Community and social capital in Slovenia—the impact of transition

The transition from socialism to capitalism has many impacts on the everyday life of the people of Slovenia. Amongst others it has an impact on their community ties and their choices regarding participation in public life. Community can enable or diminish the basic processes, such as solidarity, equal choices and opportunities, and respect for the differences that are needed for an inclusive society. This article researches such processes through the concept of social capital and provides some responses necessary for the political and professional planning of social policy and the practice of social services.     

Sequential procedures based on M-estimators with discontinuous score functions

Bounded-width sequential confidence intervals and sequential tests for regression parameter based on M-estimators are extended to the case where the score-functions generating the M-estimators have jump-discontinuities. In the context of the asymptotic normality of the stopping variable, for the confidence interval problem, it is observed that the jump-discontinuities induce a slower rate of convergence. The proofs of the main theorems rest on the weak convergence of some related processes and this is also studied.     

Selection of bandwidth for kernel regression

ABSTRACT

The most important factor in kernel regression is a choice of a bandwidth. Considerable attention has been paid to extension the idea of an iterative method known for a kernel density estimate to kernel regression. Data-driven selectors of the bandwidth for kernel regression are considered. The proposed method is based on an optimally balanced relation between the integrated variance and the integrated square bias. This approach leads to an iterative quadratically convergent process. The analysis of statistical properties shows the rationale of the proposed method. In order to see statistical properties of this method the consistency is determined. The utility of the method is illustrated through a simulation study and real data applications.     

Projection Measures And Estimation Variances Of Intensities

The paper investigates random processes of geometrical objects in Euclidean spaces. General properties of the measure of total projections are derived by means of Palm distribution. Explicit formulas for variances of the projection measure are obtained for Poisson point processes of compact sets.

Intensity estimators of fibre (surface) processes are then studied by means of projection measures. Classification of direct and indirect probes is introduced. The indirect sampling design of vertical sections and projections is generalized and its statistical properties derived.     

Does it pay to care? Volunteering and employment opportunities

We investigate whether volunteering has a causal effect on individual employment opportunities. To this end, a field experiment is conducted in which volunteering activities are randomly assigned to fictitious job applications sent to genuine vacancies in Belgium. We find that volunteers are 7.3 percentage points more likely to get a positive reaction to their job applications. The volunteering premium is higher for females but invariant with respect to the number of engagements.     

Logratio approach to statistical analysis of 2×2 compositional tables

Compositional tables represent a continuous counterpart to well-known contingency tables. Their cells contain quantitatively expressed relative contributions of a whole, carrying exclusively relative information and are popularly represented in proportions or percentages. The resulting factors, corresponding to rows and columns of the table, can be inspected similarly as with contingency tables, e.g. for their mutual independent behaviour. The nature of compositional tables requires a specific geometrical treatment, represented by the Aitchison geometry on the simplex. The properties of the Aitchison geometry allow a decomposition of the original table into its independent and interactive parts. Moreover, the specific case of 2×2 compositional tables allows the construction of easily interpretable orthonormal coordinates (resulting from the isometric logratio transformation) for the original table and its decompositions. Consequently, for a sample of compositional tables both explorative statistical analysis like graphical inspection of the independent and interactive parts or any statistical inference (odds-ratio-like testing of independence) can be performed. Theoretical advancements of the presented approach are demonstrated using two economic applications.     

In the Long Run We Are all Dead: Hey Keynes, What Is Long in the Contemporary US Case?

The idea of declinism of the US had emerged in every decade after the World War Two and so it was as well after the end of the Cold War. The article argues that such a phenomenon may be attributed to the nature of the international system, where through the globalization the US enables ‘the rest’ to grow on its expense. China and other export led economies, made great benefit of the US open market that is functioning as a ‘big vacuum cleaner’. The focal question of article is two-folded: first, is ‘the raise of the rest’ causing the geoeconomic centre of power to shift from the Atlantic to Pacific; second, is the US in decline? Article presents economic data that show that there are no economic incentives for the geoeconomic shift. The geopolitical centre may indeed by shifting, but not due to the geoeconomic reasons, but rather due to military, political, and ideological power factors. The US has been in relative decline since the end of the WW2—other international actors seized the chance that the international system created by the US provided. Thus, the relevant question about declinism is—is the US in absolute decline? The article argues that the 2008 financial shock was not cyclical in nature, but rather systemic. It is the first time since the WW2 that the US was unable to answer to the challenge adequately. The main reason for that is not external, namely, the relative decline of the US—G8 was replaced by G20—but internal—the US is not tackling the core of its systemic economic problem. This suggests that the US is marching towards an absolute decline. To avoid its demise, the US has to change its Keynesian pragmatic short-sighted economic mentality and do the well needed structural reforms.