Jimy M. Sanders

Immigrant self-employment: the family as social capital and the value of human capital.

We examine how self-employment among Asian and Hispanic immigrants is affected by family composition and human capital/class resources. Because of collective interests and strong personal ties the family facilitates the pooling of labor power and financial resources. Enterprising immigrants draw on these resources when establishing and operating small businesses. Our findings also show the importance of human capital/class resources in accounting for immigrant self-employment. Although foreign-earned human capital is usually not highly valued in the host labor market immigrants successfully use this human capital to achieve business ownership. Interethnic variation in personal human capital and family composition accounts for a substantial portion of the observed interethnic variation in self-employment....The data are drawn from the 1980 five percent PUMS for greater New York City and Los Angeles.... (EXCERPT)

Understanding the diversity of immigrant incorporation: a forms-of-capital model

This article develops the concept of forms of capital as the basis of a model of immigrant incorporation. The model sets out the manner in which the social, financial, and human-cultural capital of immigrant families predict the sorting of immigrants into various labour market trajectories. For example, immigrants arriving with low stocks of financial and human-cultural capital are most likely to find employment in the ethnic economy, whereas immigrants with human-cultural capital that is fungible in the host society tend to gain employment in the broader mainstream economy. Event history analysis is employed to demonstrate the model on four patterns of job mobility common among immigrants: entrepreneurship, professional-managerial-technical jobs, employment in the public sector, and semi- or low-skilled factory work and low-paid service jobs. The findings show that the mix of capital immigrants arrive with, and subsequently accumulate, shapes the trajectory of their incorporation into the host society. The research is based on a field study of Asian immigrants in the greater Los Angeles area.

Problems in Resolving the Enclave Economy Debate

D ebates in the social sciences frequently go unresolved they persist as long as the debating parties sustain independent research programs and secure outlets for their publications (Alexander and Columy forthcoming). In part, this reflects the discursive character of theoretical discourse between and within academic traditions and schools of thought. Yet even when social scientists attempt to verify hypotheses through empirical tests, resolution of differences are often difficult to achieve. Debate over the enclave economy hypothesis exemplifies this dilemma. Notwithstanding, we believe that the current exchange moves the enclave economy debate toward an empirically-grounded resolution. Portes and Jensen (1989) considered four hypotheses in their defense of the enclave economy hypothesis. The first and third of these hypotheses address issues that were previously debated in the ASR. Our comments focus on Hypotheses I and III.

The Public Economy and Economic Growth in Western Market Economies

This essay analyzes the impact of two welfare states-one for households and the other forfirms-on economic growth in twelve advanced market economies between 1962 and 1983. We find that both welfare states contain stimulative and depressing forms of spending. Transfers in support of household income stimulate growth, while public production of goods and services largely consumed by households depresses growth. Transfers to firms may have a predominantly negative impact on growth, while military spending has a stimulative impact on the economy. We also find that increasing household tax burdens, a correlate of postwar welfare-state expansion, slows economic growth. National debates about economic growth have increasingly been structured as zero-sum choices between the welfare state for households and economic growth. This reasoning neglects the potentially stimulative components of the welfare state for households, and ignores the potentially negative impact of the welfare state forfirms.

Gender Differences in the Attainment of Doctorates.

The study of gender inequality in academia is characterized by various conflicting positions (see Cole, 1979; Reskin, 1980). While it is clear such inequality exists, our knowledge of how it comes about is limited. Debate over the extent and interpretation of gender inequality in the academic labor market is exacerbated by this situation. The preliminary analysis reported here suggests that the inequality stems, in part, from different graduate training experiences encountered by female and male students.

Private and social wage expansion in the advanced market economies

The sources of family income in advanced market economies have become increasingly complex. A familys real income depends not only on the money wages its members receive in the labor market, but also on the extent to which those wages are taxed and the public services and transfer payments it receives from the state. The income and services households receive from the state constitute a social wage, which is growing in importance relative to the private wage. Growth in state support of living standards has added a new institutional locus of conflict over the distribution of income.

Information asymmetry and performance tilting in hospitals: a national empirical study

OBJECTIVE To test the performance tilting hypothesis using information asymmetry (IA) within the community oriented activities of prospective payment system (PPS) hospitals. DATA SOURCES American Hospital Association (AHA) Annual Survey Database and Medicare Cost Report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services both in fiscal year 2000; Health maintenance organization (HMO) penetration from the Area Resource File. STUDY DESIGN A cross-sectional analysis was performed, using a national sample of 3162 PPS hospitals merged from the AHA data set and Medicare profit data. The individual hospital serves as the unit of empirical analysis. General linear model, multiple and logistic regressions are utilized to examine the association between IA and hospital performance indicators. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A positive relationship between IA and Medicare profit margins was found. Higher IA was associated with decreased likelihood that the hospital would report having a long-term plan for the health of its host community, and with increased likelihood of performance tilting. CONCLUSION Information asymmetry offers hospitals an advantageous position in achieving profit maximization. The study also documented the presence of performance tilting by health-care management. Whether increased information demands from a society accustomed to significant disclosure will reduce this agency problem is not yet clear.

Short- and Long-Term Macroeconomic Returns to Higher Education

This study examines relationships between expenditures on higher education and economic production in the United States. Aggregate time-series models yield three main findings. First, the private economy appears to be better stimulated by governmental spending on higher education than by governmental spending in general. Second, higher education expenditures on organized research have favorable and long-lasting effects on private production. Third, higher education expenditures on nonresearch activities are stimulative over the short term, but are inversely related to private production over the long term. Several implications of these findings are discussed, including how post-1960 changes in the priorities of federal and state spending on higher education may be affecting the national economy.

Faculty Desegregation and Student Achievement

The priority attached to inner city student desegregation has often become diminished with the onset of mandatory faculty desegregation. Consequently, students tend to be substantially more segregated than teachers in urban schools. Moreover, faculties in predominately minority schools typically have higher turnover and less experience than faculties in other schools. In the largest district initially placed under court-ordered faculty desegregation, we examined how these circumstances may have influenced academic attainment among elementary students. Achievement among black students was negatively related to the extent to which their teachers were racially isolated. Also, achievement was lower for black students assigned teachers who were involuntarily transferred for faculty desegregation purposes. The achievement of black, Hispanic, and white students was positively associated with teaching experience and negatively related to faculty turnover. These findings suggest that poorly planned desegregation policies can have undesirable consequences.

Labor Force Response to Insured Unemployment

Abstract This paper examines short and long term labor force responses to unemployment insurance. The findings conform to the conventional view that comparatively generous unemployment insurance programs encourage joblessness over the short term. Over the longer term, however, a distributive lag occurs wherein joblessness inversely relates to past durations of insured unemployment. Hence, unemployment benefits appear to reduce joblessness over the long term despite their tendency to stimulate short term increases in joblessness. Since most previous studies consider only short term relationships, future work should consider theoretical models sensitive to both short and long term relationships. Future studies also need to explicate how labor force responses to unemployment insurance interact with the business cycle.