Defining welfare spells. Coping with problems of survey responses and administrative data

The authors explore how to define a welfare spell and how well surveys measure welfare spells. By comparing survey and administrative data from the Work Pays Demonstration Project in California on the receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), they find that a substantial amount of administrative churning occurs in administrative data. Through a mixing model of several break lengths, the authors find that a single definition of a break in welfare is not applicable to all respondents. Additionally, it appears that there is substantial variation in the break lengths respondents utilize. Finally, the authors show that the complexity of defining an accurate break in spells creates difficulties for detecting biases in survey responses.     

STRATEGY, NONTRANSITIVE DOMINANCE AND THE EXPONENTIAL DISTRIBUTION

An easily programmed recursive formula for the evaluation of the distribution function of ratios of linear combinations of independent exponential random variables is developed. This formula is shown to yield the probability that one team beats another in a contest we call the special gladiator game. This game generates tournaments which exhibit nontransitive dominance and have some surprising consequences. Similar results are obtained for a recursive formula based on the geometric distribution.     

Ecological Economic Policy for Sustainable Development: Potentials and Domains of Intervention for Delinking Approaches

Due to the increasing environmental problems, conventional environmental policy will not suffice to secure a development path that can be sustainable on a global scale. This article establishes a conceptual framework for general strategies to reach the goals of ecological sustainability and individual well-being. Environmental impact, material input, income/production, the amount of services utilised, and well-being are the fundamental elements of this framework and their linkages are highlighted as possible targets of ecological economic policy. It is clear that current environmental policies, based on a rather narrow, reductionist view of the man-nature relationship, will not suffice. We investigate under which conditions a de-linking of individual well-being from environmental impacts can be achieved; a dramatic dematerialisation of the industrialised economies turns out to be a crucial element. This dematerialisation, we argue, can be achieved only putting a limit to quantitative economic growth, but nevertheless without decreasing the individual well-being, by concentrating the attention on highly valuable eco-efficient services rather than on the production/acquisition of material goods.     

The Queue

Queues, large and small, have long been an identifying feature of our reality, an indelible attribute of our way of life. For many years, if not decades, they were almost unnoticed, and were considered as a self-evident phenomenon in a sense, disagreeable but inevitable, and not deserving of any special study. Only statistics dispassionately noted the loss of free time owing to queues, explaining them by the unsatisfactory organization of services, the lack of sufficient space for sales, and shortages of goods. But the ordinary buyer judges not only the quality of work of commercial enterprises, but also the effectiveness of social policy by the presence or absence of queues, the range of goods on the shelves, and the availability of goods and services. Public opinion about the results and the course of perestroika is formed in queues. Here are some typical statements from questionnaires and letters received by the Center for the Study of Public Opinion of the Institute of Sociology, USSR Academy of Sciences, and the weekly Sobesednik in connection with a study conducted on the problem of queues and shortages. "However much talk has gone on about changes, until queues have disappeared, we will be humiliated, insulted, or even simply deceived" (anonymous respondent, signing himself as "a buyer for whom there is nothing to buy"). "Queues are a national disgrace" (V. B., a research worker in Tartu). "Queues are the disgrace of our leaders" (a navigation officer in Kuibyshev).