Some Problems in Forecasting Population for Government Planning Purposes

Some governments rely on centralized, official sets of population forecasts for planning capital facilities. But the nature of population forecasting, as well as the milieu of government forecasting in general, can lead to the creation of extrapolative forecasts not well suited to long-range planning. This report discusses these matters, and suggests that custom-made forecasts and the use of forecast guidelines and a review process stressing forecast assumption justification may be a more realistic basis for planning individual facilities than general-purpose, official forecasts.     

The Bias in Price Elasticity Estimates Under Homothetic Separability: Implications for Analysis of Peak-Load Electricity Pricing

This article demonstrates that the assumption of a homothetically separable utility function places a priori restrictions on the parameters of the demand system. If these restrictions are unwarranted, an open question if they are not explicitly tested, they will lead to biased price elasticity estimates. In particular, we show that the uncompensated own-price elasticities must be smaller than the negative of the expenditure shares; that is, the price elasticity of peak electricity demand must be less than the negative of the share of expenditure devoted to peak electricity. This finding is probably not new to economists familiar with consumer demand analysis. Nevertheless, many recent studies of consumer demand for electricity under time-of-day rates explicitly impose this restriction. The resulting price elasticity estimates are usually quite large in absolute value (.5 to .8); but they are the product of restrictive a priori assumptions as well as information embodied in the sample data. The results of two analyses of time-of-day experiments, where the researchers imposed the untested assumption of homothetic separability, are examined more closely. We find that the reported price elasticities are strongly influenced by that a priori assumption. A Monte Carlo experiment demonstrates that using this model will lead to the reported price elasticities even if the consumption data are perfectly random with respect to price.     

My Body,Your Body: Speaking the Unspoken between the Thin Therapist and the Eating-Disordered Patient

As thin therapists, who work with eating-disordered patients, we have found that our bodies have an appreciable impact on the treatment. In this article, we discuss issues of transference–countertransference, disclosure, the use of the therapist’s self including the body, and the vicissitudes of the treatment. Patients use the therapist’s thin body in various ways: as evidence to support a number of distorted beliefs and assumptions; as a target of envy; as a container for projections and fantasies. We illustrate through case examples, the importance of including the therapist’s body in the therapeutic dialogue, so that it can be used as a tool, rather than a barrier to recovery.     

Housing the Homeless Mentally Ill

This paper presents the housing outcomes from an assertive case management program for the homeless mentally ill. The program was evaluated using an experimental design. Qualifying clients in a state hospital were randomly assigned to the case management program or routine services. At six month follow-up, over twice as many experimental as control clients were housed. None of the experimental clients had returned to living on the streets or in shelters     

The power of directional predictions in psychology

The vast majority of empirical hypotheses in psychology, or in the social sciences more generally, are directional whereas in other sciences, such as the physical sciences, there are more point or narrow-interval empirical hypotheses. Characteristics of theories and auxiliary assumptions play a role in the difference. Given that psychology research strongly features directional predictions, it is important to question the extent to which these provide convincing tests of theories that they are designed to test. The present work aims to provide a nuanced view that considers the complex interaction between the obviousness of directional predictions, the obviousness of the theory from which they derive, and the quality of the auxiliary assumptions that push towards directional predictions. Then, too, there is the related issue of vulnerability of directional predictions to alternative explanations and how to address them.     

Testing for Full Insurance Using Exogenous Information

We strongly reject the full-insurance hypothesis, using testing variables that are not decision variables for the households under investigation. We find that households are not insured against changes in the unemployment rate associated with the household head's occupational category. Using this exogenous information, we also investigate the appropriateness of exogeneity assumptions on idiosyncratic variables that have been used as testing variables in the full-insurance literature. It is shown that several exogeneity assumptions made in the existing literature are potentially problematic.     

着眼“大海洋”全面推进北仑海洋经济发展

发展北仑区海洋经济,应从兴建国际客运港,开发梅山岛、穿山半岛、梅水港和三山海洋,发展滨海旅游业与海洋新兴产业等方面着手．文章对此作了一些远期设想。     

认知假设·动态语境·幽默效果

关联理论的动态语境观认为,语境是由一系列认知假设构成的,语境的改变会使同一话语产生不同的含义。这一观点给笑话的幽默效果的产生提供了理论依据:笑话利用特殊的话语信息的输入方式来改变听话者的语境,使话语具有特定的含义进而实现幽默效果。     

关于内部控制假设的再思考

伴随着近年来不断发生的企业内部控制失控的事件,内部控制理论与实践不断向前发展,而对作为内部控制理论体系重要组成部分的内部控制假设的研究略显滞后。现有的内部控制假设应该被修正,修正后的内部控制假设包括可持续控制假设、控制主体责任假设、风险可控假设、关于人的行为假设。     

从明示-推理交际模式谈关联理论

关联理论从认知学的角度阐述并修正了Grice的会话理论 ,提出语言交际是一个认知过程 ,即明示 -推理模式 ,从而给语用学研究开拓了新的视野。从比较Grice的会话理论和关联理论入手 ,着重论述了关联理论的基本内容以及明示 -推理模式在理解话语内涵上所具有的积极意义。关联理论被证实是十分强有力的 ,它解释了大量有关语言理解和语言认知的问题。此外 ,它还对认知科学、语言学、语言哲学领域都产生了深刻的影响