Retirement patterns in Hong Kong: a censored regression analysis

This paper provides an overview of retirement patterns in Hong Kong on the basis of limited data. A censored regression model is used to infer the retirement age from people‘s current retirement status and their current age. This model is equivalent to a restricted probit model, and the interpretation of parameters is straightforward. The results clearly show a negative income effect on the retirement decision. The retirement age seems to be positively related to lifetime earnings but negatively related to the rate of decline of earnings with age. JEL classification: C24, J14, J26 Received May 6, 1996 / Accepted February 5, 1997     

Age structure of the workforce in growing and declining industries: evidence from Hong Kong

Industry-specific human capital reduces the incentive for older workers to leave declining industries and raises the incentive for younger workers to join growing industries. Using the industry restructuring experience of Hong Kong, we find that a 1% increase in employment share of an industry is associated with a 0.60-year decrease in the average age of its workforce. The relationship is more pronounced among less educated workers, who have less general human capital, and male workers, who are more committed to the labor force, than among well educated workers and female workers.     

A DIRECT TEST OF THE EFFICIENT MARRIAGE MARKET HYPOTHESIS

This paper takes Becker's efficient marriage market hypothesis at face value, and directly confronts it with data from Hong Kong. The theory of optimal assignment is used to develop an empirical model of spouse selection, which resembles a Tobit model. This model can address positive or negative assortative matching as well as marginal product pricing in marriage markets. We also use a computer algorithm to solve the assignment problem for imputed marital output. The degree to which the actual pairing of husbands and wives corresponds to the optimal pairing provides a goodness-of-fit test of the efficient marriage market hypothesis. ( JEL C51, C61, C78, J12)     

STATISTICAL MODELS OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR WITH HETEROGENEOUS VALUES AND CONSTRAINTS

In a market with heterogeneous individuals, the fact that a particular group of individuals are the consumers of a particular product already indicates that there exist systematic differences between them and the average person. Simple tools from statistical theory are used here to analyze the implications of consumer diversity. It is argued that an increase in consumer diversity will increase the gains from trade, and that there is a "shadow price of heterogeneity" associated with product quality. Throughout the discussion, the significance of consumer self-selection and the distinction between "average" and "marginal" will be emphasized.     

MUTUAL ADMIRATION CLUBS

This article proposes a theory of group formation based on the motive to seek informed opinion. Because an individual evaluates whether others are informed or not using his own priors, he identifies people with similar beliefs to be more informed than those with different beliefs. The result is an equilibrium in which like-minded individuals self-select into distinct groups, with members of each group believing that their own group is superior. ( JEL D71, D81, D83, D85)     

Some resolvable orthogonal arrays with two symbols

A method of constructing a resolvable orthogonal array (4λk2,2) which can be partitioned into λ orthogonal arrays (4,k 2,1) is proposed. The number of constraints kfor this type of orthogonal array is at most 3λ. When λ=2 or a multiple of 4, an orthogonal array with the maximum number of constraints of 3λ can be constructed. When λ=4n+2(n≧1) an orthogonal array with 2λ+2 constraints can be constructed. When λ is an odd number, orthogonal arrays can be constructed for λ=3,5,7, and 9 with k=4,8,12, and 13 respectively.     

No-Fault Divorce and the Compression of Marriage Ages

We examine how no-fault divorce law affects the age at first marriage, when everyone has a different value of marriage. The heterogeneity of individual values implies an unambiguous negative effect on the variance of marriage age. We test this hypothesis with marriage records from 1970 to 1995. Controlling for state-level heterogeneity and for time trends, the standard deviation of the log age at first marriage drops by approximately 5% with the introduction of no-fault divorce. We find that the mean age at first marriage increases slightly, suggesting that the mean person is slightly worse off with no-fault divorce. (JEL K0 , D1 )     

Rademacher型级数的维数

本文主要研究Radcmacher型级数产生的断片(fractal)的维数     

Writing Experience: Does Ethnography Convey a Crisis of Representation,or an Ontological Break with the Everyday World?

L'auteur pose comme prémisse la «brisure ontologique», telle qu'imaginée par Alfred Schutz, qui sépare deux champs: le «monde des coassociés», dans lequel la réalité sociale est directement expérimentée en face à face avec le présent intense, et l'«univers des contemporanéités», dans lequel l'autre est représenté selon des «types». Il soutient que cette coupure constitue un véhicule incitant à présenter une méta‐exposition de revendications majeures problématisant l'autorité traditionnelle en ethnographie. À la lumière de cette brisure, les tentatives postmodernistes d'acquérir ou de conserver la compréhension ici et maintenant de la signification subjective, ou de la «voix» des ethnographies, ne forment que des impossibilités épistémologiques. L'auteur conclut que le privilège postmoderniste accordéà une «ethnographie naïve» insistant sur les processus «expérimentaux», «interprétatifs», «dialogiques» et «polyphoniques» ne peut remplir sa promesse sur le plan méthodologique, pas plus qu'il n'est adaptable à la brisure ontologique de Schutz sur le plan théorique. This paper is premised on the “ontological break” as coined by Alfred Schutz that disconnects two realms: the “world of consociates” where social reality is directly experienced face‐to‐face in the vivid present, and the “world of contemporaries” where the other is interpreted in terms of “types.” It is argued that this break is a suggestive vehicle for conducting a meta‐exposition of major claims which problematize the traditional authority of ethnography. In the light of the break, the postmodernist attempts to attain or retain the here‐and‐now understanding of subjective meaning, or “voice” in ethnographies are but epistemological impossibilities. It is concluded that the postmodernist privileging of a “naive ethnography” which emphasizes “experiential,”“interpretive,”“dialogical,” and “polyphonic” processes is neither able to deliver on its promise at the methodic level, nor amendable to Schutz's ontological break at the theoretical level.