THE EFFECTS OF RACE OF THE INTERVIEWER ON MEASURES OF ELECTORAL PARTICIPATION BY BLACKS IN SRC NATIONAL ELECTION STUDIES

This study investigates the effect of the race of the intervieweron self-reported voting, actual voting, and political attitudesof black respondents, based on the SRC/CPS National ElectionStudies (NES) of 1964, 1976, 1978, 1980, and 1984. The impactof race of the interviewer in the NES surveys has not been analyzedpreviously. Over the course of the five studies, the proportionof black respondents who were interviewed by black interviewersdeclined sharply, particularly in the South. Almost all whiterespondents were interviewed by whites. Except for southern blacks in the pre-Voting Rights Act electionof 1964, black nonvoters in the presidential election surveys     

Gender, age, and the risk of violent death in Canada, 1950–1986

Cette communication traite des rapports entre l'âge, le sexe et les quatre principales causes de décès violent, soit l'homicide, le suicide, les accidents de la route et les ‘autres’ accidents. D'aucuns ont soutenu que ces quatre causes de décès violents sont l'expression d'une prédilection pour les comportements excessivement risqués. Par ailleurs, les partisans de la théorie de la convergence postulent que les écarts entre hommes et femmes en ce qui concerne les comportements à risque diminueront au fur et à mesure que la proportion des femmes au sein de la population active augmentera et que l'égalitarisme se répandra même si, traditionnellement, ce sont surtout les hommes qui sont portés à prendre des risques. L'analyse de données pour le Canada révèle que les taux de mortalité pour cause violente chez les hommes et les femmes ne se sont pas rapprochés ce qui ne tend guère à confirmer la théorie de la convergence. L'auteur note, par contre, que des changements importants se sont produits sur le plan des taux de mortalité par classe d'âge au cours de la période étudiée. This research examines the relationship between gender, age, and four principal causes of violent death - homicide, suicide, motor vehicle accidents, and ‘other’ accidents. It has been argued that these four causes of violent death result from a predilection to excessive risk-taking behaviour. It has also been suggested by convergence theorists that although risk-taking is traditionally a male dominated activity, with the increase in the proportion of women in the labour force, and increasing egalitarianism, the gap between male and female risk-taking should narrow. Using Canadian data to test this assumption, our findings reveal continuing differences between male and female rates of violent death, and little support for convergence theory. Significant changes are also noted in the pattern of age-specific mortality rates over the period of investigation.     

Issues in Career Decision Making for Workers With Developmental Disabilities

Persons with developmental disabilities are not usually given the opportunity to make meaningful choices concerning career options. There are, however, five types of partial involvement in career decision making they may experience. Counselors have considered client expressions of occupational preferences prior to deciding on appropriate vocational goals, have merely asked workers to sign a prepared rehabilitation plan, or—at the highest level of client participation—have involved workers and their families in team planning meetings. Several recommendations for both systemic and personal interventions to facilitate career decision-making by workers with developmental disabilities are discussed.     

Public Opinion, Demonstrations,and the Passage of Antidiscrimination Legislation

This paper considers the relationship of public opinion anddemonstrations to the passage of federal civil rights legislationsince World1 War II. Congress passed such legislation when substantialmajorities of the population favored equal rights and the proportionfavoring equal rights was clearly increasing. The evidence isconsistent with the notionthat civil rights demonstrations playeda significant role in the passage of the legislation. Both demonstrationsandchanges in public opinion appear to have been necessary componentsof the drive to provoke congressional action.     

THE DECLINE OF OVER-TIME COMPARABILITY IN THE NATIONAL ELECTION STUDIES

The National Election Studies conducted by the University ofMichigan Survey Research Center and Center for Political Studiesprovide the best data set for studying the political attitudesand behavior of the American electorate. The American NationalElection Studies Data Sourcebook, which complies NES surveyresults between 1952 and 1978, demonstrates the extent to whichthese surveys facilitate over-time analysis. This article usesthe Sourcebook as a baseline and shows that there has been asubstantial decline in the over-time comparability of itemsmeasuring public policy preferences and of items measuring supportfor the political system.     

THE EFFECT OF FISCAL POLICY ON THE SHORT-RUN RELATION BETWEEN NOMINAL INTEREST RATES AND INFLATION

This paper presents a simple empirical model of the relation between the inflation rate and the nominal interest rate. We show that previous results found in the literature may be attributed to specification error and that there are natural explanations for the observed signs of previous Fisher equation estimates. Our results show that fiscal policy shocks may generate short run negative correlations between changes in inflation and changes in the nominal interest rates. These results illustrate the difficulty in discussing the relation between inflation and nominal interest rates without conditioning the analysis with specific assumptions on the course of the economy.     

CORPORATE PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: CHAMPIONS, LEADERS, AND LAGGARDS

This paper examines the relative productivity growth performance of a sample of large UK firms between 1986 and 1995. We find that superior productivity growth, however measured, is not persistent—firms with high productivity growth rates relative to (say) the average in 1 yr are as likely as not to display below-average performance in the following year. Studying the determinants of the length of time for which firms outperform their peers, we find that innovative firms carrying low debt who are relatively free from financial distress are likely to display whatever persistently superior performance we observe in the data. ( JEL D24, O33, O4)     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Limited Reduction in Electronic Gaming Machine Availability on Perceived Gambling Behaviour and Objective Expenditure

In Australia, there is evidence to suggest that there is a positive association between the geographical accessibility of electronic gaming machines (EGMs) and the frequency and intensity of gambling in local areas. Evidence such as this has been used to introduce regulatory policies to reduce the geographical accessibility of EGMs through the reduction of gaming machine numbers in venues. The aim of this paper was to describe the process involved in the 15 per cent reduction in gaming machine numbers in the state of South Australia and the apparent effects on gaming revenue and gambling behaviours. Detailed analysis of objective EGM data as well as survey-based interviews with 400 regular EGM players provided only limited evidence of behavioural changes or significant reductions in gaming revenue. The paper describes the nature of industry responses to circumvent the effects of the reduction in machine numbers and the implications of these findings for future regulatory policies relating to EGM gambling.