Social cognition and personality traits related to risky driving in a Turkish sample

Aims: The aim of the study was to make a theoretical contribution by investigating social cognitive factors and personality traits related to risky driver behaviour in a Turkish sample. The study tested three theoretical models by Structural Equation Modelling: (1) a model using risk perception and attitudes towards traffic safety to predict driver behaviour, (2) a model which used normlessness and sensation-seeking traits to predict such behaviour and (3) a model which used both the social cognitive factors and personality traits to predict driver behaviour. Methods: A questionnaire survey with validated measurement instruments was conducted in a sample of Turkish drivers (n?=?213). The response rate was 61%. Results: A combined social cognitive and personality trait model had tolerable fit and explained 24% of the variance in driver behaviour. The relations between personality traits and risk perception with driver behaviour were mediated through attitudes towards traffic safety. Risk-taking personality traits had relatively strong relations to unsafe driver behaviour, whereas risk perception had a relatively weak relation to such behaviour. Conclusions: A combined social cognitive and trait approach may be efficient in human factor campaigns aimed to reduce risky driver behaviour in Turkey. Personality traits may be important for driver behaviour because they influence the attitudinal determinants of such behaviour. Increased police enforcement of road traffic regulations may reduce risky driving among individuals with normlessness and sensation-seeking traits. Personality traits may also guide efforts aimed at early identification of risky drivers and campaigns could be tailored to specific personality characteristics.     

A Study on the Travel Patterns of Physically Disabled People

The main objective of this paper is to highlight the travel patterns and experiences of people with a physical disability. To understand better the travel needs of people with a physical disability, it is useful to examine how travel patterns differ across demographic variables. The method chosen for the empirical data collection was a self-completed web-based questionnaire, which was answered by a total of 596 physically disabled people. The data obtained were evaluated using frequency, percentage, arithmetic average, t-test, chi-square and factor analysis. The research findings reveal that people with physical disability in different demographics groups differ in their travel patterns.     

Identification of adopter categories for online banking in Turkey

This article reports the results of an investigation of demographic and lifestyle characteristics of adopters of online banking services in Turkey by using the Bass diffusion model. The results of multinominal logistic regression analysis suggest that there are significant differences both in demographic characteristics, such as age and gender, and psychographic characteristics, such as leadership, non-traditionalism, innovativeness, and practicality among the different adopter categories. Thus, new variables such as gender and lifestyle, which have not been investigated in the literature, could be introduced as segmentation variables to develop more effective marketing strategies tailored to each adopter category in online banking services.     

Free trade versus strategic trade as a choice between two ‘second best’ policies: A symmetric versus asymmetric information analysis

Abstract

We analyse the following policy dilemma: strategic trade policy versus free trade when the domestic government is bound to intervene only after the domestic firm's strategic variable in the form of R&D investment is chosen, and when the information can be either symmetric or asymmetric. The novel feature of our model is that the information asymmetry stems from the assumption that the government may not a priori know the true mode of competition. The intervention in the above set-up allows the domestic firm to manipulate the domestic government and results in a socially inefficient choice of the strategic variable. However, commitment to free trade leads to forgoing the benefits from profit-shifting. Yet, from the social point of view, free trade may be optimal even under the assumption of symmetric information. Due to costly signalling, this result is reinforced in the case of asymmetric information.     

Sea turtle interactions with Hawaii's longline fishery: an extended multi-objective programming model incorporating spatial and seasonal dimensions

The numerous discussions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of Turkey's becoming a member of the Customs Union has been inconclusive. The empirical analysis that mostly focus on the changes in the volume of trade without much regard to the conjectural changes have also been insufficient. This study attempts to shed light on this issue in a formal analysis of Turkey's international trade by empirically accounting for the changes before and after the Customs Union Agreement (CUA). In doing so, we explicitly account for the concurrent changes in the macroeconomic environment that may have affected Turkey's trade with the rest of the world. Our empirical findings indicate that CUA has not only positively impacted on Turkey's trade, but also led to changes in the behaviour of both exports and imports with regards to their responsiveness to underlying variables.     

The (small) blessing of foreign aid: further evidence on aid’s impact on democracy

In an empirical contribution to the literature of foreign aid, we estimate the impact of foreign aid on democracy in a panel of 93 developing economies during 1971–2010. We find that foreign aid promotes democracy, with the result robust to different estimation methodologies and control variables and to instrumenting for foreign aid.     

Threat to regulate and coordination failures: Experimental evidence

Coordination games can represent a wide range of issues in real estate. In this paper, we present the results of an experiment designed to investigate the impact of regulatory threats in a coordination game. The experiment consisted of two sessions. The first session included a simple coordination game. We found significant coordination failures among the players in this session. We then conducted a second session in which we introduced a new player who had the choice to either intervene and regulate the payoffs of the other players or not to intervene and let the other players' actions determine the outcome. Our objective was to test whether the introduction of such a regulatory authority would induce more cooperative play by the players and move the market to the Pareto superior outcome. We found this not to be the case. There was no statistically significant difference between the choices of subjects in the two sessions.     

Moving Beyond Culturalism and Formalism: Islam,Women, and Political Unrest in the Middle East

ABSTRACT

Scenes of political unrest throughout the Middle East are often coupled with media reports and public debates in the United States that have a recurring theme: the relationship between women and Islam. After discussing the culturalist accounts that portray women as being in grave danger from Islam and in need of Western protection and supervision, this contribution examines an emerging trend in political science developed under the influence of the formalism of neoclassical economics. The study argues that despite ostensibly universal assumptions about human behavior and alleged objectivity, the theoretical foundations of neoclassical economics and its methodological formalism fall short in providing an alternative to culturalism, and, instead, reinforce the misperceptions and misunderstandings about the region.     

Output–employment relationship across employment status: evidence from Turkey

This paper investigates output–employment relationships across different employment statuses and formal versus informal employment divisions for Turkey. Even if we fail to find a long-run relationship between aggregate output and total employment, there are long-run relationships between the aggregate output with all of the formal employment statuses. A further investigation for short-run relationships reveals no statistically significant relationships between aggregate output and total employment and between aggregate output and casual employment but there is a significant short-run relationship between aggregate output and total regular employment. Thus, a sustainable economic growth policy should aim to create formal and regular employment.     

Modeling producer responses with dynamic programming: a case for adaptive crop management

Past research found agricultural producers’ conditional responses during the growing season are important adaptations to weather and other stochastic events. Failing to recognize these responses overstates the risks confronting producers and understates their ability to respond to adverse circumstances. Dynamic programming (DP) provides a means for determining optimal long‐term crop management plans. However, most applications in the literature base their analysis on annual time steps with fixed strategies within the year, effectively ignoring conditional responses during the year. We suggest an alternative approach that captures the strategic responses within a cropping season to random weather variables as they unfold, reflecting farmers’ ability to adapt to weather realizations. We illustrate our approach by applying it to a typical cereal farm in Karak, Jordan. The results show that including conditional within‐year responses to weather reduces the frequency of fallowing by 23% and increases expected income by 9%.