Radical Distrust: Are Economic Policy Attitudes Tempered by Social Trust?

Social Indicators Research - Debates about the appropriate role of markets and governments are often shaped by sharply contrasting opinions. Based on individual data from the World Values Survey...     

Nested exposure case-control sampling: a sampling scheme to analyze rare time-dependent exposures

For large cohort studies with rare outcomes, the nested case-control design only requires data collection of small subsets of the individuals at risk. These are typically randomly sampled at the observed event times and a weighted, stratified analysis takes over the role of the full cohort analysis. Motivated by observational studies on the impact of hospital-acquired infection on hospital stay outcome, we are interested in situations, where not necessarily the outcome is rare, but time-dependent exposure such as the occurrence of an adverse event or disease progression is. Using the counting process formulation of general nested case-control designs, we propose three sampling schemes where not all commonly observed outcomes need to be included in the analysis. Rather, inclusion probabilities may be time-dependent and may even depend on the past sampling and exposure history. A bootstrap analysis of a full cohort data set from hospital epidemiology allows us to investigate the practical utility of the proposed sampling schemes in comparison to a full cohort analysis and a too simple application of the nested case-control design, if the outcome is not rare.

     

Managing Migration: The Role of Economic Instruments

This paper reviews economic policies and instruments available to the developed countries to reduce unwanted migration from developing countries, not all of which is irregular migration. Countries generally welcome legal immigrants and visitors, try to make it unnecessary for people to become refugees and asylum seekers, and try to discourage, detect, and remove irregular foreigners. There are three major themes: 1. There are as many reasons for migration as there are migrants, and the distinction between migrants motivated by economic and non–economic considerations is often blurred. Perhaps the best analogy is to a river – what begins as one channel that can be managed with a dam can become a series of rivulets forming a delta, making migration far more difficult to manage. 2. The keys to reducing unwanted migration lie mostly in emigration countries, but trade and investment fostered by immigration countries can accelerate economic and job growth in both emigration and immigration countries, and make trading in goods a substitute for economically motivated migration. Trade and economic integration had the effect of slowing emigration from Europe to the Americas, between southern Europe and northern Europe, and in Asian Tiger countries such as South Korea and Malaysia. However, the process of moving toward freer trade and economic integration can also increase migration in the short term, producing a migration hump, and requiring cooperation between emigration and immigration destinations so that the threat of more migration does not slow economic integration and growth. 3. Aid, intervention, and remittances can help reduce unwanted migration, but experience shows that there are no assurances that such aid, intervention, and remittances would, in fact, lead migrants to stay at home. The better use of remittances to promote development, which at US$65 billion in 1999 exceeded the US$56 billion in official development assistance (ODA), is a promising area for cooperation between migrants and their areas of origin, as well as emigration and immigration countries. There are two ways that differences between countries can be narrowed: migration alone in a world without free trade, or migration and trade in an open economy. Migration will eventually diminish in both cases, but there is an important difference between reducing migration pressures in a closed or open world economy. In a closed economy, economic differences can narrow as wages fall in the immigration country, a sure recipe for an anti–immigrant backlash. By contrast, in an open economy, economic differences can be narrowed as wages rise faster in the emigration country. Areas for additional research and exploration of policy options include: (1) how to phase in freer trade, investment, and economic integration to minimize unwanted migration; (2) strategies to increase the job–creating impacts of remittances, perhaps by using aid to match remittances that are invested in job–creating ways.     

Best Practice Options: Yugoslavia

Several Cooperative Efforts to Manage Emigration (CEME) members visited the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in early June 2001 to examine the new Government's approach to migration issues. We found that both the Federal Government and the Serb Republic are faced with three principal issues related to immigration and refugees that require substantial cooperation with North American and European countries that are donors of international aid, as well as recipients of Yugoslav migrants and third country nationals transiting the FRY.
First, they are faced with migration issues that the international community considers priorities, including demilitarizing border management; combating human smuggling and trafficking; and drafting and implementing an aliens law, which includes asylum policies and procedures consistent with international standards.
Second, they need to plan for the return or integration of 350,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, and another 150,000 internally displaced Yugoslavs from Kosovo, primarily by offering dual citizenship in the FRY, and Croatia and Bosnia so refugees can integrate in the FRY, but retain rights and privileges according to Croatians or Bosnians.
Third, it is important to build bridges to Yugoslavs abroad in order to attract remittances and the return of the professionals needed to rebuild the FRY.     

Adolescents' and Mothers' Understanding of Children's Rights in the Home

Adolescents' and mothers' understanding of children's self‐determination and nurturance rights was examined in the context of the home. In individual interviews, 141 sixth, eighth, and tenth graders and their mothers responded to hypothetical vignettes in which a child story character wished to exercise a right that conflicted with parental practices. For each vignette, participants were asked to judge whether the story character should have the right in question and to provide a justification for their decision. Generally, eighth and tenth graders were more likely than their mothers to endorse requests for self‐determination and less likely than their mothers to support requests for nurturance. Mothers of tenth graders were more likely to support requests for self‐determination and less likely to favor adolescents' request for nurturance in the home than were mothers of sixth and eighth graders. In terms of reasoning, adolescents and mothers were more likely to consider the individuals' rights when discussing self‐determination situations, whereas nurturance situations elicited responses pertaining to participants' understanding of familial roles and relationships. Furthermore, mothers' reasoning about childrenà s rights reflected sensitivity to the developmental level of their children. The findings are discussed in terms of previous research on the development of children's understanding of rights and adolescent autonomy.     

电子设计竞赛促进学生综合能力的培养

本文深入分析全国大学生电子设计竞赛的赛题要点和核心内容,认为竞赛取胜的关键是学生综合运用基础知识进行理论设计的能力、动手实验的技能、创新精神、独立工作的能力和良好的团队精神.     

农业高科技企业成长机会价值量化模型构建及其应用

农业高科技企业成长机会包括农业高新技术研发和市场推广,是一个系列递进买方期权。其价值是农业高科技企业价值的核心部分。本文利用二项式分布模型构建了时间和概率因素下成长机会的期权形式价值量化模型,总结了农业高科技企业的期权性质及其特点,并以此为基础,进一步讨论了成长机会价值量化模型在农业高科技企业价值评估中的应用。     

高新技术园区社会创新环境的系统整合

今天的高新技术园区在发展的意义上 ,已经成为现实的社会实体。从这一理念出发 ,思考园区的建设和发展 ,其创新环境是个非常重要的问题 ,也可以说它是各类高新技术园区得以发展的基本条件。创新环境状况的好坏直接关系到园区内高新技术产业的发展。从严格意义上讲 ,缺少这个基本条件 ,高新技术园区难以形成 ,创新环境不完善 ,即便是已经建立起来的园区 ,也难以得到真正的发展。由此决定了建设高新技术园区必须重视对园区社会创新环境的研究 ,通过精心培育创新环境 ,推动我国高新技术园区在 2 1世纪得到健康、持续的发展。     

近代中国整合中西文化冲突的价值选择模式及现代启示

中国近代文化变迁的过程 ,在一定意义上表现为中西文化的冲突与整合的过程。为整合中西文化冲突 ,近代中国先后采取了文化传统主义、文化折中主义、文化虚无主义与文化综合创新等价值选择模式。近代文化整合的经验教训启示我们 ,在新时期文化建设问题上 ,必须正确处理文化的一元与多元、整体性与可分性、时代性与民族性的关系 ,坚持走综合创新之路