Are government wages interlinked with private sector wages?

The ongoing fiscal and financial crisis with significant macroeconomic imbalances in the euro area raises the question in how far public–private wage interaction and even wage spirals contribute to fiscal and competitiveness problems. In this vain we analyse empirically whether the evolution of public sector wages is decoupled from that of the private sector. Using data for number of OECD countries, we find: (i) a strong and extremely robust positive annual contemporaneous correlation of public and private sector wages over the business cycle; (ii) evidence of co-movement of these variables over the medium and long run. From a policy perspective, the findings of this study suggest public wage restraint and private wage flexibility coupled—where needed—with institutional reform to prevent or break public–private wage spirals.     

Utilizing a Required Documentation Course to Improve the Recording Skills of Undergraduate Social Work Students

ABSTRACT

Baccalaureate social workers respond to documentation and record-keeping demands of regulatory organizations that oversee or fund social service agencies. Learning to accurately document client needs, progress, and service delivery outcomes is important in ensuring that clients are receiving effective services. Despite the importance of documentation skills, many undergraduate social work programs do not provide sufficient curriculum content on client record keeping. The authors report the results of a study that examined changes in baccalaureate social work students’ perceptions of their documentation skills after completing a required documentation course. The sample size included 101 students at pretest and 97 students completing the post-test. Statistically significant findings show students perceived an increase in knowledge in three areas of documentation: 1) formats, 2) content, and 3) writing skills. The authors discuss implications for social work education and practice.     

Quality of Life Experienced by Human Capital: An Assessment of European Cities

This paper aims to provide an assessment of urban quality of life (QoL) of European cities from the perspective of qualified human resources. The competitiveness of cities relies increasingly in their capacity to attract highly educated workers, as they are important assets for firms when choosing a location. Qualified human resources, on the other hand, tend to value QoL over other urban features. This is why policymakers and urban planners need to evaluate QoL of cities and be provided with tools that can guide action to improvements in this area. We assess urban QoL by means of a composite indicator constructed using data envelopment analysis, based on Urban Audit data and Mercer’s framework of analysis, to give account of 246 European cities. Besides presenting a ranking of the best and the worst scores of QoL, this methodology allows benchmarking strategies.     

Sibling caring roles and responsibilities when a child suffers from a chronic illness

Siblings' lives and well-being are potentially affected in profound ways when their brother or sister suffers from a chronic illness in childhood. The shift in the care of chronically ill children from the hospital to the home in recent years has had an impact on family relationships and interactions. Whilst studies on caregiving have focused on the parental care of children who are chronically ill; siblings may nevertheless take on some caring roles and responsibilities. This article intends to make a novel contribution to the sociological literature on siblings, caring, and chronic illness by presenting a review of the literature addressing siblings' caring roles and responsibilities in families of children with a chronic illness. Knowing about the caring roles and responsibilities undertaken by siblings when a brother or sister has a chronic illness, may be beneficial to healthcare professionals and influence their caring practice. In addition, this work may contribute to a better understanding of family relationships and further improve healthcare policies.     

The Impact of Corporate Reputation on Firm Risk: A Panel Data Analysis of Spanish Quoted Firms

Researchers have traditionally addressed the influence of corporate reputation on firm performance, but have not considered the influence of corporate reputation on firm risk. This research develops hypotheses regarding the opposing influence of corporate reputation on a firm's systematic risk, unsystematic risk and total risk, as well as the moderation effect of firm size and industry concentration. Using a panel data method, these relationships are analysed, controlling for the effects of endogeneity, for a sample of Spanish quoted firms in the period 2001–2007. Specifically, two complementary analyses are performed. The first distinguishes firms included and not included in the MERCO index of the most reputable firms. The second analyses the impact of corporate reputation for the sub‐sample of most reputable firms. Being reputable reduces a firm's unsystematic risk and total risk, but increases systematic risk. In addition, firm size weakens these influences of corporate reputation on firm risk. However, among the most reputable firms, differences in reputation score have a lower effect on risk. Specifically, the corporate reputation level only influences firm unsystematic risk. It seems that what matters is not the degree of corporate reputation, but whether being or not being reputable is the question in terms of risk.     

Application of Correspondence Analysis in the Assessment of Mine Tailings Dam Breakage Risk in the Mediterranean Region

A new statistical approach for preliminary risk evaluation of breakage in tailings dam is presented and illustrated by a case study regarding the Mediterranean region. The objective of the proposed method is to establish an empirical scale of risk, from which guidelines for prioritizing the collection of further specific information can be derived. The method relies on a historical database containing, in essence, two sets of qualitative data: the first set concerns the variables that are observable before the disaster (e.g., type and size of the dam, its location, and state of activity), and the second refers to the consequences of the disaster (e.g., failure type, sludge characteristics, fatalities categorization, and downstream range of damage). Based on a modified form of correspondence analysis, where the second set of attributes are projected as "supplementary variables" onto the axes provided by the eigenvalue decomposition of the matrix referring to the first set, a "qualitative regression" is performed, relating the variables to be predicted (contained in the second set) with the "predictors" (the observable variables). On the grounds of the previously derived relationship, the risk of breakage in a new case can be evaluated, given observable variables. The method was applied in a case study regarding a set of 13 test sites where the ranking of risk obtained was validated by expert knowledge. Once validated, the procedure was included in the final output of the e-EcoRisk UE project (A Regional Enterprise Network Decision-Support System for Environmental Risk and Disaster Management of Large-Scale Industrial Spills), allowing for a dynamic historical database updating and providing a prompt rough risk evaluation for a new case. The aim of this section of the global project is to provide a quantified context where failure cases occurred in the past for supporting analogue reasoning in preventing similar situations.     

Weights in Multidimensional Indices of Wellbeing: An Overview

Multidimensional indices are becoming increasingly important instruments to assess the wellbeing of societies. They move beyond the focus on a single indicator and yet they are easy to present and communicate. A crucial step in the construction of a multidimensional index of wellbeing is the selection of the relative weights for the different dimensions. The aim of this article is to study the role of these weights and to critically survey eight different approaches to set them. We categorize the approaches in three classes: data-driven, normative, and hybrid weighting, and compare their respective advantages and drawbacks.     

A Note on Distinguishing Random Trees Populations

ABSTRACT

Several new results are presented for a class of univariate distributions for which the maximum likelihood estimate of the population mean is the sample mean. It is shown that the convolution of any two such distributions also belongs to this class of functions. It is also shown that the marginal distribution for the sample mean captures all of the Fisher information for the population mean contained in the full distribution. Parameters orthogonal to the mean are found for special cases of these distributions. If the distribution is conditioned on the sample mean, the conditional distribution depends on the parameters only through parameters orthogonal to the mean.     

Records Properties of Non Stationary Time Series

This article proposes an asymptotic expansion for the Studentized linear discriminant function using two-step monotone missing samples under multivariate normality. The asymptotic expansions related to discriminant function have been obtained for complete data under multivariate normality. The result derived by Anderson (1973 Anderson , T. W. ( 1973 ). An asymptotic expansion of the distribution of the Studentized classification statistic W . The Annals of Statistics 1 : 964 – 972 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) plays an important role in deciding the cut-off point that controls the probabilities of misclassification. This article provides an extension of the result derived by Anderson (1973 Anderson , T. W. ( 1973 ). An asymptotic expansion of the distribution of the Studentized classification statistic W . The Annals of Statistics 1 : 964 – 972 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in the case of two-step monotone missing samples under multivariate normality. Finally, numerical evaluations by Monte Carlo simulations were also presented.