BINGE DRINKING IN COLLEGE: THE IMPACT OF PRICE, AVAILABILITY, AND ALCOHOL CONTROL POLICIES

This paper estimates the effects of beer prices, alcohol availability, and policies related to driving under the influence of alcohol on drinking and binge drinking among youths and young adults. Data are from a nationally representative survey of students in U.S. colleges and universities. Separate estimates are obtained for underage male and female students, as well as for older male and female students. The estimates indicate that the drinking practices of male college students are generally insensitive to the price of beer. However, underage drinking and binge drinking by female students do respond significantly to price, although both are relatively inelastic. The results also show that strong drunk driving policies targeting youths and young adults significantly reduce drinking and binge drinking by male students. Similarly, these policies reduce drinking among female college students but appear to have little impact on their binge drinking. Instead, the results indicate that many elements of campus life (including participation in a fraternity or sorority, living on campus, and the ready availability of alcoholic beverages) are among the most important determinants of drinking and binge drinking among college students.     

MEASURING PRICE ELASTICITY OF SECTORIAL IMPORTS

Previous published studies have estimated the long‐run cointegrating relationship to infer the price elasticity of imports, but a stable long‐run cointegrating relationship might not be detected in the data, especially in the case of sectoral data. This paper develops a method to estimate the price elasticity of imports based on a vector autoregression model, which can be applied when a stable long‐run cointegration relationship does not exist. The methods developed in past studies and our method are applied to Korean sectoral imports data to illustrate the usefulness of our method.     

The market for American state government bonds in Britain and the United States, 1830–431

In the 1830s the British and American economies were hit by a series of shared macroeconomic shocks. This paper investigates the role of markets for America's State bonds in Britain and the USA during and between the crises in 1837, 1839, and 1842.There is strong evidence that the crises in 1839 and 1842 originated in the USA and spread to Britain. There is also strong evidence that credit markets for American state bonds were tighter in the USA than in London between 1839 and 1842. The idea that the depression that began in 1839 in the USA was triggered by credit conditions in Britain and transmitted via the market for state credit, finds no support here.     

The Effects of Activity and Aging on Rural Community Living and Consuming

Effects of social activity and aging on variables related to individual motivations, community membership, and consumer behavior were tested for 287 late middle-age and 343 elderly respondents living in three rural communities. Those actively involved were more satisfied with aspects of the community than their less active counterparts, and they expressed stronger intentions to shop with local retailers (inshopping). Klderly respondents were more satisfied with their community, and had higher inshopping levels than the late middle-age respondents. Findings suggest an “embeddedness” of market place activity in the social networks of the rural communities. The number and purchasing power of older persons offer opportunities to rural businesses who are alert to the concerns and unmet needs of these consumers.     

Two Pitfalls of Linearization Methods

This paper illustrates two types of pitfalls when linearization methods are improperly applied. First, if we linearize the constraints before deriving the optimality conditions, the derived conditions are not correct up to first order. Second, even when we obtain the behavior of the economy that is correct to the first order, applying this behavior to welfare implications may lead to incorrect results. We also review different ways to avoid those pitfalls.     

UNION EFFECT ON THE USE OF NON‐REGULAR LABOR IN THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Our paper aims at analyzing the union effect on the externalization of employment relations, focusing on how labor unions affect management's strategic use of non‐regular labor within the Korean context of industrial relations. Our study presents several interesting implications. Firstly, the unions' motivator role for managerial use of non‐regular labor is more evident than its constrainer role. Secondly, union power exerts a “U‐type” impact on the use of indirect non‐regular labor, while affecting directly employed non‐regular labor in a positive linear way. Thirdly, labor unions in large establishments are more active and influential in representing their members' interests than their counterparts in small establishments with limited financial resources. In particular, the interactive function of the union's power and union leaders' attitudinal inclinations is found to be significant in the negative direction among large establishments.     

Do Firms Adjust Their Timely Loss Recognition in Response to Changes in the Banking Industry?

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the banking sector on firms’ timely recognition of economic losses. In particular, we focus on the entry of foreign banks into India during the 1990s, which likely causes an exogenous increase in lender demand for timely loss recognition. Analyzing variation in both the timing and the location of the new foreign banks’ entries, we find that foreign bank entry is associated with more timely loss recognition and this increase is positively related to a firm's subsequent debt levels. The change appears driven by a shift in firms’ incentives to supply additional information to lenders and lenders seem to value this information. The increase in timely loss recognition is also concentrated among firms more dependent on external financing: private firms, smaller firms, and nongroup firms. Overall, our evidence suggests that a firm's accounting choices respond to changes in the banking industry.