Inflation uncertainty and economic growth: evidence from the LAD ARCH model

In this paper, we combined the panel data and least absolute deviation autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (ARCH) (L ₁-ARCH) model to infer on the relationship between inflation uncertainty and economic growth in five emerging market economies. Two interesting findings emerged from the analysis; first, we confirmed that the inflation uncertainty has a significant and negative effect on economic growth. Second, inflation is also an important variable and it is detrimental to economic prospects in the fast-growing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies. All in all, the empirical findings suggest that greater stability in the economy may be desirable in order to stimulate economic growth in the region.     

Population Growth and the Local Provision of Services: The Role of Primary Schools in Portugal

Population Research and Policy Review - The shrinking population in many European regions has led to a debate on the relation between the local provision of services of general interest and the...     

COVID‐19: A threat to educated Muslim women's negotiated identity in Pakistan

This study attempts to explore how the lockdown/containment measures taken by the government during the COVID‐19 pandemic have threatened educated Muslim women's negotiated identity regarding wifehood and motherhood in urban Pakistan and how they struggle to reposition to reconstruct it. Through semi‐structured interviews, making an in‐depth comparative study of three differently situated cases (Muslim women), this study argues that the abnormal situation that has ensued from the pandemic has reinforced the vulnerability of women's nascent negotiated identity by landing them in a space where they are supposed by the normative structures to step back to carrying out their traditional responsibilities as ‘good’ wife and mother during the crisis. It has found that the pandemic has similarity in its impacts for the women in their familial lives, despite their being variously situated and resistive, due to the general religio‐culturally defined patriarchal social behaviour of the place (Pakistan) toward women and lack of action on the part of the state for implementing its laws of women's empowerment.     

Two-step calibration of design weights under two auxiliary variables in sample survey

Calibration on the available auxiliary variables is widely used to increase the precision of the estimates of parameters. Singh and Sedory [Two-step calibration of design weights in survey sampling. Commun Stat Theory Methods. 2016;45(12):3510–3523.] considered the problem of calibration of design weights under two-step for single auxiliary variable. For a given sample, design weights and calibrated weights are set proportional to each other, in the first step. While, in the second step, the value of proportionality constant is determined on the basis of objectives of individual investigator/user for, for example, to get minimum mean squared error or reduction of bias. In this paper, we have suggested to use two auxiliary variables for two-step calibration of the design weights and compared the results with single auxiliary variable for different sample sizes based on simulated and real-life data set. The simulated and real-life application results show that two-auxiliary variables based two-step calibration estimator outperforms the estimator under single auxiliary variable in terms of minimum mean squared error.     

Estimation of multivariate frailty models with varying coefficients

The complicated structures can be modeled more efficiently and their flexibility can be increased through frailty models with varying coefficients.Therefore, such models are proposed in this article. The real challenge is to estimate varying coefficients by the penalized partial likelihood without closed form. The Laplace approximation is used to solve this problem. These varying coefficients are fitted using B-splines. Moreover, the variances of random effects are estimated by maximizing an approximate profile likelihood. The performance of the proposed methods are assessed with simulation studies and real data. The results show that the methods proposed are better than the counterpart in literature.     

Divorce is a part of my life… Resilience, Survival, and Vulnerability: Young Adults' Perception of the Implications of Parental Divorce

A qualitative study among 22 young adults (20–25 years old) whose parents divorced during their childhood was conducted in Israel, using semi-structured, in-depth, open-ended interviews. Qualitative data analysis led to identification of three profiles, aiming at a grounded theoretical conceptualization. Three core themes were identified: the centrality of the family; short- and long-term implications of parental divorce and its relations to supportive coping resources; and perspective at young adulthood. Further analysis led to typifying participants by three profiles, which represent the grounded theoretical conceptualizations: resilience, survival, and vulnerability. The most prominent difference among the profiles was the relationships between participants and their parents, and their perception of ongoing parental responsibility. A thorough discussion of the results and their implications for future research, theory development, and practice are presented.     

Acceptance sampling plans based on truncated life tests for weighted exponential distribution

Gupta and Kundu proposed a new class of weighted exponential distributions using the idea of Azzalini. In this article, we develop an acceptance sampling plan for the weighted exponential distribution under a truncated life test. For various acceptance numbers, consumer’s confidence levels and values of the ratio of the experimental time to the specified mean lifetime, the minimum sample size necessary to ensure a certain mean lifetime are obtained. The operating characteristic function values and the associated producer’s risks are also presented. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the acceptance sampling plan.     

Designing of a control chart using belief statistic for exponential distribution

A new control chart is proposed by using the belief statistic for the exponential distribution. The structure of the proposed control chart is given to measure the average run length for the shifted process. The comparison of the proposed chart is given with the existing charts in terms of the average run lengths, which shows the outperformance of the proposed chart. The performance of the proposed control chart is also discussed with the help of simulated data.     

Performance of some new Liu parameters for the linear regression model

Abstract

This article introduces some Liu parameters in the linear regression model based on the work of Shukur, Månsson, and Sjölander. These methods of estimating the Liu parameter d increase the efficiency of Liu estimator. The comparison of proposed Liu parameters and available methods has done using Monte Carlo simulation and a real data set where the mean squared error, mean absolute error and interval estimation are considered as performance criterions. The simulation study shows that under certain conditions the proposed Liu parameters perform quite well as compared to the ordinary least squares estimator and other existing Liu parameters.