Changes in Female Labour Supply in the Netherlands 1989–1998: The Case of Married and Cohabiting Women

It is well-known that married and cohabitingwomen differ in labour supply. But we know verylittle about the causes of this difference. Isit due to differences in characteristics, likeage, presence and ages of children, own netwage rate, and net income of the partner? Or isit a difference in behaviour that – even aftercontrolling for variation in characteristics –is the basic cause? In this article we try toanswer these questions for Dutch married andcohabiting women. We use data of nationalsurveys by Statistics Netherlands for 1989 and1998. This also allows us to investigatewhether there have been important changes inthe last decade. Because we are able to comparethe results with those of an analogous analysisthat two of the authors did on similar Dutchdata for 1981 we are able to draw conclusionsabout changes that took place over the lasttwenty years. The results show that the massivegrowth in female labour force participation isespecially due to the growth in participationby married women. A slight decrease in labourmarket participation of cohabiting women can beobserved in the last decade. This seems to bethe result of cohabitation becoming morenormal, including cohabitation when there areyoung children in the household.     

The End of the Demographic Transition: Relief or Concern?

Demographic transition theory might seem to imply that, after a period of exceptional population growth resulting from the time lag between mortality and fertility declines, every population, and then the whole world population will stabilize and, consequently, no more acute population problems will appear. Does the claim, recently gaining credibility, that the end of the transition is at hand actually imply a stage without major population problems? Nothing is less sure. First, it is just a claim, the realization of which still entails a period of dramatically rapid population growth in some countries, especially the poorest. But more tellingly, the end of the transition is also the end of the paradigm on which we have been relying to understand and anticipate demographic changes. Nobody knows what might ensue later: How long and low can fertility fall? How long and high can life expectancy increase? How far can population aging go? As many questions without answer and probably as many problems whose size we cannot even imagine lie ahead.     

A classification updating procedure motivated by high-content screening data

The current paradigm for the identification of candidate drugs within the pharmaceutical industry typically involves the use of high-throughput screens. High-content screening (HCS) is the term given to the process of using an imaging platform to screen large numbers of compounds for some desirable biological activity. Classification methods have important applications in HCS experiments, where they are used to predict which compounds have the potential to be developed into new drugs. In this paper, a new classification method is proposed for batches of compounds where the rule is updated sequentially using information from the classification of previous batches. This methodology accounts for the possibility that the training data are not a representative sample of the test data and that the underlying group distributions may change as new compounds are analysed. This technique is illustrated on an example data set using linear discriminant analysis, k-nearest neighbour and random forest classifiers. Random forests are shown to be superior to the other classifiers and are further improved by the additional updating algorithm in terms of an increase in the number of true positives as well as a decrease in the number of false positives.     

Desegregation in Higher Education: An Examination of Traditionally Black and White Institutions*

Using the data collection techniques of historical analysis, secondary analysis of EEO-6 records, mailed questionnaires, and personal interviews, race relations among trustees, administrators, and faculty in the southeastern United States were examined during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The conclusion that blacks at traditionally white institutions (TWI) (1) had more tenuous job status, (2) experienced less job satisfaction, (3) experienced greater degrees of institutional alienation, and (4) more often stated a need for affirmative action programs than did their white colleagues at the same institution will surprise no one. Similar patterns and perceptions were found for whites at traditionally black institutions (TBI) where whites were in the “minority.” Although whites at TBIs remained members of the societal majority group as traditionally defined in the sociology of intergroup relations, their position and perceptions within specific TBIs were remarkably similar to the experience of black professionals at TWIs. Some implications for policy are drawn.     

FIRM HETEROGENEITY AND THE PATTERN OF R&D COLLABORATIONS

We consider an oligopoly setting in which firms form pairwise collaborative links in research and development with other firms. Each collaboration generates a value that depends on the identity of the firms that collaborate. First, we provide properties satisfied by pairwise equilibrium networks and efficient networks. Second, we use these properties in two types of situation: (1) there are two groups of firms, and the value of a collaboration is higher when firms belong to the same group; (2) some firms have more innovative capabilities than others. These two situations provide clear insights about how firms' heterogeneity affects both equilibrium and efficient networks. We also show that the most valuable collaborative links do not always appear in equilibrium, and a public policy that increases the value of the most valuable links may lead to a loss of social welfare. (JEL C70, L13, L20)