The impact of the European Youth Guarantee on active labour market policies: A convergence analysis

The European Union’s (EU) Youth Guarantee aims to improve the labour market situation of young people. Rather than prescribing a uniform policy model, it acknowledges that supportive measures need to align with national, regional and local circumstances. It thus seeks to promote mutual policy learning through the open method of coordination. As an innovative measure, the EU has deployed funding programmes to support the domestic measures related to the Youth Guarantee. We therefore examined in this study whether this mix of recommendations and financial incentives has entailed a convergence of member state policies. Our analysis of policy outputs for the period 2007?2014 yields a mixed empirical picture. There is catching‐up convergence regarding policies’ sectoral coverage but increasing divergence concerning the number of adopted policy instruments. The first two years of financial incentives did not produce any effect on enhancing policy experimentation among less active member states. We offer an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation of these findings.     

Net migration and migration effectiveness: A comparison between Australia and the United Kingdom, 1976–96

This paper explores the impact of net migration in Australia and the United Kingdom using measures of migration effectiveness computed from period-age migration data for four consecutive five-year periods. Results reported in Part 1 of this paper (Stillwellet al. 2000) suggest that while the overall effectiveness of net migration at the scale of city regions has declined over the twenty-year period in both countries, important geographical variations are evident. Part 2 considers how patterns of migration effectiveness vary by age and presents a single classification of all the city regions on the basis of age-specific effectiveness. More detailed analysis includes spatial patterns for particular age groups and net migration profiles of selected regions. Cohort effects are shown to be important for explaining changes between time periods in these regions.     

A NEW CLASS OF MODELS FOR THE DISCRIMINANT PROBLEM

Discriminant analysis is relevant to business decision making in a variety of contexts, such as when one decides to make or buy a specified component, fund a venture project, or hire a particular person. Potential applications in artificial intelligence, particularly in the area of pattern recognition, have further underscored the importance of the field. A recent innovation in discriminant analysis is provided by special linear programming (LP) models, which offer attractive alternatives to classical statistical approaches. The scope of application in which discriminant analysis can be advantageously employed is broadened by the flexibility to tailor parameters in the LP approaches to reflect diverse goals and by the power to explore the sensitivity of these parameters. In spite of the promise of the LP formulations, however, limitations to their effectiveness have been uncovered in certain settings. A recent advance involving a normalization construct removes some of the limitations but entails solving the LP model twice (to allow for different signs of a normalization constant) and does not yield equivalent solutions for different rotations of the problem data. This paper introduces a new model and a new class of normalizations that remedy both remaining limitations, making it possible to take advantage of the modeling capabilities of the LP formulations without the attendant shortcomings encountered by earlier investigations. Our development shows by empirical testing and illustrative analysis that the quality of solutions from LP discriminant approaches is more favorable (relative to the classical model) than previously supposed.     

Resiling From “Resilience”

This is a sketch for a critique of “resilience” and “resiliency” as keywords of neoliberal newspeak (officialese, langue de bois) under the innocuous banner of which all manner of business is now being transacted. I register the rapid extension of resilience discourse, note the socioeconomic context of its rise to prominence, and identify its implicit political assumptions and its social and subjective effects and side effects.     

On the Use of Semi-folding in Regular Blocked Two-level Factorial Designs

In this article, we consider experimental situations where a blocked regular two-level fractional factorial initial design is used. We investigate the use of the semi-fold technique as a follow-up strategy for de-aliasing effects that are confounded in the initial design as well as an alternative method for constructing blocked fractional factorial designs. A construction method is suggested based on the full foldover technique and sufficient conditions are obtained when the semi-fold yields as many estimable effects as the full foldover.     

Perceived importance of “social goals” in business organizations

Business organizations operate within a complex socio-technical environment. Interactions between these socio-technical dimensions and the managers' personal value systems are thought to influence managerial role patterns and decisions. This paper investigates shifts in perceived importance of “social goals” from a set of organizational goals. The research concludes that there has been no significant changes occurring in either the ordering or the clustering of organizational goals.     

Eating dysfunctions in college women: the roles of depression and attachment to fathers

The authors examined the roles of depression and attachment to fathers in college women's eating dysfunctions. Three-hundred six undergraduate women completed (1) a diagnostic measure of eating dysfunctions that categorized them as asymptomatic, symptomatic but not eating disordered, or eating disordered; (2) 3 dimensional measures of attachment to fathers; and (3) a dimensional measure of depression. Depression was directly related to severity of participants' eating dysfunction; the eating-disordered group had scores consistent with clinical depression. After controlling for depression, 3 facets of attachment to fathers significantly differentiated the 3 groups.     

An application of multiple objective linear programming to media selection

A multiple objective linear programming (MOLP) method utilizing interval criterion weights is applied to the problem of media selection. Using this technique, it is possible to analyze a problem more explicitly in terms of the several objectives inherent in many media selection situations. In order to illustrate the interval criterion weights approach, a multiple objective hierarchical media selection model is presented and its computer results discussed. In addition to being able to deal more directly with different decision criteria, a distinguishing feature of the mathematical analysis applied here is that its output enables the media-planner to be presented with a small cluster of candidate media schedules (rather than just one). Then, from this list, the media-planner should be in a position to qualitatively make a final choice as a close approximation to his optimal solution.