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Empirical Grounds (empirical + ground)
Selected AbstractsRELATIONAL GOODS, MONITORING AND NON-PECUNIARY COMPENSATIONS IN THE NONPROFIT SECTOR: THE CASE OF THE ITALIAN SOCIAL SERVICESANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2007Michele Mosca ABSTRACT,:,This paper investigates the nonprofit wage gap suggesting a theoretical framework where, like inAkerlof (1984), effort correlates not only with wages, but also with non-monetary compensations. These take the form of relational goods by-produced in the delivery of particular services. By paying higher non-pecuniary compensations, the nonprofit sector attracts intrinsically similarly skilled, but more motivated workers, able to provide in fact a similar (or potentially higher) level of effort than their counterparts in the forprofit sector. On an empirical ground, the paper provides a number of econometric tests that confirm the main predictions of the model in Italy's case. It adds to the available empirical literature by introducing in the analysis direct measures of non-pecuniary compensations and job satisfaction. [source] Measuring health polarization with self-assessed health dataHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 9 2007Benedicte ApoueyArticle first published online: 20 AUG 200 Abstract This paper proposes an axiomatic foundation for new measures of polarization that can be applied to ordinal distributions such as self-assessed health (SAH) data. This is an improvement over the existing measures of polarization that can be used only for cardinal variables. The new measures of polarization avoid one difficulty that the related measures for evaluating health inequalities face. Indeed, inequality measures are mean based, and since only cardinal variables have a mean, SAH has to be cardinalized to compute a mean, which can then be used to calculate an inequality measure. In contrast, the new polarization measures are median based and hence do not require to impose cardinal scaling on the categories. After deriving the properties of these new polarization measures, we provide an empirical illustration using data from the British Household Panel Survey that demonstrates that SAH polarization is also a relevant question on empirical grounds, and that the polarization measures are adequate to evaluate polarization phenomena whereas inequality measures are not adequate in these cases. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Mechanisms of functional response and resource exploitation in browsing roe deerJOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2002Andrew W. Illius Summary 1The functional responses of roe deer were examined using 11 plant species. A technique to discriminate between encounter- and handling-limited processes was used, and it can be concluded that the functional response applicable to patch browsing by roe deer is governed not by the rate of encounter but by the rate of oral processing. 2The large differences between plant species were due to variations in both parameters of the functional response: h , the time lost in biting, and Rmax , the maximum processing rate. Removing the thorns from three of the species affected these parameters differently, according to the size and density of thorns. 3Animals took larger bites from larger patches (branches), and bite mass declined as patch exploitation progressed, implying that animals were selecting the larger items to eat first. It was demonstrated experimentally that depletion of the larger bites does occur first, and it was concluded that prey selection is an important component of herbivore foraging behaviour. 4The gain curves for deer feeding on the different plant species are calculated as being virtually linear. Patch depression did not, in general, occur because increasing bite rate compensated for declining bite mass. Our mechanistic approach is contrasted with other approaches to describing the gain curve in the literature. 5A priori and empirical grounds are presented for rejecting the hypothesis that resource exploitation by browsing mammals is governed by optimal patch use. Diet optimization, involving a trade-off between diet quality and quantity, offers a better explanation of herbivore foraging behaviour. [source] An error corrected almost ideal demand system for major cereals in KenyaAGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010Jonathan M. Nzuma Error correction model; AIDS; Cereal consumption; Kenya Abstract Despite significant progress in theory and empirical methods, the analysis of food consumption patterns in developing countries, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), has received very limited attention. An attempt is made in this article to estimate an Error Corrected Almost Ideal Demand System for four major cereals consumed in Kenya employing annual data from 1963 to 2005. This demand system performs well on both theoretical and empirical grounds. The symmetry and homogeneity conditions are supported by the data and the,Le Chatelier,principle holds. Empirically, all own-price elasticities are negative and significant at 5% level and irrespective of the time horizon, maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum may be considered as necessities in Kenya. While the expenditure elasticities of all four cereals are positive, they are inelastic both in the short run and in the long run. Finally, wheat and rice complement maize consumption in Kenya while sorghum acts as a substitute. Since cereal consumers have price and income inelastic responses, a combination of income and price-oriented policies could improve cereal consumption in Kenya. [source] Failures of the state failure debate: Evidence from the Somali territories,JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2009Tobias Hagmann Abstract Much of the current literature on state failure and collapse suffers from serious conceptual flaws. It ignores the variegated types of empirical statehood that exist on the ground, it conflates the absence of a central government with anarchy, it creates an unhelpful distinction between ,accomplished' and ,failed' states, and it is guided by a teleological belief in the convergence of all nation-states. Particularly African states figure prominently in this debate and are frequently portrayed in almost pathological terms. Proposing a comparative analysis of politics in the Somali inhabited territories of the Horn of Africa, this article challenges state failure discourses on both theoretical and empirical grounds. We draw attention to the multiple processes of state-building and forms of statehood that have emerged in Somalia, and the neighbouring Somalia region of Ethiopia, since 1991. The analysis of the different trajectories of these Somali political orders reveals that state formation in Africa contradicts central tenets of the state failure debate and that external state-building interventions should recognise and engage with sub-national political entities. