina Williams

Center for Social Development Research

A longitudinal study explored high-school completion among African Americans. Male and female high-school students aged 14 to 17 (N=166) completed a questionnaire based on the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) early in their second year. Intentions to complete the year were accurately predicted from attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (R=0.71; p

Drop-Out From Individual Development Accounts: Prediction And Prevention, Mark Schreiner, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are a new policy instrument designed to help the poor save and accumulate assets. IDAs provide matches for savings used for home purchase, post-secondary education, or microenterprise. IDAs cannot help participants, however, if they drop out. What determines drop-out, and what can be done to help participants to stay in? Three findings emerge from an analysis of IDAs in the American Dream Demonstration. First, drop-out depends more on transaction costs and previous debt than on income. Second, program design --and match rates in particular--affect drop-out risk. Third, drop-out can be predicted with some accuracy, so IDA …

Gender Differences In Self-Perceptions And Academic Outcomes: A Study Of African American High School Students, Jeanne Saunders, Larry Davis, Trina Williams, Julie Miller Cribbs

Center for Social Development Research

There is increasing divergence in the academic outcomes of African American males and females. By most accounts, males are falling behind their female peers educationally as African American females are graduating from high schools at higher rates and are going on to college and graduate school in greater numbers. Some have suggested that school completion and performance is associated with how students feel about themselves. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in the relationship between self-perceptions and two academic outcomes among a sample of 243 African American high school sophomores. The results suggest that, overall; females …

Understanding Service: Words In The Context Of History And Culture, Natasha Menon, Amanda Moore Mcbride, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Understanding Service: Words in the Context of History and Culture

Violence In The Lives Of Rural, Southern & Poor White Women, Naomi Farber, Julie Miller-Cribbs

Center for Social Development Research

Violence in the Lives of Rural, Southern & Poor White Women

The Personality Profile Of September 11 Hijack Ringleader Mohamed Atta, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of a posthumous, indirect assessment of the personality of Mohamed Atta, apparent ringleader in the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, from the conceptual perspective of Theodore Millon.

Information concerning Mohamed Atta was collected from media reports in the one-month period following the attack and synthesized into a personality profile using the second edition of the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria (MIDC), which yields 34 normal and maladaptive personality classifications congruent with Axis II of DSM-IV.

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the …

The Personality Profile Of Al-Qaida Leader Osama Bin Laden, Aubrey Immelman

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an indirect assessment of the personality of Osama bin Laden, founder and leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States.

Bin Laden’s primary personality patterns were found to be Ambitious/exploitative and Dauntless/dissenting, with a secondary Distrusting/suspicious orientation, and subsidiary Dominant/controlling and Conscientious/dutiful features.

Ambitious individuals are bold, competitive, and self-assured; they easily assume leadership roles, expect others to recognize their special qualities, and often act as though entitled. Dauntless individuals are bold, courageous, and tough; minimally constrained by the norms of society; routinely engage …

Crossing Divides: New Common Ground On Poverty And Economic Security, Tammy Draut, David Callahan, Corinna Hawkes

Center for Social Development Research

Crossing Divides: New Common Ground on Poverty and Economic Security

Effects Of Mothers' Assets On Expectations And Children's Educational Achievement In Female-Headed Households, Min Zhan, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

This study examines the effects of mothers’ assets (home ownership and savings) on their expectations and children’s educational achievement in female-headed households. Through the analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), results indicate that single mothers’ assets have positive effects on children’s educational achievement, and this effect is partially mediated through expectations. The study also finds that the positive effects of household income on children’s outcomes occur mainly through mothers’ assets. These results lend support for expansion of asset-based policies for poor women with children.

Income, Institutions, And Saving Performance In Individual Development Accounts, Michael Sherraden, Mark Schreiner, Sondra Beverly

Center for Social Development Research

This paper examines the relationship between income and saving performance in Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). We first discuss theories of saving. Next, for IDA participants in the American Dream Demonstration, we look at income sources and distribution, followed by tabulations of income and savings outcomes. Following this, we discuss results from regression analyses on savings outcomes. We find that savings amount did not increase with income and that the savings rate decreased with income. Although the data do not reveal exactly what caused this, we believe that institutional factors in IDA programs played an important role.

Saving Performance In The American Dream Demonstration: A National Demonstration Of Individual Development Accounts, Mark Schreiner, Margaret Clancy, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Saving Performance in the American Dream Demonstration: A National Demonstration of Individual Development Accounts

The United Way Of Greater St. Louis Individual Development Account Pilot Program, Margaret Clancy, Mark Schreiner, Mark Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

The United Way of Greater St. Louis Individual Development Account Pilot Program

Welfare Recipiency And Savings Outcomes In Individual Development Accounts, Min Zhan, Michael Sherraden, Mark Schreiner

Center for Social Development Research

Both theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence show that asset-based, means-tested welfare programs have negative effects on savings behaviors of welfare recipients. In this study, we examine how welfare recipiency is associated with savings outcomes in Individual Development Accounts. The results suggest that when other factors are controlled, receipt of welfare either before or at enrollment of IDAs is not correlated with savings outcomes. Policy implications under current welfare reform are discussed.

Limitations Of Civic Service: Critical Perspectives, Jenny Brav, Amanda Moore Mcbride, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Limitations of Civic Service: Critical Perspectives

Friends, Family, And Neighborhood: Understanding Academic Outcomes Of African American Youth, Trina Williams, Larry Davis, Julie Miller-Cribbs, Jeanne Saunders, James Herbert Williams

Center for Social Development Research

Friends, Family, and Neighborhood: Understanding Academic Outcomes of African American Youth

Review Of Rostow, Kennedy, And The Rhetoric Of Foreign Aid, Steven R. Goldzwig

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Library Liaison Programs In The 21st Century, Lauren Matacio

Public Document Archive

A paper outlining the present situation and potential future of library liaison programs.

Welfare, Work, And Well-Being In Metro And Nonmetro Louisiana, Joachim Singelmann, Theresa Davidson, Rachel Reynolds

Journal of Rural Social Sciences

This paper examines the extent to which persons in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) have been able to leave the TANF program. The analysis is based on the Louisiana Welfare Survey which is a panel study of 1,000 persons (500 in New Orleans and 500 in two labor market areas in northeastern Louisiana) who in 1998 and 1999 had been on welfare. The original respondents have been reinterviewed annually, with the fifth and final wave currently (May 2002) in the field. The findings reported in this paper are based on the first three waves of the panel survey, …