A New Empirically Weighted Monetary Aggregate for the United States

This article uses an approach to long-run modeling proposed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001) to develop an empirically weighted broad monetary aggregate for the United States and to demonstrate the advantages of this type of aggregate from a monetary policy perspective. The new empirically weighted aggregate performs well in out-of-sample nominal income and inflation forecasting tests, and in respect of the latter is clearly superior to simple sum M2, Divisia M2, and simple sum M2+ (which includes stock and bond mutual funds) over the period 1991–2001.     

Time series modelling of two millennia of northern hemisphere temperatures: long memory or shifting trends?

Summary.  The time series properties of the temperature reconstruction of Moberg and co-workers are analysed. It is found that the record appears to exhibit long memory characteristics that can be modelled by an autoregressive fractionally integrated moving average process that is both stationary and mean reverting, so that forecasts will eventually return to a constant underlying level. Recent research has suggested that long memory and shifts in level and trend may be confused with each other, and fitting models with slowly changing trends is found to remove the evidence of long memory. Discriminating between the two models is difficult, however, and the strikingly different forecasts that are implied by the two models point towards some intriguing research questions concerning the stochastic process driving this temperature reconstruction.     

Relative efficiencies of kernel and local likelihood density estimators

Summary. Local likelihood methods enjoy advantageous properties, such as good performance in the presence of edge effects, that are rarely found in other approaches to nonparametric density estimation. However, as we argue in this paper, standard kernel methods can have distinct advantages when edge effects are not present. We show that, whereas the integrated variances of the two methods are virtually identical, the integrated squared bias of a conventional kernel estimator is less than that of a local log-linear estimator by as much as a factor of 4. Moreover, the greatest bias improvements offered by kernel methods occur when they are needed most—i.e. when the effect of bias is particularly high. Similar comparisons can also be made when high degree local log-polynomial fits are assessed against high order kernel methods. For example, although (as is well known) high degree local polynomial fits offer potentially infinite efficiency gains relative to their kernel competitors, the converse is also true. Indeed, the asymptotic value of the integrated squared bias of a local log-quadratic estimator can exceed any given constant multiple of that for the competing kernel method. In all cases the densities that suffer problems in the context of local log-likelihood methods can be chosen to be symmetric, either unimodal or bimodal, either infinitely or compactly supported, and to have arbitrarily many derivatives as functions on the real line. They are not pathological. However, our results reveal quantitative differences between global performances of local log-polynomial estimators applied to unimodal or multimodal distributions.     

Using Decision Analysis: Connecting Classroom and Field

This paper reports on the findings of a small‐scale research project investigating the views of social work students on the use of decision analysis. After giving the context of the research, the article reports on what was found when students, who had just completed a Decision Making and Risk module, were asked for their opinions on the component parts of decision analysis, its use as a practice tool and their attitudes to using it on placement. The research found that the respondents in general took a critical and supportive stance towards the use of decision analysis in social work and, with extra teaching and a positive approach from their practice assessor, would be happy to use decision analysis. When the same group of students completed a follow‐up questionnaire on a placement recall day, half of them had thought about using decision analysis but only three had gone on to discuss this with their practice assessors. Some issues in relation to connecting ‘classroom’ and ‘field’ are identified and the paper concludes that a number of further steps would be necessary to realise the potential of decision analysis to help students be more systematic and analytical in their approach to decision making.     

Security Assurance: How Online Service Providers Can Influence Security Control Perceptions and Gain Trust

Security researchers agree that security control is a difficult to observe credence quality of online services that Internet users cannot easily assess through research or experience. Yet there is evidence that users form perceptions of security control that strongly determine how much trust they put in online services. This study investigates whether users’ security control perceptions arise solely from their predispositions or whether online service providers can influence them. The study also examines whether these seemingly undependable perceptions of security control lead to trust or whether more traditional factors might offer a better explanation of trust under security risks. To address these issues, this study proposes a new theory of security assurance that integrates the frameworks of trust and quality signals. The results show that rather than being guided by predispositions, users appear to mainly assess security control based on indirect cues controlled by service providers. Importantly, Internet users do not treat the credence quality of security the same way they treat qualities that can be understood through search and experience. Although returning users develop security control perceptions and trust from the usual heuristics of ongoing relationships, they also continue to evaluate market information about service providers like they do in new relationships. The proposed model offers a new perspective of how users respond to the uncertain and technically challenging qualities prevalent in online services.     

Medicaid State Plan personal care services: trends in programs and policies

Policymakers face mounting pressures from consumer demand and the 1999 Olmstead Supreme Court decision to extend formal (paid) programs that deliver personal care to the elderly, chronically ill, and disabled. Despite this, very little is known about the largest program that delivers personal care: the Medicaid State Plan personal care services (PCS) optional benefit. This paper presents the latest available national program (participant and expenditure) trend data (1999-2002) on the Medicaid PCS benefit and findings from a national survey of eligibility and cost control policies in use on the program. The program trends show that, over the study period, the number of states providing the Medicaid PCS benefit grew by four (from 26 to 30), and national program participation, adjusted for population growth, increased by 27%. However, inflation-adjusted program expenditures per participant declined by 3% between 1999 and 2002. Findings from the policy survey reveal that between 1999 and 2002 there was a marked decline in the range of services provided, and by 2004, almost half the programs operated a cap on the hours of services provided.     

Prevalence of snoring in college students

Snoring in college students may be the earliest presentation of adult sleep-disordered breathing, yet the literature contains few studies that demonstrate its effects on learning or whether early diagnosis leads to interruption of disease progression or prevention of comorbidities. OBJECTIVE AND PARTICIPANTS: The authors conducted this study in January-April 2004 to assess the prevalence of snoring in college students (N = 2,200). METHODS: They developed a questionnaire on sleep behaviors and distributed it to 18- to 25-year-old undergraduates at a California university. RESULTS: Almost one-third (30%) of participants reported snoring. The prevalence of snoring was higher among men than women (42% and 25%, respectively). The prevalence of self-reported snoring was highest in Asian students (37%). CONCLUSIONS: Snoring is highly prevalent in college students; prevalence is higher in men than women, correlates with body mass index, and varies by ethnicity.     

Olympic news and attitudes towards the Olympics: a compositional time-series analysis of how sentiment is affected by events

Sentiment affects the evolving economic valuation of companies through the stock market. It is unclear how ‘news’ affects the sentiment towards major public investments like the Olympics. In this paper we consider, from the context of the pre-event stage of the 30th Olympiad, the relationship between attitudes towards the Olympics and Olympic-related news; specifically the bad news associated with an increase in the cost of provision, and the good news associated with Team Great Britain's medal success in 2008. Using a unique data set and an event-study approach that involves compositional time-series analysis, it is found that ‘good’ news affects sentiments much more than ‘bad’, but that the distribution of such sentiment varies widely. For example, a much more pronounced effect of good news is identified for females than males, but ‘bad’ news has less of an impact on the young and older age groups.