This article uses data from Uganda’s largest incumbent microfinance institution to analyse the impact of entry by competing lenders on client behaviour. We observe that rising competition does not lead to an increase in client dropout rate, but induces a decline in repayment performance and savings deposited with the incumbent, suggesting rising multiple loan-taking by clients. This joint effect on dropout and repayment is consistent with some negative information about clients and is being shared across lenders. However, the observed decline in repayment rates in a context of rising multiple loan-taking shows that information sharing about clients is far from complete.

Based on a new Army War College study of unit cohesion in the Iraq War, Wong et al. argue that successful unit performance is determined by social cohesion (the strength of interpersonal bonds among members) rather than task cohesion (a sense of shared commitment to the unit’s mission). If correct, these conclusions have important implications for scholarship as well as for numerous U.S. military policies such as the Unit Manning System. However, this article disputes their contentions. Wong et al. ignore a large body of empirical research on military and nonmilitary groups showing that social cohesion has no independent impact on performance. They provide no evidence for the representativeness of the interview quotes they cite as evidence for the reliability or validity of their measures. Their methodology fails to meet social science standards for causal inference (e.g., ruling out causal rival factors).

Little is known about welfare reform’s effects on family structure and children’s living arrangements, an important focus for reformers. Using March CPS data, we find that state welfare waivers are associated with children being less likely to live with unmarried parents, more likely to live with married parents, and more likely to live with neither parent. Children living with neither parent are living with grandparents or other relatives, or rarely, in foster care. The estimates vary somewhat by children’s race and ethnicity. Due to the limited variation in TANF’s implementation timing across states, we focus on the waiver results.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if the market-determined earnings per hour of physicians is sensitive to the degree of area-level racial/ethnic concordance (ALREC) in the local physician labor market.

DATA SOURCES: 1998-1999 and 2000-2001 Community Tracking Study Physician Surveys and Household Surveys, 2000 U.S. Census, and the Area Resource File.

STUDY DESIGN: Population-averaged regression models with area-level fixed effects were used to estimate the determinants of log earnings per hour for physicians in a two-period panel (N=12,886). ALREC for a given racial/ethnic group is measured as the percentage of physicians who are of a given race/ethnicity less the percentage of the population who are of the corresponding race/ethnicity. Relevant control variables were included.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Average earnings per hour for Hispanic and Asian physicians varies with the degree of ALREC that corresponds to a physician's race/ethnicity. Both Hispanic and Asian physicians earn more per hour in areas where corresponding ALREC is negative, other things equal. ALREC varies from negative to positive for all groups. ALREC for Hispanics is negative, on average, due to the small percentage of the physician workforce that is Hispanic. This results in an average 5.6 percent earnings-per-hour premium for Hispanic physicians. However, ALREC for Asians is positive, on average, due to the large percentage of the physician workforce that is Asian. This results in an average 4.0 percent earnings-per-hour discount for Asian physicians. No similar statistically significant results were found for black physicians.

CONCLUSIONS: The market-determined earnings per hour of Hispanic and Asian physicians are sensitive to the degree of ALREC in the local labor market. Larger sample sizes may be needed to find statistically significant results for black physicians.

The convergence of US federal science and economic policy that began in earnest in the Reagan administration formed the first stage in an emerging post-Cold War drive toward technological innovation. A frenzy of new state-based initiatives now forms the Second Stage, further promoting universities as decisive tools for economic competitiveness. State governments have largely become the political environment in which new policy ideas are emerging, influenced by a sense of increased competition among states and other international economies for economic growth. The paper outlines the characteristics of this Second Stage, and offers short case studies of two influential HT initiatives in California--a leading HT state. Among the author's conclusions: HT economic activity is already relatively widespread among the various states (more so than perhaps previously thought); leading HT states rely heavily on their university sectors and a highly educated workforce, yet are increasingly importing talent and neglecting investment in the education and skills of their native populations; the long-term commitment of states to financially support the frenzy of HT initiatives is unclear; and state initiatives are rationalized by lawmakers as filling a need not currently met by the private sector or universities and, in part, as a response to a sense of competition between states, and thus far with only a minor concern for global competition. As this paper explores, the politics of HT — including the focus on university-industry collaboration and neo-conservative religious/moral controversies over stem cell research — is a significant factor for understanding how and why most states are pursuing the Second Stage.

We analyze Program Realignment, California’s 1991 policy of decentralizing control of health, mental health, and social services, from the state to the counties. Drawing from the economics literature on intergovernmental transfers and using data constructed for this study, we analyze the impact of Realignment on uninsured health spending. We find a change in the pattern of spending on indigent health services by counties following decentralization. Our results suggest, however, that county-level governments maintain a level of commitment to social-service spending that recent studies indicate may be lacking at the state level.

Labor supply theory predicts systematic heterogeneity in the impact of recent welfare reforms on earnings, transfers, and income. Yet most welfare reform research focuses on mean impacts. We investigate the importance of heterogeneity using random-assignment data from Connecticut's Jobs First waiver, which features key elements of post-1996 welfare programs. Estimated quantile treatment effects exhibit the substantial heterogeneity predicted by labor supply theory. Thus mean impacts miss a great deal. Looking separately at samples of dropouts and other women does not improve the performance of mean impacts. We conclude that welfare reform's e ects are likely both more varied and more extensive than has been recognized.