The Chinese and Indian Automobile Industry in Perspective: Technology Appropriation, Catching-up and Development

The comparison of the automobile industry in China and India allows us to shed light on the economic processes of emergence at large. There is a stark contrast in the capacities of autonomisation and endogenisation of the sector in the two countries. This contrast serves as an analyser of the relationships between the modes of sector opening and the paths of technological catching-up that is at the core of the phenomenon of emergence.

Contract,Mechanism Design,and Technological Detail

This paper develops a theoretical framework for studying contract and enforcement in settings with nondurable trading opportunities and complete but unverifiable information. The framework explicitly accounts for the parties' individual trade actions. The sets of implementable state‐contingent payoffs, under various assumptions about renegotiation opportunities, are characterized and compared. The results indicate the benefit of modeling trade actions as individual, rather than as public, and they highlight the usefulness of a structured game‐theoretic framework for applied research.     

Characteristics of LGBT caregivers of older adults: Results from the national Caregiving in the U.S. 2015 survey

Using data from the Caregiving in the U.S. 2015 national survey, we compared characteristics of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and non-LGBT caregivers of older adults and explored predictors of caregiver strain. LGBT caregivers were younger, more racially/ethnically diverse, and less frequently a spouse/partner compared with their heterosexual counterparts. LGBT caregivers more frequently reported helping with medical nursing tasks and reported higher levels of financial strain. While LGBT identity was not an independent predictor of greater strain, characteristics more frequently reported by LGBT caregivers were, for instance, helping with medical nursing tasks. In addition, LGBT individuals who were children of the older adult were more likely to report higher levels of emotional strain than other relationship types.     

On the Creation of Acceptable Conjoint Analysis Experimental Designs

Conjoint analysis studies typically utilize orthogonal fractional factorial experimental designs to construct a set of hypothetical stimuli. Occasionally, these designs include environmentally correlated attributes that can lead to stimulus profiles that are not representative of the subject's environment. To date, no one has proposed a remedy well-grounded in statistical theory. This note presents a new methodology utilizing combinatorial optimization procedures for creating modified fractional factorial designs that are as “orthogonal” as possible, which do not contain nonrepresentative stimulus profiles.     

Sampling techniques and the use of Tang's procedure in insect population dynamics studies

Summary Some calculations were performed usingTang's method as an aid in planning experiments for studying the population dynamics of the Jeffrey pine beetle. The population dynamics studies were aimed at detecting the importance of specific effects, e. g., tree diameter, tree height. TheTang procedure is a method of estimating the sample size required to detect effects of a given magnitude with analysis of variance tests. Using this procedure some sample calculations were performed which indicated the sample size needed, and the efficacy of different strategies of improving the results, e. g., increasing the number of trees sampled versus increasing the area of the tree sampled. The statistical parameters used in the calculations were estimated from some preliminary sampling data. Use of this procedure is recommended in insect population studies as a method of optimally planning experiments, and as a method of making precise conclusions about the significance of specific effects. This study was supported by Contracts 68-03-0273 and 68-03-2442 with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis Environmental Research Laboratory, Corvallis, Oregon. This paper has been reviewed by the Corvallis Environmental Research Laboratory and approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents necessarily reflect the views and policies of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.     

QUADRATIC PREFERENCES AND GOAL PROGRAMMING

One of the shortcomings of goal programming lies in its linearity, assumption, specifically in the objective function. This assumption compels one to work with constant marginal utilities and rates of substitution. In this paper a quadratic preference function, which is more consistent with economic theory and reality, is formulated and introduced into goal programming. In an effort to facilitate the understanding of the proposed procedure, two illustrative examples—one with symmetric preferences and the other with asymmetric preferences, both applied to the objective function—are solved and compared with a goal programming solution.     

Telephone surveys under different frame constructions—evaluating differences in estimates,precision, and cost

Dual-frame, random-digit-dialing (DFRDD) surveys, using a frame of landline telephone numbers and a frame of cell phone numbers, have become the norm for telephone surveys. Two alternative frame constructions sample exclusively from a cell phone frame, referred to as the ‘single-frame cell,’ and sample from the listed landline frame and the cell phone frame, referred to as ‘listed/cell.’ The listed/cell frame construction differs from the DFRDD in that it does not select unlisted-landline frame members. We observe in our simulated data that the listed/cell frame construction results in estimates that more closely approximate the estimates from DFRDD compared with the single-frame cell, results in an improvement in precision compared with the DFRDD that is not as large as the improvement in the single-frame cell, and has lower cost than both the DFRDD and the single-frame cell. We conclude that a listed/cell frame construction might be a better solution than either a DFRDD or single-frame cell frame construction.