Structural analysis and strategic research design: Studying politicized interorganizational networks

Network analysis and structural sociology have given relatively little attention to questions of research design and data collection. This paper discusses the substantive implications of conducting structural analysis with more intensive work on research design and data collection. Based on evidence from a case study of a politicized social structure, the major features of strategic research design are presented in a discussion of cognitive and behavioral data, types of ties, multiplexity, and access restrictions.     

Editorial

Helmut Anheier is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.     

Heteroskedasticity Robust Panel Unit Root Testing Under Variance Breaks in Pooled Regressions

Noting that many economic variables display occasional shifts in their second order moments, we investigate the performance of homogenous panel unit root tests in the presence of permanent volatility shifts. It is shown that in this case the test statistic proposed by Herwartz and Siedenburg (2008 Herwartz, H., Siedenburg, F. (2008). Homogenous panel unit root tests under cross-sectional dependence: Finite sample modifications and the wild bootstrap. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 53(1):137–150.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is asymptotically standard Gaussian. By means of a simulation study we illustrate the performance of first and second generation panel unit root tests and undertake a more detailed comparison of the test in Herwartz and Siedenburg (2008 Herwartz, H., Siedenburg, F. (2008). Homogenous panel unit root tests under cross-sectional dependence: Finite sample modifications and the wild bootstrap. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 53(1):137–150.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and its heteroskedasticity consistent Cauchy counterpart introduced in Demetrescu and Hanck (2012a Demetrescu, M., Hanck, C. (2012a). A simple nonstationary-volatility robust panel unit root test. Economics Letters 117(2):10–13.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). As an empirical illustration, we reassess evidence on the Fisher hypothesis with data from nine countries over the period 1961Q2–2011Q2. Empirical evidence supports panel stationarity of the real interest rate for the entire subperiod. With regard to the most recent two decades, the test results cast doubts on market integration, since the real interest rate is diagnosed nonstationary.     

A general robustness property of rank correlations

Rank correlations are shown to be generally robust in the sense that the tests for independence, which they naturally define, have weakly equicontinuous error probabilities. The ordinary sample correlation coefficient is not robust in this respect.     

Book Review: Review of Henry Hansmann,The Ownership of Enterprise,Boston and London: Harvard University Press, 1996

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