Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Instead of examining why organizations are dissimilar, this study explores why organizations tend to be increasingly and inevitably homogenous in their forms and practices. Organizations in a similar line of work are structured into an organizational field by powerful forces that lead them to become similar. Rather than the causes of rationalization and bureaucratization suggested by Max Weber, including competition and the need for efficiency, institutional similarity is due to the structuration of organizational fields, a process caused largely by the state and the professions, which are the great rationalizers of the late 20th century. In highly structured organizational fields, rational efforts of individuals aggregately lead to structural, cultural, and output homogeneity. Homogenization is best captured by the concept of isomorphism, the process whereby one element in a population resembles others that confront the same environmental conditions. The two types of isomorphism are competitive and institutional. Three processes lead to organizational similarity: (1) coercive isomorphism stemming from political influence and the problem of legitimacy; (2) mimetic isomorphism resulting from uniform responses to uncertainty; and (3) normative isomorphism associated with professionalism. While these isomorphic processes improve organizational transactions, they do not necessarily increase internal efficiency. Twelve hypotheses are offered for further research about which organizational fields will be most homogenous. These hypotheses relate the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalism and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, useful implications of the study for theories of organizations and social change are offered. (TNM)

Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in economics sciences in 2002, December 8, Stockholm, Sweden. This article is the edited version of his Nobel Prize lecture. The author comes back to the problems he has studied with the late Amos Tversky and to debates conducting for several decades already. The statement is based on worked out together with Shane Federik the quirkiness of human judgment. Language: ru

Abstract Although Mechanical Turk has recently become popular among social scientists as a source of experimental data, doubts may linger about the quality of data provided by subjects recruited from online labor markets. We address these potential concerns by presenting new demographic data about the Mechanical Turk subject population, reviewing the strengths of Mechanical Turk relative to other online and offline methods of recruiting subjects, and comparing the magnitude of effects obtained using Mechanical Turk and traditional subject pools. We further discuss some additional benefits such as the possibility of longitudinal, cross cultural and prescreening designs, and offer some advice on how to best manage a common subject pool.

The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) assesses how people spend their time and how they experience the various activities and settings of their lives, combining features of time-budget measurement and experience sampling. Participants systematically reconstruct their activities and experiences of the preceding day with procedures designed to reduce recall biases. The DRM's utility is shown by documenting close correspondences between the DRM reports of 909 employed women and established results from experience sampling. An analysis of the hedonic treadmill shows the DRM's potential for well-being research.

This article considers forecasting a single time series when there are many predictors (N) and time series observations (T). When the data follow an approximate factor model, the predictors can be summarized by a small number of indexes, which we estimate using principal components. Feasible forecasts are shown to be asymptotically efficient in the sense that the difference between the feasible forecasts and the infeasible forecasts constructed using the actual values of the factors converges in probability to 0 as both N and T grow large. The estimated factors are shown to be consistent, even in the presence of time variation in the factor model.

The poor often behave in less capable ways, which can further perpetuate poverty. We hypothesize that poverty directly impedes cognitive function and present two studies that test this hypothesis. First, we experimentally induced thoughts about finances and found that this reduces cognitive performance among poor but not in well-off participants. Second, we examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. We found that the same farmer shows diminished cognitive performance before harvest, when poor, as compared with after harvest, when rich. This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort. Nor can it be explained with stress: Although farmers do show more stress before harvest, that does not account for diminished cognitive performance. Instead, it appears that poverty itself reduces cognitive capacity. We suggest that this is because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks. These data provide a previously unexamined perspective and help explain a spectrum of behaviors among the poor. We discuss some implications for poverty policy.

