On the welfare loss caused by inequality of opportunity

Based on the ethical principle of equality of opportunity, this paper presents a measure of the welfare loss that is caused by an unfair distribution of a particular outcome (income, health, education, etc). The key idea is that a fair society should produce outcomes that depend on individuals’ effort and not on their external circumstances such as gender, socioeconomic background, etc. We propose measuring inequality of opportunity as the welfare loss attributed to the outcome differences among individuals who exert a similar level of effort. Our results are in line with those aspects of fairness literature that give priority to the ex post compensation approach to equality of opportunity. Finally, we present an empirical application for the measurement of the welfare loss in the income distribution in Europe. We have observed a high degree of heterogeneity among European countries. The welfare loss due to inequality of opportunity ranges in those, from basically zero to almost one fifth of their potential welfare.     

Becoming Less Illegal: Deservingness Frames and Undocumented Migrant Incorporation

Over the last two decades, research on unauthorized migration has departed from the equation of migrant illegality with absolute exclusion, emphasizing that formal exclusion typically results in subordinate inclusion. Irregular migrants integrate through informal support networks, the underground economy, and political activities. But they also incorporate into formal institutions, through policy divergence between levels of government, bureaucratic sabotage, or fraud. The incorporation of undocumented migrants involves not so much invisibility as camouflage – presenting the paradox that camouflage improves with integration. As it reaches the formal level of claims and procedures, legalization brings up the issue of the frames through which legal deservingness is asserted. Looking at the moral economy embedded in claims and programs, we examine a series of frame tensions: between universal and particular claims to legal status, between legalization based on vulnerability and that based on civic performance, between economic and cultural deservingness, and between the policy level and individual subjectivity. We show that restrictionist governments face a dilemma when their constructions of “good citizenship” threaten to extend to “deserving” undocumented migrants. Hence, they may simultaneously emphasize deservingness frames while limiting irregular migrants’ opportunities to deserve, effectively making deservingness both a civic obligation and a civic privilege.     

Examination and visualisation of the simplifying assumption for vine copulas in three dimensions

Vine copulas are a highly flexible class of dependence models, which are based on the decomposition of the density into bivariate building blocks. For applications one usually makes the simplifying assumption that copulas of conditional distributions are independent of the variables on which they are conditioned. However this assumption has been criticised for being too restrictive. We examine both simplified and non‐simplified vine copulas in three dimensions and investigate conceptual differences. We show and compare contour surfaces of three‐dimensional vine copula models, which prove to be much more informative than the contour lines of the bivariate marginals. Our investigation shows that non‐simplified vine copulas can exhibit arbitrarily irregular shapes, whereas simplified vine copulas appear to be smooth extrapolations of their bivariate margins to three dimensions. In addition to a variety of constructed examples, we also investigate a three‐dimensional subset of the well‐known uranium data set and visually detect the fact that a non‐simplified vine copula is necessary to capture its complex dependence structure.     

Sexual Risk,Behavior, and HIV Testing and Status Among Male and Transgender Women Sex Workers and Their Clients in Lima,Peru

Objectives: To determine the socio-demographics, sexual practices, and HIV prevalence of male sex workers (MSWs), transwomen sex workers (TSWs), and their male clients in Lima, Peru. Methods: Following ethnographic mapping of sex work venues, the authors revisited randomly selected venues to survey MSWs, TSWs and their clients. Results: MSWs and TSW clients are more educated than MSW clients and TSWs. Only 50% of TSW clients have received HIV testing. Self-reported HIV positivity is highest among MSW clients and TSWs. Conclusion: Notable differences exist between MSWs and TSWs and their clients that can affect the health of these groups and warrant intervention.     

Independent directors,large shareholders and firm performance: the generational stage of family businesses and the socioemotional wealth approach

The effectiveness of independent directors is empirically addressed in the Southern European context using a sample of 221 publicly traded firms during the 2001–2007 period. Drawing on the socioemotional wealth approach, we focus on family control and influence to test whether there are significant differences in the effect of independent directors on the firm’s performance among non-family businesses (NFBs) that have a non-family large shareholder, and family businesses (FBs). In doing so, we consider the heterogeneity of FBs by testing whether the FB’s life cycle moderates the effectiveness of independent directors. To that end, we differentiate among founder lead family businesses and non-founder lead family businesses. Moreover, we test whether dual leadership structures, in particular when the family chief executive officer is also the chairperson of the board, moderates the effectiveness of independent directors. A cross-country and panel data design was used, taking into account the endogeneity problem arising in studies of corporate governance. The results show that the contribution of independent directors to a firm’s performance differs for NFBs and FBs. Moreover, findings confirm that in FBs, contribution is moderated by the generational stage of the FB and by the leadership structure of the firm.     

