The Cost of High Unemployment

In response to R. A. B. Leaper's challenge in the last issue of this journal we present a report which we have just prepared for the BBC North-East. We believe that a better understanding of the costs of high unemployment to the country is needed to inform decisions on how much we can afford to pay to tackle the problem. In the final section of the paper we show how this evidence can be of value in costing policy options.
The last detailed costings of unemployment were published in 1982 for the financial year 1981/82. In February 1982 it appears that a political decision was taken not to publish the latest Treasury estimate updating their 1981 calculations. Since then numerous parliamentary questions on the subject have received very limited answers disputing the validity of the whole exercise.     

An Empirical Investigation of Corporate Citizenship in Australia and Turkey *

This paper describes a study of corporate citizenship practices and its relationship to dimensions of internal and external corporate culture, customer loyalty and organizational commitment. Empirical data was collected from a cross‐industry sample in Turkey and Australia using a questionnaire form developed and validated for other cultures. It was shown that Australian and Turkish firms' practices differed significantly on a number of important variables, but also that it is possible to compare corporate citizenship practices in a way that is not culture‐specific.     

Examining the Impact of Changes in Maternal Employment on High School Completion Among Low-Income Youth

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and decisions about its re-authorization have resurrected interest in the impact of maternal employment on child outcomes in poor families. The emerging evidence suggests that employment stability among former welfare recipients is a key factor in making successful transitions from welfare to work. This investigation explores how changes in maternal employment in poor families relate to high school completion among at risk youths. Our findings show that a substantial number of mothers experience unstable employment patterns. This instability is positively correlated with dropout among adolescents. The paper concludes with policy implications for the next phase of welfare reform.     

Whom can you trust? The politics of ‘grassing’ on an inner city housing estate

This paper derives from an ongoing research project concerned to explore how people living in, going to work in, attending school in, high crime areas manage their routine daily lives. It focuses on one of our research areas in which we argue that the question of the 'fear of crime' is much better understood through an appreciation of how the question of trust manifests itself in that community. In other words, whom you trust, when, and by how much, mediate the way in which people living in this area manage their routine daily lives and within that their sense of security.     

Ordinal preference representations

Ordinal preferences have several advantages over the traditional cardinal expressions of preference. Three different representations of ordinal preferences useful in multi-participant modelling are presented, and their features compared. One approach is thepayoff representation that is based on an ordinal normal form game. A second representation of ordinal preferences is thepreference vector, based on the option form of the game. The option form consists of a list of players, with each player followed by the options under its control. The third representation of ordinal preferences is thepreference tree. A preference tree is an implied binary tree that captures the information of preference vector in a more compact manner by making use of its lexicographic structure. The preference tree offers considerable compactness and computational efficiency over the other two approaches.     

On Models and theories of inference; structural or pivotal analysis

Recent material is surveyed concerning the foundations of statistical models, the definition and logic of statistical inference, and the additives used in various applications of theories of inference. This background is then used to compare structural/structured models [Fraser 1966, 1968, 1979] and pivotal models [Barnard 1974, 1981]; the models are found to be identical except for nomencalture and basic justification which supports the structural format. An outline is given of the development of the structural/structured model and of the corresponding mode of inference. The recent pivotal methods of analysis are assessed with this development as background.     

A theorem on invariance of estimability of linear parametric functions in linear models

Consider the general linear model Y = Xβ + ? , where E[??'] = σ²I and rank of X is less than or equal to the number of columns of X. It is well known that the linear parametric function λ'β is estimable if and only if λ' is in the row space of X. This paper characterizes all orthogonal matrices P such that the row space of XP is equal to the row space of X, i.e. the estimability of λ'β is invariant under P. An additional property of these matrices is the invariance of the spectrum of the information matrix X'X. An application of the results is also given.     

Let's Call it Quits: Break‐Even Effects in the Decision to Stop Taking Risks

“Chasing” behavior, whereby individuals, driven by a desire to break even, continue a risky activity (RA) despite incurring large losses, is a commonly observed phenomenon. We examine whether the desire to break even plays a wider role in decisions to stop engaging in financially motivated RA in a naturalistic setting. We test hypotheses, motivated by this research question, using a large data set: 707,152 transactions of 5,379 individual financial market spread traders between September 2004 and April 2013. The results indicate strong effects of changes in wealth around the break‐even point on the decision to cease an RA. An important mediating factor was the individual's historical long‐term performance. Those with a more profitable trading history were less affected by a fall in cash balance below the break‐even point compared to those who had been less profitable. We observe that break‐even points play an important role in the decision of nonpathological risk takers to stop RAs. It is possible, therefore, that these nonpathological cognitive processes, when occurring in extrema, may result in pathological gambling behavior such as “chasing.” Our data set focuses on RAs in financial markets and, consequently, we discuss the implications for institutions and regulators in the effective management of risk taking in markets. We also suggest that there may be a need to consider carefully the nature and role of “break‐even points” associated with a broader range of nonfinancially‐focused risk‐taking activities, such as smoking and substance abuse.