David L. Chambers

Social Policy Experimentation A Position Paper

We review the argumentsfor and against randomized field experiments design to address important questions of social policy. Based on this review, we make a number of recommendations about how the use of randomized field experiments might be fostered.

Rethinking the Substantive Rules for Custody Disputes in Divorce

II. THE GOALS OF A CUSTODY DETERMINATION 486 A. Ways of Thinking About Childrens Best Interests ... 487 B. The Case for Considering the Interests of Parents.... 499 III. INFORMATION BEARING ON RULES FOR SOLE CUSTODY . . . 503 A. What We Know About the Needs of Children ....... 503 1. Research on the Children of Divorce 504 2. The Indirect Evidence from Intact Families and Other Sources 515 a. The relevance of gender 515 (1) Evidence favoring mothers because they are women 515 (2) Evidence favoring matching children with the parent of the same sex 524 b. The relevance of primary-caretaker status .... 527 c. A counterweight: the higher earnings of men and the relevance of resources in general ..... 538 B. What We Know About the Needs of the Parents ..... 541 IV. INFORMATION BEARING ON RULES FOR JOINT PHYSICAL CUSTODY .. 549 A. What We Know About the Needs of Children ....... 550 B. What We Know About the Needs of Parents ........ 557 V. NEW SUBSTANTIVE STANDARDS FOR THE RESOLUTION OF CUSTODY DISPUTES 558

Men Who Know They Are Watched: Some Benefits and Costs of Jailing for Nonpayment of Support

Suppose that by some mysterious process the police in your town received each Monday a list of all the robberies and burglaries committed during the preceding week and the names of the persons who committed them. Suppose further that the list itself was admissible in evidence at trial and generally led to conviction. And suppose finally that persons considering committing offenses knew that the police had such a list and used it, relentlessly tracking down the miscreants named on it. Under such circumstances, one would probably expect that many potential offenders in the town with the magical list would resist the temptation to rob or burgle stores. For one offense, such a list does exist. For over fifty years, each county government in Michigan has maintained an agency called the Friend of the Court that is responsible for receiving all child-support payments from parents under orders of support after a divorce or adjudication of paternity. The agency knows on Monday if the parent under an order of support failed to make a payment the preceding Friday, and the parent under an order of support, almost always the father, knows that the agency knows. He is also aware

The Coming Curtailment of Compulsory Child Support

Absent parents ought to contribute to the support of their minor children and states can appropriately invoke the force of law to compel them to do so. Stated so generally, even absent parents behind in their payments would probably agree. Since so many others agree as well, and since the numbers of single-parent children have mushroomed, systems of governmentally compelled support in this country have grown enormously. By the early part of the next century, if current laws remain in force and current population trends continue, most of Americas children on any given day will be entitled to support from a parent who no longer lives with them or never lived with them at all.