MARY ESCHELBACH HANSEN
personal use copies of publications, working papers, and grants
Refereed Articles
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make
Me a Match: A General Personal Computer Record Linkage System (with Jeremy
Atack and Fred Bateman), Historical
Methods 25, 2(Spring 1992), pp.
53-65.
Contribution: Presents a computerized method for
calculating the odds that two records are for the same person even if errors in
the spelling of the name have entered the record; shows application to linking
decennial census records.
Placement
Note: A methodology
journal for those doing historical research in any field; top outlet for
information on the use of technology in historical research.
Specialization in Late Nineteenth
Century Agriculture: Missouri as a Test Case, Agricultural History 67,
1(Winter 1993), pp. 16-35. This paper
won the Edwards Prize for best paper submitted to the journal by a graduate
student.
Contribution: Shows that some farmers did not respond
to falling transportation costs by specializing production.
Placement
Note:
This journal is widely read by an international community of scholars
interested in all aspects of rural history and development. Current editorial board includes prominent
economic historian Peter Coclanis (UNC- Chapel Hill) and well-known womens
historian Laura Edwards (Duke).
Rural Response to
Increased Demand: Crop Choice in the Midwest, 1860-1880, Journal of Economic History 53, 2(June 1993), pp. 332-345.
Contribution: Brings together historical tax, census,
and soil records to show that farmers with diverse physical resources
diversified crop mix when transportation costs fell.
Placement
Note:
Top journal in the field of economic history, recently ranked
52/100 in economics; Thompson Scientific rating of .529 in 2005.
Long Term Trends in Agricultural
Specialization in the U.S.: Some Preliminary Results, Agricultural History 70,
1(Winter 1996), pp. 90-101.
Contribution: Shows that, in the aggregate, more
diverse soils are associated with diverse crop mixes.
Placement
Note:
This journal is widely read by an international community of scholars
interested in all aspects of rural history and development. Current editorial board includes prominent
economic historian Peter Coclanis (UNC- Chapel Hill) and well-known womens
historian Laura Edwards (Duke).
Wealth Accumulation and Distribution
in the Midwest in the Late Nineteenth Century, Explorations in Economic History 33, 4(Spring 1996), pp. 524-538.
Contribution:
Calculates the economic returns to early arrivers on the frontier.
Placement
Note: Recently ranked
57/100 economic journals. Thompson
Scientific rating of .818 in 2005.
Population
Dynamics in Rural Missouri, 1860-1880, Social
Science History 21, 1(Spring
1997), pp. 85-110.
Contribution: Compares methodology of precedence and
persistence rates in the measurement of geographic mobility.
Placement
Note: Widely read journal of a large,
interdisciplinary history association.
Editorial board currently includes top economic historians William
Collins (Vanderbilt), Michael Haines (Colgate), and John Murray (
Railroad Development and Land Value
(with
Contribution:
Uses manuscript property tax records to measure capital gains to land
owners near a new transportation project.
Placement
Note: Special issue on historical topics in
real estate. Ranked
114/159 economics journals.
Land Ownership, Farm Size,
and Tenancy after the Civil War, Journal
of Economic History 58, 3(Sept.
1998), pp. 822-829.
Contribution:
Uses manuscript census and tax records to show that tenants on the
frontier were upwardly mobile.
Placement
Note:
Top journal in the field of economic history, recently ranked
52/100 in economics; Thompson Scientific rating of .529 in 2005.
Middlemen in the Market for Grain: Changes
and Comparisons, Essays in Economic
and Business History 18, 2000,
pp. 59-72.
Contribution:
Shows that grain dealers were able to utilize economies of scale in
their business operations after the standardization of grain grades.
Placement
Note: After
refereeing, top conference papers are selected for inclusion. Current editor David Whitten (
Transracial Placement in Adoptions
with Public Agency Involvement: What Can We Learn from the AFCARS Data?
(with Rita Simon), Adoption Quarterly 8,
2(June 2004), pp. 45-56. Updated tables
by state now available in Race and Transracial
Adoption.
Contribution:
Constructs the first multi-year estimate of transracial adoptions of
children from foster care.
Placement
Note: AQ
is the only adoption studies journal published in
Unintended Consequences of
Bargaining for Adoption Assistance Payments (with Daniel Pollack), Family Court Review 43, 3(July 2005),
pp. 495-511.
Contribution:
Shows that families with less bargaining power receive lower adoption
subsidies.
