Nearest neighbor hazard estimation with left-truncated duration data

Duration data often suffer from both left-truncation and right-censoring. We show how both deficiencies can be overcome at the same time when estimating the hazard rate nonparametrically by kernel smoothing with the nearest-neighbor bandwidth. Smoothing Turnbull’s estimator of the cumulative hazard rate, we derive strong uniform consistency of the estimate from Hoeffding’s inequality, applied to a generalized empirical distribution function. We also apply our estimator to rating transitions of corporate loans in Germany.     

Testing for Persistence in the Error Component Model: A One-Sided Approach

This article proposes new simple testing procedures for the joint null hypothesis of absence of persistent effects, in the form of random effects and first-order serial correlation in the error component model. The fact that the presence of random effects is clearly of a one-sided nature, together with the fact that in many empirical applications researchers worry about positive serial correlation leaves room for a power gain that arises from restricting the parameter space under the alternative hypothesis, compared to existing procedures that allow for two-sided alternatives. A Monte Carlo experiment shows that the proposed statistics have good size and power performance in very small samples like those typically used in applied work in panel data. An empirical example illustrates the usefulness of the proposed statistics.     

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION AND THE INDUSTRIAL COMPOSITION OF MULTINATIONAL ACTIVITY

In a North‐South model with endogenous foreign direct investment (FDI), we examine the impact of Southern intellectual property rights (IPR) protection on the mode and industrial composition of international technology transfer. A novel feature of the model is that, due to technological reasons, industries differ with respect to their susceptibility to imitation. In equilibrium, licensing occurs in industries where the risk of imitation is low and FDI where it is of intermediate magnitude. Stronger IPRs in the South (1) alter the industrial composition of multinational activity toward licensing at the expense of FDI; (2) reduce local imitation; and (3) increase licensing and, to a lesser extent, FDI. (JEL F10, O34)     

An Analysis of Stability Sets in pure Coordination Games

We calculate the Lebesgue–measures of the stability sets of Nash-equilibria in pure coordination games. The results allow us to observe that the ordering induced by the Lebesgue–measure of stability sets upon strict Nash-equilibria does not necessarily agree with the ordering induced by risk–dominance. Accordingly, an equilibrium selection theory based on the Lebesgue–measure of stability sets would be necessarily different from one which uses the Nash-property as a point of orientation.     

Relationship characteristics of couples married thirty years or more: A four-sample replication

A secondary analysis of four samples from earlier studies was used to test two hypotheses concerning long-term marriages. First, it was hypothesized that couples from marriages of 30 years or more duration would be characterized by higher levels of relationship quality, with the overall pattern between duration of marriage and relationship quality being curvilinear; across four samples of husbands and wives, only weak support was found for this hypothesis. A second hypothesis, that elements of intrinsic communication including positive regard, empathy, and congruence would be less important for couples from older marriages, received no support. Thus, it appears that relatively intrinsic components of the marital relationship are just as important currently for older couples as they are for younger couples, in spite of popular opinion to the contrary.The preparation of this paper was supported in part by the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Contribution No. 84-516-J. Janette M. Copeland and Margaret A. Bugaighis are doctoral students, and Walter R. Schumm is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Child Development, College of Home Economics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506.     

Generalized median social welfare functions

The article considers the construction of social welfare functions when the set of alternatives is the two-dimensional nonnegative orthant, as would be the case if there are two divisible public goods which can be consumed in any nonnegative quantities. With individual and social preferences required to be linear and strictly monotonic, but otherwise unrestricted, we characterize all of the social welfare functions which satisfy binary independence of irrelevant alternatives and anonymity and which satisfy binary independence of irrelevant alternatives, anonymity, and weak Pareto. These classes of social welfare functions are shown to be formally equivalent to the classes of social choice functions characterized by Moulin in his study of strategy-proof social choice with single-peaked preferences.We are grateful to Charles Blackorby, Hervé Moulin, and an anonymous referee for their comments.     

Why sociology doesn't make progress

Stephen Cole's claim regarding certain differences between sociology and physics, and the conclusions he draws regarding the future of sociology, are discussed here. A brief comment on Randall Collins' view is also included.