Most existing reduced-form macroeconomic multivariate time series models employ elliptical disturbances, so that the forecast densities produced are symmetric. In this article, we use a copula model with asymmetric margins to produce forecast densities with the scope for severe departures from symmetry. Empirical and skew t distributions are employed for the margins, and a high-dimensional Gaussian copula is used to jointly capture cross-sectional and (multivariate) serial dependence. The copula parameter matrix is given by the correlation matrix of a latent stationary and Markov vector autoregression (VAR). We show that the likelihood can be evaluated efficiently using the unique partial correlations, and estimate the copula using Bayesian methods. We examine the forecasting performance of the model for four U.S. macroeconomic variables between 1975:Q1 and 2011:Q2 using quarterly real-time data. We find that the point and density forecasts from the copula model are competitive with those from a Bayesian VAR. During the recent recession the forecast densities exhibit substantial asymmetry, avoiding some of the pitfalls of the symmetric forecast densities from the Bayesian VAR. We show that the asymmetries in the predictive distributions of GDP growth and inflation are similar to those found in the probabilistic forecasts from the Survey of Professional Forecasters. Last, we find that unlike the linear VAR model, our fitted Gaussian copula models exhibit nonlinear dependencies between some macroeconomic variables. This article has online supplementary material. 相似文献
This article argues that social work in the UK needs to renegotiate its relationship with community welfare agencies. It begins by examining what we mean by local community and how welfare needs reflect complex non-linear dynamics unique to the local circumstances. It is argued that these are not always recognised in centralised policy agendas. The article broadly draws a parallel between policy issues for the European Community and for the national state. The drive for both is towards uniformity, which potentially fails to acknowledge the unique circumstances at both the national level between nations and the local level between communities.
The focus of the analysis is the lack of engagement with the subtleties of the local within the arena of social work education and practice. With the opportunity presented by the introduction of a new social work degree in the UK, the authors describe how a social work programme in Liverpool undertook a piece of research with the aim of creating an appropriate place for community welfare agencies in practice placements, the academic curriculum and, ultimately, with the next generation of social work practitioners. Eight welfare agencies within the proximity of Liverpool University, an area known as Toxteth, agreed to participate in the research to investigate what kind of placement module would enable local welfare agencies to engage meaningfully in the social work degree. Out of this process emerged a model for research based curriculum development involving local community agencies and academic institutions. More specifically for Liverpool, it placed the notion of social work's relationship with local community welfare at the heart of professional development for qualifying social workers, paving the way in this region of England for closer links between welfare agencies associated with civil society and professional social workers. 相似文献
This article argues that interdependent relationships are key in realising inclusion and citizenship for people living with dementia. We focus on decision-making as one aspect of everyday life which reflects opportunities and challenges associated with citizenship. Accounts of everyday decision-making from people living with dementia provide insight into strategies for negotiating responsibilities as they shifted with dementia. An inductive, secondary data analysis developed decision narratives from the data of 61 interviews conducted in the United Kingdom. The interviews were with 12 people with a diagnosis of dementia plus their nominated care-partner in a qualitative study which focused on information management and sense of self. The secondary data analysis identified strategies for inclusion, emphasising relational interdependency amidst challenges. The five-stage framework of an Ethic of Care positions this interdependency as a response to barriers to inclusion and citizenship. Interdependency, therefore, emerges as key to realising relational citizenship. 相似文献
This study investigates the impact of service diversification on the rate and mode of firm growth in professional service firms (PSFs). Drawing on the extant PSF literature, we identify differing views regarding the growth impact of service diversification. Specifically, some scholars suggest that the external client benefits associated with service diversification should allow PSFs to expand revenues at a rapid pace and pursue less merger and acquisition activity, whereas others imply that increased diversification can cause internal challenges with respect to learning costs, coordination and innovation that can limit the rate of revenue growth and encourage more mergers and acquisitions. We test these competing views using longitudinal data on 137 accounting firms and cross-sectional data on 125 law firms and find that service diversification is negatively associated with the rate of firm revenue growth and positively associated with the use of mergers and acquisitions. 相似文献
This paper focuses on a Christian model of leprosy care overseen by Catholic nuns in Quy Hòa, a leprosarium in South Central Vietnam, from 1929—when the leper colony was established—until 1975, when the American-backed Southern regime collapsed and all of Quy Hòa’s foreign nuns were forced to leave. Drawing on recollections of elderly residents of the former leprosy colony, it describes the close and loving attention that the nuns offered to inmates, an attentiveness that was informed by the nuns’ ethic of Christian sacrifice. The nuns at Quy Hòa successfully built a quasi parent–child relationship with leprosy-afflicted inmates. Their striking devotion to the ‘lepers’ resembles substitute motherhood. However, these recollections of that era also shed critical light on an approach to leprosy care that was premised on hierarchy, strictly enforced segregation from the wider community and pronounced paternalism towards all those who came under the nuns’ rule of care. 相似文献
This article contributes to anthropological discussions about care, food and morality by considering the gastro-morality of Yolngu people living in Galiwin’ku in the 2000s. I develop the concept of ‘trans-material morality’ to capture the ways that food takes on material, emotive and ontological forms of morality. Food is central to articulating expressions of care, as well to experiencing feelings of being cared for and, inversely, feelings of not being cared for. This is done by way of the meanings of good and bad that are attached to the food itself and by way of eating and acts of sharing and not sharing. I argue that largely because of food’s capacity to exist as trans-material morality, it is a particularly compelling thing with which to moralise, both in the intimate interactions of day-to-day life and in the grander theorising that human beings undertake to paint a picture of moral change. 相似文献
The present study uses canonical analysis to examine the contingency model of organizations in the nursing home field. Data on environmental pressures and managerial practices relevant to the decision-making process are analyzed. Results support the theory that managerial practices are contingent on environmental pressures. The implications of these results for health-care decision makers and for future assessments of managerial-environmental relationships are discussed. 相似文献