Consistent price determination of income and production: A singular equation system applied to the MPS model

In this article we present a general methodology that can be used to estimate a singular equation system of relative prices for a large disaggregated macroeconometric model (MPS). The accounts consistency requirements and the necessity to utilize distributed lag restrictions and to impose a serial correlation structure on the estimated model make these sum constraints rather cumbersome. Estimates of the MPS model and multiplier analysis illustrate the use of these constraints on a large forecasting model as well as the feasibility of the technique.     

Environmental Information Disclosure Programs: They Work,but Why?

Objective. Despite the rich discussions about the role of information disclosure programs in environmental policy, our theoretical understanding of how and why information disclosure programs work lacks a clear framework. This article begins to fill that void by laying out some fundamental theories and concepts that underlie the empirical work on the subject. Methods. Basic theories arising from our knowledge of economics, psychology, and politics are compared. Previous research is analyzed with these theories in mind. Results. Research results confirm the plausibility of each of these theories, though the most compelling evidence so far suggests that shock and shame are key motivating factors for improved environmental performance by industry. Conclusions. The argument is made that our theoretical foundations must be understood better if we are to make sense of the empirical work on the subject. Policy implications are addressed.     

Kids or courses? Gender differences in the effects of active labor market policies

We investigate active labor market programs in Austria. We find only small effects, if any, for most of the programs. However, the programs may have unintended consequences for women. In particular for younger women, a key effect of the programs and one reason for the male–female effect differential that is observed in the literature is to reduce or postpone pregnancies and to increase their attachment to the labor force. Furthermore, the variables capturing pregnancies and times of parental leave play a key role in removing selection bias.     

Reviews

Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, New Mexico University Press, 1986, By John, Collier, Jr. and Malcom Collier

Snapshot Versions of Life, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987, By Richard Chalfen

Six‐Guns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western, University of California Press, 1975, By Will Wright, St. Lawrence University

Bitter Melon: Stories from the Last Rural Chinese Town in America, University of Washington Press, 1987, By Jeff Gillenkirk and James Motlow

Committing Photography ‐ Yes and No, But Mostly Yes. A Review Essay of Committing Photography, by Su Braden, Pluto Press, 1983

Sociology in a Changing World, by William Kornblum, Holt, Reinehart, and Winston, 1987     

SurveyMotion: what can we learn from sensor data about respondents’ completion and response behavior in mobile web surveys?

Participation in web surveys via smartphones increased continuously in recent years. The reasons for this increase are a growing proportion of smartphone owners and an increase in mobile Internet access. However, research has shown that smartphone respondents are frequently distracted and/or multitasking, which might affect completion and response behavior in a negative way. We propose ‘SurveyMotion (SMotion)’, a JavaScript-based tool for mobile devices that can gather information about respondents’ motions during web survey completion by using sensor data. Specifically, we collect data about the total acceleration (TA) of smartphones. We conducted a lab experiment and varied the form of survey completion (e.g. standing or walking). Furthermore, we employed questions with different response formats (e.g. radio buttons and sliders) and measured response times. The results reveal that SMotion detects higher TAs of smartphones for respondents with comparatively higher motion levels. In addition, respondents’ motion level affects response times and the quality of responses given. The SMotion tool promotes the exploration of how respondents complete mobile web surveys and could be employed to understand how future mobile web surveys are completed.     

Parenthood and Quality of Life in Old Age: The Role of Individual Resources,the Welfare State and the Economy

