Is There a “Pessimistic” Bias in Individual Beliefs? Evidence from a Simple Survey

It is an important issue for economic and finance applications to determine whether individuals exhibit a behavioral bias toward pessimism in their beliefs, in a lottery or more generally in an investment opportunities framework. In this paper, we analyze the answers of a sample of 1,540 individuals to the following question “Imagine that a coin will be flipped 10 times. Each time, if heads, you win $10\texttt{C}\!\!\!\rule[2.3pt]{.4em}{.3pt}\!\!\rule[3.3pt]{.4em}{.3pt}It is an important issue for economic and finance applications to determine whether individuals exhibit a behavioral bias toward pessimism in their beliefs, in a lottery or more generally in an investment opportunities framework. In this paper, we analyze the answers of a sample of 1,540 individuals to the following question “Imagine that a coin will be flipped 10 times. Each time, if heads, you win . How many times do you think that you will win?” The average answer is surprisingly about 3.9 which is below the average 5, and we interpret this as a pessimistic bias. We find that women are more “pessimistic” than men, as are old people relative to young. We also analyze how our notion of pessimism is related to more general notions of pessimism previously introduced in psychology.     

“World Risk Society” Governance: The Paradigm of Complexity and Chinese Participation*

全球正在进入具有高度不确定性的”风险社会”时代,风险成为现代社会的重要 特征,并正在改变现代社会的运行逻辑与规则,人类社会的价值理念、行为方式正在 被系统化地重构,全球治理演变为”全球风险社会”治理。当前,全球风险治理的碎 片化、低效率现象严重,现有公共管理、国际治理方式还不能适应风险社会治理的要 求。现代社会是一个具有内生复杂性、测不准性、脆弱性等特征的复杂系统,复杂性 是全球风险社会形成的根本机理,全球风险社会治理离不开复杂性范式与中国参与。 系统研究全球风险社会形成的复杂性机制,构建面向全球风险社会治理的价值、文化 与机制,形成辨识、化解风险的协同治理及反脆弱能力,在理论和实践上具有重要的 价值。     

Participation in Income-Generating Activities and Help-Seeking for IPV in Bangladesh – Results from a National Survey of Women

Abstract

The present study examined whether there was an association between microfinance participation (i.e. microentrepreneurship) and help-seeking social networks and employment and help-seeking social networks of women who experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) in Bangladesh. The study is a secondary analysis of a subsample of 805 women (24.1% of the representative sample) who experienced IPV from the 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) between the ages of 16 and 49?years. Results indicate that among the subsample of 805 respondents, 29.3% sought help for IPV. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that women who were employed all year round were significantly more likely and microfinance participants were marginally more to seek help for IPV than women who were not engaged in income-generating activities. Implications are discussed.     

The Development of Elementary Education in Rural China from a State-Society Perspective:A Political Science Analysis of Education

The relationships between state and society underwent tremendous changes dur- ing state building from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century in China. The gradual establishment of the so- cialist planned economic system from the 1950s to the 1990s and of market economic system after the 1990s had a great impact on state-society relationships. Overall, in the interactions between state and society the government as a proxy of the state is always active and in a dominant positi…     

Millennial Generation’s Job Search Activity and Job Quality: Findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

Job quality of young adults in the USA has been eroding since the Great Recession of 2007. The intensity of job search activities are a well-established predictor of employment, yet little is known whether job search intensity is associated with the quality of subsequent secured employment. This study examined the 2013 sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) (N?=?1566), which follows a sample of American youth born between 1980 and 1984 and contains reliable measures of job search activities and job quality. Multivariate regression models examined whether job search activities were associated with pay, paid vacation days, full time job status, regular work schedule, and availability of a union contract, controlling for demographic factors. The results demonstrated that the number of job search activities completed was positively associated with multiple positive employment-related outcomes. Programs to assist individuals in the job search process may benefit from these results when offering strategies for successfully securing employment of a higher quality that may offer increased quality of life.     

