Using the Synthetic Control Method to Determine the Effect of Ultrasound Laws on State-Level Abortion Rates

Atlantic Economic Journal - The purpose of the present study is to determine if laws requiring ultrasounds prior to an abortion being performed have any effect on the demand for abortions. Using...     

Facing the pain of others: perspectives on international volunteer tourism between agency and spectatorship

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing academic debate on volunteer tourism by reviewing the volunteer tourists' experience in light of their encounter with poverty and sufferance. Through the analysis of data collected from semi-structured in-depth interviews with a group of 29 young Italian adults, the author examines the different ways in which volunteer tourists construct and negotiate their role as agents of change during their vacations abroad. Results show that the expectations of providing effective help to the local communities is often challenged by the limitations and constraints of the volunteer tourism experience and, as a consequence, volunteer tourists need to find new ways of making sense of their experiences abroad. Looking at the work of French sociologist [Boltanski, L. (1999). Distant suffering. Morality, media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] on the ways in which spectators respond to the distant suffering of others, this paper argues that, in order to avoid an oversimplification and a trivialisation of the volunteer tourism experience, the volunteers' participation needs to be addressed primarily as a matter of spectatorship, rather than as a question of agency.     

The effects of merit pay on teacher job satisfaction

The purpose of this study is to determine if the existence of a district-level merit pay system has any effects on teacher job satisfaction. Using a large sample of public school teachers from the year 2007, the results of this study suggest that teachers who work in districts that use a merit pay system are no less satisfied with their jobs than are other teachers; these results are consistent for both an ordered probit model and a two-stage analysis. Although the effect of merit pay on overall job satisfaction was insignificant, teachers in merit pay districts were less enthusiastic, did not think teaching was important, and were more likely to leave for better pay. However, in examining a sample of teachers who worked only in merit pay districts, it was found that teachers who received merit pay were more satisfied overall with their jobs than were teachers who did not receive merit pay.