Does Women’s Labor Force Participation Reduce Domestic Violence? Evidence from Jordan

Enhancing women’s labor force participation is seen as a way to promote their empowerment and improve their well-being and that of their children. The empirical literature on the relationship between women’s employment status and domestic violence is less clear-cut. Using quantitative data from Jordan in 2007, this study explores the effect of women’s employment, as measured by their participation in paid work outside the home, on reported domestic violence, controlling for the potential endogeneity of women’s employment, which might bias the relationship between employment and domestic violence. Without taking endogeneity into account, the regression results suggest that a woman’s participation in paid work enhances violence by her husband. After controlling for endogeneity, these results turn out to be insignificant, which suggests that women’s work status has no causal influence on marital violence. Differentiating between various types of domestic violence provides weak evidence that women’s employment lowers sexual violence.     

Domestic Violence Against Rural Women in Colombia: The Role of Labor Income

This paper analyzes the effect of women’s earnings on domestic violence in rural Colombia during the period 2009–2013. To this end, it builds an indicator of domestic violence against women at the municipal level, based on the number of visits of women who attended health facilities where a report on suspected domestic violence was issued by their physician, which overcomes the bias introduced by self-reporting victims. Results indicate that greater income generation by women in rural areas in most economic activities (coffee, fruits, commerce, and industry) decreases domestic violence, while in services, the opposite occurs. The latter could be the result of the mainly menial jobs women perform in this sector, which may be undervalued in their homes, thus making them more vulnerable. The study also finds that improvements in the municipality’s economic activity and access to education contribute to the reduction of domestic violence against women.     

Love,hate and murder: Commitment devices in violent relationships

Many violent relationships are characterized by a high degree of cyclicality: women who are the victims of domestic violence often leave and return multiple times. To explain this we develop a model of time inconsistent preferences in the context of domestic violence. This time inconsistency generates a demand for commitment. We present supporting evidence that women in violent relationships display time inconsistent preferences by examining their demand for commitment devices. We find that no-drop policies – which compel the prosecutor to continue with prosecution even if the victim expresses a desire to drop the charges – result in an increase in reporting. No-drop policies also result in a decrease in the number of men murdered by intimates suggesting that some women in violent relationships move away from an extreme type of commitment device when a less costly one is offered.     

Soccer and national culture: estimating the impact of violence on 22 lads after a ball

Sports have been recently conceptualized as an effective tool for development. Questioning that argument, recent evidence suggests that the practice of soccer reveals national cultures of violence prevailing in players’ countries of origin. We model violent behaviour in the soccer pitch as a function of game specific controls as well as socioeconomic, political, cultural and conflict variables characterizing players’ home countries. We construct a database for the Latin American 2008 Libertadores Cup Competition and find that across multiple specifications and estimating techniques, only game specific variables determine sanctions to violent actions. There are three compatible explanations for this result: highly skilled soccer players may not be representative average citizens; violent conflicts may not necessarily cause a violent culture affecting all corners of society; and even when violent cultures are transmitted to individual players, those values do not condition significantly their behaviour during games. After all, sports may not be a pernicious activity that intrinsically transmits violent values to youths.     

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,EMPLOYMENT, AND DIVORCE*

Conventional wisdom suggests abused women get caught in a cycle of violence and are unable or unwilling to leave their spouses. We estimate a model of domestic violence to determine who abuses, who is abused, and how women respond to abuse via employment and divorce. In contrast to conventional wisdom, abused women are 1.7–5.7 times more likely to divorce. Employment before abuse occurs is found to be a significant deterrent. For men, witnessing violence as a child is a strong predictor of abusive behavior: re‐socializing men from violent homes lowers abuse rates by 26%–48%.     

Women’s investment in career and the household division of labour

This paper examines how partners in a couple share domestic work according to the woman’s investment in career. Investment is measured relatively to other women or to the partner. While previous studies mainly focused on the influence of wages and earnings, we extend them by considering more dimensions describing the intensity of the woman’s attachment to the labour market. We use the 2010 French Time Use survey to estimate a model of household division of labour in dual earner couples. We find that the more women are invested in career, the less domestic work they perform during weekdays, which is partly substituted by their partners but only on weekend days. The sharing of tasks is thus less unequal in those couples. However, women still spend more time than their partners on average performing domestic work, even when the woman outperforms him in career, implying no role reversal in the division of labour.     

Inscribing the American Body Politic: Martin Sheen and Two American Decades

Film and television have been influential in the remaking of the American self since the traumas of Vietnam. We undertake readings of class, gender, ethnicity and race focusing on the roles of Martin Sheen and his two ‘crews’ in Apocalypse Now Redux and in the television series The West Wing. We argue that despite the appearance of a more progressive America as represented by the Bartlet White House it remains within a long tradition that represents the US in discourses of innocence and pureness of will and is largely blind to the kind of violence perpetrated by Willard and his crew in Apocalypse Now Redux. We suggest that the capacity of the US repeatedly to ‘forget’ its use of certain kinds of violence marks the limits of self-sacrifice of the American self and provides the discursive possibility for the eternal return of innocence.     