Risk awareness and adverse selection in catastrophe insurance: Evidence from California’s residential earthquake insurance market

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - How does catastrophe-risk awareness affect purchase decisions and selection patterns in the insurance market? I study this issue using data on take-up rates of...     

“Wearing a Mask Won't Protect Us from Our History”: The Impact of COVID-19 on Black Children and Families

The data on COVID-19 show an irrefutable and disturbing pattern: Black Americans are contracting and dying from COVID-19 at rates that far exceed other racial and ethnic groups. Due to historical and current iterations of racism, Black Americans have been forced into conditions that elevate their risk for COVID-19 and consequently place Black children at the epicenter of loss across multiple domains of life. The current paper highlights the impact of the pandemic on Black children at the individual, family, and school levels. Based on an understanding of the influence of structural racism on COVID-19 disparities, policy recommendations are provided that focus on equitable access to quality education, home ownership, and employment to fully address the needs of Black children and families during and after the pandemic. Research, practice, and policy recommendations are made to journal editors, funding agencies, grant review panels, and researchers regarding how research on COVID-19 should be framed to inform intervention efforts aimed at improving the situation of Black children and families.     

Explaining Italian “exceptionalism” and its end: Minimum income from neglect to hyper-politicization

Traditionally at the margins of the political debate, minimum income protection has recently become a key issue in Italian politics. After decades of social and political “neglect” letting Italy the only European country (with Greece) still lacking an anti-poverty minimum income safety net in the 2010s, finally a national programme called Inclusion Income was introduced in 2018, then replaced by a more robustly financed scheme, the Citizenship Income in 2019. The introduction of these new programmes was the object of an intense political debate, which raises two main puzzles. Why a policy field characterized by the low political resources of would be beneficiaries and low incidence on the overall welfare budget has become so important in the political debate? How did it occur in Italy, where minimum income protection had been absent in political discourses for at least five decades after World War II? To answer these questions, this article first elaborates a novel theoretical framework which combines the main properties of socio-political demand and political supply in order to explain the scope and direction of minimum income reforms. Second, it provides an analytically oriented reconstruction of MIS policy trajectory in Italy in the three different phases: the phase of MIS “neglect” (1948–1992) characterized by inertia; the period of political “contentiousness” (1993–2012), marked by attempts of path departure followed by policy reversals; the more recent phase leading to the introduction and institutionalization of a MIS. Third, the article provides a theoretically framed interpretation of the overall MIS trajectory in Italy.     

“Build a wall”. “Tax a shed”. “Fix a debt limit”. The constructive and destructive potential of populist anti-statism and “naïve” statism

ABSTRACT

Populist surges, movements and parties often centre around radically simplifying policy proposals, sometimes anti-statist in intent (e.g. fix a limit to state borrowing in cash terms), and at other times pushing naïve statist solutions (e.g. build a giant wall to keep out migrants; or tax companies' activities in a given shed, not their profits). Most liberal political science condemns the crudity and often unrestrained vigour of populist “solutions”. But on occasion, they can have value in counteracting the increasing complexities that elites often build into public policies. Two case studies show populist pressure for simplification working effectively in one instance – the “tax shaming” campaign against multinationals avoiding corporation taxes; and engendering only disorder in another instance – the effort to enforce national debt limits in nominal terms in the USA.     

A Person Without a Past: Robert Michels and Alfred Schutz and the Sociology of the “Stranger”

Robert Michels and Alfred Schutz might not seem to have much in common. Michels was a political sociologist and Schütz was a philosopher of phenomenology, but they shared one crucial thing: they were both strangers in foreign countries. Michels left Germany for Italy and Switzerland because he was not permitted to complete the second degree necessary to teach at the university level while Schutz was compelled to leave Austria for France and the United States because of his Jewish background. Their experiences of trying to adapt in a foreign country prompted them to reflect on what it means to be “the stranger” (“Der Fremde”). Michels wrote “Materialien zu einer Soziologie des Fremden” in 1925 and Schutz published “The Stranger: An Essay in Social Psychology” in 1944. While Schutz’ article has been repeatedly cited, there does not seem to be a study devoted to it. Michels' article remains among his most neglected writings. However, both works offer a theoretical and contextual account of the obstacles the stranger encounters when trying to understand and to acclimate oneself to a new environment. As Schutz noted, the stranger is a person “without a past”, and Michels suggested, is also a person with an uncertain future.     