The influence of top management support for ICTs on organisational performance through knowledge acquisition,transfer, and utilisation

This research analyses, first, whether top management support for information and communications technologies has positive consequences for knowledge management by analysing the specific influence of top management support for ICTs on each of the knowledge management processes (knowledge acquisition, transfer, and utilisation). Second, it analyses the influence of each knowledge management process on organisational performance. The theoretical model is tested using data collected from March to May 2010 from 201 CEOs in Spanish technology organisations. The results indicate that the stage-based disaggregation of the knowledge management process into knowledge acquisition, transfer, and utilisation, and the three-stage management process are the mediating mechanisms in the relationship between top management support for ICTs and organisational performance. CEOs should thus support the information and communication technologies necessary to improve all of the interrelated stages of knowledge management as a mechanism for achieving better organisational performance. Various strategic actions should be stimulated within the organisation to intensify the interrelation between these stages of acquisition, transfer, and utilisation of knowledge.     

Income distribution,economic growth and European integration

In this paper I discuss recent theories on the relationship between growth and inequality, and ask whether the two move together or not. Output growth can be due to increases in physical capital, human capital, employment or the level of technology, and I argue that each of these represents a mechanism that relates our two variables of interest. The European integration process has represented a major policy change that has affected not only the opportunities for growth but also the constraints faced by national governments. We can then ask whether such integration has had an effect on inequality, and to what extent it has resulted in a conflict between productive efficiency and distributive considerations.     

Polymorphism-screening: genetic testing for predisposition—guidance for technology assessment

Health policy is increasingly confronted with the demand for financing genetic testing on inherited susceptibility to disease. Tests on polymorphism/SNP associated with multicausal and chronic conditions are already offered in private commercial institutions or in academic hospitals. The increasing pressure on public health services to offer SNP testing leads to first methodological approaches for a generally valid regulatory framework applicable for inclusion or refusal of genetic tests into the public health services. Systematic search in Medline, Embase and the Web for methodological papers or guidelines for the assessment of polymorphism-screening. Since genetic testing has not only clinical and economic effects on health care, but also primarily ethical consequences by profiling our understanding of “health” and “disease”, this paper gives an overview of relevant aspects and background information to consider in the assessment of genetic tests. Although 2–3 million SNPs are identified and the journals are full of reported “significant” associations between disease and mutation, only a few can be replicated unequivocally. The ACCE (Analytic and Clinical Validity, Clinical utility; Ethical, legal and social implications)-framework was developed by the Center of Disease Control for the assessment of genetic testing. This standardised appraisal approach proposes collecting and evaluating: (a) Prevalence, genotype-/phenotype-relation. (b) Clinical presentation: natural history; the different expressions of disease. (c) Performance of the genetic test. (d) Implications for therapy and prevention. (e) Conclusion for clinical applications of risk-profiling of health on their susceptibility to disease and/or for clarification of disease for therapy planning. Since genetic testing is urging its way into the health care system, the actual danger is, that population screening starts before valid evidence from big prospective studies have been carried out and delivered proofs of direct causal associations. Before diffusing into the health care system we are suggesting to take a cautious and standardised approach.     

Criteria for the detection of outliers in the multinomial model

We propse methods for the detection of outliers in structured populations in the multinomial model under different working hypotheses.     

Does illegal immigration empower rightist parties?

The main goal of this paper is to analyze the political outcome in countries where the relevant issue in elections is the control of immigration. In particular, we explore the consequences on the political outcome of the fact that parties are either ideological or opportunistic with respect to this issue. To do that, we use a simple two-party political competition model in which the issues over which parties take positions are the levels of border enforcement and the way it has to be financed. We show that an ideological rather than a pure opportunistic behavior gives parties an advantage to win the election. This result may help us to understand the recent success of anti-immigrant and rightist parties in several countries.