The Dangers of Assessing the Financial Vulnerability of Nonprofits Using Traditional Measures

This article analyzes the financial vulnerability of 228 British nongovernmental development organizations (NGDOs) during the period 2008–2012. To do this, we use the Financial Vulnerability Index developed by Trussel et al. (2002). This index is commonly used in the literature on nonprofit organizations. However, we observe a very poor adaptation of the index to the reality of this industry, at least in predictive terms. The article goes deeply into each of the variables that are used to calculate this index, and we offer explanations of their inadequacy to this subsector of nonprofits.     

Interaction and family planning in the french urban family

During the last two years, a survey about interaction in the couple has been conducted among 550 urban families in France by the National Center for Scientific Research, with the assistance of the United States Public Health Service. The data given here are relative to the importance of the couple's interaction in the realization of family planning goals.These data are used to answer the question, are socioeconomic variables (husband's level of education, occupation, and income, for example) more closely correlated with the success of the couple's family planning than are the variables of positive interaction (agreement, communication, and equality in decision-making, for example)?While the Indianapolis study has not answered this question, the Puerto Rican study has shown that freedom of the wife and communication between spouses were more closely connected with the success of family planning than were the husband's level of education or income. But, one might think that this result was linked to the Puerto Rican sample, in which the levels of income and education were generally low.The French survey, undertaken with a random sample stratified according to the socioeconomic level of the husband, shows that this last hypothesis is not true. Just as in the Puerto Rican study, the factors of positive interaction in the couple are more closely associated with the success of family planning-particularly with the eradication of excessive fertility-than with socioeconomic variables. These results show the importance of the couple's education as a determining factor in a successful family planning program.     

Fathers’ Use of Childbirth Leave in Spain. The Effects of the 13-Day Paternity Leave

This article investigates, for the case of Spain, to what extent the introduction in March 2007 of a non-transferable 13-day paternity leave has encouraged men to make greater use of childbirth leave. Data were drawn from the Spanish Economically Active Population Survey, covering the period 2005–2009. We use a natural experiment approach, comparing the behavior of wage earners fathers with children of less than 1 year of age before and after the reform and using mothers as control group. After estimating a difference-in-differences logistic regression model we obtain statistical evidence that there is a higher percentage of males on leave in the reference week in the post-reform period (after 2007). The article also analyzes some of the personal and socio-economic determinants of the fathers’ use of childbirth leave. Fathers are more likely to be on leave if they have stability in employment, if there are facilities for reconciling work and family life (working in the public sector) and if the partner is employed. The father’s age has an interesting U-shaped influence.     

Experiments on bilateral bargaining in markets

We present experimental data on a simple market game. Several solution concepts from cooperative game theory are applied to predict the observed payoff distributions. Notably, a recently introduced solution concept meant to capture the influence of outside options on the payoff distribution within groups fares better than most other solution concepts under consideration. Our results shed some light on the effects of scarcity relations on markets on bargaining outcomes within negotiating dyads.     

Blood donation and institutional trust: risk, policy rhetoric, and the men who have sex with men lifetime deferral policy in Canada

This article examines the process of rebuilding institutional trust in the Canadian blood system in the aftermath of the tainted blood scandal. Our focus is the policy of lifetime deferral from donating blood for men who have sex with men. Drawing on findings from interviews with representatives of Health Canada's Expert Advisory Committee on Blood Regulation, the National Liaison Committee, Canadian Blood Services, and blood consumer groups, we demonstrate how claims making about rights, discrimination, science, and risk contribute to policy continuity. We also examine the link between policy continuity and the management of reputational risk.     

Marginality,differential marginality,and the Banzhaf value

We revisit the Nowak (Int J Game Theory 26:137–141, 1997) characterization of the Banzhaf value via 2-efficiency, the Dummy player axiom, symmetry, and marginality. In particular, we provide a brief proof that also works within the classes of superadditive games and of simple games. Within the intersection of these classes, one even can drop marginality. Further, we show that marginality and symmetry can be replaced by van den Brink fairness/differential marginality. For this axiomatization, 2-efficiency can be relaxed into superadditivity on the full domain of games.     

Can corporate planning ‘Invent’ the future of the third world?

Corporate planners, accustomed to stretch their mind in time will need to distend it in geographic space as well. Seemingly unrelated events in faraway countries suddenly implicate the work of planners, their homes and their futures. Europe and Japan rely for 95 per cent of their petroleum requirements upon the Third World. Huge pipelines carrying natural gas connect Soviet Russia with the United States and Europe. One electric power grid will eventually tie Europe together. Europe depends for 10 million guest workers upon southern countries, including North Africa and the Near East. Energy and labor are weighty factors in the increasing inter-dependence of nations. The author argues that these and related demands will require creative responses from corporate planners.     

Social bonding and loneliness after network disruption: A longitudinal study of East German refugees

After the 1989 breakdown of the communist system, 235 East Germans were interviewed three times during the two years following their transition to West Berlin. In moving to the west, the migrants had to deal with various stressors, among them the lack of social ties in their new environment. Fortunately, the number of their new friends increased steadily, and loneliness declined. These changes, however, differed between sexes and age groups. Men made more friends than women, in particular same-sex friends, whereas women knitted ties with both sexes. The young built larger networks than the intermediate age group. Loneliness emerged as an inhibiting factor in the bonding process. The study demonstrates how well these refugees coped with a social crisis. It also examines the roles that loneliness and social bonding played in the readjustment process.     

Simplifying the calculation of the P-value for Barnard's test and its derivatives

Unconditional non-asymptotic methods for comparing two independent binomial proportions have the drawback that they take a rather long time to compute. This problem is especially acute in the most powerful version of the method (Barnard, 1947). Thus, despite being the version which originated the method, it has hardly ever been used. This paper presents various properties which allow the computation time to be drastically reduced, thus enabling one to use not only the more traditional and simple versions given by McDonald et al. (1977) and Garside and Mack (1967), but also the more complex original version of Barnard (1947).     

Towards the Establishment of a Green Infrastructure in the Region of Montreal (Quebec,Canada)

Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews held with key actors involved in the planning of the Greater Montreal region, we seek to understand the conditions that could lead to the establishment of a green infrastructure for the city. This article first describes the region's environmental and political context and then analyzes the opportunities, constraints, advantages and disadvantages in the implementation of this type of project. We conclude that experts favor an approach leading to ecological connectivity, but they underline several obstacles that could hinder its implementation.