HOW DOES HEALTH INSURANCE AFFECT WORKERS’ COMPENSATION FILING?

About half of injured workers choose not to file workers' compensation claims. This is thought to result from their use of health insurance instead of workers' compensation. However, the data suggest that insured workers are actually less likely to file than their more vulnerable uninsured counterparts. We found that this relationship emerges as the result of employer characteristics and, in particular, that employers who offer health insurance to employees are more likely to have workers who file claims; this is much more important than the insurance status of workers themselves or fixed worker characteristics. ( JEL I1, J3)     

Chain ratio and regression type estimators for median estimation in survey sampling

In this paper, we consider chain ratio and regression type estimators for estimating median in survey sampling. We find expressions for the variance of the chain-ratio and chain-regression type estimators considered in the present investigation. The optimum values of the first phase and second phase sample sizes are also obtained for the fixed cost of survey. The relative efficiency of chain-ratio and chain-regression type estimators have been studied in comparison to ratio and regression type estimators of median proposed by Singh, Joarder and Tracy (2001).     

Entropy properties of record statistics

Record values can be viewed as order statistics from a sample whose size is determined by the values and the order of occurrence of observations. They are closely connected with the occurrence times of a corresponding non-homogenous Poisson process and reliability theory. In this paper, the information properties of record values are presented based on Shannon information. Several upper and lower bounds for the entropy of record values are obtained. It is shown that, the mutual information between record values is distribution free and is computable using the distribution of the record values of the sequence from the uniform distribution.     

Perfect Simulation for Length-interacting Polygonal Markov Fields in the Plane

Abstract.  The purpose of this paper was to construct perfect samplers for length-interacting Arak–Clifford–Surgailis polygonal Markov fields in the plane with nodes of order 2 ( V -shaped nodes). This is achieved by providing for the polygonal fields a hard core marked point process representation with individual points carrying polygonal loops as their marks, so that the coupling from the past and clan of ancestors routines can be adopted.     

Conditional logspline density estimation

In conditional logspline modelling, the logarithm of the conditional density function, log f(y|x), is modelled by using polynomial splines and their tensor products. The parameters of the model (coefficients of the spline functions) are estimated by maximizing the conditional log-likelihood function. The resulting estimate is a density function (positive and integrating to one) and is twice continuously differentiable. The estimate is used further to obtain estimates of regression and quantile functions in a natural way. An automatic procedure for selecting the number of knots and knot locations based on minimizing a variant of the AIC is developed. An example with real data is given. Finally, extensions and further applications of conditional logspline models are discussed.     

Editorial

Lifetime Data Analysis -     

Resistance and Cooperation: A Response to Conflict Over Job Performance

Research literature on job performance from bothmanagement oriented and industrial relations/sociologyof work models is synthesized to produce a morecomprehensive understanding of how supervisors manage employee performance problems. Two assumptionsare derived from the synthesis: (1) employees are activein accepting and resisting definitions of performanceissues made by supervisor; (2) informal interactions regarding the interpretation of performanceissues are pivotal in understanding how performanceproblems are resolved. In a study of university librarysupervisors we focus on the informal exchanges and characterize them as negotiations over thedefinition of job performance. We report results from aqualitative study of supervisors' interactions withemployees identified as having performance problems. Three types of interactions in informalnegotiations are found. We label the supervisors'interpretations of their interactions with employees asconformist, confrontational, or rebellious, designating how supervisors enact their role as agents ofthe organization.     

A randomized controlled trial of a 5-year marriage checkup booster session for a subsample of responder couples

This study examined maintenance and booster effects of a brief couple intervention, the Marriage Checkup (MC), across 5 years. A subsample of 63 couples who benefitted from two previous MCs (responder couples), were randomly assigned to a third MC or control. Before randomization (at 4-years-9-months), the responder sample had maintained small to medium effects on two measures of relationship functioning. After randomization, we found no significant between-group effects. Yet, within-group analyses revealed that while control couples showed flat trajectories in all outcomes after the 4-year-9-months baseline, couples receiving a third MC (at Year 5) reported small to medium improvements in three measures of relationship functioning and maintained follow-up effect in one measure. Findings indicate that couples who initially improved from the MC can maintain some of their improvements over long periods. The potential of boosting such improvements with recurrent MCs is a relevant target for further investigation in larger samples.