Non‐Manipulable House Allocation With Rent Control

In many real‐life house allocation problems, rents are bounded from above by price ceilings imposed by a government or a local administration. This is known as rent control. Because some price equilibria may be disqualified given such restrictions, this paper proposes an alternative equilibrium concept, called rationing price equilibrium, tailored to capture the specific features of housing markets with rent control. An allocation rule that always selects a rationing price equilibrium is defined, and it is demonstrated to be constrained efficient and (group) non‐manipulable for “almost all” preference profiles. In its bounding cases, the rule reduces to a number of well‐known mechanisms from the matching literature. In this sense, the housing market with rent control investigated in this paper integrates several of the predominant matching models into a more general framework.     

The Creation of an Unsolicited Organization: Victim Support Sweden

The aim of this study is to understand how a new nationwide nonprofit organization, Victim Support Sweden (VSS), emerged in just a few years without public or political demand. In this qualitative study, we reconstruct and follow the first years of the organization. The study is based on a content analysis of VSS’s archival documents from 1988 to 1992 and retrospective interviews with key persons. The results acknowledge the power of entrepreneurs in establishing the organization. The entrepreneurs used their skills, engagement, and backgrounds to “make sense” of the organization, even though there were no crime victims calling for support. They combined logics from adjacent fields and created a specific new “victim support logic.” Thereafter, the logic spread quickly through the entrepreneurs’ lobbying of politicians and education of local victim support volunteers.     

Fairness,the veil of ignorance and social choice

A point of departure for this study is the recognition that various individuals may have different opinions about the exact form a social welfare function should have. To obtain some kind of amalgamation of differing individual social preferences, a modified version of the Rawlsian veil of ignorance is used and a definition of social efficiency suggested and analysed. A socially efficient state is defined by means of endogenous and individual veils of ignorance and, in addition, the Pareto principle. Efficiency may be described as a situation where individuals with similar social preferences constitute subsocieties in an optimal manner. Furthermore, a state is fair if it is (socially) efficient and equitable. An extension of the concept of fairness, called weak fairness, is also suggested. The analysis in this study does not presuppose any objective interpersonally comparable measure of utility.I would like to thank Professor Gevers, editor of this journal, and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on this paper. Support from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Tore Browaldh's foundation for Research and Education is gratefully acknowledged.     

Appropriate Terminology for the Alcohol,Eating, and Physical Activity Relationship

Abstract

“Drunkorexia” merges prior literature identifying positive relationships between (a) alcohol use/abuse and disordered eating/eating disorders, (b) alcohol use/abuse and physical activity, and (c) disordered eating/eating disorders and physical activity. The term, highlighting an individual's proactive and/or reactive weight management behaviors (ie, disordered eating, physical activity) in relation to alcohol consumption, originated in news editorials and has recently gained recognition via use in scholarly publications. The purpose of this commentary is to recommend discontinuing use of the term “drunkorexia” due to (a) inconsistent definitions of drunkorexia across investigations, (b) drunkorexia being a misnomer, and (c) the medical community's lack of recognition/acceptance of drunkorexia. Because the behaviors encompassed by drunkorexia are of concern to researchers and health professionals, future investigations are still warranted. However, until a medically recognized term/phrase is accepted, scholars should utilize more appropriate characterizations such as “weight-conscious drinkers,” “weight management behaviors of drinkers,” or “Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified” (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision).     

Heart Disease Risk Perception in College Men and Women

Abstract

The authors sought to assess the perception of risks for coronary heart disease (CHD) in college men and women. They surveyed 470 undergraduates from 2 major 4-year institutions who completed a questionnaire that measured perceived risks for heart disease. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents rated their risks as lower or much lower than those of their peers, indicating a clear optimistic bias. The research also revealed that the students who exercised regularly rated their risk of coronary disease lower than those who did not do so. In addition, women perceived a number of risk markers to be more potent or causative factors than men did. A significant number of participants did not comprehend commonly understood causal relationships associated with heart disease risk. The findings in this preliminary investigation suggest that college men and women do not accurately perceive their risks for developing heart disease.     

Metabolic Syndrome,Obesity, and Related Risk Factors Among College Men and Women

Abstract

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to characterize the prevalence of overweight/obesity, metabolic syndrome (MbS) and its criteria, and nutrient intakes of college-age men and women via a large-scale screening. Participants and Methods: From August 2005 to July 2008, 2,722 subjects were recruited for the ongoing, cross-sectional Young Adult Health Risk Screening Initiative project. Anthropometric, biochemical, clinical, and dietary data were collected. Results: Approximately one-half of men and more than one-quarter of women were overweight or obese. MbS was identified in 9.9% of men and 3.0% of women; 77% of men and 54% of women had at least 1 MbS criterion. Intakes of saturated fat, magnesium, and fiber, as well as body mass index and reported physical activity levels were related to MbS. Conclusions: Because of high rates of overweight/obesity and MbS, college-age adults are at risk for developing chronic diseases including diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease     

Market Segmentation in Scientific Publications: Research Patterns in American vs European Management Journals1

Ideal science should conform to certain criteria or goals, among them the goals of universalism and commonality. Realization of these goals may be limited, however, through the dividing up of researchers in terms of geographical borders. In this study the general hypothesis is tested that there is a segmentation of the society of management researchers into a North American (US) and a European (E) segment, a segmentation which is furthered by differences in incentive schemes and in paradigms. Four leading management journals from North America and from Europe, respectively, and the 242 articles they contained published in 1993 were selected to represent the different geographical segments. The results provide: support for the existence of two such segments; support for differences in incentive schemes influencing the articles; support for their being paradigm differences between the two segments; and support for a paradigm effect being stronger in US-journals than in E-journals, US-authors are more willing, however, to conform to the E-paradigm than vice versa. We argue for methodological pragmatism in order to reduce the presumed counter-productive effects of paradigmatic rigidity.     

Innovation in education: Technological economics

Technological change and innovation are vital parts of the economy. This paper concerns one particular attempt to study both the process of innovation itself and possible means of increasing its effectiveness: Technological Economics. Barriers to innovation, intellectual and organizational, are described from the experience at the University of Stirling.