Attitudes toward gambling among adolescents

It is well documented that attitudes toward gambling are a good predictor of problem gambling during adolescence. However, so far, little is known about what factors are associated with adolescents' gambling attitudes. This study used cross-sectional data (N = 2055, response rate 70.4%) from a representative sample of 17-year-olds in Norway to investigate the relationship between demographic, personality, motivational and social variables and gambling attitudes. Overall, adolescents' attitudes toward gambling were slightly negative. A multivariate analysis revealed that more favourable attitudes toward gambling were most strongly associated with family/peer approval of gambling. In addition, significant associations were found for gender (males more favourable); Sensation Seeking (positive association); Agreeableness (negative association); and family/peer gambling history (positive association for lifetime gambling, negative association for problematic gambling). Although a variety of individual-level and social factors are associated with more favourable attitudes toward gambling, it appears that family and peer approval of gambling are most important.     

Judicial opportunities and the death of SHAC: legal repression along a cycle of contention

Focusing on the British animal rights campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, this article investigates how changing judicial opportunities effectively cause the demobilization of a social movement campaign, explaining the central role of law and criminal justice in movement repression. The study identifies four forms of legal repression arising in response to the UK organization Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty: elite-initiated protest control, targeted criminalization, leadership decapitation and extended incapacitation. The analysis demonstrates the need to widen repression research beyond the policing of protest events, to cover how social movement activists are controlled after arrest. It concludes by arguing for the inclusion of a stage-dimension in repression research to better grasp the crucial role of private elites in the initiation of repression. The study builds on qualitative data from Britain, obtained by participant observation, trial observation and interviews, covering both protestors and their adversaries.     

Divorce and Remarriage in Norway: A Prospective Cohort Study Between 1981 and 2013

ABSTRACT

As the population of divorced adults has increased, the number of remarriages has followed. Previous research has mainly compared first-time marriages with remarriages, whereas this study analyzes 4 different constellations of marriages: first time for both spouses, first time for one and second time for the other, second time for both, and third time or more for at least one member of the couple. The analyses are based on data from all Norwegian 2-sex marriages formed from 1981 to 2013, for a total of more than 770,000 marriages. The findings indicate that remarried couples are considerably more prone to divorce compared to couples married for the first time, particularly marriages in which both partners are remarried and marriages in which at least one of the partners is married for the third time or more. The differences between the various groups of marriages decline with a longer duration of the marriage.     

Residential Location,Job Location,and Wages: Theory and Empirics

I develop a stylized partial on‐the‐job equilibrium search model that incorporates a spatial dimension. Workers reside on a circle and can move at a cost. Each point on the circle has a wage distribution. Implications about wages and job mobility are drawn from the model and tested on Danish matched employer–employee data. The model predictions hold true. I find that workers working farther away from their residence earn higher wages. When a worker is making a job‐to‐job transition where he/she changes workplace location he/she experiences a higher wage change than a worker making a job‐to‐job transition without changing workplace location. However, workers making a job‐to‐job transition that makes the workplace location closer to the residence experience a wage drop. Furthermore, low‐wage workers and workers with high transportation costs are more likely to make job‐to‐job transitions, but also residential moves.     

ANTI‐POACHING AGREEMENTS IN LABOR MARKETS

We analyze competition for experienced workers among wage‐setting firms. The firms can design poaching offers with higher wages to workers who switch from rivals relative to wages paid to their own existing employees. We evaluate the profit and welfare effects of anti‐poaching agreements that eliminate poaching offers as a recruiting method. Anti‐poaching agreements increase industry profits, whereas workers are made worse off. We show that the effects of anti‐poaching agreements on total welfare are determined by the magnitude of workers' switching costs and the productivity change associated with switching employers. (JEL L41, L40, J42)     