Placement
Note: Ranked 5/27 family law journals in 2006 by
the standard law journal ranking service.
Impact factor of 1.1 in 2006.
New Evidence on Race
Discrimination under Separate but Equal (with Bradley Hansen), Essays in Economic and Business History 24, 2006, pp. 120-132.
Contribution:
Shows that black teachers in rural areas experienced more discrimination
than black teachers in cities.
Placement
Note: After
refereeing, top conference papers are selected for inclusion. Current editor David Whitten (
The Economics of Adoption of
Children from Foster Care (with Bradley Hansen), Child Welfare 85, 3(May/June 2006), pp. 559-583. Additional tables and figures are available here.
Contribution:
Finds a positive elasticity of adoptions from foster care with respect
to adoption assistance subsidies in a cross-section of states.
Placement
Note: Thompson
Scientific impact factor of .355 in 2005; cited half-life of >10 years. This
paper was cited in the Donaldson
Adoption Institute E-Newsletter.
The Role of Path Dependence in the Development of
U.S. Bankruptcy Law, 1880-1938 (with Bradley A. Hansen), forthcoming in Journal of Institutional Economics
(anticipated August 2007). Acceptance
letter is here.
Contribution:
Shows that modern debtor-friendly bankruptcy
law was not the result of a political compromise in 1898 but resulted from a
path-dependent institutional process.
Placement
Note: A new journal
in its 3rd volume. Editors
include well known institutional economists Geoffrey M. Hodgson (
Using Subsidies to Promote the Adoption
of Children from Foster Care, forthcoming in Journal of Family and Economic Issues. Acceptance letter is here.
Contribution:
Uses panel data to show that the positive relationship between adoptions
and adoptions subsidies is robust.
Placement
Note: Not
ranked. Abstracted in EconLit.
Tradeoffs in Formulating a Consistent National
Policy on Adoption (with Daniel Pollack), forthcoming in Family Court Review. Acceptance letter is here.
Contribution: Demonstrates loss in welfare caused by a
ban on intercountry adoption.
Placement
Note: Ranked 5/27 family law journals in 2006 by
the standard law journal ranking
service. Impact factor of 1.1 in
2006. As of May 1, 2007, 63 downloads
from BE Press Legal Repository.
The Structure of Families
who Adopt Children from Foster Care,
forthcoming in Journal of Public
Child Welfare. Acceptance letter is here.
Contribution:
The first cost-benefit analysis of adoption from foster care.
Placement
Note: A new journal
in its first volume. Editorial board
includes some of the best-known scholars in child welfare research including
Richard Barth (UNC), Jill Duerr Berrick (UC-Berkeley), and Trudy Festinger
(NYU).
Religion, Social Capital, and Business
Bankruptcy in the United States, 1921-1932(proposal) (with Bradley Hansen)
forthcoming in Business History
(anticipated September 2008). Acceptance letter for special issue on social
capital is here.
Contribution:
The first panel analysis of business bankruptcy rates.
Placement Note:. Thompson
Scientific impact factor of 0.755 in 2005. Ranked 3/15 in History of Social
Science; 35/61 in Business.
The Distribution of a Federal
Entitlement: The Case of Adoption Assistance, forthcoming in Journal of Socio-Economics. Acceptance
letter is here.
Contribution: Demonstrates
extent of unequal treatment of similar children under current law.
Placement
Note: Interdisiciplinary journal. Not in rankings. Editorial board includes prominent economists
Deirdre McCloskey (U Chicago & Erasmus), Douglass North (Wash. U.), and Ed
Wolff (NYU) among many.
State-Designated Special
Needs, Post-Adoption Support, and State Fiscal Stress, forthcoming in Children and Youth Services Review. Acceptance letter is here.
Contribution: Analysis
of changes in state strategy after a 1997 change in law.
Placement
Note: Thompson Scientific impact factor of .664 in
2005. Ranked 11/27 social work journals.
Edited Law Journal
Article
The Regulation of
Intercountry Adoption (with Daniel Pollack), Brandeis Law Journal 45,
1(October 2006), pp. 105-128.
Contribution:
Explains economic rationale for regulation of
adoption and shows that the current
Placement
Note: Ranked 135/266 flagship law journals in 2006
by the standard law journal
ranking service. Impact factor of
1.6 in 2006. As of May 1, 2007, 218
downloads from BE Press Legal
Repository.
