Differences in fertility behavior and uncertainty: an economic theory of the minority status hypothesis

We revisit the question of why fertility behaviors and educational decisions appear to vary systematically across ethnic groups. We assess the possibility that differences in fertility across groups remain even though their socio-economic characteristics are similar. More specifically, we consider that parents’ fertility decisions are affected by the uncertainty concerning the future economic status of their offspring. We assume that this uncertainty varies across groups and is linked to the size of the group one belongs to. We find theoretical support for the minority status hypothesis according to which members of large minorities usually have a higher fertility than those in the majority facing low potential for social mobility while small minorities have lower fertility.     

Cultivating Hustlers: The Agrarian Ethos of Soninke Migration

Sedentariness has been disregarded in migration studies. Although recent scholarship pays greater heed to immobility, the latter is often narrowly conceptualised as the exact opposite of mobility. This article attempts to overcome such dichotomies by focusing on agrarian life and activities in one of the most migratory rural contexts in West Africa, namely the Soninke villages of the Upper Gambia River valley. It shows how young men—normally the most mobile group in Soninke society—are trained to embody an agrarian ethos in order for them to be able to pursue not only agricultural livelihoods but also migratory ones. Physical, social and moral virtues cultivated in farm fields are thought to make the young man fit and adaptable to life and work abroad. The article further suggests that this agrarian ethos is reproduced through migratory dynamics, such as the integration of West African migrants as unqualified labourers in the stratified labour market of Europe and North America. As a synthesis or symbiosis between mobile and immobile cultural practices, the Soninke agrarian ethos provides us with ways of rethinking the relation between migration and sedentariness, thus bridging the dichotomy between the two.     

The Strategy and Management Control Systems relationship as emerging dynamic process

In this paper we discuss the Management Control Systems (MCSs)–strategy relationship in the light of an empirical analysis. We debate the attention to the fit of MCS and strategy at given moments in time which is typical of a contingency approach, and we search for an understanding of the dynamic evolution of the company over a continuous span of time. We deploy a diachronic analysis which involves a vertical and a horizontal conception of dynamics. We show that instantaneous fit between formal MCS and deliberate strategy is not helpful in illustrating evolution, nor is able to explain success. Conversely, the fit is to be played continuously on MCS and strategies at the level of practices. We also show the role of misfit between MCS and strategy: ambiguity implies the definition of blurred constraints for action which is freed. In this sense, we conclude that in the design of the MCS or strategy, attention does not have to be focused on the reciprocal fit, but rather on the ability of both (MCS and strategy) to support the exploration of new directions of evolution. Our case offers the intuition that identities, beyond practices, account for success in this case, as they embed both practices but also a way of being that, as a set of basic principles, directs behaviour when practices are missing, i.e., in the face of the new.     

生态村——生态居住模式概述

生态村是在工业高度发展、科技高度进步的现代社会中,为了应对产生的各种问题而发展出的全新的生活理念。随着生态村运动的发展和生态实践的增多,人们开始转变以往将生态技术作为生态村主导的观念,开始尝试探索更加全面地认识和发展生态村及生态理念的方法。在生态村社中建立无秩序管理体制以达到社员平等、建设交流空间以满足其精神元素的需求、构建能源和物质的循环利用系统,防止污染和浪费,采用传统技术与现代科技相结合的方法建造房屋,这种基于传统工艺和小尺度的模式对于构建宜居聚居区域具有启发性。文章对生态村的理念及相关操作过程进行分析,说明生态村的工作原理及其意义。     

Agricultural policy modelling under imperfect competition

This study evaluates the role of imperfect competition in determining the agri-food policies impact assessment outcomes. In most impact studies, the supply chain between agricultural production and final consumption is modelled in a perfectly competitive framework. However, there is a growing attention of stakeholders for the presence of imperfectly competitive markets, with the retail sector often being under investigation. This issue is empirically analysed with an application to the dairy industry. First, the degree of market power is estimated using a multi-output demand and price transmission equation system. Then, this model is used for policy simulation with the perfect competition outcome taken as a benchmark to evaluate the impact of imperfect competition. Results show a significant degree of market power in the dairy industry with implications on the projected policy scenarios. Moreover, the imperfect competition model alters the price transmission mechanisms, generating more flexible price trends.     

Individual Prior Information in a Physiological Model of 2H8-Toluene Kinetics: An Empirical Bayes Estimation Strategy

Physiologically-based toxicokinetic (PBTK) models are widely used to quantify whole-body kinetics of various substances. However, since they attempt to reproduce anatomical structures and physiological events, they have a high number of parameters. Their identification from kinetic data alone is often impossible, and other information about the parameters is needed to render the model identifiable. The most commonly used approach consists of independently measuring, or taking from literature sources, some of the parameters, fixing them in the kinetic model, and then performing model identification on a reduced number of less certain parameters. This results in a substantial reduction of the degrees of freedom of the model. In this study, we show that this method results in final estimates of the free parameters whose precision is overestimated. We then compared this approach with an empirical Bayes approach, which takes into account not only the mean value, but also the error associated with the independently determined parameters. Blood and breath ²H₈-toluene washout curves, obtained in 17 subjects, were analyzed with a previously presented PBTK model suitable for person-specific dosimetry. Model parameters with the greatest effect on predicted levels were alveolar ventilation rate Q_PC, fat tissue fraction V_FC, blood-air partition coefficient K_b, fraction of cardiac output to fat Q_a/co and rate of extrahepatic metabolism V_max-p. Differences in the measured and Bayesian-fitted values of Q_PC, V_FC and K_b were significant (p < 0.05), and the precision of the fitted values V_max-p and Q_a/co went from 11 ± 5% to 75 ± 170% (NS) and from 8 ± 2% to 9 ± 2% (p < 0.05) respectively. The empirical Bayes approach did not result in less reliable parameter estimates: rather, it pointed out that the precision of parameter estimates can be overly optimistic when other parameters in the model, either directly measured or taken from literature sources, are treated as known without error. In conclusion, an empirical Bayes approach to parameter estimation resulted in a better model fit, different final parameter estimates, and more realistic parameter precisions.     

The institutional logics of love: measuring intimate life

Building on a long tradition of measuring cultural logics from a relational perspective, we analyze a recent survey of American university students to assess whether institutional logics operate in the lived experience of individuals. An institutional logic is an analytic troika of object, practice, and subject linked together through dually ordered systems of articulations. Using the formal method of correspondence analysis (MCA) we identify two latent dimensions that order physical, verbal, emotional, categorical, and moral practices of and investments in love. We take these dimensions as evidence of an institutional logic. The dominant first dimension is organized through talk of love, non-genital physical intimacies, and affective investment. It has no sexual specificity. The subsidiary second dimension is organized through moral investment and it has a genital sexual specificity. There is little difference between women and men, either in the way these dimensions are organized or in the location of men and women within these dimensionalized spaces. We find that romantic love has a situated material effect in terms of increasing the probabilities of orgasm.