1,721,096 research outputs found
The heterogeneous thresholds ordered response model: identification and inference
Full text linkAlthough surveys routinely ask respondents to evaluate various aspects of their life on an ordered scale, there is concern about interpersonal comparability of these self-assessments. Statistically, the problem is one of identification in ordered response models with heterogeneous thresholds. As a solution to the identification problem, King et al. (2004) proposed using anchoring vignettes, namely brief descriptions of hypothetical people or situations that survey respondents are asked to evaluate on the same scale they use to rate their own situation. While vignettes have been introduced in several social surveys and are increasingly employed in a variety of fields, reliability of this approach hinges crucially on the validity of the assumptions of response consistency and vignette equivalence. This paper proposes a joint test of these key assumptions based on the fact that the underlying statistical model is overidentified if the two assumptions hold. Monte Carlo results show that the proposed test has good size and power properties in finite samples. We apply our test to self-assessment of pain using data from the first wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We find that, when using only one of the three available vignettes, or when the test is carried out separately by subgroups of respondents, the overidentifying restrictions are less likely to be rejected
Bayesian Estimation of the Normal Location Model: A Non-Standard Approach
No full textWe consider the estimation of the location parameter θ in the normal location model and study the sampling properties of shrinkage estimators derived from a non-standard Bayesian approach that places the prior on a scaled version of θ, interpreted as the ‘population t-ratio.’ We show that the finite-sample distribution of these estimators is not centred at θ and is generally non-normal. In the asymptotic theory, we prove uniform n^(1/2)-consistency of our estimators and obtain their asymptotic distribution under a general moving-parameter setup that includes both the fixed-parameter and the local-parameter settings as special cases
Live longer, work longer : making it happen in the labor market
Full text linkThe objective of the paper is to summarize labor market implications of population aging and to discuss policy options to increase the employment of old workers. The paper argues that population aging and ensuing shrinking of the workforce will create a significant drag on the economies of developed, transition, and even some developing countries. Thus working longer is an imperative: unless countered by productivity increases, working longer, or both, population aging and ensuing shrinking of labor force will reduce economic growth and may jeopardize the economic well-being of some of the elderly. However, extending working lives has proven difficult, both because workers do not want to work longer and because employers are lukewarm about employment old workers. Among measures to motivate workers to work longer, the paper proposes providing retirement incentives and attractive, flexible working arrangements; and to stimulate employers to hire old workers, it argues for removing obstacles imposed by restrictive labor market institutions, for increasing human capital of workers via life-long learning, and for addressing age discrimination. Chances for extending working lives will also increase with improving health of old workers. The organization of the paper is as follows. Section 1 discusses the implications of population aging for economic growth. Section 2 examines factors that stand in the way of longer working lives - why workers opt for early exit from the labor market, and why employers are often lukewarm about employing old workers. In the policy part of the paper, Section 3 proposes possible measures to attract workers to work longer, and Section 4 describes how to remove institutional obstacles and introduce incentives that would make old workers more appealing to employers.Labor Markets,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,,Labor Policies,Work&Working Conditions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Population aging and the labor market : the case of Sri Lanka
Full text linkSri Lanka's population is predicted to age vary fast during the next 50 years, bringing a slowdown of labor force growth and after 2030its contraction. Based on a 2006 representative survey of old people in Sri Lanka, the paper examines labor market consequences of this process, focusing on retirement pathways and the determinants of labor market withdrawal. The paper finds that a vast majority of Sri Lankan old workers are engaged in the informal sector, work long hours, and are paid less than younger workers. Moreover, the paper shows that labor market duality carries over to old age: (i) previous employment is the most important predictor of the retirement pathway; (ii) older workers fall into two categories: civil servants and formal private sector workers, who generally stop working before they reach 60 because they are forced to do so by mandatory retirement regulations, and casual workers and the self-employed, who work until very old age (or death) due to poverty and insufficient income and who stop working primarily because of poor health; and (iii) the option of part-time work is used primarily by workers who held regular jobs in their prime age employment, but not by casual workers and self-employed.Labor Markets,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Policies,Work&Working Conditions,
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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