The Catalonia survey: Personality and intelligence structure in a sample of compulsive gamblers

A sample of fifty-seven pathological gamblers and one hundred and fifteen controls (two per pathological gambler, matched as regards age and sex) was investigated. This sample received a complex battery of psychometric tests designed to evaluate two different axes: psychopathology and intelligence. The results obtained show that pathological gamblers have an unstable family and work background, that pathological gambling correlates with other addictions (alcohol, illness prone behavior, absenteeism, risk working, living alone and bereavement), that all the general and specific psychopathology vectors were significant in the addicts, and that the pathological gamblers' intelligence has characteristic factors.We thank Ricardo Cayuela (Line Staff, Barcelona) for his help in collecting the sample; Jordi Daura for data processing work; Mercedes Lemonier, psychologist, for her help in administering and correcting the tests; Consol Marina and Teresa Ruiz for their secretarial assistance and contact with the 172 study subjects.     

Sources of Family Violence

This paper suggests a direction for the exploration of the causes of family violence. Explanatory models offamily violence were considered in this regard, with the recommendation that a multi-determined model should be considered to ensure the most accurate explanation. We suggest that family violence will be best understood and prevented or alleviated, if a model is used that considers the interaction of structural violence and the personality features of all the family members.     

Associations Between Social Support Network Characteristics and Receipt of Emotional and Material Support Among a Sample of Male Sexual Minority Youths

Few studies have examined how social support network characteristics are related to perceived receipt of social support among male sexual minority youths. Using egocentric network data collected from a study of male sexual minority youths (N = 592), multivariable logistic regression analyses examined distinct associations between individual and social network characteristics with receipt of (1) emotional and (2) material support. In multivariable models, frequent communication and having friends in one's network yielded a twofold increase in the likelihood of receiving emotional support whereas frequent communication was associated with an almost threefold higher likelihood of perceived material support. Finally, greater internalized homophobia and personal experiences of gay-related stigma were inversely associated with perceived receipt of emotional and material support, respectively. Understanding the evolving social context and social interactions of this new generation of male sexual minority youths is warranted in order to understand the broader, contextual factors associated with their overall health and well-being.     

Religion als religiös-ethnische Gemeinschaft. Das Beispiel der Parsi Zoroastrier in Indien

This paper analyzes a form of religion characterized by a combination of religious and ethnic boundary-making. It discusses the typical properties of this form of religion and asks about its persistence under modern conditions. As an example, the community of the Parsi Zoroastrians in Mumbai is studied, an ethno-religious community that played a major role in the modernization of India and is also overproportionally confronted with the consequences of modernity. Despite the conflicts and challenges the traditional religious and ethnic boundaries of the community in question were facing in the recent past, it did not dissolve or change, but “centripetal” tendencies prevailed and the communal tradition was affirmed. The analysis of these developments allows understanding of the coupling of religion and ethnicity: The membership to such a religious community is primordialized and therefore beyond the reach of individual decisions. Further, because the boundaries are drawn by ethnic practice and not formal organization, institutions implementing collectively binding decisions are missing. This impossibility to cross or change the communal boundaries by individual or collective decision results in a form of community that is by and large impervious to changes occurring in the society surrounding it. The traditional ethnic and ritual practice remains the only legitimate communal point of reference and renders it stable even under conditions of modernity.     

Trade Liberalization and Labor Market Dynamics

This paper estimates a structural dynamic equilibrium model of the Brazilian labor market in order to study trade‐induced transitional dynamics. The model features a multi‐sector economy with overlapping generations, heterogeneous workers, endogenous accumulation of sector‐specific experience, and costly switching of sectors. The model's estimates yield median costs of mobility ranging from 1.4 to 2.7 times annual average wages, but a high dispersion of these costs across the population. In addition, sector‐specific experience is imperfectly transferable across sectors, leading to additional barriers to mobility. Using the estimated model for counterfactual trade liberalization experiments, the main findings are: (1) there is a large labor market response following trade liberalization but the transition may take several years; (2) potential aggregate welfare gains are significantly reduced due to the delayed adjustment; (3) trade‐induced welfare effects depend on initial sector of employment and on worker demographics such as age and education. The experiments also highlight the sensitivity of the transitional dynamics with respect to assumptions regarding the mobility of capital.     

Future life expectancy in Australia,Europe, Japan and North America

Human life expectancy has risen in most developed countries over the last century, causing the observed demographic shifts. Babel, Bomsdorf and Schmidt (forthcoming) introduce a stochastic mortality model using panel data procedures which distinguishes between a common time effect and a common age effect of mortality evolvement. Using this mortality model, the present paper provides forecasts of future life expectancy for 17 countries divided into 12 regions: Australia, Alps, Bene, Canada, England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Scandinavia and the United States of America. We consider (traditional) period life expectancies as well as cohort life expectancies, the latter being a more realistic approach but less common. It turns out that a continuing increase of life expectancy is expected in all considered countries. Further, we show that the probabilistic uncertainty of forecast life expectancies is different if either period life expectancies or cohort life expectancies are considered and, moreover, the uncertainty increases substantially if the error of parameter estimation is included.     

From reform to crisis: Argentina's pension system

Argentina underwent economic and social collapse in December 2001. The crisis brought the worst socioeconomic indicators in its history, and the pension system was not immune from this disaster, which was unparalleled in any middle-income developing country. In 1994 the pension system had been restructured, and was regarded as a viable model for other reforms elsewhere. This article discusses in general terms the features of the current pension scheme, the structural problems that were not resolved in the reform of 1994, the relation between that reform and the government's financial crisis, and the impact of the economic collapse on the pension system. Finally, it discusses some aspects of the challenges faced in building a system that is financially viable and has the potential to close the major gaps in coverage affecting both the working population and older persons.     

Computations of Signatures of Coherent Systems with Five Components

The signatures of coherent systems are useful tools to compute the system reliability functions, the system expected lifetimes and to compare different systems using stochastic orderings. It is well known that there exist 2, 5, and 20 different coherent systems with 2, 3, and 4 components, respectively. The signatures for these systems were given in Shaked and Suarez-Llorens (2003 Shaked , M. , Suarez-Llorens , A. ( 2003 ). On the comparison of reliability experiments based on the convolution order . Journal of the American Statistical Association 98 : 693 – 702 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In this article, we obtain an algorithm to compute all the coherent systems with n components and their signatures. Using this algorithm we show that there exist 180 coherent systems with 5 components and we compute their signatures.     

HUMAN CAPITAL IN GROWTH REGRESSIONS: HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE DOES DATA QUALITY MAKE?

We construct estimates of educational attainment for a sample of 21 OECD countries. Our series incorporate previously unexploited information and remove sharp breaks in the data that can only reflect changes in classification criteria. We then construct indicators of the information content of our estimates and a number of previously available data sets and examine their performance in several growth specifications. We find a clear positive correlation between data quality and the size and significance of human capital coefficients in growth regressions. Using an extension of the classical errors in variables model to correct for measurement error bias, we construct a set of meta‐estimates of the coefficient of years of schooling in an aggregate Cobb‐Douglas production function. Our results suggest that the value of this parameter is likely to be above 0.60. (JEL: O40, I20, O30, C19)