On distributional change,pro-poor growth and convergence

This paper proposes a unified approach to the measurement of distributional change. The framework is used to define indices of inequality in proportional growth rates, convergence, and pro-poorness of growth and associated equivalent growth rates. A distinction is made between non-anonymous and anonymous measures. The analysis is extended by using the notion of generalized Gini index. This unified approach is then implemented to study the link between income and other non-income characteristics, such as education and health. Empirical illustrations based on Indian data on individual educational achievements and on state wide infant survival levels highlight the usefulness of the proposed measures.     

Removing the anonymity axiom in assessing pro-poor growth

The recent focus on ‘pro-poor growth’ led also to an intense debate on how exactly to define and to measure pro-poor growth. All suggested measures have in common that they are based on the anonymity axiom. Such a perspective may provide a very incomplete picture given that the common objective of most studies investigating the pro-poorness of growth is to test whether specific policy reforms where beneficial to the initially poor or not. I suggest a new concept of pro-poor growth which removes the anonymity axiom, and, using an illustration based on data from Indonesia and Peru, I check whether the assessment of pro-poor growth is different when an anonymous and a non anonymous approach to pro-poor growth is used. I also suggest an original decomposition of poverty changes over time which links both concepts. The results show that the choice of the approach has a drastic impact on the interpretation of the data.     

Consistent voting systems with a continuum of voters

Voting problems with a continuum of voters and finitely many alternatives are considered. Since the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem persists in this model, we relax the non-manipulability requirement as follows: are there social choice functions (SCFs) such that for every profile of preferences there exists a strong Nash equilibrium resulting in the alternative assigned by the SCF? Such SCFs are called exactly and strongly consistent. The paper extends the work of Peleg (Econometrica 46:153–161, 1978a) and others. Specifically, a class of anonymous SCFs with the required property is characterized through blocking coefficients of alternatives and through associated effectivity functions.     

Consistent judgement aggregation: the truth-functional case

Generalizing the celebrated “discursive dilemma”, we analyze judgement aggregation problems in which a group of agents independently votes on a set of complex propositions (the “conclusions”) and on a set of “premises” by which the conclusions are truth-functionally determined. We show that for conclusion- and premise-based aggregation rules to be mutually consistent, the aggregation must always be “oligarchic”, that is: unanimous within a subset of agents, and typically even be dictatorial. We characterize exactly when consistent non-dictatorial (or anonymous) aggregation rules exist, allowing for arbitrary conclusions and arbitrary interdependencies among premises.     

Consistent Motives for Inter-Family Transfers: Simple Altruism

The influence of the comparative economic status of elderly parents and their adult children on inter-vivos transfers and inheritance was analyzed. The 1992 Wisconsin Longitudinal Study interview provides new evidence that transfers from parents to mid-life adults are motivated by simple altruism, in contrast to other recent studies that support compensatory altruism or exchange motives. These results are based on income tax records for parents from the late 1950's and respondents' earnings reports for the mid-70's, and within-family analyses of sibling pairs and their income reports in the early 1990's. A policy implication is that government income redistribution will not affect how elderly parents provide financial transfers to their adult children.     

Consistent Assignment of Nurse Aides: Association With Turnover and Absenteeism

Consistent assignment refers to the same caregivers consistently caring for the same residents almost every time caregivers are on duty. This article examines the association of consistent assignment of nurse aides with turnover and absenteeism. Data came from a survey of nursing home administrators, the Online Survey Certification and Reporting data, and the Area Resource File. The measures were from 2007 and came from 3,941 nursing homes. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to examine turnover and absenteeism. An average of 68% of nursing homes reported using consistent assignment, with 28% of nursing homes using nurse aides consistent assignment at the often recommended level of 85% (or more). Nursing homes using recommended levels of consistent assignment had significantly lower rates of turnover and of absenteeism. In the multivariate analyses, consistent assignment was significantly associated with both lower turnover and lower absenteeism (p < .01). Consistent assignment is a practice recommended by many policy makers, government agencies, and industry advocates. The findings presented here provide some evidence that the use of this staffing practice can be beneficial.     

Convergent validity of personal space measures: Consistent results with low intercorrelations

Low correlations among personal space measures have been used as evidence against their convergent validity. This argument is analyzed and found limited to personality trait assumptions. Convergent validity more generally concerns whether findings from one measure generalize to other measures. In the present study 91 subjects completed three measures (a disguised interaction distance, figure placement distances, and the Comfortable Interpersonal Distance Scale) under different conditions of subject sex, sex of the other person, and acquaintance with the other person. The three measures showed an average intercorrelation ofr = .034, but consistent significant effects of acquaintance. These findings demonstrate that convergence of findings may be obtained even when measures are not highly correlated. The search for convergent validity should concentrate on the generalizability of findings rather than correlations among measures.     

The Duplic and Codic: the Importance of a Consistent Taxonomy of Verbal Behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Behavior analysts operationally define relations among environmental stimuli and behavior both functionally and topographically, and an insistence on objectivity,...     

