The cost–benefit analysis of food safety policies: is it useful?

This article investigates the usefulness of cost–benefit analysis for the assessment of food safety policies, drawing on the experience of professional economists at the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA). After reviewing the history of Impact Assessment at the FSA, the example of the review of the over-thirty-months (OTM) rule is used to illustrate the advantages of the approach. We also highlight issues of uncertainty and intangibility, which create particular difficulties in applying cost–benefit analysis in the area of food safety. The paper concludes, however, that given the limited number of practical alternatives, cost–benefit analysis currently represents the best available approach to the assessment of food safety policies.     

Goodness‐of‐fit tests for the hyperbolic distribution

The authors give tests of fit for the hyperbolic distribution, based on the Cramér‐von Mises statistic W². They consider the general case with four parameters unknown, and some specific cases where one or two parameters are fixed. They give two examples using stock price data.     

Test de différence de contrastes et somme pondérée de khi-deux

After recalling the framework of minimum-contrast estimation, its consistency and its asymptotic normality, we highlight the fact that these results do not require any stationarity or ergodicity assumptions. The asymptotic distribution of the underlying contrast difference test is a weighted sum of independent chi-square variables having one degree of freedom each. We illustrate these results in three contexts: (1) a nonhomogeneous Markov chain with likelihood contrast; (2) a Markov field with coding, pseudolikelihood or likelihood contrasts; (3) a not necessarily Gaussian time series with Whittle's contrast. In contexts (2) and (3), we compare experimentally the power of the likelihood-ratio test with those of other contrast-difference tests.     

The Catalonia survey: Personality and intelligence structure in a sample of compulsive gamblers

A sample of fifty-seven pathological gamblers and one hundred and fifteen controls (two per pathological gambler, matched as regards age and sex) was investigated. This sample received a complex battery of psychometric tests designed to evaluate two different axes: psychopathology and intelligence. The results obtained show that pathological gamblers have an unstable family and work background, that pathological gambling correlates with other addictions (alcohol, illness prone behavior, absenteeism, risk working, living alone and bereavement), that all the general and specific psychopathology vectors were significant in the addicts, and that the pathological gamblers' intelligence has characteristic factors.We thank Ricardo Cayuela (Line Staff, Barcelona) for his help in collecting the sample; Jordi Daura for data processing work; Mercedes Lemonier, psychologist, for her help in administering and correcting the tests; Consol Marina and Teresa Ruiz for their secretarial assistance and contact with the 172 study subjects.     

Identification of Nonseparable Triangular Models With Discrete Instruments

We study the identification through instruments of a nonseparable function that relates a continuous outcome to a continuous endogenous variable. Using group and dynamical systems theories, we show that full identification can be achieved under strong exogeneity of the instrument and a dual monotonicity condition, even if the instrument is discrete. When identified, the model is also testable. Our results therefore highlight the identifying power of strong exogeneity when combined with monotonicity restrictions.     

Constructing meaningful transitions in a vulnerable situation—The role of lifelong learning policies in European regions

This article draws on interviews with 164 young beneficiaries (of) and 128 professionals in charge of lifelong learning policies in eighteen regions located in nine member states of the European Union in 2017. Drawing on the concept of ‘opportunity structures’, we analyse variations between regional institutional arrangements and interactions between professionals and young adults. Our findings suggest that the crux of lifelong learning policies is the coordination between different policy areas so that they can respond to the multidimensional challenges that young adults face during their life transitions in diverse regional contexts.     

The Dynamics of Inequality

The past forty years have seen a rapid rise in top income inequality in the United States. While there is a large number of existing theories of the Pareto tail of the long‐run income distributions, almost none of these address the fast rise in top inequality observed in the data. We show that standard theories, which build on a random growth mechanism, generate transition dynamics that are too slow relative to those observed in the data. We then suggest two parsimonious deviations from the canonical model that can explain such changes: “scale dependence” that may arise from changes in skill prices, and “type dependence,” that is, the presence of some “high‐growth types.” These deviations are consistent with theories in which the increase in top income inequality is driven by the rise of “superstar” entrepreneurs or managers.