中国的马克斯·穆勒——记季羡林先生

马克斯·穆勒是闻名于世的语言学家和印度学家.季羡林先生也是闻名于世的语言学家和印度学家.印度德里大学知名学者哈拉普拉萨德*雷易教授认为,季羡林先生在学术方面代表了自己的时代,拓宽了我们许多人的视野,使得我们能够看到佛教与印中友谊的深刻意义.他还认为,对于我们所处的这个世界,季羡林先生的贡献无论在学术进步方面还是印中关系方面,都将同样长期有所裨益.原文系英文,载于1998年8月17日印度<政治家报>文学增刊头版.今年是季羡林先生94周岁华诞,特译此文以表祝贺.文章副题系译者所拟,所附脚注亦为译者所加.     

An Extension of a Measure of Polarization, with an application to the income distribution of five OECD countries

We introduce an extension of the Esteban and Ray [Econometrica, 62:819–851 1994] measure of polarization that can be applied to density functions. As a by-product we also derive the Wolfson [Am. Econ. Rev., 84:353–358 1994] measure as a special case. This derivation has the virtue of casting both measures in the context of a (statistically) unified framework. We study the polarization of the distribution of household income for five OECD countries (LIS database): US, UK, Canada, Germany and Sweden. The present paper is essentially based on Esteban, Gradín and Ray [9], published as #218 in the working papers series of the Luxembourg Income Study. Changes have been kept to a minimum. We have provided a brief reference to the literature on polarization measurement that has appeared since then and have updated the data of our application.     

An Agenda for the Future: Student Portfolios in Social Work Education

Portfolios have been used in a variety of academic settings for outcomes measures and to present students' best work. This article introduces the idea of electronic portfolios to be used with social work majors both in the graduate and undergraduate curriculums. The literature around portfolios, an explanation of our process and the points to consider regarding pursuing an electronic portfolios process are addressed.     

Beta estimation in the market model: skewness and leptokurtosis

Leptokurtosis and skewness characterize the distributions of the returns for many financial instruments traded in security markets. These departures from normality can adversely affect the efficiency of least squares estimates of the β's in the single index or market model. The proposed new partially adaptive estimation techniques accommodate skewed and fat tailed distributions. The empirical investigation, which is the first application of this procedure in regression models, reveals that both skewness and kurtosis can affect β estimates.     

Labor-use efficiency in Indian banking: A branch-level analysis

This paper uses data envelopment analysis to measure labor-use efficiency of individual branches of a large public sector bank with a sizable network of branches across India. We find considerable variation in the average levels of efficiency of bank branches across the four metropolitan regions considered in this study. In this context, we introduce the concept of area or spatial efficiency for each region relative to the nation as a whole. Our findings suggest that the policies, procedures, and incentives handed down from the corporate level cannot fully neutralize the detrimental influence of the local work culture across different regions. Most of the potential reduction in labor cost appears to be coming from possible downsizing in the clerical and subordinate staff. Our analysis identifies branches that operate at very low levels of labor-use efficiency and possible candidates for increased supervision and control.     

Social and psychological resources among homeless youth: protection against risk for physical victimization?

ABSTRACT

This study examines child physical abuse, social and psychological resources, and street physical victimization among 150 homeless youth from the Midwest. Path analyses results show that males have higher self-efficacy than females, while older youth and those who experienced less child physical abuse reported higher self-esteem. Self-efficacy and self-esteem were positively associated with social support as was being younger and having experienced less child physical abuse. Younger respondents reported fewer difficulties obtaining basic necessities, and those who had less trouble finding these necessities experienced less street physical victimization. Females, younger youth, and those who experienced less child physical abuse reported lower rates of physical victimization. Agencies should be aware that many youth experiencing homelessness have trouble obtaining basic necessities, which increases risk for victimization. Moreover, the ability to obtain necessities appears to override the influential role of social support, further affirming the foundational importance of agencies helping youth meet their basic needs.