Trends in marijuana and other illicit drug use among college students: results from 4 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study surveys: 1993-2001

The authors examined changes in college students' illicit drug use, patterns of polydrug use, and the relationship between students' ages of initiation of substance use and later use of marijuana and other illicit drugs between 1993 and 2001. Data from 119 US colleges and universities in the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study were used in the study. They found significant increases in percentages of students' use of marijuana in the past 30 days (from 13% to 17%), past year (from 23% to 30%), and lifetime (from 41% to 47%) between 1993 and 2001, with most of the increase occurring between 1993 and 1997. Past 30-day use of other illicit drugs increased from 4% to 7% and past year use increased from 11% to 14%. More than 98% of marijuana and other illicit drug users used another substance. They also either smoked, were binge drinkers, and/or were users of another illicit drug. Drug prevention programs should emphasize heavy alcohol use and smoking and should start when students are in high school or earlier.     

The demand for social interaction

In this paper social interaction is modeled as a consumer good. A model of household production is employed to derive the demand for social interaction. The model shows that the demand for social interaction is a function of its price, the price of other goods and income. The theory is tested with data from the General Social Survey and the results show that social interaction can be explained as the consequence of utility maximizing behavior by individuals. These results are in contrast to social capital theorists who have attributed these changes to factors such as increased community heterogeneity.     

全球化世界中的农村生计:重回阶级视角审视

文章认为，在现代全球化商品生产环境下，构建生产和再生产的社会关系从普遍意义上讲就是阶级关系，提出应重回阶级视角审视和分析农村贫困及其产生原因。在这一视角下对现代农地变迁进行探讨，并在提出当代农耕变化七个命题的基础上，识别了不同阶层关系下的动力机制和不同发展政策议题下隐含的阶级动力，并指出，现有关于改善农业生产、农村生计和福利的政策忽略了阶级不平等性，因此它们也忽略了贫困的根本社会基础以及不同干预对此带来的重要影响。     

Galbraith's theory of the mature corporation

The present paper deals with the Galbraithian theory of the managerial firm. Galbraith has stressed corporate size and has questioned the effectiveness of the market demand, technology and capital market constraints, which in conventional theory restrict the size of the firm.Galbraith represents the objectives of the corporation in terms of a conventional lexicographic objective function with some minimal level of profits (in terms of cash flow) being ranked the dominant objective. Also in his treatment of the corporate constraints, Galbraith does not move much beyond the current state of knowledge. The assumption of consumer sovereignty has long been relegated to the text-book literature, and the firm's control over the quality of its product (its price elasticity) has been generally recognized. Similarly, it has been known that the capital market is not perfect so that it is unlikely to constrain the expansion of the firm with some given investor determined earning constraint. In his attempt to show the technostructure's ability to plan the rate and the direction of the technological development Galbraith did not, however, meet with wide support from empirical research and analysis. It is extremely difficult to test the firm's control over its production technology, and while the few industry studies available can hardly be used to reject the Galbraithian position, there is not sufficient evidence to support a generalization of Galbraith's conjecture.While individually these constraints have been analyzed and discussed in the literature, Galbraith has combined these results and has been able to show that in the industrial state the qualitative laws of economic common sense do not hold. The importance of this conclusion is not only academic. Efforts to control corporate allocations through rate controls, antitrust litigation, and in other ways emanate from the conventional theory of firms and markets and do not fit the industrial state. In this state corporate size does matter and cannot be treated as random: The larger the corporation the more perfect the control it assumes over its environment and the higher the efficiency with which it plans its over-all operations.We acknowledge the helpful comments of a referee of this journal.     

A Pilot for Improving Depression Care on College Campuses: Results of the College Breakthrough Series–Depression (CBS-D) Project

Abstract

Objective: To implement a pilot quality improvement project for depression identification and treatment in college health. Participants: Eight college health center teams composed primarily of primary care and counseling service directors and clinicians. Methods: Chronic (Collaborative) Care Model (CCM) used with standardized screening to identify, treat, and track depressed students for 12 weeks to monitor predetermined process and clinical outcomes. Results: Of all students receiving primary medical care services between January 2007 and May 2008, 69% (n = 71,908) were screened for depression. A total of 801 depressed students were treated and tracked; most predetermined treatment process and clinical outcome targets were achieved. Conclusion: The CCM for depression shows promise for improving depression identification and care for college students.