A new approach to inter-rater agreement through stochastic orderings: the discrete case

We wish to study inter-rater agreement comparing groups of observers who express their ratings on a discrete or ordinal scale. The starting point is that of defining what we mean by “agreement”. Given d observers, let the scores they assign to a given statistical unit be expressed as a d-vector in the real space. We define a deterministic ordering among these vectors, which expresses the degree of the raters’ agreement. The overall scoring of the raters on the sample space will be a d-dimensional random vector. We then define an associated partial ordering among the random vectors of the ratings, illustrate a number of its properties, and look at order-preserving functions (agreement measures). In this paper we also show how to test the hypothesis of greater agreement against the unrestricted hypothesis, and the hypothesis of equal agreement against the hypothesis that an agreement ordering holds. The test is applied to real data on two medical observers rating clinical guidelines.     

Investing back homeReturn migration and business ownership in Albania1

This study uses data from the 2005 Albania Living Standards Measurement Study survey to assess the impact of past migration experience of Albanian households on non‐farm business ownership through instrumental variables regression techniques. Considering the differences in earning potentials and opportunities for skill acquisition in different destination countries, we differentiate the impact of past household migration experience by main migrant destinations. The study also explores the heterogeneity of impact based on the timing of migration. The empirical results indicate that past household migration experience exerts a positive impact on the probability of owning a non‐farm business. While one additional year in Greece increases the probability of household business ownership by roughly 6 percent, a similar experience in Italy or farther destinations raises the probability by over 25 percent. Although past household migration experience for the period of 1990–2000 is positively associated with the likelihood of owning a household enterprise, a similar association does not exist for the period of 2001–2004.     

Exploring the choice between in-store versus online grocery shopping through an application of Semi-Compensatory Independent Availability Logit (SCIAL) model with latent variables

This paper examines individuals' choice of in-store and online grocery shopping channels using stated preference (SP) choice experiments. The study uses 1,391 records from a stated preference choice experiment in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada. It applies a Semi-Compensatory Independent Availability Logit (SCIAL) Model with latent variables. The methodology accounts for semi-compensatory choice behaviour through probabilistic choice set formation considering effects from socioeconomic and psychological variables. This study demonstrates the advantage of considering probabilistic choice set formation and semi-compensatory behaviour in modelling the adoption of innovative products. Empirical results reveal that shoppers demonstrated similar myopic behaviours once they firmly considered in-store grocery and subscribed free delivery services in their choice sets. They are equally likely to choose both channels without careful comparison to alternative channels once they firmly consider both channels in the choice set. However, considering the latter in choice sets is much costlier than in-store shopping. Therefore, in-store grocery shopping will still dominate the grocery shopping channel unless all home delivery services become free. Moreover, grocery shoppers value same-day delivery service. For typical delivery services charged between $4 and $20 in the GTA, Canada, grocery shoppers are willing to pay between $3.91 and $8.44 for same-day delivery. The latent variable describing shoppers’ perceived pandemic fear significantly contributes to the choice set inclusion probability of in-store grocery pick-up services, but the effect is not significant for other home delivery channels. This highlights heterogeneity in grocery shoppers' choice behaviour within the online channel.     

对人民币汇率与广东省进出口额之间关系的实证分析

以国际贸易理论为基础，利用广东省的若干客观经济数据，对人民币汇率与广东省进出口额之间的关系进行实证分析，分别得出人民币汇率与广东省的数量关系、广东省GDP指数与广东省进口额之间的数量关系以及进口关税税率与广东省进口额之间的数量关系。同时，对广东省出口额的预测值与实际值之间的残差做了简要分析。     

锅炉汽包水位的自动控制

本文介绍了锅炉汽包水位的动态特性，单冲量、双冲量、三冲量控制方案的特点及工程中需注意的问题，着重介绍了汽包三冲量控制方案。     

Regression analysis with dichotomous regressors and misclassification

We discuss a regression model in which the regressors are dummy variables. The basic idea is that the observation units can be assigned to some well-defined combination of treatments, corresponding to the dummy variables. This assignment can not be done without some error, i.e. misclassification can play a role. This situation is analogous to regression with errors in variables. It is well-known that in these situations identification of the parameters is a prominent problem. We will first show that, in our case, the parameters are not identified by the first two moments but can be identified by the likelihood. Then we analyze two estimators. The first is a moment estimator involving moments up to the third order, and the second is a maximum likelihood estimator calculated with the help of the EM algorithm. Both estimators are evaluated on the basis of a small Monte Carlo experiment.     

The Trade-off Between the Selling Price of Residential Properties and Time-on-the-Market: The Impact of Price Setting

When a house is placed on the market, the seller must choose the initial offer price. Setting the price too high or too low affects the marketability of the property. While there is near universal agreement that the seller faces a trade-off between selling at a higher price and selling in less time, there is less agreement about how to measure this trade-off. This paper offers a framework for analysis and shows that an increase in the list price increases expected time-on-the-market (TOM). Because house buyers must solve a type of signal extraction problem, the effect of a higher list price is magnified for houses in a market segment having a low predicted variance of the list price. This paper also shows that the list price of houses which are withdrawn before sale has a higher mean and variance, and that the possibility of withdrawal censors information about the time-on-the-market.     

中国企业的学习型组织文化:基于人口统计变量、企业属性、工作满意度和组织绩效的实证分析

By using a Western concept—the instrument called dimensions of learning organization questionnaire (DLOQ), and the data collected from 919 employees in nine companies located in Guangdong Province, China, the present empirical study explores the culture of learning organizations in Chinese business settings. Findings suggest that the DLOQ is applicable to the context of China as well, and those demographic variables, such as age and educational level, together with the types of ownership of Chinese companies, such as state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately-owned enterprises (POEs), suggest differences in the culture of learning organizations. Results also indicate that the learning organization culture of a firm has strongly positive impact on employees’ job satisfaction and perceived organizational performance. Two implications should be noted. First, as employees in middle age and with college education show the strongest sense of improving the learning culture, it can be inferred that demographic characters and groups may influence the organization’s learning culture differently. Second, as POEs have a better learning atmosphere than SOEs, it can be inferred that POEs have a stronger competitiveness than SOEs in terms of learning ability and organizational performance. To indigenize the Western construct and instrument of learning organizations, the present study, as an exploratory research, gives substantial knowledge on the subject and seeks to fill the gap in the literature, despite the limitations of cultural nuances and a narrowly-concentrated sample.     

Raw materials price and technological uncertainty in a small open economy

This paper examines the implications of raw materials price uncertainty for capital allocation and compares the impact of production uncertainty and raw materials price uncertainty. It shows that the economy may avoid risk by allocating more capital in a sector using an input (for example, raw materials) which has a random price. This contrasts with multiplicative production uncertainty case, in which the economy avoids risk by allocating less capital to the risky (uncertainty) sector. Input efficiency uncertainty and materials input price uncertainty have the same implications for a raw-materials-importing economy, but quite opposite implications for a raw-materials-exporting economy.