Social class and the fertility transition: a critical comment on the statistical results reported in Simon Szreter's Fertility,class and gender in Britain, 1860–19401

Simon Szreter's book Fertility, class and gender in Britain, 1860–1940 argues that social and economic class fails to explain the cross‐sectional differences in marital fertility as reported in the 1911 census of England and Wales. Szreter's conclusion made the book immediately influential, and it remains so. This finding matters a great deal for debates about the causes of the European fertility decline of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For decades scholars have argued whether the main forces at work were ideational or social and economic. This note reports a simple graphical and statistical re‐analysis of Szreter's own data. We show that social class does explain cross‐sectional differences in English marital fertility in 1911.     

METHODOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF NON-NORMALLY DISTRIBUTED FINANCIAL RATIOS: A REPLY

This reply extends the contention that fhancial ratios cannot be used comparatively with any safety. It is shown that the obstacles posed by Horrigan for residual analysis may easily be overcome.     

MARKOWITZ ALLOCATION–FIXED INCOME SECURITIES

The Markowitz allocation model has not been properly tested with individual corporate bonds. Several authors have argued theoretically that the expectations necessary for the model cannot be formed from ex post time series data because the distribution of bond returns is not stationary. A methodology under which corporate bonds can be included in tests of the Markowitz model is presented in this study. Five sets of naive expectations are used, and as the distribution problem is removed from the data, the risk-adjusted performance of the Markowitz model becomes potentially very useful.     

METHODOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF NON-NORMALLY DISTRIBUTED FINANCIAL RATIOS

Empirical studies have shown distributions of financial ratios are skewed. An explanation for this is given and it is argued that in such circumstances comparison of a fmancial ratio with some norm (e.g. industry average) is likely to misinform. It is also shown that where financial ratios are used as inputs to statistical models normality is irrelevant but a method of transformation into a normal distribution is provided whereby original interrelationships are preserved. Finally, because of the inadequacies of financial ratios, it is shown how regression analysis may be used in financial statement analysis.