Raising Considerations: Public Opinion and the Fair Application of the Death Penalty*

Objectives. A major justification for capital punishment is its perceived public support, yet common measures of public opinion do not capture the complexity of death penalty attitudes. This research, first, examines the stability of attitudes regarding the fair application of the death penalty when those attitudes are expressed within the context of an enlarged pool of considerations about its administration and, second, evaluates the directional effect of the considerations on those attitudes. Methods. Data from a national telephone survey that capture the complexity of these attitudes are analyzed using ordered probit estimation. Results. These results indicate substantial instability in attitudes regarding the fair application of capital punishment given the context of more pertinent considerations. Furthermore, within this context respondents tend to indicate that the death penalty is less fairly applied. Conclusion. The justification for capital punishment may rest on oversimplified conceptions of attitudes toward the death penalty and its application.     

A Note on Vasectomy

Between June and December, 1972, more than 200 men had undergone vasectomy operations at the Caminer House clinic of the Family Planning Association of Australia in Sydney. One hundred vasectomy record cards were randomly selected and analysed. The mean ages of patients and their wives were 37.43 years and 33.96 years (ages ranged from 22.58 to 60.50 for men and from 22.17 to 49.66 for their wives). Patients had been married for an average of 12 years and the average number of children per couple was 3. A status ranking of occupations of the patients and their wives revealed that most subjects were from the lower socio-economic group, that is, the professions were poorly represented in the sample.     

A Note on the Portfolio Selection Problem

In this note we provide new results of interest in the portfolio choice problem when the risky opportunities are correlated: for a general vector (X₁, X₂,..., X_n) of risky opportunities we give new conditions for stochastic comparison among different portfolios choices and new necessary and sufficient conditions to characterize the portfolio which gives the maximal expected utility.     

Google's Insights for Search: A Note Evaluating the Use of Search Engine Data in Social Research*

Objective. This research note presents and assesses the potential for Google's Insights for Search tool for use in social science research. Methods. Measures of social phenomena across time and across ecological units produced from search engine data are compared with existing data sources. Results. The comparisons show that the search engine data correspond quite closely with existing measures of issue salience and religious adherence. Conclusions. Given its relative lack of cost both in terms of money and labor, its flexibility, and its correspondence to other data, social scientists should consider the Insights for Search tool for research purposes.     

A Note on Attempted Suicide

A study was made of 84 patients who attempted suicide in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. Most of the cases suffered from drug overdoses. The majority were young women. Of 64 women, 48 were married and only four were single. The occupations of both men and women were generally of low social status. Half of the patients' occupations were described as ‘domestic duties’ or ‘domestic’. The proportion of attempted suicides (by religion) was approximately the same as would be expected on the basis of the percentage of persons in each religious denomination as represented by the 1966 census, with the exception of three religions.     

自由与公平选举标准宣言——由国际议会理事会第154次会议一致通过(巴黎1994年3月26日)

国际议会理事会重申《世界人权宣言》和《公民权利与政治权利国际公约》的宗旨:政府的权力必须建立在人们通过周期性的真正的选举所表达的意愿的基础上;接受世界和地区性人权公约缔约国所承认的关于周期性自由与公平选举的基本原则,这些原则包括:每一个人都有直接地参与政府或者通过自己选举的代表间接地参与政府的权利,都有在选举中秘密投票的权利,都有成为候选人的同等机会的权利,都有独自或与他人联合发表政见的权利;认识到每一个国家都有主权根据它的人民的意愿并严格遵守联合国宪章的规定自由地选择和发展它自己的政治、社会、经济和文…     

State Educational Investments and Economic Growth in the United States: A Path Analysis*

Objective. This article investigates direct and indirect relationships between state investments in education and economic growth measured as change in per‐capita gross state product (GSP). As a basis for selecting control variables, it also applies a conceptual framework borrowed from the cross‐national growth research. Method. We gathered 18 years of panel data on the 48 continental states and ran GLS regressions with panel corrected standard errors after executing an AR1 correction for autocorrelation. Results. Per‐capita savings deposits, college attainment, and initial GSP are the most consistent predictors of GSP growth over the 18‐year period investigated. However, all the independent variables in the model, except high school attainment, predict per‐capita GSP growth from 1997 to 2005. Conclusion. The study supports the virtues of a path model and a cross‐national framework for explaining the relationship between educational expenditures and GSP growth, especially from 1997 to 2005.     

