Life Domain Satisfactions as Predictors of Overall Life Satisfaction Among Workers: Evidence from Chile

This article examines the subjective antecedents of life satisfaction of workers. Adopting a ‘bottom-up’ perspective, we assessed the unique influence that satisfaction with multiple life domains have on evaluative judgments of overall life satisfaction. Based on a nationwide sample of 530 Chilean workers, we simultaneously tested the effects of seven life domain satisfactions that have been consistently included in extant models of life satisfaction and subjective well-being. These were satisfaction with health, financial situation, social relationships, one’s self-worth, leisure-time, family, and work. Having controlled for age and gender, results showed that satisfaction with one’s financial situation was the dominant predictor of overall life satisfaction of workers, with a weight of .36. Satisfaction with family, work, and health had effects of .25, .14, and .14, respectively. Interestingly, satisfaction with one’s self-worth, leisure-time, and social relationships did not have statistically significant effects on life satisfaction, although the first two showed t values near the critical value.     

Are Poor Neighborhoods Resource Deprived? A Case Study of Childcare Centers in New York*

Objective. Many social scientists believe poor mothers are better off in middle‐class than in poor neighborhoods, partly because the latter are deprived of important institutional resources. We test whether poor neighborhoods are more likely to lack one critical institutional resource, the childcare center. Methods. We use geocoded data on all licensed centers in the City of New York, address matched to Census tracts. We estimate logit models of presence of center in tract, testing for the linear and nonlinear effects of tract poverty level after controlling for residential instability, joblessness, ethnic makeup, and other demographic factors. We complement the analysis with documentary, interview, and ethnographic data on centers in one poor and one nonpoor neighborhood in the city. Results. We find (1) that the probability of presence of a childcare center does not decrease as poverty level increases; (2) the relationship depends strongly on funding source, with privately funded centers being less likely and publicly funded ones more likely to be present in poor neighborhoods; and (3) at least two factors affect why poor neighborhoods are more likely to have certain centers, the local state and the (often neglected) nonprofit infrastructure. Conclusions. The findings suggest that poor mothers are not necessarily better off in middle‐class neighborhoods in this respect. The market assumptions underlying the initial hypothesis should be modified. More empirical research on the effect of the nonprofit sector on the prevalence of neighborhood institutions is needed.     

Ecosystem services of urban green spaces in African countries—perspectives and challenges

The concept of ecosystem goods and services is increasingly used to describe how biodiversity and ecosystems are linked to human well-being and that it should be placed at the core of sustainable urban development. Predictions of a tremendous future increase of urbanization in Africa necessitate an investigation into the research on ecosystem goods and services in the urban green infrastructure of Africa. Ecosystem goods and services (ES) are described as the benefits humans derive directly or indirectly from ecosystem functions and are classified as supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural services. A literature study focusing on journal papers was conducted. Additionally a case study based on two masters studies was further refined. ES studies in African cities are biased towards South Africa and include assessments and economic valuations in which several different methods were used to determine direct consumptive and non-consumptive and indirect use values. Emphasis was placed on the multifunctional nature of ES. The main objectives of these studies were to sensitize policy makers, planners and the general public about the importance of biodiversity and ES. Ecosystem-based adaptation is discussed as the most appropriate approach in terms of applying knowledge about ES and their values in African cities as many residents still rely on ES from natural areas, but the major ecological, economic and political challenges are acknowledged. A case study focusing on domestic gardens (private green spaces) have indicated that the demand and supply of certain ES differ along a socio-economic gradient due to poor service delivery and smaller plots in the poorer areas mainly due to the legacy of separate development of the past. Where provisioning services are mainly outsourced in cities, it was found that plant species useful as food, medicine, etc. were more frequent in the gardens of poorer residents than in those of more affluent areas. The tendency to pay more for residential properties close to public open spaces, as in Europe, could not be statistically proven in the more affluent areas of a South African city, although the property values in proximity of public open spaces in some of the areas studied were lower than further away.     

