The gender gap in pensions in Latin America

Lower female lifetime labour market participation rates, greater interruptions during their working lives, and wage gaps contribute to create gender gaps in pensions at the time of retirement. The design of social security systems may reinforce or attenuate these gaps. This article provides new evidence on gender gaps in access to pensions and in pension income in four Southern Cone countries in Latin America and analyses their evolution between 2000 and 2013, showing significant improvements in both gaps, with differential patterns by countries. The decrease in the gender gap in pension income has been particularly significant in Argentina and Brazil. In both cases, the largest increases in pension values during the period correspond to the lowest income percentiles, where women are overrepresented. The application of redistributive policies in these countries, aimed at reducing poverty and inequality but not necessarily focused on gender equity, has had positive and probably unintended consequences in terms of reduction in gender gaps in pensions.     

Extending social security coverage to the rural sector in China

In late 2009 China launched an innovative, voluntary programme that by 2011 had extended pension coverage to 326.4 million people in the rural sector, including contributors and beneficiaries. It requires one contribution per year and provides a flat‐rate benefit and a contributions‐related benefit through a contributory individual account, with a government guarantee that the benefit will continue for life. The programme encourages participation of persons who do not pay income taxes, and thus have no tax incentive to participate, by providing substantial government subsidies. As a further incentive, old‐age benefits are provided to older parents when all their adult children participate in the contributory programme.     

Electronic payment mechanisms in social security: Extending the reach of benefit and contribution transactions

More often than not, the existing modes of contribution collection and benefit payment of social security organizations are adapted to the collective arrangements that characterize employer‐employee relationships. Extending coverage to individuals in difficult‐to‐reach groups, however, may require new modalities of service that can cope with many separate, secure transactions rather than a few bulk data transfers between organizations. Recent developments in electronic payment show its wide applicability in enabling huge volumes of such individual transactions. It is in this light that the article explores the potentials of this technology and identifies possible arrangements through which electronic payments could surmount barriers that stand in the way of covering difficult‐to‐reach groups. The high level of mobile phone penetration on a global scale augurs well for using e‐payment mechanisms to collect social security contributions and to deliver social security benefits and services. A generic model is used to describe the requisite elements to implement electronic payments in social protection programmes. Based on empirical evidence of current social protection practices from around the world, five scenarios are presented to describe possible configurations for electronic payment, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. The broader objective is to contribute in a practical manner to the international commitment to extend social protection to all, as defined by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.     

一种简单有效的二项分布比例参数似然比置信区间的求法

对二项分布比例参数p的似然比置信区间,提出一种简便求解方法。在平均覆盖率、平均区间长度及区间长度的95%置信区间准则下与WScore、Plus4、Jeffreys置信区间进行模拟比较。试验表明,在二项分布b(n,p)的参数n≥20且p∈(0.1,0.9)时,该方法获取的似然比置信区间性能优良。当点估计p值不是接近于0或1且n≥20时,推荐使用本方法获取p的置信区间。     

A new confidence interval in errors-in-variables model with known error variance

This paper considers constructing a new confidence interval for the slope parameter in the structural errors-in-variables model with known error variance associated with the regressors. Existing confidence intervals are so severely affected by Gleser–Hwang effect that they are subject to have poor empirical coverage probabilities and unsatisfactory lengths. Moreover, these problems get worse with decreasing reliability ratio which also result in more frequent absence of some existing intervals. To ease these issues, this paper presents a fiducial generalized confidence interval which maintains the correct asymptotic coverage. Simulation results show that this fiducial interval is slightly conservative while often having average length comparable or shorter than the other methods. Finally, we illustrate these confidence intervals with two real data examples, and in the second example some existing intervals do not exist.     

A comparative study of confidence intervals for negative binomial proportion

In this paper, we investigate four existing and three new confidence interval estimators for the negative binomial proportion (i.e., proportion under inverse/negative binomial sampling). An extensive and systematic comparative study among these confidence interval estimators through Monte Carlo simulations is presented. The performance of these confidence intervals are evaluated in terms of their coverage probabilities and expected interval widths. Our simulation studies suggest that the confidence interval estimator based on saddlepoint approximation is more appealing for large coverage levels (e.g., nominal level≤1% ) whereas the score confidence interval estimator is more desirable for those commonly used coverage levels (e.g., nominal level>1% ). We illustrate these confidence interval construction methods with a real data set from a maternal congenital heart disease study.     

Focusing on Focusing Events: Event Selection,Media Coverage,and the Dynamics of Contentious Meaning‐Making

Despite the prevalent assumption among scholars of social movements and contentious politics that transformative contentious events are also the focus of public attention and discussion, there has been little attempt to substantiate this. After making a case for why to focus on focusing events and suggesting that these events should be thought of as products of a dialogical contentious meaning‐making process, we develop a coverage attribute‐based method for identifying focusing events. For illustrative purposes, we apply our method to the coverage of contentious events during the “first” intifada by Israeli‐Jewish, Jewish settler, and Palestinian newspapers. Findings from analyses of 11,868 news items reveal that newspapers are likely to strategically quiet contentious events that are strategically amplified by newspapers affiliated with opposing or targeted parties, and vice versa, depending on their interpretation of these events as political opportunities or threats. Analyses of variations across and within contending parties reveal the role of structure and agency in the dialogical seesaw‐like dynamics of contentious meaning‐making.     

“Newsworthy” Victims?

More than 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1980s yet press attention to this violence is relatively minimal. This paper compares local press coverage of matched cases: three missing/murdered Aboriginal women from Saskatchewan and three missing/murdered White women from Ontario. Quantitative and qualitative content analyses indicate stark disparities in the amount and content of coverage between groups. The Aboriginal women received three and a half times less coverage; their articles were shorter and less likely to appear on the front page. Depictions of the Aboriginal women were also more detached in tone and scant in detail in contrast to the more intimate portraits of the White women. Drawing on feminist media studies and theories of intersectionality, this paper argues that the simultaneous devaluation of Aboriginal womanhood and idealization of middle-class White womanhood contributes to broader systemic inequalities which re/produce racism, sexism, classism, and colonialism. This paper raises concerns about the broader implications of the relative invisibility of missing/murdered Aboriginal women in the press, and their symbolic annihilation from the Canadian social landscape.     

证券分析师性别、盈余预测偏差与纠偏能力

证券分析师个人特征是其能力的重要表征.文章选取2007-2014年我国资本市场相关数据,研究了证券分析师的性别对盈余预测偏差的影响,以及盈余预测偏差的时间序列特征,实证结果显示:第一,整体上男性分析师的盈余预测偏差大于女性分析师;第二,男性分析师对于盈余预测偏差的纠正能力高于女性分析师;第三,随着对公司跟踪时间的增加,男性分析师的盈余预测偏差下降速度更快.研究结果说明,对于分析师跟踪时间较短的公司,女性分析师的盈余预测偏差较小,而对于受分析师长期跟踪的公司,男性分析师的盈余预测结果更准确.研究结论对投资者依据分析师性别判定其盈利预测准确性具有重要意义.     

论隐性采访与舆论监督的伦理考量

由于多种原因,隐性采访被作为舆论监督的有效手段而日益被较多地使用着。考虑到正义的目的或良善的结果,人们往往会忽视对于手段是否正当的质疑,或者采取一种两害权衡取其轻的态度。然而事实上,既然手段是不正当的,目的也就不是正当的,不能为了正义的目的或良善的结果而滥用手段,否则,将会危及社会基本的诚信和公正秩序。