The scoring rules in an endogenous election

Plurality rule is mostly criticized from being capable of choosing an alternative considered as worst by a strict majority. This paper considers elections in which the agenda consists of potential candidates strategically choosing whether or not to enter the election. In this context, we examine the ability of scoring rules to fulfil the Condorcet criterion. We show for the case of three potential candidates that Plurality rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies a version of the Condorcet criterion in two cases: 1) when preferences are single-peaked and, 2) when preferences are single-dipped.

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Reduced prizes and increased effort in contests

We study the general class of two-player public-policy contests and specify the asymmetry condition under which a more restrained government intervention that reduces the contestants’ prizes has the “perverse” effect of increasing their aggregate lobbying efforts.

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The inverse plurality rule—an axiomatization

Under the ‘inverse plurality rule’, voters specify only their least preferred alternative. Our first result establishes that this rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies the minimal veto condition (MV). We then prove that the inverse plurality rule is characterized by MV and the four well known conditions that characterize scoring rules; namely, Anonymity (A), Neutrality (N), Reinforcement (RE) and Continuity (CO). Our new characterization result is related to the characterizations of approval voting and of the widely used plurality rule. We finally show how the axiomatization of the inverse plurality rule can be extended to the axiomatization of elementary scoring rules (vote for t-alternatives scoring rules). We are indebted to two anonymous referees for their most useful comments.

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Do Reservation Wages Really Decline? Some International Evidence on the Determinants of Reservation Wages

Using cross-country data, we investigate the determinants of reservation wages and their course over the jobless spell. Higher unemployment benefits lead to higher reservation wages. Further, again consistent with the basic search model, repeated observations on the same individual provide scant evidence of declining reservation wages.

Shame,the Affective Side of Secrets: Commentary on Barth’s Hidden Eating Disorders

This paper expands on the ideas presented by Barth’s article on hidden eating disorders. The topic of eating disorders continues to be an important focus of clinical work. Applying constructs related to the experience of shame, I explore the way that feelings of shame may impact an exploration of eating disorders by the patient and clinician.

On the influence of extreme parties in electoral competition with policy-motivated candidates

We study and compare equilibrium platforms in models of unidimensional electoral competition with two and four policy motivated parties. We first analyze the plurality game, where the party getting the most votes is elected and implements its proposed platform. Restrictions on the set of credible announcements are needed to get existence of equilibria. Comparing equilibria with two and four parties, we obtain that moderate parties react to the introduction of extreme parties by proposing the same or more extreme equilibrium platforms. We then study the proportional system, where the policy implemented is a weighted sum of the proposals, with the voting shares as weights. Here, the existence of extreme parties leads moderate ones to choose more centrist platforms. We finally test the robustness of our results with respect to, first, the enlargement of the strategy space to entry decisions and, second, to asymmetric distributions of voters' blisspoints.

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The Monster Within: Countertransference Reflections on a Gay Adolescent’s Struggle with Sexual Identity

This paper concerns the author’s countertransference reflections on her work with a gay adolescent who identifies with powerfully destructive internal objects, including Hitler and the Monster. The author describes her countertransference inquiry through which she experiences her own potential destructiveness in order to help accommodate her adolescent patient’s rejected and disowned self states.

Assessing the effects of land use and land cover patterns on thermal conditions using landscape metrics in city of Indianapolis,United States

Direct applications of remote sensing thermal infrared (TIR) data in landscape ecological research are rare due to limitations in the sensors, calibration, and difficulty in interpretation. Currently there is a general lack of methodology for examining the relationship between land surface temperatures (LST) derived from TIR data and landscape patterns extracted from optical sensors. A separation of landscapes into values directly related to their scale and signature is a key step. In this study, a Landsat ETM+ image of Indianapolis, Unites States, acquired on June 22, 2000, was spectrally unmixed (using spectral mixture analysis, SMA) into fraction endmembers of green vegetation, soil, high albedo, and low albedo. Impervious surface was then computed from the high and low albedo images. A hybrid classification procedure was developed to classify the fraction images into seven land use and land cover (LULC) classes. Using the fractional images, the landscape composition and pattern were examined. Next, pixel-based LST measurements were correlated with the landscape fractional components to investigate LULC based relationships between LST and impervious surface and green vegetation fractions. An examination of the relationship between the LULC and LST maps with landscape metrics was finally conducted to deepen understanding of their interactions. Results indicate that SMA-derived fraction images were effective for quantifying the urban morphology and for providing reliable measurements of biophysical variables. LST was found to be positively correlated with impervious surface fraction but negatively correlated with green vegetation fraction. Each temperature zone was associated with a dominant LULC category. Further research should be directed to the theoretical and applied implications of describing such relationships between LULC patterns and urban thermal conditions.

