Evaluating the causal economic impacts of transport investments: evidence from the Madrid–Barcelona high speed rail corridor

This paper evaluates economic impacts arising from the introduction of high-speed rail (HSR) between Madrid and Barcelona. Using difference-in-differences estimation we estimate an average treatment effect for provinces with stops on the HSR line of 2.4% for economic output, 3.3% for numbers of firms, and 1.1% for labour productivity. We complement our DID results with a synthetic control analysis for Lleida and Tarragona, two provinces that we argue were assigned HSR stations largely due to their incidental location. We find that both the number of firms and labour productivity are substantially higher in these provinces than in their synthetic counterparts.     

How Latinos Are Transforming the United States: Research, Theory, and Policy

The United States is entering a new era, a period marked by some important demographic changes in the composition of the population, most especially significant increases in the Latino and Latino immigrant segments of society. These population shifts require corresponding interpersonal, organizational, and structural changes. The present issue bridges research and theory across disciplines and includes studies incorporating a variety of methodologies to examine these important areas. These articles begin to fill some of the voids where a systematic and robust corpus of knowledge is lacking. The contributions address topics ranging from issues of identity and interpersonal relations to pressing matters of educational significance to general approaches to navigating the cultural transitions that mark fluid transnational adaptations. Finally, each contribution delineates the policy implications resulting from the processes and literatures that are examined.     

Nonparametric Methods in Continuous Time Model Specification

Some popular parametric diffusion processes have been assumed as such underlying diffusion processes. This paper considers an important case where both the drift and volatility functions of the underlying diffusion process are unknown functions of the underlying process, and then proposes using two novel testing procedures for the parametric specification of both the drift and diffusion functions. The finite-sample properties of the proposed tests are assessed through using data generated from four popular parametric models. In our implementation, we suggest using a simulated critical value for each case in addition to the use of an asymptotic critical value. Our detailed studies show that there is little size distortion when using a simulated critical value while the proposed tests have some size distortions when using an asymptotic critical value in each case.     

Social workers, parents and stigma

This paper draws on an empirical study of stigma and child welfare services in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Spain. It focuses exclusively on the findings relating to the United Kingdom and shows how stigma continues to be a part of the experience of using and delivering child welfare services, despite the positive determination of policies that this should not be so. More optimistically, however, it is also evident that the experience of stigma and exclusion can be reduced, and the paper concludes by outlining the implications for policy and practice together with those factors which would appear to be most significant in combating stigma.     

An interactional model of questions as therapeutic interventions

We dedicate this article to the memory of Steve de Shazer, who was the University's External Examiner for the doctoral dissertation on which this article is based. His comments were both generous and influential, as they were on many other occasions. We would also like to thank Ron Chenail (as Editor of JMFT ) and Dora Fried Schnitman (as Editor of Sistemas Familiares) for coordinating the simultaneous review and publication of this article in English and Spanish.     

Socioeconomic Risk for Adolescent Cognitive Control and Emerging Risk‐Taking Behaviors

This study examined whether cognitive control mediated the association between socioeconomic status (SES; composite of income‐to‐needs ratio and parent education) and changes in risk‐taking behaviors. The sample included 167 dyads of adolescents (53% male; M_age = 14.07 years at Time 1) and their parents, assessed annually across 4 years. Parents reported socioeconomic variables at Time 1. Adolescents reported risk‐taking behaviors at Times 1 and 4, and completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging cognitive control task at Times 2 and 3. Lower SES was associated with lower behavioral (but not neural) cognitive control, which was associated with increases in risk‐taking behaviors. The findings suggest that elevated socioeconomic risk may compromise cognitive control which can cascade into maladaptive behaviors in adolescence.     

Preliminary-Data Error and Monetary Aggregate Targeting

Preliminary monetary aggregate data are subject to subsequent revision because of errors from seasonal and nonseasonal sources that will only be known later. This article examines the characteristics of these revision errors and analyzes their possible effect on monetary policy. It is found that false signals, in the sense that the preliminary M1 growth rate falls within the tolerance band set monthly by the Federal Open Market Committee while the final revised figure lies outside the tolerance limits, or vice versa, occur about two-fifths of the time. It is shown that this proportion can be halved by the adoption of improved seasonal adjustment procedures.     

Nonparametric Methods in Continuous Time Model Specification

Some popular parametric diffusion processes have been assumed as such underlying diffusion processes. This paper considers an important case where both the drift and volatility functions of the underlying diffusion process are unknown functions of the underlying process, and then proposes using two novel testing procedures for the parametric specification of both the drift and diffusion functions. The finite-sample properties of the proposed tests are assessed through using data generated from four popular parametric models. In our implementation, we suggest using a simulated critical value for each case in addition to the use of an asymptotic critical value. Our detailed studies show that there is little size distortion when using a simulated critical value while the proposed tests have some size distortions when using an asymptotic critical value in each case.