We argue that the global spread of ideas contributes to trade liberalization. Building on insights from a rich case-based literature, we suggest an explicit mechanism of trade policy diffusion: US-trained Ph.D. economists, who share a common belief in the benefits of free trade, and who operate with varying degrees of political influence around the world. We offer the first cross-national test ...

Abstract Background In critically ill children, detection of intra-abdominal hypertension (IAH > 10 mmHg) and abdominal compartment syndrome (ACS = IAH + organ dysfunction) is paramount usually monitored through intra-vesical pressures (IVP) as current standard. IVP, however, carries important disadvantages, being time-consuming, discontinuous, with infection risk observer-dependent manipula...

Approximately 9 out of 10 high school students who have access to a home computer use that computer to complete school assignments. Do these home computers, however, improve educational outcomes? Using the Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the 2001 Current Population Survey, I explore whether access to home computers increases the likelihood of school enrollment among teenagers who have n...

We test whether the decisions in a common-pool resource game are better modeled game-theoretically as strategic substitutes or complements using an individual-level dataset of groundwater usage that accounts for 3% US irrigated agriculture. Based on regression framework with instrumental variables, we find support complements, suggesting reciprocity– and/or race-to-depletion–like dynamics key t...

Most discussions of ordinal variables in the sociological literature debate the suitability of linear regression and structural equation methods when some variables are ordinal. Largely ignored in these discussions are methods for ordinal variables that are natural extensions of probit and logit models for dichotomous variables. If ordinal variables are discrete realizations of unmeasured conti...