Can Demographic Variables Predict Lottery and Pari-mutuel Losses? An Empirical Investigation

Using data from the 2004 and 2005 Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CES) comprising of 15,000 respondents, this study examines two research questions. The first of these considers the demographic differences between households whose members lose money playing the lottery and/or engaging in pari-mutuel betting and those whose members do not lose money participating in such activities. The second assesses demographic differences among households whose members lose money playing the lottery and/or engaging in pari-mutuel betting. It was found that respondents living in money-losing households are slightly older, better off financially, more likely to be married or divorced, more likely to live in a state with at least one legal casino and more likely to live in the Northeast than respondents living in non-money-losing households. Among those living in money-losing households, the least wealthy and African American respondents are more likely to lose a higher proportion of their respective incomes purchasing lottery tickets and engaging in pari-mutuel betting than wealthier respondents and whites.     

Good Job,Good Life? Working Conditions and Quality of Life in Europe

Cross-national comparisons generally show large differences in life satisfaction of individuals within and between European countries. This paper addresses the question of whether and how job quality and working conditions contribute to the quality of life of employed populations in nine strategically selected EU countries: Finland, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Using data from the European Quality of Life Survey 2003, we examine relationships between working conditions and satisfaction with life, as well as whether spillover or segmentation mechanisms better explain the link between work domain and overall life satisfaction. Results show that the level of life satisfaction varies significantly across countries, with higher quality of life in more affluent societies. However, the impact of working conditions on life satisfaction is stronger in Southern and Eastern European countries. Our study suggests that the issue of security, such as security of employment and pay which provides economic security, is the key element that in a straightforward manner affects people’s quality of life. Other working conditions, such as autonomy at work, good career prospects and an interesting job seem to translate into high job satisfaction, which in turn increases life satisfaction indirectly. In general, bad-quality jobs tend to be more ‘effective’ in worsening workers’ perception of their life conditions than good jobs are in improving their quality of life. We discuss the differences in job-related determinants of life satisfaction between the countries and consider theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

The De/Repoliticization of Cooperation and the Discourse of Conversion1

Abstract In recent years, several agricultural cooperatives have undergone significant restructuring. Some have been taken through a conversion process and have been reorganized as “investor-oriented firms” (IOFs). This phenomenon has attracted the interest of agricultural economists, but it has not been analyzed by sociologists. This article examines the discourse with which agricultural economists have approached the conversion issue. Drawing upon Fraser's discussion of “needs talk,” and inspired by Kloppenburg's analysis of the agricultural scientific complex, an argument is made that a reprivatization discourse of neoclassical economics has effectively depoliticized discussion about the future of cooperative enterprise. It is further argued that a repoliticization of cooperation is necessary in order to assure the protection of extra-economic values and oppositional discourse that is embedded in the historical development of cooperative practices and institutions. We focus here on the role of expert discourse as it relates to the reinvention of cooperative institutions in the agricultural economy. It is argued that this discourse would be improved by greater attention to historical and sociological forces, rather than remaining narrowly focused on economism.     

What is to be done about unemployment?

The rate of unemployment in Britain has been rising, and will doubtless continue to rise for the foreseeable future. On present trends any significant fall in the rate of unemployment appears improbable. We face the prospect of unemployment in the 1980s as severe as that experienced in the 1930s when only at its worst did the rate rise to the equivalent of nearly four million in today's terms. Against this background it is natural to despair of solutions. Certainly we cannot provide a policy which will produce an immediate return to ‘full employment’. but there are opportunities available for appreciably improving employment prospects. Particular policies are discussed and recommended in this paper, and the initiative has to be taken now.     

Lorenz non-consistent welfare and inequality measurement

Typical welfare and inequality measures are required to be Lorenz consistent which guarantees that inequality decreases and welfare increases as a result of a progressive transfer. We explore the implications for welfare and inequality measurement of substituting the weaker absolute differentials and deprivation quasi-orderings for the Lorenz quasi-ordering. Restricting attention to distributions of equal means, we show that the utilitarian model – the so-called expected utility model in the theory of risk – does not permit one to make a distinction between the views embedded in the differentials, deprivation and Lorenz quasi-orderings. In contrast it is possible within the dual model of M. Yaari (Econometrica 55 (1987), 99–115) to derive the restrictions to be placed on the weighting function which guarantee that the corresponding welfare orderings are consistent with the differentials and deprivation quasi-orderings respectively. Finally we drop the equal mean condition and indicate the implications of our approach for the absolute ethical inequality indices.     

Simulation for the complex Bingham distribution

The complex Bingham distribution is relevant for the shape analysis of landmark data in two dimensions. In this paper it is shown that the problem of simulating from this distribution reduces to simulation from a truncated multivariate exponential distribution. Several simulation methods are described and their efficiencies are compared.     

An attribution model of public discrimination towards persons with mental illness

In this study, we build on previous work by developing and estimating a model of the relationships between causal attributions (e.g., controllability, responsibility), familiarity with mental illness, dangerousness, emotional responses (e.g., pity, anger, fear), and helping and rejecting responses. Using survey data containing responses to hypothetical vignettes, we examine these relationships in a sample of 518 community college students. Consistent with attribution theory, causal attributions affect beliefs about persons' responsibility for causing their condition, beliefs which in turn lead to affective reactions, resulting in rejecting responses such as avoidance, coercion, segregation, and withholding help. However, consistent with a danger appraisal hypothesis, the effects of perceptions of dangerousness on helping and rejecting responses are unmediated by responsibility beliefs. Much of the dangerousness effects operate by increasing fear, a particularly strong predictor of support for coercive treatment. The results from this study also suggest that familiarity with mental illness reduces discriminatory responses.     

Courage in the Telling: The Critical Rise and Fall of David Leavitt

Openly gay American fiction writer David Leavitt, who had received positive reviews for his previous novels and short story collections, was sued in 1993 over his novel While England Sleeps by English poet Stephen Spender, who claimed that Leavitt plagiarized an episode from his own 1951 memoir World Within World, and grafted pornographic fantasies onto his biography. The accusations created a homophobic backlash against Leavitt, whose career has yet to recover fully. The result is that Leavitt, who had once been viewed as the one gay writer to find a footing in the mainstream literary community, is now firmly positioned in the gay literary subgenre and his work categorized as such. This essay examines book reviews in order to illustrate the difficulties that a writer who deals with gay life frankly and unapologetically finds in being accepted by the mainstream literary establishment, no matter how normal or assimilationist he or others might perceive his work to be.     

以"三个代表"构筑党的牢固基石--论面向21世纪的党的建设

江泽民同志关于"三个代表"的重要讲话为党在新时期的建设指明了方向.我们必须按照"三个代表"的要求加强党的政治、思想、作风、组织建设,从而提高党在新时期的领导水平和执政能力,以更好地迎接新世纪的各种挑战.