Measuring Value Change in Western Industrialized Societies: The Impact of Unemployment

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 905-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold D. Clarke ◽  
Nitish Dutt

During the past two decades a four-item battery administered in biannual Euro-Barometer surveys has been used to measure changing value priorities in Western European countries. We provide evidence that the measure is seriously flawed. Pooled cross-sectional time series analyses for the 1976–86 period reveal that the Euro-Barometer postmaterialist-materialist value index and two of its components are very sensitive to short-term changes in economic conditions, and that the failure to include a statement about unemployment in the four-item values battery accounts for much of the apparent growth of postmaterialist values in several countries after 1980. The aggregate-level findings are buttressed by analyses of panel data from three countries.

Author(s):  
TK Vinod Kumar

Consumption of alcohol has an impact on violent crimes and homicides. The study examines the association between aggregate level consumption of spirit and homicide rates in the State of Kerala in India. Time-series analyses were conducted by building Autoregressive Moving Average with Exogenous Variables (ARMAX) models and OLS Regression models to explain the relationship between the monthly rate of consumption of alcoholic spirits and homicide rates. The study concludes that consumption of alcoholic spirits has a statistically significant impact on the total homicide rates and the male and female homicide rates. The study has significant policy implications being one of the first studies examining the relationship between alcohol consumption and homicide rates in India and suggesting methods to address challenges of adverse public health consequences associated with alcohol consumption.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 276-276
Author(s):  
Taylor Patskanick ◽  
Lisa D'Ambrosio

Abstract The oldest of older adults remain at the highest risk of developing severe illness, requiring hospitalization, or dying if infected with COVID-19. As a result, the discourse about the COVID-19 pandemic has centered on short-term sacrifices to “protect” older adults. Yet much remains to be known about the prolonged impact of the pandemic on the over-85 age demographic. This symposium shares findings from a longitudinal, mixed methods study with the MIT AgeLab’s 85+ Lifestyle Leaders panel, a panel of octogenarians and nonagenarians convened since 2015. This symposium offers an update to a 2020 GSA session shared regarding the initial, cross-sectional work conducted in March 2020 with this panel. Findings will be drawn from a series of 85 interviews with 15 participants, 14 focus groups (x̅ participants=19.3), and three surveys (March 2020, N=28; August 2020, N=18; November 2020, N=16) conducted with the panel regarding the impact of the pandemic on this group over the past year. The first presentation covers the Lifestyle Leaders’ adoption and use of technology throughout the pandemic, with a focus on telehealth. The second takes an in-depth look at the unique lived experiences of Lifestyle Leaders living in senior housing communities during the pandemic. The third explores the Lifestyle Leaders’ perspectives on cultivating resilience and caring for their mental health while in a pandemic. Finally, the fourth presentation shares the Lifestyle Leaders’ experiences with social isolation and loneliness during the pandemic, with a focus on how family relationships and engagement in intergenerational programming have changed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Allee ◽  
Clint Peinhardt

AbstractDuring the past few decades governments have signed nearly 2,700 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with one another in an attempt to attract greater levels of foreign direct investment (FDI). By signing BITs, which contain strong enforcement provisions, investment-seeking governments are thought to more credibly commit to protecting whatever FDI they receive, which in turn should lead to increased confidence among investors and ultimately greater FDI inflows. Our unique argument is that the ability of BITs to increase FDI is contingent on the subsequent good behavior of the governments who sign them. BITs should increase FDI only if governments actually follow through on their BIT commitments; that is, if they comply with the treaties. BITs allow investors to pursue alleged treaty violations through arbitration venues like the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a heavily utilized and widely observed arbitral institution that is part of the World Bank. Being taken before ICSID, then, conveys negative information about a host country's behavior to the broader investment community, which could result in a sizeable loss of future FDI into that country. We test these contingent effects of BITs using cross-sectional, time-series analyses on all non-OECD countries during a period spanning 1984–2007. We find that BITs do increase FDI into countries that sign them, but only if those countries are not subsequently challenged before ICSID. On the other hand, governments suffer notable losses of FDI when they are taken before ICSID and suffer even greater losses when they lose an ICSID dispute.


2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byong-Kuen Jhee

This study explores how economic performance prior to democratic transitions affects the fate of successors to authoritarian rulers in new democracies. It investigates 70 founding election outcomes, finding that successful economic performance under an authoritarian regime increases the vote share of successors. It also finds that the past economic performance of authoritarian rulers decreases the likelihood of government alternation to democratic oppositions. Interim governments that initiate democratic transition, however, are neither blamed nor rewarded for economic conditions during transition periods. This study concludes that electorates are not myopic and that economic voting is not a knee-jerk reaction to short-term economic performance in new democracies.


2007 ◽  
Vol 191 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Page ◽  
Shakoor Hajat ◽  
R. Sari Kovats

BackgroundSeasonal fluctuation in suicide has been observed in many populations. High temperature may contribute to this, but the effect of short-term fluctuations in temperature on suicide rates has not been studied.AimsTo assess the relationship between daily temperature and daily suicide counts in England and Wales between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 2003 and to establish whether heatwaves are associated with increased mortality from suicide.MethodTime-series regression analysis was used to explore and quantify the relationship between daily suicide counts and daily temperature. The impact of two heatwaves on suicide was estimated.ResultsNo spring or summer peak in suicide was found. Above 18 °, each 1 ° increase in mean temperature was associated with a 3.8 and 5.0% rise in suicide and violent suicide respectively. Suicide increased by 46.9% during the 1995 heatwave, whereas no change was seen during the 2003 heat wave.ConclusionsThere is increased risk of suicide during hot weather.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Manthey ◽  
Domantas Jasilionis ◽  
Huan Jiang ◽  
Olga Mesceriakova-Veliuliene ◽  
Janina Petkeviciene ◽  
...  