Invited Articles and
Essays
"Strategies for Commercialization:
Missouri Agriculture, 1860-1880," Journal
of Economic History 54, 2(June
1994), pp. 423-425. [dissertation summary]
At the Confluence of Economics and World
History, Econ-Exchange 7, 1(March
2003), pp. 1-4. [essay on teaching economics with history for K-12 teachers of
economics]
Contribution:
Discusses how a teacher might use examples from the industrial
revolution to illustrate use of the production possibilities frontier.
An Overview of Federal Adoption Policy Legislation (with Bradley Hansen). ONLINE. Center for Adoption Research. Available: http://www.centerforadoptionresearch.org/ default.asp?action=article&ID=139&CategoryID=26&CategoryName=Federal (last accessed December 1, 2005). Also available here.
Contribution:
Lays out trends in federal policy regarding adoption.
Measuring
the Relationship between Income and Interest in Adoption. ONLINE. Center for
Adoption Research. Available: http://www.centerforadoptionresearch.org/
(last accessed December 1, 2005). Also
available here.
Contribution:
Shows differences over time and between surveys.
Explaining Bankruptcy: An Analysis of
State Bankruptcy Rates During the Great Depression (with Bradley Hansen), The Newsletter of the Cliometric Society
19, 2(Summer-Fall 2004). [preview of
January 2005 American Economic Association presentation]
Contribution:
Shows that the determinants of bankruptcy rates, disaggregated by the
occupations of the filers, differ greatly.
The subtleties of race
and recruitment in foster care and adoption, (with Daniel Pollack).
Contribution:
Warns that training materials for prospective adoptive parents may
create biases against transracial adoption.
Masters of the Economy.
Game 154. ONLINE. Games Economists Play. Available: http://www.marietta.edu/~delemeeg/games/games151-160.htm
(last accessed August 20, 2006). [description and materials for a classroom
game] Also available here.
Contribution:
Makes mastery of basic concepts of fiscal and monetary policy tools fun.
The Value of Adoption, Adoptalk,
Spring 2007, pp. 8-9. Publication of the
North American Council on Adoptable Children. [research summary]
Contribution:
Makes mastery of basic concepts of fiscal and monetary policy tools fun.
AFCARS Adoption Data
Research Brief Series:
Contribution: The purpose of the AFCARS Adoption
Data Research Brief series is to provide, in an easy-to-access format,
national and state-level statistics about children adopted with state agency
involvement. The Briefs are intended to increase awareness of the
availability of the public use versions of the AFCARS Adoption Data and to
provide the service of initial processing of the data for the adoption
community.
The Briefs
were cited in the Donaldson
Adoption Institute E-Newsletter.
Adoptive Family
Structure. AFCARS Adoption Data
Research Brief Number 1. ONLINE. North American Council on Adoptable Children. Available: http://www.nacac.org/pdfs/AFCARSadoptivefamilystructure.pdf
(last accessed August 24, 2006). Also
available here.
Age of Children at
Adoption and Time from Termination of Parental Rights to Adoption. AFCARS Adoption Data Research Brief Number
2. ONLINE. North American Council on Adoptable
Children. Available: http://www.nacac.org/pdfs/AFCARSageatadoption.pdf
(last accessed August 24, 2006). Also
available here.
Race and Transracial
Adoption. AFCARS Adoption Data Research
Brief Number 3. ONLINE. North American Council on Adoptable Children. Available: http://www.nacac.org/pdfs/AFCARSraceandtra.pdf
(last accessed August 24, 2006). Also
available here.
Special Needs and
Disabilities. AFCARS Adoption Data
Research Brief Number 4. ONLINE. North American Council on Adoptable
Children. Available: http://www.nacac.org/pdfs/AFCARSspecialneeds.pdf
(last accessed August 24, 2006). Also
available here.
Title
IV-E Claims and Adoption Assistance Payments. AFCARS Adoption Data Research Brief Number
5. ONLINE. North American Council on Adoptable
Children. Available: http://www.nacac.org/pdfs/AFCARStitleivepayments.pdf
(last
accessed August 24, 2006). Also available here.
Book Reviews
Review
of Political Economy of the Family Farm (by Sue Headlee) in Agricultural History 67, 1(Winter 1993), pp. 90-92.
Review of To
Sow One
Review of Mexicans
in the
Review
of Sowing Modernity: Americas First Agricultural Revolution (by Peter
D. McClelland). ONLINE. Economic History Services. Available: http://www.eh.net/bookreviews/library/0226.shtml
(last accessed August 31, 2006).
