Teen Childbearing and Educational Attainment: A Comparison of Methods

This research examines the impact of teenage childbearing on secondary school completion, while focusing on the problem of causal ambiguity in the relationships among self-determined behaviours. Techniques for dealing with the teenage childbearing problem are discussed, and results from these methods are compared. Data from the High School and Beyond Study on young women (n = 5257) who were enrolled as sophomores in sample schools in February 1980 and who had not given birth before November 1980 are used. Results indicate that teen childbearing reduces the probability of completing high school by 8% to 10%. Some evidence suggests that programs that target reduction of teen childbearing in improving young women's education and subsequent economic and labor force outcomes.     

Beyond Identity: Queer Values and Community

This essay traces the movement within the LGBT community from relying on identity politics to considering a politics of value as a political and community-forming strategy. In the process, the author uses the work of Michel Foucault to think through how the articulation of shared values might open up personal, communal, and political possibilities otherwise delimited when LGBT people think of themselves within the confines of separate, and often separating, identity categories.     

Implicit prejudicial biases in student learning: the effects of sexual orientation

In an investigation of students' potential biases toward gay and lesbian instructors, 93 female and 59 male undergraduates viewed a lecture, rated the instructor and perceived learning, and completed a lecture-retention test. Lectures were given by a man or woman, identified as straight or gay or lesbian. Sexual orientation did not affect the instructor evaluation or perceived learning ratings for any of the groups. Although sexual orientation did not affect the lecture-retention scores for the female students, learning by the male students was significantly lower with the gay male instructor than with the straight male instructor (p = .03), suggesting an implicit bias.     

A future agenda for research on climate change and human mobility

In the past 15 years, research activities focusing on the interlinkages between climate change and human mobility have intensified. At the same time, an increasing number of actors and processes have sought to address human mobility in the context of climate change from a policy perspective. Hitherto, research has been limited in terms of geographical preferences as well as conceptual and methodological focus areas. This paper argues that to address the evolving policy space, future research on climate change in the context of human mobility needs to become more differentiated, integrated and generalized. This includes concerted efforts to better integrate researchers from the global South, improved cross-linkages between different datasets, approaches and disciplines, more longitudinal and comparative studies and development of innovative qualitative and quantitative methods.     

Endogeneity in Threshold Nonlinearity Tests

This article shows the conditions under which endogeneity of a regressor variable does not affect threshold nonlinearity tests. Inference on the values of the parameters derived from standard statistics is also appropriate. Simulation techniques are used to approximate the p-value of the test. Monte Carlo simulations confirm the validity of Wald tests in the presence of endogeneity in the regressors.     

A Bottom-Up Dynamic Model of Portfolio Credit Risk with Stochastic Intensities and Random Recoveries

In Bielecki et al. (2014a Bielecki , T. R. , Cousin , A. , Crépey , S. , Herbertsson , A. ( 2014a ). Dynamic hedging of portfolio credit risk in a markov copula model . J. Optimiz. Theor. Applic . doi: DOI 10.1007/s10957-013-0318-4 (forthcoming) .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), the authors introduced a Markov copula model of portfolio credit risk where pricing and hedging can be done in a sound theoretical and practical way. Further theoretical backgrounds and practical details are developed in Bielecki et al. (2014b Bielecki , T. R. , Cousin , A. , Crépey , S. , Herbertsson , A. ( 2014b ). A bottom-up dynamic model of portfolio credit risk - Part I: Markov copula perspective . In: Recent Adv. Fin. Eng. 2012 , World Scientific (preprint version available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1844574) . [Google Scholar],c) where numerical illustrations assumed deterministic intensities and constant recoveries. In the present paper, we show how to incorporate stochastic default intensities and random recoveries in the bottom-up modeling framework of Bielecki et al. (2014a Bielecki , T. R. , Cousin , A. , Crépey , S. , Herbertsson , A. ( 2014a ). Dynamic hedging of portfolio credit risk in a markov copula model . J. Optimiz. Theor. Applic . doi: DOI 10.1007/s10957-013-0318-4 (forthcoming) .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) while preserving numerical tractability. These two features are of primary importance for applications like CVA computations on credit derivatives (Assefa et al., 2011 Assefa , S. , Bielecki , T. R. , Crépey , S. , Jeanblanc , M. ( 2011 ). CVA computation for counterparty risk assessment in credit portfolios . In: Bielecki , T.R. , Brigo , D. , Patras , F. , Eds., Credit Risk Frontiers . Hoboken : Wiley/Bloomberg-Press . [Google Scholar]; Bielecki et al., 2012 Bielecki , T. R. , Crépey , S. , Jeanblanc , M. , Zargari , B. ( 2012 ). Valuation and Hedging of CDS counterparty exposure in a markov copula model . Int. J. Theoret. Appl. Fin. 15 ( 1 ): 1250004 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), as CVA is sensitive to the stochastic nature of credit spreads and random recoveries allow to achieve satisfactory calibration even for “badly behaved” data sets. This article is thus a complement to Bielecki et al. (2014a Bielecki , T. R. , Cousin , A. , Crépey , S. , Herbertsson , A. ( 2014a ). Dynamic hedging of portfolio credit risk in a markov copula model . J. Optimiz. Theor. Applic . doi: DOI 10.1007/s10957-013-0318-4 (forthcoming) .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Bielecki et al. (2014b Bielecki , T. R. , Cousin , A. , Crépey , S. , Herbertsson , A. ( 2014b ). A bottom-up dynamic model of portfolio credit risk - Part I: Markov copula perspective . In: Recent Adv. Fin. Eng. 2012 , World Scientific (preprint version available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1844574) . [Google Scholar]) and Bielecki et al. (2014c Bielecki , T. R. , Cousin , A. , Crépey , S. , Herbertsson , A. ( 2014c ). A bottom-up dynamic model of portfolio credit risk - Part II: Common-shock interpretation, calibration and hedging issues . Recent Adv. Fin. Eng. 2012 , World Scientific (preprint version available at http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2245130) . [Google Scholar]).     

