Energy in Eurasia: the Dependency Game

Russia, Europe, and a number of transit countries are involved in a high-stake game about energy which is characterized by a high degree of interdependency and security. The dependencies go in all directions, but what makes the game particularly interesting is that it is neither economically rational nor static. It should lie in all parties' interest to recognize the strong element of interdependency and transform some of the energy security politics into energy economics.     

Indirect effects of the Family Check‐Up on youth extracurricular involvement at school‐age through improvements in maternal positive behavior support in early childhood

Extracurricular involvement in the school‐age years has widespread potential benefits for children's subsequent socioemotional development, especially for low‐income youth. However, there is a dearth of research on interventions aimed at increasing school‐age extracurricular involvement in low‐income youth. Thus, the present study aimed to test the collateral effect of a brief, family‐focused intervention for low‐income families, the Family Check‐Up, on children's school‐age extracurricular involvement via improvements in maternal positive behavior support (PBS) in early childhood. The sample (n = 630, 50% female, 50% White, 28% Black/African American) represented a subsample of families from the Early Steps Multisite Study. At the age of two, families were randomly assigned to the Family Check‐Up or Women, Infants, and Children Nutritional Supplement Services as usual. Mother‐child dyads participated in observed interaction tasks at child ages 2 and 3 that were subsequently coded to assess PBS. Primary caregivers reported on children's school‐age extracurricular involvement at ages 7.5, 8.5, and 9.5. Results indicated that although there was not a direct path between intervention status and children's school‐age extracurricular involvement, a significant indirect path emerged from intervention group to changes in PBS between ages 2 to 3 to children's school‐age extracurricular involvement. The results are discussed in terms of implications for designing preventive interventions in early childhood that promote extracurricular involvement at school‐age, particularly for children at risk for maladaptive outcomes.     

A tow-stage procedure for testing homogeneity of means against ordered alternatives in analysis of variance with unequal variances

In this paper we present a two-stage sampling procedure for testing the equality of normal means against ordered alternatives in one-way analysis of variance with unequal unknown variances. A table of approximated percentiles needed for implementation is provided. Some Monte Carlo results for estimating the power of the proposed test statistic are presented.     

The labour share of income: heterogeneous causes for parallel movements?

The distribution of factor incomes from a macroeconomic perspective is an increasingly popular research topic—be it for its implications for the personal income distribution or the apparent mistake in previous research declaring it to be constant over time. The labour share has been decreasing across OECD countries since the 1980s, sparking a renewed interest in what is behind this trend. The aim of this paper is to take a systematic approach to estimating the coefficients of factors explaining these movements across countries. In particular, we focus on proper dynamic model specification and test the validity of the homogeneity assumption of slope coefficients frequently implied in previous studies. We employ fixed effect estimators as well as pooled mean group and mean group estimators, the latter in a dynamic heterogeneous panel framework. We find support for a dynamic estimation setup and derive statements regarding the homogeneity assumption with respect to the three most prominent explanatory variables in the literature: the capital-output ratio, total factor productivity and trade openness. We find the first two variables to decrease the labour share, to be better captured by dynamic estimators and to be better identified in more recent time periods. With regard to trade, we see it depressing the labour share since 1980 only. We furthermore provide evidence on increased cross-country homogeneity over time for all of the analysed driving forces of the labour share.     

#Funeral and Instagram: death,social media,and platform vernacular

This paper presents findings from a study of Instagram use and funerary practices that analysed photographs shared on public profiles tagged with ‘#funeral’. We found that the majority of images uploaded with the hashtag #funeral often communicated a person's emotional circumstances and affective context, and allowed them to reposition their funeral experience amongst wider networks of acquaintances, friends, and family. We argue that photo-sharing through Instagram echoes broader shifts in commemorative and memorialization practices, moving away from formal and institutionalized rituals to informal and personalized, vernacular practices. Finally, we consider how Instagram's ‘platform vernacular’ unfolds in relation to traditions and contexts of death, mourning, and memorialization. This research contributes to a broader understanding of how platform vernaculars are shaped through the logics of architecture and use. This research also directly contributes to the understanding of death and digital media by examining how social media is being mobilized in relation to death, the differences that different media platforms make, and the ways social media are increasingly entwined with the places, events, and rituals of mourning.