DOES SOCIAL CAPITAL PROMOTE SAFETY ON THE ROADS?

I present evidence that social capital reduces traffic accidents and related death and injury, using data from a 10‐year panel of 48 U.S. states. The econometric challenge is to distinguish the causal effects of social capital from bias resulting from its correlation with unobservable characteristics by state that influence road risks. I accomplish this by employing snow depth as an instrument, and by restricting attention to summertime accidents. My results show that social capital has a statistically significant and sizable negative effect on crashes, traffic fatalities, serious traffic injuries, and pedestrian fatalities that holds up across a range of specifications. (JEL R41, I18, Z13)     

把逃犯"钉"在地图上

洛杉矶不仅是美国的"汽车首都",更是以警匪追逐大战闻名于世.电影场景一样的追逐场面固然精彩刺激,但由此造成的伤亡和损失确实不容乐观.美国的StarChase公司最近提出了一项相对安全的抓逃方案--发射一个GPS定位系统,击中并粘附在逃跑的车辆上.警官们可以在电脑屏幕上轻松了解逃跑车辆的动向,然后从容地布置警力在适当的时间和地点守株待兔.     

Attitudes of special foster parents and residential staff towards children

This paper compares the attitudes of special foster parents and residential staff towards children in their care. The exercise was carried out as part of a comparative study of care practice in ‘special’ foster homes (accommodating children traditionally considered too old or difficult for fostering) and ordinary community or children's homes. Overall, care practice in the foster homes was significantly more child oriented than in the children's homes. This finding cannot, however, be explained in terms of attitudinal differences between foster parents and staff. Staff attitudes generally appeared more conducive to the provision of child oriented care than those of the foster parents.     

Gender and performance of world-class athletes

SUMMARY The athletic performances of men and women are compared based on worldrecord times for various distance events in swimming, running and skating. The ratio of the times of women to those of men against years is modelled through a modified exponential distribution. The rate of improvement is found to be higher for women in the three sports. Law-like relationships are observed for world-record times against distance. Although men's absolute performance is generally superior, the disparity diminishes with increasing distance.     

Children in Need: Definition, Identification and Support

Correspondence to Dr Matthew Colton, Department of Social Policy and Applied Social Studies, University of Wales, Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP. Summary This paper examines the way in which local authorities operationalizethe concept of need contained in Part III of the Children Act1989. Findings from an empirical study conducted by the authorssuggest that difficulties are being encountered in operationalizingneed, and that these difficulties stem from an inherent contradictionbetween the all-embracing spirit of the Act and current politicaland social realities. The paper identifies key dilemmas in theimplementation of Part III of the Children Act and highlightsconflicts facing social services departments.     

THE ECONOMICS OF JOB SEARCH: A COMMENT

This paper expands the conventional model of job search by relaxing the assumption that uncertainty about the job offer disappears once search is completed. Instead, we hypothesize that uncertainty continues even after search since the job offer contains not only an observable money wage but also an unobservable job consumption component. We show that the reservation wage decision rule is robust even under these very general conditions. The paper also analyzes the effect of this type of residual uncertainty on the level of the reservation wage.     

Care fit for children

SUMMARY. Following on from articles in Children and Society (3.1), this article discusses issues raised by recent research on foster and residential care practices, and centres on the question of whether children's homes should seek to provide child oriented day-to-day care. The role performed by children's homes in substitute child care is considered in order to highlight the dangers inherent in the notion that it may be appropriate to trade off child oriented care for the rather abstract notion of the ‘wider function’ of children's homes     

A LABORATORY STUDY OF AUCTIONS WITH A BUY PRICE

We present a series of laboratory experiments that examine auctions with buy prices, which are prices that allow a bidder to stop the auction and buy the item immediately. Two types of buy prices are considered, one that is available throughout the auction and one that disappears with an initial bid. Both are evaluated with and without proxy bidding. We find that the use of a buy price increases revenue, early bidding, and auction efficiency. Differences between outcomes in auctions with permanent and temporary buy prices are consistent with the observed choices in auction design made by online auction sites. (JEL C90, D44, C70, L81)     

Foster and Residential Care Practices Compared

Correspondence to Dr Matthew Colton, Department of Social and Administrative Studies, Barnett House, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2ER Summary This paper reports what is, remarkably, the first systematic,in-depth, comparative study of foster and residential care practices.The overall research objectives were: (1) to delineate and comparecare practice in special foster homes (i.e., homes accommodatingchildren traditionally considered too old or disturbed for fosterplacement) and Children's Homes for older children in localauthority care; and (2) if possible, ascertain whether the responsesmanifested by children in such settings can be related to thecare practices they experience. The approach adopted was essentially sociological. A lengthyperiod of field-work in two local authorities featured the useof a range of research instruments and included the collectionof data on the following: the management of recurrent–mainlydaily–social events; children's community contacts; theprovision of physical amenities; the controls and sanctionsused by caretakers vis-à-vis children; the roles of caretakersand their behaviour and attitudes towards children; and thecharacteristics of children, their behaviour towards caretakers,perceptions of their social environments and progress duringplacement. Quantitative methods were used in data analysis becausethey provide a useful guide to the import of observed differencesbetween foster homes and Children's Homes. Care practice in the foster homes was, overall, significantlymore child-oriented than in the Children's Homes. Moreover,the responses of residential children appeared to fall shortof offering justification for the ways that the lives of suchchildren seemed to differ from those of foster children.