Child Mortality and Environment in Developing Countries

This paper studies child mortality and fertility in 61 developing countries including the Central Asian Republics (CARs). To control for simultaneity, an estimated value of fertility was used in the mortality equation and a final specification included only exogenous socio-economic, health and environmental variables. We confirm the importance of female literacy in explaining both fertility and mortality, and also find a measure of consumption for the poorest share of the population to be significant, while controlling for nutrition, health expenditure, and income distribution. Incidence of tuberculosis and female agricultural population proxy for environmental impacts, but in spite of these controls, approximately 41% additional mortality was estimated due to living in the CARs. The results fill gaps in the literature: we use a wider range of socio-economic and environmental health variables than previously in an encompassing analysis of mortality and fertility, and find evidence of excessive mortality in the CARs most likely linked to environmental degradation in the region.

Protective indigenous collective value of Ubuntu and child neglect: Implications for rural child protection practice

Theories on collective efficacy and social support suggest that indigenous values that support collective practices and sanction community obligations to childcare would be protective against child neglect. Likewise, new qualitative findings show that collective values are stronger in rural areas than in urban. This study tested the claims that the value of Ubuntu, which is a symbolic cultural value of ‘being for others’, will be protective against the likelihood of neglect; this relationship will be stronger in rural compared with urban communities in Ghana. Using data obtained from a nationally representative sample of 1100 mothers (from 22 communities) in Ghana, we tested the claims using fixed effects logistic regression. The Ubuntu norms were significantly endorsed in rural communities compared with the urban. The overall model showed that higher levels of Ubuntu are associated with lower odds of child neglect (OR .47, [.29, .76] p < 0.05), and the relationship remained significant only in the rural sample (OR .13, [.06, .31] p < 0.001). Similar evidence was recorded for the Ubuntu norms of community care and compassion. The results suggest that child protection in rural Ghana can be fruitful when interventions are developed to boost the value of Ubuntu and the norms of collective childcare.     

Stationary Equilibria in Asset‐Pricing Models with Incomplete Markets and Collateral

We consider an infinite‐horizon exchange economy with incomplete markets and collateral constraints. As in the two‐period model of Geanakoplos and Zame (2002), households can default on their liabilities at any time, and financial securities are only traded if the promises associated with these securities are backed by collateral. We examine an economy with a single perishable consumption good, where the only collateral available consists of productive assets. In this model, competitive equilibria always exist and we show that, under the assumption that all exogenous variables follow a Markov chain, there also exist stationary equilibria. These equilibria can be characterized by a mapping from the exogenous shock and the current distribution of financial wealth to prices and portfolio choices. We develop an algorithm to approximate this mapping numerically and discuss ways to implement the algorithm in practice. A computational example demonstrates the performance of the algorithm and shows some quantitative features of equilibria in a model with collateral and default.     

Sector Programme Approaches: Will They Work in Agriculture?

This article explores why sector‐wide approaches, in which donor funds support a single sector plan under government leadership, have performed less well in agriculture than in the social sectors. Many problems stem from the more limited, more contested and shrinking role of the state in the agricultural sector. It is also argued that sector programmes have worked best where the key constraints on sector development are the responsibility of a single ministry, whereas agricultural development requires co‐ordinated interventions across sectors. The sector approach may have a limited role in delivering better focused agricultural services, but fundamental policy questions need to be resolved first. This is more likely if support for reforms is channelled through central economic ministries and other bodies outside the agriculture ministry.     

Basic Wages and Firm Characteristics: Rent Sharing in French Manufacturing

Abstract. This paper shows that firm profits (and losses), and value added, are strongly related to individual hourly basic wages for most employees, as well as to the total earnings measures used previously but correlated with working time. Capital intensity is independently important without reducing the significance of profits, as in other studies. Value added avoids the negative bias implicit in accounting profits, and has a much larger effect on basic wages and earnings in the presence of numerous individual and firm controls.     

Characterization of dominance relations in finite coalitional games

McGarvey (Econometrica, 21(4), 608–610, 1953) has shown that any irreflexive and anti-symmetric relation can be obtained as a relation induced by majority rule. We address the analogous issue for dominance relations of finite cooperative games with non-transferable utility (coalitional NTU games). We find any irreflexive relation over a finite set can be obtained as the dominance relation of some finite coalitional NTU game. We also show that any such dominance relation is induced by a non-cooperative game through β-effectivity. Dominance relations obtainable through α-effectivity, however, have to comply with a more restrictive condition, which we refer to as the edge-mapping property.     

作为普遍人类现象的批判性思维——中国和美国的视角

本文论述了西方批判性思维的起源和发展,分析了批判性思维对教育、经济和民主的重要作用,概述了批判性思维技能和倾向的定义,比较了中国和西方批判性思维的特点,并期待二者的综合,最后指出了进一步研究批判性思维的两条主要途径。在整个美国和许多其他地方,大学教育的基本目标之一就是教会学生批判性思维。     

Bildungschancen von Grundschülern: Die Bedeutung des Klassen- und Schulkontextes am Übergang auf die Sekundarstufe I

Do context characteristics of class and school have an impact on elementary school pupils’ educational opportunities in addition to the confirmed individual effects of social origin and academic performance? The paper investigates the influence of the contextual performance- and SES-level as well as of the ethnic composition of the context on the probability of (1) obtaining a recommendation for higher secondary schools (Gymnasium) and (2) effectively attending a higher secondary school. To this end, we base our theoretical framework on the distinction between primary and secondary effects, as introduced by Boudon (1974), and extend it by a contextual perspective, as well as the related decisions of parents and teachers. The analyses are based on a survey of all 4^th graders of elementary schools in the city of Wiesbaden (Germany) during the school year 2006/07. The context effects are modelled by using logistic multilevel models. The results show that the affiliation to both school- and class context explains about 10 per cent of the total variance of academic achievement. Additionally, there is evidence that the context effects significantly influence the individual educational opportunities in particular when the individual marks are controlled for (secondary context effects). Furthermore, especially the SES-related context composition influences the educational outcomes when controlling for relevant individual variables. With respect to the accomplished transitions to the Gymnasium, the performance level of the school also has significant impact. Contrary to previous studies, we could not detect any effect of the ethnic composition of the context when SES is controlled for. While there are effects of the class context as well as of the school context with the educational recommendation as dependent variable, only the school context is of relevance concerning the effectively attained school transition.     

Ökologische Validität durch Mixed-Methods-Designs

Due to their focus on variable-oriented comparisons and large-N samples, survey methods are prone to lack information on the context-specific, practical meaning of measured constructs. This issue is explicated via the concept of “ecological validity”. A sequential quantitative-qualitative mixed-methods-study on anti-American prejudice in Germany is presented to demonstrate how semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 22) can compensate for lacking ecological validity in standardized prejudice measurements (CATI-survey, n = 808, summer 2011). Qualitative analyses provide context-sensitive insight into the rhetorical functions of anti-American speech. They are used to generate explanatory hypotheses for correlations between anti-American, anti-Semitic, and racist prejudice in the survey data. This complementarity of research methods is closely connected to an enhanced theoretical perspective: The combination of attitude-based and speech-act-theoretical concepts of prejudice helps to increase construct validity in the example study.