Too risk averse to purchase insurance?

This paper suggests a new explanation for the low level of annuitization, which is valid even if one assumes perfect markets. We show that, as soon there is a positive bequest motive, sufficiently risk averse individuals should not purchase annuities. A model calibration accounting for lifetime risk aversion generates a significantly smaller willingness-to-pay for annuities than the one generated by a standard time-additive model. Moreover, the calibration predicts that riskless savings finance one third of consumption, in line with empirical findings.     

Nonexclusive Competition in the Market for Lemons

A seller can trade an endowment of a perfectly divisible good, the quality of which she privately knows. Buyers compete by offering menus of nonexclusive contracts, so that the seller can privately trade with several buyers. In this setting, we show that an equilibrium exists under mild conditions and that aggregate equilibrium allocations are generically unique. Although the good for sale is divisible, in equilibrium the seller ends up trading her whole endowment or not trading at all. Trades take place at a price equal to the expected quality of the good, conditional on the seller being ready to trade at that price. Our model thus provides a novel strategic foundation for Akerlof's (1970) results. It also contrasts with competitive screening models in which contracts are assumed to be exclusive, as in Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976). Latent contracts that are issued but not traded in equilibrium play an important role in our analysis.     

Credibility and Inflation Expectations: What we can tell from seven emerging economies?

This study is a contribution to the literature concerning credibility and its effect on the distribution between forward-looking behavior and backward-looking behavior for formation of inflation expectations in the case of emerging economies. Based on data gathered from seven inflation targeting emerging economies (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, and Turkey), this paper analyzes how much the credibility associated with the inflation target contributes to anchoring expectations. The findings denote that although credibility is relevant to reduce inflation expectations, these countries present low monetary credibility and thus the backward-looking behavior is predominant for the formation of inflation expectations. Therefore, in order to improve the expectations channel of monetary policy in emerging economies, a policy of increasing transparency regarding inflation expectations is mandatory to the central banks’ task of anchoring inflation expectations.     

Positive and negative impacts of job loss on family life: the perceptions of Australian car workers

This article contributes to research on the impact of job loss on families. It is based on survey responses from 371 workers and in‐depth interviews with 39 of them about the family impacts of their job loss from the Mitsubishi car factory in Adelaide in 2004–2005. A majority of workers said family life had been affected by their job loss. Quantitative analysis identified four variables significantly associated with family impacts: marital status, children living at home, employment status and financial management. Qualitative responses showed the predominantly negative impacts were financial strain, loss of relationship stability and general stress and worry, although few faced catastrophic impacts from their job loss. However, in contrast to most previous research, the in‐depth interviews also revealed positive impacts from job loss, such as having more time at home and to spend with their family. We conclude that the existence of ongoing income support and public health insurance in Australia were important in avoiding catastrophic financial impacts on these workers and their families.     

Gender homophily from spatial behavior in a primary school: A sociometric study

We investigate gender homophily in the spatial proximity of children (6–12 years old) in a French primary school, using time-resolved data on face-to-face proximity recorded by means of wearable sensors. For strong ties, i.e., for pairs of children who interact more than a defined threshold, we find statistical evidence of gender preference that increases with grade. For weak ties, conversely, gender homophily is negatively correlated with grade for girls, and positively correlated with grade for boys. This different evolution with grade of weak and strong ties exposes a contrasted picture of gender homophily.     

Child Advocacy Center Based Group Treatment for Child Sexual Abuse

The present study examines initial symptom presentation among participants, outcomes, and social validity for a group treatment for child sexual abuse delivered at a child advocacy center. Participants were 97 children and their nonoffending caregivers who were referred to Project SAFE (Sexual Abuse Family Education), a standardized, 12-week cognitive-behavioral group treatment for families who have experienced child sexual abuse. Sixty-four percent of children presented with clinically significant symptoms on at least one measure with established clinical cutoffs. Caregivers of children who presented with clinically significant symptoms reported more distress about their competence as caregivers. Children who presented as subclinical were more likely to have experienced intrafamilial sexual abuse. Posttreatment results indicated significant improvements in functioning for all children who participated in treatment, with greater improvements reported for children who initially presented with clinically significant symptoms. Overall, the program was rated favorably on the posttreatment evaluation of social validity.     

