Nonresponse Bias for Attitude Questions

By separating respondents in a survey of farmers into thosewho refused to be interviewed and were converted, those whowere hard to reach, and those who gave no problems, we can estimatenonresponse bias from refusers not converted and respondentsnot reached. We show that for attitude questions the refusalbias is serious, ranging from 2 to 4 percent on many attitudes,and very often larger than the standard error in surveys ofordinary size.     

Intermediate Treatment and Adolescents' Perceptions of Social Workers

Summary This paper reports an exploratory study of perceptions of socialworkers. Information was obtained from adolescents involvedin intermediate treatment activity groups, their parents, andtheir caseworkers. The respondents were asked to complete acard-sort of adjectives which might describe the social workers.The results suggest that adolescents may have much more positiveperceptions of their social workers than either the parentsor social workers anticipated. Parents were also found to havepositive perceptions of their social workers, especially iftheir social worker also attended the activity groups with theiradolescent. Some of the variables which were seen to have influencedthe perceptions of the social workers are discussed.     

U.S. NARROW MONEY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

This study focuses on sweep programs in establishing conceptually appropriate and reliable measures of narrow money. We propose the aggregates M1RS = M1 + holdings of funds swept in retail sweep programs, and M1S = M1RS + holdings of funds swept in commercial demand deposit sweep programs. Based on quarterly observations from 1959:1–2002:4, cointegration tests indicate the existence of long-run relationships between the velocity of M1S and the corresponding opportunity cost of holding money, using either short-term or long-term interest rates. Tests find weaker evidence for M1RS and little support for MZM. (JEL E41 , G21 )     

Topic Variation in Levels of Agreement Between Parents and Adolescents

The object of this paper is to examine why agreement betweenparents and adolescents varies across topics in the way it doesand why discrepancies take the particular form they do. Datafrom a large-scale survey of adolescents matched with independentreports from their parents (N=3,988) have been used to showthat the level of dyadic agreement is influenced by the objectivityof the topic, its relation to social norms, and its salienceto the respondents. Agreement is high when the topic is objectiveand unambiguous, and when it does not activate problems of socialdesirability or personal threat. Topics which refer to recentevents produce slightly less agreement than less timebound topicswhen the topic is a potentially threatening one. The level ofagreement does not change if the referent is changed from theparent, to the student, or to those outside the dyad.     

Social Work Today

Correspondence to Chris Jones, Department of Social Work and Community Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2TQ Summary This paper argues that over the last fifteen years social workin Britain has undergone a significant transformation. Underincreasing attack, both in the media and from government andits new right ideologues, social work has faced an increasinglyimpoverished client group with fewer resources and growing uncertaintyabout its legitimate role. In this context, legislative, administrativeand financial changes have pushed social work into an increasinglyantagonistic relationship with clients and have left it demoralizedand without a clear sense of direction. The paper looks at theway this change has come about and argues that it has profoundimplications for the future of social work in the reduced welfarestate of the 1990s.