Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2009. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

This dissertation consists of three essays on the role of social values in financial markets. Chapter 1 uses geographic variation in religious concentration to identify the effect of people's gambling behavior in financial market settings. We argue that religious background predicts people's gambling propensity, and that gambling propensity carries over into their behavior in financial markets. We test this conjecture in various financial market settings and find that the predominant local religion predicts variation in investors' propensity to hold stocks with lottery features, in the prevalence of broad-based employee stock option plans, in first-day returns to initial public offerings, and in the magnitude of the negative lottery-stock return premium. Collectively, our findings indicate that religious beliefs regarding the acceptability of gambling impact investors' portfolio choices, corporate decisions, and stock returns. In Chapter 2 I examine the impact of social norms against holding certain types of stocks (e.g. "sin stocks", or stocks with lottery features) on trading decisions and portfolio performance. I argue that trades which deviate from social norms are likely to reflect stronger information. Consistent with this hypothesis, I find that the most gambling-averse institutions earn high abnormal returns on their holdings of lottery stocks, outperforming the holdings of the most gambling-tolerant institutions. An analysis of institutions' sin stock holdings provides complementary evidence using another dimension of social norms, supporting the hypothesis that trades which deviate from norms reflect stronger information. In the third essay, we conjecture that people feel more optimistic about the economy and stock market when their own political party is in power. We find supporting evidence from Gallup survey data and analyze brokerage account data to confirm the impact of time-varying optimism on investors' portfolio choices. When the political climate is aligned with their political preferences, investors maintain higher systematic risk exposure while trading less frequently. When the opposite party is in power, investors exhibit stronger behavioral biases and make worse investment decisions. Investors improve their raw portfolio performance when their own party is in power, but the risk-adjusted improvement is economically small. / text

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Pasaulyje bet kurio reiškinio tyrinėjimas nebus pakankamas, jeigu nebus siejamas su vienu reikšmingiausių šių laikų veiksnių – naujosiomis technologijomis. Mokslininkų teigimu, pastarosios transformuoja ir laikui bėgant vis labiau transformuos susiformavusias žmonių įsitikinimų sistemas, taigi, keis ir pilietines vertybes. Vertybės – svarbi pedagogikos mokslų tyrimų sritis. Vienodos vertybės žmones vienija, skirtingos skiria, todėl svarbu, kad kuo daugiau vertybių būtų diegiama per praktinį patyrimą, todėl pilietinis ugdymas jau tapęs viena prioritetinių sričių. Bendrojo lavinimo mokykla Lietuvoje siekia išugdyti sąmoningus piliečius, ne tik išmanančius, bet ir gebančius pasinaudoti savo teisėmis, žinančius savo pareigas bei mokančius gyventi ir kurti nuolat besikeičiančioje, globalizacijos veikiamoje visuomenėje. Viešoji erdvė atlieka svarbų vaidmenį formuojant piliečių nuomonę, nes sekdami informaciją internete, daugiau ar mažiau žmonės ima tikėti tuo, ką mato ir ką skaito. Internete skleidžiama informacija vartotojas naudojasi atskirai nuo aplinkinių, todėl dažnai gali interpretuoti neteisingai. Vertinant virtualiąsias, viešąsias erdves svarbūs laisvo prieinamumo ir racionalios diskusijos veiksniai, skatinantys teisingą čia pateikiamos informacijos suvokimą ir interpretavimą. Deja, dažnai daugelis žiniasklaidai keliamų reikalavimų paminami, todėl ir pilietinis raštingumas, pilietinis dalyvavimas ar paprasčiausias pasitikėjimas žiniasklaida, kitu žmogumi ar bet kokia... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / No investigation in the world cannot be fulfilled in the best way without connecting it to the most significant and meaning agency of today – modern technologies. Scientists state that modern technologies transform present systems of human convictions and will transform even more in the future. It means that modern technologies will influence and transform civic values. Values – are essential area of pedagogical scientific researches. Same values unify people, as different values part people, so it is important to inculcate values into people through the practical experience. That is why civic education has now become a priority area. Basic schools of Lithuania try to form conscious citizens, who are able to fulfil the exercise of their rights, who knows their responsibilities, who are able to leave and create in the volatile and global society. Public area plays a huge role in forming citizens’ opinion as people searching for information in the Internet start to believe more or less to what they see and read. User usually uses the information separately from the others, so the information can be often badly interpreted. Estimating virtual public areas factors of free access and rational discussion are very important, as they may help in understanding and interpreting reached information. Unfortunately, most requirements to the mass communication are often ignored, therefore civic literacy, civic participation and even interest in media is weak. It can be explained, as media... [to full text]

