THE EFFECT OF LEGALIZING RETAIL MARIJUANA ON HOUSING VALUES: EVIDENCE FROM COLORADO

Does legalizing retail marijuana generate more benefits than costs? This paper provides a first step toward addressing that question by measuring the benefits and costs that are capitalized into housing values. We exploit the time‐series and cross‐sectional variations in the adoption of Colorado's municipality retail marijuana laws (RMLs) and examine the effect on housing values with a difference‐in‐differences strategy. Our estimates show that the legalization leads to an average 6% increase in housing values, indicating that the capitalized benefits outweigh the costs. In addition, we find suggestive evidence that this relatively large housing value appreciation is likely due to RMLs inducing strong housing demand while having no discernible effect on housing supply. Finally, we show that the effect of RMLs is heterogeneous across locations and property types. (JEL K20, R28)     

Ergonomic considerations for a systemic approach: the millenium maize mills project in northern Mozambique

Malnutrition is a major problem for rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. Technology such as the maize mill, which alleviates the burden of pounding grain, also introduces opportunities and new challenges for improved nutrition. While there have been many technical studies of grain mills, and maize mills are in operation in hundreds of locations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the maize mill has not been studied from a socio-technical system perspective. This paper reports on the first phase of a study grounded on the hypothesis that mills can improve nutrition by exploiting their function as a social gathering point and providing both instruction and enjoyable healthful products. The objective was to identify those products that could be made available that customers at the mill would be willing to buy. Following observation of food availability, preparation, and consumption preferences within daily work routines, sample products were prepared and presented for cooking and consumption, along with some discussion at a district center mill owned by a local woman. The responses of customers and the mill owner were positive. Strategies for local manufacture and distribution of these products for sale and roles of the mill owner and the mothers are questions for future study.     

The methodological involvement of the emotional design and cognitive ergonomics as a tool in the development of children products

To demonstrate the relationship between design and emotional development for kids, this article offers an initial approach about the definition and historical aspects of emotion in product development, citing the main authors of this issue. Based the field research conducted with children from 2 to 6 years of age, was also describes the basic ideas of Piaget in the child psychology and pre-operational stage (age group studied) and the significance of children's toys from the perspective of Vigostsky. Using this theoretical framework and results of field research, we can infer some emotional design as advocated by the producers of positive affect on humans and its relationship with the child's development and choices of their toys.     

European policy developments and their impact on social work†

ABSTRACT

Europe, in the throes of global trends, dissolves and yet re-establishes boundaries, both on its external perimeter and in terms of its internal social and political structures in a process reminiscent of the early period after the industrial revolutions. Once again it poses a fundamental question for social work: is the profession’s mandate limited to containing the effects of this process at the level of its individual victims or can it play a role in shaping European social policies which would deal with structural issues and further the cause of European integration? By examining the spaces created by the EU’s ambiguous initiatives on social issues – in areas like child welfare, poverty or migration – it will be shown that social ‘rescue’ attempts might only serve to legitimate exclusion and to further the decline of social solidarity within European states – and ultimately the disintegration of the European Union itself. The alternative lies in taking a wider political perspective and practising ‘relational citizenship’, giving people rights to belong and to participate.     

Towards sustainability by aligning operational programmes and sustainable performance measures

Abstract

In the last decades, sustainable concerns have increasingly gained importance to organizational survival, and Lean/Six Sigma approaches are becoming more and more outstanding in order to improve sustainability performance. This article aims to evaluate the degree of importance of sustainable performance measures of Brazilian organizations and to propose guidelines to achieve sustainability by aligning these measures with operational improvement programmes. Multiple data collection methods were applied as theoretical literature review, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews with industry professionals and academic researchers. The findings show that it is the corporate responsibility to focus their efforts on both operational improvement programmes and sustainable initiatives in order to achieve better environmental protection, corporate reputation, quality management, cost performance and suppliers relations, as they are considered to be more important on organizational sustainability.     

Competing risks analysis in mountain pine beetle dynamics

Summary This paper presents an application and evaluation of competing risks analysis (Chiang, 1968) of mountain pine beetle life tables. Three known and one group of unknown risks are used. Interpretation of the results imply that only the crude probability of death from a specific cause is applicable to this situation; net and partial crude probabilities are yet incomplete. None of the risks (factors of mortality) exerted sufficient influence upon the population to be considered factors of regulation or reduction. Evidence remains that the mountain pine beetle is food-regulated at optimum temperature conditions and temperature-regulated at optimum food conditions.     

Rediscovering the social question

Neoliberal policies not only privatise formerly public services but also focus one-sidedly on discourses of individual autonomy and responsibility. This makes it difficult to raise ‘the social question’ (the question what constitutes social bonds) publicly since market principles are presented as allowing no alternatives. Social work owes its professional origins however to a shift from early capitalist individualism to policies recognising the need for social reconstruction and cohesion. It was mandated to reconcile the key principles of modernity, personal freedom and equality, although its methodology, often corresponding with social policy regimes, interpreted this mandate variably. Attempts in current social work to adjust to the cancellation of the social question through techniques of ‘activation’ and individualised care further the crisis of the project of modernity which manifests itself in a split between heightened public control measures and privatised concerns for ‘care’, thereby altering its core identity. Reflections on social work's historical position within varying political contexts help to promote a renewed critical examination of the profession's political role and highlight the need to turn interventions at the personal level into occasions that affirm social citizenship, ensure rights and promote social equality.     

Toward a Libertarian Theory of Evictionism

There are not two but rather three views regarding the issue of abortion. The first two, pro life and pro choice, are well known. The present paper is dedicated to an elucidation of the third, evictionism. In this perspective, the pregnant woman is allowed to evict her unwanted fetus, but, if it is viable outside of the womb, she is not legally permitted, also, to put it to death, as would apply to abortion. In other words, abortion combines two very different acts, eviction and murder, and only the former is licit, under libertarian law.     

Top Management Team Members’ Decision Influence and Cooperative Behaviour: An Empirical Study in the Information Technology Industry

Organizational leadership is generally distributed between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the top management team (TMT) members. Building on this observation, we present an empirical investigation of the cues for CEOs to delegate decision‐making influence to particular TMT members. In the literature, explanations both based on expertise and driven by similarity are described. In this study, we reconcile both explanations by examining the moderating role of the TMT's level of ‘cooperative behaviour’ (collaboration and information exchange). We analyse when and in what circumstances TMT members’ expertise and similarity to the CEO regarding his/her functional background and/or locus‐of‐control predict their decision‐making influence. We postulate that TMT cooperative behaviour will advance the effect of expertise on TMT members’ decision influence but impede the effect of similarity to the CEO. Our hypotheses are tested on a data set of 135 TMT members from 32 Dutch and Belgian information technology firms. Overall, we find that our proposed research model is confirmed for technology‐oriented decisions. Furthermore, we draw exploratory conclusions about the effect of TMT cooperative behaviour on the systematic distribution of decision influence in TMTs.     

The Initiation of Dating in Adolescence: The Effect of Parental Divorce. The TRAILS Study

This study examined the effect of parental divorce on the time it took adolescents to initiate their first romantic relationships. Individual differences in temperament and pubertal development and the age of the adolescent at the time of divorce were also taken into account. Hypotheses were tested using event history analysis with a sample of 1,487 Dutch adolescents. Results indicated that divorce sped up the transition to first relationship only when experienced in early adolescence. Findings are discussed in light of research on the heightened sensitivity to stress during transition periods such as the entry into adolescence.