Technology differs from other features of culture in that the Boasian stance of cultural relativism seems less binding: one can argue that the technology of one society is superior or inferior to the technology of another. This comparison is possible because technological change—as described...

An important area of consumer choice is time allocation and its role in dictating behavior. For the typical student worker, the time allocation decision involves three primary activities: paid employment, academic pursuits, and leisure pursuits. Exogenous factors such as the wage rate, price of...

There is growing concern, particularly in policy circles, that rural manufacturing plants may be less likely to export than metro area plants, and that this may exacerbate the economic difficulties of rural America. A variety of reasons have been offered to expect this export gap, but little...

Consumers of higher education face a bewildering array of product and price combinations. We compare U. S. institutions with a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) multi-factor frontier using 2000-2001 data for 1,188 four-year institutions of higher education. The input is net price or tuition, fees,...

Cross-cultural researchers often combine several component variables into a composite index or “scale.” The value of a scale for a particular observation is sensitive not only to the values of its component variables, but also to the values of the weights used to combine the components. This...

Microfinance provides saving and lending services to the poor. It is not conceptually different from banking in the USA. People are able to save money at and borrow money from microfinance institutions. They are compensated for saving and charged for borrowing by an interest rate that compounds...

There is growing concern, particularly in policy circles, that rural manufacturing plants may be less likely to export than metro area plants, and that this may exacerbate the economic difficulties of rural America. A variety of reasons have been offered to expect this export gap, but little...

Previous research on intergenerational mobility in income, occupation, or social class as a Markov process typically uses regression models to analyze cross-sectional data. In this paper we draw data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to build Markov transition states,...

Mayan towns in the Guatemalan highlands hold markets on specific days of the week. A market is attended by local townspeople, by peasants residing in the town’s hinterland, and by vendors bringing wares from other towns. A market functions to bring in goods from other ecological zones, to...