For Better,For Worse: Life Satisfaction Consequences of Migration1

This study explores the extension of microeconomic and migrant network theoretical frameworks for explaining perceived post‐migration life satisfaction of repeat (temporary) and more permanent labor force internal migrants in Thailand. Data from the 1992 National Migration Survey were used in logistic regression models to predict increased versus decreased post‐move satisfaction with employment situation, living environment, and community facilities. Contrary to the neoclassical migration theory assumption, results showed that migration was associated with decreased post‐move satisfaction. Microeconomic theory indicators were related to increased employment satisfaction but decreased post‐move satisfaction with living environment. For network theory indicators, the results showed the opposite pattern — related to improved living environment satisfaction but decreased employment post‐move satisfaction. Repeat (temporary) migrants were disadvantaged in post‐move employment satisfaction compared to more permanent single move labor force migrants.     

Local asymptotic properties for Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process with discrete observations

In this paper, we consider a one-dimensional Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) process whose drift coefficient depends on unknown parameters. Considering the process discretely observed at high frequency, we prove the local asymptotic normality property in the subcritical case, the local asymptotic quadraticity in the critical case, and the local asymptotic mixed normality property in the supercritical case. To obtain these results, we use the Malliavin calculus techniques developed recently for CIR process together with the estimation for positive and negative polynomial moments of the CIR process. In this study, we require the same conditions of high frequency and infinite horizon as in the case of ergodic diffusions with globally Lipschitz coefficients studied earlier in the literature. However, in the non-ergodic cases, additional assumptions on the decreasing rate are required due to the fact that the square root diffusion coefficient of the CIR process is not regular enough.     

Asymptotic approximations to the gain of the 2shi over stein estimators in linear regression models when the disturbances are small

The paper considers a new family of explicit or fully operational two-stage Stein or hierarchial information (2SHI) estimators for linear regression models, and provides an expression for the difference between the risks of these estimators and the usual Stein-rule estimator when the variance of the disturbance is small. The condition under which the 2SHI estimators have smaller average MSE than the Stein-rule estimator is also given.     

Corporate Governance und Eigenkapitalkosten - Bestandsaufnahme des Schrifttums unter besonderer Ber��cksichtigung des Informationsaspektes und Forschungsperspektiven

The present paper provides an overview of research concerning the relationship between corporate governance and the cost of equity capital. The purpose is to explore whether and to what extent corporate governance attributes manifest in firms?? cost of capital. Since the separation of ownership and control is seen as the starting point for the academic thinking on this issue, the term of corporate governance from a shareholder perspective is discussed in more detail. Apart from this terminological discussion the emphasis of this paper lies on the critical review of theoretical and empirical literature. In conducting this review, empirical concepts measuring the relevant dimensions and their potential limitations are explained. Based on these limitations I suggest opportunities for expanding research on the relationship between corporate governance and cost of equity capital, thereby showing future research directions.     

Examining the Firm's Value Creation Process: A Managerial Perspective of the Firm's Value Offering Strategy and Performance

The primary pursuit of any business is to understand what customers value and to create that value for them. While customers are the final arbiter of value, it is the firm's role to explore, interpret and deliver value based on what they believe customers are seeking. Based on this premise we adopt the firm's perspective on value creation to extend both Bowman and Ambrosini's theoretical framework and the work of DeSarbo, Jedidi and Sinha and focus on two issues. The first is the strategic emphasis firms place on the design and delivery of their value offering. The second is the extent the firm's value offering explains performance differentials at the customer‐centric performance level. We present a conceptual model of how firms gain positional advantage via their value offering and the realized outcomes they achieve. We present two approaches to modelling the firm's value offering (type II and type IV models) and articulate the theoretical underpinnings and results for these models. Our results validate the conceptualization of the firm's value offering and suggest that creating superior value offerings enables firms to achieve superiority in customer‐centric performance.     

Economics students need not be greedy: Fairness and the ultimatum game

Following Adam Smith, conventional economics gives self-interest the primary role of all economic behavior. However, past experiments with the ultimatum game often produce outcomes inconsistent with this orthodox conception of ‘economic man.’ In our replication of the ultimatum experiment, students at a small, liberal arts college do not allocate monetary rewards in a self-interested manner, but rather their choices conform with the social norm of ‘fairness’ (i.e., a 50/50 split). Contrary to past research, we find that economic majors are less motivated by self-interest than other students.     

