PARTICIPATORY EVALUATION RESEARCH: AN INTRODUCTION FOR FAMILY THERAPISTS

Participatory evaluation research empowers the consumers of services to become leaders in evaluation and change. Participatory research methods have been used widely in developing countries and are consistent with family therapy's recent emphasis on non-hierarchical, empowering, collaborative therapies. In this paper, the authors present several examples of participatory evaluation methods and discuss their applicability to the work of family therapists.     

How robust are tests for two independent samples?

Non-parametric procedures are sometimes in use even in cases where the corresponding parametric procedure is preferable. This is mainly due to the fact that in practical applications of statistical methods too much attention is paid to any violation of the normality assumption–normal distribution is, however, primarily supposed in order to easily derive the exact distribution of the statistic used within parametric approaches.     

Estimation of geodesic tortuosity and constrictivity in stationary random closed sets

We investigate the problem of estimating geodesic tortuosity and constrictivity as two structural characteristics of stationary random closed sets. They are of central importance for the analysis of effective transport properties in porous or composite materials. Loosely speaking, geodesic tortuosity measures the windedness of paths, whereas the notion of constrictivity captures the appearance of bottlenecks resulting from narrow passages within a given materials phase. We first provide mathematically precise definitions of these quantities and introduce appropriate estimators. Then, we show strong consistency of these estimators for unboundedly growing sampling windows. In order to apply our estimators to real data sets, the extent of edge effects needs to be controlled. This is illustrated using a model for a multiphase material that is incorporated in solid oxide fuel cells.     

Insurance Policies for Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

In this paper, we aim to design a monetary policy for the euro area that is robust to the high degree of model uncertainty at the start of monetary union and allows for learning about model probabilities. To this end, we compare and ultimately combine Bayesian and worst‐case analysis using four reference models estimated with pre–European Monetary Union (EMU) synthetic data. We start by computing the cost of insurance against model uncertainty, that is, the relative performance of worst‐case or minimax policy versus Bayesian policy. While maximum insurance comes at moderate costs, we highlight three shortcomings of this worst‐case insurance policy: (i) prior beliefs that would rationalize it from a Bayesian perspective indicate that such insurance is strongly oriented towards the model with highest baseline losses; (ii) the minimax policy is not as tolerant towards small perturbations of policy parameters as the Bayesian policy; and (iii) the minimax policy offers no avenue for incorporating posterior model probabilities derived from data available since monetary union. Thus, we propose preferences for robust policy design that reflect a mixture of the Bayesian and minimax approaches. We show how the incoming EMU data may then be used to update model probabilities, and investigate the implications for policy. (JEL: E52, E58, E61)     

Technology assessment: Need and motivation of industry

The problems of decision making when the decision concerns large-scale technical plants have increased, largely due to the difficulties of assessing environmental factors. Technology assessment is an approach which can assist in undertaking the necessary analysis which will expose the social impact, participation of affected groups, and the evaluation of political processes for large-scale technical developments. This paper examines the obstacles to the use of Technology assessment techniques by industry and in particular concentrates upon the problems of forecasting future technological change. The paper examines the view that TA is primarily a concept of political decision making and places the concepts of politics in the broadest sense, not merely in a narrow partly political framework. Finally, the paper examines the arguments for and against quantitative evaluation and claims that TA, used properly, can provide valuable qualitative as well as quantitative insights into the impact of processes upon the political, social and economic environment. Thus, suggesting that TA is a technique of forecasting which companies that are involved in the development of major, and therefore heavy resource-consuming, projects should consider the use of this technique as part of their appraisal process.     

Should the individual voting records of central bankers be published?

We examine whether the publication of the individual voting records of central-bank council members is socially beneficial when the public is unsure about the efficiency of central bankers and central bankers are angling for re-appointment. We show that publication is initially harmful since it creates a conflict between socially desirable and individually optimal behavior for somewhat less efficient central bankers. However, after re-appointment, losses will be lower when voting records are published since the government can distinguish highly efficient from less efficient central bankers more easily and can make central bankers individually accountable. In our model, the negative effects of voting transparency dominate, and expected overall losses are always larger when voting records are published.