Eliciting Risk Attitudes in the Field: Surveys or Experimental Methods? An Empirical Comparison in Rural Niger

We compare several risk preference elicitation methods – including incentivised, non-incentivised, and framed methods as well as a traditional Likert survey question – in a developing country and empirically test how well consequent measures of risk attitudes predict risk taking behaviour. We find that Likert scale and non-incentivised framed survey questions are not sufficient substitutes for costlier incentivised methods in rural Niger. Instead, the incentivised framed question works best while a simplified incentivised lottery question works almost as well. More risk and ambiguity averse farmers are less likely to adopt fertiliser microdosing indicating the importance of insurance and strategies to promote learning.     

Pyro-Terrorism—The Threat of Arson-Induced Forest Fires as a Future Terrorist Weapon of Mass Destruction

The United States is at significant risk of a future pyro-terrorist attack—when terrorists unleash the latent energy in the nation's forests to achieve the effect of a weapon of mass destruction—the threat, must be defined America's vulnerabilities understood, and action taken to mitigate this danger to the United States.     

Patterns in the lives of ETA members

Abstract

Based on 48 fairly detailed personal case histories, and more limited data on 447 other individuals, this article describes significant patterns in the lives of members of the Basque insurgent organization Euzkadi ta Askatasuna (ETA). The article discusses the age and sex of ETA members, the socioeconomic background of the members and their families, and their ethnic and linguistic characteristics. The article also describes life in ETA, the radicalization of Basque youth, how new members are recruited into the organization, how they live and what they do as members, how ETA members relate to family, friends and loved ones, and how they terminate their relationship to the organization. The study finds ETA members to be not the alienated and pathologically distressed individuals who join other insurgent organizations, but rather they are psychologically healthy persons for the most part, strongly supported by their families and their ethnic community.     

Printmedia poll reporting in Poland: Poll as news in Polish parliamentary campaigns, 1991–2007

Information about the support given by the public opinion to political actors has become a constant element of the public debate in Poland after the fall of Communism. Very soon polls became an argument in debates, a premise, or a way to justify decisions. At the same time they were criticized both by politicians and journalists convinced that polls can significantly influence the election results. But the fact was not noticed in Poland that all debates about the influence of polls on election outcomes should be preceded by a discussion of the way they are presented in the media. The present article joins this debate by subjecting to analysis the polls published in the Polish press during parliamentary campaigns in the dimensions of the role they played during the recent several years, the quality of methodological information, and of the way the polls were used in the media.As opposed to European and American analyses, no improvement in the conformity to standards of minimal disclosure in newspapers’ reporting of public opinion polls was noticed, although—like in other countries—a dramatic increase in the number of polls reported was observed.     

Capital punishment politics and policies in the States, 1977–1997

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty constitutionalin 1976, thirty-eight states have readopted new capital punishmentstatutes consistent with Supreme Court decisions on procedural guidelines. While much of the literature about capital punishmentaddresses the legal aspects of the issue, this essay examines thepolitics of the major institutions of state government in the formulation of capital punishment policies. In some states, thereis agreement between key officials in the institutions on the desirability of, or opposition to, capital punishment. However, inmost other states, the debate over the appropriateness of deathpenalty policies is vigorously waged between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Overall, 432 felons were executedin 30 states between 1977 and 1997. However, no executions haveoccurred in nine of these states. Twelve states have no provisionsfor the death penalty. The majority of executions since 1977 havetaken place in just six states. In addition to the abolitioniststates, the others can be categorized as (1) aggressive executioners,(2) occasional executioners, (3) reluctant executioners, and (4)nonusers where the death penalty has been restored for politicalpurposes but no executions have been carried out in over two decadesand none are likely to be in the immediate future given the minisculenumber of inmates on death row.