Racial prejudice and residential segregation: The Yinger model revisited

Yinger's model of racial prejudice in the housing market is the first rigorous alternative to Bailey's early work. It is important both because his specification of racial prejudice is intuitively plausible and because it has been adopted in much empirical work but never before been subjected to rigorous theoretical examination. However, his derivation of equilibrium conditions rests in part on inappropriate analyses that significantly affect his conclusions. This paper derives what I regard as the appropriate equilibrium conditions. Yinger's original finding that the white community has strong incentives to foster seller discrimination against blacks remains strongly supported.     

Irving Fisher's Spendings (Consumption) Tax in Retrospect

A bstract .   Irving Fisher wrote a significant number of papers towards the end of his career on the design of the U.S. tax system. These writings culminated in a book that he wrote with his brother Herbert in 1942. Fisher thought that the double taxation of saving under an income tax was extremely harmful to the economy and he therefore proposed a "spendings" tax or what he referred to as a "real income" tax. Even though he disliked the terminology, he advocated what today would be referred to as a progressive consumption tax. Fisher's analysis was both theoretical and practical. His 1942 book contained a proposed tax return that implemented his ideas. His analysis is surprisingly modern and relevant today. This paper presents the Fisher proposal and examines the current U.S. tax system in light of his tax views. We argue that Fisher would find that the U.S. tax system lacks intellectual coherence, is economically inefficient, and unnecessarily complex.     

Het probleem van de ruïnering der spelers

The gambler's ruin.
When a single trial has two possible outcomes A and B, with probabilities p and q( p +q= 1), a succession of these trials forms a so-called Bernoulli chain. The well-known result for the probability of n times A and m times B is
In this article we consider the ruin problem, in which the initial capitals of the gamblers are a and b, respectively. In stead of a Bernoulli chain we then have a Markoff chain, with coefficients that are less simple than the ordinary binomial coefficients.
A more general expression (formula 1) is obtained for the probability distribution of the gambler's profit after a certain number of games, provided none of them became ruined beforehand. The probability for ruin after a certain number of games is a special case, similar to the results of Lagrange, Laplace and others, but appears in a form, more suitable for numerical calculations.
Some other results, obtained through the same method as developed in this paper are indicated.     

Constructing an entrepreneurial life: liminality and emotional reflexivity in identity work

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the identity work of a budding entrepreneur through a longitudinal case study based on his ongoing personal reflections as he tries to construct an entrepreneurial life. In particular, we investigate the role of emotional reflexivity and liminality, concepts that give us analytical purchase in exploring the complex dynamics of this identity work. The liminal condition of multiple identity positions enables our informant to experiment with and integrate several parallel identity narratives as he tries on socio-political constructions of ‘the entrepreneur’ for size; and it is the permanence of the liminal condition that makes emotional reflexivity necessary so he can handle the constant lack he experiences. The contribution of our work lies in exploring how the operation of the discourse of enterprise never closes on the centre of subjectivity that is imputed in that discourse, and how our subject, through emotional reflexivity, deals with this fundamental lack.     

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz—Statistician,Economist and a European Intellectual

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (1868–1931) was a European statistician. His scientific work covered theoretical economics, stochastics, mathematical statistics and radiology; today, we would call him a cross‐disciplinary scientist. With his clear views on mathematical principles with their applications in these fields, he stood in conflict with the mainstream economic schools in Germany at the dawn of the 20th century. He had many prominent students (Gumbel, Leontief and Freudenberg among them), and he carved out the path of modern statistical thinking. He was a true European intellectual with a career path from St. Petersburg via Göttingen to Straßburg and finally the Berliner Universität, now Humboldt‐Universität zu Berlin. He is known for the precise calibration of insurance claims applying the—at that time hardly known—Poisson distribution to Prussian horse kick and child suicide data. He proposed a simple solution to the Marxian transformation problem and wrote numerous articles and books on the mathematical treatment of statistical (including radiological physical) data. In this article, we sketch his life and work and point out the prominent role that he has in today's statistical thinking.     

