This study investigated the relationship between Internal-External Locus of Control and smoking behavior among university students in the State of Virginia. It was hypothesized that smokers would have higher I-E scores than exsmokers and nonsmokers; heavy female smokers would have higher I-E scores than male heavy smokers; light female smokers would have higher I-E scores than male light smokers; heavy female-male smokers would have higher I-E scores than female-male light smokers; smokers not convinced by the Surgeon General's Report will have higher I-E scores than smokers who were convinced; smokers convinced by the Surgeon General's Report and stopped smoking will have lower I-E scores than smokers convinced and continuing to smoke; younger university students would have higher I-E scores than older students; students selecting the education curriculum would have higher I-E scores than students selecting other curriculum areas; and female university students would have higher I-E scores than male university students. Five-hundred-fifteen female and male undergraduate students in the universities of Virginia were administered an information questionnaire and Rotter's Social Opinion Questionnaire. The information smoking questionnaire contained the following seven questions: sex of subject, age, curriculum, grade level, present smoking status, future behavior concerning smoking, and considering the Surgeon General's Report as credible information. Rotter's Social Opinion Questionnaire included twenty-nine questions. The selection of answers was determined by a pair of alternatives lettered 1 or 2 (yes or no) which the students strongly believed to be the case as far as they were concerned. The test was scored in the direction of External Control. The higher the score, the more Externally oriented was the subject. While all the hypotheses were not supported, the results did indicate that female heavy smokers scored significantly more External than male heavy smokers; older university students regardless of sex scored significantly more Internal than younger university students; female and male students in the universities of Virginia are knowledgeable of the linkage of smoking and disease as indicated by their almost unanimous acceptance of the Surgeon General's Report as credible information. Female university students scored significantly higher on the I-E scale than males in several variables. A significant main effect was found for sex of students. There was a significant interaction found between sex and smoking groups with a significant difference found between heavy female smokers versus male heavy smokers. A significant main effect was found for age and sex. Smokers regardless of sex did not score significantly higher than. nonsmokers and exsmokers. Female light smokers did not score significantly higher than male light smokers. Smokers convinced by the Surgeon General's Report and stopped smoking did not score significantly lower than smokers convinced and continued to smoke. There were no interactions found to be significant between sex and credibility of Surgeon General's Report, future smoking plans, and smoking groups. / Ed. D.

I Sölvesborgs kommun har det genom åren utförts två vägprojekt längs väg E22. Det skiljer 20 år mellan de båda vägprojekten. Denna uppsats avser att undersöka dessa vägprojektens miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar för att se ämnets utveckling. Miljökonsekvensbeskrivningen för det första vägprojektet publicerades år 1988 och för det andra vägprojektet år 2008. Uppsatsen avser att besvara två frågeställningar samt att lägga en nödvändig faktagrund att förankra resultat-, analys- och diskussionskapitlena i. Faktagrunden utgörs av information kring ämnets historia internationellt och nationellt, ämnets process, utformning och inblandade personer samt hur det bör tillämpas i vägprojekt. De två frågeställningarna: Hur speglas Sveriges MKB-utveckling i uppsatsens fallstudier? och Hur har vägsträckorna påverkat människorna i närområdet? besvaras med fakta och intervjuer. Intervjuer har gjorts med tätorternas invånare längs den berörda vägen samt författaren till båda vägprojektens miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar. Enligt både författaren och litteratur i ämnet har det skett en tydlig utveckling av ämnet under de 20 år som skiljer vägprojekten åt. År 1988 var processen för MKB i ett tidigt stadium. Det saknades tydliga och omfattande direktiv för hur en bra MKB skulle vara utformad. År 2008 fanns det betydligt mer omfattande direktiv för processen vilket har resulterat i en bättre MKB. Intervjuerna med invånarna har som avsikt att besvara uppsatsens andra frågeställning. De intervjuade personerna har fått svara på frågor om hur vägen har påverkat omgivningen och vardagen. Trots en del kritik riktat mot båda vägprojekten har vägen medfört mer positiva egenskaper än negativa.

The standard Keynesian view predicts that equalization of the income distribution leads to an increase in aggregate consumption. We revisit the analysis carried out by the seminal empirical contributions which test such a hypothesis using modern econometric methods and the most comprehensive dataset existing on income distribution measures. Our results indicate that there is no substantive empirical evidence of an effect of income inequality on aggregate consumption. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The standard Keynesian view predicts that equalization of the income distribution leads to an increase in aggregate consumption. We revisit the analysis carried out by the seminal empirical contributions which test such a hypothesis using modern econometric methods and the most comprehensive dataset existing on income distribution measures. Our results indicate that there is no empirical evidence of a negative effect of income inequality on aggregate consumption.

