Annual Report

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Chicago daily news almanac and year book.

Also includes: highlights of the events of the previous year; and, summaries of political platforms.

Labor speeds defense : report of progress /

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Trends in waterborne commerce of the United States /

Includes bibliographical references.

Report

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Report [on the American Patent System]

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Report for 1905 was not printed.

The Relationship between Adolescent Social Network Structure and Perceptions of School Climate

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Effects of adolescent depressive symptoms, pubertal development, and interpersonal relationship satisfaction on sexual risk behaviors in adolescent romantic couples

This study examined links between adolescent depressive symptoms, actual pubertal development, perceived pubertal timing relative to one’s peers, adolescent-maternal relationship satisfaction, and couple sexual behavior. Assessments of these variables were made on each couple member separately and then these variables were used to predict the sexual activity of the couple. Participants were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health; Bearman et al., 1997; Udry, 1997) data set (N = 20,088; aged 12–18 years). Dimensions of adolescent romantic experiences using the total sample were described and then a subsample of romantically paired adolescents ( n = 1,252) were used to test a risk and protective model for predicting couple sexual behavior using the factors noted above. Relevant measures from the Wave 1 Add Health measures were used. Most of the items used in Add Health to assess romantic relationship experiences, adolescent depressive symptoms, pubertal development (actual and perceived), adolescent-maternal relationship satisfaction, and couple sexual behavior were drawn from other national surveys or from scales with well documented psychometric properties. Results demonstrated that romantic relationships are part of most adolescents’ lives and that adolescents’ experiences with these relationships differ markedly by age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Further, each respective couple member’s pubertal development, perceived pubertal timing, and maternal relationship satisfaction were useful in predicting sexual risk-promoting and risk-reducing behaviors in adolescent romantic couples. Findings in this dissertation represent an initial step toward evaluating explanatory models of adolescent couple sexual behavior.

Evaluating heavy episodic drinking effects on educational attainment

Adolescence and emerging adulthood are transition points that offer both opportunities and constraints on individual development. The purpose of this study is threefold: First, to examine two models (i.e., young adolescents in grades 7 and 8 and older adolescents in grade 12) of heavy episodic drinking and examine how heavy episodic drinking affects subsequent educational attainment. By utilizing two different developmental transitions, i.e., middle school to high school and high school to college, it may be possible to better understand the temporal effects of alcohol use and subsequent educational attainment. The second purpose of this study is to examine how alcohol use at Time 1 may lead to the problems in the adolescent's immediate context due to alcohol (i.e., problems with parents, peers, romantic relationships, problems at school) and to examine if these problems affect educational attainment over and above alcohol use alone. The third purpose of this study is to examine the potential gender differences in these models. The study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which is a large scale, nationally representative school based sample of 20,745 adolescents who were interviewed in grades 7 to 12. Two longitudinal mediational models were evaluated utilizing structural equation modeling. Binge drinking and number of days drunk were used as indicators for a latent variable of heavy episodic drinking (i.e., LHED). In the 7th and 8th grade model, direct effects of LHED were found to predict educational attainment at grade 12. Additionally, in the 7th and 8th grade sample, a mediated relationship was found whereby educational attainment was predicted by problems with parents. Problems with parents were predicted by number of days drunk in the past year. In the 12th grade sample, there were no direct effects or indirect effects of alcohol on educational attainment. This study highlights the need for using a longitudinal framework when examining heavy episodic drinking's effects on educational attainment. ^

The longitudinal influence of physical activity on adolescent alcohol use

The purpose of this research was to explore the influence of physical activity on depressive symptomatology and adolescent alcohol use during an underexplored transition from middle school to high school. The study initiative is supported by the fact that research has shown a unique and simultaneous decrease in physical activity (CDC, 2010), increase in depressive symptomatology (SAMHSA, 2010) and increase in alcohol use (USDHHS, 2011) during middle adolescence. A risk and resilience framework was used in efforts to conceptualize how these variables may be inter-related. Data from waves I and II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, Bearman et al., 1997; Udry, 1997) was used (N = 2,054; aged 13–15 years). The sample was ethnically and racially diverse (58.2% White, 24% African American, 11.7% Hispanic, and 6.1% other). Structural equation models were developed to test the potential influence physical activity has on adolescent alcohol use (e.g., frequency of alcohol use and binge alcohol use) and whether any of the relationship was mediated by depressive symptomatology or varied as a function of gender. Results demonstrated that there was a significant influence of structured physical activity (e.g., sports) on adolescent alcohol use. However, contrary to the proposed hypothesis, engaging in structured physical activity appeared to contribute to greater binge drinking among adolescents. Instead of demonstrating a protective feature, the findings suggest that engaging in structured physical activity places adolescents at risk for binge drinking. Furthermore, no significant relationships, positive or negative, were found for the influence of physical activity (structured and unstructured) on frequency of alcohol use. The findings regarding mediation revealed binge drinking as a mediator between physical activity (structured) and depressive symptomatology. These findings provide support for research, practice, and policy initiatives focused on developing a more comprehensive understanding of alcohol use drinking behaviors, physical activity involvement, and depressive symptomatology among adolescents, which this study demonstrates are all associated with one another. Results represent an initial step toward evaluating these relationships at a much younger age.

