Transnational community enterprises for social welfare in global civil society

Considerable attention has been devoted thus far to transnational economic and political enterprises in globalisation. This article focuses on the phenomenon of social globalisation. Specifically, we call attention to the need for research and development on transnational enterprises to support and maintain individuals and families that are members of transnational communities in the USA and Mexico. The social fallout of transmigration on the health and social wellbeing of sending and receiving communities is enormous and costly, and far beyond the capacity of transmigrants to handle merely through self-help, mutual aid or small voluntary clubs and associations. This article raises questions about whether it is possible, or desirable, for civil society organisations to expand the scope of their vision to include social welfare activities that promote and enhance the health and social wellbeing of host and home communities simultaneously.     

The impact of tax rates, political partisanship and economic variables on the distribution of state and local tax burdens

This study finds that the effective state and local tax rate for the top 1% of income households as a percentage of the effective state and local tax rate for the bottom 20% of income households in 2002 is significantly influenced by whether a state has a multi-rate income tax, right-to-work laws, the liberalism of a state's electorate, the average tax burden in a state and past tax policy. Democratic Party strength in state government, Republican or Democratic Party institutional control of state government, change in real per capita income, a Democratic Governor and the change in the share of income going to the top 1% of income households are not significant predictors. The empirical results are identical for the top 2-5% of income households to the bottom 20% of income households.     

A comparison of stein-like procedures for estimating linear regression models with multicollinear data

This paper compares several Stein-like estimation methods for estimating regression parameters. The criterion function was the mean-squared error of prediction and the parameter of interest was the mean of the response variable at the sampled values of the control variables. Large sample simulation techniques were used to evaluate the mean-squared error of the predictions. The parameters of interest were varied systematically over wide ranges.     

A Test for the Equality of Parameters for Separate Regression Models in the Presence of Heteroskedasticity

Testing for the equality of regression coefficients across two regressions is a problem considered by analysts in a variety of fields. If the variances of the errors of the two regressions are not equal, then it is known that the standard large sample F-test used to test the equality of the coefficients is compromised by the fact that its actual size can differ substantially from the stated level of significance in small samples. This article addresses this problem and borrows from the literature on the Behrens-Fisher problem to provide some simple modifications of the large sample test which allows one to better control the probability of committing a Type I error. Empirical evidence is presented which indicates that the suggested modifications provide tests which are superior to well-known alternative tests over a wide range of the parameter space.     

Silence,Death, and D/discourse: Critical Literary Practices With Lesbian Seniors

This article reports on a federally funded research project in which old lesbians were invited to separate out and examine the complicated strands of lives lived through times of great social change—times in which notions of “woman,” “sexuality,” and “subjectivity” have been both over- and under-determined by dominant discourse (Stein, 1997). We argue, with Haug (1992), that close attention to the personal is central to critical feminist perspectives and that writers can become more aware of normalizing cultural influences when they pay close attention to language. In this article, we support our position with a case study of one participant in our “language school” (Haug, 1992). As we analyzed her written life narratives and oral testimony, we conclude that she was able to reconsider comfortable “coming out” narratives in order to construct new meaning and to challenge her understandings of the past.     

R&D productivity rides again?

A recent analysis of R&D productivity suggests that there are grounds for ‘cautious optimism’ that the industry ‘turned the corner’ in 2008 and is ‘on the comeback trail’. We believe that this analysis is flawed and most probably wrong. We present an alternative analysis of these same data to suggest that the industry is not yet ‘out of the woods’ and suggest that many of the systemic issues affecting pharmaceutical R&D productivity are still being resolved. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are Self‐Service Customers Satisfied or Stuck?

This paper investigates the impact of self‐service technology (SST) usage on customer satisfaction and retention. Specifically, we disentangle the distinct effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self‐service customers. Our empirical analysis examines 26,924 multi‐channel customers of a nationwide retail bank. We track each customer's channel usage, overall satisfaction, and retention over a 1‐year period. We find that, relative to face‐to‐face service, customers who use self‐service channels for a greater proportion of their transactions are either no more satisfied, or less satisfied with the service they receive, depending on the channel. However, we also find that these same customers are predictably less likely to defect to a competitor if they are heavily reliant on self‐service channels characterized by high switching costs. Through a mediation model, we demonstrate that, when self‐service usage promotes retention, it does so in a way that is consistent with switching costs. As a robustness check, we examine the behavior of channel enthusiasts, who concentrate transactions among specific channels. Relative to more diversified customers, we find that self‐service enthusiasts in low switching cost channels defect with greater frequency, while self‐service enthusiasts in high switching cost channels are retained with greater frequency.