Event History Data and Making a History out of Cross-Sectional Data

At the turn of 20th century social scientists have built up a large stock of cross-sectional data-sets to study social change. However, scholars more and more collect event history data containing the exact timing of events. Comparing the (dis)advantages event history data are to be preferred. However, for research on value change the event history approach is inapplicable, since it is not possible to ask the timing of a value change retrospectively. I will illustrate that value change (i.e. cohort differences) can be studied adequately with cross-sectional data, if information about the historical context is added. For this purpose I test Inglehart's value change thesis.Interestingly, there are also topics in which cross-sectional data-sets are unnecessarily being used. Using research on secularization as an example, I show that the event-history approach can be used to answer the question whether the decreasing number of religious people concerns a cohort-effect. However, whatever data-set is being used, to study cohort differences, one should always give a theoretical answer to the key-question: what exactly makes cohorts different     

The political economy of financial reform: How robust are huang's findings?

Using new data on financial liberalization taken from Abiad et al. (2008, IMF Working Papers, No. 08/266) for 62 countries over the period 1975–2005, we show that some of the main findings of Huang's (2009, Journal of Applied Econometrics 24 : 1207–1213) replication study on the drivers of financial liberalization are not robust. Major changes concern the effect of democracy on financial reform and the supposed relationship between the desired level of financial liberalization and a country's per capita income. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unveiling Urban Sprawl in the Mediterranean Region: Towards a Latent Urban Transformation?

The relationship between form and function in European Mediterranean cities has been widely addressed from various perspectives. A number of studies indicate that, until the 1980s, compactness was a key trait of several cities of the Northern Mediterranean. However, after the ‘compact growth’ period, these cities experienced patterns of urbanization that differed from their traditional trends. Since the 1990s, sprawl, coupled with population decline in the inner cities, has become the main pattern of urban development. This article explores the key features of exurban development in the Mediterranean region in order to provide material for a discussion based on the differences and similarities in the characteristics of sprawl processes originating in the US and Northern Europe. It concludes that any debate on policy responses to sprawl must be specifically formulated according to the scope, administrative level, housing and planning system, territorial and socioeconomic characteristics of the urban system under examination. It is our belief that sprawl requires site‐specific analyses and policy strategies for the region being studied if the process is to be effectively controlled.     

The influence of entrepreneurs’ immigrant status and time on the perceived likelihood of exporting

We contribute in this paper to the scant literature on the factors and conditions influencing the development of different perceptions of potential international opportunities for immigrant and native entrepreneurs in the pre-internationalization phase. Specifically, we investigate what factors influence the perceived likelihood entrepreneurs have of exporting. Building on entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity-based entrepreneurial processes, we propose a cognitive account of perceived likelihood of exporting based on entrepreneurs’ perceptions of the desirability and feasibility of export opportunities. We investigate how the immigrant status (i.e., individual characteristics) and time (i.e., contextual factors) influence the relationship between the desirability and feasibility of exporting, and entrepreneurs’ perceived likelihood of exporting. We employ an experimental design on a matched-pair sample of 108 native and immigrant entrepreneurs in domestic technology-based firms. The results are a unique account of the cognitive antecedents of the perceived likelihood of exporting under different temporal conditions, comparing immigrant and native entrepreneurs. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.

     

GAME THEORETIC MODELS OF MIXED OLIGOPOLY

Abstract. In this paper we review various models that have been proposed for the study of mixed oligopoly, that is markets in which private and public firm compete on equal basis using only market instruments.     

Machine learning,artificial neural networks and social research

Quality & Quantity - Machine learning (ML), and particularly algorithms based on artificial neural networks (ANNs), constitute a field of research lying at the intersection of different...