Correction to: Inequality Between Whom? Patterns,Trends, and Implications of Horizontal Inequality in the Philippines

Social Indicators Research - The article Inequality Between Whom? Patterns, Trends, and Implications of Horizontal Inequality in the Philippines, written by Omar Shahabudin McDoom, Celia Reyes,...     

Indigenous land rights and dynamics of the land market in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This paper raises a number of important issues relating to legal and economic development concepts. It concentrates on the supply constraints affecting land development decisions of both private and public landowners in releasing land for development purposes. With reference to the indigenous land rights in Kuala Lumpur, this paper focuses on the restrictions in interest, which may limit the land from being transferred in the open market. With a limited market, the indigenous land achieves a lower value in the market place because transactions are limited within a particular group of people only. As a result, the market forces are restricted and the land development process for urban regeneration often comes to a halt. In examining the role of the indigenous land market in the redevelopment process of Kuala Lumpur, the study uses an institutional analysis to show the way in which these restrictions in interest affect landowners’ decisions and, thus, restrict the supply of land to real estate redevelopment. In conclusion, the paper shows various causes for land supply constraints and ways to improve these with the aim to undertake urban redevelopment initiatives considering pressure for more land in the market.     

Expanding Carceral Markets: Detention Facilities,ICE Contracts,and the Financial Interests of Punitive Immigration Policy

On the night of November 8, 2016, once election results showed an almost certain presidential victory for Donald Trump, private prison stock values increased. Trump’s harsh anti-immigrant campaign rhetoric, followed by his attempted crackdown on sanctuary cities (and immigrants more generally), had the potential to expand the carceral market to greater shares of undocumented immigrants. We develop a theory of carceral market expansion, arguing that private actors seek to expand carceral markets—for profit—just as in any other market. This paper examines whether private companies, like Core Civic and GEO, that contract with Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to operate detention facilities exert influence over federal immigration legislation in the 113th and 114th Congresses. Specifically, we examine (1) whether campaign donations made by private prison companies and other contractors to legislators (carceral lobbying hypothesis), and (2) having a privately owned or managed ICE detention facility in a legislator’s district (carceral representation hypothesis) increases the probability that legislators will co-sponsor more harsh immigration legislation in the U.S. states. We find strong support for the carceral representation hypothesis but limited to no support for the carceral lobbying hypothesis. Implications are discussed.     

转型期城镇贫困群体的成因及对策研究--以新疆地区为例

随着改革开放的逐步深入,中国城镇出现了大量的贫困人口。新疆的城镇贫困群体具有地域性、文化性等特征。呈现这一状况除社会原因外,还包括家庭及文化等个人原因。要减少城镇贫困人口,必须扩大就业,完善社会保障体系,调整分配方式等,以实现共同富裕和社会的和谐发展。     

Predictors of short-term decay of cell phone contacts in a large scale communication network

Under what conditions is an edge present in a social network at time t likely to decay or persist by some future time t + Δt? Previous research addressing this issue suggests that the network range of the people involved in the edge, the extent to which the edge is embedded in a surrounding structure, and the age of the edge all play a role in edge decay. This paper uses weighted data from a large-scale social network built from cell-phone calls in an 8-week period to determine the importance of edge weight for the decay/persistence process. In particular, we study the relative predictive power of directed weight, embeddedness, newness, and range (measured as outdegree) with respect to edge decay and assess the effectiveness with which a simple decision tree and logistic regression classifier can accurately predict whether an edge that was active in one time period continues to be so in a future time period. We find that directed edge weight, weighted reciprocity and time-dependent measures of edge longevity are highly predictive of whether we classify an edge as persistent or decayed, relative to the other types of factors at the dyad and neighborhood level.     

Ethnic inequality,cultural distance,and social integration: evidence from a native-settler conflict in the Philippines

A key debate in studies of native-migrant relations relates to the barriers to integration created by ethno-cultural differences and socio-economic disadvantage. How do changes in socio-economic inequality between ethnic groups affect interethnic ties in a divided society? I investigate this question by analysing the effect of ethnic inequality on the evolution of cross-ethnic marriages in a society fractured by conflict between natives and settlers. I find the effect is contingent on the ethnic group. Certain groups intermarry more in response to reductions in socio-economic disadvantage; others, however, remain indifferent. I suggest the difference relates to cultural distance. Specifically, I point to differences between groups in the power of the norms and sanctions regulating members’ social interactions outside of the group. These ‘closure’ norms interpose an ethno-cultural distance. I establish these findings with field interviews and census data on over six million marriages in Mindanao, an ethnically diverse region in the southern Philippines and location of an insurgency waged by rebels, drawn from the native Muslim Moro population, resentful of the influx of Christian settlers. I find Moro intermarriage unresponsive to socio-economic equalisation and suggest the strength of their ethno-cultural norms, derived from their ethno-religious identification, accounts for their distinctive response.     

Kernel Method Starting with Half-Normal Detection Function for Line Transect Density Estimation

In this article, we introduce the nonparametric kernel method starting with half-normal detection function using line transect sampling. The new method improves bias from O(h ²), as the smoothing parameter h → 0, to O(h ³) and in some cases to O(h ⁴). Properties of the proposed estimator are derived and an expression for the asymptotic mean square error (AMSE) of the estimator is given. Minimization of the AMSE leads to an explicit formula for an optimal choice of the smoothing parameter. Small-sample properties of the estimator are investigated and compared with the traditional kernel estimator by using simulation technique. A numerical results show that improvements over the traditional kernel estimator often can be realized even when the true detection function is far from the half-normal detection function.     

Career story: Financial Services Statistician

Have you ever been direct mailed by Marks & Spencer Money? If so, the chances are it is because you were interested in the product, Omar Mohamed tells Helen Joyce. A statistician with M&S Money's Marketing Department, he believes that the fast-growing field of financial services is unjustly overlooked by job-seeking statisticians.