Do ethnicity and occupational status interact to influence anxiety? An investigation of anxiety among Hispanic emergency responders

Although anxiety is a universal emotion, some of the most severe job-related levels of anxiety are among emergency responder occupations, jeopardizing their well being and positive job performance. The literature suggests that certain ethnic groups report higher levels of anxiety than other ethnic groups. Using Lazarus and Folkman's transactional model of stress, this study examines whether ethnicity predicts differing anxiety levels across occupations. We sampled emergency and non-emergency responders in the state of Texas in the USA. The strongest positive relationship between occupational status and anxiety was observed for Hispanics compared with non-Hispanics. However, the findings reveal no significant effect between Hispanic ethnicity and anxiety. Our findings show that ethnicity may explain the differences in experienced anxiety across occupations. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Product-harm science communication: The halo effect and its moderators

Science communication on a product-harm situation aims to create awareness on the product's potential impacts for consumers. However, consumers tend to overestimate the information provided, due to possible halo effects. Here we designed a contextual model of halo development including individual and message characteristics detected in the literature as potential moderators. Our experimental study, based on a sample of 3,766 European respondents, evaluates these halo moderators in the context of a product-harm science communication. The results reveal a stronger halo effect on consumers' beliefs when the focal topic is considered as more important (health vs. ethics) and simultaneously when the source of information is more credible (official vs. non-official). Highly involved consumers are also subject to greater halo effects. Suggested implications mainly focus on the need to consider potential amplifying halo effects and on the importance of responding to a product-harm communication via a very accurate communication approach.     

Can Russia be Competitive in Agriculture?

Can Russia be competitive in Agriculture? Russian agriculture currently is not internationally cost competitive. Since the mid‐1990s Russia has imported large volumes of meat, while the grain trade has fluctuated in most years between small net imports and exports. Russia has, however, exported large quantities of key agricultural inputs, including 80 per cent of fertilizer output, mainly to EU countries. Research indicates that Russia has a comparative advantage in producing grain compared to meat, but also a comparative advantage in producing agricultural inputs compared to agricultural outputs. The expected real appreciation of the Russian rouble vis‐à‐vis Western currencies should further damage Russia's cost competitiveness in meat and grain, but this should be offset by modest productivity growth. An expected rise in consumer income, deriving from relatively high annual GDP growth of about 4–5 per cent, should also stimulate demand for meat imports. In spring 2003, Russia imposed tariff rate quotas on its imports of beef and pork, and a pure quota on imports of poultry. For other agricultural commodities, Russia is pushing in its WTO accession negotiations for allowable agricultural import tariffs that are higher than current levels. Taking these changes together, it is likely that Russia will continue as a big meat importer for about the next ten years–with tariff rate quotas probably determining the level of meat imports–and will become a moderate grain exporter. L'agriculture russe pourrait‐elle être compétitive ? Actuellement, l'agriculture russe n'est pas compétitive. La Russie a importé de gros volumes de viande depuis le milieu des années 90, tandis que la balance des échanges de céréales oscillait entre les faibles excédents et les faibles déficits. Cependant, la Russie est grande exportatrice d'agro‐fournitures dont, en particulier, 80% de sa production d'engrais, principalement vers l'Europe. On montre ici que l'avantage comparatif de la Russie se situe dans les céréales plutôt que dans la viande et, surtout, dans les agro‐fournitures plutôt que dans les denrées agricoles. La remontée, à laquelle il faut s'attendre, du rouble vis à vis des devises occidentales, devrait encore diminuer la compétitivité de la Russie en matière de viandes et de céréales, ce qui devrait être compensé par des gains de productivité même faibles. La hausse attendue des revenus des consommateurs, engenderée par une croissance élevée du revenu national, de l'ordre de 4 à 5% par an, devrait aussi stimuler la demande de viande importée. Au printemps 2003, la Russie s'est dotée d'un système de droits sur ses importations hors quotas de viande de bæuf et de pore, ainsi que d'un quota d'importation pour les produits avicoles. En ce qui conceme les autres produits agricoles, dans le cadre des négociations relatives à son entrée dans l'OMC, la Russie s'efforce d'obtenir l'autorisation d'augmenter les taxes à l'importation par rapport à leur niveau actuel. Au total done, à un horizon de l'ordre de dix ans, il est probable que la Russie reste un gros importateur de viandes ‐ le niveau des taxes sur le hors quotas déterminant les niveaux d'importation ‐, et un modeste exportateur de céréales. Kann Russland auf dem Agrarsektor wettbewerbsfähig sein? Die russische Landwirtschaft ist hinsichtlich der Kosten momentan nicht international wettbewerbsfähig. Seit Mitte der 1990er importiert Russland große Mengen an Fleisch, während der Getreidehandel in den meisten Jahren zwischen geringen Nettoimporten und ‐exporten schwankte. Russland hat jedoch große Mengen an wichtigen landwirtschaftlichen Vorieistungen, unter anderem 80% seiner Düngerproduktion, hauptsächlich in EU‐Länder exportiert. Forschungsergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass Russland in der Produktion von Getreide verglichen mit Fleisch einen komparativen Vorteil besitzt; dies trifft jedoch ebenfalls auf die Produktion von landwirtschaftlichen Vorieistungen verglichen mit landwirtschaftlichen Endprodukten zu. Es ist anzunehmen, dass die erwartete reale Aufwertung des russischen Rubel gegenüber den westlichen Währungen eine zusätzliche Verschlechterung der russischen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit hinsichtlich der Kosten im Bereich Fleisch und Getreide nach sich zieht; dies sollte sich jedoch durch ein moderates Produktivitätswachstum ausgleichen. Der erwartete Anstieg der Verbrauchereinkommen, der sich aus dem relativ hohen jährlichen Bruttoin‐landsproduktzuwachs von ca. 4–5 Prozent ableitet, sollte sich ebenfalls stimulierend auf die Nachfrage nach Fleischimporten auswirken. Im Frühjahr 2003 führte Russland Zolltarifkontingente für seine Schweine‐ und Rindfleischimporte ein und belegte seine Geflügelfleischimporte mit einem Importkontingent. Im Hinblick auf weitere Agrarerzeugnisse drängt Russland in den WTO‐Beitrittsverhandlungen darauf, höhere Einfuhrzölle als die gegenwärtig geltenden zuzulassen. In Anbetracht all dieser Veränderungen ist es wahrscheinlich, dass Russland auch für die kommenden zehn Jahre große Mengen an Fleisch importieren–wobei möglicherweise Zolltarifkontingente die Menge bestimmen werden–und sich zu einem mäßigen Getreideexporteur entwickeln wird.     

