Testing for state and local government job queues

Bivariate probit estimates with partial observability identify the factors influencing the worker’s decision to seek a state or local government job and the factors influencing the government’s decision to hire particular workers. The estimates routinely confirm the presence of a local job queue but confirm the presence of a state job queue only when the role of unionization is explicitly recognized. Our results suggest that the net benefits from local and state government employment are greater than those from private sector employment. The estimates also indicate that local governments disproportionately hire racial minorities relative to the local governments’ pool of applicants but indicate no such relationship for state governments. The authors thank Dale Belman, Jugal Ghorai, and Matt Higgins for help on this and related work. We also thank the referee and the editor for useful suggestions.     

Performance measurement and classification data in DEA: Input-oriented model

This paper presents an improved efficiency measurement tool by modifying the existing data envelopment analysis methodology to permit the incorporation of expert knowledge. A previous paper examined the inclusion of such knowledge within the additive model. This information appeared in the form of a binary classification of a subset of the decision making units under study (e.g. good versus poor performers). In the current paper, we extend this logic to the input-oriented radial projection model. We demonstrate that the inclusion of this and other forms of expert judgment can improve the performance of the DEA tool in the sense that the efficiency scores are more in line with expert/management beliefs.     

Performance measurement with classification information: an enhanced additive DEA model

This paper presents an improved measurement tool for evaluating performance of branches within a major Canadian bank. While there have been numerous previous studies of performance in the banking industry, particularly at the branch level, this study is different in a very significant way: specifically two kinds of data are used to develop the model. The first type of data is that related to standard transactions, available from any bank; such have formed the basis of numerous previous studies. The second type of data, obtained from the site studied, is classification information, based on branch consultant/expert judgment as to good and poor performance of branches. The purpose herein is to present a modified version of an existing benchmarking model, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and to show how this tool is applied in the banking industry. The mechanism used herein to incorporate expert knowledge within the DEA framework is to first apply a discriminant or classification tool, to quantify the functional relation that best captures the expert's mental model for performance. The outcome of this first phase is an orientation of variables to aid in the definition of inputs and outputs. The resulting orientation then defines the DEA model that makes up the second phase of the model.     

DOES WHOM YOU KNOW MATTER? UNRAVELING THE INFLUENCE OF PEERS' NETWORK ATTRIBUTES ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

This paper examines how students' network size, distance, prestige, and connections to influential individuals impact academic performance. Larger and closer networks facilitate information exchange, but may also increase distractions that decrease productivity. We resolve this ambiguity using administrative data from a business school that features random assignment of students to multiple overlapping sets of peers, allowing us to calculate degree, closeness, eigenvector, and Katz‐Bonacich centrality for each node. We find that increasing closeness centrality within the network negatively affects student performance measured by grade point average, suggesting that synergy reduction and information processing costs outweigh benefits from greater information access. (JEL I23, L14, L23)     

The ‘digital glimpse’ as imagining home

This paper proposes the concept of the ‘digital glimpse’, which develops the existing framing of imaginative travel. Here it articulates the experiences of mobile workers digitally connecting into family life and everyday rituals when physically absent with work. The recent embedding of digital communication technologies into personal relationships and family life is reconfiguring how absence is experienced and practiced by workers on the move, and through this, new digital paradigms for life on-the-move are emerging. This paper explores how such social relationships are maintained at-a-distance through digital technology – using evidence from qualitative interviews with mobile workers and their families. Digital technology now enables expressive forms of ‘virtual travel’, including video calling, picture sharing, and instant messaging. This has implications for the ways in which families can manage the social and relational pressures of being apart. Experiences of imaginative travel created through novel media can enrich the experience and give a greater sense of connection for both those who are at home and those who are away. While technology is limited in its ability to replicate a sense of co-presence, ‘digital glimpses’ are an emergent set of sociotechnical practices that can reduce the negative impact of absence on family relationships.     

Application of digital human modeling and simulation for vision analysis of pilots in a jet aircraft: a case study

Ergonomic evaluation of visual demands becomes crucial for the operators/users when rapid decision making is needed under extreme time constraint like navigation task of jet aircraft. Research reported here comprises ergonomic evaluation of pilot's vision in a jet aircraft in virtual environment to demonstrate how vision analysis tools of digital human modeling software can be used effectively for such study. Three (03) dynamic digital pilot models, representative of smallest, average and largest Indian pilot population were generated from anthropometric database and interfaced with digital prototype of the cockpit in Jack software for analysis of vision within and outside the cockpit. Vision analysis tools like view cones, eye view windows, blind spot area, obscuration zone, reflection zone etc. were employed during evaluation of visual fields. Vision analysis tool was also used for studying kinematic changes of pilot's body joints during simulated gazing activity. From present study, it can be concluded that vision analysis tool of digital human modeling software was found very effective in evaluation of position and alignment of different displays and controls in the workstation based upon their priorities within the visual fields and anthropometry of the targeted users, long before the development of its physical prototype.     

Crafting Child‐friendly Cities: Evidence from Biratnagar Sub‐metropolitan City,Eastern Nepal

Our cities are increasingly becoming the sites where children socialize, observe, and learn how society functions and many local and global activities have impacted children's health and well‐being. The Child‐friendly Cities initiative, launched by the United Nations Children's Fund and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in 1996, draws in diverse stakeholders to place children at the center of the urban agenda. Based on social work research, this article analyzes the acclaimed status of Biratnagar Sub‐metropolitan city, Eastern Nepal, as a child‐friendly city. Despite its efforts, the city of Biratnagar is yet to meet the required criteria to claim itself as a child‐friendly city. Further improvements by the city administration in achieving children's participation in decision‐making, child‐friendly legal environment, and code of conduct are essential. Based on the evidence, the authors advocate for bottom‐up approaches that include children's voices and their real participation in city governance and a strong political will to craft child‐friendly cities, not as a policy rhetoric but for real. Enabling children to fulfill their potential as equal participants in crafting child‐friendly cities will require adults to relinquish some of their hegemonic powers of decision‐making on behalf of children.     

Children as Witnesses: Understanding Their Capacities,Needs, and Experiences

Historically the law regarded children as inherently unreliable and made it difficult for them to testify. Since 1975 awareness of child abuse has increased and research has established that children can be reliable witnesses. Governments began to recognize the needs and capacities of children and enacted legal reforms to facilitate prosecutions for child abuse. This paper reports on a survey of victim witness workers and other justice system professionals which reveals some of the continuedfailings of that system in dealing with children. Althoughrelatively rare, there are cases of false allegations of abuse, usually a result of investigations by poorly trained professionals. Further legal reforms and better human supports are required to ensure that the needs of children are met and their capacities as witnesses are fully appreciated.     

Perceived Inflation Persistence

This article constructs and estimates a measure called perceived inflation persistence that can be used to determine if professional forecasters’ inflation forecasts indicate there has been a change in inflation persistence. This measure is built via the implied autocorrelation function that follows from the estimates obtained using a forecaster-specific state-space model. Findings indicate that U.S. perceived inflation persistence has changed since the mid-1990s with more consensus among forecasters at lower levels of persistence. When compared to the autocorrelation function for actual inflation, forecasters typically react less to shocks to inflation than the actual inflation data would suggest.