Deprivation,Social Exclusion and Subjective Well-Being

This paper aims at investigating empirically the relationship between self-declared satisfaction with life and an individual’s well-being as measured by the indices of deprivation and social exclusion proposed in the income distribution literature. Results on European countries show that life satisfaction decreases with an increase in deprivation and exclusion after controlling for individual’s income, relative income and other influential factors in a multivariate setting.     

Discussion on the paper “On simulation and properties of the stable law” by L. Devroye and L. James

We congratulate the authors for the interesting paper. The reading has been really pleasant and instructive. We discuss briefly only some of the interesting results given in Devroye and James (Stat Methods Appl 2014) with particular attention to evolution problems. The contribution of the results collected in the paper is useful in a more wide class of applications in many areas of applied mathematics.     

“发展型”或“政策型”生育率下降?——基于翼城“农村二孩”试点的分析

中国生育率在过去30年持续下降至较低水平,围绕下降的主要动因及其政策涵义的争论热烈。文章以"农村二孩"试点之一的翼城为案例,重新梳理和检视了在已有研究中较为忽视的翼城试点出台的背景和政策实施细则,并从多个方面考察了翼城生育政策对生育行为和生育意愿的影响。与已有研究对翼城试点的认识不同,政策文献回顾表明:"农村二孩"生育政策只是在初婚时间、生育子女数和生育间隔方面做出一些技术性"调整"以缓解国情与民情的矛盾,并没有实质性地改变实施计划生育这一基本国策的初衷。多维度数据分析交叉印证了在实施限制性的生育政策以后,社会经济发展变量不能解释生育率的下降,翼城现有生育行为和生育意愿更多是政策干预的结果,是政策促成的外生性转变,而非由于社会经济发展导致低生育意愿的内生性转变。     

DOES HIGH COST OF MORTGAGE DEBT EXPLAIN WHY YOUNG ADULTS LIVE WITH THEIR PARENTS?

Young adults leave their parents' homes at a higher rate in Northern Europe or in the United States than in Southern Europe, with broad implications on labor market mobility and on fertility. We assess if differences in household formation are associated to differences in access to credit by estimating the impact of the cost of a mortgage on the probability that a young adult leaves his or her parents' home. Exogenous changes in the cost of credit are identified using the reform in 1998 and the cancellation in 2002 of Crédito Bonificado, a Portuguese program that provided four different reductions of the interest rate of mortgages signed by low‐ and medium‐income youth. Using a unique data set that links administrative records of debt with the 1998–2004 waves of the Employment Survey, we document three findings. First, borrowing among young adults fell when borrowing costs increased. Second, the elasticity of new household formation with respect to net interest rates lies between −0.8 and −3.3. Third, young adults responded to the increase in mortgage costs by delaying home purchases or by reducing the quality of housing services purchased, but there was only a modest increase of the probability of renting a new accommodation. (JEL: D91, H24, J13)     

Separating curvature and elevation: A parametric probability weighting function

This paper presents a preference foundation for a two-parameter family of probability weighting functions. We provide a theoretical link between the well-established notions of probabilistic risk attitudes (i.e., optimism and pessimism) used in economics and the important independent measures for individual behavior used in the psychology literature (i.e., curvature and elevation). One of the parameters in our model measures curvature and represents the diminishing effect of optimism and pessimism when moving away from extreme probabilities 0 and 1. The other parameter measures elevation and represents the relative strength of optimism vs. pessimism. Our empirical analysis indicates that the new weighting function fits elicited probability weights well, and that it can explain differences in the treatment of probabilities for gains compared to that for probabilities of losses.     

(Un)available upon request: field experiment on researchers' willingness to share supplementary materials

This article reports results of a field experiment in which two hundred e-mails were sent to authors of recent articles in economics that had promised to send the interested reader supplementary material, such as alternative econometric specifications, "upon request." The e-mails were sent either by a researcher affiliated at Columbia University, New York or the University of Warsaw, Poland; furthermore, the authors' position (assistant professor) was specified in half the e-mails only. Overall, 64% of the approached authors responded to our message, of which two thirds (44% of the entire sample) delivered the requested materials. The frequency and speed of responding and delivering were very weakly affected by the position and affiliation of the sender. Gender or affiliation of the author, number of citations or journal impact factor or the type of object in question seemed to make no difference. However, authors of published articles were much more likely to share than authors of working papers.     

我国地区R&D资本存量测算：1978-2015年

2008年国民账户体系（System of National Accounts, SNA）拓展了固定资产的边界,研发（Research and Development, R&D）被视为一类新的固定资产,列入了知识产权产品。目前,官方统计并未给出中国各地区的R&D资本存量数据,现有文献也鲜有讨论2008年SNA框架下的相关测算。因此,本文依据2008年SNA和现有的统计资料,在合理估计1978年以来各地区的当期R&D投资的基础上,采用永续盘存法科学测算了1978-2015年各地区的R&D资本存量数据。结果显示：1978年以来,中国各地区R&D资本存量总体上呈快速上升趋势;各地区R&D资本存量年均增速与各地区GDP年均增速,具有正相关关系;中国的R&D资本存量主要由东部地区贡献,东部地区是中国研发创新的主要区域。     

How complex is your love? The case of romantic compromises and polyamory

This article highlights a somewhat neglected aspect of love (and of emotions in general): their complexity. We suggest distinguishing between three major related types of emotional complexity: emotional diversity, emotional ambivalence, and emotional behavior. The notion of emotional complexity has far‐reaching implications for understanding emotions and our wellbeing. This is illustrated by examining the notion of emotional complexity in two common yet complex phenomena in the romantic realm: romantic compromises and polyamory.     

Improving Permanency: Caseworker Perspectives of Older Youth in Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement

Researchers conducted focus groups with 52 child welfare caseworkers across five county child welfare agencies to understand their approach to working with and views about outcomes for youth in Another Permanent Planned Living Arrangement (APPLA). Analysis of the focus groups yielded five themes, including (a) youth and family factors contributing to APPLA as a case designation, (b) caseload intensity relative to this specific population, (c) perceptions of organizational support, (d) lack of focus on legal permanency, and (e) overemphasis on independent living services. The range of viewpoints from these child welfare professionals spoke to the complexities of addressing the needs for older youth in care and to identifying strategies to improve permanency outcomes for this population. The implications for practices that account for individual, organizational, and systemic factors impacting legal permanency for older youth are discussed.