Contact,the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English

In the multilingual centres of Northern Europe's major cities, new varieties of the host languages are emerging. While some analyse these ‘multiethnolects’ as youth styles, we take a variationist approach to an emerging ‘Multicultural London English’ (MLE), asking: (1) what features characterise MLE; (2) at what age(s) are they acquired; (3) is MLE vernacularised; and (4) when did MLE emerge, and what factors enabled this? We argue that innovations in the diphthongs and the quotative system are generated from the specific sociolinguistics of inner‐city London, where at least half the population is undergoing group second‐language acquisition and where high linguistic diversity leads to a heterogeneous feature pool to select from. We look for incrementation ( Labov 2001 ) in the acquisition of the features, but find this only for two ‘global’ changes, BE LIKE and goose ‐fronting, for which adolescents show the highest usage. Community‐internal factors explain the age‐related variation in the remaining features.     

CAPS IN SEQUENTIAL CONTESTS

We study a sequential two‐stage all‐pay auction with two identical prizes. In each stage, the players compete for one prize and each player can win either one or two prizes. The designer may impose a cap on the players' bids in each of the stages. We analyze the equilibrium in this sequential all‐pay auction with bid caps and show that capping the players' bids is profitable for a designer who wishes to maximize the players' expected total bid. (JEL D44, D82, J31, J41)     

DOES NATION BUILDING SPUR ECONOMIC GROWTH?

Nation building, the allocation of economic aid conditional on military assistance in conflict and post‐conflict environments, has cost the world trillions of dollars over the last half century. Yet few attempts have been made to quantify the potential economic growth effects for the recipient country from the provision of this aid. Using a 45‐year panel dataset, we construct a measure of nation building using a three‐way interaction term between military assistance, economic aid, and conflict regime. Considering that slow growing and problem‐prone countries may be less likely to receive aid, we instrument for economic aid by estimating donor‐to‐donee aid flows in a first‐stage procedure. Using this approach, we find that spending on nation building has positive growth effects during conflict periods, but that these effects disappear after conflict. (JEL F3, F4, O5)     

SELLING TO BIASED BELIEVERS: STRATEGIES OF ONLINE LOTTERY TICKET VENDORS

We provide evidence that sellers respond to buyers' belief biases in a collective lottery betting market, by adopting sales strategies which cater to believers in the Hot Hand and Gambler's Fallacies. Lottery players on the buyer side tend to avoid buying tickets which are similar to the previous winning ticket, in accordance with the Gambler's Fallacy (Clotfelter and Cook 1993; Terrell 1994). At the same time, buyers tend to prefer purchasing tickets from previously winning sellers, despite the fully random nature of wins, in accordance with Hot‐Hand Fallacy (Croson and Sundali 2005). These behavioral biases provide an opportunity for ticket sellers to increase their expected profits by adjusting features of the lottery portfolios they sell. We find that sellers make changes to their portfolio size, commission rate, self‐purchase rate, and number choices in response to previous events, in ways that are consistent with responding to the Hot‐Hand Fallacy belief, and which also lend a degree of support for responding to the Gambler's Fallacy belief. Our results show evidence of participants in a market accommodating their choices to the biased beliefs of other participants in order to gain an advantage in expected profits. (JEL D01, D03, D81, L86)     

Stumbling towards oblivion or discovering new horizons? Observations on the relationship between social work education and practice

What should social work education be training students for? What should the relationship be between social work education and practice? The first half of this article cautions that social work education, as currently constituted, may 'unfit' people. Principally, this is because social work practice, as envisaged by employer interests, has not been subject to the same critical scrutiny as social work education and has come to dominate perceptions of the training task. The dangers that follow from this position are outlined. The second half of the article proceeds to explore the contribution that practice teachers and tutors can make to enable practitioners to remain confident, credible, critical and creative in this practice environment. The article concludes with some observations on the future as envisaged in the proposals to modernise social services and to create a General Social Care Council.     

