Sexual orientation and occupational rank

This paper presents a study of differences in occupational rank between gay and heterosexual males as well as between lesbian and heterosexual females. We estimate different specifications of an ordered probit model on register data from Sweden. Our data consist of married heterosexual men and women and homosexual men and women living in civil unions. We find that homosexual men have a lower probability of working in a profession demanding a longer university education or a management profession than heterosexual men. In contrast, we find that homosexual women are more likely than heterosexual women to work in such professions.Sexual orientation, labour market, occupational rank

Ethnic Discrimination in the Market Place of Small Business Transfers

This paper presents the first field experiment regarding ethnic discrimination in the market place of small business transfers. We let two fictitious prospective buyers, one with a typical Swedish name and one with a typical Arab/Muslim name, respond to advertisements of small business transfers on the Internet in Sweden. We then recorded the number contacts achieved by each fictitious buyer with sellers. We found that sellers discriminated against the buyer with an Arab/Muslim name in the sense that the buyer with an Arab/Muslim name obtained fewer contacts with sellers than did the buyer with a Swedish name.Discrimination, self-employment, small business transfers, ethnic minorities, field experiment.

Geometric Multi-Model Fitting with a Convex Relaxation Algorithm

We propose a novel method to fit and segment multi-structural data via convex relaxation. Unlike greedy methods --which maximise the number of inliers-- this approach efficiently searches for a soft assignment of points to models by minimising the energy of the overall classification. Our approach is similar to state-of-the-art energy minimisation techniques which use a global energy. However, we deal with the scaling factor (as the number of models increases) of the original combinatorial problem by relaxing the solution. This relaxation brings two advantages: first, by operating in the continuous domain we can parallelize the calculations. Second, it allows for the use of different metrics which results in a more general formulation. We demonstrate the versatility of our technique on two different problems of estimating structure from images: plane extraction from RGB-D data and homography estimation from pairs of images. In both cases, we report accurate results on publicly available datasets, in most of the cases outperforming the state-of-the-art

Consistency of Bayesian procedures for variable selection

It has long been known that for the comparison of pairwise nested models, a decision based on the Bayes factor produces a consistent model selector (in the frequentist sense). Here we go beyond the usual consistency for nested pairwise models, and show that for a wide class of prior distributions, including intrinsic priors, the corresponding Bayesian procedure for variable selection in normal regression is consistent in the entire class of normal linear models. We find that the asymptotics of the Bayes factors for intrinsic priors are equivalent to those of the Schwarz (BIC) criterion. Also, recall that the Jeffreys--Lindley paradox refers to the well-known fact that a point null hypothesis on the normal mean parameter is always accepted when the variance of the conjugate prior goes to infinity. This implies that some limiting forms of proper prior distributions are not necessarily suitable for testing problems. Intrinsic priors are limits of proper prior distributions, and for finite sample sizes they have been proved to behave extremely well for variable selection in regression; a consequence of our results is that for intrinsic priors Lindley's paradox does not arise.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-AOS606 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Los estímulos del comportamiento de los londinenses en sus compras impulsivas de productos de moda

This paper explores the stimuli behind fashion-oriented impulse purchases within physicalshopping environments. The main focus of the study is the stimuli behind ‘emotional’ and‘rational’ consumer’s responses. The primary qualitative data was collected by indepthinterview methodology in a sample of 10 workingwomen from London aged between 25and 35 years. Findings mainly suggest that fashion-oriented impulse purchases, especiallyfor clothing,are influenced by a wide variety of stimuli/responses in a similar way asplanned purchases. However, there are specific stimuli/responses that trigger impulsebuying in a higher degree for the studied sample.Este documento explora los estímulos involucrados en las compras impulsivas de productos de moda dentro de ambientes físicos de compra. El principal foco de este estudio son los estímulos que generan respuestas ‘emocionales’ y ‘racionales’ en el consumidor.Los datos cualitativos primarios fueron recolectados utilizando la metodología de entrevistas a profundidad en una muestra de 10 mujeres trabajadoras en Londres con edades entre 25 y 35 años. Los resultados principalmente sugieren que las compras impulsivas de productos relacionados con moda, especialmente vestuario, pueden ser influenciadas por una gran variedad de estímulos/respuesta de manera similar a las compras planeadas. Sin embargo, se encontraron específicos estímulos/respuesta que estimulanlas compras impulsivas en un mayor nivel para la muestra estudiada

The Ideological Roots of America\u27s Market Power Problem

Mounting research shows that America has a market power problem. In sectors ranging from airlines and poultry to eyeglasses and semiconductors, just a handful of companies dominate. The decline in competition is so consistent across markets that excessive concentration and undue market power now look to be not an isolated issue but rather a systemic feature of America’s political economy. This is troubling because monopolies and oligopolies produce a host of harms. They depress wages and salaries, raise consumer costs, block entrepreneurship, stunt investment, retard innovation, and render supply chains and complex systems highly fragile. Dominant firms’ economic power allows them, in turn, to concentrate political power, which they then use to win favorable policies and further entrench their dominance. As a few technology platform companies mediate a rapidly growing share of our commerce and communications, the problem will only worsen. Since these gatekeeper firms have captured control over key distribution networks, they can squeeze the businesses reliant on their channels. Furthermore, these firms leverage their platform power into new lines of business, extending their dominance across sectors. Their muscle, in turn, spurs additional consolidation, as both competitors and producers bulk up in order to avoid getting squashed. Concentration begets concentration