Quality of Work Life: Theoretical and Methodological Problems, and Presentation of a New Model and Measuring Instrument

Purpose: Ever since the concept of Quality of Work Life (QWL) was first used over 30 years ago, a range of definitions and theoretical constructs have succeeded each other with the aim of mitigating the many problems facing the concept. A historical overview of the concept of QWL is presented here. Given the lack of consensus concerning the solutions that have been developed to date, a new definition of QWL is suggested, inspired by the research on a related concept, general Quality of Life (QOL) which, as the literature shows, has faced the same conceptualization and definition problems as QWL. Based on the suggested definition of QOL, a definition of QWL is provided and the measuring instrument that results therefrom (the Quality of Working Life Systemic Inventory – QWLSI) is presented. Finally, the solutions that this model and measuring instrument provide for the above-mentioned problems are discussed.     

Functional convergence of quantile-type frontiers with application to parametric approximations

Nonparametric estimators of the upper boundary of the support of a multivariate distribution are very appealing because they rely on very few assumptions. But in productivity and efficiency analysis, this upper boundary is a production (or a cost) frontier and a parametric form for it allows for a richer economic interpretation of the production process under analysis. On the other hand, most of the parametric approaches rely on often too restrictive assumptions on the stochastic part of the model and are based on standard regression techniques fitting the shape of the center of the cloud of points rather than its boundary. To overcome these limitations, Florens and Simar [2005. Parametric approximations of nonparametric frontiers. J. Econometrics 124 (1), 91–116] propose a two-stage approach which tries to capture the shape of the cloud of points near its frontier by providing parametric approximations of a nonparametric frontier. In this paper we propose an alternative method using the nonparametric quantile-type frontiers introduced in Aragon, Daouia and Thomas-Agnan [2005. Nonparametric frontier estimation: a conditional quantile-based approach. Econometric Theory 21, 358–389] for the nonparametric part of our model. These quantile-type frontiers have the superiority of being more robust to extremes. Our main result concerns the functional convergence of the quantile-type frontier process. Then we provide convergence and asymptotic normality of the resulting estimators of the parametric approximation. The approach is illustrated through simulated and real data sets.     

Risk Perception and Social Acceptability of Technologies: The French Case

The authors present results of a February 1987 survey on judged frequency of mortality causes and risk perception of technologies in a representative sample of the French population. Although the French context is very different, and the impact of public controversies have been very limited on technological choices such as the nuclear energy program, strong similarities in risk perception of technologies are observed with results from U.S. surveys. Results, which could be worthwhile for other countries, suggest that risk perception is influenced by two different types of components. The first influence is the global feeling of "security" that society procures to its members. Such feeling depends on the individual's socioeconomic status, subjective state of health, and personal discomfort in daily life, and explains individual aversion to risk independently of the mortality causes or technologies involved. The second influence is the degree of perceived social legitimization of the activities involving risks. Risks of medical and transportation activities are strongly opposed to illegitimate risky behaviors (smoking, drugs, alcohol); technologies which have been an object of public debate (nuclear plants, the chemical industry, lead in gasoline) have an intermediate position reflecting the remaining uncertainties of public opinion about their risk–benefit balancing. Tentative conclusions for risk communication are proposed.     

French ‘savoir-faire’ in selling arms: A new way of doing business?

In this remarkable article the authors analyse the reasons for the success of the French arms industry. In particular they note the financial and technological support given by the French Government, the independent foreign policy which the government pursues and the technological innovation which French arms producers have consistently developed. They build a picture of close collaboration between the French Government and the arms industry and demonstrate how the French arms business has been able to create a virtual monopoly of certain market segments.     

Using Adjacent-category Logits Procedure for Estimating Receiver Operating Characteristic Surface

This article presents a semiparametric method for estimating receiver operating characteristic surface under density ratio model. The construction of the proposed method is based on the adjacent-category logit model and the empirical likelihood approach. A bootstrap approach for the VUS estimator inference is presented. In a simulation study, the proposed estimator is compared with the existing parametric and nonparametric estimators in terms of bias, standard error, and mean square error. Finally, a real data example and some discussions on the proposed method are provided.     

On the separability of assembly preferences

Analyses of assembly elections often assume that voters have well-defined preferences over candidates, even though preferences over assemblies are the natural analytic starting point. This candidate-based approach is usually justified by an assumption that preferences over assemblies are separable. We show, however, that if preferences over assemblies are themselves derived from underlying preferences over legislative or economic outcomes, then preferences over assemblies will not in general be separable. Received: 23 June 1997/Accepted: 3 March 1998     

Solution of problem 5/SP08: a birth–death process with polynomial transitions Proposed by Randall J. Swift, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA

Problem Section

Solution of problem 5/SP08: a birth–death process with polynomial transitions Proposed by Randall J. Swift, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA