Kurt J. Beron

Why Cooperate? Public Goods, Economic Power, and the Montreal Protocol

This paper develops a correlated probit model to describe dichotomous choices that may contain a public-goods component or some other forms of interdependency. The key contribution of the paper is to formulate tests for interdependent behavior among agents. In particular, we examine the decisions by nations whether or not to ratify the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. Specifically, we reject free riding as a motive for not ratifying the Protocol, and we find little evidence that individual nations were influenced by the behavior of their largest trading partners. Hence, the data suggest that, with respect to the Montreal Protocol, most nations acted without regard for the actions of other nations.

Probit in a Spatial Context: A Monte Carlo Analysis

Data are often observed in a binary form: vote for or vote against; buy or don’t buy; build or don’t build; move or don’t move, etc. In classical econometrics this situation has been extensively studied and appropriate procedures developed to handle the nature of the data. The standard model however does not allow for spatial processes to drive the choices made by decision makers. For example, whether one city increases its sales tax may depend the actions of neighboring cities. Whether one jurisdiction subsidizes the construction of a new sports arena depends on the options that are offered to the sports enterprise by other jurisdictions — which has been occurring with increasing frequency in the United States, at the threat of the team moving elsewhere. In both of these cases, the conventional probit model fails to account for interdependencies.

Continuity and change in social and physical aggression from middle childhood through early adolescence.

For a sample followed from age 9-13 (N=281), this investigation examined developmental trajectories for social and physical aggression as measured by teacher ratings. Trajectories for both forms of aggression were estimated first separately, then jointly. Mean levels of both social and physical aggression decreased over time for the overall sample, but with high variability of individual trajectories. Subgroups followed high trajectories for both social and physical aggression. Joint estimation yielded six trajectories: low stable, low increasers, medium increasers, medium desisters, high desisters, and high increasers. Membership in the high increaser group was predicted by male gender, unmarried parents, African American ethnicity, and maternal authoritarian and permissive parenting. Permissive parenting also predicted membership in the medium increaser group. This is one of the first studies to examine social aggression longitudinally across this developmental period. Though the results challenge the claim that social aggression is at its peak in early adolescence, the findings emphasize the importance of considering different developmental trajectories in trying to understand origins and outcomes of aggression.

The Benefits of Visibility Improvement: New Evidence from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area

This article examines the impact of a specific aspect of air quality—visibility, or the ability to clearly see distant objects—on housing values. Our analysis is based on a data set constructed by matching residential housing sales data from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area for the period 1980 through 1995 with visibility and other air pollution data and other characteristics. We find that visibility differences are capitalized into housing values, producing a measurable hedonic price gradient. The time-series design facilitates an estimate of the demand for visibility that we use to calculate the benefits of changes in visual range.

Persistent versus Periodic Experiences of Social Victimization: Predictors of Adjustment

This study examined self-reports of social victimization and parent reports of adjustment for a sample followed from fourth through seventh grades. Different patterns of social victimization experiences were identified; of the 153 students (79 girls) with complete data, 24% reported chronic social victimization, 23% reported transient experiences of social victimization, and 53% reported being socially victimized at no more than one time point. We examined whether students who experienced persistent and periodic social victimization were at greater risk for internalizing problems than nonvictims. Persistently victimized children demonstrated continuously elevated levels of internalizing problems. Children who were not originally victimized by social aggression but became victimized with time did not demonstrate higher levels of internalizing problems than did nonvictims. Findings were mixed for those who escaped social victimization during this period.

Oral Language and Reading Success: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Oral language skills and habits may serve as important resources for success or failure in school-related tasks such as learning to read. This article tests this hypothesis utilizing a unique data set, the original Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised norming sample. This article assesses the importance of oral language by focusing on auditory processing, a variable strongly affected by the oral language of the family and peer group within which the youth is raised. It estimates a structural equation model in which this variable, along with other measures of basic cognitive skills, serve as mediators between race and mothers schooling background and basic and advanced reading skill. The model fits very well, and the youths basic skill at auditory processing is both a major determinant of basic reading success, and by far the most important of the mediating variables. In particular, for children ages 5 to 10, this measure accounts for much of the race effect, and for more than one half of the mothers education effect on reading. Research on the determinants of social inequality should pay greater attention to the central importance of family and peer group oral language in determining cognitive performance outcomes, particularly for elementary school aged children.

Joint trajectories for social and physical aggression as predictors of adolescent maladjustment: Internalizing symptoms, rule-breaking behaviors, and borderline and narcissistic personality features

This investigation examined the relation between developmental trajectories jointly estimated for social and physical aggression and adjustment problems at age 14. Teachers provided ratings of childrens social and physical aggression in Grades 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for a sample of 255 children (131 girls, 21% African American, 52% European American, 21% Mexican American). Participants, parents, and teachers completed measures of the adolescents adjustment to assess internalizing symptoms, rule-breaking behaviors, and borderline and narcissistic personality features. Results showed that membership in a high and rising trajectory group predicted rule-breaking behaviors and borderline personality features. Membership in a high desister group predicted internalizing symptoms, rule-breaking behaviors, and borderline and narcissistic personality features. The findings suggest that although low levels of social and physical aggression may not bode poorly for adjustment, individuals engaging in high levels of social and physical aggression in middle childhood may be at greatest risk for adolescent psychopathology, whether they increase or desist in their aggression through early adolescence.

Assessing peer victimization across adolescence: measurement invariance and developmental change.

An upward extension of the Revised Social Experience Questionnaire (Paquette & Underwood, 1999) was tested in a sample of adolescents followed longitudinally from 7th through 10th grade. We hypothesized that a 2-factor model with overt and social victimization factors would fit the data better than would a unidimensional model (a single general victimization factor) or a 3-factor model (separately examining verbal, physical, and social victimization). The 2-factor model best represented the data, and we found support for longitudinal invariance of this model across 7th through 10th grades for both boys and girls. Such findings of temporal invariance are important for further longitudinal comparisons, and we suggest future directions for using the Revised Adolescent Social Experience Questionnaire to examine stability and change in victimization as well as evaluating the effectiveness of intervention programs.

Joint Determination of Current Classroom Performance and Additional Economics Classes: A Binary/Continuous Model

Students in DEEP high schools are found to score higher on the Test of Economic Literacy but are less likely to want another course in economics than students who are not in DEEP schools.

Hierarchical Linear Models With Application to Air Pollution in the South Coast Air Basin

environmental (Smith and Huang). The estimated relationship can be used to infer the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for the environmental characteristic (Freeman, p. 372). In this article, we use a large georeferenced property-value data set that corresponds, approximately, to the boundaries of the South Coast Air Quality Management District in the Los Angeles area to investigate the empirical consequences of geographic clustering on the MWTP for environmental characteristics. The data reflect a natural hierarchical structure wherein level 1 corre-