Optimal risk taking in an uneven tournament game with risk averse players

We analyze the optimal choice of risk in a two-stage tournament game between two players that have different concave utility functions. At the first stage, both players simultaneously choose risk. At the second stage, both observe overall risk and simultaneously decide on effort or investment. The results show that those two effects which mainly determine risk taking – an effort effect and a likelihood effect – are strictly interrelated. This finding sharply contrasts with existing results on risk taking in tournament games with symmetric equilibrium efforts where such linkage can never arise. Conditions are derived under which this linkage leads to a reversed likelihood effect so that the favorite (underdog) can increase his winning probability by increasing (decreasing) risk which is impossible in a completely symmetric setting.     

Stochastic Index Numbers: A Review

The stochastic approach is a new way of viewing index numbers in which uncertainty and statistical ideas play a central role. Rather than just providing a single number for the rate of inflation, the stochastic approach provides the whole probability distribution of inflation. This paper reviews the key elements of the approach and then discusses its early history, including some previously overlooked links with Fisher's work contained in his book The Making of Index Numbers. We then consider some more recent developments, including Diewert's well-known critique of the stochastic approach, and provide responses to his criticisms. We also provide a review of Theil's work on the stochastic approach, and present and extend Diewert's work on this topic within the context of the Country Product Dummy method which measures price levels internationally. The paper also contains some recent material on the value of information from the perspective of the stochastic approach, as well as illustrative applications.     

Henry George in Australia

A bstract .   Some biographies of Henry George give brief accounts of his lecture tour of Australia in 1890, based mainly on his diary and on reports he sent back from Australia for publication in his New York newspaper, The Standard . This study supplements previous accounts with further details of the 48 lectures and 9 Sunday sermons he gave in 38 towns and cities during his 98-day stay in Australia, based on contemporary Australian newspaper reports. With an obvious proviso about the accuracy of the reporting, the Australian lectures are a valuable source of additional information on George's life and policies.     

Interpenetration Versus Embeddedness

A bstract .   The economy and economics are important fields in Talcott Parsons's work. Parsons's contributions on this subject were, however, mostly critically received in the new economic sociology. In this article, main points of criticism of Parsons's economic sociology will be discussed and the question asked whether the importance of Parsons's works in economic sociology was adequately treated. It will be demonstrated that the critical assessments was based for the most part on theoretical conceptions Parsons developed during his structural-functionalist period. Hence the assessments neglected to discuss the theory of expressive-symbolic communication of affect that Parsons developed in his later systems-functionalist period. However, precisely these later theoretical developments correlate directly with the concept of social embeddedness as a key concept in the new economic sociology. A stronger linking with this development in Parsons's theory could bring economic sociology closer to finding a foundation in action theory, which has been missing up to the present.     

朱兰百年质量生涯概述

综合概述朱兰百年质量生涯的五个阶段和在重要时刻成功的判断、决定和策划,以发现和吸取他在策划个人职业生涯时所显示或者蕴涵的人生智慧。     

浅析和珅与管理

本文从对和珅的一生着手,分析、归纳、总结,他一生中所运用到的管理理念。虽然众所周知和珅是一个前无古人,后无来者的大贪官,但是,他之所以能成为一个能名留千古的人物,也可以说明他的一生不同寻常。因此,我们通过对和珅的分析,了解,可以看到他是怎样运用管理这个名词。     

Henry George's Political Critics

A bstract .   Twelve political criticisms of George were paramount after he formed his own political party in 1887: (1) his refusal to join with other reformers to link his proposals with theirs, or to absorb theirs into his own campaign; (2) his singular focus on ground rent to the exclusion of other forms of monopoly income, such as that of the railroads, oil and mining trusts; (3) his almost unconditional support of capital, even against labor; (4) his economic individualism rejecting a strong role for government; (5) his opposition to public ownership or subsidy of basic infrastructure; (6) his refusal to acknowledge interest-bearing debt as the twin form of rentier income alongside ground rent; (7) the scant emphasis he placed on urban land and owner-occupied land; (8) his endorsement of the Democratic Party's free-trade platform; (9) his rejection of an academic platform to elaborate rent theory; (10) the narrowness of his theorizing beyond the land question; (11) the alliance of his followers with the right wing of the political spectrum; and (12) the hope that full taxation of ground rent could be achieved gradually rather than requiring a radical confrontation involving a struggle over control of government.     