This paper documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United States between 1999 and 2013. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States; no other rich country saw a similar turnaround. The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white non-Hispanics; black non-Hispanics and Hispanics at midlife, and those aged 65 and above in every racial and ethnic group, continued to see mortality rates fall. This increase for whites was largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis. Although all education groups saw increases in mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an overall increase in external cause mortality, those with less education saw the most marked increases. Rising midlife mortality rates of white non-Hispanics were paralleled by increases in midlife morbidity. Self-reported declines in health, mental health, and ability to conduct activities of daily living, and increases in chronic pain and inability to work, as well as clinically measured deteriorations in liver function, all point to growing distress in this population. We comment on potential economic causes and consequences of this deterioration.

Two core meanings of \\xe2\\x80\\x9cutility\\xe2\\x80\\x9d are distinguished. \\xe2\\x80\\x9cDecision utility\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is the weight of an outcome in a decision. \\xe2\\x80\\x9cExperienced utility\\xe2\\x80\\x9d is hedonic quality, as in Bentham\\xe2\\x80\\x99s usage. Experienced utility can be reported in real time (instant utility), or in retrospective evaluations of past episodes (remembered utility). Psychological\\nresearch has documented systematic errors in retrospective evaluations, which can induce a preference for dominated options. We propose a formal normative theory of the total experienced utility of temporally extended outcomes. Measuring\\nthe experienced utility of outcomes permits tests of utility maximization and opens other lines of empirical research.

This article reports on an effort to explore the differences between two approaches to intuition and expertise that are often viewed as conflicting: heuristics and biases (HB) and naturalistic decision making (NDM). Starting from the obvious fact that professional intuition is sometimes marvelous and sometimes flawed, the authors attempt to map the boundary conditions that separate true intuitive skill from overconfident and biased impressions. They conclude that evaluating the likely quality of an intuitive judgment requires an assessment of the predictability of the environment in which the judgment is made and of the individual's opportunity to learn the regularities of that environment. Subjective experience is not a reliable indicator of judgment accuracy.

The rapid proliferation of many different engineered nanomaterials (defined as materials designed and produced to have structural features with at least one dimension of 100 nanometers or less) presents a dilemma to regulators regarding hazard identification. The International Life Sciences Institute Research Foundation/Risk Science Institute convened an expert working group to develop a screening strategy for the hazard identification of engineered nanomaterials. The working group report presents the elements of a screening strategy rather than a detailed testing protocol. Based on an evaluation of the limited data currently available, the report presents a broad data gathering strategy applicable to this early stage in the development of a risk assessment process for nanomaterials. Oral, dermal, inhalation, and injection routes of exposure are included recognizing that, depending on use patterns, exposure to nanomaterials may occur by any of these routes. The three key elements of the toxicity screening strategy are: Physicochemical Characteristics, In Vitro Assays (cellular and non-cellular), and In Vivo Assays. There is a strong likelihood that biological activity of nanoparticles will depend on physicochemical parameters not routinely considered in toxicity screening studies. Physicochemical properties that may be important in understanding the toxic effects of test materials include particle size and size distribution, agglomeration state, shape, crystal structure, chemical composition, surface area, surface chemistry, surface charge, and porosity. In vitro techniques allow specific biological and mechanistic pathways to be isolated and tested under controlled conditions, in ways that are not feasible in in vivo tests. Tests are suggested for portal-of-entry toxicity for lungs, skin, and the mucosal membranes, and target organ toxicity for endothelium, blood, spleen, liver, nervous system, heart, and kidney. Non-cellular assessment of nanoparticle durability, protein interactions, complement activation, and pro-oxidant activity is also considered. Tier 1 in vivo assays are proposed for pulmonary, oral, skin and injection exposures, and Tier 2 evaluations for pulmonary exposures are also proposed. Tier 1 evaluations include markers of inflammation, oxidant stress, and cell proliferation in portal-of-entry and selected remote organs and tissues. Tier 2 evaluations for pulmonary exposures could include deposition, translocation, and toxicokinetics and biopersistence studies; effects of multiple exposures; potential effects on the reproductive system, placenta, and fetus; alternative animal models; and mechanistic studies.

