"Earnings Functions and the Measurement of the Determinants of Wage Dispersion: Extending Oaxaca’s Approach"

This paper extends the famous Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) discrimination in several directions. First, the wage difference breakdown is not limited to two groups. Second, a decomposition technique is proposed that allows analysis of the determinants of the overall wage dispersion. The authors’ approach combines two techniques. The first of these is popular in the field of income inequality measurement and concerns the breakdown of inequality by population subgroup. The second technique, very common in the literature of labor economics, uses Mincerian earnings functions to derive a decomposition of wage differences into components measuring group differences in the average values of the explanatory variables, in the coefficients of these variables in the earnings functions, and in the unobservable characteristics. This methodological novelty allows one to determine the exact impact of each of these three elements on the overall wage dispersion, on the dispersion within and between-groups, and on the degree of overlap between the wage distributions of the various groups. However, this paper goes beyond a static analysis insofar as it succeeds in breaking down the change over time in the overall wage dispersion and its components (both between and within group dispersion and group overlapping) into elements related to changes in the value of the explanatory variables and the coefficients of those variables in the earnings functions, in the unobservable characteristics, and in the relative size of the various groups.

"On Various Ways of Measuring Unemployment, with Applications to Switzerland"

This paper begins with an examination of various ways of measuring unemployment and, borrowing ideas from the poverty measurement literature, proposes four new general unemployment indices. The first of these is parallel to the Sen poverty index; the second, to the Sen index’s generalization by Shorrocks; the third, to the FGT poverty index; and the fourth, to the Watts poverty index. The authors then present an empirical illustration based on Swiss data compiled at the state, or canton, level, using the so-called Shapley decomposition to determine the contribution of three components—the traditional unemployment rate, the average unemployment duration, and the inequality in the unemployment durations—to the differences between the values of the four proposed indices, both within a given canton and within Switzerland as a whole. The paper concludes with a discussion of the assumptions made about the maximum unemployment duration for the purposes of the study, and their impact on the results

A Dual Approach to Constrained Interpolation From a Convex Subset of Hilbert Space

Many interesting and important problems of best approximationare included in (or can be reduced to) one of the followingtype: in a Hilbert spaceX, find the best approximationPK(x) to anyx∈Xfrom the setK≔C∩A−1(b),whereCis a closed convex subset ofX,Ais a bounded linearoperator fromXinto a finite-dimensional Hilbert spaceY, andb∈Y. The main point of this paper is to show thatPK(x)isidenticaltoPC(x+A*y)—the best approximationto a certain perturbationx+A*yofx—from the convexsetCor from a certain convex extremal subsetCbofC. Thelatter best approximation is generally much easier to computethan the former. Prior to this, the result had been known onlyin the case of a convex cone or forspecialdata sets associatedwith a closed convex set. In fact, we give anintrinsic characterizationof those pairs of setsCandA−1(b) for which this canalways be done. Finally, in many cases, the best approximationPC(x+A*y) can be obtained numerically from existingalgorithms or from modifications to existing algorithms. Wegive such an algorithm and prove its convergence

Relative mate value, irrational beliefs, and romantic jealousy

The relationships between relative mate value, irrational beliefs, and romantic jealousy were examined. Three main questions were addressed: (1) does relative mate value affect the amount of romantic jealousy experienced for people in romantic relationships? (2) is there a relationship between irrational beliefs and romantic jealousy? and (3) do irrational beliefs act as a moderator variable in the relationship between relative mate value and romantic jealousy? Fifty-three women and 37 men completed a relative mate value questionnaire, the Multidimensional Jealousy Scale, and the General Attitude and Belief Scale. Relative mate value was manipulated by having participants imagine they were dating a partner either lower, equal, or higher than their own mate value. It was found that romantic jealousy was highly correlated with irrational beliefs, but had no significant relationship with relative mate value. Irrational beliefs did not act as a moderator variable in the relationship between relative mate value and romantic jealousy. The results suggest that individual differences in beliefs may play a larger role in romantic jealousy than does relative mate value

A preferred vision for administering schools: A reflective essay

My first encounter with the prospect of becoming a principal happened quite by chance in the spring of 1988, during a post-evaluation conference with my principal. After our formal discussion, we talked about the future. He commented to me that I should go to graduate school and enter the principalship. I immediately laughed his suggestion off, first by making light of principals in general, then letting him know that I could not imagine myself sitting in the principal\u27s chair. He ended our conversation by mentioning why I would be right for the principalship and to give his suggestion serious consideration. His confidence in me really left an impression, but at the time the classroom was where I wanted to be

Spatial Distributions of Multiple Dust Components in the PPN/PN Dust Shells

We investigate spatial distributions of specific dust components in the circumstellar shells of a proto-planetary nebula candidate, HD 179821, and a planetary nebula, BD$+30^{\circ}$3639, by means of spectral imaging. With high-resolution ground-based images and ISO spectra in the mid-infrared, we can derive ``dust feature only'' maps by subtracting synthesized continuum maps from the observed images at the feature wavelength. Such spatially detailed information will help to develop models for the evolution of dust grains around evolved stars.Comment: 4 pages + 7 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the conference, "Post-AGB Objects (proto-planetary nebulae) as a Phase of Stellar Evolution", Torun, Poland, July 5-7, 2000, eds. R. Szczerba, R. Tylenda, and S.K. Gorny. Figures have been degraded to minimize the total file siz