scholarly journals Keeping Up or Giving Up? Income Inequality and Materialism in Europe and the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper Rözer ◽  
Bram Lancee ◽  
Beate Volker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The United States ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Shopping Behavior ◽  
The Us ◽  
Materialistic Values ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractWe examine the extent to which income inequality is associated with materialistic values and behavior in Europe and the United States (US). In the US, existing research on materialistic behavior is largely focused on the study of shopping behavior and shows that, when income inequality is higher, individuals search for and buy products that are more luxury. In Europe, the evidence for this phenomenon is mainly based on survey questions on people’s values, and results are mixed. To determine whether these conflicting findings are rooted in methodology or reflect structural differences between the situation of Americans and Europeans, we measure materialistic behavior and values in both the US and Europe. Different types of data are used to test our arguments. In study 1, we use information on materialistic values from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the World Values Survey (WVS) to study the relationship between income inequality and materialistic values, examining the same research question in the contexts of Europe and the United States. In study 2, we use information from Google Trends to examine the relationship between income inequality and internet searching behavior both in Europe and in the United States. Hybrid multilevel models analyzing the variation in these relationships both over time and across regions show that in Europe as well as in the US, income inequality is not associated with materialistic values. However, in the US, materialistic behavior is greatly enhanced when income inequality is high. In contrast, in Europe, increasing income inequality is associated with decreasing materialistic behavior.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Grare
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Slow Pace ◽  
Centre Of Gravity ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
The Relationship

India’s relationship with the United States remains crucial to its own objectives, but is also ambiguous. The asymmetry of power between the two countries is such that the relationship, if potentially useful, is not necessary for the United States while potentially risky for India. Moreover, the shift of the political centre of gravity of Asia — resulting from the growing rivalry between China and the US — is eroding the foundations of India’s policy in Asia, while prospects for greater economic interaction is limited by India’s slow pace of reforms. The future of India-US relations lies in their capacity to evolve a new quid pro quo in which the US will formulate its expectations in more realistic terms while India would assume a larger share of the burden of Asia’ security.

Trust in Government and the American Public’s Responsiveness to Rising Inequality

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 790-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
State Level ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trust In Government ◽  
Combine Data ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The Relationship

The United States has become increasingly unequal. Income inequality has risen dramatically since the 1970s, yet public opinion toward redistribution has remained largely unchanged. This is puzzling, given Americans’ professed concern regarding, and knowledge of, rising inequality. I argue that trust in government can help to reconcile this. I combine data on state-level income inequality with survey data from the Cumulative American National Election Studies (CANES) from 1984 to 2016. I find that trust in government conditions the relationship between inequality and redistribution, with higher inequality prompting demand for government redistribution, but only among politically trustful individuals. This holds among conservatives and non-conservatives and among the affluent and non-affluent. These findings underscore the relevance of political trust in shaping attitudes toward inequality and economic redistribution and contribute to our understanding of why American public opinion has not turned in favor of redistribution during an era of rising income inequality.

scholarly journals I am smart, therefore I can: examining the relationship between IQ and self-efficacy across cultures

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diomaris E.S. Jurecska ◽  
Chloe E. Lee ◽  
Kelly B.T. Chang ◽  
Elizabeth Sequeira
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central America ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
The United States ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
The Us ◽  
Iq Scores ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between intelligence (IQ) and self-efficacy in children and adolescents living in the United States and Nicaragua. The sample consisted of 90 (46 male, 44 female) students (mean age=11.57 years, SD=3.0 years) referred by school administrators and faculty. United States (US) participants (n=27) resided in rural counties in the Northwest. The other group consisted of 63 students from Central America. A comparison between groups revealed that in the US, sample higher grades and IQ scores are typically associated with higher levels of self-efficacy. However in the Nicaraguan sample, both IQ scores and grades were not associated with self-efficacy, although age was correlated with self-efficacy. Results suggest that the construct of self-efficacy might change depending on whether one belongs to an individualistic or collectivistic society. Additionally, the effects of socioeconomic factors might influence perceived ability even more than intellectual abilities.

scholarly journals Is COVID-19 the end of US hegemony? Public bads, leadership failures and monetary hegemony

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (5) ◽  
pp. 1281-1303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Norrlöf
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Health ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Public Bads ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract COVID-19 is the most invasive global crisis in the postwar era, jeopardizing all dimensions of human activity. By theorizing COVID-19 as a public bad, I shed light on one of the great debates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries regarding the relationship between the United States and liberal international order (LIO). Conceptualizing the pandemic as a public bad, I analyze its consequences for US hegemony. Unlike other international public bads and many of the most important public goods that make up the LIO, the COVID-19 public bad not only has some degree of rivalry but can be made partially excludable, transforming it into more of a club good. Domestically, I demonstrate how the failure to effectively manage the COVID-19 public bad has compromised America's ability to secure the health of its citizens and the domestic economy, the very foundations for its international leadership. These failures jeopardize US provision of other global public goods. Internationally, I show how the US has already used the crisis strategically to reinforce its opposition to free international movement while abandoning the primary international institution tasked with fighting the public bad, the World Health Organization (WHO). While the only area where the United States has exercised leadership is in the monetary sphere, I argue this feat is more consequential for maintaining hegemony. However, even monetary hegemony could be at risk if the pandemic continues to be mismanaged.