The Effect of the Adoption of a Pro‐Women Domestic Violence Policy on Dowry Violence: Empirical Evidence from India

Dowry violence against women in India is among the highest in the world. In 2005, India enacted the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) to help female victims of domestic violence. I develop a model of domestic violence and evaluate the effects of the PWDVA on dowry violence. I estimate an empirical model of dowry violence using district level data from 2001–2012. I find that in the post‐policy period, the reporting rate of harassment for dowry has significantly increased in north and central India where female leadership is high. In these districts, dowry deaths have also declined significantly.     

Research Program versus Paradigm in the Development of Economics

This paper critiques economists’ past approaches to modeling the issue of intimate parmer violence based on stylized facts about victims and batterers. These stylized facts are an important step in recognizing a broader range of issues than what has been narrowly formulated in economic studies to date. A key factor is the revolving door phenomenon of abused women leaving and returning to a violent union. The ways in which women react to abusive situations is shaped by time-varying and path-dependent, decision-making processes over several episodes of violence. This paper discusses how economists can extend far beyond their current thinking around the constructions of intimate partner violence. The stylized facts presented in the paper have important implications for policy approaches to the issue, particularly where it concerns abused women’s potential for self-sufficiency in the labor market.     

Assets versus Autonomy? The Changing Face of the Gender-Caste Overlap in India

Inter-group disparity in India is multifaceted; this paper focuses on gender and caste as two important indicators of disadvantage. An assessment of the contemporary state of the gender-caste overlap suggests that the economic condition of women continues to be defined and constrained by their caste status. At the same time, the traditional distinction between lower caste and upper caste women, based on the relative egalitarianism and greater freedom of movement of the latter, needs to be revised. The Dalit (low caste) women are the worst off, as they belong to a group that is materially at the bottom of the ladder; their relative deprivation is compounded by low levels of autonomy and greater exposure to domestic violence.     

Security and Fear: The Geopolitics of Intimate Partner Violence Policing

This paper builds upon feminist critiques of security interventions in the name of ‘protecting women’ to link United States municipal policing practices for intimate partner violence with global security interventions. Policing intervention into intimate partner violence emerged in the last twenty-five years; however as I argue, these policing practices are situated within narrow conceptions of masculinist security that often fail to address victims' multiple security needs. While not dismissing the importance of arresting intimate partner violence abusers, this paper examines the ways that policing can create additional and different embodied fears and insecurities for victims. Using the tools of emotional geopolitics, this paper traces victims’ fears following the arrest of their abuser to understand the temporal and spatial moments of fear in relation to security interventions. This methodological approach examines the limitations of masculinist protection while reimagining security to consider the emotional security needs and fears of those being protected.     

Sexual economic theory & the human mating market

In this study, we apply economic principles to the heterosexual human mating market using data on the socio-demographics, biology, attractiveness, sexual behaviour, and reproductive history of 3,261 Australian online dating participants. More specifically, by using survey participants attractiveness ratings as a proxy for market value, we are able to quantitatively explore theories of sexual economics (SET), which conceptualizes sexual access as an economic resource supplied by women in the human mating market. Our study tests this theory further by incorporating heterosexual market substitutes (namely, 953 bisexual and pansexual individuals) to more accurately integrate the relevant supply and demand forces impacting market value and the commodity of sexual access. We find not only that bisexual and pansexual women (but not men) enjoy a market premium (7.3% higher; p < 0.001) relative to their heterosexual counterparts, but that, contrary to SET, women’s market value in our sample does not diminish with age. We further find that in line with theory and evidence from evolutionary studies, men with (proxied) resources realize a higher market value (6.1% higher for every increased level of educational attainment; p < 0.001) than those without. In conclusion, SET is just one possible model that seeks to understand the complex multi-dimensionality of modern human sexuality and reproduction through an economics lens. As the internet and online dating now provide a low-cost conduit for human mating market participants, so to can it facilitate further large sample scientific studies of mating market dynamics such as this.     

The effects of cross‐border M&As on the acquirers’ domestic performance: firm‐level evidence

Abstract This paper provides empirical evidence on the effects of cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the acquiring firms’ domestic performance in the U.K. and France. We build a new firm‐level data set that combines a global M&A database with balance sheet data for the years 2000 to 2007. Combining matching techniques with a difference‐in‐differences estimator, we find that cross‐border M&As boost on average acquirers’ domestic sales and investment, and they are not accompanied by a downsizing of the domestic labour force in either country. Further, cross‐border M&As in knowledge‐intensive industries lead to improvements in domestic productivity. Our results display some heterogeneity across industries and types of acquisitions, suggesting a connection between the motives for international M&As and their resulting effects.     

‘Us’ and ‘Them’: the origin of identity,and its economic implications

Abstract We investigate the origins of identity and the innate proclivity to draw a distinction between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. We propose an evolutionary explanation: we argue that identity arises because it facilitates survival. In an evolutionary setting we endogenize preferences and demonstrate that the evolutionarily stable preferences fashioned by natural selection would distinguish between insiders and outsiders. We then work out the implications of such preferences in two contemporary scenarios, one entailing rent‐seeking behaviour and the other involving public good provision. Our results are in conformity with empirical evidence.     