Although the notion of ‘Social Europe’ can refer to different principles and policy options, most research narrows down attitudes towards Social Europe to a unidimensional construct. In this study, we instead propose a multi-dimensional approach, and contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we elaborate the notion of ‘Social Europe’ conceptually, and distinguish between the decision-making level for social policy, European social citizenship, harmonization, member-state solidarity and interpersonal solidarity. Second, analysing the 2014 Belgian National Election Study by means of confirmatory factor analysis we evidence that citizens indeed have distinct attitudes towards the policy principles and instruments of Social Europe. Although these attitudinal dimensions are interrelated, they cannot be reduced to a single Social Europe factor, meaning that citizens differentiate in their attitudes between various aspects of Social Europe. In addition, our research indicates that member-state solidarity is the primary aspect of Social Europe in public opinion, whereas the feature that has received most scholarly attention in empirical research to date—the preferred decision-making level for social policy—cannot be considered as a key component of attitudes towards Social Europe. Third, we investigate whether citizens with different educational levels conceptualize Social Europe similarly using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Results indicate that the attitudinal factor structure of Social Europe is largely equivalent among lower and higher-educated citizens.     

Akzeptanz von Vergeltungsmaßnahmen am Arbeitsplatz: Befunde aus einer quasi-experimentellen UntersuchungAccepting retaliation in the workplace: findings from a quasi-experimental investigation

Is it acceptable when a company dismisses a worker because of a small property offense? What about workers who withhold information to their superiors because their performance bonus was canceled? This vignette study works out if and under which conditions bystanders assess these and similar retaliation measures as acceptable. Participants in an online panel were asked to judge the acceptability of different scenarios. The results show that respondents rather accept weaker than stronger retaliations, and that they rather accept measures that violate only organizational norms, but no legal norms. However, it also important what caused the reaction – for instance the acceptance of layoffs increases with the level of previous damage done to the employer. The characteristics of employers and employees described have, however, only a small impact on acceptance rates. Regarding the characteristics of survey participants, especially age had a significant impact – older persons are significantly less likely to accept norm violations than younger people.     

A Tail Quantile Approximation for the Student t Distribution

In this article, we derive a new formula for extreme Student t quantiles. We use the fact that the Student t distribution arises as the limit of a variance-mixture of normals. For the normal distribution there is already a tail quantile formula derived by Reiss (1989 Reiss , R.-D. ( 1989 ). Approximate Distributions of Order Statistics: With Applications to Non-parametric Statistics . New York : Springer .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). We generalize his procedure and transfer it to our scenario.

Eventually, we compare the quantile estimates of our formula to those from Gafer and Kafadar (1984 Gafer , D. P. , Kafadar , K. ( 1984 ). A retrievable recipe for inverse t. Amer. Statistician 38(4):308–311 . [Google Scholar]), who also derived a Student t quantile formula. Using R to generate a benchmark we find that our method is more accurate for very high quantiles.     

Das Anerkennungsdefizitsyndrom des Wohlfahrtsstaats

The contribution questions the conception of the welfare state as an institutional arrangement for social inclusion and integration underlying Günter Duxes book “Why justice at all” (“Warum denn Gerechtigkeit”). This concept is countered with a sociological analysis stressing the asymmetric structures of recognition that characterize the welfare state (particularly its German variant) and reconstructing the changing patterns of social inequality produced by recent “activation” policies. As a normative guideline for future reforms, the paper argues for a universalistic recognition regime that transcends the restrictions of the national-industrial model of welfare.     

Spatial externalities and risk in interdependent security games

Individuals regularly invest in self-protection to reduce the risk of an adverse event. The effectiveness of self-protection often depends on the actions of other economic agents and can be modeled as a stochastic coordination game with multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria. We use lab experiments to analyze tacit coordination in stochastic games with two kinds of interdependencies in payoffs: “non-spatial” in which every agent’s action has an impact on the risk faced by every other agent, and “spatial” in which agents only impact the risk faced by their immediate neighbors. We also compare behavior in the stochastic games to deterministic versions of the same games. We find that coordination on the payoff-dominant equilibrium is significantly easier in the deterministic games than in the stochastic games and that spatial interdependencies lead to greater levels of coordination in the deterministic game but not in the stochastic game. The difficulty with coordination observed in the stochastic games has important implications for many real-world examples of interdependent security and also illustrates the importance of not relying on data from deterministic experiments to analyze behavior in settings with risk.