D‐optimal designs for a continuous predictor in longitudinal trials with discrete‐time survival endpoints

In designing an experiment with one single, continuous predictor, the questions are composed of what is the optimal number of the predictor's values, what are these values, and how many subjects should be assigned to each of these values. In this study, locally D‐optimal designs for such experiments with discrete‐time event occurrence data are studied by using a sequential construction algorithm. Using the Weibull survival function for modeling the underlying time to event function, it is shown that the optimal designs for a linear effect of the predictor have two points that coincide with the design region's boundaries, but the design weights highly depend on the predictor effect size and its direction, the survival pattern, and the number of time points. For a quadratic effect of the predictor, three or four design points are needed.     

Class Size at University

An effective higher education market should increase educational standards. For universities to fulfil this role, students need reliable information about the teaching on offer at different universities, but no such data are currently available. We define a measure of teaching that weights contact hours by their intensity and collect a new data set that allows comparison of teaching across universities and across three departments. No two universities offer identical teaching. There is large variation in contact hours and even larger variation in teaching intensity, across both universities and departments. We combine our data with existing data to investigate the relationship that teaching has with university and student characteristics. We find that how much teaching students receive is uncorrelated with tuition fee; that teaching has little predictive power in explaining student satisfaction; and that physics students consistently receive more teaching than either economics or history students.     

“Too‐Small‐To‐Survive” versus “Too‐Big‐To‐Fail” banks: The two sides of the same coin

In the recent crisis, the U.S. authorities bailed out numerous banks through TARP, whilst let many others to fail as going concern entities. Even though both interventions fully protect depositors, a bail out represents an implied subsidy to shareholders, which is not yet the case with closures where creditors are not subsidised. We investigate this non‐uniform policy, demonstrating that size and not performance is the decision variable that endogenously determines one threshold below which banks are treated as TSTS by regulators and another one above which are considered to be TBTF. We, hence, provide a pair of economic rather than regulatory cut‐offs for TBTF and TSTS banks. The shareholders and the other uninsured creditors of a distressed bank are not bailed out if the bank is considered to be TSTS. We further document that the less complex a bank is, the less likely is to be bailed out and, hence, to have all of its creditors protected.     

董事会规模、多元化战略与企业风险承担

不确定的外部竞争环境和公司战略定位对企业的风险承担水平具有重要影响.以2005-2015年沪深A股上市公司为研究对象,以董事会规模作为门槛变量,分析当董事会人数在不同区间下多元化战略的实施对企业风险承担产生的影响.研究表明:随着董事会人数的增加,多元化战略与企业风险承担呈现先增后减的变化趋势,且二者存在基于董事会规模的双重门槛效应.     

Beck’s creative challenge to class analysis: from the rejection of class to the discovery of risk-class

Abstract

Beck’s rejection of the relevance of class in Risk Society has had an immense impact on both the fields of class analysis and the sociology of risk. In outlining a novel theory of the systemic importance of risks as side-effects and in making bold claims about how the production and distribution of risks are undermining class inequalities, Beck posed a highly influential challenge to both risk and class studies. Beck’s impact on class analysis however has not been mainly due to widespread acceptance of his original claims about risk and class; rather, it has been research building upon Beck’s work so as to critically depart from his conclusions through which Beck has made his contributions to the study of class. In seeking to identify the impact of Beck’s work on the study of risk and class, this paper, firstly, outlines Beck’s challenge to class analysis. It then proceeds to identify three key areas of research whose development was motivated by their critical engagement with Beck’s work: the literature on risk and the continuity of class; the critical theory of the individualization of class inequality; and the political economy of risk-class. This paper then concludes by critically evaluating Beck’s more recent, partial acknowledgement of risk inequalities by arguing that there are significant limitations in his account of class, but that his work continues to offer a valuable opportunity to inspire future work on class and inequality.     

城市经济承载力研究——以北京市为例

经济承载力正在逐渐成为制约城市发展规模的根本性因素.本文通过建立北京市三次产业就业人数的时间序列ARIMA模型,对北京市2007年-2010年的三次产业吸纳的就业人数进行了预测.根据预测的结果.文章中计算了基于城市经济承载力的北京市最优人口数量.最后,对如何提升城市经济承载力,提出了一系列政策建议.     

Identifying the effects of firing restrictions through size-contingent differences in regulation

We study the effects of the more stringent employment protection legislation (EPL) that applies in Italy to firms with over 15 employees. We consider firms' propensity to grow when close to that threshold and changes in employment policies when they pass it. Using a comprehensive matched employer–employees dataset, we find that the probability of firms' growth is reduced by around 2 percentage points near the threshold. Using the stochastic transition matrix for firm size, we compute the long-run effects of EPL on the size distribution, finding that they are quantitatively modest. We also find that, contrary to the implications of more stringent firing restrictions, workers in firms just above the threshold have on average less stable employment relations than those just below it. We document that this might be because firms above the threshold make greater use of flexible employment contracts, arguably to circumvent the stricter regulation on open-end contracts.     

Das organisationspsychologische Fairness-Konstrukt im Marketing

Zusammenfassung  Wir geben einen überblick, wie Fairness als zentrales sozial- und organisationspsychologisches Konstrukt in der aktuellen Marketingforschung rezipiert wird. In der Konstruktgeschichte haben sich vier Dimensionen von Fairness (distributive, prozedurale, informationale, interpersonale) ausdifferenziert. In einer bibliometrischen Analyse strukturieren wir den gegenw?rtigen Fairnessdiskurs im Marketing. Anhand von 205 internationalen Zeitschriftenartikeln identifizieren wir vier relevante Themenkomplexe: Beschwerdemanagement, Preisfairness, intraorganisationale Fairness im Marketing-Kontext sowie Fairness und Vertrauen in Gesch?ftsbeziehungen. Diese Subdiskurse verdeutlichen, auf welchen Themengebieten die Marketingforschung durch Rezeption des Fairness-Konstrukts bereits bereichert wurde. Zugleich lassen sie aber weitere Differenzierungsm?glichkeiten erkennen.

„Full Range Leadership“-Modell: Kritische Würdigung und Anregungen zur Weiterentwicklung

Zusammenfassung  Transformationale Führung als inspirierendes und emotional aktivierendes Führungsverhalten erf?hrt aufgrund ihrer Wandlungsfunktion in gesellschaftlichen Umbruchsphasen eine sehr hohe Wertsch?tzung, auch wenn ihr Gegenüber, die transaktionale Führung, in der Praxis derzeit wohl noch eine st?rkere Verbreitung besitzt. Ein Abgleich transformationaler und zugleich transaktionaler Führung in ihrer fortentwickelten Form als Full Range Leadership Modell mit den Charakteristika des Ph?nomens Führung offenbart zentrale Schwachstellen. An diesen Punkten setzen überlegungen zu einer Aufwertung transaktionaler Führung mittels einer Integration effektiven aufgaben-, beziehungs- und wandlungsorientierten Verhaltens in das Full Range Leadership Modell an. Zudem bietet ein „führungspraktischer“ Ausblick einen Denk- und Handlungsansatz, der von einem wechselseitigen Einflussverh?ltnis ausgeht und Situationsfaktoren modellimmanent berücksichtigt.