Frontiers in Social and Behavioral Science features new research in the flagship journals of the Social Science Research Council’s founding disciplinary associations. Every month we publish a new selection of articles from the most recent issues of these journals, marking the rapid advance of the frontiers of social and behavioral science.

Growing reliance on software may explain productivity decreases

Firms’ adoption of efficiency-enhancing software with large fixed costs may increase market concentration, leading to decreases in both productivity and the returns from R&D investments.

Author(s)
Maarten De Ridder
Journal
American Economic Review
Citation
De Ridder, Maarten. 2024. "Market Power and Innovation in the Intangible Economy." American Economic Review, 114 (1): 199-251. Copy
Abstract

This paper offers a unified explanation for the slowdown of productivity growth, the decline in business dynamism, and the rise of market power. Using a quantitative framework, I show that the rise of intangible inputs, such as software, can explain these trends. Intangibles reduce marginal costs and raise fixed costs, which gives firms with high-intangible adoption a competitive advantage, in turn deterring other firms from entering. I structurally estimate the model on French and US micro data. After initially boosting productivity, the rise of intangibles causes a decline in productivity growth, consistent with the empirical trends observed since the mid-1990s.

Estimating the impacts of UN peacekeeping missions 

An instrumental variable design indicates that UN peacekeeping missions with democracy promotion mandates are positively correlated with the quality of democracy in host countries, with a larger relationship for civilian than for uniformed personnel.

Author(s)
Robert A. Blair, Jessica Di Salvatore, and Hannah M. Smidt
Journal
American Political Science Review
Citation
BLAIR RA, DI SALVATORE J, SMIDT HM. UN Peacekeeping and Democratization in Conflict-Affected Countries. American Political Science Review. 2023;117(4):1308-1326. doi:10.1017/S0003055422001319 Copy
Abstract

Does UN peacekeeping promote democracy in countries wracked by civil war? Existing studies are limited and reach contradictory conclusions. We develop a theory to explain how peacekeepers can help overcome obstacles to democratization in conflict-affected countries, then test our theory by combining three original datasets on UN mandates, personnel, and activities covering all UN missions in Africa since the end of the Cold War. Using fixed effects and instrumental variables estimators, we show that UN missions with democracy promotion mandates are strongly positively correlated with the quality of democracy in host countries but that the magnitude of the relationship is larger for civilian than for uniformed personnel, stronger when peacekeepers engage rather than bypass host governments when implementing reforms, driven in particular by UN election administration and oversight, and more robust during periods of peace than during periods of civil war.

Intercounty migration flows associated with social and political factors

Analysis of intercounty migration flows from 2011 to 2015 reveal that fewer people migrate between counties with dissimilar political contexts, levels of urbanization, and racial compositions. 

Author(s)
Peng Huang and Carter T. Butts
Journal
American Sociological Review
Citation
Huang, P., & Butts, C. T. (2023). Rooted America: Immobility and Segregation of the Intercounty Migration Network. American Sociological Review, 88(6), 1031-1065. https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224231212679 Copy
Abstract

Despite the popular narrative that the United States is a “land of mobility,” the country may have become a “rooted America” after a decades-long decline in migration rates. This article interrogates the lingering question about the social forces that limit migration, with an empirical focus on internal migration in the United States. We propose a systemic, network model of migration flows, combining demographic, economic, political, and geographic factors and network dependence structures that reflect the internal dynamics of migration systems. Using valued temporal exponential-family random graph models, we model the network of intercounty migration flows from 2011 to 2015. Our analysis reveals a pattern of segmented immobility, where fewer people migrate between counties with dissimilar political contexts, levels of urbanization, and racial compositions. Probing our model using “knockout experiments” suggests one would have observed approximately 4.6 million (27 percent) more intercounty migrants each year were the segmented immobility mechanisms inoperative. This article offers a systemic view of internal migration and reveals the social and political cleavages that underlie geographic immobility in the United States.

A framework for understanding randomization tests

Building on the randomization inference literature, the authors develop a framework that clarifies alternative randomization (or quasi-randomization) tests and their applications. 

Author(s)
Yao Zhang and Qingyuan Zhao
Journal
Journal of the American Statistical Association
Citation
Yao Zhang & Qingyuan Zhao (2023) What is a Randomization Test?, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 118:544, 2928-2942, DOI: 10.1080/01621459.2023.2199814 Copy
Abstract

The meaning of randomization tests has become obscure in statistics education and practice over the last century. This article makes a fresh attempt at rectifying this core concept of statistics. A new term—“quasi-randomization test”—is introduced to define significance tests based on theoretical models and distinguish these tests from the “randomization tests” based on the physical act of randomization. The practical importance of this distinction is illustrated through a real stepped-wedge cluster-randomized trial. Building on the recent literature on randomization inference, a general framework of conditional randomization tests is developed and some practical methods to construct conditioning events are given. The proposed terminology and framework are then applied to understand several widely used (quasi-)randomization tests, including Fisher’s exact test, permutation tests for treatment effect, quasi-randomization tests for independence and conditional independence, adaptive randomization, and conformal prediction. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Practices of gift exchange among Muslim women in Russia

Ethnographic fieldwork in Saint Petersburg, Russia between 2015 and 2016 explored practices of gift exchange between low-income Muslim women.

