The proportional odds with partial proportionality constraints model for ordinal response variables

The proportional odds assumption in ordered logit models is a restrictive assumption that is often violated in practice. A violation of the assumption indicates that the effects of one or more independent variables significantly vary across cutpoint equations in the model. In order to relax this assumption for the cumulative odds model, researchers may use either a “partial” model that relaxes the assumption for a subset of variables or the “generalized” model that relaxes the assumption for every independent variable. In this paper, we propose a relatively new and under-utilized third alternative, the proportional odds with partial proportionality constraints (POPPC) model, which allows the effects of a subset of variables to vary across cutpoint equations by a common factor. We improve upon an earlier formulation of the POPPC model by offering an additional conceptual justification for the model and an estimation method that does not require the use of person-threshold data. We illustrate the POPPC model with two examples from the 2008 General Social Survey.     

哈罗德-多马模型与索洛模型:一个比较分析

本文基于哈罗德、多马和索洛关于经济增长理论的经典文献,对哈罗德--多马模型与索洛模型提供一个比较分析.本文的基本结论包括:1、并不像索罗模型宣称的那样,它接受除不变要素比例之外的所有哈罗德--多马假定,而是通过引入新古典生产理论,消除哈罗德--多马模型中的"黄金时代"问题;2、并不像索罗模型宣称的那样,它解决了哈罗德--多马模型中的"刃锋问题"(或称"不稳定性原理"),而是通过引入一种产品的总量生产函数和取消投资函数,从而取消了国民收入的会计恒等式和均衡条件式之间的区分,回避而不是解决了哈罗德-多马模型中的刃锋问题;3、资本-产出比也不像索洛模型宣称的那样,是生产函数的技术特征,而是关于价格机制的不同假定.     

Heterogeneity in the rise and decline of city-level homicide rates, 1976-2005: A latent trajectory analysis

This study applies latent trajectory methods to the analysis of temporal changes in homicide rates among large US cities across recent decades. Specifically, annual homicide rates for 157 large US cities are analyzed for the 30 years from 1976 to 2005. We address the fundamental questions: Did all of cities experience similar levels and patterns of rise and decline in homicide rates over these three decades? Or is there hidden or unobserved heterogeneity with respect to these temporal patterns, thus leading to the identification of more homogeneous groupings of the cities? And if latent homogeneous groupings surface, is membership due to specific structural characteristics found within those cities? Evidence is found for the existence of four latent homicide rate trajectories. After identifying and classifying the cities into these four groups, multivariate statistical techniques are used to determine which social and economic characteristics are significant predictors of these distinct homicide trends. Criminal justice measures are also included as controls. It is found that larger cities located in the South with higher levels of resource deprivation/concentrated poverty, higher income inequality, higher percentages of the adult male population that are divorced, higher unemployment rates, higher percentages of youth, higher percentages of the population who are Hispanic and higher numbers of police per capita are more likely to be in a higher than a lower homicide trajectory group. Higher percentages of the population enrolled in colleges and universities and locations in states with higher incarceration rates are characteristics of cities associated with membership in a lower homicide trajectory group.     

Some cross-population comparisons of family bias in the effects of schooling on occupational status

It is a truism of research on social stratification that the effects of socioeconomic or family background on educational attainment and adult success lead to biases in the simple regressions of occupational status (or other putative outcomes of schooling) on educational attainment. The present analysis compares findings of family bias in the effects of schooling on occupational status across samples of siblings drawn from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study and from Olneck's sample of brothers from Kalamazoo, Michigan. The comparative analysis shows that family bias in the effect of schooling on occupational status may be much less than is commonly believed and that very large samples may be needed to measure it reliably. Moreover, the analysis suggests that estimates of family bias are very sensitive to the specification of response variability in schooling. The analysis also illustrates some useful methods for cross-population comparison of structural equation models.     

A multivariate analysis of response structure: Race attitudes, 1972–1977

A particular kind of latent class model is used to characterize the unobservable variable measured by six discrete indicators of racial stance in 1972 and 1977. Methods recently introduced by Clogg and Goodman, 1982, Clogg and Goodman, 1983) for the simultaneous latent structure analysis of two multidimensional contingency tables are employed in across-year homogeneity tests on the latent class proportions. Trends in multivariate response patterns over the 5-year interval are then examined by cross-classifying the predicted latent variable with selected demographic characteristics of respondents in each year. The results indicate that (1) no significant changes in the distribution of the latent variable occurred over the 5-year time period, and (2) the status of certain demographic variables as predictors of racial stance fluctuated between the two survey years.     

