WAR OF ATTRITION: EVIDENCE FROM A LABORATORY EXPERIMENT ON MARKET EXIT

We report an experiment designed to study whether inefficient firms are systematically driven from overcrowded markets. Our data set includes a series of 3,800 wars of attrition of a type modeled by Fudenberg and Tirole in 1986. We find that exit tends to be efficient and exit times conform surprisingly well to point predictions of the model. Moreover, subjects respond similarly to implementations framed in terms of losses as they do to those framed in terms of gains. (JEL D21, L11, C92)     

CROSS-COUNTRY EVIDENCE ON LONG-RUN GROWTH AND INFLATION

While inflation is generally inversely related to growth, I show that estimates of the relationship seer two robustness problems which plague a variety of model specifications. First, growth-inflation results are highly sensitive to modifications to the country sample, limited from the start to low- and moderate-inflation countries. Second, results are also sensitive to modifications in the time period of analysis. In conjunction with the regression specification sensitivity documented by Levine and Renelt [1992], these results should further discourage the practice cf quantifying inflation's effects with cross-county growth regressions.     

LEVINE'S GERMAN TRADITION: Consolations for the Sociologist

In Visions of the Sociological Tradition Donald N. Levine presents a view of the German sociological tradition that emphasizes its origins in philosophical idealism. This paper discusses the implications of this, view for understanding the formation of sociology in Germany. The author suggests that Levine's account can be supplemented and strengthened by reconstructing the German tradition both as an effort to proceed without foundational philosophical systems and as an outgrowth of social economics and the historical school of political economy. Most importantly, Levine shares the call for sociology as the site of dialogue with that reconstructed German tradition.     

The Use and Abuse of Models of Disability

Throughout history, theorists have made use of the technology of the day to provide explanatory models of the behaviour they observe in order to provide an improved understanding of human behaviour. Bax (1998) describes the use of models of disability as not particularly helpful in relation to the treatment of children with physical disabilities. It is the purpose of this paper to show that models do have their place within disability research and the implications of using the medical and social models of disability, together with two models from developmental psychology, namely the transactional model and systems theory, will be discussed. It is argued by the authors that the usage of these models can aid understanding of disability in both research and clinical settings.     

Anomie and Strain: Context and Consequences of Merton's Two Theories

Robert Merton presented two, not always clearly differentiated theories in his seminal explorations on the social-structure-and-anomie paradigm: a strain theory and an anomie theory. A one-sided focus on Merton's strain theory in the secondary literature has unnecessarily restricted the power and effectiveness of Merton's anomie theory. For although structural strain is one way to explain why deviance occurs in the context of anomie, it is not the only way. We contend that scholars who are critical of strain theory should not automatically discard Merton's anomie theory, because the perspective of anomie is compatible with several other theories of crime and delinquency. Offering examples of previous integration efforts, we maintain that Merton's theoretical model can benefit from the input of other theories of crime and deviance as much as these other theoretical perspectives can fine-tune their models and explanations.     

Interpersonal Behaviour in Families: Research on the Theoretical Relationship of Two Models*

An integration of theories of family process under a recently formulated unified theory is proposed. Research was conducted testing hypothesized interrelationships between two models subsumed under the unified theory: Satir's model of defended communication and Kantor and Lehr's psychopolitical model of family process. Behavioural ratings from an Australian sample and self-report ratings from an American sample both show the two models to be significantly correlated and structurally consistent with the unified theory.     