A Note on Implementation of Bargaining Solutions

Miyagawa (Games and Economics Behavior 41(2), 292–308 [2002]) provides a simple extensive game form that implements a large class of two-agent bargaining solutions in subgame-perfect equilibrium. This class includes all of the Nash, Kalai–Smorodinsky, and relative utilitarian solutions. This note extends Miyagawa’s result to multi-agent bargaining problems.     

Social Capital and Economic Performance in the American States*

Objective. This study tests the claim that areas with higher levels of social capital have superior economic performance. Method. The 14‐measure index of social capital created by Robert Putnam is reconstructed for an extended time period and integrated into cross‐sectional regression models including physical capital, human capital, and other factors relevant to state economic performance. Results. The analysis shows that social capital has no discernable influence on aggregate measures of output and employment. However, it does have a positive and significant impact on measures of economic equality and employment stability. Conclusions. This study does not support the claim that social capital is a general prerequisite for prosperity, but it does suggest that it may serve to reinforce a particular mode of communitarian economic development.     

Survey on Perceptions of Social Fairness and Their Implications for Social Governance Innovation*

At the present stage, social fairness or equity is an important area of governance in China, and increasing the level of fairness is an important theme of work. In 2016, the Chinese government laid down specific arrangements and operations relating to equity in education, social security, market competition, etc. The participatory governance model entails testing policy outcomes in relation to the sense of fairness of the mass of the people. Our survey found that perceptions of fairness are higher among middle- and high-income groups and are lower in the eastern region than in the central and western regions. In social security, however, perceptions of fairness and of improvements in the level of fairness are lower than they are for education and market competition. Overall, specific policies relating to fairness in education have been quite effective in enhancing people's perceptions of fairness. Accordingly, if we are to make effective improvements in the fairness of social governance, we need a more rational distribution system that takes into account public opinion and expands the scope of fairness in social security.     

A Note on Luce-Fishburn Axiomatization of Rank-Dependent Utility

In this paper, I provide a new axiomatization for rank-dependent utilities. I show that, along with weak order, dominance, and the binary rank-dependent representation, the decomposition of certainty equivalents is sufficient to derive the general rank-dependent model of Luce and Fishburn (1991, 1995). My axiomatization not only simplifies and generalizes the theory proposed by Luce and Fishburn (1991, 1995) but also is more empirically appealing. The result is comparable to that obtained by Quiggin (1982) in the sense that both involve a sort of decomposition of certainty equivalents and both do not use compound lotteries. However, my axiomatization does not have the restriction that the weight of probability 1/2 is 1/2.     

Economic Determinants of Voting in an Era of Union Decline*

Objective. The objective of this article is to test competing hypotheses regarding union vote effects by economic sector. Overlooked in existing research on political participation and the labor movement is de‐unionization's sectoral dimension: declining union rolls is a private‐sector phenomenon. The sectoral dimension of union decline carries important political consequences if the influence of unions on voter turnout varies by sector. Method. Using Current Population Survey (CPS) November Voting and Registration Supplements for all national elections between 1984 and 2006, I estimate union vote effects for public‐ and private‐sector employees. Results. The results of the analyses reveal that while union members continue to vote at higher rates than otherwise similar nonmembers, the union effect is nearly three times as large for private‐sector members: private‐sector unionists have a predicted probability of voting 6.7 points higher than nonmembers, while public‐sector members have a predicted probability of voting only 2.4 points higher than nonmembers. Conclusions. Given the small fraction of private‐sector workers now in labor unions, recent fluctuations in the unionization rate have little aggregate affect on turnout. Given that private‐sector union members tend to be less educated and earn less than their public‐sector counterparts, the near disappearance of private‐sector unions from the economic landscape removes an important institutional buffer against political inequality in the United States.