TRUSTING THE TAX OFFICE: DOES PUTNAM'S THESIS RELATE TO TAX?

Data from the Community Participation and Citizenship Survey are used to explore the factors that influence people to place trust in strangers and impersonal others. We use Putnam's social capital thesis to explore whether civic engagement and associational membership are major factors in the development of generalised or social trust, and whether this kind of trust is generalisable to trust in government institutions, specifically the Tax Office. There is partial support for Putnam's thesis that civic engagement develops social trust. More important is affective trust developed in the family and through familiar others. We find that trust is generalisable, being extended to strangers and to the impersonal others in government institutions. It is trust that builds trust — and government institutions like the Tax Office begin their task with benefits accrued through generalised trust.     

FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS AND INNOVATION: WHY POOR COUNTRIES DON'T CATCH UP

This paper examines micro‐level channels through which financial development can affect such macroeconomic outcomes as level of income. Specifically, we investigate theoretically and empirically how financial constraints affect a firm's innovation activities. Theoretical predictions are tested using unique firm survey data, which provide direct measures for innovations and firm‐specific financial constraints, as well as information on shocks to firms' internal funds that serve as firm‐level instruments for financial constraints. We find unambiguous evidence that financial constraints restrain the ability of domestically owned firms to innovate and hence to catch up to the technological frontier.     

Pre‐Going Private Ownership Around the World

Going private transactions are often highly leveraged, and give rise to potential agency conflicts among existing shareholders. But who exactly are those shareholders, and under what legal conditions are these transactions more likely to occur? We examine ownership structure prior to going private transactions in 33 countries around the world from 2002 to 2014. The data indicate strong and consistent evidence that pre‐going private ownership is characterized by higher institutional and corporate ownership. Family ownership lowers the probability of a public to private transaction. Stronger creditor rights increase the probability of going private, particularly for whole company and institutional buyouts.     

Erzählung und „Bewältigung“

The topic of this paper is the change of perspective from the concept of “coping with illness” in a psychological sense to a concept of coping as “living with (chronic) illness” in a sociological sense. Whereas psychological and even some sociological research presupposes assumptions on causes and essentials of stress as well as on successful coping, we focused on the different ways, in which subjects define strain and their personal aim of coping. These subjective views might differ from the definitions of scientists as well. Furthermore we focus on the social constructions of illness and “normal living” and the social rules of coping with daily hassles, which underlay the subjective views. Assuming that the ways chronically ill resp. disabled persons look at stress and daily hassles is part of their coping, we conclude that stress and coping are mutually constituting each other. This dialectic process is influenced by the persons current situation, by the individual’s history and by cultural rules concerning appropriate coping resp. living with strain in general. Looking at these social rules and how they are modified under the conditions of illness and handicap was the topic of our research project “LIVE—Living and Defending Your Interests—Disabled Women”, financed by the German Fed. Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth and conducted 1996–1998. In this study a questionnaire was sent to 16 to 60 years old disabled women (return: N=987). Additionally a qualitative interview was conducted with N=60 of them. From a biographical approach the reconstruction of the main subjective patterns in their life histories led us to the social rules of appropriate “coping”. We can take this as a starting point for a sociological discussion of everyday living with chronic illness, that focuses on the social constitution of subjective meanings of stress resp. coping with illness, includes the social context and allows to integrate the gender perspective.     

Why are Women Better Decoders of Nonverbal Language?

Women have consistently been found to be better decoders of nonverbal language compared to men. It is unknown however, whether this sex difference is biological or non-biological in nature. The current study sought to test for the first time the effect emotional intelligence (EI), trait dominance, and psychological gender had on nonverbal decoding accuracy. 86 undergraduate university students (43 males and 43 female), mean age 20.86 years old, completed the mini-Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity, the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, the Dominance Subscale of The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory. Overall women were found to score 4.35 points significantly higher than men in nonverbal ability, 95 % CI [?2.31, 2.31], and 7.15 points significantly higher than men in EI, 95 % CI [?5.97, 5.97]. Higher EI scores were also found to predict significantly greater nonverbal decoding accuracy. These findings suggest that EI rather than biological sex appears to be the salient factor in an individual’s nonverbal decoding accuracy. Trait dominance, and participants’ masculinity and femininity scores however, were not found to be significantly correlated with nonverbal decoding ability, thus the non-biological model of EI, trait dominance, and psychological gender did not account for significantly more unique variance in decoding accuracy, compared to the biological model when biological sex alone was considered.     

Subjective Welfare, Well-Being, and Self-Reported Food Hypersensitivity in Four European Countries: Implications for European Policy

This study estimates the effects of food hypersensitivity on individuals?? perceived welfare and well-being compared to non-food hypersensitive individuals. Study respondents were recruited in the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and UK. The difference in welfare between food hypersensitive respondents and those asymptomatic to foods was estimated using a subjective welfare approach, including income evaluation. Well-being was measured using the Cantril Ladder-of-Life Scale, and health status using the Self-Perceived Health Scale. The difference in well-being, welfare and health status between participant groups was explained further using a number of background variables. No significant within-country differences in welfare between food hypersensitive respondents and respondents asymptomatic to foods were found. In terms of well-being, adult food hypersensitive respondents and their spouses reported significantly less happiness than respondents and their spouses asymptomatic to foods in the Netherlands and Poland. In Spain, the spouses of the food hypersensitive respondents were significantly less happy than respondents aymptomatic to foods. The well-being of children did not significantly differ between groups. The degree of severity of food hypersensitivity was negatively related to overall health status. In Poland, food hypersensitive respondents reported worse health status compared to asymptomatic respondents. In Spain, the converse was true. Food hypersensitive respondents were generally less happy with their life as a whole than respondents asymptomatic to foods, presumably because they experienced more negative effects, which were not related to perceived health status.     

Population Migration and Team Loyalty in Professional Sports*

Objectives. Within the long line of inquiry on demand for sport, one area that has gone relatively unexamined is that of domestic migration. In this research, the relationship between population migration and team loyalty is explored. Methods. A linear mixed model uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Nielsen Company to analyze the effect domestic migration has on demand for National Football League games. Results. Ratings were higher in population centers with smaller per‐capita population inflow (regardless of the origins of the inflow). The results further showed that increases in population flow from City A to City B were associated with increased demand for broadcasts in City B when Team B visited City A. Conclusions. The first finding suggests that sports viewership is not utilized as a vehicle for domestic transplants to integrate into their new community. The second finding suggests there is a nostalgia effect for an individual's previous hometown, though not necessarily for the team representing it in the league.     

Angebot und Nachfrage von Coaching für Wissenschaftler/innen

The article focuses how far coaching for scientists and academics is developed and established on the relatively new counselling market university. The demand of coaching of the different target groups will be described as well as the topics and contents coaching offers to them. The professional profile and competences of coaches and supervisors are presented. Also the challenges especially for coaches and people in responsible positions for personal development are discussed.     

Local Sensemaking of Policy Paradoxes – Implementing Local Crime Prevention in Sweden

This paper analyses the policy implementation of local crime prevention and community safety programmes in Sweden. It focuses on the clash between the transnational idea-complex and the national context, i.e. the unavoidable policy paradoxes of a transnational idea diffusion, and how they are made sense of when handled at local level. In particular, it emphasizes how actors in socioeconomically different local contexts within the same urban area have partly different reasons and motives for implementation. By using a sensemaking approach, this article contributes to the understanding of how convergence at national level is followed by divergence at local level.