Introduccion

Resumen

El miedo, como una de las consecuencias de la situación sociopolítica de Argentina en los últimos años, ha afectado, y sigue afectando, a la mayor parte de los miembros de esa sociedad, presentando características diferentes según el periodo considerado, es decir, dictadura, transición a la democracia o gobierno democrático concreto. Se discuten sus implicaciones para la sociedad y se sugieren algunas formas de afrontarlo.     

Modeling Sequential Information Acquisition Behavior in Rational Decision Making

Most real‐life decisions are made with less than perfect information and there is often some opportunity to acquire additional information to increase the quality of the decision. In this article, we define and study the sequential information acquisition process of a rational decision maker (DM) when allowed to acquire any finite amount of information from a set of products defined by vectors of characteristics. The information acquisition process of the DM depends both on the values of the characteristics observed previously and the number and potential realizations of the remaining characteristics. Each time an observation is acquired, the DM modifies the probability of improving upon the products already observed with the number of observations available. We construct two real‐valued functions whose crossing points determine the decision of how to allocate each available piece of information. We provide several numerical simulations to illustrate the information acquisition incentives defining the behavior of the DM. Applications to knowledge management and decision support systems follow immediately from our results, particularly when considering the introduction and acceptance of new technological products and when formalizing online search environments.     

On beta regression residuals

We propose two new residuals for the class of beta regression models, and numerically evaluate their behaviour relative to the residuals proposed by Ferrari and Cribari-Neto. Monte Carlo simulation results and empirical applications using real and simulated data are provided. The results favour one of the residuals we propose.     

Professionalizing youth development: the role of higher education

Certificates, credentials, and degrees offered through institutions of higher education allow youth development professionals to acquire educational experiences that are recognized in a formal manner.     

Family Functioning and Its Relation to Parental Discipline

The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scales (FACES) are one of the most used instruments in the study of family relations, assessing relevant dimensions of family functioning. This study aims to examine the relationship between cohesion, communication and family satisfaction, measured by FACES IV, and the dimensions of discipline inventory (DDI). The sample consisted of 380 subjects (190 adolescents and 190 parents). Fathers are the main users of physical discipline and boys are the main targets of most discipline practices. Regarding the association of the DDI and FACES, families with a balanced cohesion use less punitive discipline, families with enmeshed cohesion and families with disengaged cohesion have higher and less use of the analyzed disciplinary practices respectively. Considering the results, it may be useful to work together with families to promote the use of positive disciplinary methods and work their communication skills in order to improve cohesion and consequently family satisfaction.     

Housing Valuation,Wealth Perception,and Homeowners’ Portfolio Composition

This study explores the link between wealth perception from an appreciation of the residential property price and homeowners’ preference toward asset categories pooled by risk. Household survey data for Portugal were used to build shares of low, medium, and high risk assets representing fractions of household’s total wealth. Data showed incomplete household portfolios along with housing capturing the largest share of households’ wealth, in line with the literature on composition puzzles. The findings indicate robust empirical evidence that the rate of housing valuation is an indicator of households’ wealth perception. When the housing price appreciates with respect to its initial cost, households suffer an endowment effect and tend to increase diversity in their portfolio, expanding the holdings of safe deposits as they raise the share of high risk assets.     

Challenging the neoliberal view of education: the Center for Ecoliteracy as a transformative educational practice

The neoliberal rationality of recent decades has, as one of its maxims, that of extending market logic to the rest of social dimensions on the basis of competition. However, the spreading of this neoliberal ‘drug’ requires profound political reforms. It calls for a cultural engineering of the public sector which has been fostered by the New Public Management (NPM). This form of governmentality controls current power relations and gives a new meaning to the management of public services, including the educational sector. In this paper, we maintain that there are ‘spaces of resistance’ against the neoliberal educational rationality. We analyse the Center for Ecoliteracy (CFE) as a transformative experience which integrates a holistic perspective into educational practice. We compare the principles of the NPM with those of the CFE, showing that there are more humanistic approaches to education which aim to teach students the need to live in sustainable communities.     

Non-nested hypothesis testing inference for GAMLSS models

Two or more regression models are said to be non-nested if neither can be obtained from the remaining models when parametric restrictions are imposed. Tests for choosing between linear non-nested regression models are found in literature, such as J and MJ tests. In this paper we propose variants of these two tests for the GAMLSS (Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape) class of models. We report Monte Carlo evidence on finite sample behaviour of the proposed tests. Bootstrap-based testing inference is also considered. Overall, bootstrap MJ test had the best performance. An empirical application is presented and discussed.