The authors examine major aspects of the connection between social capital and economic development in U.S. counties. They test the conclusions of Putnam, who saw associations as a force for positive development, and Olson, who concluded the opposite. The authors find that Putnam organizations have a negative effect on income, while Olson organizations have a positive effect by decreasing levels of income inequality. Drawing on the literature distinguishing between bridging versus bonding, the authors show that bridging capital has a positive effect on development by increasing per capita income, while bonding capital has a neutral effect on both per capita income and income inequality. Finally, religious variables are tested for their relationship with economic development. Overall, congregation density has a negative influence by increasing per capita income and income inequality, controlling for geographic type. Congregations with bridging characteristics have a mixed effect on development by decreasing income and decreasing inequality.
We gauge the relative impact of economics, demographics, and politics on the decisions of 79 rural North Carolina counties whether to site a prison in the period 1970-2000. The results of this model demonstrate that, contrary to the expectation that counties site prisons in response to economic distress, the demographic characteristics of each county affect the relative likelihood of a prison siting more than its economics does. The influential demographic predictors are those inextricably bound up with development options-the education levels of its citizens-and those that limit its ability to pursue controversial projects-its not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) constituencies-rather than those that measure its racial diversity. Therefore, prison siting is neither a simple story of economic determinism nor one of environmental racism. We use a proportional hazards regression to model this innovation adoption in response to the challenge to select methods that take the potential time dependence of adoptions into account. A duration model is also particularly suitable for cases such as this one for which the innovation adoption is better understood as a process than as an event.
ObjectiveThis article tests how income inequality mediates and moderates the relationship between racial diversity and social capital. We posit that racial diversity leads to higher levels of income equality, which reduces social capital. We also hypothesize that racial diversity has a stronger negative effect on social capital in places with high levels of income inequality (a compounding effect).MethodsDrawing upon data from U.S. counties, we test these models using a series of regression models.ResultsDiversity and income inequality have negative effects on social capital. There is also evidence of both mediating and moderating effects. Income inequality partially mediates the negative relationship between diversity and social capital. As income inequality increases, the negative relationship between diversity and social capital decreases. Furthermore, we find that population growth moderates these relationships.ConclusionThe relationship among social capital, income inequality, and diversity is complex. Although the direct effect is negative, there is some evidence for key mediating and moderating effects. More conceptual and empirical work is needed to assess the relationship between these concepts.
This article compares the participation of black and white union members in their local unions. Using more detailed measures of union participation than those employed in earlier studies, and focusing on members, not just leaders, the authors find little difference between the extent of participation by blacks and that by whites. This surprising result, which contradicts the finding of previous studies that blacks participate in unions less than whites, holds even with controls for gender, salary, education, number of years as a member, the presence of friends in the union, the strength of a sense of efficacy, confidence in the ability to gain local union office, and the liberalness of attitudes about civil rights. BLACK participation in local unions, though largely ignored by previous research on union democracy, is an important subject for several reasons. First, unions' responsiveness to blacks as members of a minority group can serve as a measure of union democracy alternative to that commonly employed in previous studies, namely, majority participation, or the overall participation of all union members without regard to race (Lipset, Trow, and Coleman 1956; Magrath 1959; Strauss 1977). Minority members' access to their union can be viewed as a key indication of unions' effectiveness in promoting industrial democracy. An analysis of black participation thus can also indicate whether legislation encouraging union democracy, such as the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959, has succeeded. Second, a study of black participation can provide an indication of how much progress unions have made in guaranteeing the civil rights of their members since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s and 1970s-legislation intended to increase the participation in all American institutions, including unions, of minorities who were previously discriminated against.Third, this study should also help to resolve the debate in the literature over whether blacks participate in their unions less than whites. Both the scant literature on black participation in unions and the more general research on democratic practices in unions point to blacks participating less than whites. But in studies of participation in politics, blacks have been shown to participate more than whites when the blacks perceive a potential for group gains and when the research design includes controls for socioeconomic status.This study also makes several methodological contributions to the analysis of participation in unions. Based on a survey of a random sample of 2,000 union members, the study elicited detailed information on the respondents' participation in a wide variety of union activities, as well as their
The author examines three questions: how much females participate in the informal economy; why they participate; and what the policy implications of their participation are. In the process of examining these issues, the author develops a behavioral theory of female participation, involving exit, voice, loyalty, and dual loyalty, following Hirschman's work. Using three measures—the number of individuals; the amount of time; and dollars—she finds that women participate in the informal economy as much as, and probably more than, men do. In the course of trying to explain why females participate in the informal economy, she discusses a variety of different explanations and then rejects them because they are too value laden and/or they make too many assumptions. Finally, she discusses the policy implications of more and more women having dual loyalty, such as the need for government-regulated, safe day care, and the need for revising the definition of labor force participation to reflect some of the informal activity of women.
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