An agent-based random-utility-maximization model to generate social networks with transitivity in geographic space

Stochastic actor-based approaches receive increasing interest in the generation of social networks for simulation in time and space. Existing models however cannot be readily integrated in agent-based models that assume random-utility-maximizing behavior of agents. We propose an agent-based model to generate social networks explicitly in geographic space which is formulated in the random-utility-maximizing (RUM) framework. The proposed model consists of a friendship formation mechanism and a component to simulate social encounters in a population. We show how transitivity can be incorporated in both components and how the model can be estimated based on data of personal networks using likelihood estimation. In an application to the Swiss context, we demonstrate the estimation and ability of the model to reproduce relevant characteristics of networks, such as geographic proximity, attribute similarity (homophily), size of personal networks (degree distribution) and clustering (transitivity). We conclude that the proposed social-network model fits seamlessly in existing large-scale micro-simulation systems which assume RUM behavior of agents.     

THE STRUCTURE OF FAMILY PARADIGMS: AN ANALYTICAL MODEL OF FAMILY VARIATION

The theory of family paradigms provides an integrative framework for under-standing and systematizing the diverse ways that families organize and make sense of family life. Using formal methods of analysis based on logical and geometrical arguments, the priecise implications of models of family types can be investigated and compared. The paradigmatic framework can thus be refined and extended to form a more rigorous theoretical grounding for family typologies is explored and a miltidimensional model is derived the geometry of which is equivalent to, but more succinctly captures, the underlying structure of uariation in family para-digms. In Part II, the resulting model is interpredtd and explored in terms of implications for family theory, theory construction, and family therapy. Clarifying the basic dimensions of the paradigmatic framework also permits more precise exploration of interrelationships among related models of family types, which can be understood as reduced models derivable from the complete geometry of the paradigmatic framework.     

ENTERTAINING MALTHUS: BREAD,CIRCUSES, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Motivated by the basic adage that man does not live by bread alone, we offer a theory of historical economic growth and population dynamics where human beings need food to survive, but enjoy other things, too. Our model imposes a Malthusian constraint on food, but introduces a second good to the analysis that affects living standards without affecting population growth. We show that technological change does a good job explaining historical consumption patterns and population dynamics, including the Neolithic Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. Our theory stands in contrast to models that assume a single composite good and a Malthusian constraint. These models generate negligible growth prior to the Industrial Revolution. However, recent revisions to historical data show that historical living standards—though obviously much lower than today's—varied over time and space much more than previously thought. These revisions include updates to Maddison's dataset, which served as the basis for many papers taking long‐run stagnation as a point of departure. This new evidence suggests that the assumption of long‐run stagnation is problematic. Our model shows that when we give theoretical accounting of these new observations the Industrial Revolution is much less puzzling. (JEL B10, I31, J1, N1, O30)     

LEVINE ON THE MARXIAN TRADITION: From Idealist Roots to Nationalism and Internationalism

Donald N. Levine's treatment of Karl Marx in his Visions of the Sociological Tradition (1995) is an exemplary one by a non-Marxist scholar. In a careful reading, Levine places Marx inside the German idealist tradition. However, he overstates Marx's affinity to Ludwig Feuerbach and understates his continuing debt to G. W. F. Hegel. Levine also points to Marx's internationalism and cosmopolitanism, drawing on both biographical and theoretical material. In addition, he argues that Marx failed to grasp the importance of nationalism and ethnicity. Here, Levine has not considered sufficiently Marx's illuminating and substantial writings on nationalism, race, and ethnicity, particularly those on Poland, Ireland, and the United States. Nonetheless, some problematic features of Marx's writings on Jews and Judaism bear out part of Levine's critique.     

Modeling cooperation among self-interested agents: a critique

This paper reviews recent attempts to model cooperation in groups of self-interested unrelated individuals. It concludes that no empirically plausible model has been developed, and the economist's quest for an explanation of human prosociality in terms of self-interested agents has not been successful. We show that the equilibrium criteria employed in standard game-theoretic models have no attractive dynamic properties, and the mechanisms deployed in these models are not generally seen in empirical examples of cooperative groups. We also show that these models are not robust to plausible rates of signaling error and mutation. We present an alternative, involving strongly reciprocal agents, that satisfies all the requirements for a dynamically stable model of cooperation.     

