Grandparental availability for child care and maternal labor force participation: pension reform evidence from Italy

In this paper, we exploit pension reform-induced changes in retirement eligibility requirements to assess the role of grandparental childcare availability in the labor force participation of women with children under 15. Our analysis shows that, among the women studied, those whose own mothers are retirement eligible have a 11% higher probability of being in the labor force than those whose mothers are ineligible. The pension eligibility of maternal grandfathers and paternal grandparents, however, has no significant effect on the women’s labor force participation. We also demonstrate that the eligibility of maternal grandmothers mainly captures the effect of their availability for childcare. Hence, pension reforms, by potentially robbing households of an important source of flexible, low-cost childcare, could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with young children.     

Does Religiosity Influence Retention Strategies in Nonprofit Organizations?

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Despite the rise of interest in nonprofit organizations’ (NPOs) retention strategies and organizational behaviour...     

Conditional expected utility

Let \({\mathcal {E}}\) be a class of events. Conditionally Expected Utility decision makers are decision makers whose conditional preferences \(\succsim _{E}\), \(E\in {\mathcal {E}}\), satisfy the axioms of Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) theory. We extend the notion of unconditional preference that is conditionally EU to unconditional preferences that are not necessarily SEU. We study a subclass of these preferences, namely those that satisfy dynamic consistency. We give a representation theorem, and show that these preferences are Invariant Bi-separable in the sense of Ghirardato et al. (Journal of Economic Theory 118:133–173, 2004). We also show that these preferences have only a trivial overlap with the class of Choquet Expected Utility preferences, but there are plenty of preferences of the \(\alpha \)-Maxmin Expected Utility type that satisfy our assumptions. We identify several concrete settings where our results could be applied. Finally, we consider the special case where the unconditional preference is itself SEU, and compare our results with those of Fishburn (Econometrica 41:1–25, 1973).     

Folate: a possible role in erectile dysfunction?

A growing body of evidence suggests a role for homocysteine (Hcys) and folate (FA) in erectile function (EF): Hcys appears to impair EF affecting endothelium via several mechanism whereas the role of FA remains to be elucidated, besides decreasing Hcys. To assess correlation between erectile dysfunction (ED) and serum levels of FA, Hcys, and B12, we enrolled 31 patients affected by ED (Group A; age 52.83?±?11.89 years) and 31 healthy adults (Group B; age 49.14?±?13.63 years). Fasting blood samples were taken for each subject. ED was assessed by the International Index of Erectile Function-5 (IIEF-5). IIEF-5 mean score was significantly lower in Group A than in Group B (10.71?±?4.24 versus 23.32?±?1.33, p?p?p?相似文献   

Probability models of chance fluctuations in spectra of astronomical sources with applications to X-ray absorption lines

The search for faint emission or absorption lines in astronomical spectra has received considerable attention in recent years, especially in the X-ray wavelength range. These features usually appear as a deficit or excess of counts in a single-resolution element of the detector, and as such they are referred to as unresolved fluctuations. The general problem under investigation is the probability of occurrence of chance fluctuations. A quantitative answer is necessary to determine whether detected fluctuations are a real (astronomical, in this case) signal, or if they can be attributed to chance. This application note provides a new comprehensive method to answer this question as function of the instrument's resolution, the wavelength coverage of the spectrum, the number of fluctuations of interest, and the confidence level chosen. The method is based on the binomial distribution and addresses also the probability of multiple simultaneous fluctuations. A critical aspect of the model is the a priori knowledge of the location of possible fluctuations, which significantly affects the probability of detection. In fact, a wider wavelength range for the ‘blind’ search of possible fluctuations results in a larger number of ‘tries’ for the detection of a fluctuation, lowering the overall significance of a specific feature. The method is illustrated with a case study and examples using X-ray data.     

Revised MRP for reducing inventory level and smoothing order releases: a case in manufacturing industry

Although material requirement planning (MRP) systems are widely used in manufacturing companies, they exhibit significant drawbacks. Rev MRP algorithm has been developed in order to reduce the system nervousness, generate a more regular pattern of order released and lower inventory levels. The aim of this paper is to test the Rev MRP algorithm on the case of one of the largest Italian manufacturing companies of home appliances. The company provided three sets of real data, referring to three different runs of their MRP. Results showed that the Rev MRP outperformed the company’s MRP smoothing the production order releases, eliminating overshoots and drastically reducing the inventory levels along the supply chain, even in case of frequent forecasts updates.     

Field of Study and University Graduates' Early Employment Outcomes in Italy during 1995–2004

Abstract. In a period of expanding higher education, the field of study becomes a key determinant of university graduates' labour market success. In this paper, by means of multivariate analyses of the quality of graduates' early employment outcomes, we first describe how the effect of different fields of study on the university‐to‐work transition changed between 1995 and 2004 in Italy. Second, we put forward some alternative hypotheses to interpret the changes observed over time and assess which ones seem to be more consistent with the data.     

New Mothers’ Labour Force Participation in Italy: The Role of Job Characteristics

Abstract. In this paper we use newly available individual‐level data from the Longitudinal Survey of Italian Households to investigate the factors associated with female labour force participation after the birth of the first child. We focus on the role of pre‐marital job characteristics and find that new mothers who worked without a contract are less likely to participate, while those who worked in the public sector or in a large private firm have a higher probability of being in the labour force after childbearing. We suggest that these effects could be at least partly attributed to differences in the level of job protection and employment stability enjoyed by workers. This implies that in Italy women with highly protected and stable jobs might find it easier to combine career and family, whereas those who are less sheltered by the legislation might be more likely to be inactive after becoming mothers.     

Identification of long memory in GARCH models

Abstract: This work extends the analysis of Baillie, Bollerslev and Mikkelsen (1996) and Bollerslev and Mikkelsen (1996) on the estimation and identification problems of the Fractionally Integrated Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastik (FIGARCH) model. We assess the power of different information criteria and tests in identifying the presence of long memory in the conditional variances. The analysis is performed with a Montecarlo simulation study. In detail, the focus on the Akaike, Hannan-Quinn, Shibata and Schwarz information criteria and on the Jarque-Bera test for normality, Box-Pierce test for residual correlation and Engle test for ARCH effects. This study verifies that information criteria clearly distinguish the presence of long memory while tests do not evidence any difference between the fitted long and short memory models. An empirical application is provided; it analyses, on a high frequency dataset, the returns of the FIB30, the future on the MIB30, the Italian stock market index of highly capitalized firms.Massimiliano Caporin: mcaporin@unive.itThis paper was presented at the SIS 2002 Conference (Italian Statistical society annual meeting) held in Milan, University Bicocca, 5-7 June 2002. A short version of this work can be found in the proceedings of the conference     

Entrepreneurial Orientation in low- and medium-tech industries: The need for Absorptive Capacity to increase performance

The implications of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) for firm performance in low- and medium-tech (LMT) industries are largely unexplored and seem to be limited. In this paper we seek to address this research gap studying how Absorptive Capacity can act as a key factor determining the effectiveness of EO in such a context. Specifically, we adopt the knowledge-based view of the firm and explore the moderating effects of Absorptive Capacity’s Potential and Realized dimensions on the EO–performance relationship in LMT industries. Our regression results based on a lagged dataset of 103 medium-sized firms based in Italy confirm our hypotheses that, in LMT industries, EO has a positive effect on firm performance when coupled with high levels of both Potential and Realized Absorptive Capacity.