"As Our Muscles Get Softer, Our Missile Race Becomes Harder": Cultural Citizenship and the "Muscle Gap"

Abstract  The "muscle gap" was a period of Cold War anxiety projected onto the bodies of young, white males that produced a discourse fixated on their perceived softness and openness to communist penetration. The underlying anxiety was that youth would be unable to uphold the "national heritage" of expansionism built by the hard (white) men of previous generations. Looking at cultural citizenship as a process of subject-formation sheds light on how a racial project can simultaneously be a gender project that (re)produces a racial-gender order where whiteness and hegemonic masculinity are markers and repositories of superiority, domination, and privilege.     

Choosing a Model Selection Strategy

An important problem in statistical practice is the selection of a suitable statistical model. Several model selection strategies are available in the literature, having different asymptotic and small sample properties, depending on the characteristics of the data generating mechanism. These characteristics are difficult to check in practice and there is a need for a data-driven adaptive procedure to identify an appropriate model selection strategy for the data at hand. We call such an identification a model metaselection, and we base it on the analysis of recursive prediction residuals obtained from each strategy with increasing sample sizes. Graphical tools are proposed in order to study these recursive residuals. Their use is illustrated on real and simulated data sets. When necessary, an automatic metaselection can be performed by simply accumulating predictive losses. Asymptotic and small sample results are presented.     

Integrating world cities into production networks: the case of port cities

In this article we analyse the location patterns of firms that provide specialized advanced producer services (APS) to international commodity chains that move through seaports. Such activities can take place in world cities or in port cities. The analysis of APS location patterns in port cities provides a good opportunity to integrate the study of world cities into the framework of Global Production Networks. Based upon our empirical findings, we conclude that while port-related APS activities predominantly follow the world city hierarchy, a number of port cities stand out because they act as nodes in global commodity flows and as centres of advanced services related to shipping and port activities. Based on these empirical findings we address future avenues of research.     

池田大作的中道思想与未来观

池田大作的“中道思想” ,认为矛盾对立的双方其实是统一的、依存的关系 ,所以人类要想生存、发展 ,在未来人与自然、人与社会以及国家、民族间的相互关系方面 ,必须致力于维护相互间的和谐。为了达到这一目标 ,他认为创立一种新的宗教是必要的     

A strategic model of communications demand

Strategic planning of telecommunications supply takes place in an increasingly turbulent environment due to factors such as the development of new and improved telecommunications services, the convergence of computing and telecommunications technologies and the emergence of the information society. This article is concerned with a model of future communications demand, developed under a research contract placed by British Telecom. The model describes dynamic trends in the supply and demand for communications products and services over a 30 year time horizon. Some key model features are outlined and an overview of the computer programme is given. The aim of the project was to provide decision-makers with a flexible, analytical tool for the exploration of policy issues and environmental impacts. The model should not be viewed as a forecasting tool but as an aid to structured thinking and the rapid assessment of alternative scenarios.     

STEROIDS AND HOME RUNS

There has been no change in Major League Baseball home run hitting for 45 yr, in spite of the new records. Players hit with no more power now than before. Records are the result of chance variations in at bats, home runs per hit, and other factors. The clustering of records is implied by the intermittency of the law of home runs. Home runs follow a stable Paretian distribution with infinite variance. The shape and scale of the distribution have not changed over the years. The greatest home run hitters are as rare as great scientists, artists, or composers. (JEL A10, C02, C16, C52, L51)     

Bayesian Survival Analysis in Proportional Hazard Models with Logistic Relative Risk

Abstract.  The traditional Cox proportional hazards regression model uses an exponential relative risk function. We argue that under various plausible scenarios, the relative risk part of the model should be bounded, suggesting also that the traditional model often might overdramatize the hazard rate assessment for individuals with unusual covariates. This motivates our working with proportional hazards models where the relative risk function takes a logistic form. We provide frequentist methods, based on the partial likelihood, and then go on to semiparametric Bayesian constructions. These involve a Beta process for the cumulative baseline hazard function and any prior with a density, for example that dictated by a Jeffreys-type argument, for the regression coefficients. The posterior is derived using machinery for Lévy processes, and a simulation recipe is devised for sampling from the posterior distribution of any quantity. Our methods are illustrated on real data. A Bernshtĕn–von Mises theorem is reached for our class of semiparametric priors, guaranteeing asymptotic normality of the posterior processes.     

ON GENDER GAPS AND SELF‐FULFILLING EXPECTATIONS: ALTERNATIVE IMPLICATIONS OF PAID‐FOR TRAINING

This paper presents a model of self‐fulfilling expectations by firms and households which generates multiplicity of equilibria in pay and housework time allocation for ex‐ante identical spouses. Multiplicity arises from statistical discrimination exerted by firms in the provision of paid‐for training to workers, rather than from incentive problems in the labor market. Employers' beliefs about differences in spouses' reactions to housework shocks lead to symmetric (ungendered) and asymmetric (gendered) equilibria. We find that: (1) the ungendered equilibrium tends to prevail as aggregate productivity in the economy increases (regardless of the generosity of family aid policies), (2) the ungendered equilibrium could yield higher welfare under some scenarios, and (3) gender‐neutral job subsidies are more effective that gender‐targeted ones in removing the gendered equilibrium. (JEL J16, J70, J71)