Dynamics of Union Organizations: A Look at Gross Flows in the LORS Files

This paper examines the membership dynamics of union local organizations. The analysis links across time the reports labor organizations file as part of the Labor Organization Reporting System (LORS). Analogous to findings in the labor dynamics literature, we find substantial reallocation of membership across locals. While overall there is net decline, there is significant positive gross membership creation for some local organizations.

Essays on religion as an industry

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. August 2009. Major: Economics. Advisors: Thomas J. Holmes. vii, 74 pages, appendices A.This dissertation is comprised of two chapters. The first chapter is titled "Estimating a Strategic Entry Model for Churches." This chapter treats the entry decisions of churches as if they were profit-maximizing firms and uses recent developments in the strategic entry industrial organization literature to study these decisions. A central theme in the entry literature is the potential for excess entry because the entrant fails to internalize the negative impact of its entry on the revenue of existing firms. Two key facts underlying my analysis are that Catholic churches tend to be much bigger in terms of members than Protestant churches and there are also fewer Catholic churches in a typical market. As compared to relatively decentralized Protestant churches, the Catholic Church is hierarchical, with authority for entry decisions vested in a local bishop. One might expect the bishop to internalize negative impact from entry of a new church, in a way that a Protestant preacher starting a new church would not. I estimate the parameters of an entry model using data from the entry of Protestant churches in specially defined markets and then do an experiment to determine how things look different when a Catholic bishop controls entry. I find that I can explain a large amount of the differences in entry patterns between Catholic churches and Protestant churches taking this difference in entry regulation into account. The second chapter is titled, "A Model of Church Exit." Much work has been in the fields of economics and sociology treating religion as an industry. One significant empirical difference between churches and for-profit firms is that churches have much lower exit rates. This paper develops a model of the exit decisions of for-profit firms and religious entrepreneurs that differ in objectives, in what can be done with assets when a store or church (a unit) is shut-down and in the number of units they control. Historical data on the exit rates of churches and grocery stores support the predictions of the model.Walrath, Michael W.. (2009). Essays on religion as an industry. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/56255

Tapped /

"Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? ... [T]his timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water. From the production of plastic, to the ocean in which so many bottles end up, this ... documentary follows the bottled water trail through the communities which are the unwitting chips on the corporate table. A powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry, this ... film features those caught at the intersection of big business and the public's right to water."--Container

Cross-informant Agreement of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale for Youth in Community Mental Health Settings

Comprehensive assessment of youths\u27 emotional and behavioral functioning includes obtaining data from multiple sources, such as parents and youth. Despite the shift in focus on youths\u27 strengths and the increased availability of strength-based assessments, few studies have examined the cross-informant agreement between multiple raters of youths\u27 behavioral and emotional strengths. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the cross-informant agreement between parent and youth ratings on the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition (BERS-2). The current study extends previous cross-informant research by examining the cross-informant agreement between parent and self-report ratings for youth served in community mental health centers and whether differences in cross-informant agreement exist between youth with and without a school-identified disability. Results indicated that cross-informant agreement on youths\u27 strengths was acceptable, as most obtained correlations were greater than those typically reported on cross-informant agreement on deficit-based instruments. Furthermore, small but significant differences in cross-informant agreement for youth with and without a school-identified disability were observed for the BERS-2 Affective Strengths and School Functioning subscales. Overall, findings provide support for the reliability of multiple informants\u27 ratings on the BERS-2 for measuring the strengths of youth referred for community mental health services