The roles of human capital and social capital in the economic integration of new arrivals from Mainland China to Hong Kong

Although it has been hypothesized in the literature that both human capital and social capital are important for the economic performance of new immigrants, few studies have examined these relationships empirically, especially in understudied populations such as Chinese populations. This study simultaneously examines the roles of human capital and social capital in the economic integration of new arrivals from Mainland China to Hong Kong, using a random sample of immigrants. In the early stage of immigration (less than 6 months after arrival), we find little support for the presumed positive effects of both human capital and social capital on employment status among new arrivals in Hong Kong. Follow-up studies are underway to investigate the dynamic relationship between social capital and economic integration in this group of new arrivals, and whether social capital, especially friendship networks, plays a more important role in the economic integration of new immigrants 1 or 2 years after arrival.     

Public Attitudes towards Income Redistribution: Evidence from Hong Kong

The drivers of public support for redistributive policy have stimulated academic debate around the world. The majority of studies use cross‐country surveys conducted in the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries to contribute to the debate on whether self‐interest or social values have more influence on public attitudes towards redistribution. Drawing on a phone survey conducted in 2013, this study advances the discussion by investigating public attitudes towards redistribution and social policy changes against the backdrop of buoyant government revenues in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong welfare model, best seen as a parallel to the liberal welfare state, is selective and residual. Contrary to the usual assumption, the social values hypothesis, viewing poverty as societal problems instead of individual reasons, has been supported in the Hong Kong context. It lends support to greater redistribution in a residual welfare state. The policy implications of the findings are also discussed.     

The influence function of the optimal bandwidth for kernel density estimation

Theories about the bandwidth of kernel density estimation have been well established by many statisticians. However, the influence function of the bandwidth has not been well investigated. The influence function of the optimal bandwidth that minimizes the mean integrated square error is derived and the asymptotic property of the bandwidth selectors based on the influence function is provided.     

Superimpose Material Deprivation Study on Poverty Old Age People in Hong Kong Study

Due to a range of shortcomings of income-based measures of poverty in older people, an alternative approach is proposed to counteract those shortcomings. Hong Kong index of material deprivation aims to identify a consensus-based list of goods and services that are necessities in society and to establish that these goods and services are not available due to their lack of affordability. This paper reports on the validation of Hong Kong index of material deprivation based on an approach proposed by Townsend (Poverty in the United Kingdom, Penguin Books, London, 1979) in Hong Kong. Through a survey of 2339 older Chinese people aged 65 and older, we found that a broad consensus regarding the necessities in their daily lives exists and Hong Kong index of material deprivation is a reliable and valid measure of poverty because its reliability and validity is good and acceptable. Finally, we have shown that the overlap between the poor in terms of income and the deprived is moderate and the profiles of those who are core poor (both poor in terms of income and the deprived) are more similar to those who are deprived than those who are poor in terms of income. Hong Kong index of material deprivation index has been developed, which offers a supplementary measure of poverty other than income poor and provides future avenues for improved understandings of poverty in old age.     

Child Poverty Among Hong Kong Ethnic Minorities

This paper analyzes the data from the Population Census of 2011 to identify the characteristics of poor ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong and the factors that are associated with child poverty among these ethnic minorities. The results show that the child poverty level varies between different ethnic groups and that ethnic minorities from developing nations are likely to have a higher poverty level. In particular, Pakistani children have the highest poverty rate among all ethnic groups. The results also show that Pakistani, Nepalese, and Mixed (Chinese and Asian) nationalities have a higher child poverty rate than that of Chinese individuals who constitute the majority of the Hong Kong population. The main reason for this is that, unlike their Chinese counterparts, some of these ethnic minority households have not benefited from their own human capital or their length of exposure in the local society in Hong Kong. And even if they have benefited, the positive impact of these factors on ethnic minority households was much weaker compared to that of Chinese households. These results suggest that ethnic minorities need to be categorized as a separate group in order to assess their specific needs, and assimilation policies, especially support on Chinese language learning, need to be an integral part of the government’s poverty reduction strategy to reduce child poverty among ethnic minorities.     

Disability beliefs and help-seeking behavior of depressed Chinese-American patients in a primary care setting

In this study the authors assessed the effects of disability beliefs, conceptualization and labeling of emotional disabilities, and perceived barriers on help-seeking behaviors among depressed Chinese Americans in a primary care setting. Forty-two Chinese Americans participated in semistructured interviews using established psychological measures and open-ended questions adapted from the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue. The authors found that care utilization appears to be complicated by somatization of emotional problems, variations in causal attribution to depression, barriers to receiving mental health care, and the burden of comorbid physical conditions. Their findings highlight the importance of addressing these issues and educating patients about body-mind dialectic common to depression.     

《盐铁论》书名辨义

西汉时期桓宽依据盐铁会议纪录编撰而成《盐铁论》一书。此书内容较为广泛,非"独述盐铁"而已,却独以"盐铁"二字为书名。历代学者对其中含义颇有猜度,歧说纷纭。本文对各种观点一一评判,辨析出较为近是之见。     

Decomposition of K m,n into 4-cycles and 2t-cycles

In this paper we show the sufficient conditions for the decomposition of the complete bipartite graphs K _2m,2n and K _2n+1,2n+1−F into cycles of two different lengths 4 and 2t, t>2, where F is a 1-factor of K _2n+1,2n+1. After that we prove that the results are true for t=5 and 6. Dedicated to Frank K. Hwang on the occasion of his 65th birthday. An erratum to this article can be found at