What Explains the Wealth Gap Between Immigrants and the New Zealand Born?

Immigrants are typically found to have less wealth and hold it in different forms than the native born. These differences may affect both the economic assimilation of immigrants and overall portfolio allocation when immigrants are a large share of the population, as in New Zealand. In this paper, data from the 2001 Household Savings Survey are used to examine wealth differences between immigrants and the New Zealand-born. Differences in the allocation of portfolios between housing and other forms of wealth are described. Unconditional and conditional wealth quantiles are examined using parametric models. Semiparametric methods are used to decompose differences in net worth at different parts of the wealth distribution into the part due to differences in characteristics and the part due to differences in the returns to characteristics.Immigration, Portfolios, Semiparametric Decomposition, Wealth

Measuring segregation using patterns of daily travel behavior : a social interaction based model of exposure

Recent advances in transportation geography demonstrate the ability to compute a metropolitan scale metric of social interaction opportunities based on the time-geographic concept of joint accessibility. The method we put forward in this article decomposes the social interaction potential (SIP) metric into interactions within and between social groups, such as people of different race, income level, and occupation. This provides a novel metric of exposure, one of the fundamental spatial dimensions of segregation. In particular, the SIP metric is disaggregated into measures of inter-group and intra-group exposure. While activity spaces have been used to measure exposure in the geographic literature, these approaches do not adequately represent the dynamic nature of the target populations. We make the next step by representing both the source and target population groups by space-time prisms, thus more accurately representing spatial and temporal dynamics and constraints. Additionally, decomposition of the SIP metric means that each of the group-wise components of the SIP metric can be represented at zones of residence, workplace, and specific origin-destination pairs. Consequently, the spatial variation in segregation can be explored and hotspots of segregation and integration potential can be identified. The proposed approach is demonstrated for synthetic cities with different population distributions and daily commute flow characteristics, as well as for a case study of the Detroit-Warren-Livonia MSA

Five Principles for Vertical Merger Enforcement Policy

There seems to be consensus that the Department of Justice’s 1984 Vertical Merger Guidelines do not reflect either modern theoretical and empirical economic analysis or current agency enforcement policy. Yet widely divergent views of preferred enforcement policies have been expressed among agency enforcers and commentators. Based on our review of the relevant economic literature and our experience analyzing vertical mergers, we recommend that the enforcement agencies adopt five principles: (i) The agencies should consider and investigate the full range of potential anticompetitive harms when evaluating vertical mergers; (ii) The agencies should decline to presume that vertical mergers benefit competition on balance in the oligopoly markets that typically prompt agency review, nor set a higher evidentiary standard based on such a presumption; (iii) The agencies should evaluate claimed efficiencies resulting from vertical mergers as carefully and critically as they evaluate claimed efficiencies resulting from horizontal mergers, and require the merging parties to show that the efficiencies are verifiable, merger-specific and sufficient to reverse the potential anticompetitive effects; (iv) The agencies should decline to adopt a safe harbor for vertical mergers, even if rebuttable, except perhaps when both firms compete in unconcentrated markets; (v) The agencies should consider adopting rebuttable anticompetitive presumptions that a vertical merger harms competition when certain factual predicates are satisfied. We do not intend these presumptions to describe all the ways by which vertical mergers can harm competition, so the agencies should continue to investigate vertical mergers that raise concerns about input and customer foreclosure, loss of a disruptive or maverick firm, evasion of rate regulation or other threats to competition, even if the specific factual predicates of the presumptions are not satisfied

The 2010 HMGs Ten Years Later: Where Do We Go From Here?

In this short article, which is part of a RIO Symposium on the Tenth Anniversary of the 2010 Merger Guidelines, we suggest a number of improvements that should be considered in the next revision of the Guidelines. Our analysis is based on the observation that horizontal merger policy has suffered from under-enforcement. We provide evidence that the enforcement agencies face significant resource constraints which require a triage process that inevitably leads to under-enforcement. In light of merger law placing greater weight on avoiding false negatives and under-deterrence than false positive and over-deterrence, the article suggests a number of ways in which the under-enforcement bias might be corrected, including (among others) rolling back the increase in the HHI “red zone” thresholds; mandating anticompetitive presumptions for mergers with high GUPPIs, acquisitions of mavericks, and acquisitions by dominant firms; closer analysis of common ownership by financial funds; and expanded analysis of potential competition mergers

