Alcohol-related crashes and alcohol availability in grass-roots communities

This paper employs a unique panel data from 111 small non-metropolitan incorporated cities in California during a 108 month period from January 1981 to December 1989 in order to analyse the effect of alcohol availability on highway safety. Negative binomial regression models are estimated which include alcohol licences per square mile as a measure of alcohol availability. Theoretically, the sign of the alcohol licence density is indeterminate as it reflects a trade-off of its effect on traffic exposure and on the time price alcohol. Among the findings, increases in the density of general alcohol licences for off-site (on-site) alcohol consumption are beneficial (detrimental) to highway safety whereas increasing the density of beer/wine licences have non-uniform effects. Additional findings important to municipal policymakers are that DUI arrests and increasing the price of alcohol reduce alcohol-related crashes.     

Leisure Research and Leisure Practice: Three Perspectives on Constructing the Research?Practice Relation

The leisure research?leisure practice relation remains uncertain. Assuming leisure provides a preexisting link is not supported by research. Leisure research and leisure practice are independent professional paradigms between which a relation must be constructed. Three perspectives on constructing the research?practice relation are examined in this article: the traditional, the personal, and the critical. The benefits approach to leisure is a test case in each perspective. The traditional and personal perspectives subordinate one professional paradigm to the other or intensify their separation. The benefits approach fails to resolve these difficulties. The critical perspective emphasizes developmental activity and emancipation, facilitates research?practice interaction, and maintains the professional paradigms' integrity, and it reveals shortcomings in the benefits approach. The critical perspective enables the most dynamic research?practice relation.     

The face of the un‐consumer: An empirical examination of the practice of voluntary simplicity in the United States

The practice of voluntary simplicity is inextricably linked to consumer behavior and has attracted the attention of researchers in a number of disciplines, including psychology and marketing. Yet the daily practice of voluntary simplicity in the United States remains largely unexamined. The research presented here is the first to look at voluntary simplicity with the use of a nationwide sample of American consumers. A more refined application of Maslow's theory of human motivation to the understanding of this social phenomenon is proposed. The practices considered most important to this lifestyle are identified, as are key impediments to its consistent practice. Factor analysis is used to identify the underlying dimensions of U.S. voluntary simplicity: ecological and social responsibility; community; and maintaining a spiritual life. Findings indicate that people of moderate income are more likely to practice voluntary simplicity than was previously believed. This research also compares highly committed simplifiers to those who are less committed, finding that more committed practitioners are more likely to be consistent in practices requiring ongoing effort, such as composting. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

历史的教训：逆向思维者胜

经济动荡期的管理是一种至关重要的商业能力。在经济低迷期，良好的企业管理不仅能够使企业的经营业绩优异于竞争对手，而且，在经济低迷期建立起来的竞争优势更具有可持续性。     

International P/L insurance output,input, and productivity comparisons

This research provides (bilateral) divisia and multilateral divisia indexes of output, input, and productivity for the property-liability (P-L) insurance industry for the following countries: United States, West Germany, Switzerland, France, and Japan. The time period studied is 1975 to 1987. The results indicate that considerable diversity exists among different countries, with Japan showing the weakest productivity growth. The United States and West Germany are associated overall with high productivity.     

Natural Language in Banking

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of natural language technology in banking applications. The paper provides a brief review of natural language systems and technologies and then a summary of some of the banking systems that use natural language. The integration of natural language into broader-based bank information systems is also discussed.     

Wealth Accumulation and Distribution in the Midwest in the Late Nineteenth Century

It is well known that early settlers on the frontier reaped the benefits of development as population grew, especially through capital gains on real estate. But population turnover—so pervasive in the rural north in the nineteenth century as well as in contemporary settlement economies—also afforded early settlers an advantage: they knew local soil and market conditions better than those who settled later. Such location-specific human capital augmented the incomes, and therefore the wealth, of early settlers. Early settlers in Missouri had higher rates of wealth accumulation than later arrivals, and the contribution of location-specific human capital was at least equal to the contribution of capital gains.