Intergenerational cooperation within the household: a Public Good game with three generations

We analyze cooperation of individuals in a family context, using a Public Good game. In a lab experiment, 165 individuals from 55 three-generation families (youth, parent, and grandparent) play a repeated Public Good game in three different treatments: one in which three members of the same family play each other (family), a second with the youth and two non-family members, while preserving the previous generational structure (inter-generational), and a third in which three randomly-selected players play each other (random). We find that all the age groups cooperate more when playing with relatives, indicating that family ties may have a positive relationship to contributions to the Public Good. We also find that this trend is more evident for the youths and the parents than for the grandparents. Furthermore, young individuals tend to cooperate less than older generations, especially in non-family treatments. Our results serve as evidence of the relationship between family ties and inter-generational cooperative behaviors.

     

Level of choice in older women’s decisions to retire or continue working and associated well-being

Retirement is a complex life transition. Women’s retirement, like their work lives, may be further complicated, for example, by family or financial obligations; they may feel forced to retire or to continue working or feel they have the choice to do so. This study examines the role of voluntary versus involuntary retirement or continued work participation among retirement-age women; specifically, the relationships between choice, work status, and well-being. Compared to women forced to retire, women who chose retirement or continuing to work had higher levels of life satisfaction. Findings highlight the importance of examining retirement within the life course context.     

Sex differences in the development of mild cognitive impairment and probable Alzheimer’s disease as predicted by hippocampal volume or white matter hyperintensities

This study examined biological sex differences in the development of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD) development as predicted by changes in the hippocampus or white matter hyperintensities. A secondary data analysis of the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center Uniform Data Set was conducted. We selected samples of participants with normal cognition at baseline who progressed to MCI (n = 483) and those who progressed to probable AD (n = 211) to determine if hippocampal volume or white matter hyperintensities (WMH) at baseline predicted progression to probable AD or MCI and whether the rate of progression differed between men and women. The survival analyses indicated that changes in hippocampal volumes affected the progression to probable AD (HR = 0.535, 95% CI [0.300–0.953]) only among women. White men had an increased rate of progression to AD (HR = 4.396, CI [1.012–19.08]; HR = 4.665, 95% CI [1.072–20.29]) compared to men in other race and ethnic groups. Among women, increases in hippocampal volume ratio led to decreased rates of progressing to MCI (HR = 0.386, 95% CI [0.166–0.901]). Increased WMH among men led to faster progression to MCI (HR = 1.048. 95% CI [1.011–1.086]). Women and men who were older at baseline were more likely to progress to MCI. In addition, results from longitudinal analyses showed that women with a higher CDR global score, older age at baseline, or more disinhibition symptoms experienced higher odds of MCI development. Changes in hippocampal volumes affect the progression to or odds of probable AD (and MCI) more so among women than men, while changes in WMH affected the progression to MCI only among men.     

Inflation projections for monetary policy decision making

Many central banks set inflation targets over the medium term and inflation projections are a key input for monetary policy decision making. In this paper, we present the procedures used by the Spanish Central Bank staff to project consumer price inflation. We also provide some illustrations of their policy uses, such as fan charts, deflation probabilities and the monitoring of inflation targets.     

Divorce,living arrangements,and material well-being during the transition to adulthood in rural Malawi

In this paper, we use longitudinal data to investigate how parental death and divorce influence young women’s own experience of divorce in Malawi, a setting where women marry relatively early and unions are fragile. We find that maternal death and parental divorce are positively associated with divorce for young women but, after controlling for socio-demographic and marital characteristics, only the association with maternal death remains statistically significant. Maternal and paternal death are both strongly associated with women’s post-divorce living arrangements, which in turn affects their material well-being. This finding suggests that divorcing at a young age shapes the subsequent life chances of women; although some women return to their parental home and may have the opportunity to reset the transition to adulthood, other women begin their 20s as head of their own household and with considerable material disadvantage.     

Child Obesity and the Interaction of Family and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Context

Population Research and Policy Review - The literature on neighborhoods and child obesity links contextual conditions to risk, assuming that if place matters, it matters in a similar way for...     

A DECISION THEORY EXAMPLE IN FOOTBALL

In the 1967 Harvard-Cornell football game, Harvard was ahead 14–0 late in the game when Cornell scored two touchdowns. On both occasions, Cornell tried and failed on the two-point conversion attempt and lost the game 14–12. Postgame arguments were divided on the merits of Cornell's strategy. For this frequently occurring scenario in college football, we derive a maximum expected utility decision rule for the decision of kicking versus running/passing based on the relative utility of a win, a tie, or a loss and the probabilities of success with a kick as opposed to a run/pass.     

Modeling population and subject-specific growth in a latent trait measured by multiple instruments over time using a hierarchical Bayesian framework

Psychometric growth curve modeling techniques are used to describe a person’s latent ability and how that ability changes over time based on a specific measurement instrument. However, the same instrument cannot always be used over a period of time to measure that latent ability. This is often the case when measuring traits longitudinally in children. Reasons may be that over time some measurement tools that were difficult for young children become too easy as they age resulting in floor effects or ceiling effects or both. We propose a Bayesian hierarchical model for such a scenario. Within the Bayesian model we combine information from multiple instruments used at different age ranges and having different scoring schemes to examine growth in latent ability over time. The model includes between-subject variance and within-subject variance and does not require linking item specific difficulty between the measurement tools. The model’s utility is demonstrated on a study of language ability in children from ages one to ten who are hard of hearing where measurement tool specific growth and subject-specific growth are shown in addition to a group level latent growth curve comparing the hard of hearing children to children with normal hearing.KEYWORDS: Bayesian hierarchical models, psychometric modeling, language ability, growth curve modeling, longitudinal analysis