Job Development in a Veterans Administration Hospital

This department provides a showcase for actual practices. Effective and ineffective procedures or techniques are displayed, as well as successful and unsuccessful programs or projects. Reports, not to exceed six typed, double-spaced pages, are to include a succinct, summary sentence of up to 30 words and are to be submitted in triplicate. Authors may wish to make longer reports available to interested readers.     

Heterogeneity and the implied dynamics of regional growth rates: Was the nonmetropolitan turnaround an artifact of aggregation?

The spatial units of analysis employed in urban and regional research display considerable internal heterogeneity in terms of the social, demographic, and economic variables used to describe them. One implication of this has been overlooked in the literature, namely, that aggregate rates may have an implicit dynamic of change. Differential internal rates modify the composition of the aggregate, changing the relative importance of subareas in determining the aggregate rate. To demonstrate this, methods for decomposing the change in growth rates due to heterogeneity are developed and applied to nonmetropolitan growth rates between 1950 and 1980. Internal heterogeneity was found to be an important, and sometimes even a dominant, component of change. Furthermore, the analysis sheds considerable light on the reasons for the changes in aggregate rates that marked the nonmetropolitan turnaround.     

Central City/Suburban Status Differences: Fifty Years of Change*

Changes in the relative status of central cities compared to their suburban rings are investigated for the periods 1920 to 1950, and 1950 to 1970. Longitudinal alterations in the relative statuses of the two components across metropolitan areas have primarily involved the suburban ring. Somewhat different processes of change were evident in the two time periods, particularly when metropolitan areas are distinguished by their age. In the 1920 to 1950 period, the oldest metropolitan areas evolved toward higher suburban than central city status, while newer metropolitan areas evolved toward higher central city than suburban status. In the 1950 to 1970 period, metropolitan areas generally moved toward a pattern of higher suburban than central city status, regardless of their individual characteristics such as age or period of development.     

Interest rate policies and inflation in interdependent economies: Recent policy dilemmas

This paper examines Federal Reserve Board policies that are premised on a negative short-run association of interest rate movements and the rate of inflation. In particular, econometric evidence is provided, supporting the view that tighter monetary policy appears to raise inflation rates in the short run. Conversely, it is demonstrated that easier monetary policy does not necessarily raise inflation rates in the short run. In the case of uncoordinated monetary restrictiveness, interest rate competition among major countries can produce higher inflation and lower growth than was originally intended.     

Family Therapy Process in a Family Therapy Seminar

The interaction between leaders and members in a year-long family therapy seminar is systematically compared to the process that unfolds between therapist and family during the course of family therapy. A five stage developmental process common to both is postulated and described: (1) Battle for Structure, (2) Naive Enthusiasm, (3) Conflictual Frustration, (4) Task Orientation, and (5) Mutuality. The dynamic elements of each stage are analyzed and factors affecting their development are identified. It is concluded that this five stage process occurs in all similar groups, but that the content of each stage may vary widely from group to group.     

On regressing regression coefficients

This paper considers a regression model in which coefficients obtained from a previous regression are themselves the object of analysis. It is shown that the parameters of interest can be obtained in two ways: pooling across observations and subsamples, or a two-stage process of first estimating the coefficients within each subsample, and then using these coefficients as dependent variables in a second stage regression. The relative properties of these estimators are analyzed, and the conditions under which the two estimators are equivalent are derived.