W.F. Sheppard's Smoothing Method: A Precursor to Local Polynomial Regression

W.F. Sheppard has been much overlooked in the history of statistics although his work produced significant contributions. He developed a polynomial smoothing method and corrections of moment estimates for grouped data as well as extensive normal probability tables that have been widely used since the 20th century. Sheppard presented his smoothing method for actuaries in a series of publications during the early 20th century. Population data consist of irregularities, and some adjustment or smoothing of the data is often necessary. Simple techniques, such as Spencer's summation formulae involving arithmetic operations and moving averages, were commonly practised by actuaries to smooth out equally spaced data. Sheppard's method, however, is a polynomial smoothing method based on central differences. We will show how Sheppard's smoothing method was a significant milestone in the development of smoothing techniques and a precursor to local polynomial regression.     

Een meer-loketten probleem met overwerk

In an office a number of employees do the same kind of work. The jobs arrive at random and the holding time is exponential; the queuediscipline is first in, first served. The mean queuelength is shortened by work done in overtime according to the rule that on every day on which the total number of jobs exceeds a certain number N, one or more extra hours of work will be done. The distribution of the number of jobs in the office, the mean value of this number and the probability of overtime are given. The model is illustrated with a numerical example.     

一种新的高效的有限体积法

有限体积法是一种新的流体力学数值计算方法,其对于数值求解流体力学中常常遇到的偏微分方程十分有效。这篇文章采用有限体积法离散得到数值逼近格式,由原来的九点格式变成现在的五点格式,减少了节点的使用个数,且系数矩阵的条件数比较小,能保证离散的方程组有唯一解,且有较高的精度,并用提出的数值解方法求解二维的Laplace方程。数值计算结果与精确解作比较,吻合良好,且降低了计算机计算时所需要的时间。     

我眼中的“中国制造”

在1981年6月,当我作为一个学生来到中国的时候,广告、报纸、杂志均是充满了四个现代化的讨论。中国正在走上一条新的道路——一条将引导加强市场开放、使中国成为世界经济大国地位的道路。后来,在90年代中,随着经济政策的巨大改变、中国的发展速度越来越快。     

曹德旺跨栏

"天下事,大事小事,欲了了之,不了了之。我再管两年三年又如何?早晚还是要结束。"曹德旺讲述如何跨过退休这道栏战士永远不会老,只不过难免让岁月缴了枪。万花筒般的人生上半部再怎么波澜壮阔,总归要迎来谢幕的时刻。60岁还是65岁?当是否延迟退休年龄成为社会讨论的焦点话题时,中国第一代企业家却格外恋栈,退休这道坎,有时候比创业更折磨人。     

On divergence and convergence of sums of nonnegative random variables

Abstract  If X ₁, X ₂,… are exponentially distributed random variables thenσ^∞_{k= 1} X_k=∞ with probability 1 iff σ^∞_{k= 1} EX_k=∞. This result, which is basic for a criterion in the theory of Markov jump processes for ruling out explosions (infinitely many transitions within a finite time) is usually proved under the assumption of independence (see FREEDMAN (1971), p. 153–154 or BREI-MAN (1968), p. 337–338), but is shown in this note to hold without any assumption on the joint distribution. More generally, it is investigated when sums of nonnegative random variables with given marginal distributions converge or diverge whatever are their joint distributions.     

Strategy-proof allocation when preferences are single-plateaued

Abstract. We consider private good economies with single-plateaued preferences. A solution selects for each preference profile a non-empty set of allocations. An agent strictly prefers a set of allocations to another set of allocations if and only if he strictly prefers any allocation in the first set to any in the second set according to his single-plateaued preference relation. We characterize the class of sequential-allotment solutions by essentially single-valuedness, Pareto-indifference, and coalitional stragety-proofness. These solutions are the Pareto-indifferent extensions of the solutions studied by Barberà et al. 1997. Received: 9 May 2000 / Accepted: 1 May 2001