Regression analysis with partially labelled regressors: carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin

The twelve results from the 1988 radio carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin show surprising heterogeneity. We try to explain this lack of homogeneity by regression on spatial coordinates. However, although the locations of the samples sent to the three laboratories involved are known, the locations of the 12 subsamples within these samples are not. We consider all 387,072 plausible spatial allocations and analyse the resulting distributions of statistics. Plots of robust regression residuals from the forward search indicate that some sets of allocations are implausible. We establish the existence of a trend in the results and suggest how better experimental design would have enabled stronger conclusions to have been drawn from this multi-centre experiment.     

A gender story of institutional disengagement of young adults in Latin America

Latin America is home to many young adults who are neither engaged in formal education nor work, controversially dubbed as “nini” (“ni” trabajan “ni” estudian, denoting neither working nor studying). At the same time, early union formation and parenthood are pervasive in the region. Theories pertaining to the linkage between parenthood and female labor force participation are heavily based on evidence found in the Global North, with limited research on the topic in settings with less stable family structures, such as Latin American countries. This study tests the role household structure and family formation play on institutional disengagement of young adults in 12 Latin American countries. We explore the gender dynamic of human capital stagnation by focusing on early parenthood and conjugal partnership for women and men aged 20–25. We use censuses from the Integrated Public-Use Microdata Series and country-specific linear regression models. Our results reveal that the intersection of class and gender is a major determinant of institutional disengagement in the region. Women from lower social origins who leave parental home to enter conjugal union and parenthood at younger ages are particularly at risk. This study highlights the urgency of contextualizing the interplay between work and family within the framework of regional family norms, prompting further dialogues concerning the social implications of perceived inactivity.     

Art dealers as competitors and community builders: Understanding the overlapping social logics of the contemporary art world

Art dealers are often described as gatekeepers who are focused on their own position as well as the status of their artists and collectors. We argue that this is an incomplete account of art dealing. The goal of this article is to explain how art dealing is a “toolkit” that does not exclusively focus on status building and social capital, but also includes behavior associated with accessing the visual arts field and community development. First, art dealers often have a background that has strong social ties to art, which provides them with intimate knowledge of the art world and social connections with artists, collectors, and other art world actors. For that reason, entry into art dealing reflects intimate knowledge of art practices, what we call “proximate connoisseurship.” Second, art dealerships reflect both competitive and communal factors. Art dealers may choose to work with artists based on their ability to generate income, social capital, and prestige (“competitive logic”), but art dealers may also employ a “communal logic” focused on friendships and creating community. This theory of art dealers is illustrated with excerpts from interviews with 34 dealers randomly selected from the rosters of international art fairs such as Art Basel Miami, EXPO Chicago, Aqua, and the New Art Dealers Alliance show.     

A Subjective Spin on Roulette Wheels

We provide a simple behavioral definition of ‘subjective mixture’ of acts for a large class of (not necessarily expected‐utility) preferences. Subjective mixtures enjoy the same algebraic properties as the ‘objective mixtures’ used to great advantage in the decision setting introduced by Anscombe and Aumann (1963). This makes it possible to formulate mixture‐space axioms in a fully subjective setting. For illustration, we present simple subjective axiomatizations of some models of choice under uncertainty, including Bewley's model of choice with incomplete preferences (2002).     

From local champions to global players: A long-term perspective on Swiss companies’ connections across territorial scales

Corporate interlocking at the national and transnational scale has received substantive scholarly attention. Less is known about companies’ ties to the cities and regions in which they have their seats. In this paper, we conduct a long-term analysis of the multilevel ties that companies maintain with the local and the national context they are embedded in. To do so, we adopt a positional approach and identify the directors of the major companies in the three largest Swiss cities (Basel, Geneva, and Zurich) and study company directors’ ties to local and national organizations in seven benchmark years between 1890 and 2020. Our analysis documents the rise and fall of company directors’ ties to national organizations over the course of the 20th century, and it highlights the continued persistence of companies’ ties to the local level and their region until the new millennium, when companies’ ties with national and local organizations vanish, coinciding with the transnationalization of company boards.