THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF BITCOIN

The recent proliferation of bitcoin has been a boon for users but might pose problems for governments. Indeed, some governments have already taken steps to ban or discourage the use of bitcoin. In a model with endogenous matching and random consumption preferences, we find multiple monetary equilibria including one in which bitcoin coexists with official currency. We then identify the conditions under which government transactions policy might deter the use of bitcoin. We show that such a policy becomes more difficult if some users strictly prefer bitcoin because they can avoid other users holding the official currency in the matching process. (JEL C78, E41, E42, E50)     

‘Cruel necessity’: capitalism,the discourse of sympathy,and the problem of the slave trade in the age of human rights

How did Frenchmen profiting from colonial slavery respond to the emergent discourse of human rights? Le commerce de l'Amérique par Marseille (1764), a trade manual by Auguste Chambon, provides exceptional insight into the moral imagination of eighteenth-century commercial capitalists. Chambon encouraged the French to pursue slaving more aggressively. Yet rather than deny the problem of slavery, he questioned openly whether slavery violated morality, religion, and natural rights, responding to Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire from a rare Catholic-inspired perspective. Lamenting slavery as a ‘cruel necessity’ for France, Chambon enabled merchants to represent themselves as sympathetic and patriotic while preserving profits.     

Assessing physical activity in inpatient rehabilitation—sensor-based validation of the PAIR

Increased physical activity is positively associated with better health in community-dwelling older persons. It is unclear whether physical activity also influences success of inpatient rehabilitation. For the assessment of physical activity in inpatient rehabilitation the Physical Activity in Inpatient Rehabilitation Assessment (PAIR), a short questionnaire based on five questions, was developed and preliminary validated. In this study, the PAIR was validated against a sensor-based physical activity measurement. Seventy functionally impaired and cognitively mostly intact patients of a German geriatric inpatient rehabilitation clinic who had undergone hip surgery (n?=?62 women, median age?=?83 years) participated. Physical activity was measured using the PAIR and a sensor-based activity monitor (Physilog ®; BioAGM, CH). Assessments were conducted at admission (T1) and 2 weeks later (T2) during the rehabilitation process. To assess concurrent and predictive validity, Spearman correlations and linear regression models were calculated using sensor-based walking activity and uptime activity (walking and standing time) as dependent variables. Criterion-related concurrent validity using physical activity sensors was weak to moderate. Correlations were slightly higher at T2 (r?=?0.45-0.53) than at T1 (r?=?0.44-0.46). The objectively measured variance of physical activity, explained by the PAIR, ranged from 25 to 43 %. PAIR activity scores and sensor-based walking or total activity increased in a dose-dependent manner, confirming the scoring system of the PAIR. The application time was usually less than 2 min. The validity of the PAIR is weak to moderate when compared to a sensor-based activity monitor and comparable to existing physical activity assessments for community-dwelling older adults.     

Assessing reporting patterns of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church using discontinuities in model parameter timeseries

Prior to 2002, little was known about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. After the Boston Globe broke the story about John Geoghan - a priest in the Boston Archdiocese who was accused of abusing numerous children, convicted of one count of indecent assault, and eventually murdered in prison - the Church had many questions to answer. To this end, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned John Jay College of Criminal Justice to research the nature and scope, as well as the causes and context of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.This research analyzes the data from the John Jay studies using a new quantitative technique, capable of adjusting for distortions introduced by delays in abuse reporting. By isolating discontinuities in model parameter timeseries, we determine changes in reporting patterns occurred during the period 1982-1988. A posteriori to the analysis, we provide some possible explanations for the changes in abuse reporting associated with the change-point. While the scope of this paper is limited to presenting a new methodological approach within the frame of a particular case study, the techniques are more broadly applicable in settings where reporting lag is manifested.     

Looking for homogeneous groups of respondents and nonrespondents using latent class analysis

Concerns about decreasing response rates have led to many nonresponse studies. Unfortunately, usually only a limited amount of data is available on nonrespondents. Linking administrative data makes information available on all the sampled units including nonrespondents. Statistics Netherlands has constructed a database in which several administrative records and several surveys are connected. In this explorative study we use this dataset to look for homogenous groups of respondents and nonrespondents in survey research using latent class cluster analysis. Latent class techniques can provide insight into the problem of selective nonresponse and currently under-represented societal groups. We identify four different latent classes in a recent Dutch survey and replicate the findings for the same survey conducted 4 years later. Two of the types of sampled units have above-average response rates and the other two have below-average response rates. We also evaluate various latent class models with other response outcomes to gain insight into the contact and cooperation process.     

Methodological decisions and the evaluation of possible effects of different family structures on children: The new family structures survey (NFSS)

Every social science researcher must make a number of methodological decisions when planning and implementing research projects. Each such decision carries with it both advantages and limitations. The decisions faced and made by Regnerus (2012) are discussed here in the wider context of social science literature regarding same-sex parenting. Even though the apparent outcomes of Regnerus’s study were unpopular, the methodological decisions he made in the design and implementation of the New Family Structures Survey were not uncommon among social scientists, including many progressive, gay and lesbian scholars. These decisions and the research they produced deserve considerable and continued discussion, but criticisms of the underlying ethics and professionalism are misplaced because nearly every methodological decision that was made has ample precedents in research published by many other credible and distinguished scholars.     

SPECIFICATION AND ESTIMATION OF LOGICALLY CONSISTENT LINEAR MODELS

The implications of constrained dependent and independent variables for model parameters are examined. In the context of linear model systems, it is shown that polyhedral constraints on the dependent variables will hold over the domain of the independent variables when a set of polyhedral constraints is satisfied by the model parameters. This result may be used in parameter estimation, in which case all predicted values of the dependent variables are consistent with constraints on the actual values. Also, the implicit constraints that define the set of parameters for many commonly used linear stochastic models with an error term yield values of the dependent variables consistent with the explicit constraints. Models possessing these properties are termed “logically consistent”.