Spectral goodness of fit for network models

We introduce a new statistic, ‘spectral goodness of fit’ (SGOF) to measure how well a network model explains the structure of the pattern of ties in an observed network. SGOF provides a measure of fit analogous to the standard R² in linear regression. Additionally, as it takes advantage of the properties of the spectrum of the graph Laplacian, it is suitable for comparing network models of diverse functional forms, including both fitted statistical models and algorithmic generative models of networks. After introducing, defining, and providing guidance for interpreting SGOF, we illustrate the properties of the statistic with a number of examples and comparisons to existing techniques. We show that such a spectral approach to assessing model fit fills gaps left by earlier methods and can be widely applied.     

Modellvergleich und Ergebnisinterpretation in Logit- und Probit-Regressionen

In the social sciences logit and probit models are often used multivariate data analysis procedures for binary dependent variables. Both procedures can be thought of as resting on a linear model for an unobserved variable y* from which a nonlinear model for the probability of y?=?1 is derived. We first show that compared to linear models this nonlinearity leads to problems of interpreting results from such analysis. In particular odds ratios (exponentiated logit coefficients) often used in logistic regression are problematic in this respect. Instead we recommend using graphical procedures and reporting (corrected) average marginal effects (AME). Based on a series of Monte-Carlo simulations we next demonstrate that the regression coefficients from logit and probit models should not be compared between nested models. Because model building in the social sciences often employs a stepwise procedure a method allowing valid comparisons of effect sizes between models would be advantageous. Results from our simulation study show that average marginal effects and regression coefficients corrected by a method proposed by Karlson et al. (Sociological Methodology 42, 2012) lead to satisfactory results in many different scenarios. In contrast, y*-standardized coefficients are of limited utility and coefficients from a linear probability model should only be used with normally distributed variables.     

Neighborhood–Based Models For Social Networks

We argue that social networks can be modeled as the outcome of processes that occur in overlapping local regions of the network, termed local social neighborhoods. Each neighborhood is conceived as a possible site of interaction and corresponds to a subset of possible network ties. In this paper, we discuss hypotheses about the form of these neighborhoods, and we present two new and theoretically plausible ways in which neighborhood–based models for networks can be constructed. In the first, we introduce the notion of a setting structure, a directly hypothesized (or observed) set of exogenous constraints on possible neighborhood forms. In the second, we propose higher–order neighborhoods that are generated, in part, by the outcome of interactive network processes themselves. Applications of both approaches to model construction are presented, and the developments are considered within a general conceptual framework of locale for social networks. We show how assumptions about neighborhoods can be cast within a hierarchy of increasingly complex models; these models represent a progressively greater capacity for network processes to "reach" across a network through long cycles or semipaths. We argue that this class of models holds new promise for the development of empirically plausible models for networks and network–based processes.     

Unlikelihood of Condorcet’s paradox in a large society

We provide intuitive, formal, and computational evidence that in a large society Condorcet’s paradox (the intransitivity of social preference obtained by pairwise vote) can hardly occur. For that purpose, we compare two models of social choice, one based on voting and another one based on summing individual cardinal utilities, expressed either in reals, or integers. We show that in a probabilistic model with a large number of independent individuals both models, almost surely, provide the same decision results. This implies that Condorcet’s and Borda’s methods tend to give the same decisions as the number of voters increases. Therefore, in the model with a large number of voters, the transitivity of the Borda preference is inherent in a majority preference as well. Received: 26 June 1998/Accepted: 16 April 1999     

A post-Keynesian regulatory model of privatization

Many studies of privatization adopt the neo-liberal model which focuses on financial and economic distributional outcomes, and ignores social costs transferred to the state or broader society. We adopt a post-Keynesian point of view by identifying the social outcomes of privatization and the recipients of their effect in the society. We review regulation theory and discuss the effects of regulation on social and financial outcomes. Finally, we introduce a balanced regulatory model to show that privatization can become a process that achieves economic development and realizes broader social objectives.     

