Native American casino gambling in Arizona: A case study of the Fort McDowell reservation

Since Congress passed the American Indian Gambling Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988, there has been an explosion in the number of gambling casinos located on Native American reservations. It is estimated that in 1994 the total net revenue from 81 Native American casinos exceeded $2.3 billion dollars. As the number of Native American casinos grows along with the volume of gambling activity, opposition increases from states, the established gambling industry hurt by lost revenues, and groups with moral objections to gambling. This article reports on an effort to measure the economic impact of the Fort McDowell casino located near Phoenix, Arizona. The article discusses the casino's history and current operations. Next, it explains the use of an input-output model to compute the impact of casino's income and employment effects on the economy of Maricopa County. It is estimated that the casino is responsible for 2,483 new jobs, and an increase of approximately $80.35 million in regional output. Additional information is necessary to more accurately assess both the benefits and costs of the casino. Unfortunately, subsequent efforts to collect additional data have been unsuccessful. The conclusion discusses why, and raises questions regarding Native American gaming.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 9th International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking, May 31–June 3, 1994, Las Vegas, Nevada. This research was funded by a FGIA grant from Arizona State University. The author expresses his appreciation to the referees who provided substantial guidance in improving the original paper. Any remaining errors are mine.     

The relative risk aversion hypothesis of educational choice

Analysing young people's educational choices, we derive and test implications of a relative risk aversion hypothesis: that educational choices are made so as to minimize the risk of ending up with a lower level of education than one's parents. These implications are in general different from what one would expect from human capital theory. We use a unique data set which combines data from administrative registers on young people's pathways through the educational system and their family background with survey data on their academic abilities at lower secondary school. The evidence is partly in favour of the relative risk aversion hypothesis. Received: 19 August 1999/Accepted: 10 January 2001 All correspondence to Eskil Heinesen. We are grateful to Karin Blix Mogensen and Martin B?g for excellent research assistance, and to two anonymous referees, John F. Ermisch, Martin Browning, Michael Rosholm, Paul Bingley, and participants at the conference of the European Society for Population Economics in Turin, 1999, for valuable comments and suggestions. Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch.     

Are transformational and laissez-faire leadership related to state anxiety among subordinates? A two-wave prospective study of forward and reverse associations

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to determine the direction of associations between perceived leadership styles of an immediate leader and state anxiety among subordinates using time-lagged data from a large and heterogeneous probability sample of Norwegian employees. It was hypothesised that high levels of transformational leadership would be associated with a decrease, whereas high levels of laissez-faire leadership would be associated with an increase, in subsequent levels of anxiety. Reciprocal associations were also expected in that higher levels of anxiety were hypothesised to be related to subsequent increase in reports of laissez-faire, and decrease in reported exposure to transformational leadership. The sample comprised 1149 Norwegian employees. The design was a two-wave full panel study with a six-month time interval between the baseline and follow-up assessments. Contrary to hypotheses, neither transformational nor laissez-faire leadership were significantly related to subsequent levels of state anxiety. In support of hypotheses, baseline low levels of state anxiety were associated with reporting the immediate leader as less transformational and more laissez-faire six months later. In conclusion, the findings challenge theoretical models that explain leadership as a one-way superior–subordinate influence process.     

Asymptotic Inference for Waiting Times and Patiences in Queues with Abandonment

Motivated by applications in call center management, we propose a framework based on empirical process techniques for inference about waiting time and patience distributions in multiserver queues with abandonment. The framework rigorises heuristics based on survival analysis of independent and identically distributed observations by allowing correlated waiting times. Assuming a regenerative structure of offered waiting times, we establish asymptotic properties of estimators of limiting distribution functions and derived functionals. We discuss construction of bootstrap confidence intervals and statistical tests, including a simple bootstrap two-sample test for comparing patience distributions. A small simulation study and a real data example are presented.     

Quantification of symmetry for functional data with application to equine lameness classification

This paper presents a study on symmetry of repeated bi-phased data signals, in particular, on quantification of the deviation between the two parts of the signal. Three symmetry scores are defined using functional data techniques such as smoothing and registration. One score is related to the L ₂-distance between the two parts of the signal, whereas the other two are constructed to specifically measure differences in amplitude and phase. Moreover, symmetry scores based on functional principal component analysis (PCA) are examined. The scores are applied to acceleration signals from a study on equine gait. The scores turn out to be highly associated with lameness, and their applicability for lameness quantification and detection is investigated. Four classification approaches turn out to give similar results. The scores describing amplitude and phase variation turn out to outperform the PCA scores when it comes to the classification of lameness.     

Are Irrational Beliefs and Depressive Mood More Common Among Problem Gamblers than Non-Gamblers? A Survey Study of Swedish Problem Gamblers and Controls

This study tests the hypothesis that problem gamblers are more prone to have irrational beliefs and depressed mood than non-gamblers. Irrational beliefs refer to fallacious opinions about probabilities. Gamblers like to believe that chance games (i.e., roulette and lottery) can be controlled and that the outcome of such games is dependent on the patterns of previous outcomes. The empirical material consists of responses to a survey that 302 individuals have answered. Half of the respondents were deemed to be problem gamblers. The results showed that compared to the controls, the problem gamblers were more inclined to show illusion of control due to their skill and reported more depressive mood. The results are discussed in terms of difficulties to know the “hen and the egg” regarding depressive mood, and in terms of intermittent reinforcement to continue gambling.     

Employment success of social assistance recipients: A provincial analysis by industry

Poverty continues to burden millions of Canadians each year, and social assistance (SA) is one program that provides last-resort financial assistance, conditional upon looking for and accepting work. Using tax panel data of SA recipients from across seven Canadian regions between 2000 and 2018, we model the probabilities of employment success (ES) across industry of employment, SA benefit amounts, unionization, and individual-level characteristics. We adopt an economic stance to explain reliance upon SA, examining the broader macroeconomic indicators of ES, and to demonstrate the factors associated with exiting SA. We find that many SA recipients do not present evidence of recent employment, indicating a disconnect between stated SA program aims and their outcomes. We provide evidence for increased SA benefits and unionization as significant predictors of ES of SA recipients.     

What cultural hierarchy? Cultural tastes,status and inequality

Research on cultural stratification often draws on Bourdieu's misrecognition model to interpret socioeconomic gradients in cultural tastes and participation. In this model, an assumed cultural hierarchy leads individuals to adopt cultural tastes and behaviours whose status is congruent with that of their socioeconomic position (SEP). Yet, this assumed cultural hierarchy remains opaque. In this paper, we derive and test three empirical implications of the cultural hierarchy: (1) cultural activities have different status (recognition); (2) individuals in high and low SEPs have similar perceptions of the status of cultural activities (necessary condition for misrecognition); and (3) individuals prefer and engage in cultural activities whose status matches that of their SEP (status congruence). We collected survey data in Denmark and find that cultural activities differ in terms of perceived status (e.g., opera has higher perceived status than flea market), status perceptions are similar in high- and low-SEP groups and individuals prefer activities whose status matches that of their SEP. These results are consistent with the idea that a cultural hierarchy exists that sustains SEP gradients in cultural tastes and participation.