Modernity as Masquerade: Representations of Modernity and Identity in Turkish Humour Magazines

This article aims at an alternative analysis of Turkish “modernity” by analysing the representations in a popular humour magazine. This study departs from the idea that representations in “low” discourses in Turkey can provide us with a text other than those of the official-dominant discourses in order to see how the certainty and positivity attributed to the modern identity in the dominant ideology is elaborated, demystified, and subverted as well as contained. Essentially, in the magazine, one of the main sources of humour derives from the clash of two main identities, between those who are modern, civil, urban, and effeminate and those who are traditional, uncivil, rural, and super-masculine. In the modern urban space, the modern and traditional become a stake in the power struggles between groups. This struggle operates through tastes, styles, and the body, which are at the same time means of identity construction as well as marks of identity. This duality and the concomitant dualities have come to structure all significatory practices to such an extent that everything gets symbolically overloaded by these series of dualities. In this struggle, the essence and appearance duality is the main framework within which Turkey's modernity and identity are represented. “Modernity” is signified as a masquerade, a play of appearances and a stake in the power struggles among groups rather than as a measure of progress. Bodies, sexuality, and masculinity become the nodal points of the expression of identity struggles, not only of social groups but also of the Turkish nation.     

Migrant encounters with neo-colonial masculinity: producing European sovereignty through emotions

The EU/European political community’s reaction to irregular migrants is ambivalent. On the one hand, migrants are produced as people to be pitied, rescued, and saved. On the other hand, they are feared, despised, and left to die. The article explores this ambivalence from a gender perspective and asks how sovereign masculinities are produced through emotional performances in the politics of migration control and management. It will be argued that emotions such as fear, disgust, and compassion are performed in the biopolitical security governance of irregular migration by producing a “socially abject” life as its object. This is a life that is to be killed, despised, and saved. Encounters between the irregular migrant and a European border security actor constitute a neo-colonial masculinity. During the moment of the encounter with the other’s life, sovereignty is produced through emotional performances of border security actors. The discussion concludes with illustrations of how racialized bodies and lives are produced as objects of fear, disgust, and compassion through European neo-colonial masculinity. The article speaks to the debates in the literature on masculinities in global politics, emotions and politics, and critical border studies.     

Initial assessment: A key stage in social work intervention

Abstract

This paper examines the intake practices in child protection in the New South Wales Department of Community Services as a case study of initial assessment in social work intervention. Data was collected in three Department of Community Services local offices where 39 practitioners were interviewed about their child protection work practices. An observational study of the workers' intake practices was also undertaken for a period of approximately 110 days. While official Department of Community Services policy and procedures provided the basis for intake practice, this research found that other important factors relating to the informant, the characteristics of the frontline worker, the workplace environment and the context of child protection practice influenced the intake process. The implications of the research findings for other social work practice settings are considered.     

Validation of the Flourishing Scale and Scale of Positive and Negative Experience in Portugal

The Flourishing Scale (FS) and the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) created by Diener et al. (Soc Indic Res 97:143–156, 2010) are instruments that assess psychological flourishing and feelings (positive and negative, and the difference between the two). In this study, the psychometric properties of both scales were explored by using two Portuguese samples (I: n = 734; II: n = 194). Reliability analysis and a multi-group confirmatory factorial analysis (MCFA) of both scales were performed. To examine the validity of FS and SPANE we analyzed their correlations with other well-being and happiness measures. Results showed that the Portuguese versions of both scales have good psychometric properties, and they also showed convergent validity. Results also demonstrated the unidimensional structure of the FS and a two-factor solution for the SPANE. The multi-group CFA of both scales evidenced an invariant structure. Both Portuguese versions of the scales behave consistently with the original and may be used in future studies of well-being.