GOVERNMENT CONSUMPTION AND GROWTH

Using a simple stochastic growth model that nests both exogenous and endogenous growth, this paper shows that the growth rate should be mean stationary if growth is exogenous and difference stationary if growth is endogenous and any variable affecting investment is difference stationary. Permanent changes in the share of output devoted to government consumption should permanently affect the growth rate if and only if, growth is endogenous. I test these implications and find no evidence that growth is endogenous. Furthermore, even if growth is endogenous, the evidence indicates that its degree of endogeneity is likely to be small.     

CULTURAL DIVERSITY, DISCRIMINATION, AND ECONOMIC OUTCOMES: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Does cultural diversity affect economic outcomes? We develop an experimental framework that complements ongoing research on this question. We vary the ethnic mix of bargaining sessions to study intercultural interactions among members of U.S. Hispanic and Navajo cultures. We control for demographic differences in our subject pools and elicit beliefs directly in order to differentiate between statistical discrimination and preference‐based discrimination. Hispanic and Navajo subjects behave differently, and their behavior is affected by the ethnic composition of the experimental session. Our experimental framework can shed light on economic behavior and outcomes in societies of mixed ethnicity, race, and religion. (JEL C78, C90, Z10)     

The Referral Process: A Study of Working Relationships between Antenatal Clinic Nursing Staff and Hospital Social Workers and their impact on Asian Women

P. A. lles. Open Business School, Open University School of Management, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA. Summary A Study of an intervention in a Bradford hospital antenatalclinic designed to improve working relationships between nursingstaff and hospital social workers is described. A statisticalanalysis indicated that referral rates from the antenatal clinicwere rather low, especially for women of Asian origin. Questionnaireand interview survey data established the importance of nursingstaff perceptions of both the social work role and of Asianwomen clinic users as important determinants of whether nursesmade a social work referral. Survey feedback to social workstaff led to the physical placement of a social worker at theclinic booking-in sessions, in order to improve working relationshipsbetween nurses and social workers and thereby hopefully improvereferral rates. This intervention was relatively unsuccessful,and this relative failure is related to the literature on interorganizationaldevelopment and inter-agency team building in order to identifyfactors which might make for success in inter-agency collaborativeprojects.     

MAXIMIZING AND BIOLOGY

Metaphors of maximization are used repeatedly in biological discussions of evolution. To test whether the usefulness of a maximizing formulation, such as has been developed in economics and physics, is really borne out of sociobiology, some concrete demographic models have been taken from standard Lotka theory. They have been combined with scarcity of resources and the law of diminishing returns. It then turns out that the resulting coupled non-linear system of difference equations can only sometimes be given a maximizing interpretation. When this can be done, it is shown that no knowledge on the part of the participants or the observers of any preexisting problem to be solved is required. But, even when a maximizing interpretation is possible, it is shown that teleological concepts such as "egotism,""reciprocal altruism,""adaptation," or "fitness" are redundant ways of describing the positivistic fact that Nature's cookie sometimes crumbles in such a way as to make certain patterns recurrent and viable, while certain other patterns are only transiently persistent. Most important of all, for almost every choice of the parameters of a model no maximand can be found to be definable and whose solution constitutes the observable and testable behavior equations. Not only are the imperialist-economists pretensions debunked by this audit, but in addition various of the concepts of biologists such as R. A. Fisher are seen to be severely limited in scope and application.     

Certain Problems in Election Survey Methodology

This article describes some solutions to common problems inpre-election surveys drawing upon Gallup Poll experience. Ittouches upon problems in sampling, estimation, response validity,the undecided, measuring likelihood to vote, and measuring latetrends in voter preference. In conclusion it cites demonstrablegains in accuracy that have followed application of the solutionsdescribed.Paul Perry is Vice Chairman, The Gallup Organization,Inc.