Influence of competition level on referees’ decision-making in handball

The influence of competition level on referees’ decision-making was investigated. Referees’ decisions in 90 handball games (30 games X 3 competition levels) were observed in different situations related to the advantage rule, and 100 referees from two different levels of expertise were subsequently asked to offer explanations for the competition-level effects from the first part of the study. Results revealed that at the highest level of competition referees intervened less frequently with sporting sanctions, but more frequently with disciplinary sanctions. These effects were apparent mainly in immediate intervention situations and unsuccessful advantage situations, but not in successful situations. Referees explained these effects of competition level in terms of a player competence stereotype, in addition to referees’ different expertise across competition level. The implications of the findings for understanding how status-related stereotypes impact on intervention behavior are discussed.     

Social pressure in the stadiums: Do agents change behavior without crowd support?

Social pressure may have relevant consequences in many contexts but it is hard to evaluate it empirically. In this paper we exploit a natural experiment in soccer to provide clear evidence of its effects. We aim to study how social pressure from the crowd in a stadium affects both players and referees. While in normal matches crowd support may be correlated to a host of variables affecting the outcome of interest, we exploit the fact that after the health emergency for the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, soccer matches in top European Leagues have been allowed only behind closed doors, that is, without spectators in the stadiums. We use data of first and second division of five major European Leagues (Germany, Spain, England, Italy and Portugal) for the last 10 seasons and compare – using a differences-in-differences analysis – several outcomes (determined by players’ performance and referees’ decisions) of matches played with crowd support to the same outcomes when matches were played without crowd. We find considerable effects of the pressure from the crowd: while with the support of the crowd a considerable home advantage emerges in various measures of performance (points, goals, shots, etc.), this advantage is almost halved when matches are played behind closed doors. Similar effects are found for the behavior of referees: decisions of fouls, yellow cards, red cards and penalties that tend to favor home teams in normal matches, are much more balanced without the crowd pressing on referees. The evidence we provide strongly supports the idea that social pressure has intense effects on agents’ behavior.     

Robustness of optimal majority rules over teams with changing size

This work investigates the robustness of optimal restricted majority rules under a changing size of a decision group. Robustness is an important property of decision rules, especially when cost of adjustment to a new rule is high. This is most likely to be the case when information about the competence of the members of the decision team is not costless. One of the useful findings of this study is that optimal restricted majority rules are robust over reductions of the decision team.The authors appreciate comments made by four anonymous referees.     

Replik Auf Den Diskussionsbeitrag Von Rolf Becker

In a previous article in this journal (Fuchs/Sixt 2007) based on an analysis with the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) we have argued that children of educational climbers do not have educational opportunities similar to the typical educational opportunities of children on the newly achieved educational level. Even though we could demonstrate that the climbers’ children are subject to an increase of their educational opportunities compared to the level from which their parents originate, they do not reach the average of the destination level. Based on the theoretical reasoning provided by Bourdieu we argue that this educational disadvantage is caused by the lower furnishing of their families with social, cultural, and economic capital, by climbers’ employment position which is less advantageous, and also by the lower educational level of the climbers’ partners. In his detailed discussion of our analysis Rolf Becker has identified conflicting findings compared to his previous analysis based on the data of the German Lebensverlaufsstudie. In response to his critical discussion we will solve this ostensible caveat. Using again data from the SOEP we demonstrate that his seemingly contradictious findings are due to the specifics of his analytical approach. While Becker shows that the climbers’ children reach educational opportunities that are higher compared to the opportunities of children from the climbers’ level or origin (positive effect of climbing), our results indicate that their educational opportunities do not reach the level that is typically seen on the higher level of education that the educational climbers have reached for the first time (negative effect of climbing).     

Proxy reporting in education surveys: factors influencing accurate reporting in the 2012 Qatar Education Study

Abstract

Proxy reporting is a common practice during survey data collection to increase response rates while reducing fieldwork costs, and agreement between proxies and self-reports is critical to make reliable and valid inferences. This study is the first to unpack what influences proxy accuracy in a non-Western setting using data from the 2012 Qatar Education Study. We find that agreement is a function of a student’s grade in school, grades, a parent’s level of education, and the interaction between immigration status and parent education. These findings suggest in multicultural contexts, agreement may vary based on factors beyond what is typically accounted when examining the components of reporting error as a result of using proxies over self-reports.     

