The Other‐Race Effect in a Longitudinal Sample of 3‐, 6‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants: Evidence of a Training Effect

We investigated the development of the other‐race effect “ORE” in a longitudinal sample of 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐old Caucasian infants. Previous research using cross‐sectional samples has shown an unstable ORE at 3 months, an increase at 6 months and full development at 9 months. In Experiment 1, we tested whether 9‐month‐olds showed the ORE with Caucasian and African faces. As expected, the 9‐month‐olds discriminated faces within their own ethnicity (Caucasian) but not within the unfamiliar ethnicity (African). In months. In Experiment 2, we longitudinally tested infants at 3, 6, and 9 months by presenting either the Caucasian or the African faces used in Experiment 1. In contrast to previous cross‐sectional studies and Experiment 1, we found that infants discriminated between all stimuli. Hence, we did not find the ORE in this longitudinal study even at 9 months. We assume that the infants in our longitudinal study showed no ORE because of previous repetitive exposure to African faces at 3 and 6 months. We argue that only a few presentations of faces from other ethnic categories sufficiently slow the development of the ORE.     

Gender Differences for Specific Body Regions When Looking at Men and Women

The goal of the present study was to provide first evidence for gender differences in gaze patterns while looking at the body of men and women. For this purpose participants were exposed to 30 pictures of 15 male and 15 female models in casual clothing. The individual scan paths were recorded using an eye-tracker. The results show that both male and female observers primarily gaze at people’s face. Only after this initial face-scan, men look significantly earlier and longer at women’s breasts, while women look earlier at men’s legs. These observations uncover important aspects of the pattern of the human gaze at others and particularly reveal important gender differences.     

Unemployment duration and the length of entitlement periods for unemployment benefits: do the IAB employment subsample and the German Socio-Economic Panel yield the same results?*

Summary: We compare information on the length of unemployment spells contained in the IAB employment subsample (IABS) and in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Due to the lack of information on registered unemployment in the IABS, we use two proxies of unemployment in the IABS as introduced by Fitzenberger/Wilke (2004). The first proxy comprises all periods of nonemployment after an employment spell which contain at least one period with unemployment compensation transfers. The second proxy includes all episodes between two employment spells during which an individual continuously received unemployment benefits. Estimation of standard duration models indicates that conclusions drawn from the IABS and the GSOEP differ in many cases. While the GSOEP suggests that the hazard rate has a maximum at about 12 months of unemployment, the IABS results suggest that this maximum is at about 20 months. Contrary to our GSOEP results and contrary to many results based on the GSOEP found in the literature, we find a statistically significant association between longer maximum entitlement periods of unemployment benefits (‘Arbeitslosengeld’) and longer unemployment durations for men in the IABS. The results for women do not show such clear patterns. The large sample size of the IABS also allows to trace out statistically significant effects of characteristics such as regional and industry indicators, which is generally not possible in the relatively small GSOEP. * Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the editors of this special issue, Joachim M?ller and Bernd Fitzenberger, two anonymous referees, the participants of the ‘Statistische Woche 2004’ in Frankfurt (in particular Reinhard Hujer, Olaf Hübler and Gerd Ronning), seminar participants at the ZEW Mannheim (especially Fran?ois Laisney and Alexander Spermann) and Jennifer Hunt for their many helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are our own. Financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through the research project ‘Microeconometric modelling of unemployment durations under consideration of the macroeconomic situation’ is gratefully acknowledged. The data used in this paper were made available by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) at the Federal Labour Office of Germany, Nürnberg, and the German Socio Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin.     

Netzwerksteuerung zwischen Management und Moderation: Zur Bedeutung und Handhabung von Moderationskonzepten bei der Steuerung von Unternehmensnetzwerken

The use of participative methods, like moderation, as a management tool for interfirm networks is increasing. In contrast, the evaluation of results might not satisfy expectations. One major reason lies in the unreflective transmission from the roots of moderation. It was historically developed for the context of social groups and organizations. However, the network as a relatively unknown social phenomenon implies a set of different characteristics and conditions which have to be taken into account. Dilemmas, fluid and volatile resources as well as the lack of openness in the manner of participation shown by the members of a network, affect radically the identity, the possibilities of action and the applicable instruments of moderation. Therefore, basic principles of action (i.e. neutrality) and the demarcation from obvious roles and functions (i.e. network management) have to be reexamined.     

Synergistic effect of social support and self-efficacy on physical exercise in older adults

The purpose of the current study was to examine whether the effects of social support on physical exercise in older adults depend on individual perceptions of self-efficacy. Three hundred nine older German adults (age 65-85) were assessed at 3 points in time (3 months apart). In hierarchical-regression analyses, support received from friends and exercise self-efficacy were specified as predictors of exercise frequency while baseline exercise, sex, age, and physical functioning were controlled for. Besides main effects of self-efficacy and social support, an interaction between social support and self-efficacy emerged. People with low self-efficacy were less likely to be active in spite of having social support. People with low support were less likely to be active even if they were high in self-efficacy. This points to the importance of both social support and self-efficacy and implies that these resources could be targets of interventions to increase older adults' exercise.     

Spatial robust small area estimation

The accuracy of recent applications in small area statistics in many cases highly depends on the assumed properties of the underlying models and the availability of micro information. In finite population sampling, small sample sizes may increase the sensitivity of the modeling with respect to single units. In these cases, area-specific sample sizes tend to be small such that normal assumptions, even of area means, seem to be violated. Hence, applying robust estimation methods is expected to yield more reliable results. In general, two robust small area methods are applied, the robust EBLUP and the M-quantile method. Additionally, the use of adequate auxiliary information may further increase the accuracy of the estimates. In prediction based approaches where information is needed on universe level, in general, only few variables are available which can be used for modeling. In addition to variables from the dataset, in many cases further information may be available, e.g. geographical information which could indicate spatial dependencies between neighboring areas. This spatial information can be included in the modeling using spatially correlated area effects. Within the paper the classical robust EBLUP is extended to cover spatial area effects via a simultaneous autoregressive model. The performance of the different estimators are compared in a model-based simulation study.     

Dependent Right Censorship in the MOMW Distribution

In this paper, we consider paired survival data, in which pair members are subject to the same right censoring time, but they are dependent on each other. Assuming the Marshall–Olkin Multivariate Weibull distribution for the joint distribution of the lifetimes (X₁, X₂) and the censoring time X₃, we derive the joint density of the actual observed data and obtain maximum likelihood estimators, Bayes estimators and posterior regret Gamma minimax estimators of the unknown parameters under squared error loss and weighted squared error loss functions. We compare the performances of the maximum likelihood estimators and Bayes estimators numerically in terms of biases and estimated Mean Squared Error Loss.     

Gleichmäßige Bewertung von Mietwohngrundstücken durch das neue steuerliche Ertragswertverfahren? Eine empirische Analyse

This paper deals with the question if the new valuation procedure for rental property established by the German Inheritance Tax Reform Act 2009 provides more consistent tax values than the previous valuation procedure which has been abolished as a result of the jurisdiction of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Our empirical findings show no improvement of the valuation results in terms of statistical spread. The only effect of the new valuation procedure is increasing tax values on average, and hence, tax values often exceed market values. But higher tax values could have been achieved with less effort by simply raising the multiplier of the previous valuation procedure. The findings of this contribution and the results of other papers suggest there is no standardised valuation procedure for rental property which provides a proper performance. Valuation of real estate remains one of the unsolved and presumably permanent problems of the inheritance tax in particular and of capital-based taxation in general.