A graphical analysis of some basic results in social choice

We use a simple graphical approach to represent Social Welfare Functions that satisfy Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives and Anonymity. This approach allows us to provide simple and illustrative proofs of May's Theorem, of variants of classic impossibility results, and of a recent result on the robustness of Majority Rule due to Maskin (1995). In each case, geometry provides new insights on the working and interplay of the axioms, and suggests new results including a new characterization of the entire class of Majority Rule SWFs, a strengthening of May's Theorem, and a new version of Maskin's Theorem. Received: 31 July 1999/Accepted: 27 March 2001     

The Establishment and Application of a Labor Quality Index: The Case of Taiwan’s Manufacturing Industry

The labor quality index (LQI) not only serves as an important reference for monitoring the progress of the sustainable development of a country, but it can also serve as an important parameter for economic analysis. To compile such an index for Taiwan, we conducted two large-scale surveys of 1000 major enterprises and 844 union leaders, respectively, to determine the appropriate weights for each key factor. We also searched for all the relevant statistics that were used to calculate the weighted sum of the 25 sub-indexes, in order to compile a LQI for Taiwan’s manufacturing industries covering the period from 1990-2000. Our calculations show that this LQI rose from 80.2 in 1990 to 117.5 in 2000, which reflected an impressive 37.3% increase in just one decade. This rate of growth has, however, been slowing down since 1997. Our results indicate that the LQI provides a valuable indicator for monitoring the enhancement of labor quality in this society.     

On Preference, Freedom and Diversity

We study the problem of ranking sets of options in terms of freedom of choice. We propose a framework in which both the diversity of the options and the preferences of the agent over the options do play a role. We formulate some axioms that reflect these two aspects of freedom and we study their logical implications. Two different criteria for ranking sets are characterized, which generalize some of the rankings proposed so far in the literature.     

李贺和比喻

李贺的比喻和一般比喻差别很大,他经常颠倒喻词和被喻词之间的关系,给人带来震撼。这种比喻方法,不仅表现了李贺心中万物平等的思想,也展现了迥异现实的另一世界的景象。     

La médiane simpliciale d'Oja: Existence,unicité et stabilité

Oja (1983) examined various ways of measuring location, scatter, skewness, and kurtosis for multivariate distributions. Among other measures of location, he introduced a generalised median known in this paper under the name of the Oja median. In our study of the existence of that median, we show that Oja's definition can only be applied to distributions having a mean. In dimension d θ 2, we establish that the usual method of extension breaks down, which raises the question of the validity of the concept as a notion of median. Two fundamental theoretical properties of that median are also considered: uniqueness and consistency.     

Organizational Symbolism as a Social Construction: A Perspective from the Sociology of Knowledge

This article describes organizational symbolismfrom a sociology of knowledge perspective and considersboth the theoretical and extra-theoretical bases of thesymbolic approach. It illustrates the distinctive principles of the symbolic approach withrespect to other methods used in the study oforganizations, the concepts on which it is based, andthe organizational issues on which it has shedsignificant light. Symbolist studies of organizations haverefocused scholarly attention on the multidisciplinaryunderstanding of the logos, ethos, and pathos oforganizational life. They have done so by stressing the production of knowledge tout court, rather thanconcerning themselves with the applicability of theorganizational knowledge acquired by this approach formanagerial purposes. Organizational symbolism is described in the article as a fluctuatingand emerging social construction whose growth and spreadhas been fostered by support within academia.     

桓仁美食 你得亲口尝一尝

旅游之于我,吃是相当重要的部分。有年6月去张家界,那里的美景多需登高远眺。花了百十银子,买了景区著名的世界最高全暴露户外观光电梯——百龙电梯票,两分钟升到景区山顶。恰好赶上阴雨霏霏,放眼望去,云雾弥漫,所有的美景只能靠自己想像,心情之坏可想而知。下得山来,一道地道湖南     

Testing for Serial Independence: Beyond the Portmanteau Approach

Portmanteau tests are typically used to test serial independence even if, by construction, they are generally powerful only in presence of pairwise dependence between lagged variables. In this article, we present a simple statistic defining a new serial independence test, which is able to detect more general forms of dependence. In particular, differently from the Portmanteau tests, the resulting test is powerful also under a dependent process characterized by pairwise independence. A diagram, based on p-values from the proposed test, is introduced to investigate serial dependence. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposal is evaluated in a simulation study and with an application on financial data. Both show that the new test, used in synergy with the existing ones, helps in the identification of the true data-generating process. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Social mobility and demand for redistribution in Europe: a comparative analysis

The literature on preferences for redistribution has paid little attention to the effect of social mobility on the demand for redistribution and no systematic test of the hypotheses connecting social mobility and preferences for redistribution has yet been done to date. We use the diagonal reference model to estimate the effect of origin and destination classes on preferences for redistribution in a large sample of European countries using data from the European Social Survey. Our findings are consistent with the logic of acculturation in the sense that newcomers tend to adapt their views to those of the destination class at early stages and that upward and downward mobility do not have distinctive effects on the formation of political preferences. However, even though social origins seem to have a limited impact on preferences for redistribution, the evidence does not support the hypothesis that mobile and non‐mobile individuals are alike. We also find that the effect of social origin on preferences varies largely across countries. The empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that the effect of social origin on preferences for redistribution increases in contexts of strong familism.