Determinants of outcome in the pathways through care for children hearing voices

Auditory hallucination, or hearing voices, is generally associated with psychopathology. In psychiatry it is inter-preted as a symptom of an illness, with no connection to the individual's life history. Voice hallucinations in childhood occur in a variety of contexts and have variable long-term outcomes. Little is known about the course of the experience. In this study, 80 children and youngsters hearing voices were interviewed on four occasions over a period of three years about the content of the voices and their overall experience of voices, focusing on the determinants for a promising outcome in the pathways through care. The results indicate that the need for care in the context of the experience of voices is associated not only with high levels of problem behaviour and associated negative symptoms of psychosis, but also, independently, with an appraisal of the voices in terms of anxiety, depression, dissociation and frequency of occurrence. In 60 per cent of the participants the voices disappeared during the three-year research period. The relationship between the disappearance of voices and the course of mental health treatment is, however, ambiguous.     

Does the Representation of Household Behavior Matter for Welfare Analysis of Tax-benefit Policies? An Introduction

A widely shared intuition holds that individual control over money matters for the decision process within the household and the subsequent distribution of resources and welfare. As a consequence, there are good reasons to depart from the unitary model of the household and to explore the possibilities offered by models of the family accounting for several decision makers in the household and for the potential impact of tax reforms on the balance of power. This paper summarizes both the methodological and empirical findings presented in the next three papers of this special issue of the Review of the Economics of the Household. This series of contributions primarily entails a concrete comparison of the policy implications of the choice between the unitary and a particular multi-person representation: the collective representation. On the one hand, it suggests a methodology to implement the collective model of labor supply in a realistic context where participation is modeled together with working hours, and where the full tax-benefit system is accounted for. On the other hand, the empirical part relies on comprehensive simulations of tax reforms in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and allows to quantify the distortions that may affect policy recommendations based on the unitary model.

INDUSTRY RESOURCE ALLOCATION TO BASIC RESEARCH UNDER NORMALLY DISTRIBUTED BENEFITS*

The failure of a free market system to attain socially optimal allocation of resources to research and development (R&D) is a generally recognized problem. However, we are just beginning to understand the types of R&D activities that receive relatively serious underinvestment from specific types of industries and the types of governmental intervention strategies that are likely to be effective and efficient in the correction of that underinvestment. Recently, Joglekar and Hamburg [16] [17] sought answers to these types of questions using models of the resource allocation behavior of firms considering investment in basic research related to their industry. It was assumed that the firms' benefits were exponentially distributed. In the present article, such benefits are assumed to be normally distributed, and an attempt is made to verify the earlier conclusions and policy implications of [16] and [17]. The results are similar for these two substantially different types of distribution, but the earlier conclusions and policy implications are clarified, qualified, and extended.     

Employment of Older People in the European Union

Abstract. This article identifies the alternative employment modes of older workers in the European Union. Against a background of changing levels of labour force participation and declining employment opportunities the paper describes and discusses the relative significance for older workers of alternative employment modes. Two atypical modes, part‐time and self‐employment, are discussed in detail. The paper concludes that atypical employment modes offer ageing employees the opportunity to gradually retire by providing a bridge between full‐time employment and final retirement.     

Is Arbitration Habit Forming? The Narcotic Effect of Arbitration Use

This paper explores the existence of structural state dependence in arbitration use where it is legally mandated to resolve labor–management bargaining disputes. Previous studies have found both positive state dependence (the narcotic effect) and negative state dependence. This paper reports a negative state dependence for the Minnesota public sector during the period 1973 to 1980. A weak positive trend in arbitration probabilities and a positive relationship between current arbitration probabilities and the proportion of bargainers engaging in arbitration during the same calendar year are also found. An analysis of the dynamic implications of these findings does not support fears that compulsory arbitration schemes are unstable or lead to arbitration as the dominant settlement mode.     

An Examination of Procedural and Object-oriented Systems Analysis Methods: Does Prior Experience Help or Hinder Performance?*

Interest in object-oriented analysis (OOA) and object-oriented design (OOD) has expanded rapidly over the last several years. Proponents of OOA and OOD have called the shift to these methods “revolutionary” and have cited a number of impressive claims with respect to their use. However, empirical research investigating these claims remains in its infancy. Moreover, an examination of the literature reveals inconclusive and often conflicting results for OOA and OOD methods relative to traditional data and/or procedural techniques. This paper presents the results of an empirical study that examined both experienced and novice systems analysts using both procedural and object-oriented techniques. This research examined whether experience in using procedural methods helped or hindered performance using OOA and compared procedural and OOA methods on the subjective mental workload induced. A human problem-solving model adopted from Newell and Simon (1972) provided the theoretical framework for this study. Dependent variables include subjective mental workload, solution quality, time to perform task, and attitudinal measures. Although some of these dependent variables have been used in past research, we believe this is the first time that subjective mental workload (SMW) has been examined in an IS context. Our results indicate that both novice and experienced subjects demonstrate higher SMW when using OOA. In addition, as a group, novices prefer object-oriented techniques and find these techniques easier as compared to experienced subjects.     

Re-examining female labor supply responses to the 1994 Australian pension reform

Many governments are aiming to extend working lives by raising the age at which people can claim retirement pensions. This makes it vital to understand how these policies affect retirement decisions. In this paper, I revisit the labor supply effects of a major Australian reform that increased women’s pension age from 60 to 65. Atalay and Barrett (2015) studied these effects using repeated household surveys and a differences-in-differences design in which male cohorts form the comparison group. They estimate that the reform increased female labor force participation by 12 percentage points. Using earlier data, I show that the parallel-trends assumption did not hold before the reform because of a strong female-specific trend in participation rates across the relevant cohorts. Accounting for this trend, the estimated effect on female participation falls by two-thirds and becomes statistically insignificant at conventional levels. This highlights the importance of carefully assessing and controlling for trends across cohorts when evaluating pension reforms, which are typically phased in across cohorts.