An improved class of estimators for the population mean

Starting from the Rao (Commun Stat Theory Methods 20:3325–3340, 1991) regression estimator, we propose a class of estimators for the unknown mean of a survey variable when auxiliary information is available. The bias and the mean square error of the estimators belonging to the class are obtained and the expressions for the optimum parameters minimizing the asymptotic mean square error are given in closed form. A simple condition allowing us to improve the classical regression estimator is worked out. Finally, in order to compare the performance of some estimators with the regression one, a simulation study is carried out when some population parameters are supposed to be unknown.     

ELECTORAL RULES AND CORRUPTION

Is corruption systematically related to electoral rules? Recent theoretical work suggests a positive answer. But little is known about the data. We try to address this lacuna by relating corruption to different features of the electoral system in a sample of about eighty democracies in the 1990s. We exploit the cross‐country variation in the data, as well as the time variation arising from recent episodes of electoral reform. The evidence is consistent with the theoretical priors. Larger voting districts—and thus lower barriers to entry—are associated with less corruption, whereas larger shares of candidates elected from party lists—and thus less individual accountability—are associated with more corruption. Individual accountability appears to be most strongly tied to personal ballots in plurality‐rule elections, even though open party lists also seem to have some effect. Because different aspects roughly offset each other, a switch from strictly proportional to strictly majoritarian elections only has a small negative effect on corruption. (JEL: E62, H3)     

Measuring Organised Crime Presence at the Municipal Level

Social Indicators Research - While indicators assessing the quality of life often comprise measures of crime or fear of crime, these components usually refer to property or violent crimes. More...     

Intergenerational succession and internationalisation strategy of family SMEs: Evidence from China

Internationalisation is a key dimension of a firm's strategy process. Yet, research on why and how family firms internationalise is underdeveloped. As one of the most critical issues family firms face, how intergenerational succession can influence their internationalisation remains an important question. Given the extraordinary succession and internationalisation circumstances pertaining to China, we conducted a qualitative case study analysis of eleven newly internationalised Chinese small- and medium-sized family firms that had recently undergone a succession from the first to the second generation. Three distinct intergenerational succession patterns among our case firms were identified, revealing three underlying types of incumbent-successor relationships. Based on our findings, we put forth propositions on how these patterns influence the next-generation's level of attitudinal commitment toward and resources available for internationalisation, and link these to the firm's overall internationalisation capabilities and international involvement. Our findings suggest that the connection between intergenerational succession and internationalisation strategy of family firms is significantly influenced by the nature of the underlying incumbent-successor relationship and therefore much more complex than previously considered.     

‘In the name of the children’: mixed couples’ parenting analysed through their naming practices

This work draws on the life stories of 18 couples, of which the men, married to Italian women, come from majority-Muslim countries. These couples incorporate more layers of differences: religious, as the two partners are socialised into both Islam and Catholicism, and racial-ethnic, as a white Italian partner is married to a non-white immigrant partner. Partners’ narratives are analysed according to the naming practices they adopt. Although mixed marriages are interpreted as a gradual loosening of traditional ties, naming practices show how their choices are connected with couples’ racial, ethnic and faith backgrounds, the expectations of the family of origin and the social context. Three naming processes are identified: double names to signal a ‘pact of equity’ between parents’ cultural heritages, alternation of names to reflect the couple’s ‘mutual migration’ over time and names which transmit minority ethnic and religious identities. The conclusions note how naming choices highlight different parenting strategies in dealing with pluralism in everyday family life.     

The analysis of early life courses: Complex descriptions of the transition to adulthood

The quantitative analysis of life courses has to deal with a complex pattern of interrelated events and trajectories. Such a complex pattern needs complex measurement tools, even if only to describe the experience of cohorts. This paper addresses the methodological issue of describing the transition to adulthood from a life course perspective, following an event-based definition. New proposals are developed and traditional approaches are discussed, using Italy as an example. A generalization of survivor functions for the analysis of the temporal relationships between two events is introduced and applied. The paper then deals with the problem of describing the process of transition to adulthood as a whole, making use of the sequence analysis approach with special emphasis on the empirical analyses of the ‘standardization vs individualization’ hypotheses.     

Integrating macro- and micro-level approaches in the explanation of population change

Demographers study population change across time and place, and traditionally they place a strong emphasis on a long-range view of population change. This paper builds on current reflections on how to structure the study of population change and proposes a two-stage perspective. The first stage, discovery, focuses on the production of novel evidence at the population level. The second stage, explanation, develops accounts of demographic change and tests how the action and interaction of individuals generate what is discovered in the first stage. This explanatory stage also provides the foundation for the prediction of demographic change. The transformation of micro-level actions and interactions into macro-level population outcomes is identified as a key challenge for the second stage. Specific instances of research are discussed.     

Italian Adult Gambling Behavior: At Risk and Problem Gambler Profiles

The present study examined adult gambling behaviours from a local perspective in order to assess the adult at risk and problem gambler’s profile stratified by genre and by different forms of game. 4773 Italian adults from 18 to 94 years old were administered a survey to assess socio-cultural information related to gambling behaviour and the SOGS to evaluate gambling behaviour severity. Logistic regression evidenced that both at risk and problem gamblers are associated with male gender, players that use to play to more than one game, gambling with strategy-based games. People with a gambler father or both parents who used to gamble were significantly more associated with problem gambling behaviour than participants with non-gambler parents. These results present adult profiles of at risk and problem providing a more clear understanding about the relationships between gambling behavior severity and type of gambling.     

Fitting logistic multilevel models with crossed random effects via Bayesian Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations: a simulation study

Fitting cross-classified multilevel models with binary response is challenging. In this setting a promising method is Bayesian inference through Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations (INLA), which performs well in several latent variable models. We devise a systematic simulation study to assess the performance of INLA with cross-classified binary data under different scenarios defined by the magnitude of the variances of the random effects, the number of observations, the number of clusters, and the degree of cross-classification. In the simulations INLA is systematically compared with the popular method of Maximum Likelihood via Laplace Approximation. By an application to the classical salamander mating data, we compare INLA with the best performing methods. Given the computational speed and the generally good performance, INLA turns out to be a valuable method for fitting logistic cross-classified models.