Suchergebnisse

This report examines the relationship between selected interest group lobbying efforts and a venture capital policy used by the American states to promote economic development. Using discriminant analysis, two different sets of interest group lobbying efforts are used to predict the presence of the policy groups. Results indicate that the most common efforts are essentially equal to the least common lobbying efforts at predicting the presence of the policy groups despite the former having fewer members. In addition, the percentage of correctly classified states does not increase as it should according to the traditional theories of interest group behavior. Furthermore, the results do not appear to be unique to this policy because similar results were mapped for five other economic development policies. Given this, it is plausible that interest groups engage in herd behavior, thus explaining why the differences among organized interests do not vary in predicting the six policies.

The importance of parents as a source of influence on drinking behaviour has been emphasized in socialization theories which stress the primacy of parent-child relationships and the critical roles parents play as role models and as agents for imparting moral values and normative codes. This study examines parental attitudes and drinking frequency and their effects on the drinking patterns of 1947 black and 1777 white adults. Black respondents reported that their parents held more conservative drinking attitudes and drank less often than white respondents. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that parental influences predict current drinking patterns in both racial groups even when controlling for age, religious factors, region and socio-economic status. However, important racial and gender differences were observed in the effects of parents' attitudes versus parents' drinking frequency on respondents current alcohol use: Black men differed from white men and women of both races in showing no association between parent attitudes and drinking patterns; the frequency of parental drinking was a more important predictor of drinking patterns among blacks, particularly men, than it was for whites; and heavier drinking among women was not correlated with parent drinking attitudes but was associated with parental drinking behavior. These results were attributed to racial differences in the social context of drinking and family structure and to gender differences in the prevalence of heavier drinking.

Domestic animals have lived with humans for thousands of years and remain essential to the everyday lives of people throughout the world. In this book, Natasha Fijn examines the process of animal domestication in a study that blends biological and social anthropology, ethology and ethnography. She examines the social behavior of humans and animals in a contemporary Mongolian herding society. After living with Mongolian herding families, Dr Fijn has observed through firsthand experience both sides of the human-animal relationship. Examining their reciprocal social behavior and communication with one another, she demonstrates how herd animals influence Mongolian herders' lives and how the animals themselves are active partners in the domestication process

This dissertation investigates the average and median impact of large natural disasters on government debt. It includes 163 countries for the period 1971 to 2014. We apply a panel synthetic control method which constructs a counterfactual for the disaster country. This synthetic control group consists of nondisaster countries that closely resemble the macroeconomic, institutional, geographical and other characteristics of disaster country in the predisaster period. We investigate the difference in government debt between the disaster countries and their respective synthetic control groups. Our findings reveal a considerable increase in government debt for most damaging and deadliest disasters. Government debt, on average, increases by 11.3% of GDP compared to the synthetic control group. The median effect on government debt is 6.8% of GDP. Some natural disasters result in a debt increase over 20% of GDP. When we investigate only the 0.5% largest natural disasters, this study finds even larger effects on government debt. We also investigate the different impacts of different types of disasters. Earthquakes, on average, lead to an increase in government debt of 30.2% of GDP. Floods increase government debt by 7.7% of GDP, while storms increase the level of government debt by 9.5% of GDP compared to the synthetic control group. The effect of natural disasters is even larger than the fiscal costs of financial sector bailouts during the financial crisis. This dissertation also investigates herding behavior exhibited by Dutch pension funds in the sovereign bond market. It uses a unique dataset on sovereign bond holdings of 67 large Dutch pension funds, mutations, and transactions in 109 countries between December 2008 and December 2014. We find evidence of intensive herding behavior of Dutch pension funds in sovereign bonds. Our findings also show that institutional factors, the macroeconomic environment, and the financial market environment are among the determinants of herding behavior in sovereign bonds. Our ...