BEYOND EDUCATION AND FAIRNESS: A LABOR MARKET TAXATION MODEL FOR THE GREAT GATSBY CURVE

Applied researchers have been drawn to models that attribute the demonstrated cross‐country differences in intergenerational income transmission to government failures to invest in the human capital of poor children. To highlight another potential mechanism, the disincentive effects of labor market taxation and redistribution, we present a simple model that can explain cross‐country differences in intergenerational mobility and other previously observed empirical patterns. Empirical tests using data on income mobility, tax rates, and public expenditures largely support the model predictions. We conclude that the common presumption that intergenerational mobility largely measures fairness or opportunity, and the resultant policy recommendations, are premature. (JEL D31, J24, J62)     

Is statistics too difficult?

By means of several historical examples, it is shown that it does not appear to be easy to build bridges between rigorous mathematics and reasonable data-analytic procedures for scientific measurements. After mentioning both some positive and some negative aspects of statistics, a formal framework for statistics is presented which contains the concept formation, derivation of results and interpretation of mathematical statistics as three essential steps. The difficulties especially of interpretation are shown for examples in several areas of statistics, such as asymptotics and robustness. Some problems of statistics in two subject-matter sciences are discussed, and a summary and outlook are given.     

Employee Work Attitudes: The Subtle Influence of Gender

Using the construct of job satisfaction, this study examined work attitudes of 286 females and 416 males employed in 27 female-owned and 29 male-owned small businesses in three industries: construction, manufacturing, and distribution. Job satisfaction scores (dependent variables) were analyzed with regard to the interaction of owner employee gender. Demographic and job-related variables were also considered. The gender-moderated results are discussed in terms of methodological implications for conducting research regarding work attitudes.     

Multiversity of the twenty-first century – examining opportunities for integrating community engagement in planning curricula

Abstract

This paper examines student-community engagement activity in planning. This is a subset of university–community engagement, and is a point of overlap between such engagement and planning education. Community engagement activity enables students to learn in situ practical skills within live projects, while community partners may benefit from technical knowhow, and labour input. Based on a UK-wide survey and three in-depth case studies, the paper explores the pedagogical designs underpinning community engagement activities involving students, as well as the various capacities in which the different participants – students, instructors and community members – act. The analysis reveals considerable diversity in approaches. An alignment of student engagement activities in the planning curriculum with emerging transformative co-learning models of university-community engagement could offer novel opportunities for the discipline of planning and their impact on communities as well as the fields standing in today’s multiversities.     

Reliability Analysis for Hazardous Waste Treatment Processes

The reliability of a treatment process is addressed in terms of achieving a regulatory effluent concentration standard and the design safety factors associated with the treatment process. This methodology was then applied to two aqueous hazardous waste treatment processes: packed tower aeration and activated sludge (aerobic) biological treatment. The designs achieving 95 percent reliability were compared with those designs based on conventional practice to determine their patterns of conservatism. Scoping-level treatment costs were also related to reliability levels for these treatment processes. The results indicate that the reliability levels for the physical/chemical treatment process (packed tower aeration) based on the deterministic safety factors range from 80 percent to over 99 percent, whereas those for the biological treatment process range from near 0 percent to over 99 percent, depending on the compound evaluated. Increases in reliability per unit increase in treatment costs are most pronounced at lower reliability levels (less than about 80 percent) than at the higher reliability levels (greater than 90 percent, indicating a point of diminishing returns. Additional research focused on process parameters that presently contain large uncertainties may reduce those uncertainties, with attending increases in the reliability levels of the treatment processes.     

Pivotal Statistics for Testing Structural Parameters in Instrumental Variables Regression

We propose a novel statistic for conducting joint tests on all the structural parameters in instrumental variables regression. The statistic is straightforward to compute and equals a quadratic form of the score of the concentrated log–likelihood. It therefore attains its minimal value equal to zero at the maximum likelihood estimator. The statistic has a χ² limiting distribution with a degrees of freedom parameter equal to the number of structural parameters. The limiting distribution does not depend on nuisance parameters. The statistic overcomes the deficiencies of the Anderson–Rubin statistic, whose limiting distribution has a degrees of freedom parameter equal to the number of instruments, and the likelihood based, Wald, likelihood ratio, and Lagrange multiplier statistics, whose limiting distributions depend on nuisance parameters. Size and power comparisons reveal that the statistic is a (asymptotic) size–corrected likelihood ratio statistic. We apply the statistic to the Angrist–Krueger (1991) data and find similar results as in Staiger and Stock (1997).     

Screening for disruptive behavior in adolescents at risk using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire

Disruptive behavior in adolescents is burdensome and may continue into adulthood if left unidentified. The strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) can screen for disruptive behavior, but its psychometric properties in high-risk samples and ability to predict delinquency warrant further investigation. In 1022 adolescents, we investigated the predictive validity (on average 1.9 years after screening) of the self-reported SDQ on disruptive behavior disorders and delinquency, measured with multi-informant questionnaires and structured interviews. We compared three scoring methods: total, subscale, and dysregulation profile scoring. In this high-risk sample, SDQ subscale scores predicted disruptive behavior outcomes best. Predictive values for the specific types of delinquency were small. Concluding, the SDQ can be used in high-risk settings for early identification of youth with disruptive behavior.     

The geometry of Gaussian double Markovian distributions

Gaussian double Markovian models consist of covariance matrices constrained by a pair of graphs specifying zeros simultaneously in the matrix and its inverse. We study the semi-algebraic geometry of these models, in particular their dimension, smoothness, and connectedness as well as algebraic and combinatorial properties.     

Asylum Legislation and Asylum Applications: A Geographical Analysis of Belgian Asylum Policy by Country of Origin (1992‐2003)

In many European countries a traditional policy and legal response to an undesirable increase of asylum applications has been the change of asylum law and procedures. By making it more difficult to obtain asylum and refugee status, the attractiveness as a possible country of asylum is believed to diminish. In the period from 1992 to 2003 three major revisions of the Belgian asylum procedure were enacted. When speaking in absolute figures these changes resulted in a certain decrease in the number of asylum applications filed. However, upon a closer examination of the number of asylum applications per country of origin, the effects appeared to be quite differential. Hence, factors other than geographical ones, such as the location of the country of origin or distance, must be decisive for the effect of a change in legislation on the number of asylum claimants coming from one particular country. Nevertheless, it has been possible to distinguish seven clusters of countries of origin where similar developments in patterns of asylum applications and shifts therein, depending on changes in asylum law, can be seen.