To thine own self be true? Clarifying the effects of identity discrepancies on psychological distress and emotions

After many years of research across disciplines, it remains unclear whether people are more motivated to seek appraisals that accurately match self-views (self-verification) or are as favorable as possible (self-enhancement). Within sociology, mixed findings in identity theory have fueled the debate. A problem here is that a commonly employed statistical approach does not take into account the direction of a discrepancy between how we see ourselves and how we think others see us in terms of a given identity, yet doing so is critical for determining which self-motive is at play. We offer a test of three competing models of identity processes, including a new “mixed motivations” model where self-verification and self-enhancement operate simultaneously. We compare the models using the conventional statistical approach versus response surface analysis. The latter method allows us to determine whether identity discrepancies involving over-evaluation are as distressing as those involving under-evaluation. We use nationally representative data and compare results across four different identities and multiple outcomes. The two statistical approaches lead to the same conclusions more often than not and mostly support identity theory and its assumption that people seek self-verification. However, response surface tests reveal patterns that are mistaken as evidence of self-verification by conventional procedures, especially for the spouse identity. We also find that identity discrepancies have different effects on distress and self-conscious emotions (guilt and shame). Our findings have implications not only for research on self and identity across disciplines, but also for many other areas of research that incorporate these concepts and/or use difference scores as explanatory variables.     

Residual analysis as a technique for specifying and optimizing predictive models

This article outlines a simple procedure for reducing the error and thus increasing the size of correlation coefficients through an analysis of residual variances resulting from the inadequacy of an assumed regression model to describe the data. Usually researchers are concerned with how well their model fits the data, but in regard to certain problems, an equally important issue is how well the data fit the model. Use of the Residual Analysis Technique provides a means whereby researchers may objectively remove extreme or deviant cases, i.e., those with large residuals, from their analysis and thereby increase the predictive accuracy of their operational models. Data from 682 urban places are examined in order to provide an example of the practical utility of this procedure.     

The scarring effect of unemployment on psychological well-being across Europe

Past unemployment may have a pervasive psychological impact that occurs across nations. We investigate the association between unemployment events across working life and subsequent psychological well-being across 14 European countries. Additionally, we consider the influence of between-country differences in labour market institutions and conditions on the cross-country well-being effects of unemployment. Data detailing life-long employment trajectories and contemporary life conditions are drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. The well-being impact of unemployment is modeled using linear, multi-level specifications. Each six-month spell of past unemployment is found to predict reduced quality of life and life satisfaction after the age of 50, having adjusted for a broad range of individual and country-specific covariates. In contrast, the impact of past unemployment on depression is explained by individual demographic factors. We identify the first comparative long-term evidence that unemployment welfare scarring may be a broad, international phenomenon.     

Rasch measurement and differences between women and men in self-esteem

Most researchers who investigate sociological influences on emotional well-being or distress employ correlational methods as justification for the scales used as measures of distress (factor analysis) and to describe the effects of various factors on distress (regression). This paper suggests that log-linear and related models offer certain advantages over the linear model which have largely been ignored. An analysis of the cross-classification of items included in a widely used measure of self-esteem suggests that one of the items must be eliminated to approximately achieve measurement as defined by Rasch. The resultant latent variable shows no difference in self-esteem between women and men. An analysis of the additive index which includes all of the items, however, reveals that women have lower self-esteem than do men. This apparent difference results solely from a difference on the discrepant item: women are less likely than men to report that they often, rather than sometimes or rarely, can do things as well as most other people.     

Pathways of children’s long-term living arrangements: A latent class analysis

This study employed latent class analysis to create children’s family structure trajectories from birth through adolescence using merged mother and child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 1870). Input variables distinguished between biological fathers and stepfathers as well as mother’s marriages and cohabitations. The best-fitting model revealed five latent trajectories of children’s long-term family structure: continuously married biological parents (55%), long-term single mothers (18%), married biological parents who divorce (12%), a highly unstable trajectory distinguished by gaining at least one stepfather (11%), and cohabiting biological parents who either marry or break up (4%). Multinomial logistic regression indicated that mother’s education, race, teen birth status, and family of origin characteristics were important predictors of the long-term family trajectories in which their children grew up. These findings suggest that latent class analysis is a valuable statistical tool for understanding children’s complete family structure experiences.     

