Turning from crime: A dynamic perspective

This paper examines criminal choice using a variant of the human capital model. The innovation of our approach is that it attempts to disaggregate individual capital, not unlike production-based studies which disaggregate physical capital into equipment and structures. We disaggregate an individual’s capital stock into the standard human capital component as well as a utility generating component that we call social capital. In our set-up, social capital is used to account for the influence of social norms on the decision to participate in crime. This is done by modeling the stigma of arrest as a reduction in the individual’s social capital stock. We also allow individuals to account for the impact of their criminal actions on their probability of arrest. In order to estimate the structural parameters underlying the model, we make use of computationally intensive methods involving simulated generalized method of moments and value function approximation. The empirical results, based on panel data from the Delinquency in a Birth Cohort II Study, support the social capital model of crime and reveal significant state dependence in the decision to participate in crime.     

Maintaining Moral Legitimacy through Worlds and Words: An Explanation of Firms' Investment in Sustainability Certification

A prominent way for firms to manage their moral legitimacy is to invest in sustainability certifications. However, a significant subset of firms remain reluctant to invest in sustainability certifications even decades after the establishment of such certifications. Our paper seeks to elucidate this variance by exploring how firms in the coffee, tea, and chocolate industries legitimise themselves on moral grounds through external communication to stakeholders. Drawing on insights from French Pragmatist Sociology, we suggest that firms primarily rely on two distinct sets of legitimacy principles that reflect their identity orientation: the ‘civic and green’ world and the ‘domestic’ world. Specifically, our results show that reliance on the domestic world is negatively related to firms' investment in sustainability certifications. Our findings also suggest that the strength of the relationship between these distinct methods of moral legitimising and certification varies depending on whether firms are characterised by first‐ or multi‐generation family control.     

Envisioning a future purchase: The effects of consumption imagery perspective and identity on consumer motivation

When people visualize a potential purchase, they can adopt either a first‐person or a third‐person perspective. The present research examines whether the perspective adopted would affect consumer motivation, and whether this effect would depend on the extent to which the imagined purchase is connected to identity. In four studies, third‐person imagery resulted in stronger consumer motivation than first‐person imagery, but only for purchases that were tied closely to identity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the motivational effect of third‐person imagery is not based on concerns about others’ views of the self, but rather on the extent to which one feels that the imagined behavior is tied closely to identity.     

有限元方法在某水电站地下厂房顶拱层开挖施工方案比选中的应用

在地下洞室开挖中,由于岩体中原有结构面的存在,再加上洞室开挖后应力重新分布与集中,以及爆破作业的影响,在洞室顶部一定范围内会形成岩石松散圈.某水电站地下厂房开挖有中导洞先行和两侧导洞先行两种方案,利用有限元方法并参照类似工程,确定了中导洞先行的顶拱层开挖方案.     

Impact evaluation for tourism development using the fuzzy set model: A case study of Kyongju,Korea

The Community tourism industry is primarily influenced by facilities, traffic systems, capacity, and development of tourism commodities. To develop tourism industry on a local basis, it is unavoidable to make investments on a large scale. Factor analysis for impact evaluation prior to undertaking of development projects, which this study intends to make, is more reasonable when related to the fuzzy numeric analysis of words or sentences than to a quantitative analysis of measured information. In this study the Euclidean distance method and Zadeh's fuzzy extension principle were used as linguistic approximation to establish the validity of decision‐ making in each factor category of impact degree. Therefore, this study introduces a general concept of Fuzzy theory through literature review of linguistic expressions. This study examined availability of the Fuzzy model in analyzing investment priorities for tourist development and applied it to Kyongju area, which unveiled the priorities for Kyongju tourism future in order of traffic system improvement, early construction of horse‐ racing track now under planning, promotion of Kyongju as tourism special zone to visitors and positive tourism events. In terms of methodology, this study disclosed that Fuzzy Model approach is greatly useful to decision‐making processes in tourist development.     

Multi‐state Stochastic Processes: A Statistical Flowgraph Perspective

Two‐state models (working/failed or alive/dead) are widely used in reliability and survival analysis. In contrast, multi‐state stochastic processes provide a richer framework for modeling and analyzing the progression of a process from an initial to a terminal state, allowing incorporation of more details of the process mechanism. We review multi‐state models, focusing on time‐homogeneous semi‐Markov processes (SMPs), and then describe the statistical flowgraph framework, which comprises analysis methods and algorithms for computing quantities of interest such as the distribution of first passage times to a terminal state. These algorithms algebraically combine integral transforms of the waiting time distributions in each state and invert them to get the required results. The estimated transforms may be based on parametric distributions or on empirical distributions of sample transition data, which may be censored. The methods are illustrated with several applications.     

浅议甲供材料管理与核算的问题及对策

工程建设投资控制是一项系统工作,贯穿于工程始末。工程材料是工程成本的重要组成部分,在建设过程中加强材料的管理工作,有利于甲方有效控制总成本,一些建设单位为了控制造价,往往在采购材料、设备时采用甲供的形式。在保证工程质量和进度的前提下,甲方如何合理控制自供材料的成本,非常值得探讨。     

On the performance of the ordinary least squares method under an error component model

Starting from the one-dimensional results by Wang et al (1994) we consider the performance of the ordinary least squares estimator in comparison to the best linear unbiased estimator under an error component model with random effects in units and time. Upper bounds are derived for the first-order approximation to the difference between both estimators and for the spectral norm of the difference between their dispersion matrices.     

预收保费与保险责任的承担——论我国应当建立暂保承诺制度

如何规范从投保人提出投保申请到保险人承诺前这段时间的"保险真空",解决该问题的最佳选择就是借鉴国外的暂保承诺制度,在保险人决定是否对要保人的要约作出承诺前,为其提供暂时的保险保护.     

Valuation and applications of compound basket options

This study investigates compound basket options, which are options on portfolios of options. Although they may be new to financial markets, they are available as equity basket options, equity spread options, stocks of holding companies, and collateralized debt obligations. Using moments of portfolio values, we provide formulas for pricing compound basket options. According to numerical analysis, a lower bound and a weighted average of bounds yield relatively small errors. Additionally, ignoring the compound feature increases the pricing error of equity basket options because the feature captures the capital structure and leverage effect of stock prices.