California’s experience with non-adversary divorce

California's Family Law Act of 1969, effective January 1, 1970, instituted non-adversary proceedings for divorce, suggested a more equal division of community property and reduced the minimum waiting time for a final divorce decree. A rapid increase in the number of divorces granted in California followed. Analysis revealed that the 1969 Law did not lead to any real increase in marital dissolution among Californians or produce any significant changes in the characteristics of the population filing for divorce. What was seen were certain modifications in behavior on the part of divorcing persons to take advantage of the Law's new provisions.     

A PENSION DECISION MODEL FOR THE EMPLOYER*

Recently, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) reevaluated accounting for pension plans. The issue is emotional and highly political in nature. The FASB attempted to justify its approach on the basis of measuring economic activity, but it failed to provide much in the way of analytical support. This paper provides a managerial decision model and an economic basis for the existence of pension plans. A pension plan is described as a cost-saving, risk-sharing, incentive contract. The analysis is developed using agency theory. The model presented here meets three suggested objectives of an employer: 1. Maximization of utility through the maximization of profit 2. Ability to conform the risk characteristics of an employment contract to the risk characteristics of the employer 3. Diversification of the risk inherent in the employment contract Profit is maximized by producing cost savings associated with employee tenure and loyalty. Sharing cost savings with employees (i.e., offering a pension plan) meets the above objectives. The employer determines the optimal sharing rate for the expected cost savings. An examination of the employer's underlying decision process reveals implications for pension plan accounting which generally are consistent with and support the FASB's Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 87 [5].     

Smallpox and Its Eradication in Finland: Implications for Disease Control

Cause-specific mortality studies are vital for a full understanding of the determinants of mortality and epidemiological transitions. The exceptional detail and accuracy of archival materials in Finland, as well as the length of the period covered, offer an ideal opportunity for such analyses. Focussing upon the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the history, decline, and eventual eradication of smallpox is detailed. It has often been argued that primary vaccination in childhood was the major factor responsible for the decline and subsequent elimination of the disease in Finland. This perspective is probably correct for the initial decrease in smallpox mortality. To interpret the final phases of smallpox history in Finland, however, several factors must be taken into consideration. These include revaccination, virulence of the virus, containment (quarantine) of infected individuals, vaccination of contacts, and importation of the virus from surrounding countries. While these factors were not of equal causal importance, they exerted a synergistic effect on the course of Finnish smallpox history. This in-depth historical case study demonstrates that multiple factors must be taken into account when disease control policies in developing countries are formulated to-day.     

Computation of exact and approximate probability values for a matched pairs permutation test

An algorithm is presented for computing the probability value associated with a recently-developed test of statistical inference for matched pairs. The exact probability value is provided for small samples; otherwise, an approximate probability value is computed.     

An extended class of permutation techniques for matched pairs

A class of matched-pairs permutation techniques based on distances between each pair of observed signed values is considered. Although many commonly-used inference techniques for matched pairs are members of this class, some of the more appealing inference techniques among this class have received very little attention. Two new simple rank tests of this class jointly possess both intuitive properties and location-alternative power characteristics which appear more appealing than the corresponding characteristics of either the sign test or the Wllcoxon signed-ranks test. In particular, power comparisons based on slmula-tions indicate that these new rank tests are jointly as good or even vastly superior to the sign test or the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test for location alternatives involving five symmetric distributions. The five distributions selected for these com-parisons include the Laplace, logistic, normal, uniform and a U-shaped distribution     

ASYMPTOTIC DISTRIBUTIONS OF MATCHED-PARIS PERMUTATIO STATISTICS BASED ON DISTANCE MEASURES

A technique for deriving asymptotic distributions of matched-pairs permutation statistics based on distance measures is discussed and applied to four specific examples recently considered by Mielke & Berry (1982).