There is no integrated regime governing efforts to limit the extent of climate change. Instead, there is a regime complex: a loosely-coupled set of specific regimes. We describe the regime complex for climate change and seek to explain it, using interest-based, functional, and organizational arguments. This institutional form is likely to persist; efforts to build a comprehensive regime are unlikely to succeed, but experiments abound with narrower institutions focused on particular aspects of the climate change problem. Building on this analysis, we argue that a climate change regime complex, if it meets specified criteria, has advantages over any politically feasible comprehensive regime. Adaptability and flexibility are particularly important in a setting—such as climate change policy—in which the most demanding international commitments are interdependent yet governments vary widely in their interest and ability to implement them. Yet in view of the serious political constraints, both domestic and international, there is little reason for optimism that the climate regime complex that is emerging will lead to reductions in emissions rapid enough to meet widely discussed goals, such as stopping global warming at two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Introduction Despite the existence of institutions designed to promote peace, interactions between individuals and groups sometimes lead to conflict. Understanding the causes of such conflict is a major project in the social sciences, and researchers in anthropology, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology have long debated the extent to which climatic changes are responsible. Recent advances and interest have prompted an explosion of quantitative studies on this question. Methods We carried out a comprehensive synthesis of the rapidly growing literature on climate and human conflict. We examined many types of human conflict, ranging from interpersonal violence and crime to intergroup violence and political instability and further to institutional breakdown and the collapse of civilizations. We focused on quantitative studies that can reliably infer causal associations between climate variables and conflict outcomes. The studies we examined are experiments or “natural experiments”; the latter exploit variations in climate over time that are plausibly independent of other variables that also affect conflict. In many cases, we obtained original data from studies that did not meet this criterion and used a common statistical method to reanalyze these data. In total, we evaluated 60 primary studies that have examined 45 different conflict data sets. We collected findings across time periods spanning 10,000 BCE to the present and across all major world regions. Results Deviations from normal precipitation and mild temperatures systematically increase the risk of conflict, often substantially. This relationship is apparent across spatial scales ranging from a single building to the globe and at temporal scales ranging from an anomalous hour to an anomalous millennium. Our meta-analysis of studies that examine populations in the post-1950 era suggests that the magnitude of climate’s influence on modern conflict is both substantial and highly statistically significant ( P < 0.001). Each 1-SD change in climate toward warmer temperatures or more extreme rainfall increases the frequency of interpersonal violence by 4% and intergroup conflict by 14% (median estimates). Discussion We conclude that there is more agreement across studies regarding the influence of climate on human conflict than has been recognized previously. Given the large potential changes in precipitation and temperature regimes projected for the coming decades—with locations throughout the inhabited world expected to warm by 2 to 4 SDs by 2050—amplified rates of human conflict could represent a large and critical social impact of anthropogenic climate change in both low- and high-income countries.

To document the marketing and distribution of nano-enabled products into the commercial marketplace, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies created the Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory (CPI) in 2005. The objective of this present work is to redevelop the CPI by leading a research effort to increase the usefulness and reliability of this inventory. We created eight new descriptors for consumer products, including information pertaining to the nanomaterials contained in each product. The project was motivated by the recognition that a diverse group of stakeholders from academia, industry, and state/federal government had become highly dependent on the inventory as an important resource and bellweather of the pervasiveness of nanotechnology in society. We interviewed 68 nanotechnology experts to assess key information needs. Their answers guided inventory modifications by providing a clear conceptual framework best suited for user expectations. The revised inventory was released in October 2013. It currently lists 1814 consumer products from 622 companies in 32 countries. The Health and Fitness category contains the most products (762, or 42% of the total). Silver is the most frequently used nanomaterial (435 products, or 24%); however, 49% of the products (889) included in the CPI do not provide the composition of the nanomaterial used in them. About 29% of the CPI (528 products) contain nanomaterials suspended in a variety of liquid media and dermal contact is the most likely exposure scenario from their use. The majority (1288 products, or 71%) of the products do not present enough supporting information to corroborate the claim that nanomaterials are used. The modified CPI has enabled crowdsourcing capabilities, which allow users to suggest edits to any entry and permits researchers to upload new findings ranging from human and environmental exposure data to complete life cycle assessments. There are inherent limitations to this type of database, but these modifications to the inventory addressed the majority of criticisms raised in published literature and in surveys of nanotechnology stakeholders and experts. The development of standardized methods and metrics for nanomaterial characterization and labelling in consumer products can lead to greater understanding between the key stakeholders in nanotechnology, especially consumers, researchers, regulators, and industry.

