Out-of-Sample Forecast Tests Robust to the Choice of Window Size

This article proposes new methodologies for evaluating economic models’ out-of-sample forecasting performance that are robust to the choice of the estimation window size. The methodologies involve evaluating the predictive ability of forecasting models over a wide range of window sizes. The study shows that the tests proposed in the literature may lack the power to detect predictive ability and might be subject to data snooping across different window sizes if used repeatedly. An empirical application shows the usefulness of the methodologies for evaluating exchange rate models’ forecasting ability.     

Keeping a Home: Changing Mortgage Markets and Regional Economic Distress

Abstract

In the relatively affluent post World War II period, homeownership in the United States has risen steadily to include an increasing segment of the working class. Although the extension of homeownership has helped to attenuate some of the inequalities of class and to integrate the more affluent segments of the working class into the social and political mainstream, economic and political events are threatening this historic trend. Dependent upon long term financing, homeownership has two components: keeping as well as buying a home. High and persistent rates of unemployment in old industrial areas have meant the loss of stable incomes for skilled workers, and with it, rising rates of home mortgage delinquency and foreclosure. To examine the threat to continued homeownership, this paper locates homeownership in its structural context, at the intersection of major changes in financial institutions (deregulation) as well as local economic and industrial change.

Our research suggests that regional economic difficulties are being exaccerbated by national deregulatory trends. We found that deregulation has facilitated a general movement from a local to a nonlocal mortgage market. This includes the growth and privatization of the secondary mortgage market and the repositioning of lenders in the local market. We found that delinquent homeowners with locally held and serviced mortgages were better able to negotiate forebearance with their lenders for reasons ranging from the ability to exert public pressure to the economic self-interest of local lenders. Except for FHA mortgages, delinquent homeowners with nonlocal mortgages were penalized. For blue collar workers, the loss of a home more than the loss of a job removes an important class buffer thus reversing a post World War II trend.     

Formative research methods to understand patient and provider responses to heart attack symptoms

Formative research is often required for program planning, and for reducing uncertainty about generalizability of program effects. This article describes and justifies methods of formative research conducted for the REACT study (Rapid Early Action for Coronary Treatment), a multi-center collaborative randomized community trial aimed at reducing patient delay in seeking care for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Formative research cast light on patient and community members’ decision-making process in seeking help for AMI, as well as barriers and facilitators of this process. Investigators at all five REACT Field Centers participated in the formative research. The process consisted of: (1) developing a common theoretical framework for the study intervention; (2) conducting a literature review and qualitative research to identify and address gaps in knowledge; and (3) developing a common protocol for the REACT study that accommodated the diversity of the target communities in terms of services, resources, history, and ethnicity. Analysis employed triangulation, defined as an explicit search for heterogeneous data sources to reduce uncertainty about forces at work and opportunities for intervention across settings and populations. Because the collection and interpretation of data went in stages, staff of several REACT Field Centers had independent input to the overall synthesis, then shared and revised the results. Advantages and limitations of this approach are discussed.     

T-optimum designs for discrimination between two multiresponse dynamic models

Summary.  The paper is concerned with a problem of finding an optimum experimental design for discriminating between two rival multiresponse models. The criterion of optimality that we use is based on the sum of squares of deviations between the models and picks up the design points for which the divergence is maximum. An important part of our criterion is an additional vector of experimental conditions, which may affect the design. We give the necessary conditions for the design and the additional parameters of the experiment to be optimum, we present the algorithm for the numerical optimization procedure and we show the relevance of these methods to dynamic systems, especially to chemical kinetic models.     

Problems and good practice in post-compulsory educational provision for Travellers: The Wakefield Kushti project

This paper considers the work of the Wakefield Local Education Authority (LEA) Kushti Project in the UK. This project, focused on the Traveller population in England, is aimed specifically at the post-16 Traveller population in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Generally, the paper considers the project in three broad areas: recruitment, retention and achievement and progression. The results of the project point to the very complex challenges that educators face in their attempts to improve educational provision for Traveller families.     

Mutual Contributions of Individuals, Partners, and Institutions: Planning to Remember in Girl Scout Cookie Sales

This paper argues that planning entails distributed, mutual contributions of individuals, their social partners, and their community institutions. We suggest that these mutually involved contributions can be viewed through shifts in focus of analysis, contrasting with analyses of cognitive development that treat individuals as though they exist apart from their social and cultural worlds. We illustrate this argument with a study examining the distributed nature of planning to remember in a complex everyday task. We investigated the personal, interpersonal, and institutional cognitive contributions of 16 Girl Scouts, their mothers and customers and other companions, and institutions (the national organization and the cookie company) in keeping track of deliveries and planning collection of money in Girl Scout cookie sales and deliveries. The article also discusses an analytic methodology (Functional Pattern Analysis) for abstracting findings from the details of rich ethnographic data. Individual scouts, their mothers, customers, and the scouting organization and cookie company all played significant roles in keeping track of progress. In particular, tools and supports provided by the cookie company played a key role in organizing the cognitive tasks, and the scouts collaborated in planning with other people (usually their mothers and customers). Our findings illustrate the importance of examining contributions beyond those of the individual, while still recognizing the active roles of individuals in thinking. We argue that conceiving of individual, interpersonal, and institutional/cultural contributions as mutually constituting aspects of cognitive activities supports this aim beyond the usual focus on separate individual and ‘external’ factors.     

Perceptions and expectations of price changes and inflation: A review and conceptual framework

Drawing on relevant literature from a diverse range of academic disciplines we present a conceptual framework intended to further our understanding of perceptions and expectations of price changes and inflation. Based on this framework, we provide a detailed review of the literature and an analysis of open issues in current research. The review is primarily concerned with individuals’ perceptions and expectations of price changes and inflation, which can influence individuals’ economic behaviour (e.g. spending and saving decisions). The main insight from the review is that while consumers may have a limited ability to store and recall specific prices, and even succumb to a number of biases in the way in which they form perceptions and expectations of global price changes, they do seem to have some feel for, and ability to judge and forecast, inflation. How they achieve this, however, is still an open question, although plausible explanations have been proposed. While much important research has been undertaken and significant progress made in our understanding of the psychology of inflation, there remain many unanswered questions and interesting avenues for future research, which are discussed in the final part of the paper.     

Measuring components of family planning program effort

The measures of family planning program effort developed by Lapham and Mauldin have played a key role in family planning program analysis, but surprisingly little is known about them. This article investigates the measurement of family planning program effort based on data reflecting conditions circa 1982 in 100 developing countries. Using confirmatory factor analytic techniques, it tests some hypotheses implicit in the work of Mauldin and Lapham. Since the data do not fully support these hypotheses, an alternative conceptualization is proposed that consists of eight rather than four components. The discussion focuses on the expanded set of components and includes an assessment of the empirical indicators associated with them.