List of Discussion Papers Available from this Site
Manageable
Discord: Citizenship and Welfare Fraud.
Hartley Dean and Margaret Melrose
Report of findings of an qualitative interview study of people
making fraudulent social security claims.
Gender Identity and
Material Symbols.
Helga Dittmar, Jane Beattie and Susanne Friese
Presents a new model and an empirical study of impulse buying.
Objects, Decision
Considerations and Self-Image in Men's and Women's Impulse Purchases.
Helga Dittmar, Jane Beattie and Susanne Friese
This paper develops a theoretical account of why there are gender
differences in impulsive buying behaviour and reports findings from a
survey of 61 British consumers.
A
Simulation of Budgetary Decision-Making Based on Interview Data.
Edmund Chattoe and Nigel Gilbert
Application of the simulation model to student budgeting and
preliminary findings.
Asian
Self-Employment in Britain: The Interaction of Culture and Economics.
Tariq Modood, Satnam Virdee and Hilary Metcalf
Literature review and background work for a quantitative and
qualitative national interview study of Asian entrepreneurs in
Britain.
Can Sociologists and Economists Communicate?
Edmund Chattoe
Theoretical discussion of the use of economic and social theories of consumption as the basis for a computational model.
Why are We
Simulating Anyway? Some Answers from Economics.
Edmund Chattoe
Discussion of the theory, role and usefulness of simulation in
economics.
Reacting to the Housing
Market Slump.
Clodagh Memery, Moira Munro, Ruth Madigan and Kenneth Gibb
An account of the impact of the housing slump of 1993-95 and interviews with
purchasers and would-be purchasers in Glasgow and Bristol.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
among GP Fundholders: Some Preliminary Evidence.
Christine Ennew, David Whynes and Teresa Feighan
This paper discusses the reasons why GPs choose to pursue fund-holder
status (or not) in the light of a survey of 69 Midland GPs.
Explaining Pay: The
Perspective of Personnel Managers.
Julie Dickinson and Lucia Sell-Trujillo
Findings from interviews with personnel managers in finance and
manufacturing firms. This paper shows that managers' ideas about the
'going rate' have as strong an influence on pay settlements as do market
forces.
The Demand for Private Health
Insurance: Do Waiting Lists Matter?
Timothy Besley, John Hall and Ian Preston
Analysis of British Social Attitudes survey data to demonstrate that the
quality of available NHS care in an area, as indicated by waiting lists,
influences demand for private health insurance.
NOTE: This paper is only available as a Postscript file.
What Drives Support for
Higher Public Spending?
Lindsay Brook, John Hall and Ian Preston
Modeling of support for higher public spending using data from the
British Social Attitudes survey to show that support is influenced by
personal characteristics, party support and (in some cases) use of private
alternatives.
NOTE: This paper is available as a Postscript file only.
Tax Price Effects on
Attitudes to Hypothecated Tax Increases
John Hall and Ian Preston
Perceptions of benefits from hypothecated tax increases may
correlate with income either because individuals with
different incomes are more or less interested in public
services or because they anticipate bearing different shares of
the implied tax burden. This paper uses data from the British
Social Attitudes survey to disentangle the two effects.
NOTE: This paper is only available as a Postscript file.
Markets and Motives: Trust and Egoism in
Welfare Markets
Peter Taylor-Gooby
Enthusiasm for the expansion of markets in welfare reflects the
currency of assumptions derived from rational choice theory
among policy-makers. This paper reviews recent evidence from
experimental psychology and programme research that calls
into question the basic tenet of the rational choice
approach - that individual choices are driven by instrumental
rationality - and argues that welfare markets require a normative
framework which in which trust plays an important role. Lack of attention
to normative issues which the rational choice approach fails to capture
may lead to the design of markets which are inefficient in meeting the
aims of policy-makers and which deplete the moral legacy on which many
welfare markets in practice depend.
Risk and the Welfare State
Peter Taylor-Gooby, Hartley Dean, Moira Munro and Gillian Parker
This paper reviews recent sociological theories of 'risk society' which
imply that
manufactured uncertainty erodes support for traditional welfare state
provision and considers evidence from the programme about the experience
of uncertainty in housing
markets, social care provision and employment. There is widespread
awareness of
risk but little evidence that members of a risk society welcome
radical new policies involving a cut back in state welfare.
Public and Private Choice in Health Insurance
John Hall and Ian Preston
This paper uses evidence from the British Social Attitudes Survey to show
that individual take-up of private medical insurance inhibits support for
spending on the public health sector.
NOTE: This paper is only available as a Postscript file.
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