Money in the household: some underlying issues of power

This paper addresses criticisms of a number of papers (Vogler and Pahl, 1993, 1994; Vogler, 1994) in which we attempted to explore the relationships between money, power and inequality within marriage. Subsequent criticisms have mainly centred around the concept of power that we used in those papers. It has been suggested that we either lacked a theory of power (Rottman, 1996) or that our conceptualisation of power as control over decision making was too limited (Shove, 1993). I would argue however, that while it was not made explicit in our original papers our findings point towards a more general theory of power in the household, namely to a modified version of Lukes’ three dimensional model of power. While we initially conceptualised power as control over decision making (Lukes’ first dimension of power) our findings also show the importance of ideological and cultural factors (Lukes’ third dimension of power) as both a cause and a consequence of the allocative systems couples use to organise money within the household. More theoretically, I also suggest that discourses about money within the household may be part of, and operate in a similar way to discourses of decision making at the broader political level. It may therefore be possible to conceptualise the different ways of managing money within the household as mini political systems akin to different sorts of democracy at the broader political level, and with similar consequences for gender relations.     

A distribution-sensitive examination of the gender wage gap in Germany

This paper provides a new examination of the gender pay gap for Germany based on a family of distribution-sensitive indicators. Wage distributions for men and women do not only differ by a fixed constant; differences are more complex. We show that focusing on the bottom of the wage distribution reveals a larger gender gap. Our distribution-sensitive analysis can also be used to study whether the statistical disadvantage of women in average pay might be ‘offset’ by lower inequality. Over a broad range of plausible preferences over inequality, we show however that ‘inequality-adjusted’ estimates of the gap can be up to three times higher than standard inequality-neutral measures in Eastern Germany and up to fifty percent higher in Western Germany. Using preference parameters elicited from a hypothetical risky investment question in our sample, inequality-adjusted gender gap measures turn out to be close to those upper bounds.     

The value of being precise

This study investigates how individuals assess imprecise information. We focus on two essential dimensions of decision under uncertainty, outcomes and probabilities, and their respective precision. We believe the precision of information is highly relevant in the investment setting, as reflected in the well-known “home (familiarity) bias”, and the outcome and probability dimensions, separately or jointly, may affect investors’ knowledge of uncertainty and perceived risk of the investment options, and subsequently affect investors’ choices. To test this conjecture, we conducted three experiments. Our results show that 1) participants demonstrate a pattern of preference for precision and aversion of extreme vagueness and associate vagueness with higher perceived risk and lower investment (experiments one and two); 2) participants prefer vague outcome information to vague probability information (experiment two); 3) familiarity indeed positively affects the precision of estimated values, but this association is stronger for the outcome dimension than for probabilities (experiment three). Our results confirm that precision in information, especially in the outcome dimension has an impact on investors’ resource allocation choices.     

A study of performance indicators and Ofsted ratings in English child protection services

This paper presents new findings from a study of performance measures for children in need and child protection services in England. National datasets and census returns from 152 local authorities over a 13-year period were combined in order to analyse trends and correlations in quality indicators. The study also explored the relationship between these measures and inspection ratings from the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted), with a particular focus on services rated as inadequate. The available quality measures mainly focused on the timeliness of work processes, but these did not seem to affect outcomes in the form of re-referral rates. However, re-referrals were higher in local authorities with a tendency to close cases quickly and in those with high rates of agency workers. A small number of indicators were able to predict an inadequate Ofsted rating in 2012 and 2013. Changes in performance measures in the year following an inadequate Ofsted rating may suggest greater use of protective interventions compared with similarly performing local authorities. Implications are considered for performance measurement, management and inspection in the field of child protection.     

The Use of Frames Analysis in Evaluating Capacity‐Building in Local Coastal Programs in Louisiana*

Abstract Frames theory has been widely used to explain the dynamics of group processes and decision‐making. Some researchers have applied frames theory to policy adoption and implementation. Following from this, my research applies frames analysis to a regulatory program in coastal Louisiana. The data derive from a pre‐Hurricane Katrina study of the effectiveness of Louisiana's Coastal Resources Program in building coastal zone management (CZM) capacity among local decision‐makers. In this paper, I examine the potential influence of three independent variables (Local Coastal Program development, type of respondent, and frequency of coastal zone management interaction) on the level of agreement with regulator frame ideology. The frames analysis shows that parishes with Local Coastal Programs (LCPs) have a significantly stronger presence of regulator framing than do parishes without LCPs. Among the three types of decision‐makers (CZM administrators/staff, CZM advisory panel members and parish council or police jury) regulator frame agreement is particularly strong among advisory panel members, while agreement with regulator frames is lowest among parish council or police jury officials. Respondents reporting more CZM interaction exhibit higher levels of regulator frame agreement. OLS regression shows that the conditions of having an LCP, or being a panel member and having greater frequency of CZM interactions significantly increase the likelihood of regulator framing. These findings demonstrate the importance of the LCP process in the shaping of frames congruent with lead agency ideology.     