Nonprofit Isomorphism: An Australia–United States Comparison

This paper examines the organizational structures of nonprofit organizations in Australia and the United States. Using random samples of nonprofits drawn from the two organizational populations, the analysis compares the extent of structural resemblance or isomorphism in each. It detects similar levels of isomorphism for several structural characteristics. The paper interprets this finding as reflecting expectations for nonprofit organizations that stretch worldwide.

Chinese Contract Law and the Economic Reform

China’s previous contract laws had many contradictions and failed to meet the needs of China’s developing market economy. Although some problems still need to be dealt with, the unified contract law is more advanced, systematic and plays an important role in fostering and encouraging transactions.

Temporal Distributions of Crime and Disorder in Casino and Non-Casino Zones

Research on the relationship between casinos and crime has yielded mixed conclusions. Some authors argue that casinos are crime attractors and provide fertile grounds for disorder in the surrounding communities. Others claim that the impact of casinos on the crime problem has been over-stated and that casinos in themselves are not crime generators. Relying on calls for service and incidents known to the police, this research reveals the specific spatial and temporal characteristics of all criminal and disorderly behaviors around casino venues.

Export, Import and Economic Growth: The Case of Transition Economies

This study analyses the relationships between export, import and economic growth for the 13 transition economies. Empirical results show that there is a unidirectional causality from economic growth to export. Empirical findings show that the growth-led export hypothesis is valid in those countries and growth is rather shaped by increase in import demand.

What is child care? Lessons from time-use surveys of major English-speaking countries

This paper examines the definition and measurement of time devoted to child care in the diary-based surveys administered by the United States, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain. Detailed analysis of the relationship between measures of care activity and supervisory care in the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) illustrate the larger conceptual issues at stake.

Efficient nonanthropocentric nature protection

This paper analyzes nature protection by a social planner under different ‘utilitarian’ social welfare functions. For that purpose we construct an integrated model of the economy and the ecosystem with explicit consideration of nonhuman species and with competition between human and nonhuman species for land and prey biomass. We characterize and compare the efficient allocations when social welfare is anthropocentric (only consumers have positive welfare weights), when social welfare is biocentric (only nonhuman species have positive welfare weights) and when social welfare is nonanthropocentric (all species have positive welfare weights). Not surprisingly, biocentric social welfare calls for suspending all economic activities. It is more important, however, that both anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism make the case for nature protection through different channels, though. Our analysis suggests that one may dispense with the concept of nonanthropocentric social welfare provided that in the anthropocentric framework the consumers' intrinsic valuation of nature is properly accounted for.

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Therapeutic Ambition,Uncertainty, and Psychotherapy with Heterosexually Married Gay Men: A Short Commentary

A Short Commentary on the article 'Staying Put in the Closet: Examining Clinical Practice and Countertransference Issues in Work with Gay Men Married to Straight Women' by Edward Alessi. The focus is upon countertransference issues, especially therapeutic ambition, in working clinically with heterosexually married gay men. The work of the interpersonal school is emphasized as providing a creative approach to therapeutic ambition with Otto Allen Will's concept of the governing principle of uncertainty.

How Living Wage Legislation Affects U.S. Poverty Rates

I investigate how living wage legislation affects poverty. I find evidence that living wage ordinances modestly reduce poverty rates where such ordinances are enacted. However, there is no evidence that state minimum wage laws do so. The difference in the impacts of the two types of legislation conceivably stems from a difference in the party responsible for bearing the burden of the cost.

Efficiency Wages,Productivity and Simultaneity: A Meta-Regression Analysis

This study reports a meta-analysis of 75 estimates of the efficiency-wage effect. It reveals a strong efficiency-wage effect that depends upon whether researchers control for potential simultaneity between wages and productivity. Studies that control for simultaneity tend to report stronger effects. Clear evidence of publication selection is also found. E24, J30.

The economics of gay and lesbian couples: Introduction to a special issue on gay and lesbian households

This article presents a simple conceptual framework integrating three couple-related outcomes analyzed in this volume: wage differentials in earnings related to couple formation, household formation (including cohabitation and registration as Registered Domestic Partnership), and intra-household allocation of income. It also discusses some of the articles’ main findings.

The response of household parental investment to child endowments

The theoretical and empirical literature on parental investment focuses on whether child-specific parental investments reinforce or compensate for a child’s initial endowments. However, many parental investments, such as neighborhood quality and family size and structure, are shared wholly or in part among all children in a household. The empirical results of this paper imply that such household parental investments compensate for low endowments, as proxied by low birth weight.

Informalization and contemporary manners: The Wouters studies

This is a discussion of two books by Cas Wouters, Sex and Manners: Female Emancipation in the West 1890–2000 (London: Sage, 2004), and Informalization: Manners and Emotions since 1890 (Sage, forthcoming 2007, English version).

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