The Cyclical Volatility of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies: Evidence From Italy

In this study, we explore the fluctuations of unemployment and vacancies in the Italian labour market over the last 20 years. Relying on the available sources of data for unfilled job openings, we find that even in Italy, similarly to other developed countries, there is a clean evidence of the unemployment volatility puzzle. In other words, we empirically assess that the tightness indicator is significantly more volatile than productivity over the whole period. In addition, on the theoretical ground, we show that a matching model with segmented labour markets and on‐the‐job search has the potential to provide a rationale for this pattern.     

Don't just do something, stand there: responding to unrelieved patient suffering

Nurses are taught a variety of interventions to relieve patient suffering. They are often more comfortable with patient suffering that is physical in nature rather than psychological, existential, and spiritual. Remaining present for patients and families whose suffering cannot be easily relieved is particularly challenging. This article describes how an expert nurse responded to unrelieved suffering and offers insight into ways of being present for patients and families.     

Supervision und Organisationsentwicklung in der Arbeit mit alten Menschen

The increased numbers of elderly and old people within our society as well as the growing number of institutional facilities for their support confronts those who work with them with manifold and difficult problems. Considering the background of a widespread, mostly unconscious negative connotation of age and ageing the author presents the spectrum of specific difficulties related to the specialised field of supervising work. It is shown that field-specific requirements in the relation with elderly have to be included and recognized in the supervising process and can lead to further organizational developments.     

New Health Risks and Sociocultural Contexts: Bird Flu Impacts on Consumers and Poultry Businesses in Lao PDR

Avian flu has been identified as one of the most challenging new risks, global in impact due to the "highly interconnected and integrated world economy along with other unpredictable events such as the Asian financial crisis and global terrorism." We have chosen the case of Lao PDR to shed light on an area in which local people consume chicken as one of their staple foods. Our research analyzes consumer behavior, poultry business modification patterns in a high-risk country, and government reaction for business resilience. The geographic choice is motivated by the 2006 EIU report on Catastrophe Risk Management that indicated that Asian-Pacific companies are better prepared for such risks as bird flu than European business is, despite the many cases found in both regions.     

Hierarchical clustering of variables: a comparison among strategies of analysis

In this paper some hierarchical methods for identifying groups of variables are illustrated and compared. It is shown that the use of multivariate association measures between two sets of variables can overcome the drawbacks of the usually employed bivariate correlation coefficient, but the resulting methods are generally not monotonic. Thus a new multivariate association measure is proposed, based on the links existing between canonical correlation analysis and principal component analysis, which can be more suitably used for the purpose at hand. The hierarchical method based on the suggested measure is illustrated and compared with other possible solutions by analysing simulated and real data sets. Finally an extension of the suggested method to the more general situation of mixed (qualitative and quantitative) variables is proposed and theoretically discussed.     

PRICE DISPERSION WITH DIRECTED SEARCH

We present a model that generates empirically plausible price distributions in directed search equilibrium. There are many identical buyers and many identical capacity‐constrained sellers who post prices. These prices can be renegotiated to some degree and the outcome depends on the number of buyers who want to purchase the good. In equilibrium all sellers post the same price, demand is randomly distributed, and there is sale price dispersion. Prices and distributions depend on market tightness and on the properties of renegotiation outcomes. In a labor market context, the model generates a strong empirical prediction. If workers can renegotiate the posted wage, then the model predicts a positively skewed and realistic‐looking density function of realized wages when the mean number of job‐seekers per vacancy is large. (JEL: C780, D390, D490, E390)     

Explaining offline and online civic engagement intentions between Italian and migrant youth / Análisis de las intenciones de participación cívica virtual y presencial entre jóvenes italianos y emigrantes

The aim of the study was to assess the role of some psychosocial factors in explaining offline and online civic engagement intentions in a sample of Italian and second generation migrant (Albanian and Moroccan) adolescents and young adults living in Italy. The theoretical model was an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour including past experience. The sample included 598 adolescents and young adults (M = 19.32, SD = 3.17). Two hundred were Italian (88 males, 44.0%), 197 migrants of Albanian origin (130 males, 66%) and 201 migrants of Moroccan origin (116 males, 57.7%). Moroccan youth reported higher levels of both past civic engagement and future intentions than Albanian and Italian peers. Perceived effectiveness of civic engagement and past experience are consistently associated with stronger intentions to engage in the future (offline and online) in all groups. Internal efficacy plays a limited role, whereas the role of subjective norms differs according to the group and the source of normative influence (parents, peers).     

Using mixtures in seemingly unrelated linear regression models with non-normal errors

Seemingly unrelated linear regression models are introduced in which the distribution of the errors is a finite mixture of Gaussian distributions. Identifiability conditions are provided. The score vector and the Hessian matrix are derived. Parameter estimation is performed using the maximum likelihood method and an Expectation–Maximisation algorithm is developed. The usefulness of the proposed methods and a numerical evaluation of their properties are illustrated through the analysis of simulated and real datasets.