Crime,correction, education and welfare in the U.S. – What role does the government play?

As federal, state and local governments continue to allocate a significant share of their resources to law enforcement and correctional spending, concerns have risen that spending in education and welfare is declining. With fiscal pressure in the United States mounting, it is important to determine the effectiveness of public spending in deterring crime. This paper compares the effectiveness of the impact of government spending on welfare and education with that of law enforcement and correction on crime. Using panel data from 50 U.S. states over a time period of 1994–2014, results of linear regression with panel corrected standard errors as well as GMM estimation reveals that public welfare and education spending can potentially lower violent and property crime rates but law enforcement spending can only deter property crime. However, correctional spending can exacerbate both types of crimes. There is little to no evidence of the presence of crowding out of one category of spending by another. This results in the policy implication that more resources be allocated towards welfare and education programs.     

Residential Adjustment of Elders: Learning from Experiences With Parents and Peers

The ways elders learn from the experiences of their parents and peers in coping with declining health can affect residential adjustments they make themselves to minimize their exposure to long-term-care risks. Experiences of parents and peers can affect predisposition toward residential options, and parental and peer experiences sometimes can have major influences in elder residential choices. Drawing on qualitative interviews with community-residing elders, we illustrate how elders critically assess how their own parents and peers responded to declining health. We then show how these assessments influence the residential thinking and adjustments of these elders in anticipation of their own declining self-care capacity.     

Federal research spending and innovation in the U.S. economy

This paper provides a better understanding of federal funding and its impact on the production process of patentable ideas in the U.S. economy. In this study, I develop an expansion of the Marshallian Macroeconomic Model (Ngoie and Zellner, 2012, forthcoming), which is applied to the U.S. science sector and, among other things, compare the return of federal spending on the three components of research activities mainly (1) basic research, (2) applied research, and (3) development research. The findings presented in this study clearly outline that federal funding channeled toward applied research carries a much larger return than research funding assigned to basic or development research. The return on research spending is measured using the number of patents awarded. Furthermore, this study investigates the transformation of patented ideas into new products and the related implications on sectoral economic growth.     

Gender,work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

This study focuses on Swedish couples' work adjustments following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also more likely that only the male partner will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustments of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.     

宏观经济计量模型

本文根据我国宏观经济的原则——“四大平衡”,建立宏观经济计量模型,该模型共有20个内生变量、18个外生变量和一个虚拟变量,且由12个回归方程和8个定义方程所组成,经过统计检验分析,证明该模型比较接近实际情形.     

Duration Adjustment of Acute Exposure Guideline Level Values for Trichloroethylene Using a Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Model

Acute Exposure Guideline Level (AEGL) recommendations are developed for 10-minute, 30-minute, 1-hour, 4-hours, and 8-hours exposure durations and are designated for three levels of severity: AEGL-1 represents concentrations above which acute exposures may cause noticeable discomfort including irritation; AEGL-2 represents concentrations above which acute exposure may cause irreversible health effects or impaired ability to escape; and AEGL-3 represents concentrations above which exposure may cause life-threatening health effects or death. The default procedure for setting AEGL values across durations when applicable data are unavailable involves estimation based on Haber's rule, which has an underlying assumption that cumulative exposure is the determinant of toxicity. For acute exposure to trichloroethylene (TCE), however, experimental data indicate that momentary tissue concentration, and not the cumulative amount of exposure, is important. We employed an alternative approach to duration adjustments in which a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model was used to predict the arterial blood concentrations [TCE(a)] associated with adverse outcomes appropriate for AEGL-1, -2, or -3-level effects. The PBPK model was then used to estimate the atmospheric concentration that produces equivalent [TCE(a)] at each of the AEGL-specific exposure durations. This approach yielded [TCE(a)] values of 4.89 mg/l for AEGL-1, 18.7 mg/l for AEGL-2, and 310 mg/l for AEGL-3. Duration adjustments based on equivalent target tissue doses should provide similar degrees of toxicity protection at different exposure durations.     

我国经济宏观调控的方式转变与路径选择

今年以来，我国上下深入贯彻科学发展观，认真落实党中央、国务院一系列方针政策和宏观调控措施，国民经济持续快速增长，人民生活水平进一步提高。与此同时，我国经济生活中一些突出矛盾还没有得到根本解决，经济运行中出现的一些新问题和新情况亟待我们进行调控和解决。我国经济生活中的种种问题与不协调，其根源就在于经济发展中诸多深层次矛盾长期未得到真正重视和解决。笔者通过深入调研并结合工作实践，对我国宏观经济的主要特点、重要抓手、机遇挑战、相关对策和实施步骤等方面进行了深入的研究与阐述，供政府、企业、管理和研究部门的有识之士交流与参考。     

Bayesian Analysis of Latent Threshold Dynamic Models

We discuss a general approach to dynamic sparsity modeling in multivariate time series analysis. Time-varying parameters are linked to latent processes that are thresholded to induce zero values adaptively, providing natural mechanisms for dynamic variable inclusion/selection. We discuss Bayesian model specification, analysis and prediction in dynamic regressions, time-varying vector autoregressions, and multivariate volatility models using latent thresholding. Application to a topical macroeconomic time series problem illustrates some of the benefits of the approach in terms of statistical and economic interpretations as well as improved predictions. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Time dynamics of elder victimization: Evidence from the NCVS, 1992 to 2005

Persons who are relatively younger have a comparably higher incidence of crime victimization than those who are older. Comparative studies of crime rates among those 65 and older with those for younger persons across time are virtually nonexistent. This study provides these analyses. Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey are used to study the relative victimization rate among US elders. Macroeconomic indicators and environmental interventions were included to examine whether structural forces influence elder crime victimization rates. Such influences are fractionally cointegrated with the long-term elder property and personal crime rates, with each having a distinct data-generating process. The results of these analyses suggest that personal, but not property, crime rates have declined since the passage of the Crime Bill of 1994. As well, the summer months are associated with elevated rates of property crime committed against elders but not personal crime.     

人民币汇率变动对国内价格水平的传递效应

 本文运用长期约束的结构VAR,试图从一个崭新的视角实证考察人民币名义有效汇率对我国价格水平的传递效应。文章特点在于考虑了汇率和价格可能都是受各种宏观经济因素影响的内生变量,以深入揭示两者之间的内在关系。研究发现,（1）当发生汇率冲击时,人民币名义有效汇率对国内各价格水平的传递是不完全的。汇率变动对进口价格的影响强于对消费者价格的影响;（2）而一旦考虑了经济体受到其它类型的宏观经济冲击后,估计的人民币汇率价格传递率则显得更为明显;（3）汇改后我国汇率传递效应趋于强化。本文还分析了实证结果背后可能的深层次原因,并讨论相应的政策启示。