The Process of Entering into Cohabiting Unions

Over one half of young adults have lived or will live with a partner before marriage. Many studies indicate that the majority of cohabitors plan to marry their partners, yet research examining relationship progression is rare. This article deciphers the processes underlying entrance into informal unions. Data are from 25 open‐ended interviews with cohabitors who had lived together for at least 3 months. For many, the relationship progressed rapidly; over one half moved in with partners within 6 months of initiating romantic relationships. Primary reasons for cohabiting included finances, convenience, and housing needs; cohabiting as a trial marriage was not mentioned as the principal reason for moving in together. Plans for marriage remain abstract even when respondents determine that they and their partners are compatible.     

AMBIGUOUS SOLICITATION: AMBIGUOUS PRESCRIPTION

We conduct a two‐phase laboratory experiment, separated by several weeks. In the first phase, we conduct urn games intended to measure ambiguity aversion on a representative population of undergraduate students. In the second phase, we invite the students back with four different solicitation treatments, varying in the ambiguity of information regarding the task and the payout of the laboratory experiment. We find that those who return do not differ from the overall pool with respect to their ambiguity aversion. However, no solicitation treatment generates a representative sample. The ambiguous task treatment drives away the ambiguity averse disproportionally and the detailed task treatment draws in the ambiguity averse disproportionally. Finally, the standard laboratory recruitment e‐mail disproportionately draws in those who are not ambiguity averse. (JEL A12, C81, C90)     

Interpretative Freedom and New Combination: The Way in Which the “Middle Class” Has Been Narrated

The English words “middle class” have experienced much more connotations and denotations—typically “bourgeoisie,” “white‐collar,” and professional—than any other class‐referring word since the latter half of the 18th century. On the one hand, in response to such diverse narrations during about two and a half centuries, I partially agree with some of the nominalistic theories of class, in that the middle classes were not created until they were named by contemporaries. On the other hand, my view diverges from those theories, in my asserting that the contemporaries have had an interpretative freedom to recognize “middle classes” only within the bounds of plausibility on the side of the realistic social world. The typical middle class in each period has emerged in such a way that Schumpeter's new combination is performed in a stage of recession by new entrepreneurs, who will move into the “middle” strata and hold some cultural leadership but still obtain inconsistent statuses, to be recognized as “middle class”ex post facto in a boom time. Two Kondratieff's cycles have had one recognition of the typical “middle class.” The new combination is one of the pressures bringing middle classes into a modern society, contrary to the so‐called class decomposition into the two poles.     

PRICING ANOMALIES IN THE MARKET FOR DIAMONDS: EVIDENCE OF CONFORMIST BEHAVIOR

Some goods are consumed not just for their intrinsic utility but also for the impression their consumption has on others. We analyze the market for such a commodity—diamonds. We collect data on price and other attributes from the inventories of three large online retailers of diamonds. We find that people are willing to pay premiums upward of 18% for a diamond that is one‐half carat rather than slightly less than a half carat and between 5% and 10% for a one‐carat rather than a slightly less than one‐carat stone. Since a major portion of larger gem‐quality diamonds are used for engagement rings, such an outcome is consistent with Bernheim's model of conformism, where individuals try to conform to a single standard of behavior that is often established at a focal point. In this case, prospective grooms signal their desirability as a mate by the size of the diamond engagement ring they give their fiancées. (JEL A1, D4)     

Instant Ticket Purchasing by Ontario Baby Boomers: Increasing Risk for Problem Gamblers

Instant ticket purchase gambling (ITPG) is pervasive in Ontario and has features that mimic slot machine play. Previous researchers have reported that ITPG is one preferred activity for at-risk/problem gamblers. In the general Canadian population, rate of participation in ITPG is second only to lottery ticket gambling. Both are particularly favored by youth and seniors. The next cohort of seniors will be Canada’s baby boomers, one-third of whom live in Ontario. Secondary analysis of Statistics Canada data revealed that adults in this cohort who buy instant gambling tickets (N = 1781) are significantly different from the complete group of their age peers (N = 4266) in number of activities pursued and frequency of involvement. At-risk/problem gambling prevalence was 10.2% amongst Ontario baby boomers who participate in instant ticket gambling, significantly higher than the 6.7% found amongst the total group of baby boom gamblers. For those who reported experiencing one or more of the Canadian Problem Gambling Index indicators for problem gambling (N = 237), 73% were buying instant tickets. Future research should consider cohort effects and explore combinations of preferred gambling activities that may increase risk for problem gambling. Social policy recommendations include the use of all ITPG venues as key locations for promoting awareness of problem gambling treatment services. This work was funded by Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre.     

