The Future Direction of Social Indicator Research

Social Indicators Research -     

Preface

Social Indicators Research -     

The Family

Social Indicators Research -     

Egozentrierte Netzwerkerhebung mittels selbstadministrierter Computerinterviews

In this paper we will present the tradition of social network research under the special view of the practical and theoretical research aspects. With theoretical aspects we will emphasize on the specific network attempt of reducing the ?individualistic bias“ of traditional survey research. The practical aspects will be covered by the presentation of some results of network analytic research and proposals for methods of data collection within ego centered social network research.     

Will Rural Areas Still Matter in the 21st Century? (or) Can Rural Sociology Remain Relevant?1

Abstract Despite demographic and economic trends away from rural societies and from agriculture, a consideration of rural areas remains important for two reasons. First, a substantial number of people will continue to live and work in rural areas, even as urbanization spreads across the world. Second, social processes have different consequences in urban and rural areas. Rural sociology must make global restructuring a key concern, it must provide information about social and economic processes in rural and urban areas, and its geographical scope must become truly international.     

Developments and new dimensions in econometrics

Summary This special issue of the Journal of the German Statistical Society presents 14 papers with surveys on the development and new topics in econometrics. The articles aim to demonstrate how German econometricians see the discipline from their specific view. They briefly describe the main strands and emphasize some recent methods.     

Socioeconomic Performance in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas during the 1980s

The socioeconomic gap between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas increased during the 1980s. We test three competing explanations for this trend during the 1980s: overdependence on manufacturing, especially in nonmetro labor markets, the emergence of producer services as a catalyst of socioeconomic growth, and federal spending. Using a model that is informed by a variety of perspectives in sociology and economic geography, and commuter zones (CZs) as spatial units of analysis, we estimate the effects of manufacturing concentration, producer service concentration, and federal spending on per capita income, per capita earnings, and private nonfarm employment growth during the 1983–1988 business cycle recovery. The OLS and interaction models show that all three factors help explain why metro areas outperformed nonmetro areas during this time period. The effects of producer service concentration, however, best fit with our expectations. Implications of our findings are discussed.     

A note on GMM estimation of probit models with endogenous regressors

Dagenais in (Econ Lett 63:19–21, 1999) and Lucchetti in (Econ Lett 75:179–185, 2002) have demonstrated that the naive GMM estimator of Grogger in (Econ Lett 33:329–332, 1990) for the probit model with an endogenous regressor is not consistent. This paper completes their discussion by explaining the reason for the inconsistency and presenting a natural solution. Furthermore, the resulting GMM estimator is analyzed in a Monte-Carlo simulation and compared with alternative estimators.