Human Capital Composition and Economic Growth

This paper examines the dimensionality and factorial invariance of the Chinese Positive Youth Development Scale (CPYDS) using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MCFA). Secondary 1 students (N = 5,649) responded to the CPYDS in the context of a positive youth development program. Results showed that there are 15 basic dimensions of the CPYDS which are subsumed under four higher-order factors (i.e., cognitive-behavioral competencies, prosocial attributes, positive identity and general positive youth development qualities). Evidence of factorial invariance in terms of configuration, first-order factor loadings, second-order factor loadings, intercepts of measured variable, and intercepts of first-order latent factor, was found. The findings suggest that the CPYDS has stable dimensions that can be used to assess positive youth development in Chinese adolescents.     

Gratitude and Adolescent Athletes’ Well-Being

Two cross-sectional studies were conducted to examine the relationships between gratitude and athletes’ well-being. Study 1 examines the relationship between dispositional gratitude and well-being, while Study 2 investigates the relationship between sport-domain gratitude and well-being. In Study 1, 169 Taiwanese senior high school athletes (M = 16.43, SD = 0.7 years) were administered the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ; McCullough et al. 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 112–127), Team Satisfaction Scale (Walling et al. 1993, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 15, 172–183), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985, Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75), and the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ; Raedeke and Smith, 2001, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 23(4), 281–306). In Study 2, a separate sample of 265 adolescent athletes (M = 16.47 years, SD = 0.7) were administered the modified Sport-domain GQ, Team Satisfaction Scale, and ABQ. Study 1 results showed that dispositional gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and life satisfaction, and negatively predicts athlete burnout. Findings from Study 2 revealed that sport-domain gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and negatively predicts athlete burnout. A stronger gratitude and well-being relationship was observed in Study 2. This research provides the initial verification that gratitude and adolescent athletes’ well-being are related. Possible mechanism of this relation, limitations, and practical implications are discussed.     

The impacts of housing factors on deprivation in a world city: The case of Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a typical example of a world city that faces escalating poverty and housing problems. Problems related to housing are crucial in determining deprivation. By means of hierarchical linear regression on a representative survey of Hong Kong residents in 2014, this study examines the impacts of household income and housing factors on the deprivation of residents in Hong Kong. The study indicates that income level has a crucial effect on the deprivation level of households; whereas housing cost per capita, living area per capita, and living quarter problems significantly influence deprivation. A small interacting effect exists between household income and housing factors, which do not influence the independent effects of living area per capita and living quarter problems on deprivation. For the public rental housing residents, only the effect of living quarter problem on deprivation is significant, whereas for private rental housing residents, living area per capita and living quarter problem have a significant effect. Among all the models, housing expense per capita is a significant factor only in model for overcrowded households. The study recommends that improving the maintenance and renovation schemes for public and private housing with poor living environment is a good strategy to improve housing conditions and deprivation. The study suggests that anti‐poverty policies must consider strategies and measures that can improve the housing factors, including housing expenses, living density and living quarter maintenance problems, especially for those residents with high living density, such as those living in bed spaces, cubicles, and subdivided flats.     

Restricted Revenues and Nonprofit Service Delivery: The Roles of Financial Discretion

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The proposition that restricted revenues inhibit nonprofit service delivery by reducing their financial discretion has...     

Large sample power of absolute moment tests

Sample kurtosis is a member of the large class of absolute moment tests of normality. We compare kurtosis to other absolute moment tests to determine which are the most powerful at detecting long‐tailed symmetric departures from normality for large samples. The large sample power of the tests is calculated using Geary's (1947) approximations of the moments of the test statistics. Using the system of Gram-Charlier symmetric distributions as alternatives, the most power is obtained using a moment in the range 2.5 ‐ 3.5.     

Maximum Average-Power (MAP) Tests

The objective of this article is to propose and study frequentist tests that have maximum average power, averaging with respect to some specified weight function. First, some relationships between these tests, called maximum average-power (MAP) tests, and most powerful or uniformly most powerful tests are presented. Second, the existence of a maximum average-power test for any hypothesis testing problem is shown. Third, an MAP test for any hypothesis testing problem with a simple null hypothesis is constructed, including some interesting classical examples. Fourth, an MAP test for a hypothesis testing problem with a composite null hypothesis is discussed. From any one-parameter exponential family, a commonly used UMPU test is shown to be also an MAP test with respect to a rich class of weight functions. Finally, some remarks are given to conclude the article.     

Regression Estimation of Crop Acreages With Transformed Landsat Data as Auxiliary Variables

Methods are developed for combining data collected by satellite with data collected in an area survey to estimate crop acreages. The basic procedure is that of survey regression estimation. Two methods of transforming the satellite information prior to regression estimation are compared.     

Impacts of financial crisis on social engagement in Hong Kong

While a financial crisis must afflict people financially, its impacts on people's social life are unclear. Essentially, different theories expect different impacts of the financial crisis on people's social engagement. The present study thereby clarifies the effect by examining the experienced impact of the crisis on social engagement, in terms of participation in voluntary association and caring for acquaintances. Data for the study came from a survey of 1170 Hong Kong Chinese adults. Results show that the experienced impact tended to raise the participation, which in turn appeared to encourage the caring. These results support the functional explanation, which holds that the fiscal crisis generates a need for functions of voluntary associations. Meanwhile, the results are at odds with the resource thesis, which expects that the crisis would deprive resources required for social engagement. The results imply that the financial crisis can be a lever to strengthen social engagement.     

Is a powerful rival a right partner?

This paper explores why powerless firms are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to collaborate with other powerful firms. Two natures of power, competitive and cooperative natures, are compared to study such an imbalance between firms in market power and social power. Testing the syndicated underwritings in the U.S. from 1998 to 2009, we find that egos of low market power are less likely to partner with alters of high market power. In contrast, egos of low social power are more likely to collaborate with alters of high social power. Moreover, the results show that collaborations with powerful partners are not necessarily beneficial or detrimental for the performance of powerless focal firms; only when the high power partners possess a high network constraint which constrains opportunism and facilitates trust, do collaborations with such partners help the performance of powerless focal firms.     

Self-updating clustering algorithm for estimating the parameters in mixtures of von Mises distributions

The EM algorithm is the standard method for estimating the parameters in finite mixture models. Yang and Pan [25] proposed a generalized classification maximum likelihood procedure, called the fuzzy c-directions (FCD) clustering algorithm, for estimating the parameters in mixtures of von Mises distributions. Two main drawbacks of the EM algorithm are its slow convergence and the dependence of the solution on the initial value used. The choice of initial values is of great importance in the algorithm-based literature as it can heavily influence the speed of convergence of the algorithm and its ability to locate the global maximum. On the other hand, the algorithmic frameworks of EM and FCD are closely related. Therefore, the drawbacks of FCD are the same as those of the EM algorithm. To resolve these problems, this paper proposes another clustering algorithm, which can self-organize local optimal cluster numbers without using cluster validity functions. These numerical results clearly indicate that the proposed algorithm is superior in performance of EM and FCD algorithms. Finally, we apply the proposed algorithm to two real data sets.