Psychopathology of transvestism and transsexualism

Vaginismus being a reaction of avoidance of an anxiety‐producing situation, is readily amenable to treatment by systematic desensitization. This may proceed in two main ways: “in vitro” or “in vivo”. In order to strengthen and speed‐up the desensitization process, we used hypnotic techniques in a dynamic approach.

The first session of both methods is dedicated to building an adequate doctor‐couple relationship, careful history‐taking and dissipation of myths and fallacies regarding sexuality or hypnosis. Any attempts at sexual intercourse are forbidden at this stage.

The “in vitro” treatment proceeds with the imagery, under hypnosis, of an “anxiety hierarchy” of increasingly erotic and sexually intimate situations, which will be reproduced at home with the partner, until sexual intercourse is achieved. In the “in vivo” method the patient learns self‐hypnosis and then inserts into her vagina first her finger, then Hegar dilators of gradually increasing size. The partner, the patient and the physician will then successively proceed to the insertion, forming a team work situation. This continues until the “female superior position”, practiced first with the largest dilator, is reproduced at home by intercourse.     

HISTORY DEPENDENCE AND THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL PREFERENCES: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

We study the minimal contributing set (MCS) game, a three‐person sequential step‐level public goods game. The behavior of critical third players changes with experience in this game even though they face no strategic or payoff uncertainty. We explore why these changes occur by manipulating subjects' experience in the first half of the experiment. The treatments give subjects very different initial experiences, but all treatments move subjects' choices toward experienced subjects' play in the control sessions. Long‐run play is indistinguishable across treatments. Our results are more consistent with the “discovered preferences” hypothesis ( Plott 1996 ) than either the “constructed preference” or “reference point” hypotheses. (JEL H41, C72, C92)     

Toward an ethnography of lotto

Abstract

Lotto ‐ a state‐sanctioned lottery in New Zealand ‐ is a pervasive socio‐cultural phenomenon. Every week more than one‐third of the adult population purchase lottery tickets and in doing so replicate the promotion of Lotto as a form of benign gambling which is fun and entertaining to play. Within a model of constructive gambling Lotto may be cast as a site of normative or ideal gambling within the New Zealand context. Moreover, Lotto promotions and participation reaffirms the nationalistic ideals of the New Zealand ‘good life’, while simultaneously articulating some of the key narratives of transnational economics.     

DO COLLEGE‐PREPARATORY PROGRAMS IMPROVE LONG‐TERM OUTCOMES?

This paper presents an analysis of the longer‐run effects of a college‐preparatory program implemented in inner‐city schools that provided teacher training in addition to payments to 11th‐ and 12th‐grade students and their teachers for passing scores on Advanced Placement (AP) exams. Affected students passed more AP exams, were more likely to remain in college beyond their first and second years, and earned higher wages. Effects are particularly pronounced for Hispanic students who experienced a 2.5‐percentage‐point increase in college degree attainment and an 11% increase in earnings. While the study is based on nonexperimental variation, the results are robust across a variety of specifications, and most plausible sources of bias are ruled out. The results provide credible evidence that implementing high‐quality college‐preparatory programs in existing urban schools can improve the long‐run educational and labor‐market outcomes of disadvantaged youth. (JEL I2, I24, J0)     

Early Adolescents' Development of Academic Self‐Concept and Intrinsic Task Value: The Role of Contextual Feedback

In this study, we investigate the extent to which achievement‐related feedback in two academic domains (mathematics and language) originating from two contexts (school and family) predicts early adolescents' domain‐specific academic self‐concept and intrinsic task values in Germany (N = 1,190, age range 10–13) and the United States (N = 1,953, age range 10–14). We examined the mediating role of both parents' competence perceptions and the early adolescents' academic self‐concepts linking grades and intrinsic value. Within‐ and cross‐domain effects were tested at each stage of the mediation. As predicted, in both countries the associations of grades with the academic self‐concepts are mediated by the parents' competence perceptions. The association of academic feedback with intrinsic task value is mediated through the students' academic self‐concepts.     