Review of A House Dividing: Economic Development in
Review of Fighting
for the Farm: Rural America Transformed (edited by Jane Adams) in Journal of Economic History 63, 3(Sept. 2005), 909-10.
Manuscripts under
Consideration
The
First Boom in Bankruptcy (with Bradley Hansen), submitted for review. Confirmation from Journal of Economic History is here. Revise and resubmit notice received July 6, 2007.
Contribution:
The first panel analysis of bankruptcy rates across states during the
first boom in bankruptcy in the 1920s.
Placement
Note: Top journal in the field of economic history,
recently ranked
52/100 in economics; Thompson Scientific rating of .529 in 2005. The working paper made the SSRN Top 10 downloads list for economic
history the first month after posting.
Valuing Substitute
Families: Financial Support for Foster and Adoptive Families (with Paul
Jacobs), submitted for review.
Confirmation letter from Feminist
Economics is here . Revise and resubmit notice received July 30, 2007.
Contribution: Argues that current programs for support
of substitute families should be recast as insurance.
Placement
Note: Ranked 20 of
175 economics journals in Thompson Scientific 2005 rating; impact factor was
1.595.
The Value of
Adoption, submitted for review.
Confirmation from Adoption
Quarterly is here. Revised and resubmitted July 3, 2007.
Contribution:
The first cost-benefit analysis of adoption from foster care.
Placement
Note: AQ
is the only adoption studies journal published in
Dont Put the
Cart before the Horse: Teaching the Economic Approach to Empirical Research,
submitted for review to Perspectives in
Economic Education Research. April 2007 response from editorial office is here.
Contribution:
The first cost-benefit analysis of adoption from foster care.
Placement
Note: AQ
is the only adoption studies journal published in North America. It is a relatively new journal, just in its
11th volume, but it is widely read by the growing community of
scholars doing research on adoption and the policymakers we are trying to
reach. Click here
for reviews of AQ.
Transracial Adoption of Black Children: An Economic
Analysis (with Daniel Pollack), submitted for review at law journals.
Contribution: Supports more vigorous enforcement of
non-discrimination laws in adoptive placement by showing that transracial
adoptions are faster than same race adoptions.
Placement
Note: Not
ranked. As suggested by its title, this
journal published work on issues in black political economy. As of May 1, 2007, 487 downloads from BE Press Legal Repository.
Using Private
Contracts to Create Adoptions from Foster Care, submitted for review. Confirmation letter from Journal of Policy Analysis and Management is here .
Contribution: Demonstrates that private contracts for
the provision of training and recruitment of prospective adoptive parents increases
the rate of adoption creation in states.
Placement
Note: Thompson
Scientific impact rating of .855 in 2005.
Book prospectus for edited volume, Teaching
Advice for Economists, submitted to Palgrave MacMillan and
Contribution: The volume will contain literature
reviews on economic education, as well as specific advice on topics such as
teaching large classes, heterodox pedagogy, service learning, and teaching
research.
Placement
Note: Submitted by
request to Palgrave MacMillan;
Contracts and Grants
Received
National
Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant (SES 91-00517), AY 1991-92
($20,000).
Economic
History Association, Cole Grant-in-Aid, 1995 ($1,500).
National
Science Foundation, Economics Program Grant (SES 96-23063), "Middlemen in
Towns and
Center for Adoption
Research, Economics of Adoption
and Adoption Policy, FY 2003-04 ($19,353).
National Institutes of
Health, National Institute of Child Health and Development (R03-HD045342-01), Assessment of Incentives to Adopt
Children from Foster Care, CYs 2004-2005 ($132,600). Abstract is here. Final Report is here.
Center for Adoption
Research, Adoption as
Investment in Children, CY 2006 ($24,000).
Dave Thomas Foundation
for Adoption, Maximizing the Potential
of the Survey of Adoptive and Pre-Adoptive Parents, Summer 2007 ($3,600)
Center for Adoption
Research, Sensitivity of Demand for Public
Agency Adoption, CY 2007 ($25,000)
Grants Pending
NSF
Innovations and Organizational Change Program, Creating Adoptions for Foster Children,
submitted February 2007. References are here.
NIH/NICHD,
Using Private Contracts to Deliver Social
Work Services: The Case of Adoption from Foster Care, submitted February
2007. References are here.
NSF
Economics Program, The
Non-Market Value of Adoption, submitted January 2007. Project summary is here. References are here [Declined.]
(This page was updated
August 3, 2007.)