Patrolling a pipeline

A pipeline network can potentially be attacked at any point and at any time, but such an attack takes a known length of time. To counter this, a Patroller moves around the network at unit speed, hoping to intercept the attack while it is being carried out. This is a zero sum game between the mobile Patroller and the Attacker, which we analyze and solve in certain case

Iowa Food Security, Insecurity and Hunger—Emergency Food Resources: Meeting Food Needs of Iowa Households

Report of an ISU Extension study of people who used food pantries in Polk, Scott, Decatur, and Monroe counties in 2002.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/extension_communities_pubs/1013/thumbnail.jp

Generalization of Computer-Assisted Attention Training for Children with Attention Deficit Disorder

Psycholog

Longitudinal and cross-sectional modelling of health related quality of life in people with cystic fibrosis

People with cystic fibrosis (CF) must endure up to four hours treatment per day to maintain health and are vulnerable to complications. The Cystic Fibrosis Quality of Life Questionnaire was developed to measure health related quality of life (HRQoL) in the UK. Most studies on HRQoL are cross-sectional in design with HRQoL measured once per patient. However, the Cystic Fibrosis Quality of Life Questionnaire has been used to monitor HRQoL longitudinally with measures taken over a 12 year period at one clinic in the UK. These data were modelled with a binomial distribution for a domain score and with fixed and random coefficients for the patient-level clinical and demographic variables. The longitudinal study included 182 patients whose HRQoL was first measured within a single calendar year and were then followed-up. These data provided an opportunity to compare, directly and by simulation, the modelling of a cross-sectional with the modelling of a longitudinal study and so provided insights into the statistical merits of longitudinal studies compared to cross-sectional studies in HRQoL

Imagine, Interrupt, Innovate: Internationalising Teaching and Learning Practice

Internationalisation of the curriculum is a key research area at the intersection of teaching and learning. Increasing numbers of international students in Australian schools and tertiary institutions necessitate the reconceptualisation of curriculum to incorporate global perspectives and develop intercultural competencies of both students and teachers. Accordingly, this research project identified key discipline areas at Avondale College of Higher Education in which to perform pedagogical intervention with an internationalisation focus. Three lecturers undertook action research in the areas of Primary Education, Business and Theology, resulting in the production of culturallyinformed perspectives, increased cross-cultural awareness and the identification of areas for future research and innovation

Attenuated pupillary light responses and downregulation of opsin expression parallel decline in circadian disruption in two different mouse models of Huntington's disease.

Circadian deficits in Huntington’s disease (HD) are recapitulated in both fragment (R6/2) and full-length (Q175) mouse models of HD. Circadian rhythms are regulated by the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) in the hypothalamus, which are primarily entrained by light detected by the retina. The SCN receives input from intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) that express the photopigment melanopsin, but also receive input from rods and cones. In turn, ipRGCs mediate a range of non-image forming responses to light including circadian entrainment and the pupillary light response (PLR). Retinal degeneration/dysfunction has been described previously in R6 /2 mice. We investigated, therefore, whether or not circadian disruption in HD mice is due to abnormalities in retinal photoreception. We measured expression of melanopsin, rhodopsin and cone opsin, as well as other retinal markers (tyrosine hydroxylase, calbindin, PKCα and Brna3 ), in R6/2 and Q175 mice at different stages of disease. We also measured the PLR as a ‘readout’ for ipRGC function and a marker of light reception by the retina. We found that the PLR was attenuated in both lines of HD mice. This was accompanied by a progressive downregulation of cone opsin and melanopsin expression. We suggest that a disease-related change in photoreception by the retina contributes to the progressive dysregulation of circadian rhythmicity and entrainment seen in HD mice. Colour vision is abnormal in HD patients. Therefore, if retinal deficits similar to those seen in HD mice are confirmed in patients, specifically designed light therapy may be an effective strategy to improve circadian dysfunction.This work was supported by a grant from CHDI (Inc.) to AJM. SH is funded by a BBSRC grant (BB/M009998/1). SNP and CAP are funded by a Wellcome Trust strategic grant (098461/Z/12/Z)