Worker and Firm Heterogeneity in Wage Growth: An AKM Approach

This paper estimates a wage growth equation containing human capital variables known from the traditional Mincerian wage equation with year, worker and firm fixed effects included as well. The paper thus contributes further to the large empirical literature on unobserved heterogeneity following the work of Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis [1999; Econometrica 67(2): 251–333]. Our main contribution is to extend the analysis from wage levels to wage growth. The specification enables us to estimate the individual‐specific and firm‐specific fixed effects and their degree of explanation on wage growth. The analysis is conducted using Danish longitudinal matched employer–employee data from 1980 to 2006. We find that the worker fixed effect dominates both the firm fixed effect and the effect of the observed covariates. Worker effects are estimated to explain 7–12 per cent of the variance in wage growth whereas firm effects are estimated to explain 4–10 per cent. We furthermore find a negative correlation between the worker and firm effects, as do nearly all authors examining wage level equations.     

The long-term effect of childhood poverty

This paper uses variation among siblings to identify the consequences of childhood poverty on both labour and marriage market outcomes. In the labour market, individuals who experienced childhood poverty are found to have lower earnings and lower labour market attachment and to have worse jobs both vertically in terms of low-paying industries and horizontally in terms of job positions. In the marriage market, childhood poverty is found to have negative consequences for the probability of marriage, cohabitation, and having children around the age of 30. The effect sizes are found to exhibit an inverse u-shape in the age of the child, peaking during adolescence. Results on educational choices suggest that the mechanisms behind these results can be that childhood poverty affects the skill formation, networks, and decision making of the child.     

Prevalence and Correlates of Problem Gambling in a Representative Sample of Norwegian 17-Year-Olds

We report data collected in a representative sample of 17-year-old Norwegians to investigate prevalence rates of non-problem, risk, and problem gambling, as measured by the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). In addition, we explored the importance of demographic, personality, motivational, social, and health variables explaining variance in adolescent gambling. Prevalence rates of risk and problem gambling were low but similar to those found in previous studies outside of Norway using the PGSI in adolescent samples. With regard to the relative importance of the various covariates, we found that motivational variables (future gambling intentions, attitudes toward gambling, and gambling-related knowledge) distinguished best between those who did not gamble, non-problem gamblers, and risk and problem gamblers. Furthermore, social variables were important covariates of adolescent gambling; significant associations were found for family and friends’ approval of gambling, parental monitoring, father’s level of education, and having relatives or friends with a history of a gambling disorder. We discuss possible reasons for differences between the covariates with regard to their importance for explaining adolescent gambling and address implications for future research.     

Does Greater Labour Market Flexibility Induce Greater Levels of Inequality within Europe?

Economic and social inequality is often thought to be contingent on varying degrees of labour market flexibility. This paper investigates this causal nexus and tests the correlation between flexibility and inequality for the European labour market by using evidence from European labour market institutions and data from several sources of inequality measures. We find that, on a pan-European level, there is overwhelming evidence that inequality levels do not fluctuate with varying degrees of labour market flexibility. On a country-specific level, we find several labour market characteristics that promote flexibility and equality. They include decentralized labour market institutions, low utilization of temporary work, and redundancy systems that unite low employment protection with high economic and social protection. Taken together, these factors enable the European labour market to buck the stylized perception that high labour market flexibility is coupled with high inequality.     

Simulating competing cointegration tests in a bivariate system

In this paper, we consider the size and power of a set of cointegration tests in a number of Monte Carlo simulations. The behaviour of the competing methods is investigated in diff erent situations, including diff erent levels of variance and correlation in the error processes. The impact of violations of the common factor restriction (CFR) implied by the Engle-Granger framework is studied in these situations. The reactions to changes in the CFR condition depend on the error correlation. When the correlation is non-positive, the power increases with increasing CFR violations for the error correction model (ECM) test, while the other tests react in the opposite direction. We also note the reaction to diff erences in the error variances in the data-generating process. For positive correlation and equal variances, the reaction to changes in the CFR violations diff ers somewhat between the tests. We conclude that the ECM and the Z-tests show the best performance over diff erent parameter combinations. In most situations the ECM is best. Therefore, if we had to recommend a unit root test, it would be the ECM, especially for small samples. However, we do not think that one should use just one test, but two or more. Of course, the portfolio of tests we have considered here only represents a subset of the possible tests.