Three Bartlett-type corrections for score statistics in symmetric nonlinear regression models

We present simple matrix formulae for corrected score statistics in symmetric nonlinear regression models. The corrected score statistics follow more closely a χ ² distribution than the classical score statistic. Our simulation results indicate that the corrected score tests display smaller size distortions than the original score test. We also compare the sizes and the powers of the corrected score tests with bootstrap-based score tests.     

A modified signed likelihood ratio test in elliptical structural models

In this paper we deal with the issue of performing accurate testing inference on a scalar parameter of interest in structural errors-in-variables models. The error terms are allowed to follow a multivariate distribution in the class of the elliptical distributions, which has the multivariate normal distribution as special case. We derive a modified signed likelihood ratio statistic that follows a standard normal distribution with a high degree of accuracy. Our Monte Carlo results show that the modified test is much less size distorted than its unmodified counterpart. An application is presented.     

A Two-Step Approach to Analyze Satisfaction Data

In this paper a two-step procedure based on Nonlinear Principal Component Analysis (NLPCA) and Multilevel models (MLM) for the analysis of satisfaction data is proposed. The basic hypothesis is that observed ordinal variables describe different aspects of a latent continuous variable, which depends on covariates connected with individual and contextual features. NLPCA is used to measure the level of a latent variable and MLM is adopted for detecting individual and environmental determinants of the level. This approach is suggested to analyze users’ satisfaction. In fact, NLPCA is used to create a synthetic continuous measure of satisfaction (first step) and MLM are used to detect the role of external (individual or environmental) variables that can affect the level itself (second step). The proposed two-step procedure is applied to the Eurobarometer survey data about opinion of European citizens on services of general interest (SGI) aiming to evaluate and compare the opinion about SGI in different countries. The focus is on overall level of satisfaction about four major public services: fixed telephone, electricity supply, postal and rail services. The item analyzed, which are named manifest variables, are: access easiness, price, quality, information clarity and contract fairness, as reported in the 2002 Eurobarometer survey. In the first step these variables are used to set up the synthetic indicator (the overall level) of satisfaction and, in the second step, a MLM is used to test the impact of some explanatory variables on this satisfaction.     

Concepts travelling across disciplinary fields: the case of the business model

Journal of Management and Governance - Since the beginning of the 2000s, the concept of Business Model has been explored by scholars from a broad range of business studies and particularly those in...     

Ethnic Prejudice and Intergroup Contact in Prospective Adoptive Parents

While ethnic prejudice is considered a key factor in parental cultural socialization strategies, there is nonetheless a lack of research about this topic among prospective transracially adoptive parents and the extent of their contacts with members of minority ethnic groups. Participants in the current study were 175 couples: 102 prospective adoptive parents pursuing international adoption in Italy and 73 couples who at the time of the study neither had children nor were involved in the adoption process. Results showed, first, that prospective adoptive parents reported lower levels of ethnic prejudice and more positive intergroup contacts than the comparison group and, second, that adoptive status, together with a more positive intergroup contact, predicted lower levels of negative prejudice. Implications for pre- and post-adoption interventions are discussed.     

Estimating Cross Province and Municipal City Price Level Differences in China: Some Experiments and Results

The estimation of Sub-national purchasing power parities (PPPs) for countries where the regions and provinces have different level of development is fundamental for income, consumption, standard of living real term comparisons, as well as for measuring cross-region welfare inequality. This is even truer for large countries like China, where the above aggregates exhibit great variability among provinces. The aim of this paper is to compute the price level differences, measured by the PPPs, for 31 Chinese Provinces and Municipal Cities, based on a sample of 62 goods and services for the year 2014. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to do it since many years. After a short review of previous studies on China cross-province and municipal cities price level differences measurement and the illustration of methodology and data used, the results of our elaborations are presented and discussed. Taking Beijing as the base area, there is evidence that the PPP max/min ratio is 1.74, confirming the common belief that China cross-province and municipal cities price levels are significantly different.     

Until work do us part: Labour migration and occupational stratification in non-cohabiting marriage

While recent decades have seen considerable research on cohabitation without marriage, the study of marriage without cohabitation has not fared as well. Prior work on the latter has emphasized the importance of occupational stratification, but ignored the social context around occupation, particularly regarding labour mobility and economic development. In this paper, we outline the significance of contemporary labour mobility and concomitant occupational stratification for the risk of non-cohabiting marriage, and use data from the IPUMS–International project to provide a cross-national accounting of non-cohabiting marriage. We focus on two issues: first, how does prevalence vary across countries, across time, and with respect to economic development? Second, how do the core dynamics of labour mobility—including migration, occupational status, and economic development—influence the probability of non-cohabiting marriage? Results indicate broad cross-national differences in prevalence, increasing risk over time, and a pattern of accumulating risk associated with multifaceted social disadvantage.     

Oppositional Defiant Disorder: The Psy Apparatuses and Youth Resistance

This article, situated in Foucauldian, anti-psychiatry, and mad studies literature, provides a theoretical intervention into the practice complexities and complicities of working with young people marked with the diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder. Using a composite vignette as a proxy for social work practice, I map the particular harms of the deployment of the oppositional defiant disorder diagnosis, using Foucault and others to provide insight, in order to reorder and rethink work with young people marked as disorderly. Scholars effectively trace the manifold harms of the psychiatrization of young people; this article knits together the ways in which these harms operate, with the expressed intention of psychiatrizing youth resistance through multiple targets. The article concludes with tentative formulations for reconceptualizing youth resistance, in particular, using contributions from Sara Ahmed’s work on willfulness and Eve Tuck’s work on dangerous dignities. My aim is to use these emerging formulations to position our work with young people in alignment with their own resistance to injustice, rather than in concert with the efforts to psychiatrize their actions.     

Estimation of General Stationary Processes by Variable Length Markov Chains

We develop new results about a sieve methodology for the estimation of minimal state spaces and probability laws in the class of stationary processes defined on finite categorical spaces. Using a sieve approximation with variable length Markov chains of increasing order, we show that an adapted version of the Context algorithm yields asymptotically correct estimates for the minimal state space and for the underlying probability distribution. As a side product, the method of sieves yields a nice graphical tree representation for the potentially infinite dimensional minimal state space of the data generating process, which is very useful for exploration of the memory.