Can Divine Intervention Aid in Domestic Violence Prevention? An Analysis of Bystanders' Advertising Attitudes and Reporting Intentions in India

The research explores how religious symbols can be used in advertising to encourage bystander intervention in the context of domestic violence. Using symbolic interactionism as the theoretical framework, a 4 (Ad type: Control vs. Visual vs. Verbal vs. Visual/Verbal) × 2 (Religiosity: Low vs. High) between-subjects experimental design was conducted to assess impact on attitudes toward the ad and intention to help. A national sample (N = 402) of Hindu adults from India was recruited. The findings suggest level of religiosity is critical to the process with highly religious individuals displaying higher levels of involvement, concern for others and willingness to report abuse. No significant differences were found across visual and verbal religious symbol conditions. Implications for advertisers and government agencies are presented.     

Saving Behavior Messaging: Gain/Loss Framing,Self/Family Orientations,and Individual Differences in Collectivism

As the United States faces low savings rates and an aging population, examining messages that encourage saving behavior is critical. Adding to this need is growth in ethnic minority groups (e.g., Hispanic Americans) that tend to experience greater saving challenges. The current study tested framing effects (i.e., loss/gain), in tandem with message orientation (i.e., self/family) and the moderating role of collectivism, on ad response variables after exposure to public service advertisements about saving. Results across three experiments confirm that matching the level of collectivism with orientation impacted the effect of framing on the outcome measures but that individual differences in collectivism impacted the results more than membership in an ethnic group. Loss framing for both low and high collectivistic individuals, when matched with a self-oriented appeal in the former and a family-oriented appeal in the latter, were most effective. Gain framing was more effective when level of individual collectivism was not matched with self/family message orientation. Important theoretical issues are addressed as well as implications for advertisers who engage in saving behavior messaging.     

Leviathan: Revenue-maximizer or glory-seeker?

We argue that the Hobbesian assumption of glory-seeking behavior, especially when applied to holders of high office, is both more realistic and has greater predictive power than Brennan and Buchanan's hypothesis of revenue-maximization. Whereas traditional public finance theory sees the sovereign as a benign agent without an objective of his own and Brennan and Buchanan endow him with the objective of revenue maximization, Hobbes's political construct envisages a sovereign-principal who devises rules and incentives to induce his subjects-agents to contribute to his own preservation and glory. We examine the implications of this Copernican revolution in public finance theory by referring to Brennan and Buchanan's key claim that the Leviathan ought to be constrained by a fiscal constitution. We argue that the interplay of the pursuit glory and the concern for self-preservation implies that the government cannot be bound by rules set by citizens.     

Judicial Reform

A review of the evidence on judicial reform across countriesshows that those seeking to improve economic performance shouldnot focus on judicial efficiency alone but on independence aswell. It also shows that the level of resources poured intothe judicial system and the accessibility of the system havelittle impact on judicial performance. Most of the problem ofjudicial stagnation stems from inadequate incentives and overlycomplicated procedures. Incentive-oriented reforms that seekto increase accountability, competition, and choice seem tobe the most effective in tackling the problem. But incentivesalone do not correct systematic judicial failure. Chronic judicialstagnation calls for simplifying procedures and increasing theirflexibility.      

Government Ownership of Banks

We assemble data on government ownership of banks around the world. The data show that such ownership is large and pervasive, and higher in countries with low levels of per capita income, backward financial systems, interventionist and inefficient governments, and poor protection of property rights. Higher government ownership of banks in 1970 is associated with slower subsequent financial development and lower growth of per capita income and productivity. This evidence supports "political" theories of the effects of government ownership of firms.     

An economic theory of political change in premissionary Hawaii

In traditional Hawaiian society income distribution was consistent with the balance of power between chiefs and commoners. The ability of the chiefs to impose taxes on commoners was limited by the possibility of a commoners' revolt against the chiefs and by competition between the chiefs. After “discovery” of the Islands in 1778, the opportunity to sell provisions and sandalwood to foreign traders gave the chiefs increased incentives to curtail their competition with each other. Access to Western military technology reduced the costs of forming and maintaining a coalition among the chiefs, thus allowing King Kamehameha I to unify the Islands. With the formation of the chiefs' coalition came a shift in the balance of power toward the ruling class, thus facilitating the imposition of a higher tax on the common people. When Kamehameha died in 1819, the new King (Liholiho) faced competition for this position; to maintain an effective coalition, he redistributed wealth to the chiefs' coalition, and thereby gained the necessary support to defeat his rival in a short civil war. The primary lesson from this story is that where contact with capitalism is associated with a worsening of the income distribution, it does not follow that outsiders directly exploited indigenous workers. New technology and trading opportunities may change the society's balance of power and result in major alterations in its economic and political institutions. With these changes in the “rules of the game,” the distribution of income can worsen even if the distribution of factor endowments remains fixed.     

Intertemporal substitution in import demand and habit formation

To study non-durable import demand, we extend previous work done by Clarida (1994) and Ceglowski (1991) by considering a two-good version of the lifecycle model in which we introduce time-non-separability in the households' preferences. The model is estimated using quarterly data for the USA and France. Using the information contained in the observed stochastic and deterministic trends, we derive a cointegration restriction used to estimate curvature parameters of the instantaneous utility function. The remaining parameters are estimated in a second step by GMM. The constancy of the different parameters is investigated, in both the long and the short run. Habit formation turns out to be an important factor of import demand. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国铁矿石产业面临的安全威胁及其产业安全度的测算

文章参照国内外产业安全指标现有研究成果,根据数据的可获得性,构建了四大类十五个分项指标的中国铁矿石产业安全指标体系,采用1995～2008年年度数据分析了铁矿石产业国内生存环境、国际竞争力、产业对外依存度和产业控制力四个方面的年度安全状况,并用2008年1月至2009年5月的月度数据对指标进行了月度评估,结果显示,2001年以来中国铁矿石产业整体处于不安全状态.