Many have theorized that the confidentiality breach required by Tarasoff v. Regents may have adverse effects on effective psychology. The mental help required to treat patients may be foregone and violence may ensue amidst the presence of duty to warn laws. Using a fixed effects model and exploiting the variation in the timing and style of duty to warn laws across states, I find that mandatory duty to warn laws cause an increase in homicides of 8.9%. These results are robust to model specifications, falsification tests, and help to clarify the true effect of state duty to warn laws.

對於臺灣歷史文化的研究而言，文物、遺址、古蹟或歷史現場，大部分都有位置的空間資訊與可能存在的時間範圍，地理資訊系統（Geographic Information System，GIS）可廣泛的運用套疊與分析模式，在時間、空間與屬性上，整合衛星照片、地圖、圖像與文獻等資訊，重建歷史文化與環境的景況。因此，本研究於2004年起，即開始針對歷史文化與地圖之圖像資料，進行蒐集和整理，依照史前時期、西荷時期、清領時期、日治時期、及戰後時期（1970年以前）五個不同的歷史分期，到目前為止，共計蒐集了3,750張圖像資料，並完成每張圖像資料的解說與GIS資料庫建檔。在展示及應用平臺上，並已透過Google Map這個Internet GIS的環境，串連每張圖像的空間位置，建立起不同主題的歷史與人文之時間地圖，在東臺灣圖像資料的數位典藏與GIS應用上，發揮GIS串連歷史圖像的網路分享技術，為歷史研究與文史工作，豐富其在東臺灣歷史地理學研究的內容。

Hundreds of thousands of Iowans will find their health care situation drastically improved, thanks to the passage and enactment of health reform. The bill takes major steps toward extending health insurance to all Americans using a number of mechanisms. It creates a regulated marketplace for purchasing insurance called a health insurance exchange, provides subsidies to help low- and middle-income earners buy insurance, expands Medicaid eligibility, and prohibits privately purchased health insurance from excluding, denying or rescinding coverage based on pre-existing conditions. The sum effect of these efforts would reduce the United States’ uninsured population by about 32 million and reduce the federal deficit by $124 billion between now and 2019.1 Using available data, this paper will provide estimates of how many Iowans would . . .

The resolution of the language question--whether to maintain the mother tongue, shift to the mainstream language, or try to maintain two or more languages in the family--creates a lot of psychological complications and linguistic reflections. The present study explores how external variables and internal controversies affect the choice of language by an individual family member as well as the family as a whole unit, and how this choice, in its turn, impacts the relationships within the family.This study draws on the several theoretical domains of immigration, psychology, and language acquisition. Relying on these theoretical frameworks, the major findings are synthesized, and a paradigm of language choice at the family level is formulated.A mixed-method research design allows a broad outlook on the Russian-speaking immigrants, comparison of immigrants from the former Soviet Union with immigrants of other nationalities, and restricted and concentrated analysis at the family level. The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) data set helps to address the quantitative part of this dissertation, while the qualitative part is based on in-depth case studies of four immigrant families.Building on the fundamental position that development happens as the result of the resolution of controversies, I suggest that there are four levels of controversy located in the language-choice model: societal, family, personal, and eventual outcomes of these three levels.Four "language choice" profiles, designated as "Amotivational," "Instrumental," "Intrinsic," and "Intrinsic +," have emerged out of the theoretical and research findings.The findings show that the crucial characteristics of the families who chose to maintain the mother tongue and foster bi-literacy in their children are the following: (1) a stress on knowing the country of origin and its culture; (2) a declared desire within the family that the children be different from the parents' perception of American children; (3) an emphasis by the parents on the children's "Russianness" and on the formation of that ethnic identity; and (4) an emphasis on a consistently realized, strong language policy at home.

Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray examine the lengthening transition to adulthood over the past several decades, as well as the challenges the new schedule poses for young people, families, and society.The authors begin with a brief history of becoming an adult, noting that the schedule that youth follow to arrive at adulthood changes to meet the social realities of each era. For youth to leave home at an early age during the 1950s, for example, was "normal" because opportunities for work were plentiful and social expectations of the time reinforced the need to do so. But the prosperity that made it possible for young adults of that era to move quickly into adult roles did not last. The economic and employment uncertainties that arose during the 1970s complicated enormously the decisions that young adults had to make about living arrangements, educational investments, and family formation.The authors next take a closer look at changes in the core timing shifts in the new transitionthe lengthening time it now takes youth to leave home, complete school, enter the workforce, marry, and have children. They stress that today's new schedule for attaining independence leaves many families overburdened as they support their children for an extended period. The continued need to rely on families for financial assistance, the authors say, exacerbates the plight of young people from a variety of vulnerable backgrounds. It also raises complex questions about who is responsible for the welfare of young people and whether the risks and costs newly associated with the early adult years should be absorbed by markets, by families, or by governments.Settersten and Ray stress that the longer transition to adulthood strains not only families but also the institutions that have traditionally supported young Americans in making that transitionsuch as residential colleges and universities, community colleges, military service, and national service programs. They emphasize the need to strengthen existing social institutions and create new ones to reflect more accurately the realities of a longer and more complex passage into adult life.