Effects of Adolescent Depressive Symptoms, Pubertal Development, and Interpersonal Relationship Satisfaction on Sexual Risk Behaviors in Adolescent Romantic Couples

This study examined links between adolescent depressive symptoms, actual pubertal development, perceived pubertal timing relative to one’s peers, adolescent-maternal relationship satisfaction, and couple sexual behavior. Assessments of these variables were made on each couple member separately and then these variables were used to predict the sexual activity of the couple. Participants were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health; Bearman et al., 1997; Udry, 1997) data set (N = 20,088; aged 12-18 years). Dimensions of adolescent romantic experiences using the total sample were described and then a subsample of romantically paired adolescents (n = 1,252) were used to test a risk and protective model for predicting couple sexual behavior using the factors noted above. Relevant measures from the Wave 1 Add Health measures were used. Most of the items used in Add Health to assess romantic relationship experiences, adolescent depressive symptoms, pubertal development (actual and perceived), adolescent-maternal relationship satisfaction, and couple sexual behavior were drawn from other national surveys or from scales with well documented psychometric properties. Results demonstrated that romantic relationships are part of most adolescents’ lives and that adolescents’ experiences with these relationships differ markedly by age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Further, each respective couple member’s pubertal development, perceived pubertal timing, and maternal relationship satisfaction were useful in predicting sexual risk-promoting and risk-reducing behaviors in adolescent romantic couples. Findings in this dissertation represent an initial step toward evaluating explanatory models of adolescent couple sexual behavior.

Essays on Microeconometrics

My dissertation has three chapters which develop and apply microeconometric tech- niques to empirically relevant problems. All the chapters examines the robustness issues (e.g., measurement error and model misspecification) in the econometric anal- ysis. The first chapter studies the identifying power of an instrumental variable in the nonparametric heterogeneous treatment effect framework when a binary treat- ment variable is mismeasured and endogenous. I characterize the sharp identified set for the local average treatment effect under the following two assumptions: (1) the exclusion restriction of an instrument and (2) deterministic monotonicity of the true treatment variable in the instrument. The identification strategy allows for general measurement error. Notably, (i) the measurement error is nonclassical, (ii) it can be endogenous, and (iii) no assumptions are imposed on the marginal distribution of the measurement error, so that I do not need to assume the accuracy of the measure- ment. Based on the partial identification result, I provide a consistent confidence interval for the local average treatment effect with uniformly valid size control. I also show that the identification strategy can incorporate repeated measurements to narrow the identified set, even if the repeated measurements themselves are endoge- nous. Using the the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, I demonstrate that my new methodology can produce nontrivial bounds for the return to college attendance when attendance is mismeasured and endogenous.

The second chapter, which is a part of a coauthored project with Federico Bugni, considers the problem of inference in dynamic discrete choice problems when the structural model is locally misspecified. We consider two popular classes of estimators for dynamic discrete choice models: K-step maximum likelihood estimators (K-ML) and K-step minimum distance estimators (K-MD), where K denotes the number of policy iterations employed in the estimation problem. These estimator classes include popular estimators such as Rust (1987)’s nested fixed point estimator, Hotz and Miller (1993)’s conditional choice probability estimator, Aguirregabiria and Mira (2002)’s nested algorithm estimator, and Pesendorfer and Schmidt-Dengler (2008)’s least squares estimator. We derive and compare the asymptotic distributions of K- ML and K-MD estimators when the model is arbitrarily locally misspecified and we obtain three main results. In the absence of misspecification, Aguirregabiria and Mira (2002) show that all K-ML estimators are asymptotically equivalent regardless of the choice of K. Our first result shows that this finding extends to a locally misspecified model, regardless of the degree of local misspecification. As a second result, we show that an analogous result holds for all K-MD estimators, i.e., all K- MD estimator are asymptotically equivalent regardless of the choice of K. Our third and final result is to compare K-MD and K-ML estimators in terms of asymptotic mean squared error. Under local misspecification, the optimally weighted K-MD estimator depends on the unknown asymptotic bias and is no longer feasible. In turn, feasible K-MD estimators could have an asymptotic mean squared error that is higher or lower than that of the K-ML estimators. To demonstrate the relevance of our asymptotic analysis, we illustrate our findings using in a simulation exercise based on a misspecified version of Rust (1987) bus engine problem.

The last chapter investigates the causal effect of the Omnibus Budget Reconcil- iation Act of 1993, which caused the biggest change to the EITC in its history, on unemployment and labor force participation among single mothers. Unemployment and labor force participation are difficult to define for a few reasons, for example, be- cause of marginally attached workers. Instead of searching for the unique definition for each of these two concepts, this chapter bounds unemployment and labor force participation by observable variables and, as a result, considers various competing definitions of these two concepts simultaneously. This bounding strategy leads to partial identification of the treatment effect. The inference results depend on the construction of the bounds, but they imply positive effect on labor force participa- tion and negligible effect on unemployment. The results imply that the difference- in-difference result based on the BLS definition of unemployment can be misleading

due to misclassification of unemployment.

Editor's choice Regional trade agreements and export competitiveness: the uncertain path of Nicaragua’s apparel exports under CAFTA

The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has been a mixed blessing for economic development. While exports to the US economy have increased, dependency may hinder economic growth if countries do not diversify or upgrade before temporary provisions expire. This article evaluates the impact of the temporary Tariff Preference Levels (TPLs) granted to Nicaragua under CAFTA and the consequences of TPL expiration. Using trade statistics, country- and firm-level data from Nicaragua’s National Free Zones Commission (CNZF) and data from field research, we estimate Nicaragua’s apparel sector will contract as much as 30–40% after TPLs expire. Our analysis underscores how rules of origin and firm nationality affect where and how companies do business, and in so doing, often constrain sustainable export growth.