Lottery winners: The myth and reality

This paper is based on a study of 576 lottery winners from 12 states. Respondents to a mailed questionnaire included winners of sums ranging from $50,000 to millions. The data indicate that popular myths and stereotypes about winners were inaccurate. Specifically, winners came from various education and employment backgrounds and they were clustered in the higher income categories than the general population indicating that lotteries might not be as regressive as popularly believed. Winners were older than the general population and more often male (60 versus 40%). There was significant association between the amount a person won and his or her work behavior. Individuals with psychologically and financially rewarding jobs continued working regardless of the amount they won, while people who worked in low paying semi-skilled and unskilled jobs were far more likely to quit the labor force. Contrary to popular beliefs, winners did not engage in lavish spending sprees and instead gave large amounts of their winnings to their children and their churches. The most common expenditures were for houses, automobiles and trips. It was found that overall, winners were well-adjusterd, secure and generally happy from the experience.This study was funded by a grant from the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies in White Plains, New York.     

Resumenes

Spanish translations by Elena Immamb?cous.     

Preparation,support, and satisfaction of adoptive families in agency and independent adoptions

Information gathered from over 1000 adoptions in the fourth year of a prospective study of adoptions finds satisfaction levels to be quite high, with those families adopting through private agencies to feel best prepared and satisfied. Differences by adoption auspice are detailed and discussed.The senior authors are Co-Principal Investigators of the California Long-range Adoption Study. This research was supported by the Child Welfare Research Center, Family Welfare Research Group, University of California at Berkeley, through a grant from the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services. The authors wish to thank the families for their participation. Please address correspondence to Mary Berry at the Center for Child Welfare, UTA School of Social Work, P.O. Box 19129, Arlington, Texas 76019.     

Opportunity sets and individual well-being

 An opportunity set ranking rule assigns an ordering of opportunity sets to each individual utility function (defined on the universal set of alternatives) within the domain of this rule. Using an axiomatic approach, this paper characterizes a general class of opportunity set ranking rules which are based on the utilities associated with the elements of an opportunity set. It is argued that the addition of an alternative to a given opportunity set is not necessarily desirable in terms of overall well-being, and this position is reflected in replacing a commonly used monotonicity axiom with an alternative condition. Received: 15 May 1995/Accepted: 14 December 1995