Kann zu viel Kundenorientierung nachteilig sein? Eine Analyse der Wirkung der Kundenorientierung von Verkäufern auf die Kaufentscheidung

Zusammenfassung  In diesem Beitrag wird analysiert, wie das kundenorientierte Verk?uferverhalten auf die Kaufentscheidung der Kunden wirkt. Die Analyse erfolgt auf der Ebene der Dimensionen des kundenorientierten Verkaufens, namentlich Entscheidungsunterstützung, Aufbau eines positiven Gespr?chsklimas und Vermeidung von Abschlussdruck. Die Ergebnisse best?tigen die indirekte Wirkung des kundenorientierten Verkaufens auf die Kaufentscheidung über die Beratungszufriedenheit. Daneben k?nnen sowohl ein direkter umgekehrt u-f?rmiger Effekt der Vermeidung von Abschlussdruck auf die Kaufentscheidung als auch ein direkter negativer Einfluss des Aufbaus eines positiven Gespr?chsklimas auf die Kaufentscheidung nachgewiesen werden. Zudem zeigt sich, dass der Aufbau eines positiven Gespr?chsklimas den st?rksten Einfluss auf die Beratungszufriedenheit ausübt.

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Can too much customer orientation be less effective? An analysis of the effects of customer-oriented selling on customers’ decision to buy

Summary  This research investigates the effects of customer-oriented selling on customers’ decision to buy. In so doing, the focus of the analysis is on the effects of the dimensions of customer-oriented selling, namely supporting customer decision-making, building a positive interaction climate, and avoiding pressure to close the sale. The findings of an empirical study support an indirect effect of customer-oriented selling on customers’ decision to buy through customer satisfaction with the sales interaction. The results also support a direct inverted u-shaped effect of avoiding pressure to close the sale on customers’ decision to buy as well as a direct negative effect of building a positive interaction climate on customers’ decision to buy. And building a positive interaction climate was found to have the strongest effect on customer satisfaction with the sales interaction.

Der Autor dankt den zwei anonymen Gutachtern für die wertvollen Anmerkungen und Anregungen zu einer früheren Version dieses Beitrags.     

Optimal jury design for homogeneous juries with correlated votes

In a homogeneous jury, in which each vote is correct with the same probability, and each pair of votes correlates with the same correlation coefficient, there exists a correlation-robust voting quota, such that the probability of a correct verdict is independent of the correlation coefficient. For positive correlation, an increase in the correlation coefficient decreases the probability of a correct verdict for any voting rule below the correlation-robust quota, and increases that probability for any above the correlation-robust quota. The jury may be less competent under the correlation-robust rule than under simple majority rule and less competent under simple majority rule than a single juror alone. The jury is always less competent than a single juror under unanimity rule.     

Pair‐copula constructions for non‐Gaussian DAG models

We propose a new type of multivariate statistical model that permits non‐Gaussian distributions as well as the inclusion of conditional independence assumptions specified by a directed acyclic graph. These models feature a specific factorisation of the likelihood that is based on pair‐copula constructions and hence involves only univariate distributions and bivariate copulas, of which some may be conditional. We demonstrate maximum‐likelihood estimation of the parameters of such models and compare them to various competing models from the literature. A simulation study investigates the effects of model misspecification and highlights the need for non‐Gaussian conditional independence models. The proposed methods are finally applied to modeling financial return data. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 40: 86–109; 2012 © 2012 Statistical Society of Canada