An integrated algorithm for three-way compositional data

Quality & Quantity - Compositional data with a tridimensional structure are not uncommon in social sciences. The CANDECOMP/PARAFAC model is one of the most adequate techniques for modeling...     

Using laboratory experiments to study law and crime

The 19th and 20th centuries produced breakthroughs in physics, chemistry, and the biological sciences. Laboratory research played an important role in the rapid advances made in these fields. Laboratory research can also contribute progress in the social sciences and, in particular, to law and criminology. To make this argument, we begin by discussing what laboratory experiments can and cannot do. We then provide three illustrations of lab experiments that have contributed to understanding of crime and law and discuss how these laboratory data complement those gained through other methods.     

Introducing dimensional analysis to the social sciences

This study serves to introduce dimensional analysis to the social sciences. Dimensional analysis, a method fundamental to research in the physical sciences, is presented first in a conceptual framework. Questions such as: what makes the method work, what use is it, and what are its limitations … are dealt with summarily. The method is then applied to the modeling of interurban migration. The selection of independent variables, the synthesis of dimensionless groups, and the analysis of data are considered in some detail.While a blanket endorsement of the method must be withheld pending further research, results of the present study are encouraging. Dimensional analysis may eventually find wide application in the social sciences.     

From the kinetic theory of active particles to the modeling of social behaviors and politics

This paper deals with the modeling of complex social systems by methods of the mathematical kinetic theory for active particles. Specifically, a recent model by the last two authors is analyzed from the social sciences point of view. The model shows, despite its simplicity, some interesting features. In particular, this paper investigates the ability of the model to describe how a social politics and the disposable overall wealth may have a relevant influence towards the trend of the wealth distribution. The paper also outlines various research perspectives.     

What about theory? The consequences on a widened perspective of social theory

One of the leading debates in social sciences concerns research design. However, in comparative politics, the predominant way conducting research misses out crucial aspects that are central to social theory. This article shows how method and empirical research are highly dependent on the definition of theory. Arguing that theory should not only give an explanation of the social phenomena in question but should also show how this relationship is constructed, this article outlines the consequence of such a perspective, namely that the collection of data should reflect both macro and micro perspectives and the analyses of data should be carried out using mixed methods. In conclusion, such an integrated framework is the most appropriate way to give valuable theoretical feedback, either by examination and revision of already established theories or by a contribution to the construction of new theory in the social sciences. It is important, though, that such a framework is applied in a systematized way.     

A common base for quality control criteria in quantitative and qualitative research

In the social sciences, several scientific paradigms are mutually isolated owing to their use of specific sets of methodological criteria and quality control procedures. In this article, the central hypothesis, to be tested by conceptual analysis and logical reasoning, is that recommended procedures for quality control in quantitative as well as qualitative research can be derived from a common base of regulative ideas. By ‘qualitative’, we mean the complex of ethnographic, anthropological, symbolic interactionist, ethnoscience and related approaches. A second goal is to demonstrate the use of regulative ideas as a parsimonious and fruitful base for a comparative analysis of methodological canons. Although our focus is on the comparison of quantitative and qualitative (or: naturalistic) research, we also pay attention to policy research as opposed to fundamental research.     

Zipf's Law for Cities and Beyond: The Case of Denmark

Zipf's law for cities is one of the most conspicuous and robust empirical facts in the social sciences. It says that for most countries, the size distribution of cities must fit the power law: the number of cities with populations greater than S is inversely proportional to S. The present paper answers three questions related to Zipf's law: (1) does the Danish case refute Zipf's law for cities?, (2) what are the implications of Zipf's law for models of local growth?, and (3) do we have a Zipf's law for firms? Based on empirical data on the 61 largest Danish cities for year 2000, the answer to (1) is NO—the Danish case is not the exception which refutes Zipf's law. The consideration of (2) then leads to an empirical test of (3). The question of the existence of Zipf's law for firms is tested on a sample of 14,541 Danish production companies (the total population for 1997 with 10 employees or more). Based on the empirical evidence, the answer to (3) is YES in the sense that the growth pattern of Danish production companies follows a clean rank‐size distribution consistent with Zipf's law.     

On estimating true change interrelationships with other variables

This article is concerned with the estimation of indexes of interrelationship between true change in repeatedly assessed latent constructs and other variables. In the social and behavioral sciences this theoretically and empirically important issue arises commonly in research aimed at studying correlates and predictors of growth or decline in a context of a longitudinal research design. A structural equation modeling approach is described that is useful in empirical situations where identifying variables correlated with change in longitudinally followed latent constructs is of interest. The issue of discerning between correlates and predictors of change using the structural equation modeling methodology is discussed. The described approach is used to study correlative aspects of ability growth in a cognitive intervention study (Balteset al., 1986).     

Should I allow my confirmatory factors to correlate during factor score extraction? Implications for the applied researcher

Quality & Quantity - With complex models becoming increasingly popular in the social sciences, many researchers have begun using latent variable modeling in multiple-steps, saving, estimating,...     

The element of surprise: the diverse impact of slightly alternative specifications of context on opinion formation in multi-level modeling

The rise of multi-level modeling in social sciences brings new challenges. Multi-level modeling, although used in a great variety of ways, aims at simultaneously assessing the impact of individual-level and context-level characteristics on a dependent variable that is measured at the individual level. However, comprehending how public opinion is affected by context and how people experience contextual changes is a challenge. Little scholarly attention has been paid to the way context is incorporated in these models. The current study compares the use of the same independent variable (GNI) measured in three different ways to predict attitudes regarding EU enlargement, trust in the EU, and European Unification in 25 EU countries, using data from the European Social Survey. We introduce an alternative way to measure change, taking a larger time span into consideration, and find that this is a good way to measure contextual surprise. Our findings show that the way a variable is measured greatly influences the size and even direction of the effect. Hence, it is crucial to assess both conceptually and methodologically the best way to measure context before one simply implements a variable and interprets empty results.     

