Significance of Family Risk Factors in Development of Childhood Animal Cruelty in Adolescent Boys with Conduct Problems

The literature suggests that physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, paternal alcoholism, paternal unavailability, and domestic violence may be significant in development of childhood animal cruelty. Two groups of early- to late adolescent boys (CTA and N-CTA) in residential treatment for conduct disorder were compared in the current study on histories of these family risk factors. The adolescents in Group 1 were comprised of boys who had conduct problems with documented histories of animal cruelty (n = 50; CTA). Group 2 consisted of adolescent boys (n = 50; N-CTA) with conduct problems, but without documented histories of animal cruelty. Results showed that children in the CTA group had significantly greater histories of physical and/or sexual child abuse and domestic violence in comparison to children in the N-CTA group. These results suggest that physical and/or sexual abuse to a child, and exposure to domestic violence, may be significant in the development of childhood animal cruelty.     

Mobilizing Millennial Voters with Targeted Internet Advertisements: A Field Experiment

Internet advertisements have come under tremendous scrutiny recently for their potential to impact electoral outcomes. However, academic research has yet to determine if they have an effect on turnout. This article presents the results of a preregistered field experiment conducted in Dallas, Texas, in partnership with The Dallas Morning News in which individually targeted banner ads were able to generate a statistically significant increase in turnout among Millennial voters in a municipal election. The results show that a combination of information and voting reminder ads was effective, but only for voters in competitive districts. Estimated treatment effects were on par with a telephone mobilization campaign using live callers. These findings contribute to theoretical knowledge about the role of political knowledge and electoral competitiveness in voter mobilization, and offer a new method for testing online advertisements used by political campaigns.     

Cattle Markets Integration and Price Discovery: The Case of Mali

This article analyses the level of integration in 10 cattle markets in Mali. The results indicate a limited interdependence among markets where, in majority of cases, more than 70 per cent of price variation is due to own-price shocks. However, the Ségou market exhibited a high level of interaction with other markets, behaving mostly as a price information receiver. Some markets behaved as sources of price information, however, without taking a clear price leadership role. This low level of market integration may be attributed to limited access to livestock markets and timely price information.