MONEY,OUTPUT, AND INFLATION IN THE LONGER TERM: MAJOR INDUSTRIAL COUNTRIES, 1880–2001

We study how fluctuations in money growth correlate with fluctuations in real output growth and inflation. Using band‐pass filters, we extract cycles from each time series that last 2–8 (business cycles) and 8–40 (longer‐term cycles) years. We employ annual data, 1880–2001 without gaps, for 11 industrial countries. Fluctuations in money growth do not play a systematic role at business cycle frequencies. However, money growth leads or affects contemporaneously inflation, but not real output growth, in the longer run. Also, formal break tests indicate no structural changes for the longer‐term money growth and inflation relationship, despite changes in policy regimes.(JEL E3)     

EFFECTS OF INTERVIEW MODE ON SELF-REPORTED DRUG USE

The effects of interview mode on 18- to 34-year-olds' self-reportedtobacco, alcohol, marijuna, and cocaine use were investigated.RDD telephone and personal drug use surveys of the state ofNew Jersey were conducted in 1986–87. In the personalinterview, respondents recorded their drug use on self-administratedanswer sheets. Compared to the area probability sample in thepersonal interview, RDD yielded a sample of blacks higher inincome and education, and more likely to be married and currentlyemployed; white SES was also higher in the telephone sample,but to a lesser degree than for blacks. Controlling for demographiccharacteristics and RDD's exclusion of non-telephone households,the telephone survey yielded significantly lower estimates ofblacks' alcohol consumption, and lifetime and recent marijuanause. Whites' alcohol consumption was slightly lower by telephone;otherwise, estimates of whites' use of the four substances werenearly identical in the two modes. Sample coverage, respondentdemographic characteristics, and racial matching of interviewerand respondent did not account for the significant mode differences.Characteristics of the interview situation itself, such as provisionof privacy in the self-administered format, may have influencedtendencies toward socially desirable responding to a threateningtopic such as drug use.     

Random Digit Dialing: A Comparison to Personal Surveys

This article reports on the replication of a large, personalinterview survey by means of a random digit dialing telephonesurvey. The personal interview survey was based on a complexprobability sample of Cincinnati households with the field workbeing done by the Census Bureau during early 1974. The telephonereplication was done immediately afterwards. The objective wasto test the accuracy and efficiency of random digit dialingtelephone surveys in comparison to the best traditional alternative.The samples were compared on demographic characteristics, measuresof crime victimization, and attitudes toward crime and the police.The results were very similar, indicating that random digitdialing is an accurate and cost-effective alternative to traditionalpersonal interviewing surveys for most research applications.     

Mass Communication and Voter Volatility

This study attempts to explicate empirically the concept ofvoter volatility and to test the assertion that the use of televisionfor political news contributes to this electoral instability.Voter volatility is defined as the level of unpredictabilityof election outcomes from traditional demographic and politicalparty variables. The effects of television and newspaper exposureon each of seven volatility dimensions were examined beforeand after the introduction of two control variables: educationand political interest. Neither the media exposure measuresnor the control variables predicted to all volatility dimensionsin a uniform way. Contrary to expectations, the dominant directionof television exposure's relationships was toward lower levelsof volatility. While newspaper use effects were largely in theexpected direction of lower volatility, reversals were shownhere as well. Education and political interest, traditionallythought to be stabilizing electoral forces, also revealed positiveas well as negative relationships to various volatility factors.