We discuss the effects of rising shareholder power on distribution and capital accumulation in a Kaleckian model. Increasing shareholder power is associated with decreasing managements' animal spirits, on the one hand, and increasing dividends distributed to shareholders, on the other hand. In the short run, increasing shareholder power may either have positive ('finance-led'), negative ('normal') or intermediate ('profits without investment') effects on capacity utilisation, profits and capital accumulation. In the medium run, the positive ('finance-led') effects may be maintained in a stable environment under very special conditions, whereas the negative ('normal') and the intermediate ('profits without investment') effects turn into cumulative disequilibrium processes with falling rates of capacity utilisation, profits and capital accumulation and rising debt- and rentiers' equity-capital-ratios. (author´s abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

El presente trabajo analiza la estructura de los costos de ajuste del capital para el caso de la industria manufacturera argentina. Haciendo uso de un modelo estructural de demanda por inversión intertemporal de la firma, se estiman los costos de ajuste del capital para un panel de plantas manufactureras argentinas. Los parámetros estimados son utilizados luego en experimentos contrafácticos con el objetivo de evaluar los efectos de shocks sobre la demanda de factores. Los resultados obtenidos sugieren la existencia de convexidades, no-convexidades e irreversibilidades en la forma funcional de los costos de ajuste. En particular, se estiman altos costos fijos y de transacción. Asimismo, los ejercicios de simulación contrafácticos resaltan la importancia de considerar la movilidad del capital y sus fricciones a fines de evaluar los efectos de shocks sobre los mercados de factores. Tanto la velocidad como la magnitud del ajuste de los mercados dependen directamente de la movilidad del capital y de los costos de ajuste de este.

We examine net lending/net borrowing and the underlying debt dynamics at the sectoral level in the European Union. Saving and investment patterns indicate that there have been considerable deleveraging efforts since the start of the global financial crisis, particularly in the nonfinancial corporate and household sectors. In many EU countries, however, this decline in credit transactions has not yet led to a significant reduction of sectoral debt-to-GDP ratios. Subdued output growth and low or even negative inflation rates have undermined the deleveraging process and increased real debt burdens in a number of European economies. Since these are often the countries that had experienced strong credit booms prior to the crisis, rebalancing needs are likely to persist and may be a significant drag on the recovery in the near future. Furthermore, most of the ongoing rebalancing - both in terms of debt levels and current account deficits - is based on a sharp decline in investment rather than an increase in saving, which might lead to lower potential growth in the future. Recent developments may even jeopardize the catching-up process of peripheral euro area countries and non-euro area EU Member States in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

This article develops a novel methodological framework to investigate the exposure of eco- nomic systems to the risk of physical capital stranding. Combining Input-Output (IO) and network theory, we define measures to identify both the sectors likely to trigger relevant capital stranding cascades and those most exposed to capital stranding risk. We show how, in a sample of ten European countries, mining is among the sectors with the highest external asset strand- ing multipliers. The sectors most affected by capital stranding triggered by decarbonisation include electricity and gas; coke and refined petroleum products; basic metals; and transporta- tion. From these sectors, stranding would frequently cascade down to chemicals; metal products; motor vehicles water and waste services; wholesale and retail trade; and public administration. Finally, we provide an estimate for the lower-bound amount of assets at risk of transition-related stranding, which is in the range of 0.6-8.2% of the overall productive capital stock for our sample of countries, mainly concentrated in the electricity and gas sector, manufacturing, and mining. These results confirm the systemic relevance of transition-related risks on European societies. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

This paper aims at empirically estimating the demand effects of changes in functional income distribution for Austria. Based on a Post-Kaleckian macro model, this paper estimates the effects of a change in the wage share on the main demand aggregates. The results for the behavioral functions for consumption, investment, prices, exports and imports are compared with the specifications of the WIFO macro model and the IHS macro model. A reduction in the wage share has a restrictive effect on domestic demand as consumption decreases more strongly than investment increases. Because of the strong effects on net exports the overall effects of a decrease in the wage share are expansionary. However the latter effect operates only as far as the fall in the wage share increases competitiveness. As wage shares were also falling in Austria's main trading partners, the effect seems to have been neutralized. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Germany has experienced a period of extreme nominal and real wage moderation since the mid 1990s. Contrary to the expectations of liberal economists this has failed to improve Germany's mediocre economic performance. However, Germany is now running substantial current account surpluses. One possible explanation for Germany's disappointing performance is found in Kaleckian theory, which highlights that the domestic demand effect of a decline in the wage share will typically be contractionary, whereas net exports will increase (Blecker 1989). The size of the foreign demand effect will critically depend on the degree of openness of the economy. The paper aims at estimating the demand side of a Bhaduri-Marglin (1990) -type model empirically for Germany. The paper builds on the estimation strategy of Stockhammer, Onaran and Ederer (2007) and Hein and Vogel (2008a, 2008b). The main contribution lies in a careful analysis of the effects of globalization. Since Germany is a large open economy by now it is a particularly interesting case study. (author´s abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series