Unemployment and crime: A neighborhood level panel data approach

Twenty-five years ago, David Cantor and Kenneth Land presented a model of the relationship between unemployment and crime. This model showed the complexity of this seemingly simple relationship. Namely, there are two independent and counteracting effects from unemployment that affect crime: motivation and guardianship. In their analysis, Cantor and Land found that the guardianship effect dominates the motivation effect, but subsequent research has questioned this result. In this paper, the unemployment and crime relationship is tested using a neighborhood level hybrid modeling approach. Such a method allows for the nuances of Cantor and Land’s model to be tested at a fine ecological resolution for the first time. It is found that both motivation and guardianship matter for crime, but at different time frames: motivation matters in the long-run whereas guardianship matters in the short-run, similar to what Cantor and Land hypothesized.     

The neglected dimension of well-being: Analyzing the development of “conversion efficiency” in Great Britain

In Amartya Sen's capability approach, policy makers can focus on different levels to influence the well-being of a society. A dimension that is usually neglected is improving individuals’ “conversion efficiency”, i.e. the efficiency with which individual resources are converted into well-being. To examine effects of policies on (the development of) this measure we suggest an intertemporal index of conversion efficiency estimated via a nonparametric order-m approach. The approach is exemplified using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from 1991 to 2006. We find that over this time horizon between 24% and 29% of individuals were efficient in their conversion of resources into well-being. Moreover, age and self-employment increase an individual's conversion efficiency, while living in London, being disabled and being separated, divorced or widowed all decrease conversion efficiency. Being married also decreases the conversion efficiency and we find few evidence of gender disparities in conversion efficiency.     

The Importance of Variables in Composite Indices: A Contribution to the Methodology and Application to Development Indices

The paper examines the issue of weights and importance in composite indices of development. Building a composite index involves several steps, one of them being the weighting of variables. The nominal weight assigned to a variable often differs from the degree to which the variable affects the scores of the overall index. The newly suggested notion of importance is based on the idea that an important indicator, if omitted from the index, causes large changes in countries’ results. We propose a method of measuring the importance and apply it to inequality variables in composite indices of development. The results show a low importance for most inequality variables, and for some of them, a large discrepancy between the nominal weights and the importance. We argue that the importance of variables should be considered in the process of index construction. This may imply a modification of the index when there is a large discrepancy between the nominal weights and importance and when the importance of some variables is extremely low. Whether any such modification is justified must be decided within the context of the particular index.

     

Drinking Matters: Public Houses and Social Exchange in Early Modern Central Europe

Michael Zell, Industry in the Countryside: Wealden Society in the Sixteenth Century (1994), xiv + 257 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £35.00).

Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women. Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth‐Century England (1993), xv + 465 (University of California Press, Berkeley, $40.00).

Amy Louise Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England (1993), xiv + 306 (Routledge, £40.00).

Christopher L. Tomlins, Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic (1993), xviii + 406 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £42.50, paperback £14.95).

F. Murray Greenwood, Legacies of Fear: Lawand Politics in Quebec in the Era of the French Revolution (1993), xvi + 359 (Osgoode Society/University of Toronto Press, Toronto, n.p.).

Roger Scola, Feeding the Victorian City. The Food Supply of Manchester, 1770–1870 (1992), xx+ 347 (Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, £35.00).

J. Frankel and S. Zipperstein (eds), Assimilation and Community. The Jews in Nineteenth'Century Europe (1992), xii + 384 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £35.00).

Roger Magraw, A History of the French Working Class, vol. 1, The Age of the Artisan Republic 1815–71, vol. 2, Workers and the Bourgeois Republic 1871–1939 (1992), xi + 301 and vi + 330 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, £40.00 each).

Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay 1900–1940 (1994), xvii + 468 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £40.00).

Chris Wrigley (ed.), Challenges of Labour: Central and Western Europe igiy‐igzo (1993), x + 300 (Routledge, £40.00).     

Changes in Objective and Self-Reported Measures of Physical Capacity After an Intervention in Obese Older Women

The aim of this study was to determine if objective and self-reported measures of physical capacity are two equivalent methods to detect changes following an intervention in obese older women. 36 obese women aged between 55 and 75 years participated in a 3-month study with the aim of improving physical capacity by caloric restriction and/or resistance training. Physical capacity was measured objectively with 10 different tests and self-reported with the SF-36 physical functioning score (SF-36 PF score). Then the performance-to-objective tests were computed using quartiles to provide a baseline global physical capacity score. The mean percentage of change of the 10 tests as well as the SF-36 PF score were also calculated after the study. Body composition was measured by dual-energy X-ray (DXA) absorptiometry. The baseline global physical capacity score and the SF-36 PF score were significantly correlated at baseline (r = 0.43; P < 0.01). Eight out of the 10 objective tests of physical capacity improved after the intervention, while no improvement was observed for the SF-36 PF score. On average, percentage of change in physical capacity was 4.1 ± 5.9% for the SF-36 PF score and 11.1 ± 2.9% for the objective measures. However, no significant correlation was observed between percentage of changes between the two approaches after the intervention (r = 0.32; P = 0.07). Based on these results, the method used to quantify physical capacity after an intervention may have major implications on the outcomes. The methods used should be carefully analyzed in regard to the objective of the study.     

Integrating MRP and finite capacity planning

Traditional production control systems based on the manufacturing resource planning concept do not sufficiently support the planner in solving capacity problems, ignore capacity constraints and assume that lead times are fixed. This leads to problems on the shop floor, that cannot be resolved in the short term. This paper focuses on solving these capacity problems by improving capacity planning at the material requirements planning MRP level through integration of MRP and finite capacity planning. This results in a planning method for simultaneous capacity and material planning. The planning method is based on a new and more accurate primary process model, giving the planning algorithm more flexibility in solving capacity problems. The algorithm is based on advanced scheduling techniques and uses aggregated information, thus combining speed and accuracy. The algorithm is designed to use the available flexibility: alternative routeings, safety stock, and replanning of production orders and requirements. This paper also discusses such related issues as robustness, memory and the role of the human planner.     

Overseas experience of social workers

This paper provides an outline of the various organizations working with or for Aborigines in South Australia and a discussion of questions of co-ordination and co-operation. The analysis will inevitably be subjective. In the first place one man's way of seeing things is a result of his previous experience and environment; secondly, there was no opportunity for an exhaustive investigation of all the groups in this field. Lastly, I am employed by an organization to which I have naturally developed certain loyalties and attitudes. I have, however, attempted to state what I believe and I have not made statements for effect or to score points.