Is post-smoking-cessation weight-gain a significant trigger for relapse?

While the Surgeon General's Consumer Guide lists weight-gain as an important relapse trigger, the 2001 Surgeon General's Report on Women and Smoking concludes, paradoxically, that actual weight-gain during cessation does not appear to predict relapse. This dichotomous view reflects longstanding scientific uncertainty about the role of weight-gain in triggering relapse. This scientific uncertainty, which stems from mixed clinical trial results, is problematic for insurance coverage decisions such as state Medicaid programme decisions to cover or exclude smoking-cessation and weight-control pharmaceuticals. Analysts hypothesize that selection bias may explain the inconsistency between the negative clinical results and the persistent view that weight-gain triggers relapse, if weight-concern is both a key determinant of the transition from ‘smoker’ to ‘ex-smoker,’ and a key moderating variable in the relationship between weight-gain and relapse. We therefore use the nationally representative 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) to test the relapse-trigger hypothesis, and conclude that post-smoking-cessation weight-gain triggers relapse among weight-concerned white women, but it is associated with quitting success among Hispanic women. In addition, our results do not support the hypothesis that the mixed clinical trial results reflect selection bias based on weight-concern.     

An Empirical Examination of the Pollution Haven Hypothesis for India: Towards a Green Leontief Paradox?

Using input–output analysis, we examine whether India can be regarded as a pollution haven. We calculate the extra CO₂, SO₂ and NO _x emissions induced by 1 billion rupees of additional exports. This is compared with the reduction of Indian pollution caused by an import increase of equal size. In contrast to what the pollution haven hypothesis states for developing countries, we find that India considerably gains from extra trade. Comparing 1996/1997 with 1991/1992, the gains have only increased, indicating that India has moved␣further away from being a pollution haven. The outcome is robust to changes in the underlying assumptions.      

Estimation under two stage random permutation models

Summary Estimation of the population mean under assumptions of non-informativeness of labels in a two stage finite population of distinguishable units has been studied. Under the random permutation model, for the two stage set up, sample mean, the natural estimator, is found to be the best.     

On sequential comparisons of means of first-order autoregressive models

The problem of estimating a linear combination,μ, of means ofp-independent, first-order autoregressive models is considered. Sequential procedures are derived (i) to estimateμ pointwise using the linear combination of sample means, subject to a loss function (squared error plus cost per observation), and (ii) to arrive at a fixed-width confidence interval forμ. It is observed that in the case of point estimation we do not require a sampling scheme, where as in the case of interval estimation we do require a sampling scheme and a scheme similar to the one given in Mukhopadhyay and Liberman (1989) is proposed. All the first order efficiency properties of the sequential procedures involved here are derived. This paper is an extension of results of Sriram (1987) involving one time series to multiple time series. Research supported by AFOSR Grant number 89-0225.     

Asymptotic considerations for selecting the best component of a multivariate normal population

Summary Several two-stage and sequential procedures have been developed for selecting the best component in a multivariate normal population through the classical indifference zone approach ofBechhofer. The works inMukhopadhyay/Chou will constitute to be very basic in this regard. A number of first-order and second-order asymptotic analysis of these procedures has also been reported. In the case of a bivariate population, the normality assumption has been dropped, and the rate of convergence of the probability of correct selection is studied.     

Economic liberalisation,gender wage inequality and welfare

The article develops a 3-sector general equilibrium model appropriate for economies with female labour oriented export sector to examine the effects of economic liberalisation policies on gender based wage inequality. It is assumed that there exist disparities in efficiencies between male and female labour due to skewed access to education and health, and differences in their spending patterns leading to differential effects of respective wages on their nutrition. The results indicate that tariff cut may reduce gender wage inequality, but may have detrimental effects on welfare; while foreign capital inflow may accentuate the inequality, despite improving the welfare of the economy. However, government policies to increase the provision of education and health have favourable effects on gender wage inequality but may be welfare deteriorating. Thus, the article provides a theoretical explanation to empirical evidences of diverse effects of liberalisation on gender wage inequality and explains the possibility of a trade-off between gender inequality and social welfare.     

Costly state verification and optimal investment

We model a lender-borrower relationship in a CSV framework. The project available with the firm is characterized by first-order stochastic dominance. The lender audits the borrower to prevent the latter from strategic default. In this setup, we find the optimal contract is the standard debt contract. However, a debt contract leads to overinvestment. This result is in sharp contrast to those obtained in the literature. The default probability of the project can be influenced by the nature of financial contract in place. The model also derives the relationship between the optimal debt equity ratio and the auditing costs. The work is based on the author’s Ph.D. dissertation submitted at the Indian Statistical Institute. The author wishes to thank Shubhashis Gangopadhyay and the seminar participants at the Indian Statistical Institute, Jawaharlal Nehru University, MDI, and NIILM for useful comments on the earlier draft. The paper has also benefitted immensely from the valuable insights povided by the three anonymous referees of the journal. The remaining errors are mine.     

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF TRADE IN INDIA

Abstract

This article aims at contributing to environment trade debate by evaluating the impacts of international trade on emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides for the Indian economy during 90s using Input-Output techniques. The article has constructed an index of pollution terms of trade. Using the Input-Output table of 1991–92 and 1996–97 for India we have computed pollution terms of trade for the content of CO₂, SO₂, and NO _x . Results show that the indices are below 100, indicating that India produces goods that are more environment friendly than goods it imports, thus challenging the pollution haven hypothesis for India. The article has also offered explanations for these results.     

“I love it” or “I hate it”? The positivity effect in stated preferences for agent evaluation

Consumers often interact with agents to obtain advice about products and services. A consumer’s evaluation of an agent as a source of personalized advice depends, in part, on the extent to which the consumer believes the agent knows and shares her tastes. In this research, we show a positivity effect in the agent evaluation process, whereby consumers perceive alternatives they love (compared to hate) to be more informative to agents about their tastes, and hence more diagnostic to agents for predicting their future evaluations. Further, we show that this positivity effect is moderated by the agent’s level of agreement with the consumer, and is driven by the greater accessibility of information about loved, compared to hated, alternatives. We discuss the implications of these results for interpersonal judgments and agent choice.     

Simultaneous estimation after selection and ranking and other procedures: The negative exponential case

We considerk (≥2) independent negative exponential populations with unknown location parameters and unknown but equal scale parameter. We incorporate the existing purely sequential and three-stage sampling procedures for selecting the “best” population and study the asymptotic second-order characteristics of the proposed fixed-size simultaneous confidence regions for the location parameters constructed after selection and ranking. Some direct estimation procedures have also been discussed.