Bounding Estimates of Wage Discrimination

The Blinder Oaxaca decomposition method for defining discrimination from the wage equations of two groups has had a wide degree of application. However, the implication of this measure can very dramatically depending on the definition of the non-discriminatory wage chosen for comparison. This paper uses a form of extreme bounds analysis to define the limits on the measure of discrimination that can be obtained from these decompositions. A simple application is presented to demonstrate the use of the bootstrap to define the distributions of the discrimination measure.Extreme Bounds Analysis, Discrimination, Bootstrap

Alernative Forms for Restricted Regressions

We study the relationship between group size and the extent of risk sharing in an insurance game played over a number of periods with random idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks to income in each period. Risk sharing is attained via agents that receive a high endowment in one period making unilateral transfers to agents that receive a low endowment in that period. The complete risk sharing allocation is for all agents to place their endowments in a common pool, which is then shared equally among members of the group in every period. Theoretically, the larger the group size, the smaller the per capita dispersion in consumption and greater is the potential value of insurance. Field evidence however suggests that smaller groups do better than larger groups as far as risk sharing is concerned. Results from our experiments show that the extent of mutual insurance is significantly higher in smaller groups, though contributions to the pool are never close to what complete risk sharing requires.Reciprocity Risk Sharing Group Size Experiments

Clusters of Attributes and Well-Being in the US.

Using ARIMA models and entropy, the dynamic evolution of several functions of aggregate income and other attributes of well-being is analyzed for statistical "similarity" in order to determine potentially distinct dimensions in multidimensional analysis of welfare and quality of life in the US. The entropy metric compares entire distributions and is more general than principal components and other correlation-based techniques for clustering. To help macroeconomic policy makers, we compare the distribution of several composite measures of well-being, including income, with the distribution of some common measures of aggregate income over the period 1915-1995.Time Series, Information Measures, Aggregate Well-being,Entropy

Prosodic cues to recognition errors

We identify methods of distinguishing between correctly and incorrectly recognized utterances (scored by hand for semantic concept accuracy) for a speech recognition system, using acoustic/prosodic characteristics. The analysis was performed on data collected during independent experiments done with an interactive voice response system that provides travel information over the phone. 1. INTRODUCTION There has been little research in the field of automatic speech recognition (ASR) on the question of how misrecognized utterances differ from correctly recognized utterances. Recognition performance is known to vary depending upon the relative formality or casualness of speaking style [14], but there has been little attempt to identify this variation precisely. An exception is a study of the effect of speaking style on recognition performance in the Switchboard Corpus in which a standard recognition system was augmented with a conditioning variable, the speaking style (mode) [8]. Lexical ..

Inferential methods for elasticity estimates

Elasticities are often estimated from the results of demand analysis. However, drawing inferences from them may involve assumptions that could influence the outcome. In this paper we investigate one of the most common forms of elasticity which is defined as a ratio of estimated relationships and demonstrate how the Fieller method for the construction of confidence intervals can be used to draw inferences. We estimate the elasticities of expenditure from Engel curves using a variety of estimation models. Parametric Engel curves are modelled using OLS, MM robust regression, and Tobit. Semiparametric Engel curves are estimated using a penalized spline regression. We demonstrate the construction of confidence intervals of the expenditure elasticities for a series of expenditure levels as well as the estimated cumulative density function for the elasticity evaluated for a particular household.Engel curves Fieller method Tobit Robust regression Semiparametric

Temporal aspects of rolling sounds. A smooth ball approaching the edge of a plate

We measured the sounds of smooth metal balls rolling over medium density fiberboard (MDF) plates. In the spectrograms of these sounds we observed gradually varying ripples. These ripples were more closely spaced for the sound generated in the middle of the plate than for the sound generated closer to the edge. Furthermore, the spacing for lower frequencies was somewhat closer than for higher frequencies. It is shown that this pattern arises from the interference between the sound directly generated at the point of contact between ball and plate, and the sound reflected at the edge of the plate. This effect was added to synthesized rolling sounds which resulted in a more natural sound. A discussion is presented concerning the perceptual relevance of this pattern

Two applications of the Divide & Conquer principle in the molecular sciences

Brinkmann G, Dress A, Perrey SW, Stoye J. Two applications of the Divide & Conquer principle in the molecular sciences. Mathematical programming. 1997;79(1-3):71-97.In this paper, two problems from the molecular sciences are addressed: the enumeration of fullerene-type isomers and the alignment of biosequences. We report on two algorithms dealing with these problems both of which are based on the well-known and widely used Divide & Conquer principle. In other words, our algorithms attack the original problems by associating with them an appropriate number of much simpler problems whose solutions can be "glued together" to yield solutions of the original, rather complex tasks. The considerable improvements achieved this way exemplify that the present day molecular sciences offer many worthwile opportunities for the effective use of fundamental algorithmic principles and architectures