Then press enter: digital payment technology and the history of telephone interface

The internet and other digital networks in the U.S. (and beyond) remain essentially an upgrade of the national telephone network built by AT&T over the first half of the twentieth century, and digital payment remains tethered to telephony at the level of infrastructure. Telephone history also continues to inform digital payment at the level of interface. Debit card readers feature a keypad nearly identical to those introduced (also by AT&T) to the dialling public a half-century ago on touch-tone telephones. In this essay I highlight the development of the touch-tone keypad as a transformative payment technology. There have been three great leaps forward in the history of telephone interface: the dial, the keypad and the touch screen. Each corresponds to a period of technological transformation in the telephone industry and society more broadly: the rotary dial and automation, touch-tone keypads and digitization, and touch screens and computerization. The successful careers of the dial and the keypad, especially when read in tandem, suggest that touch screens will alter the everyday economics of retail payment even more radically than its predecessors. I also describe a broader trajectory of digital naturalization, whereby telephone numbers have proliferated into a personal identification number, passwords and a plethora of personalized information. Payments increasingly circulate today as subsets of personal information within the vast sea of big data. Payment apps are demonstrating a capacity to reorganize retail transactions on a scale as vast as any technology since the cash register. The history of retail payment finds the point of sale heading from the till into shoppers’ pockets. As a result, consumers are increasingly shouldering the costs of purchasing, maintaining, upgrading and securing the technology used for everyday transactions.     

Significance tests and spurious correlation in regression models with autocorrelated errors

In this paper, we report some results on the exact significance level when the usual F-statistic is used in a linear regression model with autocorrelated disturbances. The exact tail area probabilities sometimes differ substantially from the nominal size used in an ‘F-test’ and from upper-bound probabilities derived by Kiviet (1979) which do not depend on the values of the regressors. A similar conclusion is also reached for the exact size of the significance tests for the spurious regressions considered by Granger and Newbold (1974, 1977). The results indicate once more that one has to be careful when using an algebraic F-test in the presence of autoregressive errors. However then too, the Durbin-Watson test is expected to indicate the presence of autocorrelation.     

Intertemporal consumer behaviour under structural changes in income

In this paper we analyze models of forward looking consumer behaviour and give empirical evidence for aggregate quarterly data for the Netherlands, 1967-1984. Special attention is devoted to the implications of unanticipated structural changes in the income process, which because of replanning, will have an impact on the consumption decision. We start with the life cycle hypothesis. Since the fall in aggregate consumption in the Netherlands in the eighties can not be explained by the life cycle model, the theory is reformulated by assuming that the planning horizon of the consumers moves ahead as time goes on. As a result, an error correction mechanism has to be introduced in the consumption function.The modified model is found to be in agreement with the data.     

The European Court of Justice and the free movement of patients in the European Union

At present, health policy in the European Union (EU) is being developed in an extremely disconnected fashion. EU member States independently develop their own health systems, based on the goals they wish to pursue, without really considering consistency with European Community (EC) law. The impact of European integration is, in turn, mainly indirect and has emerged from European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings. These rulings have arisen either from considerations in other sectors or through the process of addressing particular issues within single cases, leaving major issues of applicability unresolved. The evolving issue of free movement of patients is instructive. While not completely outlawing the use of a prior authorization system, recent ECJ rulings have radically restricted member States' discretion to determine their own policies by requiring that their decisions be necessary, proportional and based on objective and non-discriminatory criteria. By linking EEC Regulation 1408/71, on which cover for healthcare abroad has been traditionally based, with the free provision of services, the ECJ seems to have created difficulties and important uncertainties for the system of coordination of social security schemes.     

Macroeconomic Forecasting Using Pooled International Data

The genetic algorithm is examined as a method for solving optimization problems in econometric estimation. It does not restrict either the form or regularity of the objective function, allows a reasonably large parameter space, and does not rely on a point-to-point search. The performance is evaluated through two sets of experiments on standard test problems as well as econometric problems from the literature. First, alternative genetic algorithms that vary over mutation and crossover rates, population sizes, and other features are contrasted. Second, the genetic algorithm is compared to Nelder–Mead simplex, simulated annealing, adaptive random search, and MSCORE.     

Future challenges for parenting education and support

The authors of this special edition of Child Welfare have shared current shifts in perspective about parenting and parenting education that are raising some interesting challenges. We will first briefly review the shifts identified in the articles presented here. Second, we will raise questions about the implications of these shifts for the field of parenting education.     

Young Dutch People's Experiences of Trading Sex: A Qualitative Study

In recent years, the subject of transactional sex among young Dutch people has generated a heated social debate in the Netherlands. However, accurate data on this phenomenon are scarce. This article describes the findings of a qualitative study on young Dutch people's experiences of having sex in return for money or a material reward. Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with young Dutch men and women aged 14 to 24. Participants came from diverse backgrounds in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Experiences of trading sex differed in terms of the motivation to trade sex, the presence or absence of coercion, and the availability of other options for earning money. Participants' feelings about their experiences varied. For most participants, the sex itself was unpleasant and required considerable emotion management. Still, some felt adequately compensated by the reward or felt trading sex was preferable to other jobs. Gender played an important role, with feelings of disgust or shame reported especially by female participants, whereas male participants reported more positive experiences. Interactions involving coercion or financial dependence on trading sex generally had a negative emotional impact. Participants stressed the differences between their own experiences and professional prostitution.     

Chronic avoidance helps explain the relationship between severity of childhood sexual abuse and psychological distress in adulthood

Recent studies have found that chronic avoidance of unpleasant internal experiences (e.g., thoughts, emotions, memories) is a maladaptive means of affect regulation often adopted by women with a history of sexual victimization in childhood. The primary aim of this study was to replicate and extend previous findings suggesting that higher levels of experiential avoidance may account for the relationship between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and psychological distress in adulthood. It was hypothesized that, in a sample of undergraduate females (n = 151), the relationship between severity of CSA (e.g., frequency, nature of victimization) and trauma-related psychological distress would be mediated by avoidance. Results supported this hypothesis. Findings are consistent with previous studies, and further suggest that the general tendency to avoid or escape from unpleasant internal experiences may be a specific factor that exacerbates psychological distress among women with a history of sexual victimization in childhood.     

The potential role of conflict resolution schemas in adolescent psychosocial adjustment

Four specific schemas of cognitive structures that adolescents may hold concerning interpersonal disagreements with their parents were identified, each reflecting an authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or a neglecting parenting style. To examine the occurrence of such schemas across high and low levels of psychosocial adjustment, 120 Swedish adolescents (50 boys, 70 girls) (mean age = 14.76 years) indicated how their parents usually approach six potential situations involving parent–adolescent conflict. Findings show that the authoritative conflict schema (compliance as a result of mutual respect) occurred more often among well-adjusted adolescents, whereas authoritarian and indulgent conflict schemas were particularly associated with low levels of psychosocial adjustment. The concept of conflict schemas may contribute to the understanding of how various parenting styles are linked to certain developmental outcomes for the adolescent.