Can higher life expectancy induce more schooling and earlier retirement?

In this paper, we show that it may be optimal for individuals to educate more and retire earlier when life expectancy increases. This result reconciles the findings of Hazan (Econometrica 77:1829–1863, 2009) with theory. Further, the paper contributes to a better understanding of the conflicting empirical findings on the causal effect on income per capita from increased life expectancy.     

Historical Sociology and the Prism of Biography: Lillian Wineman and the Trade in Dakota Beadwork, 1893–1929

Qualitative Sociology - How can researchers learn about the social lives of people and cultures who leave little or no written record of their lives? This article introduces the idea that one...     

Threshold Autoregression with a Unit Root

This paper develops an asymptotic theory of inference for an unrestricted two‐regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) model with an autoregressive unit root. We find that the asymptotic null distribution of Wald tests for a threshold are nonstandard and different from the stationary case, and suggest basing inference on a bootstrap approximation. We also study the asymptotic null distributions of tests for an autoregressive unit root, and find that they are nonstandard and dependent on the presence of a threshold effect. We propose both asymptotic and bootstrap‐based tests. These tests and distribution theory allow for the joint consideration of nonlinearity (thresholds) and nonstationary (unit roots). Our limit theory is based on a new set of tools that combine unit root asymptotics with empirical process methods. We work with a particular two‐parameter empirical process that converges weakly to a two‐parameter Brownian motion. Our limit distributions involve stochastic integrals with respect to this two‐parameter process. This theory is entirely new and may find applications in other contexts. We illustrate the methods with an application to the U.S. monthly unemployment rate. We find strong evidence of a threshold effect. The point estimates suggest that the threshold effect is in the short‐run dynamics, rather than in the dominate root. While the conventional ADF test for a unit root is insignificant, our TAR unit root tests are arguably significant. The evidence is quite strong that the unemployment rate is not a unit root process, and there is considerable evidence that the series is a stationary TAR process.     

Artificial Intelligence and Generalized Qualitative-Response Models: An Empirical Test on Two Audit Decision-Making Domains

Machine learning methods are currently the object of considerable study by the artificial intelligence community. Research on machine learning carries implications for decision making in that it seeks computational methods that mimic input-output behaviors found in classes of decision-making examples. At the same time, research in statistics and econometrics has resulted in the development of qualitative-response models that can be applied to the same kind of problems addressed by machine-learning models—particularly those that involve a classification decision. This paper presents the theoretical structure of a generalized qualitative-response model and compares its performance to two seminal machine-learning models in two problem domains associated with audit decision making. The results suggest that the generalized qualitative-response model may be a useful alternative for certain problem domains.     

Questions from somewhere — who's who in attitude research about ‘immigrants’

The article looks into how the binary opposition ‘we ‘ and ‘them ‘ is reproduced and legitimized in attitudinal surveys, specifically the Eurobarometer series. The Eurobarometer 30 and 39 are among the most widely cited and, therefore, most influential sources among academics and politicians interested in knowing about how Europeans think of those defined as ‘non‐Europeans ‘. The author contends that attitudinal research of the kind exemplified by the Eurobarometerproblematües the ‘other’ instead of recognizing that it is our ability to speak about an ‘other’ as ‘out‐group’ in the first place which constitutes the problem; in that it establishes yet another space in which a stereotypical and debasing language of ‘we and them’ becomes the norm.     

Trends in return migration to the south

Demography - The rate of return migration to the South rose by nearly 19 percent between the late 1950’s and the late 1960’s and was an important factor in changing the South’s...     

A methodological approach to strategic petroleum reserves

Energy constitutes a small fraction of the production inputs in the economy, yet the rigidity imposed by the short and medium term inability to substitute energy with other production factors in case of an energy shortage, requires the establishment of safeguard mechanisms to ensure sufficient energy supply during an emergency. These safeguards usually take the form of strategic energy reserves. A methodological approach is presented here, relating the level of strategic petroleum reserves, the decision variable, with the costs associated with their storage and the economic losses incurred by an energy shortage. This approach is based on the use of a decision tree, to portray emergency scenarios. Each scenario, a branch of the decision tree, can be evaluated in terms of a cost function which includes the inventory procurement and maintenance cost and the shortage cost inflicted by a petroleum shortfall.