A change in the audition procedures of symphony orchestras—adoption of “blind” auditions with a “screen” to conceal the candidate's identity from the jury—provides a test for sex-biased hiring. Using data from actual auditions, in an individual fixed-effects framework, we find that the screen increases the probability a woman will be advanced and hired. Although some of our estimates have large standard errors and there is one persistent effect in the opposite direction, the weight of the evidence suggests that the blind audition procedure fostered impartiality in hiring and increased the proportion women in symphony orchestras. (JEL J7, J16)

We examine whether the U.S. rate of price inflation has become harder to forecast and, to the extent that it has, what changes in the inflation process have made it so. The main finding is that the univariate inflation process is well described by an unobserved component trend‐cycle model with stochastic volatility or, equivalently, an integrated moving average process with time‐varying parameters. This model explains a variety of recent univariate inflation forecasting puzzles and begins to explain some multivariate inflation forecasting puzzles as well.

So-called "fake news" has renewed concerns about the prevalence and effects of misinformation in political campaigns. Given the potential for widespread dissemination of this material, we examine the individual-level characteristics associated with sharing false articles during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. To do so, we uniquely link an original survey with respondents' sharing activity as recorded in Facebook profile data. First and foremost, we find that sharing this content was a relatively rare activity. Conservatives were more likely to share articles from fake news domains, which in 2016 were largely pro-Trump in orientation, than liberals or moderates. We also find a strong age effect, which persists after controlling for partisanship and ideology: On average, users over 65 shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age group.

The well-known positive association between health and income in adulthood has antecedents in childhood. Not only is children’s health positively related to household income, but the relationship between household income and children's health becomes more pronounced as children age. Part of the relationship can be explained by the arrival and impact of chronic conditions. Children from lower income households with chronic conditions have worse health than do those from higher-income households. The adverse health effects of lower income accumulate over children’s lives. Part of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status may work through the impact of parents' income on children’s health.

During 2006, the Gallup Organization conducted a World Poll that used an identical questionnaire for national samples of adults from 132 countries. I analyze the data on life satisfaction and on health satisfaction and look at their relationships with national income, age, and life-expectancy. The analysis confirms a number of earlier findings and also yields some new and different results. Average life satisfaction is strongly related to per capita national income. High-income countries have greater life-satisfaction than low-income countries. Each doubling of income is associated with almost a one-point increase in life satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 10 and, unlike most previous findings, the effect holds across the range of international incomes; if anything, it is slightly stronger among rich countries. Conditional on the level of national per capita income, the effects of economic growth on life satisfaction are negative, not positive as would be predicted by previous discussion and previous micro-based empirical evidence. Neither life satisfaction nor health satisfaction responds strongly to objective measures of health, such as life expectancy or the prevalence of HIV infection, so that neither provides a reliable indicator of population well-being over all domains, or even over health.

Ben S. Bernanke, Mark Gertler, Mark Watson, Christopher A. Sims, Benjamin M. Friedman, Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effects of Oil Price Shocks, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Vol. 1997, No. 1 (1997), pp. 91-157

Exploiting multiple feedstocks, under new policies and accounting rules, to balance biofuel production, food security, and greenhouse-gas reduction.