Diagnostic tools in generalized Weibull linear regression models

We propose some statistical tools for diagnosing the class of generalized Weibull linear regression models [A.A. Prudente and G.M. Cordeiro, Generalized Weibull linear models, Comm. Statist. Theory Methods 39 (2010), pp. 3739–3755]. This class of models is an alternative means of analysing positive, continuous and skewed data and, due to its statistical properties, is very competitive with gamma regression models. First, we show that the Weibull model induces ma-ximum likelihood estimators asymptotically more efficient than the gamma model. Standardized residuals are defined, and their statistical properties are examined empirically. Some measures are derived based on the case-deletion model, including the generalized Cook's distance and measures for identifying influential observations on partial F-tests. The results of a simulation study conducted to assess behaviour of the global influence approach are also presented. Further, we perform a local influence analysis under the case-weights, response and explanatory variables perturbation schemes. The Weibull, gamma and other Weibull-type regression models are fitted into three data sets to illustrate the proposed diagnostic tools. Statistical analyses indicate that the Weibull model fitted into these data yields better fits than other common alternative models.     

Methodology for the Calculation of Annualized Incremental Risks in Systems of Dams

In the past few years, the field of dam safety has approached risk informed methodologies throughout the world and several methodologies and programs are appearing to aid in the systematization of the calculations. The most common way of implementing these calculations is through the use of event trees, computing event probabilities, and incremental consequences. This methodology is flexible enough for several situations, but its generalization to the case of systems of several dams is complex and its implementation in a completely general calculation methodology presents some problems. Retaining the event tree framework, a new methodology is proposed to calculate incremental risks. The main advantage of this proposed methodology is the ease with which it can be applied to systems of several dams: with a single risk model that describes the complete system and with a single calculation the incremental risks of the system can be obtained, being able to allocate the risk of each dam and of each failure mode. The article shows how both methodologies are equivalent and also applies them to a case study.     

Water Price Regulation: A Review of Portuguese Tariff Recommendations

The context of severe economic crisis and financial constraints has reinforced existing pressures on services considered to be of community interest by public authorities and therefore subject to specific public service obligations. This is the case of the water industry, with increased pressure for full cost recovery and on the use of prices as a tool for the management of water resources in EU countries. The Portuguese situation confirms these trends and the expected increases in water tariffs raise special concerns. In these volatile times it is particularly relevant to analyze the management and regulatory work of the Portuguese Water and Waste Services Regulation Authority, which recently acquired extended powers in pricing regulation. Findings reveal a complexity of tariff schemes in Portuguese municipalities, with tariff recommendations being a clear commitment to selected economic theory proposals and the harmonization of price schemes in the heterogeneous water utilities national context.     

Mimetic contagion and speculative bubbles

Conclusion The present essay has focused on specularity as a type of intersubjectivitywithin self-referential systems. We have stressed the self-organizationaldimension of specular processes, which lead to the emergenceof collective objects around which the group structures itself. Rationalbubbles, sunspots, and conventions provided us with examples of thiskind of self-organization within self-referential groups. It seems thatwe have here a theoretical schema that can account for numeroussocial institutions. Such is the case with money, which the overlappinggenerations model shows to belong to the same problematic. We haveobserved that individual and collective representations play an essentialrole in the definition of specular dynamics. In fact, giving thecollectivity a means of interpreting and understanding the natural andsocial environment is a crucial function of these representations. Inspite of its great importance, this cognitive dimension of collectiverepresentations has hardly been explored in previous theorizing. Wehave given priority to a specific form of specularity, namely, mimetism,which is in our view at the very heart of financial processes. Far frombeing the aberration that traditional approaches deem it to be, imita-tion is one of the most important types of rationality in situations ofuncertain and in situations where the agents' outcomes are highlyinterdependent. Our central hypothesis amounts to considering thatthe emergence of speculative bubbles on various kinds of markets canbe explained in terms of mimetic dynamics. Should this hypothesis beconfirmed, it would be possible to account for a phenomenon that isoften observed, namely, the link between bubbles and a decrease inthe diversity of opinion on the market. In our approach, conventionsare taken to be the outcome of a mimetic process. Conventions are thesocial objects created by a unanimous mimetic polarization.     

Bivariate income distributions with lognormal conditionals

In this paper, the most general bivariate distribution with lognormal conditionals is fully characterized, using the methodology proposed by [3]. The properties of the new family are studied in detail, including marginal and conditional distributions, regression functions, dependence measures, moments and inequality measures. The new distribution is very broad, and contains as a particular case the classical bivariate lognormal distribution. Several subfamilies are studied and a generalization of the basic model is discussed. Finally, we present an empirical application. We estimate and compare the basic model proposed in the paper with a classical model, using data from the European Community Household Panel in different periods of time.