A Note on the Innovation Distribution of a Gamma Distributed Autoregressive Process

A representation of the innovation random variable for a gamma distributed first-order autoregressive process was found by Lawrance (1982) in the form of a compound Poisson distribution, connected with a shot-noise process. In this note we simplify the representation of Lawrance by providing a direct representation in terms of density functions.     

A Bayesian Non-parametric Approach to Survival Analysis Using Polya Trees

This paper presents a Bayesian non-parametric approach to survival analysis based on arbitrarily right censored data. The analysis is based on posterior predictive probabilities using a Polya tree prior distribution on the space of probability measures on [0, ∞). In particular we show that the estimate generalizes the classical Kaplanndash;Meier non-parametric estimator, which is obtained in the limiting case as the weight of prior information tends to zero.     

Being responsible and responsible beings: children's understanding of responsibility

Responsibility is a key concept in policy and public debate about the lives of children and families. On the one hand, parents are assumed to take responsibility for children's well‐being; on the other, children and young people are blamed and frequently punished for “irresponsible” or anti‐social behaviour. The article deconstructs the concept of responsibility from children's perspectives. Data are taken from a pilot study of 29 children aged nine and 10 in the East Midlands, England. In‐depth interviews revealed that children assume a series of responsibilities in the home and that these are understood as an inevitable and “normal” part of daily life. Children also described the basis of “being responsible” as underscored by two core values (honesty and fairness) and indicated that responsibility was a crucial part of their moral worlds. These moral understandings were, however, malleable. They were particularly mediated by the child‐parent relationship and were constantly being negotiated and renegotiated in the home.     

What are Nice Feminists Like You Doing on the O. J. Defense Team? Personal Ruminations on the "Trial of the Century"

This paper is the subjective, anecdotal, and introspective account of the experience of two feminist psychologists who served as defense consultants in the O. J. Simpson murder trial. The authors explore the personal and professional implications of involvement in a high-profile case. They detail special problems forensic psychologists may encounter in high-profile cases and make recommendations for meeting the challenges such cases present.     

Adapting the optimal job search model for active labour market policy

Summary.  The structural theoretical framework for the analysis of duration of unemployment has been the optimal job search model. Recent advances in computational techniques in Bayesian inference now facilitate the analysis of incomplete data sets and the recovery of structural model parameters. The paper uses these methods on a UK data set of the long-term unemployed to illustrate how the optimal job search model can be adapted to model the effects of an active labour market policy. Without such an adaptation our conclusion is that the simple optimal job search model may not fit empirical unemployment data and could thus lead to a misspecified econometric model and incorrect parameter estimates.     

Employee–Employer Grievances: A Review

The focus of industrial conflict has shifted from collective confrontation to grievances between employee and employer. This narrative review encompasses a range of international research on individual employee–employer grievances. The literature is reviewed in four key stages: (1) the incidence of grievable events; (2) the employee's response to a potential grievance issue; (3) the effectiveness of grievance processing; and (4) outcomes. The incidence of grievable events cannot be estimated precisely, because most are either not pursued by the employee or are settled informally (and so not recorded). Most research has been done on the second stage, investigating when a grievance will be pursued. The theoretical frame of exit, voice and loyalty, adapted from A.O. Hirschman (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organisations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970) has been prominent, but a series of findings have challenged the validity of this model and suggest a range of competing theories which may explain the apparent conundrum of negative outcomes associated with formal grievance procedures. The role of power has regained prominence, and this is part of a fuller understanding of grievance outcomes. The focus has been on the employee perspective, and it is now timely to broaden the focus, modelling a progression through a sequence of stages and emphasizing the role of employers in designing and managing grievance processes which are effective and fair.     

Nonresidential Grandparents' Emotional and Financial Involvement in Relation to Early Adolescent Grandchild Outcomes

This study examined links between grandparents' involvement and grandchildrens' positive outcomes. Data were from 408 families taken from Time 1 and Time 2 (1 year later) of the Flourishing Families Project, which is a study involving families with a child between the ages of 10 and 14 at Time 1 (M age of child=11.30, 49% female, 82% Caucasian). Results suggested that grandparents' emotional involvement at Time 1 was positively related to adolescents' prosocial behaviors concurrently and longitudinally, for single‐ and 2‐parent families, and that grandparents' financial involvement at Time 1 was positively related to adolescents' school engagement at Time 2 (for single‐parent families). Discussion focuses on the unique importance of grandparents' involvement, even after controlling for parent–child attachment.