Contributing Factors of Depressive Symptoms Among Elderly Korean Immigrants in Texas

This study examined various life stresses associated with relocation that may contribute to depressive symptoms among Korean immigrant elders in Texas. A sample of 120 elders was assessed using the Geriatric Depression Scale–Short Form and a 90-min face-to-face interview. Over 1/3 of respondents (37.5%) had symptoms of depression. Regression analyses (R² = .331) indicate that self-rated health, stressful life events, English language proficiency, satisfaction of visiting one's birth place, and watching TV were correlates of depressive symptoms among them. The findings of this observational study may be used as a baseline for designing service program for this population.     

Counting the Population or Describing Society? A Comparison of English and Welsh and French Censuses

Data collected at household level in censuses are used for a wide range of purposes including practical planning and academic analysis of changing social conditions. Comparability is a core demographic value, and to understand the limits of the comparability of census data across time and space, it is important to recognise if, how and why, concepts and definitions change between censuses. This paper examines definitions of the household in censuses in England and Wales (E&W) and France from 1960 to 2012 in order to investigate how census definitions have changed and to examine the drivers of such changes. Two research methods were used: (1) longitudinal analyses of census documentation since the 1960s and (2) in-depth interviews with key informants oriented around respondents’ roles in the collection and/or use of household data from censuses and surveys. We identify two contrasting national approaches to the data collection exercise that is called a census, which reflect political and institutional differences. These differences call into question the comparability of some aspects of census data across national boundaries, despite increased harmonisation of approaches to data collection. By comparing the evolution of the definitions of the “household” in censuses, we develop insight into the diversity of the priorities of census commissioners and designers, and consider the broader implications of this for producing comparable data.     

STICKY PRICES: A NEW MONETARIST APPROACH

Why do some sellers set nominal prices that apparently do not respond to changes in the aggregate price level? In many models, prices are sticky by assumption; here it is a result. We use search theory, with two consequences: prices are set in dollars, since money is the medium of exchange; and equilibrium implies a nondegenerate price distribution. When the money supply increases, some sellers may keep prices constant, earning less per unit but making it up on volume so profit stays constant. The calibrated model matches price‐change data well. But, in contrast to typical sticky‐price models, money is neutral.     

Behavioral finance in corporate governance: economics and ethics of the devil’s advocate

The Common Law, parliamentary democracy, and academia all institutionalize dissent to check undue obedience to authority; and corporate governance reformers advocate the same in boardrooms. Many corporate governance disasters could be averted if directors asked hard questions, demanded clear answers, and blew whistles. Work by Milgram suggests humans have an innate predisposition to obey authority. This excessive subservience of agent to principal, here dubbed a “type II agency problem”, explains directors’ eerie submission. Rational explanations are reviewed, but behavioral explanations appear more complete. Experimental work shows this predisposition disrupted by dissenting peers, conflicting authorities, and distant authorities. Thus, independent directors, chairs, and committees excluding CEOs might induce greater rationality and more considered ethics in corporate governance. Empirical evidence of this is scant—perhaps reflecting problems identifying genuinely independent directors.

Physician-Assisted Suicide and Midwest Social Workers: Where Do They Stand?

ABSTRACT

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is explicitly legal in five states and by court decision in one. Legislative bills have been introduced in other states including Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. This quantitative study was designed to understand Midwest, hospice and palliative care at end-of-life social workers’ attitudes toward PAS, preferred terminology, perception of preparedness for the implementation, and awareness of PAS legislation in their state. Sixty-two social workers from Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin completed an anonymous online survey. The results indicated that over one-half of the participants supported PAS legislation and is consistent with previous research on social workers across the country. While there was a range of perceived preparedness for implementation, a majority felt moderately to very prepared. Professional and personal values as well as professional experience influenced their perceived preparedness. Few social workers had accurate awareness of PAS legislation in their state or had attended workshops/events for further education or as a policy advocate. To practice competently and advocate at all levels of practice, hospice and palliative care at end-of-life social workers’ need to understand their own attitudes and values toward PAS and pursue additional education around this ethical issue.     

Partially Adaptive Estimation of the Censored Regression Model

Data censoring causes ordinary least squares estimates of linear models to be biased and inconsistent. Tobit, semiparametric, and partially adaptive estimators have been considered as possible solutions. This paper proposes several new partially adaptive estimators that cover a wide range of distributional characteristics. A simulation study is used to investigate the estimators’ relative efficiency in these settings. The partially adaptive censored regression estimators have little efficiency loss for censored normal errors and may outperform Tobit and semiparametric estimators considered for non-normal distributions. An empirical example of out-of-pocket expenditures for a health insurance plan provides an example, which supports these results.     

An Integrated Scenario Ensemble-Based Framework for Hurricane Evacuation Modeling: Part 1—Decision Support System

This article introduces a new integrated scenario-based evacuation (ISE) framework to support hurricane evacuation decision making. It explicitly captures the dynamics, uncertainty, and human–natural system interactions that are fundamental to the challenge of hurricane evacuation, but have not been fully captured in previous formal evacuation models. The hazard is represented with an ensemble of probabilistic scenarios, population behavior with a dynamic decision model, and traffic with a dynamic user equilibrium model. The components are integrated in a multistage stochastic programming model that minimizes risk and travel times to provide a tree of evacuation order recommendations and an evaluation of the risk and travel time performance for that solution. The ISE framework recommendations offer an advance in the state of the art because they: (1) are based on an integrated hazard assessment (designed to ultimately include inland flooding), (2) explicitly balance the sometimes competing objectives of minimizing risk and minimizing travel time, (3) offer a well-hedged solution that is robust under the range of ways the hurricane might evolve, and (4) leverage the substantial value of increasing information (or decreasing degree of uncertainty) over the course of a hurricane event. A case study for Hurricane Isabel (2003) in eastern North Carolina is presented to demonstrate how the framework is applied, the type of results it can provide, and how it compares to available methods of a single scenario deterministic analysis and a two-stage stochastic program.     

Consanguinity and Other Marriage Market Effects of a Wealth Shock in Bangladesh

This paper uses a wealth shock from the construction of a flood protection embankment in rural Bangladesh coupled with data on the universe of all 52,000 marriage decisions between 1982 and 1996 to examine changes in marital prospects for households protected by the embankment relative to unprotected households living on the other side of the river. We use difference-in-difference specifications to document that brides from protected households commanded larger dowries, married wealthier households, and became less likely to marry biological relatives. Financial liquidity-constrained households appear to use within-family marriage (in which one can promise ex-post payments) as a form of credit to meet up-front dowry demands, but the resultant wealth shock for households protected by the embankment relaxed this need to marry consanguineously. Our results shed light on the socioeconomic roots of consanguinity, which carries health risks for offspring but can also carry substantial benefits for the families involved.