The Social Reality of Depression: DTC Advertising of Antidepressants and Perceptions of the Prevalence and Lifetime Risk of Depression

This study is rooted in the research traditions of cultivation theory, construct accessibility, and availability heuristic. Based on a survey with 221 subjects, this study finds that familiarity with direct-to-consumer (DTC) print advertisements for antidepressant brands is associated with inflated perceptions of the prevalence and lifetime risk of depression. The study concludes that DTC advertising potentially has significant effects on perceptions of depression prevalence and risk. Interpersonal experiences with depression coupled with DTC advertising appear to significantly predict individuals\u27 perceived lifetime risk of depression. The study ultimately demonstrates that DTC advertising may play a role in constructing social reality of diseases and medicine. The findings strongly suggest that the social cognitive effects of DTC advertising are far-reaching, impacting pharmaceutical marketing strategy as well as presenting issues regarding public health and the business ethics of advertising drugs to consumers

On distinct finite covers of 3-manifolds

Every closed orientable surface S has the following property: any two connected covers of S of the same degree are homeomorphic (as spaces). In this, paper we give a complete classification of compact 3-manifolds with empty or toroidal boundary which have the above property. We also discuss related group-theoretic questions.Comment: 29 pages. V3: Implements suggestions from a referee report. This version has been accepted for publication by IUM

The Cost of Food Self-Sufficiency and Agricultural Protection in South Korea

As part of its food security policy, South Korea has been pursuing food self-sufficiency using high tariffs and high administrative prices in key agricultural and food markets. Using a dual approach to trade and trade restrictiveness indices, we analyze the impact of these market distortions on welfare and trade volume. Then, we compute optimum distortions, which minimize the welfare cost of observed self-sufficiency and production objectives. We rationalize these optimum distortions to what could be claimed as legitimate protection under a "food security" (FS) box in World Trade Organization negotiations. FS-box protection is sensitive to changes in the definition and the extent of the FS objectives. We show that FS via production targets and reliance on imports would be more palatable to consumers and trade partners, while preserving rents to the farm sector.agricultural distortions, food security, Korea, protection, targeting, WTO negotiations, Food Security and Poverty,

The Impact of Culture on the Demand for Non-Life Insurance

Regression techniques are applied to an unbalanced panel data that includes 68 countries observed over a ten-year period, to explore the factors that affect non-life insurance demand across nations. While previous literature has discovered several significant economic, demographic, and institutional variables, little attention has been devoted to cultural dimensions. We find that non-life insurance consumption is adversely impacted in countries where a large fraction of the population has Islamic beliefs. Also highly significant are three of the cultural scores developed by Hofstede in a celebrated study: Power Distance, Individualism, and Uncertainty Avoidance. An important finding is that culture impacts non-life insurance more in affluent countries, with an adjusted R-square coefficient increasing by 11.7%, than in developing countries where the R-square coefficient increase due to cultural impacts is only 1.2%. These results have implications for multinational insurers seeking to enter a new market. Ceteris Paribus, these insurers should target countries, and population segments within these countries, that exhibit low Power Distance, and high Individualism and Uncertainty Avoidance scores

Global imbalances: time for action

Increasing nervousness in world financial markets give new relevance to the long-standing issues of global current account adjustment. It reminds policymakers that this adjustment, if improperly managed, could lead to further drops in assets prices, disruptions in the global trading system, and possible world recession. The authors of this Policy Brief assess how to achieve an orderly reduction in the large and unsustainable global current account imbalances. The Policy Brief is the result of a joint conference held in Washington, D.C. on February 8 and 9 2007.

The Opaqueness of Structured Bonds: Evidence from the U.S. Insurance Industry

It has been argued that the opaqueness of structured bonds, such as mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities and collateral debt obligations, was one of the major causes of the recent financial crisis that started in late 2007. We analyse the evolving nature of information asymmetry inherent in various types of structured bonds by examining the U.S. insurers’ assets. We show that, prior to 2004, structured bonds were not associated with greater information asymmetry; however, holding more multi-class structured bonds, especially privately placed bonds, increased the information asymmetry when evaluating insurers’ assets post-2004. The effect of information asymmetry was more significant with life insurers than with non-life insurers. In addition, by investigating the rating grades of such structured bonds, we find that the market views higher-grade, privately placed, multi-class structured bonds as having the highest information asymmetry among all types of structured bonds post 2004, an effect which is, again, more significant with life insurers. This result shows that structuring complexities and unreliable ratings make structured bonds more opaque than just securitisation itself