American society has changed dramatically over the past half century. Women have entered the labor force in growing numbers and families have increasingly relied on more than one earner to make ends meet. And yet, children still need to be taken to the doctor and elderly parents still need care. Moreover, more adults older than 25 are attending school. Because these changes have caused many workers to face conflicts between their work and their personal lives, they also inspire a need and desire for more flexibility in the workplace.Flexible workplace arrangements can be in terms of when one works, where one works, or how much one works (including time off after childbirth or other life events). They include a variety of arrangements such as job sharing, phased retirement of older workers, and telecommuting, that allow workers to continue making productive contributions to the workforce while also attending to family and other responsibilities.This report presents an economic perspective on flexible workplace policies and practices. The first section reports some of the changes in the U.S. workforce that have increased the need for flexibility in the workplace.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: To evaluate current racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in the prevalence of frequent ear infections (FEI) among children in the United States. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: The National Health Interview Survey (years 1997 to 2006) was utilized to evaluate children who were reported by their parent/guardian to have "3 or more ear infections during the past 12 months." Demographic variables evaluated included age, sex, race/ethnicity, income level, and insurance status. Multivariate analyses determined the influence of demographic variables on the prevalence of FEI in children. RESULTS: Among an annualized population of 72.6 million children (average age, 8.55 +/- 0.19 years), 4.65 +/- 0.07 million children (6.6 +/- 0.1%) reported FEI. FEI was more commonly reported in white (7.0 +/- 0.1%) and Hispanic (6.2 +/- 0.2%) than in black (5.0 +/- 0.2%) and other race/ethnic groups (4.5 +/- 0.3%, P < .001). A larger portion of children in households below the poverty level reported FEI (8.0 +/- 0.3%, P < .001). Of children with no health insurance 5.4 +/- 0.3% had FEI. On multivariate analysis, black, Hispanic and other race/ethnic group had decreased odds ratio for FEI relative to white children (odds ratios: 0.63, 0.76, and 0.60, respectively, all P < .001). Income below poverty level also predicted FEI (odds ratio, 1.322, P < .001), whereas lack of insurance coverage did not (P = .181). CONCLUSIONS: Despite increasing awareness, there are still notable racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities among children with FEI. Further efforts to eliminate these disparities and improve the care of children with FEI are needed.

Salaries and benefits—for identical jobs—are 30 percent to 40 percent higher in the federal government than in the private sector. Claims that this dramatic discrepancy in compensation is warranted because of government workers’ high skills are unjustified, as this study shows. Equally unjustified is the fact that federal workers can rarely be fired, no matter how poor their job performance. Congress should align federal salaries and benefits with market rates—a simple, and fair, move that could save taxpayers nearly $47 billion in 2011. Heritage Foundation labor policy analyst James Sherk provides detailed data on why Congress should not overtax all Americans to overpay the privileged workers in the civil service.

Beginning in 1979, certain states extended extra copyright protection,known as moral rights protection, to visual artists. Moral rights protection, whichwas incorporated into U.S. copyright law in 1990, ensures that works cannot bealtered in a manner that would negatively impact the reputation of the artist. Usingdifference-in-differences regression strategies, we compare artists and non-artists instates with moral rights laws to those in states without these laws, before and afterthe laws are enacted. This enables us to test the impact of the laws on the behaviorof artists, consumers, and policy makers. Our analysis reveals that the averageartists income falls by around $4000 per year as a result of moral rights legislation,but we find no impact of the laws on artists choices of residence or on state-levelpublic spending on the arts.

We examine how differences in state income tax rates, as well as other state and local taxes and publicservice expenditures, influence the choice of state of residence for households (federal tax filers)moving into multistate metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) using data from the one in twentysample of the 2000 Census of Population and Housing microdata extracted from the IntegratedPublic Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). MSAs that are on borders provide a spatial discontinuity discrete differences in state tax rates within a single labor market. These MSAs allow residents tolive in one state and work in another state. After controlling for other factors believed to affecthousehold location, we find that differences in state income tax rates have a statistically significantimpact on the probability a household locates in the low tax state within an MSA.

