Money and mental wellbeing : a longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins

One of the famous questions in social science is whether money makes people happy. We offer new evidence by using longitudinal data on a random sample of Britons who receive medium-sized lottery wins of between £1000 and £120,000 (that is, up to approximately US$ 200,000). When compared to two control groups – one with no wins and the other with small wins – these individuals go on eventually to exhibit significantly better psychological health. Two years after a lottery win, the average measured improvement in mental wellbeing is 1.4 GHQ points

A decision model for natural oil buying policy under uncertainty

A manufacturer, in a fast moving consumer goods industry, buys Natural oils from a number of oil suppliers world-wide. The prices of these oils are the major raw material cost in producing the consumer goods, which are also sold world-wide. The volatility in the international prices of the Natural oils has signi¯cant impact on the planning and budgets decisions. Since the oils are bought and the ¯nished products are sold in markets throughout the world, the manufacturer is exposed to a variety of market uncertainties and the resulting risks. These uncertainties are the raw material prices, the demand and the therefore the selling prices for the finished goods- all of which influence the profitability of the manufacturing firm. The risks can be minimised by entering into futures contract of appropriate duration, that is, by following a schedule of "forward"' purchase of oil (with specific series of future delivery dates) with the oil suppliers. We formulate this problem as a two-stage Stochastic Program (SP) using the futures and the spot prices for the Natural oil. This SP model gives robust decisions that hedge against the uncertainties in the Natural oil prices and the demand for the finished products. The uncertainty in the oil prices and the demand are modelled through a scenario generator. We have constructed a decision support system (DSS) that integrates the SP model, the scenario generator and the solution algorithm. This DSS also provides the decision maker a profile of the risk and return exposures for different policies

Depressive Symptoms among College Students: An Exploration of Fundamental Cause Theory

Fundamental Cause Theory suggests that socioeconomic and demographic factors are causal to various illnesses, including depression. However, no known previously existing research has used Fundamental Cause Theory to create a model of depression among college students. To do this, the present study conducted a stepwise binomial logistic regression to examine how socioeconomic status and the sociodemographic variables of Gender, Race, and Sexual Orientation, and others predict depressive symptoms in a large sample of undergraduates when controlling for stressful life events and social support (N = 2,915). Results support the hypothesis that socioeconomic disparities in depressive symptoms are the result of stress. In the final model, low Social Support was the most predictive variable of high depressive symptoms (OR = 2.882), followed by being bisexual (OR = 2.061). Being black was significantly protective against high depressive symptoms (OR = 0.613). Implications for future research and university services are discussed

Coherent Asset Allocation and Diversification in the Presence of Stress Events

We propose a method to integrate frequentist and subjective probabilities in order to obtain a coherent asset allocation in the presence of stress events. Our working assumption is that in normal market asset returns are sufficiently regular for frequentist statistical techniques to identify their joint distribution, once the outliers have been removed from the data set. We also argue, however, that the exceptional events facing the portfolio manager at any point in time are specific to the each individual crisis, and that past regularities cannot be relied upon. We therefore deal with exceptional returns by eliciting subjective probabilities, and by employing the Bayesian net technology to ensure logical consistency. The portfolio allocation is then obtained by utility maximization over the combined (normal plus exceptional) distribution of returns. We show the procedure in detail in a stylized case.Stress tests, asset allocation, Bayesian Networks

Disentangling the Epistemic Failings of the 2008 Financial Crisis

I argue that epistemic failings are a significant and underappreciated moral hazard in the financial services industry. I argue further that an analysis of these epistemic failings and their means of redress is best developed by identifying policies and procedures that are likely to facilitate good judgment. These policies and procedures are “best epistemic practices.” I explain how best epistemic practices support good reasoning, thereby facilitating accurate judgments about risk and reward. Failures to promote and adhere to best epistemic practices contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. I identify and discuss some of the ways in which best epistemic practices were violated in the events that led to the crisis, with a focus on the role of the credit rating agencies. I go on to discuss some of the ways in which these failings have been redressed. I conclude by observing how proactive regulation for best epistemic practices might help us to anticipate and avoid future crises

Direct, indirect and buffering effects of support for mothers on children's socio-emotional adjustment

Support for mothers may improve children’s socioemotional adjustment, yet few studies have consideredthe benefits of formal support (from health and social work professionals) in addition to social support(from family and friends) or explored the mechanisms. These issues were addressed using a birth cohort(n�2,649) to explore how mothers’ perceptions of social and formal support when children were ages10–22 months predicted trajectories of children’s externalizing and internalizing problems from 58 to122 months. We tested mediating pathways from support to child adjustment via 3 family stressorsmeasured at 46–58 months (maternal distress, economic strain, and dysfunctional parenting) andexamined whether support buffered effects of stressors on child adjustment. Social and formal supportwere simultaneously associated with lower child externalizing and internalizing problem trajectoryintercepts at 90 months but did not predict trajectory slopes. Social support effects were mediated mainlyvia lower maternal distress, which then reduced children’s problems via lower dysfunctional parenting,or more directly. Additional indirect effects involved lower economic strain. Formal support effects weremediated to a lesser extent by reduced dysfunctional parenting. Two buffering effects were found: socialsupport reduced effects of economic strain on internalizing problems, and formal support reduced effectsof dysfunctional parenting on internalizing problems. Findings suggest measures promoting families’social integration should benefit children’s socioemotional adjustment via improved parental psycho-logical and economic resources and by buffering impacts of economic strain. Enhancing access to healthand welfare services through greater awareness and trust should benefit children’s adjustment, viaimproved parenting and by buffering impacts of dysfunctional parenting

Exposing the impact of Citizens Advice Bureau services on health: a realist evaluation protocol

Introduction Welfare advice services can be used to address health inequalities, for example, through Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). Recent reviews highlight evidence for the impact of advice services in improving people's financial position and improving mental health and well-being, daily living and social relationships. There is also some evidence for the impact of advice services in increasing accessibility of health services, and reducing general practitioner appointments and prescriptions. However, direct evidence for the impact of advice services on lifestyle behaviour and physical health is currently much less well established. There is a need for greater empirical testing of theories around the specific mechanisms through which advice services and associated financial or non-financial benefits may generate health improvements. Methods and analysis A realist evaluation will be conducted, operationalised in 5 phases: building the explanatory framework; refining the explanatory framework; testing the explanatory framework through empirical data (mixed methods); development of a bespoke data recording template to capture longer term impact; and verification of findings with a range of CAB services. This research will therefore aim to build, refine and test an explanatory framework about how CAB services can be optimally implemented to achieve health improvement. Ethics and dissemination The study was approved by the ethics committee at Northumbria University, UK. Project-related ethical issues are described and quality control aspects of the study are considered. A stakeholder mapping exercise will inform the dissemination of results in order to ensure all relevant institutions and organisations are targeted

A family affair: job loss and the mental health of spouses and adolescents

Examines the impact of involuntary job loss on the mental health of family members. Abstract This study examines the impact of involuntary job loss on the mental health of family members. Estimates from fixed-effects panel data models, using panel data for Australia, provide little evidence of any negative spillover effect on the mental health of husbands as a result of their wives\u27 job loss. The mental well-being of wives, however, declines following their husbands\u27 job loss, but only if that job loss results in a sustained period of non-employment or if the couple experienced financial hardship or relationship strain prior to the husband\u27s job loss. A negative effect of parental job loss on the mental health of co-resident adolescent children is also found, but appears to be restricted to girls