The future of migration

These three papers on the future of migration make up a summary report on the Conference of National Experts held at the OECD in Paris, May 13-15, 1986. The papers concern possible policy options, international migration as a basic element of economic development, and conclusions about migration trends from the present to the long-term future. The author of the concluding paper remarks that "the Conference brought representatives of all of the Organization's Member countries together with eminent economists and social scientists to discuss the possible and probable outlook for migratory movements in the years to come. The purpose was not to define international norms in this respect, nor to draft one or more international agreements or a legal instrument having the force of law, but to review all the problems raised by that outlook."     

Variations in Fertility and Earning Patterns among Immigrants in the United States, 1970–1980: Assimilation or Disruption?*

"This paper examines the assimilation of immigrants in familial and economic fields.... Specific objectives are as follows: (1) to describe fertility and earning patterns among immigrants to the United States in 1970-1980, from several countries of origin, and (2) to describe some effects of assimilation, human capital, and the dual labor market perspectives on immigrant earnings." Findings vary in both fertility and economic categories for migrants depending on whether they are from developed or developing countries. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

The emergence of Dutch casinos: A case study of mismarketing?

Ostensibly, the approval of legalized casino type gambling in the Netherlands was intended to combat illegal and uncontrolled gambling. Very early on, however, the plan conceived and implemented by the Netherlands Parliament demonstrated serious mismarketing strategies and tactics. The new legal casinos were appealing to people other than those engaged in illegal gambling, in particular foreign tourists and local high rollers. This paper attempts to analyze the ultimate process of goal displacement, as the state casino industry allowed economic objectives to supplant desires to utilize legal casinos primarily as controls over illegal gambling.     

Tapping human potential: an interview with Norman Cousins

Active, responsible partnership between patient and physician creates the best environment for healing. The patient with a strong will to live--who summons spirit, faith, love, hope, purpose, determination, festivity--helps doctors get the best out of medical science.     

Modeling American marriage patterns

"This article investigates the application of the three-parameter, Coale-McNeil marriage model and some related hyperparameterized specifications to data on the first marriage patterns of American women. Because the model is parametric, it can be used to estimate the parameters of the marriage process for cohorts that have yet to complete their first marriage experience. Empirical evidence from three surveys is reported on the ability of the model to replicate and project observed marriage behavior. The results indicate that the model can be a useful tool for analyzing cohort marriage data and that recent cohorts are showing relatively strong proclivities to both delay and forego marriage. Consistent with earlier work, the results also indicate that education is a powerful covariate of the timing of first marriage and that race is a powerful covariate of its incidence." Data are from the U.S. Current Population Survey for 1976 and 1985 and Cycle III of the National Survey of Family Growth for 1982.     

Migration as an object of statistical analysis

The impact of migration on population characteristics and on socioeconomic conditions in the USSR is stressed. Shortcomings in the registration of migration data are noted, and suggestions are made to improve the system of collecting such data.     

THE GENERALIZED INVERSE,WITH NONLINEAR REGRESSION AND MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING APPLICATIONS

This paper is a tutorial exposition on the generalized inverse of a matrix with typical applications to regression analysis and mathematical programming. The exposition contains examples exhibiting geometrical motivation and related facts useful in application of the generalized inverse. Some proofs are given to indicate a few of the theoretical aspects of the generalized inverse.     

A METHODOLOGY FOR DECISION MAKING THROUGH QUEUING ANALYSIS

Many queuing situations present themselves in which multiple alternatives should be evaluated. This is especially true in cases where the alternatives refer to the number of service channels and types of service channels to be utilized. In such cases, it is appropriate to develop suitable queuing models and introduce the additional exogenous variables in the model graphically. This paper presents an example where such a methodology of model construction is feasible and helpful in deciding guidelines for making decisions. The working methodology is explained with a numerical illustration and guidelines for using the proposed methodology are described.     

Waiting Line Effects in Analytical Maintenance Float Policy

The equipment failure distributions commonly identified in practice pose great difficulties in the establishment of sound maintenance total float policy. Some of the existing analytical constructs utilize the reliability ratio of the equipment in operations in order to bypass the obstacles and arrive at applicable solutions. In this paper we give a summary of these theoretical models. In addition, we provide insight by testing the significance of factors utilized in maintenance total float determination. The paper examines the effect of the assumption made by the analytical model of no waiting time for repair. Our test showed that there is no statistically significant difference between the analytical model and simulation when waiting is allowed for the normal and uniform distributions. The analytical model thus offers some advantage in its use to estimate maintenance float due to its simplicity. When failure distribution is an exponential, Erlang-2 or lognormal, the assumption of no waiting time for repair must be kept in order to use the analytical model.