Does increasing parents' schooling raise the schooling of the next generation? Evidence based on conditional second moments

This paper investigates the degree of intergenerational transmission ofeducation for individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth1979. Rather than identifying the causal effect of parental education viainstrumental variables we exploit the feature of the transmissionmechanism responsible for its endogeneity. More explicitly, we assume theintergenerational transfer of unobserved ability is invariant to the economicenvironment. This, combined with the heteroskedasticity resulting from theinteraction of unobserved ability with socioeconomic factors, identifies thiscausal effect. We conclude the observed intergenerational educationalcorrelation reflects both a causal parental educational effect and a transferof unobserved ability.Intergenerational mobility, endogeneity, conditional correlation

Does Increasing Parents' Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation? Evidence Based on Conditional Second Moments

This paper investigates the degree of intergenerational transmission of education for individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Rather than identifying the causal effect of parental education via instrumental variables we exploit the feature of the transmission mechanism responsible for its endogeneity. More explicitly, we assume the intergenerational transfer of unobserved ability is invariant to the economic environment. This, combined with the heteroskedasticity resulting from the interaction of unobserved ability with socioeconomic factors, identifies this causal effect. We conclude the observed intergenerational educational correlation reflects both a causal parental educational effect and a transfer of unobserved ability.intergenerational mobility, endogeneity, conditional correlation

Systematic review of birth cohort studies in Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, unacceptably high rates of mortality amongst women and children continue to persist. The emergence of research employing new genomic technologies is advancing knowledge on cause of disease. This review aims to identify birth cohort studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa and to consider their suitability as a platform to support genetic epidemiological studies

Generalized enthalpy model of a high pressure shift freezing process

High-pressure freezing processes are a novel emerging technology in food processing, offering significant improvements to the quality of frozen foods. To be able to simulate plateau times and thermal history under different conditions, in this work we present a generalized enthalpy model of the high-pressure shift freezing process. The model includes the effects of pressure on conservation of enthalpy and incorporates the freezing point depression of non-dilute food samples. In addition the significant heat transfer effects of convection in the pressurizing medium are accounted for by solving the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. We run the model for several numerical tests where the food sample is agar gel, and find good agreement with experimental data from the literature

Socioeconomic and Health Determinants of Health Care Utilization Among Elderly Europeans: A Semiparametric Assessment of Equity, Intensity and Responsiveness for Ten European Countries

This paper investigates the interplay of socioeconomic and medical determinants of health care utilization among elderly Europeans from ten countries. Using novel strictly comparable cross-national data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), the study exploits recent semi- and nonparametric estimation methods to illustrate how individual socioeconomic status and health determine health care utilization in different institutional settings. Our flexible estimation method allows for the use of multiple health measures to adjust for individual differences in health care need without sacrificing cross-national comparability of the resulting estimates. Within countries, we find only a small, if any, socioeconomic gradient. Moreover, all health systems appear to be reasonably responsive to differences in care need. At the same time, we find considerable variation in treatment intensity across countries, which we cannot fully explain by differences in health care need.

Characterization of the asymptotic distribution of semiparametric M-estimators

This paper develops a concrete formula for the asymptotic distribution of two-step, possibly non-smooth semiparametric M-estimators under general misspecification. Our regularity conditions are relatively straightforward to verify and also weaker than those available in the literature. The first-stage nonparametric estimation may depend on finite dimensional parameters. We characterize: (1) conditions under which the first-stage estimation of nonparametric components do not affect the asymptotic distribution, (2) conditions under which the asymptotic distribution is affected by the derivatives of the first-stage nonparametric estimator with respect to the finite-dimensional parameters, and (3) conditions under which one can allow non-smooth objective functions. Our framework is illustrated by applying it to three examples: (1) profiled estimation of a single index quantile regression model, (2) semiparametric least squares estimation under model misspecification, and (3) a smoothed matching estimator. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Excitonic coupling dominates the homogeneous photoluminescence excitation linewidth in semicrystalline polymeric semiconductors

We measure the homogeneous excitation linewidth of regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene), a model semicrystalline polymeric semiconductor, by means of two-dimensional coherent photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. At a temperature of 8\,K, we find a linewidth that is always $\gtrsim 110$\,meV full-width-at-half-maximum, which is a significant fraction of the total linewidth. It displays a spectral dependence and is minimum near the 0--0 origin peak. We interpret this spectral dependence of the homogeneous excitation linewidth within the context of a weakly coupled aggregate model.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary Materia