Expanding our sociolinguistic horizons? Geographical thinking and the articulatory potential of commodity chain analysis

Conceptual linearity and analytic parochialism (aka focus) can make it more difficult for sociolinguists or discourse analysts to apprehend the far‐reaching, exploitative ways inequality is nowadays produced. A suitably material‐cum‐materialist class critique certainly entails empirical and phenomenological worlds flagged by, for example, multi‐sited ethnographies but otherwise side‐lined as merely “extra‐situational” in much talk/text‐directed scholarship. I propose we think more geographically by properly engaging spatiality à la Harvey (1990) and especially the radical politics of simultaneity (Massey, 2005)—the literal, “right‐now” connectedness of places and people. To this end, and allied with deepening interest in political economy, I combine the principles of articulation theory with the procedures of commodity chain analysis for picking apart an epitomic, contemporary manifestation of extreme privilege: the business‐class meal. The proposed discourse‐centred commodity chain analysis offers an ecumenical but systematic framework for tracking how commodity fetishism is actually and discursively accomplished (or not) across dispersed voices, stories, and social meanings.     

The intergenerational transmission of income mobility between mothers and their young adult daughters: The mediating role of their daughters' educational attainment

This study examines whether the daughters' educational attainment mediates the intergenerational transmission of economic mobility between mothers and their young adult daughters. To create mother–daughter dyads, two data sets were combined: The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79 for Children and Young Adults (NLSY79 CY). A total of 2,456 dyads were included for analysis. We used a mediation model to explore the relationship between mothers' income and their young adult daughters' income. Mothers' income was associated with their young adult daughters' educational attainment and income. The mediation model indicated partial mediation of the relationship between mothers' income and their young adult daughters' income via their young adult daughters' educational attainment. Addressing issues of income inequality among mothers may serve as a buffer against the low upward mobility across generations for their young adult daughters raised by low-income mothers. It is imperative to provide programs and financial assistance for mothers to bolster their income and thereby their daughters' educational attainment and income in young adulthood and therefore improve economic mobility from mothers to daughters.     

Impact of socio-economic infrastructure investments on income inequality in Iran

One of the main subjects, governments have been facing is fair distribution of income, and making effort to improve it. In this study, we evaluated the effects of economic (energy, water, ICT) and social (health, education) infrastructure expenses on income inequality in the Iranian provinces for the period of 2007–2016 by the panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) model. The results show that social and economic infrastructures improvements reduce income inequality. However, the magnitude of these effects varies. Investment on education, healthcare, communication technology, energy, and water infrastructures has the greatest impact on income inequality reduction, respectively. Therefore, in order to reduce inequality in deprived areas, combination and optimal allocation of economic and social infrastructures should be considered.     

Polarization: Concepts,Measurement, Estimation

We develop the measurement theory of polarization for the case in which income distributions can be described using density functions. The main theorem uniquely characterizes a class of polarization measures that fits into what we call the “identity‐alienation” framework, and simultanously satisfies a set of axioms. Second, we provide sample estimators of population polarization indices that can be used to compare polarization across time or entities. Distribution‐free statistical inference results are also used in order to ensure that the orderings of polarization across entities are not simply due to sampling noise. An illustration of the use of these tools using data from 21 countries shows that polarization and inequality orderings can often differ in practice.     

Linear regression analysis with inequality constraints on the regression parameters via empirical likelihood

An empirical likelihood ratio test is developed for testing for or against inequality constraints on regression parameters in linear regression analysis. The proposed approach imposes no parametric model nor identically distributing assumption on the random errors. The asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic under null hypothesis is shown to be of chi-bar-squared type. The asymptotic power under contiguous alternatives is also briefly discussed. Moreover, an adjusted empirical likelihood method is adopted to improve the small sample size behaviour of the proposed test. Several simulation studies are carried out to assess the finite sample performance of the proposed tests. The results reveal that the proposed tests could be valuable for improving inference efficiency. A real-life example is discussed to illustrate the theoretical results.     

Has the national minimum wage reduced UK wage inequality?

Summary.  The paper investigates the effect on the wage distribution of the introduction, in April 1999, of the national minimum wage (NMW) in the UK. Because of the structure of UK earnings statistics, it is not straightforward to investigate this and various methods for adjusting the published statistics are discussed. The main conclusions are that the NMW does have a detectable effect on the wage distribution and that compliance with the NMW is widespread but the effect is limited because the NMW has been set at a level such that only 6–7% of workers are directly affected and the NMW has had virtually no effect on the pay of workers who are not directly affected. Furthermore, virtually all the changes occurred within 2 months of the introduction in April 1999 and its effect declined over time from April 1999 to September 2001 as the minimum wage was not uprated in line with the increase in average earnings. The more substantial increase in the NMW in October 2001 partially, but not wholly, restored some of this decline in impact.     

Bandwidth selection for local linear regression smoothers

Summary. The paper presents a general strategy for selecting the bandwidth of nonparametric regression estimators and specializes it to local linear regression smoothers. The procedure requires the sample to be divided into a training sample and a testing sample. Using the training sample we first compute a family of regression smoothers indexed by their bandwidths. Next we select the bandwidth by minimizing the empirical quadratic prediction error on the testing sample. The resulting bandwidth satisfies a finite sample oracle inequality which holds for all bounded regression functions. This permits asymptotically optimal estimation for nearly any regression function. The practical performance of the method is illustrated by a simulation study which shows good finite sample behaviour of our method compared with other bandwidth selection procedures.     

中国城镇居民收入分配演变趋势考察——基于不平等和两极分化的分析

控制收入分配差距、调整收入分配格局是构建和谐社会的一个主要目标。根据城镇居民收入分配数据,在对收入分配极化测度和估算方法进行介绍的基础上,从收入流动性角度分析了中国城镇居民收入分配的演变趋势。结果表明,1995-2008年间我国城镇居民收入分配的两极分化指数不断扩大,但是,由于这一过程中低收入群体所占收入比例下降,中、高收入群体所占收入比例上升,收入分配并未表现出明显的两极分化趋势。然而,不断扩大的两极分化指数仍表明,政府不仅需要关注如何提高居民收入水平,还需防范居民收入差距的拉大。     

工会发展与工资不平等： 美英工会的标准化工资率策略

从历史分析的角度看,工会和集体谈判对降低工资不平等有积极作用。美英两国的工会力量在过去一百年的发展中呈现出先增后降的倒U形趋势,与此同时,工资差距和收入不平等程度则呈同步反向运动。工会出于组织考虑、客观标准和工人团结的原因,在集体谈判中采用标准化工资率策略,提高了低工资者收入,压缩了工资分布范围,从而缩小了不平等程度。而我国存在集体合同覆盖率低、协商不充分等问题,为了改善我国收入不平等问题,需要进一步发挥工会在初次分配中的作用。     

关于随机Gronwall不等式的一点注记

指出文献[5]中定理证明的错误,借助于一个引理,改进了该定理的证明．