Children's reliance on situational and vocal expression of emotions: Consistent and conflicting cues

The aim of the present study was to investigate developmental differences in reliance on situational versus vocal cues for recognition of emotions. Turkish preschool, second, and fifth grade children participated in the study. Children listened to audiotape recordings of situations between a mother and a child where the emotional cues implied by the context of a vignette and the vocal expression were either consistent or inconsistent. After listening to each vignette, participants were questioned about the content of the incident and were asked to make a judgment about the emotion of the mother referred to in the recording. Angry, happy, and neutral emotions were utilized. Results revealed that 1) recognition of emotions improved with age, and 2) children relied more on the channel depicting either anger or happiness than on the channel depicting neutrality.     

Is the Japanese Mobility Pattern Consistent?: Educational Expansion and its Effects

Abstract Current empirical studies on social mobility generally emphasize an invariance of mobility pattern rather than variance. However, the industrialization thesis has not yet seriously been challenged by those researches, since they are only comparing different countries, not different developmental stages of one country. Besides, those researches have provided virtually no theoretical explanation for the invariance. This paper is an attempt to provide a longitudinal analysis of Japanese social mobility and to give an explanation for the consistency of mobility pattern found in that analysis. The key factor related to the consistency is the way education mediates the mobility. Our analysis presents a clear and exact picture of the longitudinal effect of educational expansion on the mobility pattern.     

Utilitarianism and interpersonal comparison

Beliefs in the impossibility of interpersonal comparison of welfare and the unacceptability of utilitarianism are based on a non-materialist solution to the theory of mind, i.e. on the existence of a soul. The compellingness of the theory of evolution and some discoveries in brain sciences render (philosophical) materialism very persuasive. The acceptance of materialism implies the negation of free will, non-significance of the self (no substantial reason to care much more about the welfare of one's own future self than the welfare of others), possibility of interpersonal comparison of welfare, compellingness of utilitarianism, and the possibility of conscious machines. Searle's argument on the impossibility of rigorous social sciences is however rejected.I am grateful to Dennis Mueller and Aubrey Townsend for commenting on the first draft.     

The Cedar Project: Understanding Barriers to Consistent Condom use over Time in a Cohort of Young Indigenous People who use Drugs

ABSTRACT Little information exists on the use of condoms as protective barriers to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among indigenous people in Canada. This study explores risk factors of inconsistent condom use (during consensual sex) over time among participants in the Cedar Project, a prospective cohort study of indigenous young people living in Vancouver and Prince George, British Columbia, who use drugs. Due to the serial measurements for each study subject, generalized estimating equations modeling with logit link was used to accommodate the temporal correlation within subjects. For young women, inconsistent condom use over time was predicted by having a recent STI (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.12, 2.79]), smoking crack daily (AOR = 1.63, 95%CI [1.02, 2.61]), and having experienced recent sexual abuse (AOR = 2.07, 95%CI [1.20, 3.56]). Among young men, living in Prince George (AOR = 1.63, 95%CI [1.14, 2.39]) and daily crack smoking (AOR = 1.56, 95%CI [1.02, 2.40]) were associated with inconsistent condom use over time. Among participants who used injection drugs, inconsistent condom use was associated with smoking crack daily (AOR = 1.59, 95%CI [1.04, 2.43]) and sharing needles (AOR = 1.78, 95%CI [1.26, 2.51]). The availability and effectiveness of sexual health services must be prioritized for indigenous people, and the design of culturally safe sexual health programs requires the meaningful involvement of young indigenous people.     

Linking Social Development with the Capacity to Carry Debt: Towards an MDG‐Consistent Debt‐Sustainability Concept

Owing to concerns among low‐income countries that the new debt sustainability framework of the Bretton Woods institutions may lock them into a so‐called ‘low debt‐low growth’ scenario, the United Nations has called for a more MDG‐consistent debt‐sustainability concept. This article shows that there is a robust relationship between achieving the Millennium Development Goals and having a higher capacity to carry debt. It then discusses options for modifying the current debt‐sustainability framework, and suggests that including progress made in achieving the MDGs in determining borrowing limits would be a first step towards adopting such a concept.     

A comparison of heritage language ideologies in interaction

In Canada, the notion of a heritage language ideology is often conceived of as a natural by‐product of official multiculturalism. By contrast, Germany has long struggled with its status as a multilingual and multicultural country. By comparing two corpora of interviews with immigrants to each of these two countries (Canadians of German heritage and Germans of Vietnamese heritage), this paper aims to explore to what extent these different language ideologies are reconstructed in the interviews. It will be argued that the interviewees construct different sociolinguistic spaces and take up different positions within them in terms of centre and periphery. Our analysis shows that the German‐Canadian interviewees construct public sociolinguistic spaces in which they position themselves as German even when they do not have an active knowledge of their heritage language. By contrast, despite the monolingual habitus in Germany, the German‐Vietnamese respondents endorse a heritage language ideology; the space they claim for speaking Vietnamese, however, is restricted to private or family conversations.     

A comparison of Dodgson's method and Kemeny's rule

In an election without a Condorcet winner, Dodgson's method is designed to find the candidate that is “closest” to being a Condorcet winner. Similarly, if the head-to-head elections among all candidates do not give a complete transitive ranking, then Kemeny's Rule finds the “closest” transitive ranking. This paper uses geometric techniques to compare Dodgson's and Kemeny's notions of closeness and explain how conflict can arise between the two methods. Received: 19 October 1999/Accepted: 6 December 1999