A comparison of two exact confidence regions for partially nonlinear regression models

Exact confidence regions for all the parameters in nonlinear regression models can be obtained by comparing the lengths of projections of the error vector into orthogonal subspaces of the sample space. In certain partially nonlinear models an alternative exact region is obtained by replacing the linear parameters by their conditional estimates in the projection matrices. An ellipsoidal approximation to the alternative region is obtained in terms of the tangent-plane coordinates, similar to one previously obtained for the more usual region. This ellipsoid can be converted to an approximate region for the original parameters and can be used to compare the two types of exact confidence regions.     

Uncertain citizenship and public deliberation in post‐apartheid South Africa

The post‐repressive‐regime South African government has actively convened a public sphere bristling with institutions and policies designed to facilitate public deliberation. However, certain apartheid legacies and contemporary political compromises facilitate the reach of power into the convened public sphere, leading to the corralling of public deliberation and the attempted silencing of critical voices. By the end of the Mbeki presidency, a cacophony of public dissent erupted, some of it insisting on the importance of open public critique and some of it seeking to limit and shape dissent itself. The article discusses ongoing contests over the meaning of publicness, locating the roots of these different ideas of publicness in different political and intellectual traditions, each with different understandings of the deliberative citizen. It suggests that participation in public debate is increasingly confined to the exertion of a narrowly defined notion of national democratic citizenship. Arguing that the formation of counterpublic spheres in South Africa is inhibited, the article considers the role of what it terms ‘capillaries’ of public deliberation, in which various kinds of radical critiques of cultural values, norms, identities and the fragmentation of historical consciousness take place.     

Thinking aloud/allowed: pursuing the public interest in radio debate

This article examines the controversy that erupted in 2006 when the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was accused of banning certain commentators. The ‘blacklisting’ saga surfaced differences in ideas and practices of publicness among the contenders in the controversy and revealed that notions of the public, public accountability and the public interest were contested. The research describes independent newsroom practices conducted in terms of journalistic ethics and professional ideologies, and shows that journalists assume a powerful role in defining publics and calling them into being, as well as in orchestrating their participation in public deliberation. This is a professional responsibility that is recognised and defended. However, the practices associated with that responsibility and the power to orchestrate the debate in particular ways are not critically engaged within the profession. Just as the debate illuminates the concept of publicness imported into journalistic practice, it also illuminates concepts imported into SABC institutional practice which are rooted in a long lineage of national democratic struggle. In the controversy, the two concepts chafed against each other, propounded in each case by protagonists embedded in their respective lineages. The controversy was thus more than simply a struggle for political control; it was a contest about the meaning of democratic citizenship itself, rooted in differing but intersecting political‐intellectual logics.     

Assessing the Accuracy of Self-Reported Data: an Evaluation of the Toxics Release Inventory

Self-reported regulatory data are hard to verify. This article compares air emissions reported by plants in the Toxics Release Inventory with chemical concentration levels measured by EPA pollution monitors. We find that the large drops in air emissions reported by firms in the TRI are not always matched by similar reductions in measured concentrations from EPA monitors. When the first digits of the monitored chemical concentrations follow a monotonically decreasing distribution, we expect (via Benford's Law) a similar distribution of first digits for the TRI data. For lead and nitric acid the self-reported data do not follow the expected first digit pattern. This suggests that for these two heavily regulated chemicals plants are not reporting accurate estimates of their air emissions. JEL Classification K32, Q53     

U.S. Citizen Children De Facto Deported to Mexico

Between 2000 and 2015, the U.S. deported unprecedented numbers of Mexican immigrants. During the same period, the population of U.S.-born children living in Mexico doubled in size. This study estimates the number of U.S.-born children who emigrated to Mexico from the United States in order to accompany a deported parent: de facto deported children. The data come from the Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID), a national probability sample of households in Mexico collected in 2014 and 2018. About one in six U.S.-born children living in Mexico in 2014/2018, amounting to an estimated 80,000–100,000 U.S.-born children, were there because the U.S. government deported one or both of their parents. De facto deported U.S.-born children are socioeconomically disadvantaged in Mexico compared to U.S.-born children whose parents migrate to Mexico for other reasons. Women are overrepresented among deported people who bring their U.S.-born children to Mexico, and when deported mothers bring their children, they are far less likely to do so with a partner than are deported fathers. U.S. policy should consider the interests of U.S. citizen children forced to live abroad when redesigning immigration and child welfare policies.