Unemployment duration and the measurement of unemployment

We propose a framework in which the welfare bases of various unemployment measures available in the literature can be analyzed and a decomposition of these measures can be made into aggregate unemployment and the concentration of its distribution. A set of axioms for an unemployment measure is then introduced, which relate to the sensitivity of an unemployment measure to the inequality in the distribution of the unemployment. An unemployment measure is derived on the basis of these axioms that captures the distributional considerations in the measurement of unemployment.      

Recurrence relations for moments of different orders of extremes from gamma distribution

Certain recurrence relations for the moments of different orders of the largest order statistic from a gamma distribution with shape parameter p are obtained. By using this it is shown that for obtaining the moment of any order of each order statistic of a sample of size n from the gamma distribution, one has to evaluate at most n-2 single integrals.     

News

U. S. National Income Series Revised—Congress Votes No on Censuses of Business and Manufactures—Britain Revises Living Cost Index-U. S. and U. K. Surveys Uncover Lacks in Statistical Training-Forthcoming Statistical Conferences     

A Note on Functional Forms of Order Statistics

Functional forms of order statistics, as the solution of a system of equations, are studied. The case of the smaller and the larger of two random variables is discussed in detail. Some applications for normal and binomial distributions are presented.     

Precise Simulated Percentiles in a Pinch

A percentile point simulation algorithm is presented. The algorithm is useful when computer storage and time considerations are at a premium. The algorithm employs various time- and storage-saving ideas, including a “pinching” mechanism that reduces the proportion of simulated values stored as the number of iterations is increased. Algorithm output includes a measure of precision as well as the simulated percentile point. The simulation can be stopped when the desired degree of precision has been attained.     

Statisticians Can Matter

Statisticians fall far short of their potential as guides to enlightened decision making in business. Two important explanations are: (1) Decision makers are often more easily convinced by concrete examples, however fragmentary and misleading, than by competent statistical analysis. (2) The effective use of statistics in the process of decision making requires hard thinking by decision makers, thinking that cannot be delegated entirely to the statistical specialist. Modern developments in interactive statistical computing may help to reduce the force of these limitations on exploitation of statistics; used properly, computing can encourage, almost force, the student or business user of statistics to think statistically.     

Bill Cochran: His Contributions to Medicine and Public Health and Some Personal Recollections

There is a tremendous need in our technological society to train statisticians for all sectors of education, government, and industry. Because statistical training has largely been restricted to graduate schools, the profession is losing many good students to other fields of study. Members of the statistics community are encouraged to reach out to high-school students and undergraduate students to increase the awareness of statistics as a scientific field of study and as a professional career. The ASA Council of Chapters has recently completed a slide presentation entitled “Statistical Science: The Profession,” which was professionally developed to aid this endeavor. In addition, high-school teachers, high-school counselors, and professors of mathematics and science education are identified as important audiences for hearing this message and for broadening general public awareness of what our profession has to offer.     

Distributing Journals to the World

Abstract

In 2001, a number of initiatives began for distributing research journals to parts of the world where they are otherwise not accessible. This “Balance Point” reports on two publishers whose journals are now more broadly available in developing nations. HighWire Press offers both a free back issue archive and a developing countries initiative. Blackwell Publishing is working with a Russian consortium to make journals available to Russian universities and with nongovernmental organizations to provide free or nearly free access to biomedical journals in a number of developing nations. Serials Review 2002; 28:113–115.     

Simulation of Balakrishnan skew-normal order statistics

ABSTRACT

The novel Balakrishnan skew-normal distribution introduced in 2008 has received considerable interest. Here, we derive stochastic representations for simulating order statistics of the novel Balakrishnan skew-normal distribution. The resulting algorithms are more efficient than the ordinary sorting algorithm.     

Enrolment in initial courses in statistics: An exploratory study

In January 1981 a questionnaire was sent to 102 universities and colleges in Canada and the United States seeking information on enrolment in initial courses in statistics. That questionnaire has been analyzed and the results are presented in this paper.