Editorial Policies and Practices Among Leading Journals in Four Scientific Fields*

The editorial policies and practices of leading journals in four scientific fields are compared to determine differences related to stages of paradigm development. Hypotheses are developed and tested on the use of particularism, the ease of reaching editorial decisions, the length of articles, extent of copy-editing, and time lags in the publication process. Data were obtained via a mail survey of the editors of the top ten journals in physics, chemistry, sociology, and political science, as nominated by university scientists. Results are generally supportive of the hypotheses. Data on available space, financial support, and rejection rates are also discussed as reinforcing tendencies toward particularism and increasing its costs.     

Outcome valence and externality valence framing in public good dilemmas

The aim of this paper is to examine how framing influences people’ s cooperation behavior in social dilemmas. In Experiment 1 we investigated the influence of outcome valence (positive vs. negative outcome) and externality valence (positive vs. negative externality) framing on players’ willingness to cooperate in a repeated public good game. We found a significant interaction effect on first-round cooperation, indicating larger cooperation rates when there is a negative outcome valence and a positive externality on others. Furthermore, this effect remained largely stable when comparing cooperation over all rounds, resulting in 45–63% increased cooperation compared to the other conditions. In Experiment 2 we replicated the effect in an applied vignette study, lending support for the generalizability of this framing effect. Taken together, these findings suggest that public goods provisions may be increased substantially by framing the situation’s outcome valence as negative rather than positive.     

Rural Latino Youth Career Development: An Application of Social Cognitive Career Theory

This study used social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994 ) to investigate the career development of 9th‐grade students living in 2 rural communities with large numbers of Latino immigrants. Participants (55.3% Latino) responded to measures of vocational skills self‐efficacy, career decision outcome expectations, career aspirations, and barriers to postsecondary education. Contrary to previous findings, results indicated that Latino students in these communities reported higher self‐efficacy beliefs than did White students. Latino students also reported higher perceived barriers, but this did not seem to relate to their career aspirations. Results suggest that school and career counselors should focus on programming that attends to Latino students' self‐efficacy and outcome expectations, as well as efficacy for overcoming barriers. Doing so could prove useful for increasing career achievement among rural Latino youth.     

Social inequalities,social trust and civic participation—the case of Norway

Comparative studies have generally demonstrated high levels of social capital in the Scandinavian welfare states. It has also been shown that social capital is generally higher among more privileged groups of people than among less privileged groups. However, less is known about how the different types of social inequalities relate to various types of social capital. The aim of this study is to go beyond the generally high Norwegian levels of social capital and study variations of social capital within a representative sample of the Norwegian adult population. The main question is whether and to what extent socio-economic indicators relate to measures of social capital, that is, social trust and civic participation. The data are based on a representative sample of the Norwegian adult population, comprising 3190 individuals. The results show that, whereas several of the socio-economic indicators are significant with respect to social trust, it is only the level of education that is significant for both types of social capital. These findings show that the associations between socio-economic indicators and social capital vary, based on the measures applied. Nevertheless, the strong associations between education and both social capital outcomes demonstrate that social capital is not equally available to all, emphasising the importance of social policies and societal institutions in building social capital.     

Come Back or Stay? Spend Here or There? Return and Remittances: The Case of Moldova

This paper examines the determinants and consequences of temporary and permanent migration from the perspective of migrant source countries. Based on a large and detailed household dataset on migration in the Republic of Moldova, the most important factors that influence a respective migrant’s decision whether to return to the home country or to stay abroad for good are presented first. Second, the remittance behaviour of temporary and permanent migrants is analysed to investigate how developing countries benefit from either type of migration. The results indicate that the most important determinants of permanent migration relate to the economic conditions at home and abroad, as well as to the legal status of a migrant in the host country. Furthermore, economic and political frustration plays an important role in the decision of permanent migrants not to come back. On the contrary, family ties as measured by the number of close family members at home act as a pull factor for migrant return. Interestingly, permanent migrants use source country networks that differ from those of temporary migrants, indicating that the return decision of individuals is influenced by the decision of their migrant peers. Concerning remittances, the results reveal that, in absolute terms, temporary migrants remit around 30 per cent more than their permanent counterparts. This outcome is surprising, because temporary migrants often reside in countries where wages are much lower. Overall, the findings indicate that when compared to permanent migration, temporary migration is favourable for developing countries, as it fosters not only repatriation of skills, but also higher remittances, and home savings.