The endogeneity of prices has long been recognized as the main identification problem in the estimation of marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for the characteristics of a given product. This issue is particularly important in the housing market, since a number of housing and neighborhood features are unobserved by the econometrician. This paper proposes the use of a well defined type of transaction costs–moving costs generated by property tax laws–to deal with this type of omitted variable bias. California's Proposition 13 property tax law is the source of variation in transaction costs used in the empirical analysis. Beyond its fiscal consequences, Proposition 13 created a lock-in effect on housing choice because of the implicit tax break enjoyed by homeowners living in the same house for a long time. Its importance to homeowners is estimated from a natural experiment created by two amendments that allow households headed by an individual over the age of 55 to transfer the implicit tax benefit to a new home. Indeed, 55-year old homeowners have 25% higher moving rates than those of comparable 54year olds. These transaction costs from the property tax laws are then incorporated into a household sorting model. The key insight is that because of the property tax laws, different potential buyers may have different user costs for the same house. The exogenous property tax component of this user cost is then used as an instrumental variable. I find that MWTP estimates for housing characteristics are approximately 100% upward biased when the choice model does not account for the price endogeneity.

In this paper we estimate intergenerational educational mobility for Brazil,Chile, Uruguay and the USA along the period 1995-2006. We propose an in-dex of intergenerational mobility based on the variance decomposition in anerror-components model. We estimate three indexes of mobility: one basedon the autoregressive Markov-chain regression, the second is the Dahan-Gaviria index and the last one is the index proposed in this work. We use dataof teenagers and parents education and address the issue of top-censoring.We distinguish between relative and absolute mobility. We draw empiricalconclusions for each country and compare results. We analyze theoreticaland empirical attributes of indexes.

The evolution of soil conservation awareness and management is the last century is interwoven with social, technological, and political changes. For example, consider the impacts of government programs on implementation of conservation management, the adoption of sustainable practices enhanced by the knowledge from county extension agents, the adoption of tractors rather than mules, and, in stark contrast, the effects of widespread use of transgenic crops on conservation tillage. These are but a few examples of the progress made in preserving and improving soil fertility and productivity. In this chapter we provide an account of the last one hundred years of conservation agriculture in the Mid-South of the United States, with the goal that lessons learned are applied to ensure continued sustainability of soil as a vital natural resource.

Between August and November 2009, the Urban Institute and Social Sciences Research Solutions conducted a survey of households in the District of Columbia for the DC Department of Health Care Finance. The 2009 DC Health Insurance Survey (DC-HIS) includes interviews with 4,717 households. The sample covered only non-institutionalized residents and did not include homeless residents. The survey used a combination of random digit dial (RDD) telephone and address-based sampling in order to contact households with and without landline telephones. The combined response rate was 34.1 percent. The survey data was analyzed by the Urban Institute.1 In this brief, we present estimates of uninsurance among District residents and explore the characteristics of the uninsured and the reasons for their lack of insurance using data from the 2009 DC-HIS.

Previous research suggests that humans are responsible for a significant majority of wildland fires, and that those fires are not randomly distributed on the landscape. Nearly 98% of all fire starts on North Carolina private lands are human caused and almost 90% of fire starts across the country are human related. A data set was compiled of daily fire and weather observations from 1970 to 2008, as well as four decades of county level census information. The number of fires per year for North Carolina's Nantahala, Pisgah and Croatan National Forests range from 42 to 425 (mean: 106; standard deviation: 74). These fires burn an average of 2,800 acres (standard deviation: 1,700). These data were used in order to assess the hypothesis that fires are most likely to occur during drier months and near forest roads. Several methodologies were used in order to understand the occurrence of fires and the results of this research are to inform fire managers about places in space and time that are particularly prone to fire. It was found that wildland fires in North Carolina have a bi-modal distribution during the year, with a local maximum in November and a global maximum in April. A time-series analysis of the data indicated that fires are correlated in time and confirmed this seasonality. Regression analysis showed that specific climate variables were significant in explaining the number of fires. The climate variables that were found to be most significant were temperature, which had a positive correlation with the number of fires and relative humidity, which had a negative correlation. Precipitation and wind speed were found significant in some, but not all cases. In addition, certain counties had higher incidence of wildland fire. In contrast, Buncombe county had the fewest and Graham the most wildland fires; Buncombe county has the largest population and most development, while Graham had the smallest population and highest amount acreage under National Forest control. A spatial analysis found that approximately half of human started wildland fires were within 100m of a road or trail, and nearly all fires were within 1000m.