Risk premiums in asset prices and returns

We review recent research on time-varying risk premiums, including attempts to explain rejections by baillie and others of the unbiasedness hypothesis. Using spot and forward foreign exchange rates we discuss the evidence for time-varying risk premiums, relate it to general equilibrium theories of asset pricing, and describe the artificial economy methodology.     

Providing mental health services to older people living in rural communities

Rural dwelling elders who experience mental health problems often have difficulty finding help since rural communities often lack adequate mental health service providers. This paper reports on the initial phase of a 5-year, interdisciplinary clinical research study that is testing the effectiveness of providing a home delivered, therapeutic psychosocial intervention, aimed at improving the emotional wellbeing and the quality of life of medically frail elders who live in rural communities. In the early phases of this study, the clinical research team encountered a number of interesting and often unanticipated challenges as it attempted to recruit study participants and provide services to them. In this article, we examine these challenges and share what we have learned so far about providing mental health services to elderly persons living in rural environments.     

Constitutional Reform and Canadian Social Policy

It is generally accepted that Governments, with a neo-conservative or more properly a Victorian neo-liberal bent will, through various means and mechanisms, try to dismantle aspects of the Welfare State. While these mechanisms usually take the form of privatization, reductions in expenditures, de-indexing and the like, a much more subtle process currently is underway in Canada. Two broad initiatives — Constitutional Change and Free Trade — of the Mulroney government seriously threaten the future of the Canadian Welfare State. The Welfare State is not the direct target in either of these initiatives but the implications, in the view of the authors, are profound. This article examines the question of constitutional reform and the consequences for Canadian social policy.     

Attitudes Toward Worker Co-Operatives in Queensland

In many parts of the world, and in at least three states in Australia, the last decade has seen a resurgence of interest in worker co-operatives as a response to high levels of unemployment. Significant determinants of the degree of success of worker co-operatives are the attitudes of powerful people and organisations in the community. This study documents the attitudes of politicians and political parties, public servants, representatives from business, trade unions, churches and cooperatives in Queensland. Despite the history of co-operatives and the persistent efforts of some informal groups to work co-operatively in Queensland, no strong commitment to the concept of worker co-operatives was found. Attitudes might best be described as varying between disinterested and hostile. Those committed to the development of worker co-operatives in Queensland will have to engage these critical attitudes as part of any development process.     

A Nonparametric Test for Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity: A Markov-Chain Approach

In this article we propose a nonparametric test for autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity based on finite-state Markov chains. A simple Monte Carlo experiment suggests that in finite samples it performs comparably to the Lagrange multiplier test under conditional normality and is superior for the t, lognormal, and exponential distributions. As an illustration, we apply both tests to Canadian/U.S. forward foreign exchange data.     

Consideration of Background Exposures in the Management of Hazardous Waste Sites: A New Approach to Risk Assessment

The current approach to health risk assessment of toxic waste sites in the U.S. may lead to considerable expenditure of resources without any meaningful reduction in population exposure. Risk assessment methods used generally ignore background exposures and consider only incremental risk estimates for maximally exposed individuals. Such risk estimates do not address true public health risks to which background exposures also contribute. The purpose of this paper is to recommend a new approach to risk assessment and risk management concerning toxic waste sites. Under this new approach, which we have called public health risk assessment, chemical substances would be classified into a level of concern based on the potential health risks associated with typical national and regional background exposures. Site assessment would then be based on the level of concern for the particular pollutants involved and the potential contribution of site contaminants to typical background human exposures. While various problems can be foreseen with this approach, the key advantage is that resources would be allocated to reduce the most important sources of human exposure, and site remediation decisions could be simplified by focussing on exposure assessment rather than questionable risk extrapolations.