Prohibition,Regulation or Free Market: A Mapping of Colombian People’s Perspectives Regarding National Drug Policies

Colombian laypersons’ perspectives regarding actual and potential drug policies were examined. Adults (N = 395) aged 18–68 and living in Bogota were presented with 24 vignettes that were composed according to two within-subject orthogonal factor designs: (a) Demand for drugs in the country × Current government policy regarding soft and hard drugs (from “laissez faire” policy for all drugs to complete prohibition of all drugs) and (b) Information campaigns regarding the dangerousness of drugs × Current policy. Participants rated the level of acceptability of each policy. Seven different perspectives were identified that can be grouped into five broad views. The first one (50 % of participants) was called “radical constructionists” because participants considered that all policies were unacceptable. The second one (19 %) was called “cultural conservatives” because only one drug policy was considered fully acceptable: complete prohibition (although half of the members of this group were willing to allow soft drugs to be sold freely). The third one (14 %) was called “progressive prohibitionists” because the preferred policies in this group were either complete prohibition or complete regulation by the government. The fourth one (8 %) was called “free trade libertarians” because the dominant opinion was that the drug market should be free. The last one (5 %) was called “progressive advocates of legalization” because the preferred policy in this group was complete regulation of all substances. In most cases, the presence of information campaigns was highly valued. Methodological implications and implications for decision-makers are discussed.     

Settlers,target-earners,young professionals. Distinct migrant types,distinct integration trajectories?

In this article, we start out from theoretical concepts about different types of migrants that feature prominently in the immigration literature. By applying latent class analysis to a unique ‘mini-panel’ data set on recent Polish and Turkish immigrants in Germany, we identify two types of migrants that are in line with the literature, namely settlers and target-earners. We label a third group that is best described as educational target-earners: ‘young learners/professionals’. Regarding variation in these groups’ early sociocultural integration patterns, results suggest that they reflect primarily differences in migrants’ intention to stay, individual resources such as education, and opportunities for integration related to newcomers’ involvement in the educational system or labour force. In sum, migrant types – though certainly more intuitively appealing and vivid than single ‘variables’ – seem to have limited explanatory power when it comes to predicting newcomers’ early integration trajectories.     

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     

Initiating Senior Co-Housing: People,Place, andLong-Term Security

Abstract

An increasing proportion of older people are unable to afford rental or purchase of age-appropriate residential accommodation in Australia. This article reports on a community-initiated research project investigating feasibility of affordable co-housing for older residents wishing to age in their community. Factors enabling successful co-housing for seniors were investigated through a systematic literature review. The multiphase participatory research approach drew on the knowledge of local seniors, community support workers, and planning and design professionals through workshops and interviews in a regional community in southeast Queensland. The findings demonstrate interest in and barriers to senior co-housing. The research engagement approach enables tailored solutions for individual long-term security, relevant to small communities in Australia.     

Joint decisions on household membership and human capital accumulation of youths. The role of expected earnings and local markets

This paper analyses the effects of expected earnings and local markets conditions on the behaviour of young adults with high school diplomas. Decisions to either remain in the parental home or form a new household are modelled jointly with those of either gaining work experience or investing in a university education. Expected lifetime earnings are found to play a crucial role in determining the choice of studying and residing with parents. Poor labour market opportunities discourage young people from working and induce them to study. The cost of housing greatly influences the choice of working and leaving the parental home. Received: 23 March 2001/Accepted: 26 November 2001 All correspondence to Gianna Claudia Giannelli. Helpful comments by two anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. Responsible editor: John F. Ermisch.     

Retailer Transshipment versus Central Depot Allocation for Supply Network Design

We consider a supply chain structure with shipments from an external warehouse directly to retailers and compare two enhancement options: costly transshipment among retailers after demand has been realized vs. cost‐free allocation to the retailers from the development of a centralized depot. Stochastic programming models are developed for both the transshipment and allocation structures. We study the impact of cost parameters and demand coefficient of variation on both system structures. Our results show an increasing convex relationship between average costs and demand coefficient of variation, and furthermore that this increase is more pronounced for the allocation structure. We employ simulation and nonlinear search techniques to computationally compare the cost performance of allocation and transshipment structures under a wide range of system parameters such as demand uncertainty and correlation; lead times from the external warehouse to retailers, from warehouse to central depot, and from depot to retailers; and transshipment, holding, and penalty costs. The transshipment approach is found to outperform allocation for a broad range of parameter inputs including many situations for which transshipment is not an economically sound decision for a single period. The insights provided enable the manager to choose whether to invest in reducing lead times or demand uncertainty and assist in the selection of investments across identical and nonidentical retailers.     