“Civilization” and “State”: An Etymological Perspective

在西欧文字词源学的角度上,找不到将“文明”与“国家”被一些学者那样区别 来看的理由,更找不到将“文明”区别为“文化”与“社会”两大部分的根据。“文 明”就是“国家”,本义就是“国家”。将“文明”区别为“文化”与“社会”两大部 分,正如将“文明”与“国家”解读为两个完全不同的概念,来解决文明起源问题, 同样没有根据。因此,研究文明起源的重点只有一个,那就是社会及其管理结构的变 化,也就是生活在一定地域范围之内的人与人之间的社会关系的变化。 关键词:文明 国家 文化 社会

There is no evidence in the etymology of Western European languages to support the distinction between “civilization” and “state” stressed by some scholars, nor any to support the division of “civilization” into a dichotomy of “culture” and “society.” The original meaning of “civilization” is “state.” In discussing the origin of civilization, it is groundless to divide “civilization” into “culture” and “society,” or to interpret “civilization” and “state” as two different concepts. Given such considerations, there can only be one focus in studies of the origin of civilization, namely, changes in society and its management structure, or in other words, the changing social relations among people who live within a given territory.     

Is the association between social capital and health robust across Nordic regions? Evidence from a cross‐sectional study of older adults

Nyqvist F, Nygård M. Is the association between social capital and health robust across Nordic regions? Evidence from a cross‐sectional study of older adults The study examined the association between structural and cognitive social capital and self‐rated health among 65‐ and 75‐year‐olds in Västerbotten in Sweden and Österbotten and Pohjanmaa in Finland. Data were retrieved from a cross‐sectional postal questionnaire survey conducted in 2005 and was answered by 3,370 persons, yielding a total response rate of 69 per cent. The association between self‐rated health and interpersonal trust and membership in organisations was tested by logistic regression analysis. The results showed that older adults in Västerbotten in Sweden experienced better self‐rated health than in Finland. Furthermore, interpersonal trust and active membership in organisations were associated with self‐rated health among 65‐ and 75‐year olds even after having controlled for the influence of region. We therefore conclude that the association between social capital and self‐rated health tends to be robust across contextually similar regions, but that further analyses are warranted in order to clarify the nature of this relationship. Key Practitioner Message: ?Health status can be indirectly strengthened through investments in social capital, such as group participation and active networks; ?When working with older adults, more focus needs to be put on how to develop trustful relationships; ?The Nordic welfare state, with its universal and subsidised social and health care services, has an indirect and positive effect on health among older adults.     

Supplemental home care and topping‐up: A shift from service universalism towards a new and privatised public service model?

How does a public service model based on service universalism react to the introduction of market principles of topping up? In a recent so‐called Free Municipality Scheme (an experimental scheme that allowed for greater operational autonomy locally in an effort to reduce state bureaucracy), a number of Danish municipalities were for the first time ever allowed to compete with for‐profit providers of home care in selling supplemental home care services paid entirely by the user. The take‐home message from this experience is that the introduction of supplemental home care entails challenges and eventually wider implications for the public service model, on an economic, organisational and cultural level. Supplemental services represent a new and potentially powerful combination of market and state logics that eventually redirects away from the universalist welfare state and towards a new and increasingly privatised public service model – a model where the service level is determined by the user's capacity to purchase and pay for services. The introduction of such services therefore implies a change of the potential of the Nordic welfare state to ensure equal access regardless of class and income.     

Commentary on “Measuring Constructed Preferences: Towards a Building Code” by Payne,Bettman and Schkade

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty -