Probability and the subjective evidence condition

This article is an attempt to clarify and possibly extend Achinstein's idea of subjective evidence. The argument is made that even though the idea of subjective evidence is ambiguous in many respects, if clarified, it holds potentially important consequences for various branches of knowledge. An attempt is made to show how the concept of subjective evidence may be given a probabilistic interpretation. This is done by introducing the idea of a potentially relevant class of evidence statements.     

Choice of School in Australia: Determinants and Consequences

This article examines the determinants of school choice (government, Catholic or other independent schools) as well as the success in completing year 12 for cohorts of students born in 1961 and 1970. The results show that those attending Catholic and other independent schools have favourable socio-economic backgrounds. Ability has a significant and positive effect on the probability of completing year 12. There is no evidence of unobserved selection effects on the probability of completing year 12 for the 1961 cohort. For the 1970 cohort, there is negative selection into other independent schools and positive selection into Catholic schools. Decomposition results further reveal that selection on the basis of observed characteristics accounts for only a small part of the observed differences in year 12 completion rates across the three school systems. In comparison, selection on the basis of unobserved factors is an important part of the difference in year 12 completion rates. The school effects for both cohorts are much larger than those reported in previous studies.     

Personnel scheduling in public systems: a survey

In many public systems efficiencies may be realized by improved personnel scheduling. This paper surveys the literature on personnel scheduling in the public domain. Two general problems are considered: the daily scheduling problem where hourly employee work day patterns are determined and the weekly scheduling problem where day off and day on work week patterns are constructed. The daily problem is discussed in terms of scheduling with and without simultaneous work assignment; and the weekly problem is dichotomized into those schedules based on cyclical personnel requirements and those that are not.     

REVIEWS

Free Trade and Protection in the Netherlands
The Analysis of Family Budgets . By S. J. P rais and H. S. H outhakkfr .
Two Postwar Recoveries of the German Economy . By H orst M endershausen .
The Economics of European Air Transport . By S tephen W heatcroft .
De Ontwikkcling van de Moderne Prijsteorie . Deur J. E. A ndriessen .
Oxford Regional Atlas: U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe.
Britain and she Tide of World Affairs .     

Factors Influencing Illinois Farmland Values

A hedonic model of Illinois farmland values is estimated using county-level cross-section time-series data. Explanatory variables include land productivity, parcel size, improvements, distances to Chicago and other large cities, an urban–rural index, livestock production through swine operation scale and farm density measures, population density, income, and inflation. The inclusion of spatial and serial correlation components substantially improves the model fit. Farmland values decline with parcel size, ruralness, distance to Chicago and large cities, and swine farm density, and increase with soil productivity, population density, and personal income.     

A NOTE ON THE GRAS METHOD

The GRAS method as presented by Junius and Oosterhaven [Junius, T. and J. Oosterhaven (2003) The Solution of Updating or Regionalizing a Matrix with Both Positive and Negative Elements. Economic Systems Research, 15, 87–96] assumes that every row and every column of a matrix to be balanced has at least one positive element. This might not necessarily be true in practice, in particular, when dealing with large-scale input–ouput tables, supply and use tables, social accounting matrices, or, for that matter, any other matrix. In this short note we relax this assumption and make available our MATLAB program for anyone interested in matrix GRASing. The same issue arises in the presentations of the KRAS method [Lenzen, M., B. Gallego and R. Wood (2009) Matrix Balancing Under Conflicting Information. Economic Systems Research, 21, 23–44] and the SUT–RAS method [Temurshoev, U. and M.P. Timmer (2011) Joint Estimation of Supply and Use Tables. Papers in Regional Science, 90, 863–882], which should be accordingly accounted for in their empirical applications.