Peer Effects, Social Multipliers and Migrants at School: An International Comparison

This article analyses the school performance of migrants dependent on peer groups in different international schooling environments. Using data from the international OECD PISA test, we consider social interaction within and between groups of natives and migrants. Results based on social multipliers (Glaeser et al. 2000, 2003) suggest that both native-tonative and migrant-to-migrant peer effects are higher in ability-differencing school systems than in comprehensive schools. Thus, non-comprehensive school systems seem to magnify the already existing educational inequality between students with a low parental socioeconomic migration background and children from more privileged families. Students with a migration background and a disadvantageous parental status would benefit from higher diversity within schools.Peer effects, migration, education, social multipliers, school systems, parental socioeconomic background

Women, Men and Housework Time Allocation: Theory and Empirical Results

The gender relationship, characterised to a high degree by the gender-specific division of labour into paid work and housework, is in the process of change. In Germany, however, housework continues to be considered a typically female chore. The present study considers the empirical relevance of three theoretical approaches to gender-specific time allocation from the economic and social sciences. The various models are assessed using the Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) for the year 2000. The estimation results imply that no single theory can be favoured as opposed to any other. Accordingly, prevalent approaches to the explanation of household division of labour are at the same time equally suited and unsuited to grasping the problem empirically. A person's individual housework time is determined by both economic and ideological characteristics. Following on from the evaluation of different theories, an approach is evaluated which simultaneously takes individual work time and paid work time into account. This integrative evaluation shows that the economic rational choice model finds only limited application in the area of private households, thus pointing to the necessity for an interdisciplinary treatment of the subject.time allocation, household division of labour, SOEP data

Factors predicting the scientific wealth of nations

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that economic affluence is one of the main predictors of the scientific wealth of nations. Yet, the link is not as straightforward as is often presented. First, only a limited set of relatively affluent countries is usually studied. Second, there are differences between equally rich countries in their scientific success. The main aim of the present study is to find out which factors can enhance or suppress the effect of the economic wealth of countries on their scientific success, as measured by the High Quality Science Index (HQSI). The HQSI is a composite indicator of scientific wealth, which in equal parts considers the mean citation rate per paper and the percentage of papers that have reached the top 1% of citations in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI; Clarivate Analytics) database during the 11-year period from 2008 to 2018. Our results show that a high position in the ranking of countries on the HQSI can be achieved not only by increasing the number of high-quality papers but also by reducing the number of papers that are able to pass ESI thresholds but are of lower quality. The HQSI was positively and significantly correlated with the countries’ economic indicators (as measured by gross national income and Research and Development expenditure as a percentage from GDP), but these correlations became insignificant when other societal factors were controlled for. Overall, our findings indicate that it is small and well-governed countries with a long-standing democratic past that seem to be more efficient in translating economic wealth into high-quality science

Peer effects, social multipliers and migration at school: An international comparison

This article analyses the school performance of migrants dependent on peer groups in different international schooling environments. Using data from the international OECD PISA test, we consider social interaction within and between groups of natives and migrants. Results based on social multipliers (Glaeser et al. 2000, 2003) suggest that both native-to- native and migrant-to-migrant peer effects are higher in ability-differencing school systems than in comprehensive schools. Thus, non-comprehensive school systems seem to magnify the already existing educational inequality between students with a low parental socioeconomic migration background and children from more privileged families. Students with a migration background and a disadvantageous parental status would benefit from higher diversity within schools. --Peer effects,migration,education social multipliers,school systems,parental socioeconomic background

Cross-spectral analysis of physiological tremor and muscle activity. I. Theory and application to unsynchronized EMG

We investigate the relationship between the extensor electromyogram (EMG) and tremor time series in physiological hand tremor by cross-spectral analysis. Special attention is directed to the phase spectrum and the effects of observational noise. We calculate the theoretical phase spectrum for a second order linear stochastic process and compare the results to measured tremor data recorded from subjects who did not show a synchronized EMG activity in the corresponding extensor muscle. The results show that physiological tremor is well described by the proposed model and that the measured EMG represents a Newtonian force by which the muscle acts on the hand.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Biological Cybernetic

Ökonometrische Analyse der Entscheidungspraxis des Bundeskartellamtes

Die Arbeit untersucht Entscheidungen des Bundeskartellamtes in den Bereichen „Missbrauchsaufsicht“ und „Wettbewerbsbeschränkende Vereinbarungen“. Die hier interessierende Frage ist, inwieweit die Entscheidungen der Kartellbehörde durch Kenntnis des Vorwurfs und einiger beobachtbarer Marktstrukturmerkmale erklärt werden können. Aus den Ergebnissen sollen Rückschlüsse auf die wettbewerbstheoretischen Ansichten des BKartA geschlossen werden. Zu diesem Zweck wird die individuelle “Beanstandungswahrscheinlichkeit” eines Kartell- oder Missbrauchsverfahrens, d.h. die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass das Verhalten eines Unternehmens von der Kartellbehörde als wettbewerbsschädlich eingeschätzt wird, mit Hilfe eines einfachen binären Probitmodells geschätzt. Für die ökonometrische Analyse wurde in 196 Kartell- und Missbrauchsfälle der Jahre 1985-2000 recherchiert. Wesentliches Ergebnis der ökonometrischen Untersuchung ist, dass neben der Vorwurfskategorie insbesondere das Marktstrukturmerkmal „Marktanteil des größten Unternehmens“ und eine Beteiligung des „Marktführers“ im Verfahren einen signifikanten und robusten Einfluss auf die Entscheidungen des BKartA haben

Džässi ja rahvamuusika suhetest Eestis 20. sajandi I poolel

This article covers an underexplored facet in the Estonian cultural history – expansion of jazz music into our cultural space and facts related to this, focussing on mutual influences between jazz and Estonian ethnic culture. Although we have been long accustomed to the fact that jazz music is an inseparable part of our culture scene, debates on what is jazz are still ongoing and there does not yet exist an overall and widely accepted definition. The relations between village bands and jazz are studied from the point of view of several acculturation theories. The article presents an overview of the situation in the Estonian music culture in the 1920s when jazz appeared in Estonia. This was an extremely favourable moment for new development – the state and the people had recently liberated themselves, thus there existed a natural wish to get oneself free from the cultural pressure dictated by politics. It appears that in several places in the region south of the Tartu-Viljandi-Pärnu imaginary line people have tried to play jazz with village bands. This refers to the start-up of the acculturation process in this region between the local ethnic music and the afro-American jazz music, which had intruded into our cultural space. In order to understand the singularity of this phenomenon, the article examines in greater detail the type of ensemble called a village band in Estonia. While studying these village bands, it appeared that the village bands venturing to play jazz-like dance music were divided into two broader style-based groups. The article covers bands of both of these groups in greater detail, presenting an analysis of their makeup as well as their repertoires. Music played by those bands should be defined as Estonian-(ethnic)-music-inspired jazz-like dance music (the first group) or jazz-inspired ethnic dance music (the second group). For a more specific classification the term “village jazz” could be used. For comparison, the article covers also haitarijazz – a symbiosis of jazz and ethnic music appearing in Finland in the 1920s–1930s. Recently more and more voices could be heard suggesting that jazz should be studied together with ethnic music, because the origin and development of jazz bear a number of common features with it. As Rahvaleht (People’s Newspaper) writes, Sergei Insarov, a well-known dance teacher together with his assistants Tamara Istomina and Viktor Reitel had trained almost 12,000 people to dance in five years in Narva, Pärnu, Rakvere, Paide, including rural areas (“Õpivad tantsima...”(Dance classes) Rahvaleht, 9 March 1926)