Finding out the Routes to Escape Poverty: The Relevance of Demographic vs. Labor Market Events in Spain

The knowledge of which events are most effective in pushing households out of deprivation should help in designing poverty-alleviating social policy. Using longitudinal data for Spain, we analyze the nature of events pushing poor households out of poverty, adding an interesting decomposition of transitions: the occurrence of an event and the income change implied by it. We find that, similarly to other developed countries, the events that most help Spanish households in leaving poverty are related to changes in labor status of household members. However, non-labor income changes are significantly more important in Spain than elsewhere.     

Remarks on Afriat’s theorem and the Monge–Kantorovich problem

The famous Afriat’s theorem from the theory of revealed preferences establishes necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of utility function for a given set of choices and prices. The result on the existence of a homogeneous utility function can be considered as a particular fact of the Monge–Kantorovich mass transportation theory. In this paper we explain this viewpoint and discuss some related questions.     

Factors influencing education achievement

This study sets out to examine the factors that influence human capital formation in predominately rural communities. The results indicated that parents’ educational attainment greatly influences the quality of education for their children. Thus, consolidating smaller poor schools in which the parents have limited education above primary and secondary schools, will not likely lead to much if any improvement in students' test scores.     

Rating-based CDS curves

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the extent to which term structure of individual credit default swap (CDS) spreads can be explained by the firm's rating. Using the Nelson–Siegel model, we construct, for each day, CDS curves from a cross-section of CDS spreads for each rating class. We find that individual CDS deviations from the curve tend to diminish over time and CDS spreads converge towards the fitted curves. The likelihood of convergence increases with the absolute size of the deviation. The convergence is especially stable if CDS spreads are lower relative to the rating-based curve. Trading strategies exploiting the convergence generate an average return of 3.7% (5-day holding period) and 9% (20-day holding period).     

Russian Home-Building in Transition

Since 1991, the reform governments of the Russian Federation and its constituent republics have allowed and, in varying degrees, encouraged the privatization of state-owned housing and new residential construction by private firms for private ownership. This study describes the emergence of private home-building enterprises engaged in two types of projects: (1) The completion and sale of multifamily dwellings started during the socialist regime and (2) development and marketing of single-family luxury housing on land at the urban fringe. It is based on surveys of private housing developers and secondary housing markets in seven cities of the Russian Federation, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. The surveys were conducted by Russian consultants in 1993 under the sponsorship of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank. At the time of the surveys, not all aspects of real estate development were yet conducted under private institutions. The developers'; most important functions were arranging project financing from private sources (own funds, homebuyers'; prepayments, bank loans) and marketing the dwellings, usually prior to completion. Municipal governments still controlled land allocations for new housing. Municipal enterprises were also responsible for providing access roads and utility connections, using their strategic position to exact fees, which account for a fourth to two-thirds of the total development costs. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, a substantial fraction of the completed dwellings were contractually assigned to the municipality for disposition and, in all places studied, additional units were sold to the developers'; employees, suppliers, and city officials at a discount. Conditions that are necessary for further development of market-based home-building include (1) development of more market-oriented land policies by municipalities, (2) development of more rational and feasible fees charged to developers by cities, (3) modernization of utilities in cities, and (4) increasing developers'; understanding of importance of market studies.     

INCOME MOBILITY IN SPAIN: HOW MUCH IS THERE?

Traditional cross-sectional research is unable to measure the degree of income mobility in an income distribution. Using longitudinal data and various income stability indices, this paper measures the level of permanent inequality (immobility) in Spain for the period 1985–92. Results indicate that the transitory component of inequality is large and the level of income mobility increases over time while income inequality decreases slightly. More stability is found at the top than at the bottom of the income distribution and the range of the registered movements is rather short.