The Future Direction of Social Indicator Research

Social Indicators Research -     

Preface

Social Indicators Research -     

The Family

Social Indicators Research -     

LARGE DEMOGRAPHIC SHOCKS AND SMALL CHANGES IN THE MARRIAGE MARKET

Between 1958 and 1961, China experienced a drastic famine. The famine substantially reduced birth rates and also adversely affected the health of these famine‐born cohorts. This paper provides nonparametric estimates of the total effects of the famine on the marital behavior of famine‐affected cohorts in rural Sichuan and Anhui. These reduced‐form estimates incorporate general equilibrium and heterogeneous treatment effects. The paper uses the Choo–Siow model to decompose observed marital outcomes into quantity and quality effects. A decline in marital attractiveness of famine‐affected cohorts, which is correlated with an increase in marital childlessness, provides support for the external validity of the Choo–Siow decomposition. The small observed changes in marriage rates of the famine‐born cohorts are due to a substantial decline in their marital attractiveness.     

On k-th record times,record values and their moments

We give new formula for moments of k-th record values in terms of Stirling numbers of the first kind. In particular, the formulae allow to derive the explicit formulae for moments of k-th lower record values from exponential distribution which have not been known yet. Moreover, some interesting identities involving harmonic numbers are also obtained as corollaries to presented results.     

On the complete convergence for randomly indexed partial sums and the limit behaviour of a sequence of quantiles

This note contains result on the complete convergence of randomly indexed partial sums of independent non-identically distributed random variables. We use them to investigate the limit behaviour of quantiles of a sample with a random numbers of items.     

A nonparametric test for a constant correlation matrix

We propose a nonparametric procedure to test for changes in correlation matrices at an unknown point in time. The new test requires constant expectations and variances, but only mild assumptions on the serial dependence structure, and has considerable power in finite samples. We derive the asymptotic distribution under the null hypothesis of no change as well as local power results and apply the test to stock returns.     

An Assessment of America's Tobacco-Free Colleges and Universities

Abstract

Objective: This study examined the extent to which US campuses identified as “100% tobacco-free” by the American Lung Association of Oregon adhered to the American College Health Association's the most recent guidelines and recommendations promoting tobacco-free environments in colleges and universities. Participants: A key informant from 162 of 175 institutions (92.6% response rate) completed an online survey between January 2010 and February 2010. Methods: The variables under study were assessed via a cross-sectional research design. Participants completed a 35-item survey regarding their school's tobacco policies, procedures, and enforcement practices. Results: Although the vast majority of schools had written policies and procedures in place, schools with current policies were the most compliant. Numerous opportunities for improved adherence were identified in the results. Conclusions: Findings from this study may help institutions in the development and implementation of a new tobacco policy, as well as strengthen policies among existing tobacco-free schools.     

Optimal replacement strategies in network infrastructures under quality penalties

As a consequence of liberalization, electric utilities have developed different asset management strategies with the aim of reducing total maintenance costs by prolonging replacement cycles. A cost-minimizing network operator has to optimize the trade-off between costs for early replacement and quality penalties he faces in the case of outages (due to a resulting higher number of failures). The basic purpose of this paper is to identify the optimal decisions for a network operator under output-based quality regulation and to determine the main drivers for his decisions. In order to derive general insights, an analytical framework is chosen for this paper. This work builds on the foundations of optimal maintenance and replacement strategies as developed across Operations Research, Production Economics and Engineering Production Theory. As main results we are able to analytically derive optimal replacement strategies for network components depending on the characteristics of their failure distributions linked to the equipment’s cost, respective replacement cost, and quality penalties.