Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditures by Russian Consumers with Different Health Status

The paper uses the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey 2003 database to study the types of official and shadow out-of-pocket health care expenditures by consumers with high and low health status. The analysis shows that the inability of less healthy people to pay unofficially for more effective outpatient care results in their higher demand for official inpatient and outpatient treatment. This pattern creates the need to sustain excessive inpatient facilities and slows down health care restructuring. Yet, since the state is incapable of fulfilling its obligations for providing free health care and meet the current demand, in inpatient institutions all consumers, and less healthy ones in particular, spend considerable sums on drugs, even though the latter are guaranteed to be free. Consequently, the current Russian health system itself leads to replacing outpatient with inpatient care, which is more costly both for the patients and for the state.      

THE EURO AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF INTERNATIONAL DEBT FLOWS

Greater financial integration between core and peripheral European Monetary Union (EMU) members not only had an effect on both sets of countries but also spilled over beyond the euro area. Lower interest rates allowed peripheral countries to run bigger deficits, which inflated their economies by allowing credit booms. Core EMU countries took on extra foreign leverage to expose themselves to the peripherals. We present a stylized model that illustrates possible mechanisms for these developments. We then analyze the geography of international debt flows using multiple data sources and provide evidence that after the euro's introduction, core EMU countries increased their borrowing from outside of the EMU and their lending to the EMU periphery. Moreover, we present evidence that large core EMU banks' lending to periphery borrowers was linked to their borrowing from outside of the euro area.     

Sociopolitical control among parents of school-age children in a post-socialist city

This study explored sociopolitical control among parents of school-age children in a suburban municipality of a large post-socialist city. The participants completed a questionnaire that asked them about their sense of sociopolitical control in terms of leadership competence and policy control, as well as about other aspects of their lives, including mental health. The findings show that the participants have a greater sense of sociopolitical control in terms of leadership competence than in terms of policy control. Moreover, the findings show that voting in the last presidential election and degree of depression influenced negatively the sense of leadership competence among parti-cipants. Within the context of empowerment, the findings have implications for practice which focuses on consumer-based activities that allow citizens more leadership opportunities and control at the local level. Future research is needed that replicates this study, taking into account its limitations. In order for citizens in post-socialist countries to create civil societies at the same time that they implement market economies, they must be empowered. Some evidence suggests that several factors, including mental health problems, may influence the sense of empowerment among citizens in post-socialist coun-tries. Within the context of empowerment, this study examines sociopolitical control among citizens in a suburb of a large post-socialist city. The findings in the study have implications for social welfare practice in this city and for future research.     

Lyceum 1511 and Mountain Crest High School: An International Exchange Program Reveals Educational Contrasts

Abstract

Mexico. The Story of Two Americas. By Stuart Chase, in collaboration with Marian Tyler. Illustrated by Diego Rivera. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1931. 338 pp. $3.00. Reviewed by Milton W. Hamilton.

Mexican Maze. By Carleton Beals. With Illustrations by Diego Rivera. J. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1931. 370 pp. $3.00. Reviewed by Milton W. Hamilton.

The United States and Disarmament. By Benjamin H. Williams. Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1931. 361 pp. Reviewed by Milton W. Hamilton.

Bolívar. A Contribution to the study of his political Ideas. By C. Parra-Perez. Translated by N. Andrew N. Cleven. Pittsburgh Printing Company, Pittsburgh, 1930. 198 pp. $3. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

The Black Napoleon. The Story of Toussaint Louverture. By Percy Waxman. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1931. 298 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

Coronado's Children. Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest. By J. Frank Dobie. The Southwest Press, Dallas, 1930. xv, 367 pp. $3. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

Dominicans in Early Florida. By The Very Rev. V. F. O'Daniel. The United States Catholic Historical Society, New York, 1930. xiii, 230 pp. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

Historia de la Guerra del Guano y el Salitre o Guerra del Pacifico entre Chile, Bolivia y el Peru. Vol. I. Causas y origenes de la Guerra Naval. By Jacinto Lopez. De Laisne and Rossboro, Inc., New York, 1931. 413 pp. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

A History of the United States Since the Civil War, Volume IV. By Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1931. 718 pp. $5.25. Reviewed by Elmer Ellis.

Old France. By John G. Coulter; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1931, 600 pp. Français et Allemands. By Louis Reynaud; Paris: A. Fayard et Cie, 1931, 387 pp. Reviewed by Jacques Barzun.

Twelve Portraits of the French Revolution. By Henri Béraud. Translated by Madeleine Boyd. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1928. 831. pp. Reviewed by C. R. Hall

The Second Republic and Napoleon III. By René Arnaud. New York: Putnam's Sons, 1931. Pp. vii, 436. $4.50. Reviewed by Shepard B. Clough.

Prologue to Mexico. The story of a Search for a Place. By Marian Storm. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1931. xii, 328 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

Mexico. A Study of Two Americas. By Stuart Chase. The Macraillan Company, New York, 1931. vii, 338 pp. $3.00. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

The Genius of Mexico. Lectures Delivered before the Fifth Seminar in Mexico, 1930. Edited by Hubert C. Herring and Katharine Terrill. The Committee on Cultural Relations with Latin America, New York, 1931, ix, 334 pp. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

Liberalism in Mexico, 1857–1929. By Wilfred Hardy Callcott. Stanford University Press, 1931. xiii, 410 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

Mexico and its Heritage. By Ernest Gruening. The Century Company, New York, 1930. xix, 728 pp. $3.00. Reviewed by A. Curtis Wilgus.

