Government Hedging: Motivation, Implementation, and Evaluation

This article examines option hedging strategies that enable politicians to manage budgetary risk. While the theoretical risk management arguments are general, the simulation analysis considers the example of oil revenue risk in Texas, and estimates the costs and benefits of an option hedging program. To evaluate government option hedging strategies, the study develops a hedge quotient measure that compares the future value of realized revenues plus net option proceeds to the future value of expected revenue. The average hedge quotient is found to be lower for the option hedging strategy than for the unhedged position, illustrating the cost of an option hedging program. Nevertheless, option hedging effectively manages extreme downside risk and stops large budget deficits from occurring. Politicians may also like option hedging because it preserves the potential of realizing budget surpluses.     

The Welsh Devolution Referendum

This article seeks to place the 1997 referendum on the Labour government's plans to establish an elected Welsh Assembly into the context of the debate on devolution as it has developed in Wales since 1979, when broadly similar proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by the Welsh electorate. The authors argue that given the belated decision to hold the referendum, the particular difficulties created by the Welsh political landscape, and the fact that there was no real attempt to develop a broad-based consensus behind the proposals before the 1997 general election, the fact that the proposals were finally approved – albeit by the narrowest of margins – represents a substantial achievement for the pro-devolutionists.     

Reviews

Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa by Brian Titley. McGill‐Queen's University Press, Québec (Canada) and Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, (UK), 1997. xii. plus 5pp. of illustrations (photographs and a map of the Central African Republic) plus 257pp. including notes, bibliography and index. £22.95 hardback.

The Making of a Periphery: Economic Development and Cultural Encounters in Southern Tanzania edited by Pekka Seppala and Bertha Koda. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala (Sweden), 1998. 344 pp. including figures, tables, maps, notes, bibliography and index. Paperback.

Farewell to Farms: De‐agrarianization and Employment in Africa edited by D.F. Bryceson and V. Jamal. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Aldershot, 1997. iv plus 265pp. including figures, tables, notes and index.

The World Bank and Nigeria: Cornucopia or Pandora's Box? by Rufai Ahmed Alkali. Kaduna, Baraka Press, 1997. 205pp. including selected references.

Sustaining the Future: Economic, Social and Environmental Change in Sub‐Saharan Africa edited by George Benneh, William B.Morgan and Juha I.Uitto. The United Nations University Press, Tokyo, New York and Paris, 1996.     

Validation of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory for Axis II Disorders: Does It Meet the Daubert Standard?

Law and Human Behavior - Relevant to forensic practice, the Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (1993) established the boundaries for the admissibility of scientific...     

Sex differences in sex-role conceptions and family orientation of high school students

Studies of college freshmen find that men are more sexist in their attitudes than women. Does this hold also for high school students? This paper reports the relationship of (1) sex-role attitudes to selected school and family characteristics and (2) attitudes toward family life to sex-role conceptions for women and men. The study is based on 529 students in grades 9 to 12 attending four high schools. The findings show that males are more sexist than females and Blacks more so than Whites. Women who are bright, from upper class backgrounds, and whose mothers work are more equalitarian in sex-role conceptions. For men, family background is unimportant, but attending an elite public school seems to foster equalitarian sex-role conceptions. Men's sex-role attitudes are harder to explain than women's, and, unlike women, their role attitudes have little connection to their family orientation.     

Actual and perceived intrafamilial attitudes of late adolescents and their parents

The present study assessed the comparability of adolescents' (N=184), their mothers' (N=184), and their fathers' (N=184) attitudes toward contemporary societal issues, as well as each familial group's perceptions of the other two groups' attitudes. Results of multivariated analyses of variance indicated that while there were significant overall differences between adolescents' and either parent's self-ratings for the 36 questionnaire items (dealing with such topics as drug use, sexuality, and dress codes), major (i.e., 2-scale-point) differences between generational groups existed on only about 20% of the items. However, as predicted, both adolescents and parents misperceived the extensiveness of the divisions between them. Adolescents significantly overestimated the number of major differences between themselves and their mothers and fathers, while these two parental groups significantly underestimated such divisions. These distortions in perceived attitudes were also reflected in the results of correlational analyses assessing intrafamilial attitude consistencies and inconsistencies across the 36 items. Self-alternative-family-members' perceived attitudes correlations showed greater consistency than existed in the self-alternative-family-members' actual attitudes correlations. Moreover, both analyses of variance and correlational analyses indicated that there was greater similarity between the actual attitudes of the mothers and fathers than between either parental group and their children. These results are discussed in terms of the cognitive and emotional significance of the intrafamilial attitudes of adolescents and parents.Received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York in developmental psychology. Current research interests include the relation of organismic variables to personality/social development.Received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Denver. Research interests include measurement theory and cognition.     

Residential Aged Care Policy in Australia – Are We Learning from Evidence?

The residential aged care industry in Australia will expand rapidly over the next 10 years leading to substantial increases in government expenditure. Recent and future reforms are likely leading to changes in the structure of the industry with a potential impact on quality of care. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate broader public debate, based on the available evidence, about the preferred structure of this important industry. It examines the literature on the impact structure has on the quality of services and compares this with a fresh analysis of current trends. The paper argues that future policy should be evidence based and explicit about the structure of the industry that will emerge from current policy reforms.