Henry George and the Ethics of Economics

Abstract . Henry George's Progress and Poverty (1879) is a great ethical masterpiece. Its moral tone distinguishes the book. More than an economics test, it is a philosophic quest for justice, an impassioned declaration of the rule of natural law. Indignantly attacking the contention that economics has no place for natural law or ethics, George exclaims: “She [economics] has been degraded and shackled; her truths dislocated; her harmonies ignored.” On the contrary, George stresses, political economy (economics) is a science, and like all sciences, is governed by natural law. Furthermore, it is basically “moral.” Science must, of necessity, always lead to ethics. Natural law must, of necessity, always lead to morality, or justice.“The law of human progress, what is it but the moral law?” George asks. “Unless its foundation be laid in justice the social structure cannot stand.” The social ill that perpetuates poverty and the manifold evils it causes is private ownership of land and the private privilege of collecting its rent. “The fundamental law of nature, that the enjoyment by man shall be consequent upon his exertion, is thus violated.”     

Nonparametric methods and local‐time‐based estimation for dynamic power law distributions

This paper introduces nonparametric econometric methods that characterize general power law distributions under basic stability conditions. These methods extend the literature on power laws in the social sciences in several directions. First, we show that any stationary distribution in a random growth setting is shaped entirely by two factors: the idiosyncratic volatilities and reversion rates (a measure of cross‐sectional mean reversion) for different ranks in the distribution. This result is valid regardless of how growth rates and volatilities vary across different economic agents, and hence applies to Gibrat's law and its extensions. Second, we present techniques to estimate these two factors using panel data. Third, we describe how our results imply predictability as higher‐ranked processes must on average grow more slowly than lower‐ranked processes. We employ our empirical methods using data on commodity prices and show that our techniques accurately describe the empirical distribution of relative commodity prices. We also show that rank‐based out‐of‐sample forecasts of future commodity prices outperform random‐walk forecasts at a 1‐month horizon.     

The Law of Population and the Austrian School

There has been considerable debate within the social sciences about the consequences of rapid population growth. The law of population, as described by Thomas Robert Malthus, asserts that population growth is ultimately limited by the means of subsistence, and therefore preventive checks on population growth (e.g., voluntarily limiting the number of births) are necessary to avoid the grim prospect of inevitable human suffering when the means of subsistence cannot support the population. Economists, demographers, and other social scientists have produced volumes of exegesis on Malthus's work. This article assesses how representative economists of the Austrian School have interacted with Malthus's law of population.     

The logic of means-end analysis

The conceptual scheme of means and ends for the analysis of action in a wide sense used to be considered a basic paradigm in the social sciences. It has come under attack from various points and as a result has today lost much of its appeal and status. If some basic distinctions are introduced into the means-end concepts, then it is possible to show that the severe criticism of this conceptual scheme cannot be sustained. In a revised version means-end analysis may be a powerful tool in the hands of the social sciences.     

Social Sciences and Urban Studies: Goodbye to Paradigms?

The development of urban studies during the 1960s and 1970s was an offshoot of mainstream social sciences which, at least in Latin America, were formulated from a critical standpoint based largely on a renovated Marxism and the rise of the structuralisms. Now that this framework's apparently solid base has come under question in the so‐called ‘paradigm crisis', what is the outlook for urban studies and, in general, for the critical social sciences? This article poses a series of ideas which hopefully will contribute to a discussion on these and other aspects of a theoretical debate which cannot be ignored by urban researchers.     

Auditing Quality of Research in Social Sciences

A growing body of studies involves complex research processes facing many interpretations and iterations during the analyses. Complex research generally has an explorative in-depth qualitative nature. Because these studies rely less on standardized procedures of data gathering and analysis, it is often not clear how quality was insured or assured. However, one can not easily find techniques that are suitable for such complex research processes to assess the quality of the study. In this paper, we discuss and present a suitable validation procedure. We first discuss how ‘diagnosing’ quality involves three generic criteria. Next, we present findings of previous research in possible procedures to assure the quality of research in social sciences. We introduce the audit procedure designed by Halpern [(1983) Auditing Naturalistic Inquiries: The Development and Application of a Model. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University] we found an appropriate starting point for a suitable procedure for quality judgment. Subsequently, we will present a redesign of the original procedure, with according guidelines for the researcher (the auditee) and for the evaluator of the quality of the study (the auditor). With that design, we aim to enable researchers to bring forward their explorative qualitative studies as stronger and more equally valuable to studies that can rely on standardized procedures.     

Analytic derivation of sociometric dimensions

Dimensional analysis has been defined variously as the synthesis of dimensionless variables and as a way of spatially representing data. While in sociometrics, one may not be able to devise models resembling those of the physical sciences because of the complexity of many social situations, one may in some cases successfully apply the techniques of classic dimensional analysis and get empirically valid results. More often we derive with analytic methods from the social sciences different kinds of dimensional frameworks in which to represent data. This paper will compare these approaches to the study of relationships and give examples of where each might be appropriate. Finally, a classification of the analytical methods will be presented.