Hero Stories for Children. By Earl A. Collins and Lyda Hale. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1931. 264 pp. Reviewed by

The First Three Hundred Years in America. By Marion G. Clark and Wilbur Fisk Gordy. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1931. 436 pp. Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara.

Young America. By Charles F. Horne and Olive Bucks. Charles E. Merrill Co., New York, 1930. 328 pp. Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara.     

The living arrangements of older immigrants from the former Soviet Union: A comparison of Israel and the United States

With the unprecedented emigration from the former Soviet Union (FSU) during the 1990s as context, this study described the living arrangements of older FSU immigrants living in Israel and the US. Living arrangement choices represented an important strategy for coping with the migration process. Census data from Israel and the US were employed to examine the relationships among living arrangements (independent households, multigenerational households, and extended households) and personal characteristics, including duration of residence, Jewish identity, education, and home ownership. Results showed that the less time older immigrants lived in the host country, the more likely they lived in a multigenerational or extended household. The residency length and household relationship was stronger in Israel than in the US. Also, older FSU immigrants who owned their own home and who lived in a metropolitan area were more likely to live in a complex household than in an independent household. We discussed how the economic and social environments in each country contributed to the variability in living arrangement options among these older immigrants.     

Modeling above-ground carbon storage: a remote sensing approach to derive individual tree species information in urban settings

Vegetation has gained importance in respective debates about climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities. Although recently developed remote sensing techniques provide necessary city-wide information, a sufficient and consistent city-wide information of relevant urban ecosystem services, such as carbon emissions offset, does not exist. This study uses city-wide, high-resolution, and remotely sensed data to derive individual tree species information and to estimate the above-ground carbon storage of urban forests in Berlin, Germany. The variance of tree biomass was estimated using allometric equations that contained different levels of detail regarding the tree species found in this study of 700 km², which had a tree canopy of 213 km². The average tree density was 65 trees/ha per unit of tree cover and a range from 10 to 40 trees/ha for densely urban land cover. City-wide estimates of the above-ground carbon storage ranged between 6.34 and 7.69 tC/ha per unit of land cover, depending on the level of tree species information used. Equations that did not use individually localized tree species information undervalued the total amount of urban forest carbon storage by up to 15 %. Equations using a generalized estimate of dominant tree species information provided rather precise city-wide carbon estimates. Concerning differences within a densely built area per unit of land cover approaches using individually localized tree species information prevented underestimation of mid-range carbon density areas (10–20 tC/ha), which were actually up to 8.4 % higher, and prevented overestimation of very low carbon density areas (0–5 tC/ha), which were actually up to 11.4 % lower. Park-like areas showed 10 to 30 tC/ha, whereas land cover of very high carbon density (40–80 tC/ha) mostly consisted of mixed peri-urban forest stands. Thus, this approach, which uses widely accessible and remotely sensed data, can help to improve the consistency of forest carbon estimates in cities.     

Subjective well-being among Russian students

The subjective well-being of 116 Soviet students at two locations in the Soviet Union was assessed with traditional self-report measures and with an event memory task. Both measures showed the Soviet students to be low in well-being compared to students in most of 38 other countries. Soviet well-being was especially low when considered in relation to per capita GNP. The single domain which best predicted global well-being in the Soviet Union was leisure satisfaction. Soviet students were most satisfied with their religion, living partner, friendship, and family relations, and least satisfied with transportation, education, and finances. The structure of well-being was very similar in the C.I.S. (U.S.S.R.) as in the U.S. For example, the Satisfaction with Life Scale formed a unitary factor, as it does in the U.S., and the PANAS formed two clear affect factors, as has been uncovered by Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1984) in the U.S. and Japan. Overall, the measures divided into life satisfaction, peasant affect, and negative affect components, replicating data in the U.S. (Andrews and Withey, 1976). These results suggest the structural invariance of well-being across cultures. The paper discusses several potential reasons that Russian students report low levels of well being.     

“Birds of a Feather” Fail Together: Exploring the Nature of Dependency in SME Defaults

This article studies the effects of incorporating the interdependence among London small business defaults into a risk analysis framework using the data just before the financial crisis. We propose an extension from standard scoring models to take into account the spatial dimensions and the demographic characteristics of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), such as legal form, industry sector, and number of employees. We estimate spatial probit models using different distance matrices based only on the spatial location or on an interaction between spatial locations and demographic characteristics. We find that the interdependence or contagion component defined on spatial and demographic characteristics is significant and that it improves the ability to predict defaults of non–start‐ups in London. Furthermore, including contagion effects among SMEs alters the parameter estimates of risk determinants. The approach can be extended to other risk analysis applications where spatial risk may incorporate correlation based on other aspects.     

Anticipating acceptance of emerging technologies using twitter: the case of self-driving cars

In an early stage of developing emerging technologies, there is often great uncertainty regarding their future success. Companies can reduce this uncertainty by listening to the voice of customers as the customer eventually decides to accept an emerging technology or not. We show that risk and benefit perceptions are central determinants of acceptance of emerging technologies. We present an analysis of risk and benefit perception of self-driving cars from March 2015 until October 2016. In this period, we analyzed 1,963,905 tweets using supervised machine learning for text classification. Furthermore, we developed two new metrics, risk rate (RR) and benefit rate (BR), which allow analyzing risk and benefit perceptions on social media quantitatively. With our results, we provide impetus for further research on acceptance of self-driving cars and a methodological contribution to acceptance of emerging technologies research. Furthermore, we identify crucial issues in the public perception of self-driving cars and provide guidance for the management of emerging technologies to increase the likelihood of their acceptance.