Pachystigmus Hellén, 1927 : a substitute name for Noserus Foerster, 1863 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), not Noserus LeConte, 1862 (Coleoptera: Zopheridae)

By establishing the date of its first publication, Noserus Foerster, 1863 (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) is shown to be a junior primary homonym of Noserus LeConte, 1862 (Coleoptera, Zopheridae). The substitute name for Noserus Foerster is that of its subjective synonym, Pachystigmus Hellén, 1927 [type species: Pachystigmus nitidulus Hellén, 1927]. Other described species in the genus are: Pachystigmus facialis (Foerster, 1863) New Combination; P. similis (Szépligeti, 1896) New Combination, P. nitidulus Hellén, 1927, P. gigas (Tobias, 1964)New Combination, P. occipitalis (Belokobylskij, 1986) New Combination, P. olgensis (Belokobylskij, 1994) New Combination, and P. sculpturator (Belokobylskij, 1999) New Combination

The Comovement of Returns and Investment Within the Multinational Firm

Can financial integration, particularly the cross-border investments of multinational firms, help explain the synchronization of business cycles? This paper presents evidence on the comovement of returns and investment within U.S. multinational firms to address this question. These firms constitute significant fractions of economic output and investment in most large economies, suggesting that they could create significant economic linkages. Aggregate measures of rates of return and investment rates of U.S. multinational firms located in different countries are highly correlated across countries. Firm-level regressions demonstrate that rates of return and investment rates of affiliates are highly correlated with the rates of return and investment of the affiliate's parent and other affiliates within the same parent system, controlling for country and industry factors. The evidence on these interrelationships and the importance of multinationals to local economies suggests that global firms may be an important channel for transmitting economic shocks. This evidence also sheds light on asset pricing puzzles related to the diversification benefits provided by multinational firms.

Fatigue Risks in the Connections of Sign Support Structures

This research effort develops a reliability-based approach for prescribing inspection intervals for mast-arm sign support structures corresponding to user-specified levels of fatigue-induced fracture risk. The resulting level of risk for a particular structure is dependent upon its geographical location, the type of connection it contains, the orientation of its mast-arm relative to north and the number of years it has been in service. The results of this research effort indicate that implementation of state-of-the-art reliability-based assessment procedures can contribute very valuable procedures for assigning inspection protocols (i.e. inspection intervals) that are based upon probabilities of finding fatigue-induced cracking in these structures. The engineering community can use the results of this research effort to design inspection intervals based upon risk and thereby better align inspection needs with limited fiscal and human resources

Ability, Parental Valuation of Education and the High School Dropout Decision

We use a large, rich Canadian micro-level dataset to examine the channels through which family socio-economic status and unobservable characteristics affect children's decisions to drop out of high school. First, we document the strength of observable socio-economic factors: our data suggest that teenage boys with two parents who are themselves high school dropouts have a 16% chance of dropping out, compared to a dropout rate of less than 1% for boys whose parents both have a university degree. We examine the channels through which this socio-economic gradient arises using an extended version of the factor model set out in Carneiro, Hansen, and Heckman (2003). Specifically, we consider the impact of cognitive and non-cognitive ability and the value that parents place on education. Our results support three main conclusions. First, cognitive ability at age 15 has a substantial impact on dropping out. Second, parental valuation of education has an impact of approximately the same size as cognitive ability effects for medium and low ability teenagers. A low ability teenager has a probability of dropping out of approximately .03 if his parents place a high value on education but .36 if their education valuation is low. Third, parental education has no direct effect on dropping out once we control for ability and parental valuation of education. Our results point to the importance of whatever determines ability at age 15 (including, potentially, early childhood interventions) and of parental valuation of education during the teenage years. We also make a small methodological contribution by extending the standard factor based estimator to allow a non-linear relationship between the factors and a covariate of interest. We show that allowing for non-linearities has a substantial impact on estimated effects.Idiosyncratic Shocks, Disability, Insurance, Marriage

Ability, parental valuation of education and the high school dropout decision

We use a large, rich Canadian micro-level dataset to examine the channels through which family socio-economic status and unobservable characteristics affect children's decisions to drop out of high school. First, we document the strength of observable socio-economic factors: our data suggest that teenage boys with two parents who are themselves high school dropouts have a 16 per cent chance of dropping out, compared to a dropout rate of less than 1 per cent for boys whose parents both have a university degree. We examine the channels through which this socio-economic gradient arises using an extended version of the factor model set out in Carneiro, Hansen, and Heckman (2003). Specifically, we consider the impact of cognitive and non-cognitive ability and the value that parents place on education. Our results support three main conclusions. First, cognitive ability at age 15 has a substantial impact on dropping out. The highest ability individuals are predicted never to drop out regardless of parental education or parental valuation of education. In contrast, the lowest ability teenagers have a probability of dropping out of approximately .36 if their parents have a low valuation of education. Second, parental valuation of education has a substantial impact on medium and low ability teenagers. A low ability teenager has a probability of dropping out of approximately .03 if his parents place a high value on education but .36 if their educational valuation is low. These effects are estimated while conditioning on ability at age 15. Thus, under some assumptions, they reflect parental influences during the upper teenage years and are in addition to any impact they might have in the early childhood years leading up to age 15. Third, parental education has no direct effect on dropping out once we control for ability and parental valuation of education. Overall, our results point to the importance of whatever determines ability at age 15 (including, potentially, early childhood interventions) and of parental valuation of education during the teenage years. Our work also provides a small methodological contribution by extending the standard factor based estimator to allow a more non-linear relationship between the factors and a co-variate of interest. We show that allowing for non-linearities has a substantial impact on estimated effects.

Friedrich Kittler, Charles Olson, and the Return of Postwar Philology

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the link in this record