American Sociological Review 76(3)

Laws of Attraction: Regulatory Arbitrage in the Face of Activism in Right-to-Work States
Hayagreeva Rao, Lori Qingyuan Yue, and Paul Ingram

Past research recognizes that firms exploit regulatory variations to their advantage but depicts such regulatory arbitrage as a dyadic process between firms and regulators. We extend this account by including a firm’s non-market rivals and suggest that firms view regulatory differences as part of a corporate political opportunity structure and exploit regulatory variations to disadvantage their rivals. Empirically, we focus on variations in right-to-work (RTW) laws that signal the pro-business climate in a state; these laws exist in 22 U.S. states. Using a spatial-regression discontinuity design, we analyze how Walmart locates new stores in the face of anti-Walmart activists and exploits regulatory discontinuities on the borders between RTW and non-RTW states. We find that Walmart is more likely to propose new stores, and to open those stores even if they are protested, at the borders of RTW states, compared with the borders of neighboring non-RTW states. We conclude with a discussion of implications for the study of regulation, social movements, and organizations.

You Can’t Always Get What You Need: Organizational Determinants of Diversity Programs
Frank Dobbin, Soohan Kim, and Alexandra Kalev

While some U.S. corporations have adopted a host of diversity management programs, many have done little or nothing. We explore the forces promoting six diversity programs in a national sample of 816 firms over 23 years. Institutional theory suggests that external pressure for innovation reinforces internal advocacy. We argue that external pressure and internal advocacy serve as alternatives, such that when external pressure is already high, increases in internal advocacy will not alter the likelihood of program adoption. Moreover, institutional theory points to functional need as a driver of innovation. We argue that in the case of innovations designed to achieve new societal goals, functional need, as defined in this case by the absence of workforce diversity or the presence of regulatory oversight, is less important than corporate culture. Our findings help explain the spotty coverage of diversity programs. Firms that lack workforce diversity are no more likely than others to adopt programs, but firms with large contingents of women managers are more likely to do so. Pro-diversity industry and corporate cultures promote diversity programs. The findings carry implications for public policy.

Targeting Lynch Victims: Social Marginality or Status Transgressions?
Amy Kate Bailey, Stewart E. Tolnay, E. M. Beck, and Jennifer D. Laird

This article presents the first evidence based on a newly-compiled database of known lynch victims. Using information from the original census enumerators’ manuscripts, we identify individual- and household-level characteristics of more than 900 black males lynched in 10 southern states between 1882 and 1929. First, we use the information for successfully linked cases to present a profile of individual- and household-level characteristics of a large sample of lynch victims. Second, we compare these characteristics with a randomly-generated sample of black men living in the counties where lynchings occurred. We use our findings from this comparative analysis to assess the empirical support for alternative theoretical perspectives on the selection of individuals as victims of southern mob violence. Third, we consider whether the individual-level risk factors for being targeted as a lynch victim varied substantially over time or across space. Our results demonstrate that victims were generally less embedded within the social and economic fabric of their communities than were other black men. This suggests that social marginality increased the likelihood of being targeted for lynching. These findings are generally consistent across decades and within different sociodemographic contexts.

Money, Moral Authority, and the Politics of Creditworthiness
Simone Polillo

This article moves beyond current controversies on the nature of money by suggesting that a general social process allows different kinds of organizations and networks—from states to banks to local communities—to produce currencies: that is, the articulation of criteria of creditworthiness, or what I call the exercise of moral authority. Bankers specialize in moral authority, but when that authority is contested, challenging groups must articulate alternative criteria of creditworthiness for their currencies to become stable and acceptable. I illustrate these processes with historical material from the postbellum United States, which I use to discuss why the federal government failed to create a stable financial system, and why local bankers engaged in a process of financial innovation that further destabilized money. I conclude with reflections on the shifting structural sources of moral authority, which have made the local level a springboard for destabilizing financial innovations.

Nonmarital Childbearing, Union History, and Women’s Health at Midlife
Kristi Williams, Sharon Sassler, Adrianne Frech, Fenaba Addo, and Elizabeth Cooksey

Despite high rates of nonmarital childbearing in the United States, little is known about the health of women who have nonmarital births. We use data from the NLSY79 to examine differences in age 40 self-assessed health between women who had a premarital birth and those whose first birth occurred within marriage. We then differentiate women with a premarital first birth according to their subsequent union histories and estimate the effect of marrying or cohabiting versus remaining never-married on midlife self-assessed health. We pay particular attention to the paternity status of a mother’s partner and the stability of marital unions. To partially address selection bias, we employ multivariate propensity score techniques. Results suggest that premarital childbearing is negatively associated with midlife health for white and black women, but not for Hispanic women. We find no evidence that the negative health consequences of nonmarital childbearing are mitigated by either marriage or cohabitation for black women. For other women, only enduring marriage to the child’s biological father is associated with better health than remaining unpartnered.

Consequences of Parental Divorce for Child Development
Hyun Sik Kim

In this article, I propose a three-stage estimation model to examine the effect of parental divorce on the development of children’s cognitive skills and noncognitive traits. Using a framework that includes pre-, in-, and post-divorce time periods, I disentangle the complex factors affecting children of divorce. I use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class 1998 to 1999 (ECLS-K), a multiwave longitudinal dataset, to assess the three-stage model. To evaluate the parameters of interest more rigorously, I employ a stage-specific ordinary least squares (OLS) model, a counterfactual matching estimator, and a piece-wise growth curve model. Within some combinations of developmental domains and stages, in particular from the in-divorce stage onward, I find negative effects of divorce even after accounting for selection factors that influence children’s skills and traits at or before the beginning of the dissolution process. These negative outcomes do not appear to intensify or abate in the ensuing study period.

American Sociological Review, June 2011: Volume 76, Issue 3