Structural empowerment,psychological empowerment,and work engagement: A cross-country study

In this cross-country study we drew on job demands-resources theory to investigate whether psychological empowerment mediates the positive association between structural empowerment and work engagement and, consequently, task performance and intention to quit. A total of 1033 employees working in the service sector in Spain (N = 515) and the United Kingdom (N = 518) participated in the study. Multi-group structural equation modeling analyses revealed that psychological empowerment partially mediated the positive relationship between structural empowerment and work engagement, and that work engagement associated positively with task performance and negatively with intention to quit. Invariance analyses suggested that the positive link between psychological empowerment and work engagement was stronger for employees working in the UK than in Spain, providing support for partial structural invariance of the hypothesized model. These findings suggest that psychological empowerment is an underlying mechanism that may explain why structural empowerment relates positively to work engagement with implications for theory (i.e., extend the nomological network of the investigated constructs) and management practice (e.g., emphasize the role of structural empowerment for work design).     

货币政策反应函数渠道对金融周期影响时变机制的实证研究

在关于货币政策影响经济主体风险承担水平,进而影响金融周期波动机制的研究中,基于风险承担渠道的相关研究较为成熟.区别于以往相关研究多关注货币政策实际采取的立场,文章基于货币政策反应函数渠道探讨了数量型与价格型货币政策反应函数对金融周期波动影响的时变机制.滚动回归的实证结果显示:无论数量型货币政策规则还是价格型货币政策规则,货币政策对信贷波动反应的敏感性主要影响金融周期的波动,但在价格型货币政策规则下,基于信贷视角观察金融周期波动时,货币政策信贷敏感性与货币政策资产价格敏感性对金融周期影响差异较小;较之于价格型货币政策规则,货币政策对信贷波动反应的敏感性在数量型货币政策规则下,对金融周期波动的影响更显著,并在一定程度上表现出随时间扩大的趋势.文章的创新之处在于:强调了货币政策通过政策反应函数渠道而非以往研究中较多关注的狭义风险承担渠道影响金融周期波动的事实,并构建计量模型对货币政策反应函数渠道影响金融周期波动的时变机制进行了详细刻画.     

The often overlooked issue of statistical power: This and other issues regarding assessing importance weighting in quality of life measures

In the area of quality of life research, researchers may ask respondents to rate importance as well as satisfaction of various life domains (such as job and health) and use importance ratings as weights to calculate overall, or global, life satisfaction. The practice of giving more important domains more weight, known as importance weighting, has not been without controversy. Several previous studies assessed importance weighting using the analytical approach of moderated regression. This study discusses major issues related to how importance weighting has been assessed. Specifically, this study highlights that studies on importance weighting without considering statistical power are prone to type II error, i.e., failing to reject the null hypothesis of no significant weighting effect when the null hypothesis is actually false. The sample size required for adequate statistical power to detect importance weighting functions appeared larger than most previous studies could offer.     

A new financial stress index model based on support vector regression and control chart

Financial stress index (FSI) is considered to be an important risk management tool to quantify financial vulnerabilities. This paper proposes a new framework based on a hybrid classifier model that integrates rough set theory (RST), FSI, support vector regression (SVR) and a control chart to identify stressed periods. First, the RST method is applied to select variables. The outputs are used as input data for FSI–SVR computation. Empirical analysis is conducted based on monthly FSI of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis from January 1992 to June 2011. A comparison study is performed between FSI based on the principal component analysis and FSI–SVR. A control chart based on FSI–SVR and extreme value theory is proposed to identify the extremely stressed periods. Our approach identified different stressed periods including internet bubble, subprime crisis and actual financial stress episodes, along with the calmest periods, agreeing with those given by Federal Reserve System reports.     

A Graphical Tool for Interpreting Regression Coefficients of Trinomial Logit Models

Multinomial logit (also termed multi-logit) models permit the analysis of the statistical relation between a categorical response variable and a set of explicative variables (called covariates or regressors). Although multinomial logit is widely used in both the social and economic sciences, the interpretation of regression coefficients may be tricky, as the effect of covariates on the probability distribution of the response variable is nonconstant and difficult to quantify. The ternary plots illustrated in this article aim at facilitating the interpretation of regression coefficients and permit the effect of covariates (either singularly or jointly considered) on the probability distribution of the dependent variable to be quantified. Ternary plots can be drawn both for ordered and for unordered categorical dependent variables, when the number of possible outcomes equals three (trinomial response variable); these plots allow not only to represent the covariate effects over the whole parameter space of the dependent variable but also to compare the covariate effects of any given individual profile. The method is illustrated and discussed through analysis of a dataset concerning the transition of master’s graduates of the University of Trento (Italy) from university to employment.     

A Simulation Study of Some Biasing Parameters for the Ridge Type Estimation of Poisson Regression

This article proposes several estimators for estimating the ridge parameter k based on Poisson ridge regression (RR) model. These estimators have been evaluated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. As performance criteria, we have calculated the mean squared error (MSE), the mean value, and the standard deviation of k. The first criterion is commonly used, while the other two have never been used when analyzing Poisson RR. However, these performance criteria are very informative because, if several estimators have an equal estimated MSE, then those with low average value and standard deviation of k should be preferred. Based on the simulated results, we may recommend some biasing parameters that may be useful for the practitioners in the field of health, social, and physical sciences.     

A class of symmetric bivariate uniform distributions

A class of symmetric bivariate uniform distributions is proposed for use in statistical modeling. The distributions may be constructed to be absolutely continuous with correlations as close to±1 as desired. Expressions for the correlations, regressions and copulas are found. An extension to three dimensions is proposed.     

Still-births among the offspring of male radiation workers at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant: detailed results and statistical aspects

Summary. This study investigates whether there was evidence of increasing risk of still-birth with increasing paternal exposure to ionizing radiation received during employment at the Sellafield nuclear installation before the child was conceived. A significant positive association is found between the total paternal preconceptional exposure to external ionizing radiation and the risk of still-birth (after adjustment for year of birth, social class, birth order and paternal age, odds ratio at 100 mSv 1.24 (95% confidence interval 1.04–1.45)). A summary of the principal scientific findings of this study has been published in the Lancet . This paper describes in detail the statistical methods that were used in the investigation and presents the results in full.     

Living Arrangements, Employment Status, and the Economic Well-Being of Mothers: Evidence from Brazil, Chile, and the U.S

Using data from Brazil, Chile, and the U.S., we estimate country specific models of household income that characterize mothers according to their marital status, living arrangement, and employment status. We assess the predicted economic well-being of each type of mother relative to a benchmark of married mothers in the same country, and at various points in the income distribution. We find dramatic cross-country differences in the distribution of mothers across categories, but few differences in each type's relative economic status. In all three countries and at all points in the income distribution, mothers who are the only adults in their households have the lowest levels of predicted income, while married mothers—followed closely by cohabitors—have the highest levels.     

On Optimality of Bayesian Wavelet Estimators

Abstract.  We investigate the asymptotic optimality of several Bayesian wavelet estimators, namely, posterior mean, posterior median and Bayes Factor, where the prior imposed on wavelet coefficients is a mixture of a mass function at zero and a Gaussian density. We show that in terms of the mean squared error, for the properly chosen hyperparameters of the prior, all the three resulting Bayesian wavelet estimators achieve optimal minimax rates within any prescribed Besov space     for p  ≥ 2. For 1 ≤  p  < 2, the Bayes Factor is still optimal for (2 s +2)/(2 s +1) ≤  p  < 2 and always outperforms the posterior mean and the posterior median that can achieve only the best possible rates for linear estimators in this case.