Green giant or straw man? Environmental pressure and civil conflict, 1961–99

The proposition that environmental scarcity causes violent conflict attracts both popular and academic interest. Neomalthusian writers have developed theoretical arguments explaining this connection, and have conducted numerous case studies that seem to support the view that scarcity of biological assets such as land and other renewable resources causes conflict. So far there have been few systematic quantitative or comparative studies, and the few that exist have focused on particular forms of environmental degradation or on a small subset of resources, particularly mineral wealth. We test a more general argument about the effects of resource scarcity by examining the most widely-used measure of environmental sustainability: the ecological footprint. Contrary to neomalthusian thinking, we find that countries with a heavier footprint have a substantially greater chance of peace. Biocapacity and the ecological reserve also predict to peace, but these results are more fragile. Separate tests for smaller conflicts, for the post-Cold War period, and with additional control variables do not yield stronger support for the scarcity thesis. On the whole, the neomalthusian model of conflict receives little support from this analysis. We cannot exclude that erosion of the earth’s carrying capacity can increase conflict in the long run, but an empirical analysis with the ecological footprint measure does not provide any support for such a position.     

Personality factors predicting changes in shift work tolerance: A longitudinal study among nurses working rotating shifts

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between personality factors (hardiness, morningness, flexibility, and languidity) and longitudinal changes on different measures of shift work tolerance (fatigue, sleepiness, anxiety and depression) over one year among nurses working rotating shifts. A total of 642 female Norwegian nurses working in a rotating three-shift schedule participated in the study. The cohort was established by age-stratified selection among members of the Norwegian Nurses Association in 2008. Questionnaires were administered in 2008/2009 (T1) and in 2009/2010 (T2). The results showed that hardiness was negatively related to fatigue, anxiety and depression at T2 when controlling for the scores on these constructs at T1. Morningness was not related to any indicators of shift work tolerance at T2 when controlling for shift work tolerance at T1. Flexibility was negatively related to anxiety at T2 when controlling for anxiety at T1. Languidity was positively related to sleepiness and fatigue at T2 when controlling for sleepiness and fatigue at T1. The findings indicate that personality factors, especially hardiness, can predict changes related to shift work tolerance over a period of one year.     

Median split, k-group split, and optimality in continuous populations

Continuous populations are grouped in many social, economic, medical, or technical fields of research. However, by grouping them, a lot of information provided by the continuous population is lost. Especially the median split, which is still adopted by many researchers, and its generalization to an equiprobable k-group split lead to a high efficiency loss. Here, this loss of information is investigated by analytical and numerical analyses for some typical symmetric and skew population distributions often found in applications. Various distribution parameters, numbers of groups, and split methods are taken from theoretical considerations and real data sets. Losses sometimes in excess of 50% can be reduced by optimal grouping.     

Relative Deprivation and Intergroup Prejudice

Using three diverse European surveys, we test the relationship between relative deprivation (RD) and anti-immigrant prejudice. We find that both group relative deprivation (GRD) and individual relative deprivation (IRD) are found primarily among working-class respondents who are politically alienated. We also find that GRD, but not IRD, serves as a proximal correlate of prejudice. IRD's effects on prejudice are largely mediated through GRD. In addition, GRD partially mediates the effects of such distal predictors of prejudice as education and family income. Finally, blaming the victim mediates in part the GRD link with prejudice. These results lead to a socially situated path model of RD's effects on prejudice with public policy implications.     

Nonparametric Matching and Efficient Estimators of Homothetically Separable Functions

For vectors z and w and scalar v, let r(v, z, w) be a function that can be nonparametrically estimated consistently and asymptotically normally, such as a distribution, density, or conditional mean regression function. We provide consistent, asymptotically normal nonparametric estimators for the functions G and H, where r(v, z, w) = H[vG(z), w], and some related models. This framework encompasses homothetic and homothetically separable functions, and transformed partly additive models r(v, z, w) = h[v + g(z), w] for unknown functions gand h Such models reduce the curse of dimensionality, provide a natural generalization of linear index models, and are widely used in utility, production, and cost function applications. We also provide an estimator of Gthat is oracle efficient, achieving the same performance as an estimator based on local least squares when H is known.     

A WHITER SHADE OF PALE: ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGULATORY INSTRUMENTS

We consider an intertemporal policy game between changing governments that differ in their attitudes towards a particular feature of market outcomes, exemplified with environmental pollution. When in power, a government will choose policy instruments and set strictness of regulation with a view to influencing the policy of future, possibly different, governments. We demonstrate that a “brown” government favours emission quotas over effluent taxes, as quotas establish property rights that are costly to reverse. Conversely, a “green” government prefers to regulate by taxes, in order to limit the incentives of future brown governments to ease regulations. Strategic behaviour tends to exaggerate policy differences (making green governments greener and brown governments browner) compared to when such strategic considerations were not an issue. (JEL: D81, D9, H23, L51, Q28, Q38)     

Die Zwänge der Gruppe und die Grenzen professionellen Handelns

Like other methods in social, psychological and therapeutical work the professional identity of group dynamics trainers is directed towards freedom of will and autonomy of the clients. Nevertheless, matters of social control are already of importance in the work of Kurt Lewin, one of the founders of group dynamics, specially in his concept of reeducation. These ideas are complemented by the concepts of sociologist and groupanalysist Norbert Elias about the ambivalent effects of internalised social control. This leads to a short analysis of the changing mechanisms of social control in groups and organisations and its consequences for applied group dynamics and its professional standards.     

Explaining the demand for structured financial products: survey and field experiment evidence

In many countries structured investment products are popular among retail investors. We explain the demand for these products using unique field data where we let subjects freely design their “favorite” structured product. Results suggest that the supply with capital protected products (guarantee certificates) might indeed be demand-driven. This does not seem to be the case for other product categories where marketing and sales practices might play a more important role. In a survey among financial practitioners we find furthermore that a demand for capital protected products can be explained by loss aversion and saving motifs, e.g. for buying a house.