Successes,Failures and Prospects for the Common Transport Policy

The paper reviews the development of the Common Transport Policy from a historical perspective and assesses its successes and failures as measured by its direct outputs, i.e. the regulatory, economic and other measures established to achieve its objectives. Despite significant progress with regard to the removal of barriers to competition either through positive regulation - the harmonization of social and technical standards - or through negative regulation - the liberalization and harmonization of the criteria for market access - several problems remain and solutions are outstanding with regard to the main challenges posed by sustainable mobility, namely environmental protection and social cohesion. In relevant action areas the Common Transport Policy is reluctant about following through as strict a regime of policy formulation and implementation as that adopted with regard to market-access-related regulations since 1985. The main reason, the authors argue, has to do with the implications of this for national sovereignty and for subsidiarity as currently interpreted. In the absence of a suitable regulatory framework the approach taken is that of negotiation and incremental improvement. Whether this is appropriate to the challenges faced remains an open question.     

Estimation and regularization techniques for regression models with multidimensional prediction functions

Boosting is one of the most important methods for fitting regression models and building prediction rules. A notable feature of boosting is that the technique can be modified such that it includes a built-in mechanism for shrinking coefficient estimates and variable selection. This regularization mechanism makes boosting a suitable method for analyzing data characterized by small sample sizes and large numbers of predictors. We extend the existing methodology by developing a boosting method for prediction functions with multiple components. Such multidimensional functions occur in many types of statistical models, for example in count data models and in models involving outcome variables with a mixture distribution. As will be demonstrated, the new algorithm is suitable for both the estimation of the prediction function and regularization of the estimates. In addition, nuisance parameters can be estimated simultaneously with the prediction function.     

Partial Least Squares: A First-order Analysis

We compare the partial least squares (PLS) and the principal component analysis (PCA), in a general case in which the existence of a true linear regression is not assumed. We prove under mild conditions that PLS and PCA are equivalent, to within a first-order approximation, hence providing a theoretical explanation for empirical findings reported by other researchers. Next, we assume the existence of a true linear regression equation and obtain asymptotic formulas for the bias and variance of the PLS parameter estimator     

Recent trends in job security and stability

In recent years, the popular press has led us to believe that downsizing and mergers are throwing unprecedented numbers of Americans out of secure jobs. In this paper, we survey current research that addresses these concerns, reconciling the sometimes disparate results of papers examining job tenure and separations, exploring the consequences of involuntary job loss, and reviewing research on trends in part-time, temporary, and contingent employment. There is no evidence of a dramatic change in job security over the last two decades. The various studies do not point to consistent losses in job security for any particular demographic group. Gina Franco, Noah Hochman, Charles Kaljian, Leah McKelvie and Christopher Thompson provided exceptional research assistance. The authors thank Robert Krol, Alec Levenson, and Elaine Reardon for their suggestions. Shirley V. Svorny is also an affiliated scholar at the Milken Institute.     

Secondary agency conflicts: A synthesis and proposed measurement model

Secondary agency conflicts typically arise when ownership and control are combined in the hands of dominant shareholders who could then seek to misappropriate returns at the expense of minority shareholders. This type of agency conflict has attracted attention from researchers for the past nearly three decades. However, efforts at measuring secondary agency conflicts have been fragmented and scattered. The absence of a coherent and valid approach to assess the scope and intensity of secondary agency conflicts has impeded progress in both empirical and conceptual development of the topic area. Based on a review of the extant body of literature, this paper develops a composite Shareholder Inequity index that measures the potential for secondary agency conflicts employing three different governance dimensions that are grounded in the agency literature: blockholder power, differential control, and the absence of board neutrality. The index is tested and validated empirically using a sample of 748 publicly listed U.S. firms. The resulting Shareholder Inequity index demonstrates high levels of validity and reliability. Future corporate governance studies can utilize this validated measure to investigate potential secondary agency conflicts more consistently and rigorously in order to strengthen organizational theory development and research.     

Structural Validation and Multiple Group Assessment of the Short Internalized Homonegativity Scale in Homosexual and Bisexual Men in 38 European Countries: Results From the European MSM Internet Survey

Internalized homonegativity (IH) is the internalization of negative attitudes and assumptions about homosexual people by homosexual people themselves. To measure IH, Smolenski, Diamond, Ross, and Rosser (2010) and Ross, Rosser, and Smolenski (2010) revised the Reactions to Homosexuality Scale (RHS) to develop the Short Internalized Homonegativity Scale (SIHS) with eight items. Using the European Men Who Have Sex With Men Internet Survey (EMIS) data, with an analytic sample of 130,718 gay and bisexual men in 38 European countries, we confirmed the validity of the SIHS scale in both training and validation data, in strata of Ross, Berg, et al.’s (2013) three “homosexual discrimination” country clusters, of age, and of education level. However, the performance was less adequate in comparison of gay versus bisexually identified individuals. The latent SIHS structure contains only minor variations across these three strata. The seven-item scale performed as well as the eight-item scale. The SIHS is a promising candidate for standard IH measures, which is invariant across cultural, age, and educational strata.     

Forgotten Athletes and Token Reporters: Analyzing the Gender Bias in Sports Journalism

This study considers the coverage of women’s sports and the involvement of women in newspaper sports journalism in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Results of a content analysis (N = 3,382) show that the coverage of, and professional opportunities for, women and men are far from equal in sports media. Further, results of a survey of professional journalists (N = 298) show that despite a widespread acknowledgment of the inequities that exist, male journalists remain significantly less likely than female journalists to report supporting an increased role for women within     

Hold Safety Inventory Before,At, or After the Fan‐Out Point?

We consider a product sold in multiple variants, each with uncertain demand, produced in a multi‐stage process from a standard (i.e., generic) sub‐assembly. The fan‐out point is defined as the last process stage at which outputs are generic (outputs at every subsequent stage are variant‐specific). Insights gained from an analytical study of the system are used to develop heuristics that determine the stage(s) at which safety inventory should be held. We offer a relatively‐simple heuristic that approaches globally‐optimal results even though it uses only two relatively‐local parameters. We call this the VAPT, or value‐added/processing time heuristic, because it determines whether a (local) stage should hold inventory based only on the value added at that local stage relative to its downstream stage, along with the processing time at that local stage relative to its downstream stage. Another key insight is that, contrary to possible intuition, safety inventory should not always be held at the fan‐out point, although a fan‐out point does hold inventory under a wider range of conditions. We also explore when postponement is most valuable and illustrate that postponement may often be less beneficial than suggested by Lee and Tang (1997).