Rethinking United States–Caribbean relations: towards a new mode of trans-territorial governance

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY PAYNE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Order

United States–Caribbean relations over the period of the last thirty or forty years have rarely—if ever—been analysed in a thoroughly satisfying way. It is a strange omission in the international relations literature given the proximity of the United States to the Caribbean, and vice versa. But the fact is that most accounts of the relationship have fallen prey to a powerful, but ultimately misleading, mythology by which small, poor, weak, dependent entities in the Caribbean have either created trouble for, or alternatively been confronted by, the ‘colossus to the north’ that is the United States in whose ‘backyard’ they unfortunately have to reside. Virtually all analysts of the US–Caribbean relationship have thus drawn a picture marked at heart by the notion of an inherently unequal struggle between forces of a different order and scale. Within this broad metaphor the only major difference of interpretation has reflected the competing theories of power in the international system developed by the realist and structuralist schools.

The relationship between income inequality and inequality in schooling

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Mayer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Empirical Estimates ◽  
Government Education ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Children of affluent parents get more schooling than children of poor parents, which seems to imply that reducing income inequality would reduce inequality in schooling. Similarly, one of the best predictors of an individual’s income is his educational attainment, which seems to imply that reducing inequality in schooling will reduce income inequality. Economic theory predicts that all else being equal an increase in income inequality will lead to an increase in inequality of educational attainment. Empirical estimates suggest that when income inequality increased in the United States so did inequality in educational attainment. But changes in government education policies reduced the impact of the increase in income inequality on inequality in schooling. Economic theory also predicts that all else being equal an increase in inequality of educational attainment will result in greater inequality of earnings. But unequal schooling does not account for much of the variance in income, so equalizing schooling will do little to reduce the overall variation in economic success among adults.

Contemporary Fascism’s de-Judified Homo Sacer

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Hong Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Relationship

This article argues that representations in popular culture of the Holocaust of World War II are being used to reframe issues of racism in the United States. It critically examines three major discourse formations: contemporary Western thought on fascism, critical scholarship on the US collective memory of the Holocaust, and popular culture’s use of the Holocaust for racial instruction. The Americanization and de-Judification of the Holocaust shows how fascist racism is constructed through institutional discourses and practices and functions as an archetype for understanding race and racism in the United States. Exploring the emergence of Holocaust references in US public culture following Barack Obama’s election, this article proposes that the analogy gains its efficacy because the Americanization of the Holocaust articulates the relationship between institutional practices and race for racist whites.

scholarly journals Populism and Political Knowledge: The United States in Comparative Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Milner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Relationship

This article addresses the link between political knowledge and populist attitudes in the United States (US) in comparative perspective. At the beginning of the new decade, populism in the US is associated with support for the Republican party and Donald Trump in particular, and that is how I address it here. Using secondary data from a number of related studies, we find that, overall, support for Trump is not only negatively related to political knowledge, but also to other factors that make his supporters unaware of their being misinformed. This is because, more than for others, partisan cues serve them as a basis for their factual beliefs about political actors and events and assessments of the beliefs of others. While political knowledge has long been comparatively low in the US, as I show in the early part of the article, the relationship between misinformation and populism (i.e., support for Trump) is seen as a new and especially worrisome element. In the concluding section I address what, if anything, could be done to address this situation.

scholarly journals Are controlled companies underperforming?

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh Le ◽  
Dongfang Nie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
Ownership Structure ◽  
Capital Market ◽  
Keyword Search ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
The Us ◽  
Important Player

Research Question: Are controlled companies underperforming in the United States? Motivation: Anecdotal evidence shows that the average market capitalization of controlled firms increased from $8.3 billion in 2005 to $20.6 billion in 2015. Given the rapid increase in capitalization, the group of controlled companies has become an important player in the US capital market. However, little is known about controlled companies. Idea: We examine whether controlled companies are underperforming relative to non-controlled companies in the United States. Data: The data sample consists of 351 listed companies in the United States for the fiscal year 2014. Tools: 176 controlled companies were manually collected by performing the keyword search “controlled company” from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions (SEC) website via “www.seekedgar.com/”. Specifically, we search “controlled company” from proxy statement DEF 14A. Each controlled company is verified after reading through the proxy statement. Findings: Using 176 controlled companies and 176 random sampled non-controlled companies, we find that controlled companies are underperforming compared to non-controlled companies. Contribution: To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to collect the group of controlled companies in the US and we are among the first to study how firm performs under the type II agency problem (Pantzalis et al. 1998). We contribute to the stream of literature on how ownership structure (e.g., family-controlled firms) affects firm performance (Anderson & Reeb, 2003). Consistent with the findings from family-controlled firms, we show that ownership structure affects firm performance. Out study sheds light on the important role of controlled companies in the US capital market.

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