Taxes and giving: new findings

This paper surveys 24 studies, appearing since Clotfelter's (1985) book, which estimate the influence of tax incentives on personal donations in three countries. Studies employ new surveys, experimental data, and data corrected for tax evasion. Newly available panel data sets obtain conclusions which strongly challenge the traditional consensus that tax incentives are a powerful stimulus to giving. The paper also surveys theoretical developments. In particular, the traditional test for efficiency (price elasticity exceeding unity) is not generally appropriate.     

Couples treatment issues for recovering male compulsive gamblers and their partners

Until recently, the couple relationship has been relatively neglected in both clinical reports and systematic research in the compulsive gambling literature. This article suggests the need for family and intergenerational assessment as well as early interventions within the couple system. The following treatment issues are discussed: multiple addictions; finances; control and power; anger; sexuality; and emotional intimacy. Overcoming deficits in intimacy is viewed as central to couples recovery.     

The re-making of the English working class?

Conclusion More than twenty-five years after its publication The Making of the English Working Class remains a landmark work in English history and the study of class formation. Thompson's formulation and application of agency and experience in understanding the process of class formation have altered the ways historians and social scientists approach the study of class. From its inception The Making has been a lightening rod for criticism, some of it piquant and politically charged. In the latest round of critique, Gareth Stedman Jones and Joan Wallach Scott have argued that Thompson seriously neglects the role of discourse in class formation, and in doing so has presented a partial and distorted picture. They each have offered analyses that find a central role for discourse in the process of class formation. Stedman Jones sees political radicalism as a guiding force of working-class collective action, while Scott finds a fundamental gendering of the ways in which the working class was organized through discourse.Both Stedman Jones and Scott are clearly correct in observing that discourse played an important role in this working-class history, yet their accounts are reductionist and highly skewed interpretations of a rich and complex history. By privileging discourse as a casual force in class formation they shunt experience and agency into minor roles, providing impoverished accounts of how the working class was indeed active in its own making.The alternative I have proposed is to focus on discourse as an intermediate process linking experience and agency, animated through social organization and collective action. The English working class of the early nineteenth century faced degradation of their labor and political oppression of rights they perceived as fundamental. In response to these trials they constructed expressions of their grievances and visions of solutions through the discourse streams available to them. Through the contextual use of various streams they articulated a consciousness of class. This process itself was part of the class struggle that was their making. In this sense, discourse framed the painting of the panorama, and perhaps added shading, hue, and perspective, but it did not create the picture. As Thompson, following Marx, has observed, it is people that do the making, even if it is not just as they please.     

The vulnerability of four social choice functions to coalitional manipulation of preferences

The vulnerability of a social choice function to coalitional manipulation of preferences is defined as the proportion of voting situations in which the social choice function can be manipulated by a coalition of individuals. In this paper, we provide exact relations giving the vulnerability of four specific social choice functions (plurality rule, anti-plurality rule, plurality with runoff, anti-plurality with runoff) in three-alternative elections. Plurality with runoff appears to be less vulnerable than the other three rules.     

Packages for Estimating Finite Mixtures: A Review

We review five packages for estimating finite mixtures, BINOMIX, C.A. MAN, MIX, and the maximum likelihood routines of BMDP and STATA. The focus of the review is on numerical issues rather than matters such as user interface because the success or failure of an algorithm to yield a mixture model is likely to be the most important issue facing a researcher. The problem of suitable initial values is discussed throughout.     

Weighted Poisson and Semiparametric Kernel Models Applied to Parasite Growth

This work deals with some parametric and semiparametric modeling approaches for count data distributions related to development of spiraling whitefly which is an insect pest collected in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. In this study, the count data distributions are assumed to be modified Poisson probability mass functions. For the discrete semiparametric associated kernel estimator investigated, its almost sure consistency and asymptotic normality are shown under some asumptions. Some weighted Poisson models (WPD) are applied in comparison with the semiparametric approach for finite samples characterizing the growth of spiraling whitefly. Finally, the discrete semiparametric estimation is simple and effective for estimating any count distribution while WPD are practically more meaningful.     

The Role of the Family Context in the Development of Emotion Regulation

This article reviews current literature examining associations between components of the family context and children and adolescents' emotion regulation (ER). The review is organized around a tripartite model of familial influence. Firstly, it is posited that children learn about ER through observational learning, modeling and social referencing. Secondly, parenting practices specifically related to emotion and emotion management affect ER. Thirdly, ER is affected by the emotional climate of the family via parenting style, the attachment relationship, family expressiveness and the marital relationship. The review ends with discussions regarding the ways in which child characteristics such as negative emotionality and gender affect ER, how socialization practices change as children develop into adolescents, and how parent characteristics such as mental health affect the socialization of ER.     

The Paradox of Impossible Beauty: Body Changes and Beauty Practices in Aging Women

The aim of this article is to describe and understand the experience of aesthetic body changes in women between 65 and 75 years old. To approach the issue, 29 in-depth interviews were conducted in Marseille in 2011. Following a brief review of contemporary Western aesthetics, we will examine the marks of time women perceive as stigmatizing and analyze beauty practices that aim to conceal or repair them. The last part of this article will be devoted to the experience of the aesthetic body and in particular show how aging can paradoxically have a beneficial effect on some women.     

Early Word Recognition in Sentence Context: French and English 24‐Month‐Olds' Sensitivity to Sentence‐Medial Mispronunciations and Assimilations

Recent work has shown that young children can use fine phonetic detail during the recognition of isolated and sentence‐final words from early in lexical development. The present study investigates 24‐month‐olds' word recognition in sentence‐medial position in two experiments using an Intermodal Preferential Looking paradigm. In Experiment 1, French toddlers detect word‐final voicing mispronunciations (e.g., bu z [by z ] for bu s [by s ] “bus”), and they compensate for native voicing assimilations (e.g., bu z d evant toi [bu zd ?vɑ?twa] “bus in front of you”) in the middle of sentences. Similarly, English toddlers detect word‐final voicing mispronunciations (e.g., shee b for shee p ) in Experiment 2, but they do not compensate for illicit voicing assimilations (e.g., shee b th ere). Thus, French and English 24‐month‐olds can take into account fine phonetic detail even if words are presented in the middle of sentences, and French toddlers show language‐specific compensation abilities for pronunciation variation caused by native voicing assimilation.