Injury mortality in local communities in Sweden and in the three Baltic States: implications for prevention

This study provides a comparative time-trend evaluation of injury mortality in local communities in Sweden and the three Baltic States, considering their national socio-political and economic situations and with analysis of local injury prevention structures and activities. Data for the period from 1990 to 2002 were gathered from national statistical offices for the cities of Bor?s, Tartu, Jelgava and Kaunas and from WHO databases for national level analyses. The death rates for Bor?s remained relatively stable over the time period, while the Baltic communities had increasing rates until 1994 and seemed to stabilize after 1997. The differences in injury mortality in the studied communities were highest for the 0 - 19 year age group and especially in the 20 - 64 year age group, but not for the 65+ year age group. Local communities in the Baltic States should consider coordinated safety promotion and injury prevention programmes as a complement to national safety promotion framework.     

A longitudinal study of concern and judged risk: the case of Ebola in the United States, 2014–2015

The goal of the present study was to investigate whether playing a serious game concerning natural and man-made risks leads to increased risk awareness and additional information search. As an experimental task, we developed a serious board game. Fifty-six students participated in the experiment; half of them played the serious game whereas the other half only filled in a questionnaire at pretest and posttest (after two weeks). Participants who had played the game were more aware of risks in their own environment. Furthermore, playing the serious game counterbalanced the decline in self-efficacy as seen in the control condition. In both conditions, participants gathered more information on natural risks. This positive effect in the control condition is probably a side effect of the method used: a reasonably elaborate questionnaire in combination with a delay of two weeks. In all, the results provide a positive basis for further development of the game and to use it on a larger scale to empower citizens to take more responsibility for their own safety.     

Bargaining, search, and outside options

This paper studies a two-sided incomplete information bargaining model between a seller and a buyer. The buyer has an outside option, which is modeled as a sequential search process during which he can choose to return to bargaining at any time. Two cases are considered: In Regime I, both agents have symmetric information about the search parameters. We find that, in contrast to bargaining with complete information, the option to return to bargaining is not redundant in equilibrium. However, the no-delay result still holds. In Regime II, where agents have asymmetric information about the outside option, delay is possible. The solution characterizes the parameters for renegotiation and those for search with no return to the bargaining table.     

Equity with Warrants in Private Placements

We examine private equity with warrant (unit) placements and compare them with private equity placements. Firms making unit placements are smaller, younger, riskier, and characterized by higher information asymmetry than equity‐placing firms. Furthermore, unit‐placing firms experience good pre‐placement stock performance; however, their post‐placement performance is poor and worse than that of equity‐placing firms. We also find that very few of the placed warrants are in the money at expiration. Our results are consistent with the window of opportunity hypothesis and the theory that warrants are especially desirable to a clientele of overoptimistic investors.     

Trade Causes of the Asian Crisis: The Malaysian Experience

Prior to the onset of the Asian financial crisis there was a deterioration in the external trade position of most countries that were affected by the Asian currency crisis. However, little is known about why this occurred. This paper aims to identify the causes of a slowdown in export growth in Malaysia. While misaligned exchange rates have been widely cited as a cause of the slowdown in East Asia; in the Malaysian context at least a vulnerability to the downturn in the electronic cycle could also be a major factor leading to poor export performance. Using the US/yen dollar rate as a proxy for exchange rate misalignment and US total new orders for electronics as a proxy for global electronics demand, cointegration analysis was used to establish the likely causes of a slowdown in Malaysia's export performance. The empirical evidence suggests that the coincidence of exchange rate misalignment with a downturn in the global electronics demand cycle was responsible for the sharp deterioration in export performance.     

Knowledge-based service industry in a South African university town: The case of Stellenbosch

Knowledge-based service industries, because they are geographically ‘footloose’, have the potential to contribute to small town and city economies. The university town of Stellenbosch, identified as having a high growth potential, is the location of a growing IT and knowledge-based service sector. Data from questionnaires completed by 104 Stellenbosch companies provided some insight into why they chose this town. Most said that, provided sufficient IT is available, they would be able to function as effectively in another town. This implies that they locate in Stellenbosch as a matter of preference rather than necessity. The paper provides insights into the reasons for the spatial clustering in South African non-metropolitan areas and how companies decide where to locate.     

Living in the age of emotional rationality: Wendell Bell, social media and the challenges of value change

When the change process accelerates, the meaning of the logic of cause and effect in living through this blurring reality clearly diminishes. We have to tell the story of our reality and future both to ourselves and to society with new concepts, words and metaphors. While the importance of instant experience and transience grows, our in-depth understanding of the logic of time gradually crumbles away. The fervency of action widens the limits of reality in a fundamental way, even though our personal human capacity to receive and handle information and experience emotions and events has not changed in the one million years of human history.The present is swelling over the past and the future. The social media transforms into one big global amplifier through which emotional experience is transmitted and strengthened. The asset of collective experiences is that they are universal, they are private and felt on an individual level, and yet they can simultaneously be shared by the others. However, one might also say that even though the growth of information produces more and more different value contents for us to choose from, this freedom of choice is still rather spurious.With the traditional norms, models of action, habits and attitudes we can no longer cope in this totally new reality. We live in an age of controversies which emphasizes emotions with public intimacy and privacy with a realtime audience. We are enchanted by creativity and innovativeness and our decisions have to be made quickly, efficiently and in a short-term basis. We cannot freely consider our values, but in order to cope, we have to try to behave in a way which is the most target-oriented, and at the same time, the tools and methods to cope in this rapidly changing reality are still scarce. Therefore we have to weigh the efficiency and suitability of the means in relation to the objective also in such situations where we cannot make proper value assessments. Emotional universality can become, or at least with the help of skilled media PR professionals, it can be used as a means to commercialize our emotions, or it can help us in the process of building universal values.