Constructing 1-rotational NRDFs through an optimization approach: new (46,9,8), (51,10,9) and (55,9,8)-NRBDs

In this paper we formulate the problem of constructing 1-rotational near resolvable difference families as a combinatorial optimization problem where a global optimum corresponds to a desired difference family. Then, we develop an algorithm based on scatter search in conjunction with a tabu search to construct many of these difference families. In particular, we construct three new near resolvable difference families which lead to an equal number of new 1-rotational near resolvable block designs with parameters: (46,9,8), (51,10,9) and (55,9,8). Our results indicate that this conjunction outperforms both scatter search and tabu search.     

Civil Organizations in Mexico: Recent Evolution and Prospects

This paper begins by identifying how, as a result of the confluence of a number of factors, civil organizations (COs) in Mexico have shown an exponential development in the past 15 years. However, it is argued that COs are suffering a fiscal crisis and, in some sense, an economic one, provoked by the political reaction of the government toward this growth. At the same time, there is no crisis of legitimacy; their increasing levels of social support suggests a trend in the reverse direction. However, the legitimacy attributable by the population to nonprofits seems to be due to the novelty of this sociopolitical actor in the context of a disappointment with more traditional ones including government and political parties—as opposed to an endorsement of their proven capacity or efficiency in solving the problems of development. To take advantage of what seems to be a golden opportunity for its positive development, in addition to changing the unfavorable economic environment, it is argued that the sector has to face the challenge of thinking in its long-term interest and making sure that it is positioned to act as capably efficient.     

Asymptotic confidence intervals in ridge regression based on the Edgeworth expansion

Ridge Regression techniques have been found useful to reduce mean square errors of parameter estimates when multicollinearity is present. But the usefulness of the method rest not only upon its ability to produce good parameter estimates, with smaller mean squared error than Ordinary Least Squares, but also on having reasonable inferential procedures. The aim of this paper is to develop asymptotic confidence intervals for the model parameters based on Ridge Regression estimates and the Edgeworth expansion. Some simulation experiments are carried out to compare these confidence intervals with those obtained from the application of Ordinary Least Squares. Also, an example will be provided based on the well known data set of Hald.     

Explaining welfare recidivism: what role do unemployment and initial spells have?

The question of high welfare re-entry rates has attracted great attention from economists and policymakers. Using a very rich administrative data set for the minimum income program of the Madrid Government (over 50,000 spells), this paper aims to broach various questions arising from the issue of welfare re-entry. We try to identify what factors determine observed differences in the durations of the first off-welfare spell. We analyze the combined effects of the length and type of exit of the first spell, unemployment, and sociodemographic characteristics. The experience of the first spell and, to a lesser extent, employability can contribute toward lengthening the time spent outside the program. Our results also show that off-welfare spells of households leaving the program in periods of low economic growth will be longer than those that do so during economic expansions. With the exception of unemployment effects, our estimates yield very similar results to those obtained in the U.S. studies, suggesting that U.S. welfare policies and analyses are not entirely irrelevant for European discussions of welfare policies.     

A note on the moments of stochastic shrinkage parameters in ridge regression

The purpose of this note is to gain insight on the performance of two well known operational Ridge Regression estimators by deriving the moments of their stochastic shrinkage parameters. We also show that, under certain conditions, one of them has bounded moments.     

Urban poverty and labor market dynamics in five Latin American countries: 2003–2008

Latin America experienced a long period of sustained growth since 2003 that positively impacted social and labor market indicators, including poverty. This paper contributes to the understanding of this process as it carries out a comparative study of poverty dynamics in five Latin American countries during 2003–2008. It analyzes the extent to which countries with different levels of poverty incidence diverge in terms of poverty exit and entry rates, identifies the relative importance of the frequency and impact of events associated to poverty transitions and examines how these events affect households with different characteristics. For this, a dynamic analysis of panel data is carried out using regular household surveys. Sizeable rates of poverty movements were observed in all five countries and it was found that a large proportion of household experienced positive events, mainly related to the labor market; however, only a small fraction of them actually exited poverty. Demographic events and public cash transfers proved to be of little relevance; in particular, the latter did not contribute much either to intensify poverty exits or to prevent poverty entries. Households with children experienced more (less) negative (positive) events than those without children. It appeared therefore that even when the economy behaved reasonably well at the aggregate level, high levels of labor turnover and income mobility (even of a negative nature) still prevail, mainly associated to the high level of precariousness and the undeveloped system of social protection that characterize the studied countries.     

Sexual evaluation of women with feminist attitudes

A study was conducted to investigate whether subjects make inferences about a female's sexuality based on her attitudes toward feminist issues. Based on the idea that both attitudes toward feminist issues and toward sexual traits are components of prototypes about females, it was hypothesized that females who expressed nontraditional attitudes on various feminist issues would be rated higher on a number of sexual traits than females who expressed more traditional attitudes. Male and female subjects were given information about a 19‐year‐old, single, female's attitudes on a number of issues related to women's occupational and domestic roles. The target's answers were manipulated so that in one condition she expressed traditional attitudes, and in a second condition she expressed nontraditional or feminist attitudes. The respondents were then asked to rate the target on traits reflecting a sexual and an evaluative dimension. As predicted, it was found that the female expressing nontraditional attitudes was rated higher in the sexual traits and was evaluated more negatively. The results were discussed in terms of the perceived incongruity between feminist attitudes and the traditional female prototype.     

Book Review: Carrie A. Meyer,The Economics and Politics of NGOs in Latin America,Praeger, West Port, 1999, xix + 196 pp

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Deterministic versus stochastic seasonal fractional integration and?structural breaks

This paper considers a general model which allows for both deterministic and stochastic forms of seasonality, including fractional (stationary and nonstationary) seasonal orders of integration, and also incorporating endogenously determined structural breaks. Monte Carlo analysis shows that, in the case of a single break, the suggested procedure performs well even in small samples, accurately capturing the seasonal properties of the series, and correctly detecting the break date. As an illustration, the model is estimated using four US series (output, consumption, imports and exports). The results suggest that the seasonal patterns of these variables have changed over time: specifically, in the second subsample the systematic component of seasonality becomes insignificant, whilst the degree of persistence increases.     

Marital Fertility and its Determinants in Rural and in Urban Spain, 1887–1930

Based primarily on census data between 1887 and 1920, the present article explores the basic structure of the social and economic factors that influenced marital fertility levels during the early part of the fertility transition in Spain. Multiple regression analysis is applied to ecological models based on separate rural and urban data. While some of the conclusions from the Princeton European Fertility Project have been corroborated, a number of the results have been quite noteworthy. Not the least of these are the sharply differing structures of causality in rural and urban areas, and the surprising and consistent role played by literacy as a stimulant of marital fertility. In the discussion of the results, we have insisted on the importance of interpreting different demographic, economic, and cultural indicators within concrete historical contexts.