Mediating transnational spaces: international students and intercultural responsibility

Despite the significant body of literature on international students’ intercultural development, the core issue of how they see their own responsibility in transnational intercultural spaces is largely neglected. This paper addresses this paucity by examining the intercultural responsibility perceived by international students. It is based on a four-year study that includes interviews with 105 international students and fieldwork in vocational education institutions. It draws on positioning theory and three key concepts: intercultural competence, intercultural capital and national attachment to interpret the nature of international students’ intercultural responsibility. The research underscores four main forms of intercultural responsibility perceived by international students: responsibility to represent the home country, responsibility to respect the host country, responsibility to assimilate into the host culture and responsibility to integrate into the host culture. Intercultural responsibility can emerge from international students’ national attachment and be embedded in their intrinsic commitment and imagination of their role in representing their home country in a transnational space. Intercultural responsibility can also manifest in international students’ self-determined responsibility to respect, accommodate or integrate into the host culture. However, the finding shows that international students’ act of positioning at the periphery of the host community and their perceived responsibility to assimilate into the host culture precludes their capacity to engage in and negotiate reciprocal and respectful intercultural interactions. The study highlights the role of international students’ self-positioning between and across home and host cultures in underpinning their perceived responsibility in transnational spaces.     

Seven-months-old infants show increased arousal to static emotion body expressions: Evidence from pupil dilation

Human body postures provide perceptual cues that can be used to discriminate and recognize emotions. It was previously found that 7-months-olds’ fixation patterns discriminated fear from other emotion body expressions but it is not clear whether they also process the emotional content of those expressions. The emotional content of visual stimuli can increase arousal level resulting in pupil dilations. To provide evidence that infants also process the emotional content of expressions, we analyzed variations in pupil in response to emotion stimuli. Forty-eight 7-months-old infants viewed adult body postures expressing anger, fear, happiness and neutral expressions, while their pupil size was measured. There was a significant emotion effect between 1040 and 1640 ms after image onset, when fear elicited larger pupil dilations than neutral expressions. A similar trend was found for anger expressions. Our results suggest that infants have increased arousal to negative-valence body expressions. Thus, in combination with previous fixation results, the pupil data show that infants as young as 7-months can perceptually discriminate static body expressions and process the emotional content of those expressions. The results extend information about infant processing of emotion expressions conveyed through other means (e.g., faces).     

The limits of imperial incorporation: Alternative sociological frameworks to study Asian American subjects

This paper argues existing scholarship on Asian American communities is limited by an assumption that incorporation into the US can productively address racial and economic precarity. As an alternative, we offer “Extinguishing Asian (American) Insurgency”, a theoretical framework that incorporates histories of colonialism, imperialism, and postcolonial politics of incorporation into contemporary sociological analyses of Asian subject formation. Applying Du Boisian sociology alongside Frantz Fanon and Joy James, the framework adopts a global, relational analysis of Asian Americans and the US state. We demonstrate the framework's utility through two case studies: anti-colonial Sikh diasporic politics through the Gadar Party and US state efforts to tie diasporic South Vietnamese identity to an anti-communist politic. As such, we encourage the study of alternative possibilities of Asian subject formation that are extinguished by state incorporation, particularly through imperialism and military serivce. Specifically, we address sociologists who extinguish the insurgent Asian American subject in their scholarship by assuming incorporation and pro-state politics as a natural end goal of migration, or those who simply do not name the US as the institutional force extinguishing possibilities of Asian Americans' insurgency.     

One-sided synthetic control charts for monitoring the multivariate coefficient of variation

Shewhart's type control charts for monitoring the Multivariate Coefficient of Variation (MCV) have recently been proposed in order to monitor the relative variability compared with the mean. These approaches are known to be rather slow in the detection of small or moderate process shifts. In this paper, in order to improve the detection efficiency, two one-sided Synthetic charts for the MCV are proposed. A Markov chain method is used to evaluate the statistical performance of the proposed charts. Furthermore, computational experiments reveal that the proposed control charts outperform the Shewhart MCV control chart in terms of the average run length to detect an out-of-control state. Finally, the implementation of the proposed chart is illustrated with an example using steel sleeves data.