Women's occupational attainment: The effects of work interruptions, self-selection, and unobserved characteristics

This paper addresses specification issues concerning the estimation of women's occupational attainment. Attainment models generally assume independence of error terms across equations, and whether this assumption is made or whether correlation of error terms is assumed is found to have important substantive implications, particularly with respect to education. While education affects first-job status, when first-job status is controlled, education has no significant effect on current attainment. A woman's first-job status appears, then, to be of major importance, and if she enters a job for which she is overqualified, education may not be relied upon to improve her occuppational status in the future. As in the analysis of earnings, it is important not only to include years of experience, as is usual in attainment models, but to include whether a recent work interruption has occurred. This is a significant and important variable in both the correlated and uncorrelated errors models, but the uncorrelated errors model appears to understate the magnitude of effect.     

Ontological insecurity and subjective feelings of unsafety: Analysing socially constructed fears in Italy

Perception of insecurity arises as a complex social phenomenon affected by factors that go beyond actual crime rates. Previous contributions to the field of fear of crime studies have shown, for instance, that the perception of social and physical disorder may generate insecurity among residents even in contexts where crime is comparatively low. Meanwhile, sociological approaches have led to a conceptualization of insecurity as an umbrella sentiment grounded in a wider feeling of unease. Building further on this assumption, data gathered in a large-scale survey in Italy (n = 15,428) were analysed by implementing exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with the objective of assessing the validity of a model of “ontological insecurity”. The results of our analysis support a conceptualization of insecurity where socially constructed anxieties (due to health and financial precariousness), as well as ethnic, sexual and religious-based stigmatization, play a prominent role in determining an individual's feeling of insecurity.     

英语专业学生写作中分裂句的使用特征——趋易性、狭隘性与规避性

本文借助语料库手段比较了中国英语专业学生和英国大学本科生写作中it分裂句、wh分裂句和倒装wh分裂句的使用情况,梳理了相对于本族语者而言中国英语专业学生写作中分裂句使用的总体特点,同时分析其可能成因。研究结果显示,中国学生与本族语者在分裂句使用上既有一致性又有差异性,且除简单的过度使用或使用不足的差异之外,中国学生英语写作中分裂句的使用还同时具有趋易性、狭隘性与规避性三重特点。     

历史与比较的结合——乌利希比较教育思想探析

乌利希是比较教育历史人文主义的代表人物之一,他把历史法和比较法结合起来,特别重视对历史因素的研究与分析,在历史比较中又引入了社会科学的方法,拓展了比较教育的历史研究法。乌利希的工作对当时比较教育的研究起了很大的推动作用,他的思想也影响着后继的比较教育研究者。     

The role of social and cognitive factors in individual gambling: An empirical study on college students

Most of the studies on the determinants of individual gambling behaviour rely on cognitive theories. In our study, we argue that, besides cognitive factors, several social factors might play an important role as well. We analyse data from an ad hoc webmail survey conducted on about 2000 undergraduate students enrolled in a large public university in the Northern Italy in the academic year 2012–13. Using a variety of statistical techniques (standard regression models, boosted regression trees and structural equations models), we show that social variables affect both participation in gambling in the past year and latent gambling propensity. In particular, controlling for several proxies for individual cognitive ability and understanding of probability, gambling propensity is positively affected by the degree of gambling in the social surrounding (parents, peers, neighbourhood) and the acceptability of gambling activities to the individual. Moreover, in our sample of college students the role of social factors appears to be larger than that of cognitive factors, and this is consistent across different types of models and specifications.     

城镇化对我国城乡居民消费的影响--基于分位数回归的比较研究

利用我国2011年31个省份的截面数据,分别采用OLS回归方法和分位数回归方法比较分析了包含城镇化在内的相关因素对我国城乡居民消费的影响。结果表明：城镇化对我国城乡居民消费均有显著的促进作用,农村居民尤其是低消费水平的农村居民消费受城镇化影响更大;农村居民的消费倾向远低于城镇居民,且农村居民消费深受城镇居民消费示范效应的影响。因此,在推行城镇化战略扩大居民消费需求时,必须考虑城乡居民在消费影响因素上的差异,辅以其他针对性的配套措施。     

What keeps young adults in permanent poverty? A comparative analysis using ECHP

Previous studies suggest that there are strong differences in the rates of youth poverty across European countries. Rather surprisingly, it is found to be high in Scandinavian countries, and relatively speaking, lower in Mediterranean and Anglo-Saxon countries. This somewhat unexpected finding prompts the question whether the incidence of poverty is an appropriate measure of youth disadvantage. Instead of considering poverty rates we consider the length of recorded poverty spells, taking into account explicitly the temporal sequencing of the episodes of poverty. Using the European Community Household Panel, individuals are classified into different groups of poverty permanence, each reflecting severity of social disadvantage. Based on these categories we implement a generalized ordinal logit model to assess the various factors associated with social disadvantage among youth. We find that cross-national patterns differ from those found in previous studies. In particular from our findings it does not result that poverty is highest among young people in Social Democratic countries. Our analysis shows important gender differences, though they are not the same across the countries included in the study. For some countries it turns out that being a woman is a protective factor against long-term poverty. As previous studies suggests, young individuals’ living arrangements matter.     