Estimating and comparing adverse event probabilities in the presence of varying follow-up times and competing events

Safety analyses of adverse events (AEs) are important in assessing benefit–risk of therapies but are often rather simplistic compared to efficacy analyses. AE probabilities are typically estimated by incidence proportions, sometimes incidence densities or Kaplan–Meier estimation are proposed. These analyses either do not account for censoring, rely on a too restrictive parametric model, or ignore competing events. With the non-parametric Aalen-Johansen estimator as the “gold standard”, that is, reference estimator, potential sources of bias are investigated in an example from oncology and in simulations, for both one-sample and two-sample scenarios. The Aalen-Johansen estimator serves as a reference, because it is the proper non-parametric generalization of the Kaplan–Meier estimator to multiple outcomes. Because of potential large variances at the end of follow-up, comparisons also consider further quantiles of the observed times. To date, consequences for safety comparisons have hardly been investigated, the impact of using different estimators for group comparisons being unclear. For example, the ratio of two both underestimating or overestimating estimators may not be comparable to the ratio of the reference, and our investigation also considers the ratio of AE probabilities. We find that ignoring competing events is more of a problem than falsely assuming constant hazards by the use of the incidence density and that the choice of the AE probability estimator is crucial for group comparisons.     

DOING IT WHEN OTHERS DO: A STRATEGIC MODEL OF PROCRASTINATION

This paper develops a strategic model of procrastination in which present‐biased agents prefer to perform an onerous task with someone else. This turns their decision of when to perform the task into a procrastination game—a dynamic coordination game between present‐biased players. The model characterizes the conditions under which interaction mitigates or exacerbates procrastination. A procrastinator matched with a worse procrastinator may perform her task earlier than she otherwise would: she wants to avoid the increased temptation that her peer's company would generate. Procrastinators can thus use bad company as a commitment device to mitigate their self‐control problem. (JEL C72, C73, D03, D91)     

School Readiness of Children of Immigrants: Does Parental Involvement Play a Role?*

Objectives. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort, this article analyzes the link between parental involvement and the school readiness of children of immigrants. Methods. Multivariate regression models estimate the association between parental involvement and the school readiness in English proficiency and math scores of children of immigrants. They also estimate the impact of this association on the gap in math scores between children of immigrants and children of natives. Results. Results demonstrate that parental involvement is associated with an increase in the level of English proficiency for children of immigrants. Parental involvement also is associated with a decrease in the gap in math scores between immigrant children from English‐ and non‐English‐speaking backgrounds. Parental involvement decreases the gap in math scores between children of immigrants and children of the native born by a third of a standard deviation. Conclusion. Given that parental involvement appears to benefit children of immigrants and given that they have lower academic achievement than children of the native born, these findings suggest that parental involvement policies and practices targeting children of immigrants could help decrease the academic achievement gap between children of immigrants and children of the native born.     

Die Einführung von Mitarbeiter/innengesprächen an österreichischen Universitäten

The introduction of staff appraisal interviews in Austrian Universities This paper addresses the issue of the obligatory introduction of staff appraisal interviews in the Austrian higher education system after the implementation the law ?UG 2002“ (University Law 2002). It focuses on the cultural change process from the old university management system to a nowadays prevalent ?management by objectives“. After the introduction of the ?UG 2002“ Austrian Universities are forced to be more competitive with one another, hence an academic market is opened. Ultimately this leads to a cultural break. This is the reason why we discuss the possibilities and limitations of the implementation of appraisal interviews and target agreements from different angles. The diverse perspectives will be a theory of communication, a theory of organizations and a psychodynamic standpoint.