Market insurance,social insurance,and education

We show that social disability insurance may better society-wide welfare even when there is a perfect private market for similar insurance. In essence, the public system complements the private. The latter cover risks when personal characteristics are known, whereas the first mitigates effects of unfavorable characteristics. Large social insurance benefits will induce more education among agents with expected good health. These same agents also experience a negative redistributive income effect from social insurance. Incentive effects to redistribution are therefore nonstandard since individuals that are adversely affected by redistribution will respond with more educational vigor.This research has in part been supported by NRC-Ruhrgas. Comments from seminar participants at the German-Norwegian conference on the economics of social insurance in Bergen 1993, and particularly from two referees, whose comments largely improved the presentation, are appreciated.     

A finite mixture approach to joint clustering of individuals and multivariate discrete outcomes

In this work, we modify finite mixtures of factor analysers to provide a method for simultaneous clustering of subjects and multivariate discrete outcomes. The joint clustering is performed through a suitable reparameterization of the outcome (column)-specific parameters. We develop an expectation–maximization-type algorithm for maximum likelihood parameter estimation where the maximization step is divided into orthogonal sub-blocks that refer to row and column-specific parameters, respectively. Model performance is evaluated via a simulation study with varying sample size, number of outcomes and row/column-specific clustering (partitions). We compare the performance of our model with the performance of standard model-based biclustering approaches. The proposed method is also demonstrated on a benchmark data set where a multivariate binary response is considered.     

Penalized image averaging and discrimination with facial and fishery applications

In this paper we use a penalized likelihood approach to image warping in the context of discrimination and averaging. The choice of average image is formulated statistically by minimizing a penalized likelihood, where the likelihood measures the similarity between images after warping and the penalty is a measure of distortion of a warping. The notions of measures of similarity are given in terms of normalized image information. The measures of distortion are landmark based. Thus we use a combination of landmark and normalized image information. The average defined in the paper is also extended by allowing random perturbation of the landmarks. This strategy improves averages for discrimination purposes. We give here real applications from medical and biological areas.     

Trust,commitment and team working: the paradox of virtual organizations

Abstract In this article we take an agent‐centred approach to explore the role of trust and commitment in the virtual organization. The findings of a case study in an international information technology consultancy indicate that multiple relationships arising from the alliance‐based structure require clear commitment to enable the development of trust as a basis for longer‐term partnership. Paradoxically, the perceived low level of commitment from the organization does not engender the high level of trust and commitment required from virtual teams to maximize their performance. However, over time and with extended exchanges, the commitment level and form may evolve, thus necessitating a realignment of existing psychological understanding and trust between the actors. If there is general agreement that an upward shift from short‐term to long‐term commitment is beneficial to all, then the virtual arrangement will continue to be effective.     

Environmentalism,ethnicity and sacred places: Reflections on modernity,discourse and power*

Un mouvement d'opposition à l'aménagement d'une carrière de granite au Cap Breton sert de point de départ à une réflexion sur les problématiques plus de la constitution de l'identité, du discours et du pouvoir à l'époque moderne. L'adoption de modes décontextualisants de production du discours et d'auto-déTinition fait naître des ambivalences et des contradictions au sein de tout mouvement qui se crée en opposition à une structure social fondée sur ces mêmes modes. Autant la modernité se révèle capable d'absorber les critiques qui se situent à l'intèrieur de I'idéologie dominante, autant elle accule les mouvements contre-culturels à des positions extrémistes, y compris des positions qui n'excluent pas le recours à la violence. En redéfinissant le cadre du débat sur l'environnement, l'invocation de la spiritualité représente une révolte à la fois nouvelle et plus efficace contre le langage de la modernité. The movement to stop a proposed granite quarry on Cape Breton Island is used as a point of departure for reflections on larger issues of modern identity construction, discourse, and power. The adoption of decontextualizing modes of discourse and self-definition generates ambivalences and contradictions in any movement launched against a social structure founded on such modes. Modernity, while subsuming the mainstream of critique it generates, simultaneously pushes countercultural movements toward extremist positions, including the threat of violence. In redefining the framework of environmental debate, the invocation of spirituality represents another, more successful revolt against the language of modernity.     

General Economy and Productive Dualisms

Through an investigation of the organizing potential of productive dualisms and ontological hierarchies that move toward epistemic and ontological closures, this essay theorizes the bounded potential of fluidity, and points to the possibility of waste, excess and sacrifice within a general economy of gender. We emphasize the apparently paradoxical role that dualisms — especially dualisms understood semiotically — have played in the foundational work to which many theorists look for clues about how to proceed in confounding limits and boundaries. Moreover, closures around the interrelated subordination of femininity and blackness emerge as a crucial reminder of the interlocking projects of gender and race theory. Drawing upon gender and critical race theory, philosophical phenomenology, and the work of Georges Bataille, we suggest that a general economy of gender can be explored by perceiving the closures, and other limits, enacted by dualism in organizational settings.     

Mein Weg zur Gruppendynamik

Zusammenfassung Als Nestor der Gruppendynamiker in Deutschland schildert der Autor seinen gruppenbezogenen Lebensweg, angefangen bei Dispositionen in Elternhaus und Schule, über Erfahrungen als Schweizer Jugendführer und Deutscher Fliegeroffizier bis hin zur Etablierung institutionalisierter Gruppendynamik, die der Ausbildung eines Trainerkontingents und entsprechender Forschung diente.

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Considered to be the „Nestor“ of group dynamic experts in Germany, the author relates his group-related biography. This begins with the nature of his childhood at home and at school and moves on to the experiences made as a Swiss youth leader and German flight officer. The establishment of institutionalized group dynamics led to the training of a number of apecialized trainers serving the interests of relevant resaearch.