Smoking from Adolescence to Adulthood : A 15-year Follow-up of the North Karelia Youth Project

The aim of the study was to examine the effects of a smoking prevention program and smoking from early adolescence to early adulthood by using longitudinal data. In addition, predictors of smoking, smoking cessation, and associations of smoking with socio-economic factors and other health behaviours were assessed. The data was gathered in connection with the North Karelia Youth Project follow-up study during 15 years. A two-year cardiovascular disease risk factor prevention program was carried out among students from grades seven to nine in four schools in North Karelia. Two schools were selected from Kuopio province for the control schools. The North Karelia Project, a community-based cardiovascular disease prevention program, was implemented in the same area. At the baseline in 1978 the subjects were 13-year-olds (n=903) and in the following surveys 15-, 16-, 17-, 21- and 28-year-olds. The parents of the subjects were studied twice, in 1978 and 1980. A two-year intervention based on social influence approach prevented the onset of smoking for several years. The continuity of smoking from adolescence to adulthood was strong: most adolescent smokers were still smoking in adulthood. Moreover, approximately half of the 28-year-old smokers had started smoking after the age of 15. Previous smoking status and smoking by friends were the most important predictors of smoking. One third of all adolescent smokers had stopped smoking before the age of 28, averaging at 2.3 % annual decline. The socioeconomic status of the subject and, especially, education were strongly related to smoking, the lower socioeconomic groups smoking the most. Parental socioeconomic status and intergenerational social mobility were not significantly related to the smoking of the subject in adolescence or adulthood. Smoking was associated positively with the use of alcohol and negatively with physical activity from adolescence to adulthood. The results support the feasibility of a school-based social influence program with a community-based program in smoking prevention among adolescents. Strong continuity of smoking from adolescence to adulthood supports the importance of preventing the onset of smoking in adolescence. It would be useful to continue prevention programs also after the comprehensive school, since so many young start smoking after that. It would likewise be important to develop cessation programs tailor-made for adolescents and young adults. Additionally, the results support the importance of using methods based on social influence in smoking prevention and cessation programs, targeting especially such risk groups as those with low socioeconomic status as well as those with other unhealthy behaviours.

Juutalaisvastaisuus suomalaisissa aikakauslehdissä ja kirjallisuudessa 1918-1944

Anti-Semitism existed in Finland during the whole period covered by this study. The immoral acts associated with Jews in the articles were mostly regarded as universal habits, qualities and/or modes of action, that is, unconnected with any particular Finnish Jew. Researchers have tried to explain anti-Semitism in several ways. The theory of Jews as outsiders has been a popular explanation as well as xenophobia, chimerical anti-Semitism and the socio-economic models. The main sources of this study have been over 400 Finnish periodicals and magazines, literature and text books published between 1918 and 1944. This vast number of magazines includes those of the army and the civil guard, religion, humour and the papers of the Finnish extreme right. One can see a distinct foreign and especially German influence in the subjects and phraseology of Finnish anti-Semitic writings between 1918 and 1944. Several known Finnish anti-Semitic writers had some kind of link with Germany. Some Finnish organisations and societies were openly anti-Semitic during this period. There had been cycles in the activity of anti-Semitic writing in Finland, obvious peaks appearing in 1918 1919, 1929 1931, 1933 1938 and 1942 1944. The reason for the 1918 1919 activity was the civil rights which were granted to the Jews in Finland, and the Russian Bolshevik revolution. The worldwide depression from 1929 to 1932 seem to be the reason for new anti-Semitic writing activity. The rise of National Socialism in Germany and the influence this phenomenon had in Finland was the reason for the peak during 1933 1938. During the continuation war 1942 1944 National Socialist Germany was fighting side-by-side with Finland and their anti-Semitic propaganda found easier access to Finland. Of the 433 magazines, journals and newspapers which were used in this study, 71 or 16.4 per cent had at least one article that can be identified as anti-Semitic; especially the magazines of national socialists and other extreme right parties were making anti-Semitic annotations. There were about 50 people known to have written anti-Semitic articles. At least half of these known writers had studied at the university, including as many as 10 priests. Over and above these, there was an even larger number of people who wrote under a pseudonym. The material used suggested that anti-Semitism was not very popular in Finland between 1918 and 1944. Anti-Semitic articles appeared mostly in the magazines of the extreme right, but their circulation was not very large. A proof of the slight influence of these extreme right anti-Semitic ideas is that, beside the tightening of policy towards Jewish immigrants in 1938 and the handing over of eight of these refugees to Germany in 1942, the official policy of Finland never became anti-Semitic. As was stated before, despite the cycles in the number of writings, there does not appear to have been any noticeable change in public opinion. One must also remember that most Finns had not at that period actually met a Jew. The material used suggests that between 1918 and 1944 the so-called Jewish question was seemingly unimportant for most Finns and their attitude to Jews and Jewishness can be described as neutral.

Intraday Dynamics of International Equity Markets

The increased availability of high frequency data sets have led to important new insights in understanding of financial markets. The use of high frequency data is interesting and persuasive, since it can reveal new information that cannot be seen in lower data aggregation. This dissertation explores some of the many important issues connected with the use, analysis and application of high frequency data. These include the effects of intraday seasonal, the behaviour of time varying volatility, the information content of various market data, and the issue of inter market linkages utilizing high frequency 5 minute observations from major European and the U.S stock indices, namely DAX30 of Germany, CAC40 of France, SMI of Switzerland, FTSE100 of the UK and SP500 of the U.S. The first essay in the dissertation shows that there are remarkable similarities in the intraday behaviour of conditional volatility across European equity markets. Moreover, the U.S macroeconomic news announcements have significant cross border effect on both, European equity returns and volatilities. The second essay reports substantial intraday return and volatility linkages across European stock indices of the UK and Germany. This relationship appears virtually unchanged by the presence or absence of the U.S stock market. However, the return correlation among the U.K and German markets rises significantly following the U.S stock market opening, which could largely be described as a contemporaneous effect. The third essay sheds light on market microstructure issues in which traders and market makers learn from watching market data, and it is this learning process that leads to price adjustments. This study concludes that trading volume plays an important role in explaining international return and volatility transmissions. The examination concerning asymmetry reveals that the impact of the positive volume changes is larger on foreign stock market volatility than the negative changes. The fourth and the final essay documents number of regularities in the pattern of intraday return volatility, trading volume and bid-ask spreads. This study also reports a contemporaneous and positive relationship between the intraday return volatility, bid ask spread and unexpected trading volume. These results verify the role of trading volume and bid ask quotes as proxies for information arrival in producing contemporaneous and subsequent intraday return volatility. Moreover, asymmetric effect of trading volume on conditional volatility is also confirmed. Overall, this dissertation explores the role of information in explaining the intraday return and volatility dynamics in international stock markets. The process through which the information is incorporated in stock prices is central to all information-based models. The intraday data facilitates the investigation that how information gets incorporated into security prices as a result of the trading behavior of informed and uninformed traders. Thus high frequency data appears critical in enhancing our understanding of intraday behavior of various stock markets’ variables as it has important implications for market participants, regulators and academic researchers.