Addiction, Stress and Poverty

Last term, I taught Economics 349 "The Economics of Social Problems." In that class we discuss a host of topics, including the inter-relation between stress and addictions (and how these relations are potentially magnified among the poor). Today's episode of Democracy Now features Dr. Gabor Mate discussing many of these issues. Dr. Mate is best know for his research and books on the relationship between physical and mental health.

Police versus Education, War versus Hospitals

The 2011 World Development Report has been released. Here's a bit form its web site:

More than 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by violent conflict.
The World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development examines the changing nature of violence in the 21st century, and underlines the negative impact of repeated cycles of violence on a country or region’s development prospects. Preventing violence and building peaceful states that respond to the aspirations of their citizens requires strong leadership and concerted national and international efforts. The Report is based on new research, case studies and extensive consultations with leaders and development practitioners throughout the world.

Some are arguing that this report represents a major change in the way the World Bank is advocating aid resources be allocated. Indeed, it appears that the Bank is advocating resources be used in building stable governments, justice and police... rather than emphasizing education and health. From the BBC:

The report says if there is not a major refocusing of aid in this direction, then other targets on poverty, health and education will not be reached.

There is far more spent on alleviating the effects of conflict than preventing it from breaking out, and conflicts tend to be repeated.

Health Codes Violations, Single Motherhood, and the Breakfast I had Last Week

I'm currently teaching Economics 349: the Economics of Social Problems. I thought I'd use our department blog to help raise some examples of the types of issues that arise in the Calgary area which relate (even tangentially) to the course. (To those students in the course, some of this stuff may serve as fodder for term papers.)

Last week, some friends and I had breakfast at Nellie's Cosmic Cafe on 17th Ave SW in Calgary. We were pretty shocked to learn a day or so later that the restaurant chain had been fined $60,000 for health code violations. We all had the same thoughts: Eww! This was one of our favorite restaurants. (Note: In the sense of fairness, I want to mention that according to news reports nobody reported getting sick from the food at Nellie's and no personal claims were filed. The fines were based on the findings of health inspectors.)

Among my friends we talked quite a bit about this case (waiting a requisite 48 hours before making any jokes about it). When we thought about the problem, there are a number of things that struck us.

Basically, the health code protects "the public" from the externalities associated with poor workplace practices in a restaurant. However, we had a couple of questions about the chain of events. I'm sure there are others, but these jump to mind as worthy of discussion.

First, the restaurant had apparently been warned for over a decade. Why did it take so long for investigators to act? It raises the issue as to whether the law is being equally applied to all. A local eatery in my neighborhood received a fine after one visit by an inspector last year, and for something more innocuous than what Nellie's was apparently fined for. What does this say about the application of these laws?

Second, in her statement the owner of Nellie's mentioned "she was devastated by the charges and that it was difficult for her, a single mother, to keep proper monitoring of all the locations." I know of several single-mothers who were somewhat insulted by this statement. At the risk of sounding like a real jerk (which I probably am), it suggests that single mothers are less able to, in this case, manage a business than other individuals i different circumstances (e.g., married mothers). We often see examples of certain groups (here, single mothers) being stereotyped by more salient and visible examples of individuals of their "type" (e.g., the single-mother owner of Nellie's). In making this statement, what information is communicated and what inferences might others make about single mothers writ large?

Discuss.

Drinking Behavior and Fraternity Membership

There's an interesting new paper by Jeff DeSimone in Economic Inquiry. The abstract:

This paper estimates the impact of fraternity and sorority membership on a wide array of drinking outcomes among respondents to four Harvard College Alcohol Study surveys from 1993 to 2001. Identification is achieved by including proxies for specific types of unobserved heterogeneity expected to influence the relationship. These include high school and parental drinking behaviors to account for time-invariant omitted factors and assessed importance of drinking-related activities and reasons for drinking to control for changes in preferences since starting college. Because self-selection is quantitatively important, I further hold constant variables plausibly affected by fraternity membership, such as current alcohol use categorization, ranging from abstainer to heavy drinker, and time spent socializing. Even in the fully saturated model, fraternity membership significantly increases drinking intensity, frequency, and recency, as well as the prevalence of many deleterious drinking consequences that potentially carry negative externalities.

Given my interests in the role of social identities in decision making, I wonder how much joining a fraternity changes one's identity (an identity with the potential behavioral prescription involving heavy (or heavier) drinking). I find it interesting that the results still hold given a full accounting of selection effects (i.e., potential drinkers may be more likely to join a frat). Is it that joining a frat changes fundamental behavior? Is it that a frat just provides more opportunities to drink?

Michael Pollan on Democracy Now

Given my recent posts on the amount of time people spend eating and Ghent's "Meatless Thursdays," I thought it worthwhile to point out the Michael Pollan was on Democracy Now this morning. My Pollan is the author of, among other books, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

In addition to discussing his book and industrial food production (i.e., industrial pork production and wine flu, pointing out that eating pork is not how the disease is transmitted), he also has some interesting views on the relationships between of free-trade, the environment, and the development of industrial agriculture.

Time Spent Eating and Obesity

A new post by Catherine Rampell at the NYT's Economix blog identifies a relationship between obesity rates and the amount of time individuals spend eating. The amount of time spent eating may be a sign of the amount of "fast food" (which is typically high in fats) consumed. Interestingly, it may not be the smoking and the wine drinking that keeps the French so healthy; it may just be the time spent eating (as a signal of the types of food they eat). Before you start changing your lifestyle by taking longer to eat and enjoying a cigarrette, recall the caveats regarding correlation versus causation.