Author(s)
Tatiana Rabinovich
Journal
American Anthropologist
Citation
Rabinovich, Tatiana. 2023. “ Sisterly intimacies: Islam, gift-giving, and women's relations of care in Russia.” American Anthropologist 125: 840–852. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13902 Copy
Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Saint Petersburg (Russia) between 2015 and 2016, this article weaves together gift exchange and affect theory to analyze how low-income Muslim women cultivated sisterly intimacies, a materially mediated and affect-laden form of attachment. Sustained through the practices of giving clothing, food, and other spiritually significant items to one another, sisterly intimacies illuminates not only how the women survived and thrived on the margins of Russian society amid socioeconomic crises and political volatility but also how their material exchanges facilitated their ability to remain continuously oriented toward their community and God while striving for an ethical Muslim life and a favorable afterlife. Sisterly intimacies as a cultural formation also offers a broader glimpse into the affective landscapes of Russia, where indignation about socioeconomic injustices and authoritarianism coexist with a desire for (religious) connectivity, ethical living, and collective world-making. Sisterly intimacies as a mode of relationality and self-making highlights the agentive capacity of intimacy to create worlds for those who struggle to live in ways that they consider meaningful.

Medical study of enslaved women in 15th century Iberia

Analysis of expert testimony filed before the court of the Justicia Civil in Valencia in the 1440s illustrates the use of enslaved women as objects of medical study.

Author(s)
Debra Blumenthal
Journal
The American Historical Review
Citation
Debra Blumenthal, “As [Healthy] Women Should”: Enslaved Women, Medical Experts, and “Hidden” Menstrual Disorders in Late Medieval Mediterranean Slave Markets, The American Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 4, December 2023, Pages 1558–1586, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhad381 Copy
Abstract

Expanding the discussion highlighting the role of slavery in the production of medical knowledge beyond the much more extensively studied Atlantic world and the nineteenth-century US South, this article explores the exploitation of enslaved women’s bodies as clinical subjects in fifteenth-century Iberia. Menstrual disorders figured prominently among “hidden defects” cited in slave warranty suits filed by disgruntled buyers across the late medieval Mediterranean world. Reflective of their heightened interest in female physiology during this period, university-trained male physicians were the expert witnesses most frequently called on to resolve disputes concerning what an enslaved woman’s lack of menses meant. Through a close analysis of “expert” testimony in seven lawsuits filed before the court of the Justicia Civil in Valencia in the 1440s, the slave market emerges as a site offering unparalleled opportunities for physicians to directly touch and probe female genitalia. Insofar as they could be poked and prodded with relative impunity, the bodies of enslaved women bought and sold in late medieval Mediterranean markets were instrumental to the expansion of learned gynecological knowledge.

Eye disease associated with anxiety disorders

Longitudinal analysis of 117,252 participants in the U.K. Biobank over a 10-year period indicates that the onset of eye disease was followed by increases in anxiety disorders among middle-aged and older adults.

Author(s)
Xiayin Zhang, Shan Wang, Zijing Du, Ishith Seth, Yaxin Wang, Yingying Liang, Guanrong Wu, Yu Huang, Shunming Liu, Yunyan Hu, Xianwen Shang, Yijun Hu, Zhuoting Zhu, and Honghua Yu
Journal
American Psychologist
Citation
Zhang, X., Wang, S., Du, Z., Seth, I., Wang, Y., Liang, Y., Wu, G., Huang, Y., Liu, S., Hu, Y., Shang, X., Hu, Y., Zhu, Z., & Yu, H. (2023). The associations and mediators between visual disabilities and anxiety disorders in middle-aged and older adults: A population-based study. American Psychologist, 78(8), 982–994. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001143 Copy
Abstract

Visual disabilities significantly impact an individual’s mental health. Little is known about the prospective relationship between visual disabilities and anxiety disorders and the underlying effects of modifiable risk factors. Our analysis was based on 117,252 participants from the U.K. Biobank, with baseline data collected between 2006 and 2010. Habitual visual acuity was measured by a standardized logarithmic chart, and ocular disorders reported using questionnaires were collected at baseline. Incident hospitalized anxiety recorded using longitudinal linkage with hospital inpatient data, lifetime anxiety disorder, and current anxiety symptoms assessed by a comprehensive online mental health questionnaire were identified over a 10-year follow-up. After adjustments for confounding factors, one-line worse visual acuity (0.1 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution [logMAR]) was associated with an increased risk of incident hospitalized anxiety (HR = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.01–1.08), lifetime anxiety disorder (OR = 1.07, 95% CI [1.01–1.12]), and current anxiety scores (β = 0.028, 95% CI [0.002–0.054]). Besides poorer visual acuity, the longitudinal analysis also supported that each ocular disorder (including cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and diabetes-related eye disease) was significantly associated with at least two anxiety outcomes. Mediation analyses highlighted that subsequent onsets of eye diseases, especially cataracts, and lower socioeconomic status (SES) partly mediated the association between poorer visual acuity and anxiety disorders. This study demonstrates an overall association between visual disabilities and anxiety disorders in middle-aged and older adults. In particular, early interventions involving treatments for visual disabilities and effective psychological counseling services sensitive to socioeconomic status may help prevent anxiety in those living with poor vision.

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