Spousal Violence and Women's Employment in India

This study analyzes women's experiences of physical or sexual spousal violence as a correlate of their employment. Based on the 2005–6 National Family Health Survey III, a nationally representative dataset from India, the analysis illustrates that married women who experienced spousal violence are more likely to be employed and are also more likely to work for cash remuneration and be employed year-round. These results may appear to suggest that spousal violence is associated with higher likelihood of married women seeking financial self-reliance. However, investigation of who decides how to spend women's earnings reveals that Indian women who experienced spousal violence are less likely to have a say in that vital decision, which suggests that women who experience spousal violence may also be more susceptible to financial exploitation. The evidence further indicates a need for caution among analyses that uniformly embrace employment as a financial empowerment tool for women.     

Alfred Marshall's Mecca: Reconciling the Theories of Value and Development*

The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolutionary nature and content of Marshall's theory of value and the relation it bears to his theory of growth and development. In Marshall's work the two theories are inextricably linked, and the subsequent attempt to separate them has not only marginalised Marshall's rich analysis but also made it impossible to appreciate the role he gave to innovation, and its corollary the growth of knowledge and organisation, in the workings of a market economy. At its core is the relation between the growth of firms and the growth of markets, but this is not steady‐state growth theory; rather, it is the different, mutually determined and ever changing growth rates of different groups of firms that is at the centre of attention. Quite how variation is linked to progress is the central topic of this essay, and the elucidation of its central role necessarily means that we must resurrect the representative firm. We conclude that Marshall was correct in stating that ‘the tendency to variation is a chief source of progress’ (Principles, V, 4, p. 355). We develop a set of evolutionary tools to show how and why this is so. But evolution is more than variation; it requires the organisation of firms and the market process to generate that correlation between differential knowledge and economic advance. Most importantly of all, the concept of a representative firm is re‐established as an indispensable element in a Marshallian evolutionary analysis.     

Police Violence and the Underreporting of Crime

This paper examines the relationship between police violence and the reporting of crime. Utilizing original data from a large‐scale household survey conducted in Costa Rica from October 2013 to April 2014 (n = 4,200), we find that the observation of police violence significantly reduces citizens’ willingness to report crime. The implications of this finding are explored using a game‐theoretic model of crime, crime reporting, and police misconduct. The model reveals that although the prospect of police violence against criminals may generate a degree of deterrence for criminal behavior, permissiveness toward police violence also raises expectations about the likelihood of police abuse against law‐abiding citizens. Consistent with our empirics, this reduces citizens’ propensity to report crime, thereby fostering a climate of impunity for criminal activity.     

Neoliberalism with a Feminist Face: Crafting a new Hegemony at the World Bank

Neoliberalism has been discredited as a result of proliferating crises (financial, ecological, care) and mounting inequality. This paper examines the growing research on gender at the World Bank as a site for the construction of a new hegemonic consensus around neoliberalism. Drawing on a computer-assisted inductive analysis of thirty-four Bank publications on gender since 2001, the paper documents Bank efforts to establish a positive relationship between gender equality and growth; shows the expansion of the Bank’s definition of equality as equal opportunity; illustrates how the focus on institutions has enabled engagement with core feminist concerns, such as equality in the family; and traces how incorporating notions of women’s empowerment and agency has made possible a focus on domestic violence. The paper concludes by emphasizing the ambiguous effects of the Bank’s new neoliberalism, which continues to use the market as the arbiter of social values while providing openings for feminist agendas.     

Demographic responses to a political transformation: Evidence of women’s empowerment from Nepal

During the 2006 Democratic Movement in Nepal, the parliament unanimously decided to strip the over two century-old Shah monarchy of absolute power. We study the short-run effects of the arrival of democracy on different measures of women’s empowerment by exploiting exogenous variation in the government through abolition of the monarchy. This paper employs a propensity score matching estimator to evaluate the linkage between change in political regime and opinions related to women’s empowerment from 2006 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS). Results show that women’s say in decision making increased significantly, and opinions on violence against women strengthened. We further scrutinize the treatment effect estimates with Rosenbaum bounds and observe if they are sensitive to possible hidden selection bias. We also test for heterogeneity of the treatment effect across gender and find that males report higher probability of mutual household decision-making among couples than females.     

Family policy,intrahousehold bargaining,and child health

This study examines the effects of an exogenous change in family policy in Ethiopia on women empowerment and the allocation of resources toward child health. Empowerment is formalized as an unobserved latent variable based on a large set of questions pertaining to women's autonomy and decision-making power. Exploiting the time and regional variation in the implementation of the law, the study finds that early implementation of the reform increases women's access to information, literacy and education levels, and their assertiveness toward family planning and domestic violence. In addition, more decision power in the hands of women is found to have a positive impact on investments in the health and nutrition of children. The findings suggest that factors that do not enter the individual's preferences may affect outcomes for individuals and emphasize the role of intrahousehold heterogeneity. The results are robust to a battery of validity and specification checks.