THE RISE OF SERVICES,DEINDUSTRIALIZATION, AND THE LENGTH OF ECONOMIC RECOVERY

Economic recovery is longer in service‐providing economies than in goods‐producing economies. Services cannot be produced and inventoried ahead of demand; goods can. We are the first to document this macroeconomic repercussion of the sectoral shift away from the secondary sector toward the tertiary sector, that is, of deindustrialization and the rise of services. We distinguish between nontradable services and all other sectors, using U.S. state‐level employment data for post‐1960 recessions. Concerns over the endogeneity of services are addressed in two ways: by using 3‐year pre‐recession averages of sector shares, and separately by invoking instrumental variables. Our results are robust to alternative specifications. The increase in service production and deindustrialization in the United States over the last half‐century lengthens the trough‐to‐peak employment recovery from recessions by about 40%. (JEL E24, E32, L80, N12)     

‘And what comes out may be a kind of screeching’: The stylisation of chavspeak in contemporary Britain

This paper discusses stylisations of chavspeak, the supposed language of the chav, a recently emergent and explicitly stereotyped figure that has been implicated in ‘the demonization of the working class’ ( Jones 2011 ). It argues that stylisations of chavspeak draw on a number of well‐established stereotypes of non‐standard Englishes in the British Isles, such that, rather than working as a representation of actual sociolinguistic innovation, chavspeak stylisations can primarily be seen as combinations of well‐recognised stereotypes. The suggestion is made that, in terms of providing a representation of variation at the first order of indexicality, the enregisterment of chavspeak is highly fragmented – a form from here and a form from there – but in terms of ideological force – intensifying sociolinguistic class stereotypes in accordance with the more general stereotype of the chav– there is a coherence. The intended humour of the stylisations is discussed as a feature that reinforces this ideological force, and the inclusion of stereotyped features of black Englishes is discussed as a possible emergent tendency in language ideologies in the British Isles.     

COMMON‐POOL RESOURCES WITH FREE MOBILITY

The Tragedy of the Commons may get worse if people freely move between different commons. We conducted laboratory experiments with the common‐pool resource setting in which people freely moved between two localities. The localities differed by governing regimes: no regulation or sanctions imposed either exogenously or chosen by majority voting. We find that under free mobility, efficient resource use is attainable with sanctions given that the target harvesting level adjusts to the number of users. People self‐select into different regimes based on their behavioral types. Results are consistent across the United States and Mongolia. (JEL C7, C72, C91, Q2, R12)     

Assessing symptoms of hypogonadism by self-administered questionnaire: qualitative findings in patients and controls

Background. Current screening instruments for hypogonadism lack adequate specificity and diagnostic accuracy. A new self-administered questionnaire of hypogonadism symptoms is being developed to address this need. The process for questionnaire development and results from the first (qualitative) phase are presented.

Methods. Qualitative interviews were conducted based on a new conceptual model of hypogonadism and according to standards for questionnaire development. An item pool was generated from focus groups and in-depth interviews with two groups of hypogonadal patients, treated (N = 26) and untreated (N = 26), and age-equivalent controls (N = 28). Standardized scoring of the qualitative interviews was used to confirm conceptual domains in the model and to generate questionnaire items for further validation.

Results. Key domains identified in both patients and controls included: (a) physical function; (b) bodily signs and symptoms; (c) sexual function and libido; (d) sleep function; (e) mood and affective function; (f) memory and cognitive function. The final domain is distress or bother associated with hypogonadism symptoms. This domain was only relevant to the patient groups.

Conclusions. The first stage in the design of a new hypogonadism screener has been completed. Seven domains were identified and draft items were developed in each domain according to current standards of patient-reported outcomes.     

Heterogeneity in Two‐Parent Families and Adolescent Well‐Being

This study highlights the heterogeneity in two‐parent families and examines how adolescents fare when they reside in simple two‐parent, blended, and stepfamilies. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N= 1,769), we find that shared biological children in blended families have worse outcomes than children in simple two‐parent families, even though they reside with both of their biological parents. These differences occur for academic performance, delinquency, school detachment, and depression. Current explanations in the family literature do not account for the poorer outcomes of shared children in blended families. We suggest that the presence of half‐siblings creates a unique family situation that is not accurately represented in the current family literature.