Risk and final offer arbitration usage rates: Evidence from major league baseball

We use major league baseball data to examine risk and final-offer arbitration usage. Risk attitudes are proxied by the likelihood that FOA-generated salary increases place the player’s baseball employment at risk. Employment risk is inversely related to player quality. Our evidence suggests that higher-quality (low-risk) players are more likely to file for arbitration and seek an arbitrated settlement than lowerquality (high-risk) players. We thank Paul Burgess for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

WHY FAMILY THERAPY SHOULD GO BEYOND HOMEOSTASIS: A KUHNIAN REPLY TO ARIEL,CAREL AND TYANO

The thesis of “Beyond Homeostasis” is (a) that the discourse of family therapists unquestionably shows that family therapists have tended to see homeostasis as a trait of families; and (b) that such a view of homeostasis is inconsistent with the systemic paradigm. Therefore, family therapy should go beyond such an understanding of homeostasis. Ariel et al. may have failed to grasp this argument; they have certainly chosen to ignore it. Ariel et al. have provided a logical empiricist explication of the nonsystemic version of homeostasis which is portrayed in the discourse of family therapists. I still argue that family therapy should go beyond such an understanding of homeostasis.     

Bayes and empirical Bayes shrinkage estimation of regression coefficients

For a moderate or large number of regression coefficients, shrinkage estimates towards an overall mean are obtained by Bayes and empirical Bayes methods. For a special case, the Bayes and empirical Bayes shrinking weights are shown to be asymptotically equivalent as the amount of shrinkage goes to zero. Based on comparisons between Bayes and empirical Bayes solutions, a modification of the empirical Bayes shrinking weights designed to guard against unreasonable overshrinking is suggested. A numerical example is given.     

Equal Relationships: Fostering Growth for Clients and Counselors

Luthman, S. G., & Kirschenbaum, M. The Dynamic Family .
Stapleton, J., & Bright, R. Equal Marriage .     

Plague mortality rates by age and sex in the parish of St. Botolph's without Bishopsgate, London, 1603

Abstract The Bills of Mortality for London were instituted at least as early as 1528 but only a few figures survive before the extant annual series that begins in 1603. Ages at death, even in broad groups of ages, are not generally available until 1728, which is more than 50 years too late to give us any inkling of the ages, if any, at which people were specially susceptible to plague. There are reports, it is true, that suggest that children suffered from plague more severely than adults, at least on certain occasions (as in 1361 or 1418 for example), but nothing more precise. The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin may be a folk-memory of a plague (possibly in 1284) that killed mainly the children of the town, for the connection between infestation of rats and the loss of children suggests some kind of plague outbreak. Pollitzer concludes that no particular age group is specially liable to plague, and attributes all differences observed to different risks of exposure. The determinants of the severity of an outbreak would therefore be the environmental details and social customs.