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Every healthcare system faces unlimited demands and limited resources, creating a need to make decisions that may limit access to some new, potentially effective technologies. It has become increasingly clearer that such decisions are more than technical ones. They require social value judgements - statements of the publics distributive preferences for healthcare across the population. However, these value judgements largely remain ill-defined. The purpose of this thesis was to explicate distributive preferences of the public to inform funding/coverage decisions on new health technologies. It contains six papers. The first comprises a systematic review of current coverage processes around the world, including value assumptions embedded within them. The second paper presents findings from an expert workshop and key-informant interviews with senior-level healthcare decision-makers in Canada. A technology funding decision-making framework, informed by the results of the first paper and the experiences of these decision-makers, was developed. Their input also highlighted the lack of and need for information on values that reflect those of the Canadian public. The third paper provides a systematic review of empirical studies attempting to explicate distributive preferences of the public. It also includes an analysis of social value arguments found in appeals to negative coverage decisions. From the results of both components, possible approaches to eliciting social values from the public and a list of factors around which distributive preferences may be sought were compiled. Such factors represented characteristics of unique, competing patient populations. Building on findings from the third paper, the fourth paper describes a citizens jury held to explicate distributive preferences for new health technologies in Alberta, Canada. The jury involved a broadly representative sample of the public, who participated in decision simulation exercises involving trade-offs between patient populations characterized by different combinations of factors. A list of preference statements, demonstrating interactions among such factors, emerged. The fifth and sixth papers address methodological issues related to citizens juries, including the comparability of findings from those carried out in the same way but with different samples of the public, and the extent to which they changed the views of individuals who participate in them.

This thesis is a genealogy which traces changes to the discourse of Australian citizenship. These changes were traced in the Australia Day (i.e., January 26) and January 27 editions of The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Sun Herald (SH) from 1946 – 2007. The dissertation used Foucault’s (1980; 1991a; 1991d; 1991e; 1998; 2002a; 2006b) genealogy supplemented with his archaeological method to provide an analysis of the discourse of Australian citizenship. The analysis was conducted by creating an archive of newspaper texts that related to Australian citizenship discourse. This archive represents the body of knowledge about citizenship as published in the specified print media and reflects the systems of thought that circulated the discourse at particular points in time. The archived newspaper texts related to Australian citizenship discourse contain traces of the social, political, cultural and economic beliefs and values of Australian citizens. The analysed texts were found in headlines, reports, editorials, opinion pieces, annotated photographs and letters to the editor that made-up the day-to-day history of the Australia Day editions. The texts that were produced in this narration in the SMH have provided data in the form of specific language use that defines the discourse of citizenship over the 62 year period. The language of these texts as reported in the print media represents the understandings of citizenship at particular times and also the discursive responses to contingent factors conditioning citizenship discourse including globalisation, localisation and neo-liberalism. The research links with Foucault’s (1980; 1991a; 1991d; 1991e; 1998; 2002a; 2006b) findings that the analysis of discourse is fundamental for understanding the nature of reality. This reality reported in this dissertation indicates a discourse that has changed and transformed over the analysed period of time. The discourse of citizenship has developed through the flow of rules and regulations that prohibit and permit what can and cannot be said, thought or spoken about citizenship at particular points in time. This form of normative thought, action and speech is culturally constructed and has been traced in the discourse through a mapping of specific language use related to understandings of citizenship. These types of knowledge constructions are artefacts of culture and reinforce existing power relations. This study has attempted to unmask these relations of power to question the rationality of the practices and experiences of Australian citizenship. The genealogical method allows for the distillation of citizenship discourse as a history of social and political truths as seen in the print media from 1946 – 2007. The genealogy of Australian citizenship presented in this dissertation lays bare the characteristic forms of power/knowledge manifested in the discourse over the post-World War Two period of Australian history to show systems of thought pertaining to citizenship. By doing so it shows that current citizenship practices are not the result of historical inevitabilities but rather the result of the interplay of contingencies. By emphasising citizenship in this way the thesis offers insights into how it can be refashioned to offer greater individual freedom through an understanding of the games of truth that are played throughout all levels of society. The manifestation of power/knowledge in the discourse is further evidence that citizens exist in relations of power. These manifestations produced five distinct thematic discursivities. I labelled them as, ‘The silencing of Aboriginal concerns 1946 – 1969, Authorised voices question the acceptance of poverty and racism 1969 – 1980, Relations of power between Aboriginal Australians and whites 1981 – 1988, Relations of power between Asian immigrants and whites 1989 – 1996, The struggle of cultural dominations 1997 – 2007’. In particular, a discontinuity was identified during the period Relations of power between Aboriginal Australians and whites 1981 – 1988. From this time in the discourse Indigenous Australians were permitted to criticise their treatment by whites. Subsequently this permission has become embedded in systems of thought. This thesis gives details of the products of the genealogical method related to the discourse of citizenship. It pinpoints the moments when individuals and social, cultural, economic and political groups played roles in the production, reproduction and transmission of truth from 1946 - 2007. Based on the products of the research it creates recommendations for minimising the potential dominations of social and political truths. It also suggests ways to re-think Australian citizenship to afford greater freedoms for individual thought, speech and action.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2003. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-277). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, 1978. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 345-352). Also issued in print.