Preserving dominance relations through disaggregation: the evil and the saint

This article investigates the circumstances in which stochastic dominance relations at any finite degree at the household level can be assumed to be preserved at the individual level. We find necessary and sufficient conditions on the common sharing function adopted by households to divide the cake among a “strong” and a “weak” individual. The sharing function which maps the household income into the outcome of the weak individual must belong to the class of utility functions which supports the stochastic order. In addition, the household must follow a compensating rule, meaning that the share of resources devoted to the weak individual increases with household income. Applications to fiscal federalism are also proposed. “All inequality is a source of evil - for by the inferior more is lost in the account of happiness than is gained by the superior” J. Bentham, First Principle preparatory to Constitutional Code, 1822.      

Comfort model for automobile seat

Comfort on automobile seats is lived daily by thousands of drivers. Epistemologically, comfort can be understood under the theory of complexity, since it emerges from a chain of interrelationships between man and several elements of the system. This interaction process can engender extreme comfort associated to the feeling of pleasure and wellbeing or, on the other hand, lead to discomfort, normally followed by pain. This article has for purpose the development of a theoretical model that favours the comfort feature on automobile seats through the identification of its facets and indicators. For such, a theoretical study is resorted to, allowing the mapping of elements that constitute the model. The results present a comfort model on automobile seats that contemplates the (physical, psychological, object, context and environment) facets. This model is expected to contribute with the automobile industry for the development of improvements of the ergonomic project of seats to increase the comfort noticed by the users.     

Workplace discrimination and missing limbs: the national EEOC ADA research project

Using the Integrated Mission System of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the employment discrimination experience of Americans with missing limbs is documented. Researchers compare and contrast the key dimensions of workplace discrimination involving Americans with missing limbs and persons with back and other non-paralytic orthopedic impairments. Specifically, the researchers examine demographic characteristics of the charging parties; the industry designation, location, and size of employers against whom complaints are filed; the nature of discrimination (i.e., type of adverse action) alleged to occur; and the legal outcome or resolution of these complaints. Findings indicate that persons with missing limbs were more likely to encounter discrimination if they were male, under 20 or over 65 years of age, and White or Native American. They were also more likely to encounter more frequent discrimination when they worked for employers in the Southern United States, those with 200 or fewer employers, or whose industry designation involved manufacturing, construction, or transportation. Finally, the nature of job discrimination experienced by Americans with missing limbs is more likely to involve hiring, promotion, or job training than other issues. Implications for policy and advocacy are addressed.     

Bayesian inference for contingency tables with given marginals

Summary In this paper we introduce a class of prior distributions for contingency tables with given marginals. We are interested in the structrre of concordance/discordance of such tables. There is actually a minor limitation in that the marginals are required to assume only rational values. We do argue, though, that this is not a serious drawback for all applicatory purposes. The posterior and predictive distributions given anM-sample are computed. Examples of Bayesian estimates of some classical indices of concordance are also given. Moreover, we show how to use simulation in order to overcome some difficulties which arise in the computation of the posterior distribution.     

Fiducial and Confidence Distributions for Real Exponential Families

We develop an easy and direct way to define and compute the fiducial distribution of a real parameter for both continuous and discrete exponential families. Furthermore, such a distribution satisfies the requirements to be considered a confidence distribution. Many examples are provided for models, which, although very simple, are widely used in applications. A characterization of the families for which the fiducial distribution coincides with a Bayesian posterior is given, and the strict connection with Jeffreys prior is shown. Asymptotic expansions of fiducial distributions are obtained without any further assumptions, and again, the relationship with the objective Bayesian analysis is pointed out. Finally, using the Edgeworth expansions, we compare the coverage of the fiducial intervals with that of other common intervals, proving the good behaviour of the former.     

Stochastic Population Forecasting Based on Combinations of Expert Evaluations Within the Bayesian Paradigm

This article suggests a procedure to derive stochastic population forecasts adopting an expert-based approach. As in previous work by Billari et al. (2012), experts are required to provide evaluations, in the form of conditional and unconditional scenarios, on summary indicators of the demographic components determining the population evolution: that is, fertility, mortality, and migration. Here, two main purposes are pursued. First, the demographic components are allowed to have some kind of dependence. Second, as a result of the existence of a body of shared information, possible correlations among experts are taken into account. In both cases, the dependence structure is not imposed by the researcher but rather is indirectly derived through the scenarios elicited from the experts. To address these issues, the method is based on a mixture model, within the so-called Supra-Bayesian approach, according to which expert evaluations are treated as data. The derived posterior distribution for the demographic indicators of interest is used as forecasting distribution, and a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is designed to approximate this posterior. This article provides the questionnaire designed by the authors to collect expert opinions. Finally, an application to the forecast of the Italian population from 2010 to 2065 is proposed.     

The stochastic inverse projection and the population of Velletri (1590-1870)

A new stochastic method of inverse projection based on the simulation of age and sex of deaths is proposed. The method is implemented in two procedures, i.e., SIPAV (forward inverse projection) and SIPIN (backward inverse projection). The two procedures are used to study the history of the population of Velletri from 1590 to 1870.     

Adaptación de las escalas de placer,activación y dominancia de Mehrabian y Russell en sujetos hispanoparlantes

Resumen

Se pasó una adaptatión castellana de las escalas de Mehrabian y Russell (1974) a un total de 28 nombres de emoción. El análisis factorial de las puntuaciones promediadas de cada término en cada uno de los 18 pares de adjetivos permitió aislar tres factores ortogonales que explicaban el 93,4% de la varianza total. Los tres factores fueron similares a los encontrados por Mehrabian y Russell: Placer, Activación y Dominancia.     

COMPETING WITH MENUS OF TARIFF OPTIONS

The nature of numerous strategies of firms is often discrete or countable. This adds difficulty to measuring and testing for the existence of complementarities among several strategies. This paper introduces a generalized multivariate count data model that allows estimating correlations of any sign among the pricing decisions of competing firms in a manner that is robust to the existence of unobserved heterogeneity leading to either over‐ and underdispersion of the distribution of counts. Thus, it is possible to overcome a major challenge in testing whether two decisions are strategic complements or substitutes, namely, dealing with the effect of unobserved heterogeneity. I study how firms actually compete in nonlinear tariffs by analyzing the interrelation between the incumbent and entrant's decisions to offer a given number of tariff options. Results document the existence of complementarity among tariff options regardless of whether they are dominated or not. This result supports the view that the implementation of nonlinear tariffs by means of a menu of self‐selecting two‐part tariffs has some strategic competitive value. (JEL: C35, D43, M21)