Is there a relationship between election outcomes and perceptions of personal economic well-being? A test using post-election economic expectations

Do individuals believe that an election victory by their favored candidate will improve their personal economic well-being? Previous work has either adopted an approach that is not well suited to determining this relationship, or ignored this question to focus on perceptions of macroeconomic conditions. In this paper we adopt a new approach that allows us to determine the relationship individuals perceive between elections and personal economic welfare, examining the relationship between vote choice, the election outcome, and post-election expectations for personal economic well-being. We find that economic individualism plays an important role in shaping the relationship individuals perceive between election outcomes and their personal economic well-being. Individuals who reject economic individualism do perceive a relationship, with those viewing an election outcome as favorable more optimistic in their expectations for personal economic well-being than those who view the election outcome as unfavorable. Conversely, election outcomes do not influence the expectations of economic individualists.     

Predilection sites of infantile skull fractures following blunt force

Previous investigations on calvarial fractures in infants have shown that the flexibility and displacement of the infant calvarial are not sufficient to avoid fractures as a result of fall. From a table height onto hard ground - and in special cases, fractures cannot be avoided even after falls onto softly cushioned ground. The skull fractures are located in paper-thin, transparent, single-layer bone areas without diploe. The results of previous literature were compared with investigations of the skulls of 82 infants (from neonates up to infants 14 months of age). Congenital fissures, cranioschisis, locally retarded ossification in the cranium and craniotabes are all weak points where fracture has a tendency to occur even if the impact is minor. These ossification defects are increased in the ossa parietalia, but can also be found in the os frontale or in the os occipitale. The location is not always the same but can be detected by locating the skull transparency using diaphanoscopy.     

The Effect of Retention Interval on the Confidence–Accuracy Relationship for Eyewitness Identification

Recent research using a calibration approach indicates that eyewitness confidence assessments obtained immediately after a positive identification decision provide a useful guide as to the likely accuracy of the identification. This study extended research on the boundary conditions of the confidence–accuracy (CA) relationship by varying the retention interval between encoding and identification test. Participants (N = 1,063) viewed one of five different targets in a community setting and attempted an identification from an 8-person target-present or -absent lineup either immediately or several weeks later. Compared to the immediate condition, the delay condition produced greater overconfidence and lower diagnosticity. However, for choosers at both retention intervals there was a meaningful CA relationship and diagnosticity was much stronger at high than low confidence levels.     

Fostering Economic Growth through a “European” Debt

Economic growth in the EU area is one of the European Union's tasks and the Union's budget should be used to finance actions aimed at development. It is hard to imagine that an increase in budget revenues or a significant reduction in spending in other areas can provide the resources for this purpose. The proposal put forward is to allow for debt financing of investment spending and to downgrade the current constitutional status of the rule regarding a balanced budget. A “European” debt, it is suggested, could strengthen the international role of the euro. If such a reform were not to find consensus within the Union as a whole, it could, alternatively, be adopted in the Eurogroup.