Latent Class Factor and Cluster Models, Bi-Plots, and Related Graphical Displays

We propose an alternative method of conducting exploratory latent class analysis that utilizes latent class factor models, and compare it to the more traditional approach based on latent class cluster models. We show that when formulated in terms of R mutually independent, dichotomous latent factors, the LC factor model has the same number of distinct parameters as an LC cluster model with R+1 clusters. Analyses over several data sets suggest that LC factor models typically fit data better and provide results that are easier to interpret than the corresponding LC cluster models. We also introduce a new graphical "bi-plot" display for LC factor models and compare it to similar plots used in correspondence analysis and to a barycentric coordinate display for LC cluster models. New results on identification of LC models are also presented. We conclude by describing various model extensions and an approach for eliminating boundary solutions in identified and unidentified LC models, which we have implemented in a new computer program.     

What Drives Progressive Policy? Institutional Politics,Political Mediation,Policy Feedbacks,and Early U.S. Old‐Age Policy

What drives progressive public policy? Because progressive policy challenges the interests of powerful people and interests that dominate policy making, it is puzzling that progressive policy ever happens. This article addresses this question by modeling and appraising institutional political, political mediation, and policy feedback theories and models of progressive policy making. Institutional political theory focuses on political institutional conditions, bureaucratic development, election results, and public opinion. Political mediation theory holds that social movements can have influence over progressive policy under favorable political conditions. Policy feedback theory holds that programs will be self‐reinforcing under certain conditions. The article goes beyond previous research by including and analyzing public opinion in institutional political and political mediation models and addressing positive policy feedbacks. We appraise five models derived from these three theories through fuzzy set qualitative comparative analyses of the generosity of early old‐age policy across U.S. states at two key moments. We find some support for each theory, and the results suggest that they are complementary. Left regimes or social movements can initiate progressive policy, which can be reinforced for the long term through positive policy feedback mechanisms. We discuss the implications for current U.S. politics and for progressive policy elsewhere.     

A model for collaboration networks giving rise to a power-law distribution with an exponential cutoff

Recently several authors have proposed stochastic evolutionary models for the growth of complex networks that give rise to power-law distributions. These models are based on the notion of preferential attachment leading to the “rich get richer” phenomenon. Despite the generality of the proposed stochastic models, there are still some unexplained phenomena, which may arise due to the limited size of networks such as protein, e-mail, actor and collaboration networks. Such networks may in fact exhibit an exponential cutoff in the power-law scaling, although this cutoff may only be observable in the tail of the distribution for extremely large networks. We propose a modification of the basic stochastic evolutionary model, so that after a node is chosen preferentially, say according to the number of its inlinks, there is a small probability that this node will become inactive. We show that as a result of this modification, by viewing the stochastic process in terms of an urn transfer model, we obtain a power-law distribution with an exponential cutoff. Unlike many other models, the current model can capture instances where the exponent of the distribution is less than or equal to two. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the consistency of our model empirically by analysing the Mathematical Research collaboration network, the distribution of which has been shown to be compatible with a power law with an exponential cutoff.     

LEVINE'S VISIONS OF THE GERMAN TRADITION IN THE LIGHT OF WEBER

This article illuminates Levine's analysis of the German tradition in his book Visions of the Sociological Tradition in the light of Max Weber's concept of verstehen . According to Levine, the understanding of subjective meaning is the most important theme of thinkers whose ideas resulted in the founding of sociology in Germany. Visions is more than a history of sociological theory, its broadest purpose being to stimulate a dialogue among competing "narratives' that will reduce the fragmentation in contemporary sociology and also address the moral dilemmas in contemporary society. This dialogical purpose provides a criterion for selecting ideas that best represent the various sociological traditions. Considering Weber in the context of Levine's book will not only clarify the German tradition but will also lead to both support and criticism of his dialogical thesis.