Are estimated peer effects on smoking robust? Evidence from adolescent students in Spain

Adolescent smoking is one of the most pressing public health problems. The objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of peer pressure on adolescent cigarette consumption. More concretely, we explore the significance and robustness of the peer effects using several estimation methods employed in the existing literature. On the basis of the data provided by the 2004 Spanish survey on drug use in the school population, we estimate the probability of being a smoker by two-stage models. The results reveal that when we use standard errors used in the literature the class peer variable appears to be significant. However, the class peer variable is not significant when we calculate more exigent standard errors, a result that is robust across all specifications. The paper suggests the need for a more cautious interpretation of the peer effects found previously in the literature until a deeper analysis confirms the robustness of the peer effects.     

Natura naturans,natura naturata

In this paper, which is concerned with philosophical methodology as it might affect social science and ethics, the endeavor is to explore the depth and implications of Buchanan’s interest in Spinoza. After establishing their connection, the paper explores the parallels between Spinoza’s “dualism” and Buchanan’s own dualism and how that can shed light on Buchanan’s distinction between constitutional and operational modalities. Given their analogous perspectives, the paper then considers the possibility of dimensional shifts in the dualism, such that what was once a constitutional perspective becomes operational and how that ability to shift might affect various research agendas in the social sciences and ethics. Finally, we raise the question of how separate are the two levels and can they be brought together. In a Spinozistic framework, they ultimately would collapse into a monism, but the conclusion here is that for Buchanan there must always be a gap between them. As a result, the effort to resolve the tension between the dimensions may signal future research agendas in ethics and political economy.     

On an optimal consumption problem for p-integrable consumption plans

A generalization is presented of the existence results for an optimal consumption problem of Aumann and Perles [4] and Cox and Huang [10]. In addition, we present a very general optimality principle. Received: July 14, 1999; revised version: September 9, 1999     

Ex ante contracting with endogenously determined communication plans

Summary. In this paper we introduce a new model of ex ante contracting for economies with asymmetric information to examine endogenously determined communication plans for information sharing in the interim stage. In contrast to the models used in previous research, in the present model agents negotiate not only on a contract of state contingent allocations but also on a communication plan, a set of rules describing how agents will reveal part of their private information at the interim stage to execute the trade contracts. We prove a result about the nested structure of the set of allocations implementable by various communication plans and establish the existence of core strategies for this cooperative game under various regularity conditions. Received: 4 March 1998; revised version: 17 September 1999     

The Practice Boundaries of Advanced Practice Nurses: An Economic and Legal Analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of State regulation that determines the extent of professional independence of advanced practice nurses (APNs). We find that in States where APNs have acquired a substantial amount of professional independence, the earnings of APNs are substantially lower, and those of physicians assistants (PAs) are substantially higher, than in other States. These results are striking since PAs are in direct competition with APNs; the only real operational difference between these groups is that PAs are salaried employees who must work under the supervision of a physician. The implication is that physicians have responded to an increase in professional independence of APNs by hiring fewer APNs and more PAs. The finding that earnings of APNs decline when they attain more professional autonomy vis-à-vis physicians reinforces work by Sass and Nichols on physical therapists.The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not represent official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve SystemJEL classification: I11, I18, J31, J44, L51     

Delivering Public Health Care Services: Substitutes,Complements, or Both?

In this article we investigate how the availability of public health care providers increases (complement) or decreases (substitute) the likelihood of having public or private health insurance. The probability of each of three insurance alternatives (uninsured, Medicaid, private insurance) is modeled as a function of the availability of public programs in the respondents'community along with individual characteristics including family income, health status, and family structure. Using population-based estimates, public hospitals are associated with a crowd-out rate of 3.5 percent to 8.6 percent. Federally qualified health centers were associated with a net complementary effect (additional public insurance take-up) of 7.1 percent. (JEL I11 , I18 , I38 )     

Housework and the Wages of Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Workers

This article uses samples of young, middle-aged, and older married workers drawn from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine whether the effect of housework time on wages differs among these age groups. Results from OLS, fixed effects, and panel data instrumental variables models show that young and middle-aged wives are the only groups for which the authors find consistent evidence of a housework effect on wages. Each additional hour of housework reduces their wages by 0.1–0.4%. Additionally, the analysis finds evidence that for young workers, housework time is an important determinant of the male/female wage gap. (JEL J16 , J22 , J31 )     

Gender differences in self‐employment

This paper examines the factors that influence transitions into self‐employment, paying particular attention to gender differences. We find that: (i) men are more responsive to the wage differential between wage/salaried employment and self‐employment; (ii) liquidity constraints are more important for men; and (iii) the link between father's self‐employment status and the probability of self‐employment is stronger for men. Taken together, these results suggest that, for women, self‐employment is a closer substitute for part‐time work and labour‐market inactivity than it is for men. We attribute such differences to the different labour market opportunities and occupational strategies of women.