Introduction to the special ACS issue of population research and policy review

This article presents a brief history of the American Community Survey's development. It also provides an overview of the structure and content of this special issue of Population Research and Policy Review.     

Personal probabilities of probabilities

By definition, the subjective probability distribution of a random event is revealed by the (‘rational’) subject's choice between bets — a view expressed by F. Ramsey, B. De Finetti, L. J. Savage and traceable to E. Borel and, it can be argued, to T. Bayes. Since hypotheses are not observable events, no bet can be made, and paid off, on a hypothesis. The subjective probability distribution of hypotheses (or of a parameter, as in the current ‘Bayesian’ statistical literature) is therefore a figure of speech, an ‘as if’, justifiable in the limit. Given a long sequence of previous observations, the subjective posterior probabilities of events still to be observed are derived by using a mathematical expression that would approximate the subjective probability distribution of hypotheses, if these could be bet on. This position was taken by most, but not all, respondents to a ‘Round Robin’ initiated by J. Marschak after M. H. De-Groot's talk on Stopping Rules presented at the UCLA Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in Behavioral Sciences. Other participants: K. Borch, H. Chernoif, R. Dorfman, W. Edwards, T. S. Ferguson, G. Graves, K. Miyasawa, P. Randolph, L. J. Savage, R. Schlaifer, R. L. Winkler. Attention is also drawn to K. Borch's article in this issue.     

Bayesiam simultaneous estimation for several multinomial distributions

A Bayesian method is proposed for estimating the cell probabilities of several multinomial distributions. Parameters of different distributions are taken to be a priori exchangeable. The prior specification is based upon mixtures of a hierarchical distribution, referred to as the multivariate “Dirichlet-Dirichlet” distribution. The analysis is facilitated by a multinomial approximation relating to the multinomial-Dirichlet distribution. The posterior estimates depend upon measures of entropy for the various distributions and shrink the individual observed proportions towards values obtained by pooling the data across the distributions. As well as incorporating prior information they are particularly useful when some of the cell frequencies are zero. We use them to investigate a numerical classification of males of various vocations, according to cause of death.     

Lifecycle effects on consumer financial product portfolios in South Africa: An exploratory analysis of four ethnic groups

This paper assesses ownership of 16 financial products by households in different lifecycle stages amongst four ethnic groups (Africans, Coloureds, Asians, and Whites) in South Africa. The lifecycle hypothesis indicates younger households should own more debt-related financial products, whereas households in intermediate lifecycle stages should own more financial products to accumulate assets; both these claims are disconfirmed for all groups. However, White households in intermediate household stages own more financial products than younger and older households, consistent with previously reported lifecycle findings in Western countries. Consistent with the literature on innovation adoption we find that younger, affluent and highly educated households amongst the other three ethnic groups tend to own more financial products than older Africans, Coloureds and Asians. These results indicate that innovation adoption literature may better describe financial product ownership in developing countries than the lifecycle hypothesis.     

Global comparisons of medians and other quantiles in a one-way design when there are tied values

For J ? 2 independent groups, the article deals with testing the global hypothesis that all J groups have a common population median or identical quantiles, with an emphasis on the quartiles. Classic rank-based methods are sometimes suggested for comparing medians, but it is well known that under general conditions they do not adequately address this goal. Extant methods based on the usual sample median are unsatisfactory when there are tied values except for the special case J = 2. A variation of the percentile bootstrap used in conjunction with the Harrell–Davis quantile estimator performs well in simulations. The method is illustrated with data from the Well Elderly 2 study.     

Gambling Behaviors Among Oxford House Residents: A Preliminary Investigation

The present study investigated the prevalence of gambling behaviors among 71 individuals recovering from substance-dependent disorders and living in self-run recovery homes (Oxford Houses). Residents were given the South Oaks Gambling Screen to assess gambling behaviors and pathological gambling, and 19.7% of the sample was identified as having probable pathological gambling. These residents reported proportionately more involvement in a variety of gambling behaviors than other residents. Engagement in various gambling activities was consistent with previous investigations and suggested that self-run recovery homes such as Oxford Houses might be suitable referral sources for recovering persons who have comorbid gambling problems.     

非竞争型投入占用产出模型及其应用——中美贸易顺差透视(英文)

本文构建了一种能够反映中国加工贸易特点的非竞争(进口)型投入占用产出模型,提出了一个国家全部出口与分部门、分大类商品的单位出口对国内增加值和就业的拉动效应的计算方法,从数学上证明了出口总值等于出口商品所包含的完全国内增加值与完全进口额之和,并据此编制了2002年中美两国的非竞争(进口)型投入占用产出表,测算和分析了中美两国出口对各自国内增加值和就业的影响。     

Input-occupancy-output models of the non-competitive type and their application - an examination of the China-US trade surplus

本文构建了一种能够反映中国加工贸易特点的非竞争（进口）型投入占用产出模型,提出了一个国家全部出口与分部门、分大类商品的单位出口对国内增加值和就业的拉动效应的计算方法,从数学上证明了出口总值等于出口商品所包含的完全国内增加值与完全进口额之和,并据此编制了2002年中美两国的非竞争（进口）型投入占用产出表,测算和分析了中美两国出口对各自国内增加值和就业的影响。     

New Results on the Small-Sample Properties of Some Robust Univariate Estimators of Location

This article compares eight estimators in terms of relative efficiencies with the univariate mean, some of which have not been compared previously. Four estimators, when testing hypotheses, are compared in terms of actual Type I errors. In terms of point estimation, the modified one-step M-estimator, one-step M-estimator, and rfch estimator are found to be the three best choices depending on the proportion of outliers. In terms of actual Type I errors, the modified one-step M estimator's and rfch estimator's level was between.045 and.055 in 5 out of 7 situations when real data were used in simulations.