Contextual Determinants of Hopelessness: Investigating Socioeconomic Factors and Emotional Climates

Perceptions of the future are crucial components of individual well-being. Hopelessness, which is the sense that the future is a dead end, begins with the occurrence of negative life events and develops through the perception of consistent and pervasive negative outcomes. This study investigated the role of the socioeconomic aspects of the context and shared emotions (emotional climates) within a region in reducing or exacerbating hopelessness. Emotional climates have been defined as the emotional relationships constructed among members of a society, and they describe the environmental quality of a particular community. Multilevel modeling with individuals nested into regions (i.e., Swiss cantons) was used to explore the relationship between context and hopelessness. Data from the project “Vulnerability and Growth,” the Swiss Household Panel and official socioeconomic indicators were used. Spatial-weighting methods were applied to estimate depressive and optimistic emotional climates at the canton level. The results show that hopelessness is primarily affected by individual factors such as personality and life events. However, the analyses revealed that socioeconomic conditions and the optimistic and depressive climates that prevail in cantons also affected individuals’ perceptions of hopelessness. Individuals were more likely to feel hopeless in cantons with high unemployment rates and high levels of shared negative emotions. In contrast, positive emotional climates played a protective role against hopelessness. Acknowledgment of the influence of context on individuals’ perceptions of the future and the correlation of their states of anxiety and depression is pivotal for planning effective interventions to prevent depression.     

Forced Displacement,Migration, and Fertility in Burundi

The civil war in Burundi (1993–2005) led to the forced displacement of a large part of the population. This study aims to explore how that displacement affected fertility behavior. Using a nationally representative, retrospective survey on birth and residential histories of 4,523 Burundian women, we examine the impact of conflict-induced displacement on fertility. These unique data enable us to distinguish between remaining-in-place, voluntary migration, and forced displacement, as well as to distinguish between periods spent “on the move” versus periods spent in residence in the new site. Adopting a semiparametric regression model, we analyze both the probability of the first pregnancy and the subsequent spacing of higher order pregnancies. We find that the risk of a first pregnancy was higher in the year in which a woman was forcibly displaced and lower in the year a woman migrated voluntarily. Residency in a new site increased the risk of pregnancy for both.     

Can Target Costing and Whole Life Costing be Applied in the Construction Industry?: Evidence from Two Case Studies

Building on the results of a far‐reaching action research project we discuss an attempt to introduce target costing in the UK construction industry. After examining some of the issues facing the UK construction industry, we examine the case for using target costing as a way of supporting supply‐chain integration in view of an improvement of the level of profitability and quality of the industry. After presenting evidence from two pilot projects we propose some considerations on target costing and its applicability to the UK construction sector and derive directions for future research.     

Learning, Structural Instability, and Present Value Calculations

Present value calculations require predictions of cash flows both at near and distant future points in time. Such predictions are generally surrounded by considerable uncertainty and may critically depend on assumptions about parameter values as well as the form and stability of the data generating process underlying the cash flows. This paper presents new theoretical results for the existence of the infinite sum of discounted expected future values under uncertainty about the parameters characterizing the growth rate of the cash flow process. Furthermore, we explore the consequences for present values of relaxing the stability assumption in a way that allows for past and future breaks to the underlying cash flow process. We find that such breaks can lead to considerable changes in present values.     

Farm-household investment behaviour and the CAP decoupling: Methodological issues in assessing policy impacts

The objective of this paper is to compare and discuss the role of farm-household surveys and farm-household models in assessing the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy reforms, focusing in particular on the effects of 2003 decoupling on farm investment behaviour. The paper compares two specific approaches: (i) in-depth face-to-face interviews with farm-householders and (ii) mathematical programming models of individual farm-households. The effects of decoupling estimated by these two approaches coincide in a majority of cases, while the differences suggest relevant complementarities. Altogether the paper suggests a wider scope for using mixed methodologies in assessing CAP policy impacts.     

The impact of family owners’ monitoring on CEO turnover decisions and the role of trust

Even though there is clear evidence that large shareholders play an effective monitoring role over poorly-performing CEOs, the monitoring of family owners is yet quite unexplored. This study investigates the impact of family ownership on the CEO turnover-performance sensitivity, examining two potential factors that can affect the ability of the family owners in ensuring a prompt replacement of an underperforming CEO. First, we examine whether the monitoring of family owners is weakened by the existence of family ties with CEO. Second, we investigate whether the monitoring of family owners over professional CEOs is affected by the cultural propensity to trust or distrust a stranger. Our findings show that family owners are able to ensure a prompt replacement of an underperforming CEO only when the CEO is not a family member but rather an outside professional. Moreover, we find that the effectiveness of the family’s monitoring over professional CEO is weaker in environments characterized by the cultural propensity to distrust a stranger, rather than in contexts characterized by the cultural feeling to trust an outsider.