On Preference, Freedom and Diversity

We study the problem of ranking sets of options in terms of freedom of choice. We propose a framework in which both the diversity of the options and the preferences of the agent over the options do play a role. We formulate some axioms that reflect these two aspects of freedom and we study their logical implications. Two different criteria for ranking sets are characterized, which generalize some of the rankings proposed so far in the literature.     

Measuring autonomy freedom

In the measurement of autonomy freedom, the admissible potential preference relations are elicited by means of the concept of ‘reasonableness’. In this paper we argue for an alternative criterion based on information about the decision maker’s ‘awareness’ of his available opportunities. We argue that such an interpretation of autonomy fares better than that based on reasonableness. We then introduce some axioms that capture this intuition and study their logical implications. In the process, a new measure of autonomy freedom is characterized, which generalizes some of the measures so far constructed in the literature.We thank Martin van Hees, Robert Sugden, Prasanta Pattanaik, the participants at workshops at the CPNSS, London School of Economics, and at the University of Caen and an anonymous referee for their suggestions. The support of the CPNSS is gratefully acknowledged. This paper is part of a research project on “The Analysis and Measurement of Freedom” funded by the Ministero dell’Istruzione, Università e Ricerca (Italy). Its financial support is gratefully acknowledged.     

Interval estimation for the breakpoint in segmented regression: a smoothed score‐based approach

This paper is concerned with interval estimation for the breakpoint parameter in segmented regression. We present score‐type confidence intervals derived from the score statistic itself and from the recently proposed gradient statistic. Due to lack of regularity conditions of the score, non‐smoothness and non‐monotonicity, naive application of the score‐based statistics is unfeasible and we propose to exploit the smoothed score obtained via induced smoothing. We compare our proposals with the traditional methods based on the Wald and the likelihood ratio statistics via simulations and an analysis of a real dataset: results show that the smoothed score‐like statistics perform in practice somewhat better than competitors, even when the model is not correctly specified.     

Social work through collaborative autoethnography

This paper discusses a research project involving five MA Social Work Students and one member of Social Work Academic Staff. Using narrative and taking a collaborative autoethnographical approach, this project highlights some of the feelings that students articulated following a 70-day placement experience. Findings include anxiety, powerlessness and frustration, together with growing confidence, recognition of their skills and a deeper understanding of the role of ‘self’ in social work. Raising issues of preparedness for practice placement, this paper has implications for both social work practice and social work education. Autoethnography (AE) is both a method of carrying out research and a methodology, specifically a qualitative methodology linked to ethnography and narrative inquiry. AE results in highly personalized narrative accounts of the researcher’s engagement with specific sociocultural contexts in the pursuit of knowing more about a phenomenon. Applying such a methodology to explore collaboratively issues of student lived experience of placement is a new and innovative use of this method.     

The routinization of hybris

This essay explores an aspect of Weber's theory of charisma and its routinization. It argues that charisma can be seen as a form of a more general phenomenon calledhybris. Classics scholars use the term hybris to denote a tragic hero's defiance of the order laid down by the gods. Hybris is identified here as any idiosyncratic challenge to a larger social order. Examples treated in this article are love, failure, brillance, and charisma. Included among society's responses to hybris are outright suppression, routinization, toleration, accommodation and cooptation. Society can conceive of no more powerful menace to its culture than would arise from the liberation of the sexual impulses. - Sigmund Freud.A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. With it they will be chaotic and refresh their lives outside the law. - Richard Hornsey.Lunch Hour.     

Subject-specific odds ratios in binomial GLMMs with continuous response

In a regression context, the dichotomization of a continuous outcome variable is often motivated by the need to express results in terms of the odds ratio, as a measure of association between the response and one or more risk factors. Starting from the recent work of Moser and Coombs (Stat Med 23:1843–1860, 2004) in this article we explore in a mixed model framework the possibility of obtaining odds ratio estimates from a regression linear model without the need of dichotomizing the response variable. It is shown that the odds ratio estimators derived from a linear mixed model outperform those from a binomial generalized linear mixed model, especially when the data exhibit high levels of heterogeneity.     

Reviews

ANOTHER RUSSIA Through the Eyes of the New Soviet Photographers: A Lesson in Looking and Not Seeing Facts on File, 1986

Camera Culture, by Halla Beloff

Poletown Lives! Film/Videotape: 52 mins.

Exploding Into Life, by Dorthea Lynch and Eugene Richards

Documentary Filmmaking: A Closer Look A Seminar

Videology and Utopia: Explorations in a New Medium A. Willener, G. Milliard, and A. Ganty     

Measuring and implementing equality of opportunity for income

Departing from the welfarist tradition, recent theories of justice focus on individual opportunities as the appropriate standard for distributive judgments. To explore how this philosophical conception can be translated into concrete public policy, we select the income as relevant outcome and the income tax as the relevant redistributive policy, and we address the following questions: (i) what is the degree of opportunity inequality in an income distribution? (ii) how to design an opportunity egalitarian income tax policy? Several criteria for ranking income distributions on the basis of equality of opportunities are derived. Moreover, we characterize an opportunity egalitarian income tax and we formulate criteria for choosing among alternative tax schedules. I would like to thank Peter Lambert for his encouragement and guidance, and Walter Bossert, Maurice Salles, and partecipants at the 1998 Social Choice and Welfare Conference, Vancouver, and at the Conference on Non–Welfaristic Issues in Normative Economics in Caen for their helpful comments and suggestions. Financial support of the Ministero dellIstruzione, Università e Ricerca (Italy) is gratefully acknowledged. Responsibility for any remaining deficiency is mine.     

Ranking Income Distributions According to Equality of Opportunity

According to the opportunity egalitarian ethics, economic inequalities due to factors beyond the individual responsibility are inequitable and to be compensated by society, whereas inequalities due to personal responsibility are equitable and not to be compensated. In this paper we derive welfare and inequality criteria that respect this principle of justice. We characterize axiomatically classes of opportunity egalitarian social evaluation functions. Then, by requiring unanimous agreement among such classes, we provide simple distributional conditions to rank income distributions. These criteria extend the Lorenz and generalized Lorenz partial orderings, commonly used in the unidimensional case of income distributions, to the current context of equality of opportunity.