Rational choice models of crimes by youth

This article presents research findings from three analyses of criminal activity among youth. The data set used in all three is the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Americans, a data set that is particularly appropriate for this type of analysis. The work examined the relationship between criminal behavior and family and moral influences; the impact of legitimate labor market activity on participation in crime; and the effect of school enrollment on criminal activity. The findings confirm the hypothesis that black and white differences in criminal participation partially reflect differences in economic opportunity.     

Financial Regulation—The Underlying Issues

Financial regulation has become a growth industry because of the growth of the financial sector and because regulation itself tends to expand when it is seen not to be able to prevent collapse, fraud or other abuses, 'Public Choice' sheds light here, and on the costs of regulation.     

Futures research report card—quantity: A; quality: C; and impact: F

Futures research has at best only a slight influence on public and private sector decision-making. Bridging the wide gap between analysis and action means reexamining how we are looking and what we are looking at. The ability to deal with multiple, even conflicting, perspectives simultaneously and to focus on vital substantive problem areas should help. The traditional ‘rational actor’ approach must be augmented and balanced with organizational/societal and personal/individual perspectives. Priority attention should be placed on prevention of a nuclear holocaust, exploration of new social system alternatives, and probing of the next technological innovation cluster.     

Upstream Intergenerational Transfers

This study analyzes upstream intergenerational transfers from middle-aged children to their elderly parents. We formulate a model in which the middle-aged child transfers both money and time to an elderly parent based on an altruistic motive. We examine substitution between financial transfers and time transfers using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Empirical results support the assumption that upstream transfers are motivated by altruism, particularly financial transfers. Parents financially worse off than their middle-aged children receive more money. They are more likely to live nearby if not coresident. Overall, the results for time transfers provide weaker support for our model than financial transfers. A child with a high wage tends to transfer money rather than time, suggesting that the two types of transfers are partial substitutes.     

The New Distributional Politics of Globalization and the Lessons of the Great Depression

The paper examines political resentments and backlashes in historicalepisodes of globalization in terms of discussions of the moralityof rising inequalities of income and wealth. It investigatesthe link between this discussion and a different interest-basedpolitical system that prevails in periods of global opening.While politics in the framework of the national economy hasa simple left-right dichotomy, politics in globalized societiesmobilizes an incoherent coalition of anti-global left and anti-globalright against a pro-global center. (JEL N10, N20)