从有效需求视角对新农保制度的比较研究——以山东、山西、内蒙古各一村为例

文章在问卷调查和访谈的基础上,对山东、山西、内蒙古三个农业村农民新农保的参保意愿和缴费能力影响因素进行比较分析。发现影响农民参保意愿及缴费能力的因素涵盖个人因素、家庭因素和制度因素等各个层面。我国应加快农村经济发展,增加农民收入;采取多种措施提高农民养老金替代率;加强农村教育,提高农民文化水平;根据不同地区的情况,采取不同措施;促进农村社会养老保险制度的完善和实现参保人员的全覆盖。     

Equality of endogamy: Statistical approaches

In research on assimilation through marriage or defining racial groups as castes or classes, it is important to be able to test the equality of endogamy of groups of differing sizes and sex ratios. A variety of proposed solutions all have major difficulties. Log-linear models constitute an improvement but still retain some undesirable properties, including an inability to deal with both the linear and quadratic dimensions of the relationship between group size and endogamy levels by focusing on one to the exclusion of the other. Moreover, in the context of studies of comparative analysis of racial groups it is handicapped by providing inconsistent results for uncollapsed categories when other groups are combined.We recommend instead the weighted least-squares methodology both to test for statistical significance of differences in endogamy and to rank racial or ethnic groups according to their degree of endogamy. This method incorporates both the linear and quadratic components influencing the diagonal frequencies in marriage studies. Linear effects (see Table 2) are stronger when endogamy is high, and quadratic effects (see Table 3) are stronger when endogamy is low, although in general both are present together. Furthermore, this approach permits separate calculation of endogamy levels by sex and provides a test to ascertain when separate statistics should be computed. It is relatively free from biases in terms of the amount of “extra credit” given smaller groups, and is invariant when categories are combined. Conditional kappa values can be utilized to judge whether a racial group was relatively closed or open (compared to other groups) and to analyze the impact of the structural characteristics of group size and sex ratio on endogamy.In one area log-linear models retain an advantage over GSK-based analyses. The former have been employed to examine patterns of intermarriage via the quasi-symmetry, quasi-independence, and other tests based on off-diagonal elements. So far no comparable method has appeared for analyzing the intermarriage or exogamy behavior using GSK. Applications of log-linear models have been less successful in dealing with endogamy or inmarriage patterns.The comparison of degrees of endogamy by the GSK approach is based on direct measurement of endogamy by racial groups, allowing for calculation of standard error figures for each group's endogamy value. The ability of the GSK method to accomplish the above—as well as provide kappas which are invariant under group collapsing, tests of equal endogamy (by sex if necessary), and a test of marginal homogeneity—may be unique.Our recommendation is that in future discussions, involving comparisons of endogamy among several populations, conditional kappas and their standard errors at the very least should be presented. The distinction between male-oriented, female-oriented, and balanced conditional kappas, as well as the use of formal tests of endogamy, homogeneity, and marginal homogeneity permits examination of important population issues. The broad applicability of these techniques derives from their provision of a basis for comparing endogamy levels, since they produce consistent results for unaggregated data regardless of how minor or intermediate groups are combined. Such analyses are fundamental for gaining a more basic insight as to whether social and cultural factors, legal discrimination, or the basic structural elements of group size and sex ratio have greater influence on assimilation or the degree of closure in racial groups in the Americas.     

意会认识论的研究新路径：意会认知与创造思维比较研究

通过意会认知与创造思维的比较研究可以看到,意会认知是人在认识过程中产生创造性认知的过程,这种从模糊到清晰的认知过程是创造思维的基本形式。对意会认知与创造思维三种具体形式的内在关联进行分析可以看到,直觉思维是意会认知的＂不知之知＂,即直觉与意志、情感等非理性因素相结合是产生意会认知的基础;灵感思维是意会认知＂无意识性＂重要表现,即意会认知与无意识的个人体悟有关;顿悟思维是意会认知＂心理论证＂的基础,即对客体本质进行深入洞察并在主观上产生认可。