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.     

THE EFFECT OF NONCONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS ON SAVING IN MEXICO

This paper examines the effects of noncontributory pension programs at the federal and state levels on Mexican households' saving patterns using micro data from the Mexican Income and Expenditure Survey. We find that the federal program curtails saving among households whose oldest member is either 18–54 or 65–69 years old, possibly through anticipation effects, a decrease in the longevity risk faced by households, and a redistribution of income between households of different generations. Specifically, these households appear to be reallocating income away from saving into human capital investments, like education and health. Generally, state programs have neither significant effects on household saving, nor does the combination of federal and state programs. Finally, with a few exceptions, noncontributory pensions have no significant impact on the saving of households with members 70 years of age or older—individuals eligible for those pensions, plausibly because of their dissaving stage in the lifecycle. (JEL D14, J26, O12, H55)     

Observing Erotic Videos With Heterosexual Content Induces Different Cerebral Responses in Homosexual and Heterosexual Men

ABSTRACT

To determine the cerebral functionality associated with the perception and processing of erotic stimuli in men with different sexual orientation, this work evaluated the electroencephalographic activity (EEG) from several cortical areas, as well as subjective arousal in homosexual and heterosexual men during observation of an erotic film with heterosexual content. The heterosexual men rated the erotic video with higher general and sexual arousal than the homosexual participants. During observation of the neutral and erotic videos, both groups showed a decreased amplitude of the alpha band in prefrontal and parietal cortices, indicating increased attention. When watching the erotic video, the homosexual men showed an increased amplitude of the theta and fast bands only in the prefrontal cortex, which could be related to the cognitive processing of the erotic stimulus. These EEG results should broaden our knowledge of the cortical mechanisms related to the different perception and processing of erotic stimuli in men with different sexual orientations.     

A FORMAL EXPLICATION OF THE CONCEPT OF FAMILY HOMEOSTASIS

The concept of family homeostasis and related concepts such as family rules and family feedback mechanisms came under heavy fire in a recent article by Dell (1982). It is not easy to evaluate the arguments brought forth by Dell, since the concepts in question seem to have never been formally explicated. Most of this article is devoted to an attempt to develop such a formal explication. Dell's arguments are then examined one by one in the light of this explication, and most of them are shown to be mistaken. His main conclusion, that the concept of homeostasis should be replaced by a concept of coherence, is rejected.     

Assessing the predictive value of a binary surrogate for a binary true endpoint based on the minimum probability of a prediction error

The individual causal association (ICA) has recently been introduced as a metric of surrogacy in a causal‐inference framework. The ICA is defined on the unit interval and quantifies the association between the individual causal effect on the surrogate (ΔS) and true (ΔT) endpoint. In addition, the ICA offers a general assessment of the surrogate predictive value, taking value 1 when there is a deterministic relationship between ΔT and ΔS, and value 0 when both causal effects are independent. However, when one moves away from the previous two extreme scenarios, the interpretation of the ICA becomes challenging. In the present work, a new metric of surrogacy, the minimum probability of a prediction error (PPE), is introduced when both endpoints are binary, ie, the probability of erroneously predicting the value of ΔT using ΔS. Although the PPE has a more straightforward interpretation than the ICA, its magnitude is bounded above by a quantity that depends on the true endpoint. For this reason, the reduction in prediction error (RPE) attributed to the surrogate is defined. The RPE always lies in the unit interval, taking value 1 if prediction is perfect and 0 if ΔS conveys no information on ΔT. The methodology is illustrated using data from two clinical trials and a user‐friendly R package Surrogate is provided to carry out the validation exercise.     

Valuation of Air Quality in Chile: The Life Satisfaction Approach

Social Indicators Research - Chile is one of the worst countries in Latin America in terms of urban air pollution. This situation negatively affects the health and well-being of Chileans. This...     

<Emphasis Type="Bold">Increasing Inequality in Parent Incomes and Children’s Schooling</Emphasis>

Income inequality and the achievement test score gap between high- and low-income children increased dramatically in the United States beginning in the 1970s. This article investigates the demographic (family income, mother’s education, family size, two-parent family structure, and age of mother at birth) underpinnings of the growing income-based gap in schooling using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Across 31 cohorts, we find that increases in the income gap between high- and low-income children account for approximately three-quarters of the increasing gap in completed schooling, one-half of the gap in college attendance, and one-fifth of the gap in college graduation. We find no consistent evidence of increases in the estimated associations between parental income and children’s completed schooling. Increasing gaps in the two-parent family structures of high- and low-income families accounted for relatively little of the schooling gap because our estimates of the (regression-adjusted) associations between family structure and schooling were surprisingly small for much of our accounting period. On the other hand, increasing gaps in mother’s age at the time of birth accounts for a substantial portion of the increasing schooling gap: mother’s age is consistently predictive of children’s completed schooling, and the maternal age gap for children born into low- and high-income families increased considerably over the period.     

Popweaver: a program for interpolation and visualization of census and other sparsely collected data

Demographic data is essential to inform socio-economic, epidemiological and other time series analyses. However, demographic data based on interpolations performed on census surveys spaced several years apart often bear severe quality problems, which propagate into studies that make use of those datasets. We present Popweaver, a user-friendly and free software that allows users to interpolate demographic data (stratified by age, geography, socio-economics, and other layers), visually inspect them, and generate ready-to-submit figures and three-dimensional spreadsheets with the results for further analyses. We illustrate the use of Popweaver with census data (1980, 1991, 2000, 2010) from Brazil, and its potential to reveal important demographic trends.