Incorporation,Transnationalism, and Gender: Immigrant Incorporation and Transnational Participation as Gendered Processes1

This article analyzes immigrant incorporation and transnational participation as gendered experiences. The results indicate that the incorporation of immigrants is a complex process affected negatively by class and racial exclusion and positively by their knowledge of U. S. society. The analysis also indicates that incorporation and transnational participation are concurrent and intertwined processes. Our results show that gender matters in the analysis of immigrant incorporation. The experiences of immigrant men and women share a lot in common as they confront similar challenges, but are also affected differently by the most relevant factors in the process of incorporation and transnational participation.     

Maximum likelihood estimation of a generalized star(p; 1p) model

Summary A STAR model is characterized by autoregressive terms lagged both in time and space. The model we call GSTAR presents also contemporaneous spatial correlation. Under the hypothesis of stationarity we derive conditional maximum likelihood estimators of the autoregressive parameters and a consistent estimator of their covariance matrix.     

The social consequences of transformation in Slovakia

This article provides basic information about the transformation process in Slovakia from 1989 to 1994. Presented are some of the major results of the SOCO survey and selected important social topics are analyzed. Sociological information about income, property, consumption, and expenditures of Slovak households is given, and the economic activities of Slovak households and peoples’ attitudes to the transformation process are discussed. The article also addresses who are the winners and losers of the transition in the context of rising poverty and changes in social policy.     

A proposal for categorizing the severity of non uniform differential item functioning: The polytomous case

Abstract

Differential item functioning (DIF) is present when something about the characteristics of a test taker interferes with the relationship between ability and item response. Non uniform DIF (NUDIF) exists when there is interaction between ability level and group membership. The aim of this study is to propose guidelines to evaluate the severity of NUDIF, taking into account the family of Rasch models. The severity of NUDIF is evaluated trying to quantify the overall biasing impact of the presence in the test of NUDIF items, on the estimated measure of the latent trait of interest.     

Modelling small and medium enterprise loan defaults as rare events: the generalized extreme value regression model

A pivotal characteristic of credit defaults that is ignored by most credit scoring models is the rarity of the event. The most widely used model to estimate the probability of default is the logistic regression model. Since the dependent variable represents a rare event, the logistic regression model shows relevant drawbacks, for example, underestimation of the default probability, which could be very risky for banks. In order to overcome these drawbacks, we propose the generalized extreme value regression model. In particular, in a generalized linear model (GLM) with the binary-dependent variable we suggest the quantile function of the GEV distribution as link function, so our attention is focused on the tail of the response curve for values close to one. The estimation procedure used is the maximum-likelihood method. This model accommodates skewness and it presents a generalisation of GLMs with complementary log–log link function. We analyse its performance by simulation studies. Finally, we apply the proposed model to empirical data on Italian small and medium enterprises.     

Who’s About to Leave? A Global Survey of Aspirations and Intentions to Migrate

This article analyses aspirations and intentions to migrate based on Gallup World Poll for the period 2010–2015. We estimate individual‐level traits associated with aspirations and intentions to migrate across groups of countries in different regions and with different income levels. This paper brings together previous hypotheses regarding migration aspirations and tests them under several specifications, while keeping separate findings according to migration aspirations and intentions to appreciate differences between them. Being dissatisfied with one’s own standard of living is associated with a higher probability of desiring to move, while the relation with the actual preparation to migrate is less clear. Some individual traits remain significant across (almost) all specifications: being male, foreign‐born, highly educated, and having networks abroad are associated with higher probability of preparing for international migration. Aspects related to one’s economic situation are not consistently significant across specifications, signalling the importance of contextual analyses for these factors.     

Increased risk of emergency department presentations for bronchiolitis in infants exposed to air pollution

Air pollution has been linked to an increased risk of several respiratory diseases in children, especially respiratory tract infections. The present study aims to evaluate the association between pediatric emergency department (PED) presentations for bronchiolitis and air pollution. PED presentations due to bronchiolitis in children aged less than 1 year were retrospectively collected from 2007 to 2018 in Padova, Italy, together with daily environmental data. A conditional logistic regression based on a time-stratified case-crossover design was performed to evaluate the association between PED presentations and exposure to NO₂, PM2.5, and PM10. Models were adjusted for temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, and public holidays. Delayed effects in time were evaluated using distributed lag non-linear models. Odds ratio for lagged exposure from 0 to 14 days were obtained. Overall, 2251 children presented to the PED for bronchiolitis. Infants’ exposure to higher concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 in the 5 days before the presentation to the PED increased the risk of accessing the PED by more than 10%, whereas high concentrations of NO₂ between 2 and 12 days before the PED presentation were associated with an increased risk of up to 30%. The association between pollutants and infants who required hospitalization was even greater. A cumulative effect of NO₂ among the 2 weeks preceding the presentation was also observed. In summary, PM and NO₂ concentrations are associated with PED presentations and hospitalizations for bronchiolitis. Exposure of infants to air pollution could damage the respiratory tract mucosa, facilitating viral infections and exacerbating symptoms.     

Equivalence scales,the cost of children and household consumption patterns in Italy

This article deals with the estimation of parametric equivalence scales for Italian households with different demographic characteristics: composition, location and number of employed members in the household. Using a sample of 43,701 observations on monthly current expenditures from 1997 to 2004 we estimate a demand system for ten goods and we tackle the problem of corner solutions for some goods adopting the Two Step estimator proposed by Shonkweiler and Yen (Am J Agric Econ 81:972–982, 1999). The consumption behavior of households is also analyzed calculating compensated, uncompensated and expenditure elasticites for each commodity. By considering households that differ in composition (number of children), geographic location (four-different macro-areas of Italy), and number of employed adults, we allow for a range of useful comparisons.