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A Nested Logit Approach to Household MobilityJOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2001Thomas A. Knapp This study analyzes personal and site characteristics in a model of intraMSA and interMSA mobility. Households are assumed to choose a single type of move, intraMSA or interMSA, while simultaneously choosing a central city or suburban destination. We demonstrate that a nested logit model is appropriate on both theoretical and empirical grounds. The sample consists of intrametropolitan and intermetropolitan movers drawn from the 1990 U.S. Census PUMS. Personal characteristics drawn from the PUMS are matched to numerous site characteristics (climatic measures, other amenities, state and local fiscal characteristics, and other urban quality measures) drawn from a variety of sources. Nested logit direct and cross elasticities are presented for a number of site attributes. [source] Unifying clones with a generative programming technique: a case studyJOURNAL OF SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AND EVOLUTION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, Issue 4 2006Stan Jarzabek Abstract Software clones,similar program structures repeated in variant forms,increase the risk of update anomalies, blow up the program size and complexity, possibly contributing to high maintenance costs. Yet, programs are often polluted by clones. In this paper, we present a case study of cloning in the Java Buffer library, JDK 1.5. We found that at least 68% of the code in the Buffer library was contained in cloned classes or class methods. Close analysis of program situations that led to cloning revealed difficulties in eliminating clones with conventional program design techniques. As a possible solution, we applied a generative technique of XVCL (XML-based Variant Configuration Language) to represent similar classes and methods in generic, adaptable form. Concrete buffer classes could be automatically produced from the generic structures. We argue, on analytical and empirical grounds, that unifying clones reduced conceptual complexity and enhanced the changeability of the Buffer library at rates proportional to code size reduction (68%). We evaluated our solution in qualitative and quantitative ways, and conducted a controlled experiment to support this claim. The approach presented in the paper can be used to enhance genericity and changeability of any program, independently of an application domain or programming language. As the solution is not without pitfalls, we discuss trade-offs involved in its project application. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Non-empirical calculations of NMR indirect carbon,carbon coupling constants.MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN CHEMISTRY, Issue 6 2003Part 4: Bicycloalkanes Abstract A systematic study of the one-bond and long-range J(C,C), J(C,H) and J(H,H) in the series of nine bicycloalkanes was performed at the SOPPA level with special emphasis on the coupling transmission mechanisms at bridgeheads. Many unknown couplings were predicted with high reliability. Further refinement of SOPPA computational scheme adjusted for better performance was carried out using bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane as a benchmark to investigate the influence of geometry, basis set and electronic correlation. The calculations performed demonstrated that classical ab initio SOPPA applied with the locally dense Dunning's sets augmented with inner core s-functions used for coupled carbons and Sauer's sets augmented with tight s-functions used for coupled hydrogens performs perfectly well in reproducing experimental values of different types of coupling constants (the estimated reliability is ca 1,2 Hz) in relatively large organic molecules of up to 11 carbon atoms. Additive coupling increments were derived for J(C,C), J(C,H) and J(H,H) based on the calculated values of coupling constants within SOPPA in the model bicycloalkanes, in reasonably good agreement with the known values obtained earlier on pure empirical grounds. Most of the bridgehead couplings in all but one bicycloalkane appeared to be essentially additive within ca 2,3 Hz while bicyclo[1.1.1]pentane demonstrated dramatic non-additivity of ,14.5 Hz for J(C,C), +16.6 Hz for J(H,H) and ,5.5 Hz for J(C,H), in line with previous findings. Non-additivity effects in the latter compound established at the SOPPA level should be attributed to the through-space non-bonded interactions at bridgeheads due to the essential overlapping of the bridgehead rear lobes which provides an additional and effective non-bonding coupling path for the bridgehead carbons and their protons in the bicyclopentane framework. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Evidence from panel unit root and cointegration tests that the Environmental Kuznets Curve does not existAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2003Roger Perman The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis , an inverted U-shape relation between various indicators of environmental degradation and income per capita , has become one of the ,stylised facts' of environmental and resource economics. This is despite considerable criticism on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Cointegration analysis can be used to test the validity of such stylised facts when the data involved contain stochastic trends. In the present paper, we use cointegration analysis to test the EKC hypothesis using a panel dataset of sulfur emissions and GDP data for 74 countries over a span of 31 years. We find that the data is stochastically trending in the time-series dimension. Given this, and interpreting the EKC as a long run equilibrium relationship, support for the hypothesis requires that an appropriate model cointegrates and that sulfur emissions are a concave function of income. Individual and panel cointegration tests cast doubt on the general applicability of the hypothesised relationship. Even when we find cointegration, many of the relationships for individual countries are not concave. The results show that the EKC is a problematic concept, at least in the case of sulfur emissions. [source] | |||||||||||||