Introduction Alcohol use is a major risk factor for mortality. Previous studies suggest that the alcohol-attributable mortality burden is higher in lower socioeconomic strata. This project will test the hypothesis, that the 2017 increase of alcohol excise taxes for beer and wine, which was linked to lower all-cause mortality rates in previous analyses, will reduce socioeconomic mortality inequalities. Methods and analysis Data on all causes of deaths will be obtained from Statistics Lithuania. Record linkage will be implemented using personal identifiers combining data from 1) the 2011 whole-population census, 2) death records between March 1, 2011 (census date) and December 31, 2019, and 3) emigration records, for individuals aged 30 to 70 years. The analyses will be performed separately for all-cause and for alcohol-attributable deaths. Monthly age-standardized mortality rates will be calculated by sex, education, and three measures of socioeconomic status. Inequalities in mortality will be assessed using absolute and relative indicators between low and high SES groups. We will perform interrupted time series analyses, and test the impact of the 2017 rise in alcohol excise taxation using generalized additive mixed models. In these models, we will control for secular trends for economic development. Ethics and dissemination This work is part of project grant 1R01AA028224-01 by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. It has been granted research ethics approval 050/2020 by CAMH Research Ethics Board on April 17, 2020, renewed on March 30, 2021.


Author(s):  
Steven Moran ◽  
Nicholas A. Lester ◽  
Eitan Grossman

In this paper, we investigate evolutionarily recent changes in the distributions of speech sounds in the world's languages. In particular, we explore the impact of language contact in the past two millennia on today's distributions. Based on three extensive databases of phonological inventories, we analyse the discrepancies between the distribution of speech sounds of ancient and reconstructed languages, on the one hand, and those in present-day languages, on the other. Furthermore, we analyse the degree to which the diffusion of speech sounds via language contact played a role in these discrepancies. We find evidence for substantive differences between ancient and present-day distributions, as well as for the important role of language contact in shaping these distributions over time. Moreover, our findings suggest that the distributions of speech sounds across geographic macro-areas were homogenized to an observable extent in recent millennia. Our findings suggest that what we call the Implicit Uniformitarian Hypothesis, at least with respect to the composition of phonological inventories, cannot be held uncritically. Linguists who would like to draw inferences about human language based on present-day cross-linguistic distributions must consider their theories in light of even short-term language evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-41
Author(s):  
Liběna Černohorská ◽  
Darina Kubicová

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of negative interest rates on economic activity in a selected group of countries, in particular Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland, for the period 2009–2018. The central banks of these countries were among the first to implement negative interest rates to revive the economic growth. Therefore, this study analyzed long- and short-term relationships between interest rates announced by central banks and gross domestic product and blue chip stock indices. Time series analysis was conducted using Engle-Granger cointegration analysis and Granger causality testing to identify long- and short-term relationship. The first step, using the Akaike criteria, was to determine the optimal delay of the entire time interval for the analyzed periods. Time series that seem to be stationary were excluded based on the results of the Dickey-Fuller test. Further testing continued with the Engle-Granger test if the conditions were met. It was designed to identify co-integration relationships that would show correlation between the selected variables. These tests showed that at a significance level of 0.05, there is no co-integration between any time series in the countries analyzed. On the basis of these analyses, it was determined that there were no long-term relationships between interest rates and GDP or stock indices for these countries during the monitored time period. Using Granger causality, the study only confirmed short-term relationship between interest rates and GDP for all examined countries, though not between interest rates and the stock indices. Acknowledgment The paper has been created with the financial support of The Czech Science Foundation GACR 18-05244S – Innovative Approaches to Credit Risk Management.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 300-332
Author(s):  
Martti Puohiniemi ◽  
Markku Verkasalo

Finland changed from an industrial society to an information society in 1991-2015. Due to economic fluctuations, diffusion of digitalization and media turbulence the period changed Finnish society a lot. We studied the impact of this on basic human values with Schwartz’s approach, and concentrated on zeitgeist effects. We developed a definition of zeitgeist effects and a set of hypotheses, based on the literature, to study how major societal changes influence values. Also, we found theoretical similarities between value consensus, democratization and the fragmentation of media use that we analyzed. Data (N = 7.172) were collected in five waves. We measured changes in the ten values, and used the two value dimensions based on factor analysis, also. Moreover, we used the Schwartz value map to illustrate value changes in social groups. The combination of the latter two methods offer a parsimonious way to get an overview of value change over a longer period of time, but single values suit better for the analysis of short-term changes. Our hypotheses received support regarding overall change that is small, as well as regarding zeitgeist effects in the 1990s, the disappearance of them in the new millennium, and how the values of social groups started to change in different directions in the era of social media. The above changes including the disappearance of zeitgeist effects in the new millennium were linked to societal events, e.g. fragmentation of media use. Moreover, we found that in a complex society zeitgeist effects might mirror simultaneous impact of several events.


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