Genetic Risk Factors and Offsetting Behavior: The Case of Skin Cancer

This paper analyzes the extent of offsetting behavior using survey data on risk beliefs about skin cancer and precautionary actions that people can take to avoid this disease. The perspective taken is that, at conception, people are "installed" with differing genetic characteristics, such as skin type and complexion, which affect the likelihood of contracting skin cancer. The main issue addressed deals with how people's risk beliefs respond to the "safety features" reflected in their own genetic characteristics. Empirical results presented suggest that precautions against solar radiation exposure are chosen so as to partially offset genetic skin cancer protection.     

Opinion Leadership and Television News Uses

Current Research: This section of POQ is reserved for brief reports of researchin progress, discussions of unsolved problems, methodologicalstudies, and public opinion data not extensively analyzed orinterpreted. Succinct case histories are welcomed, as well ashypotheses and insights that may be useful to other studentsof public opinion. Usually, material in this section is shorter,more informal, and more tentative than in preceding pages     

Estimation of Integrated Volatility in Continuous-Time Financial Models with Applications to Goodness-of-Fit Testing

Abstract.  Properties of a specification test for the parametric form of the variance function in diffusion processes are discussed. The test is based on the estimation of certain integrals of the volatility function. If the volatility function does not depend on the variable x it is known that the corresponding statistics have an asymptotic normal distribution. However, most models of mathematical finance use a volatility function which depends on the state x . In this paper we prove that in the general case, where σ depends also on x the estimates of integrals of the volatility converge stably in law to random variables with a non-standard limit distribution. The limit distribution depends on the diffusion process X _t itself and we use this result to develop a bootstrap test for the parametric form of the volatility function, which is consistent in the general diffusion model.     

TWO TO TANGO? GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE DECISIONS TO PUBLISH AND COAUTHOR

The existence of old boy networks has long been postulated as a possible explanation for the presence of gender differences in market outcomes but with little empirical support because of the difficulty of measuring network access. This article exploits the unique attributes of academic labor markets and detailed data on individuals and jobs for PhD economists over nearly four decades. The results suggest that networks impact the joint decision to publish and coauthor, that these network effects differ by gender, and that gender differences in network access change over time as women become more well represented in a profession. (JEL J44 , J77 , J24 )     

Research Note: The Social Behaviour of Injecting Drug Users

Correspondence to Professor J. G. Barber, School of Social Work, Newnham Drive, Newnham, P.O. Box 1214, Launceston, Tesmania 7250, Australia. Summary As part of a larger interview schedule conducted with 1245 injectingdrug users in Sydney, Australia, respondents were asked aboutthe degree to which their drug use is conducted within a groupcontext. They were also asked about the size of their user groupsand the extent of needle-sharing that occurs in the groups.Results revealed that injecting drug use was a social behaviourapproximately half of the time for the overall sample, but thatthere were statistically significant differences according tothe age, gender, and drug experience of the user. The studyalso found an alarming amount of needle-sharing among the sampleoverall. Females, younger users, and those less experiencedin injecting drug use were more inclined to inject in groups,while needle-sharing was more common among older and more experiencedusers.     

Historicizing 'the PostcoloniaT from Nineteenth-Century Peru

Abstract This paper deploys an Andean case to suggest that Latin America's nineteenth-century histories may usefully intervene in contemporary discussions of colonialism and the postcolonial. Such an intervention potentially pluralizes the 'abstract singularity' or 'universal historicism' of much contemporary postcolonial discourse produced from diasporic-metropolitan, South Asianist. and Africanist perspectives. The proposed move also brings history, particularly history thought from the predicament or location of subaltern Latin America, to the center of post-universal discussions that link postcolonialities to subaltern(ist) perspectives.     

Children At Risk: How different are children on Child Abuse Registers?

Mark Campbell. 64. Alberta Road. Bush Hill Park. Enfield EN1 1JE. Summary Following a review of the literature a checklist of 118 itemswhich have been associated with child abuse and neglect wasconstructed. This checklist was applied to twenty-five familiesattending a Local Authority's family centres. Nine of thesefamilies had children whose names were on the local Child AbuseRegister. The checklist scores of the families on the registerwere compared with the remainder. There was little differencein the factors studied between the two groups. This suggeststhat either there is little real difference between the characteristicsof abusing and non-abusing families, or that the process ofregistration is controlled by a series of events which are notsolely related to the characteristics of the families underconsideration.     

Conformity to AAPOR Standards in Newspaper Reporting of Public Opinion Polls

This study examines three newspapers' level of conformity toAAPOR standards of minimal disclosure in their reporting ofpublic opinion polls. Analysis of 116 polls published in theperiod of 1972–79 indicates a dramatic increase in thenumber of polls reported, but not in the level of conformityto AAPOR standards. Conformity is higher when the polls concernelections rather than nonelection topics, and when newspapersthemselves, rather than external sources, are the sources ofthe polls.