Concepts of bounded agency in education, work, and the personal lives of young adults

This paper traces the development of a series of Anglo-German studies on how young adults experience control and exercise personal agency as they pass through periods of transition in education and training, work, unemployment and in their personal lives. The overarching aim has been to develop an extended dialogue between ideas and evidence to explore the beliefs and actions associated with life-chances under differing structural and cultural conditions. What kinds of beliefs and perspectives do people have on their future possibilities? How far do they feel in control of their lives? How does what people believe is possible for them (their personal horizons developed within cultural and structural influences) determine their behaviours and what they perceive to be 'choices'? This research contributes to the re-conceptualisation of agency as a process in which past habits and routines are contextualised and future possibilities envisaged with in the contingencies of the present moment. The paper concludes by explaining the concept of ;bounded agency' as an alternative to 'structured individualisation' as a way of understanding the experiences of people in changing social landscapes

Exploring poverty gaps among children in the UK

"The purpose of this paper is to use poverty gap analysis to explore the depth of poverty experienced by children of low-income families in the UK. Measures set out in the Child Poverty Act1 and in the National Child Poverty Strategy2 are based on poverty headcounts, i.e. you are either below or above a certain poverty threshold. The most commonly used measure is the 60 per cent relative poverty measure, defined as individuals living in households with incomes below 60 per cent of the median income. The National Strategy, published in April 2011, introduces a new measure on severe poverty, defined as individuals living in households experiencing material deprivation and with incomes below 50 per cent of the median income. The head count does not distinguish between those with incomes just below the poverty line and those deeper in poverty. Policies which improve incomes for those at the bottom of the income distribution will not lead to a fall in measured income poverty, unless incomes are raised sufficiently to cross the chosen poverty threshold, and yet reducing these families’ depth of poverty is highly likely to improve living standards. This paper supplements the headcount measures with analysis of the ‘poverty gap’ for UK children. The poverty gap measures ‘How poor are the poor’ i.e. the extent of poverty for those who are below the relative poverty threshold. With this measure, an improvement in incomes for those in poverty which is not sufficient for them to escape poverty, is nevertheless captured as a drop in measured poverty. In practice, for each poor individual we measure the poverty gap by calculating the shortfall in their income from the poverty line, and expressing this as a percentage of the poverty line. For example, if the poverty line was 100 and the income was 25 then the poverty gap would be 75 per cent (100 minus 25 equals 75; 75 divided by 100 is 75 per cent). A poverty gap of 75 per cent can be interpreted as an income that is 75 per cent below the poverty line" - page 1

Do Stationary Risk Premia Explain It All? Evidence from the Term Struct

Most studies of the expectations theory of the term structure reject the model. However, the significance of the rejections depend strongly upon the form of the test. In this paper, we use the pattern of rejection across maturities to back out the implied behavior of time-varying risk premia and/or market forecasts. We then use a new technique to test whether stationary risk premia alone can be responsible for these rejections. Surprisirj1y, this test is rejected for short maturities up to 6 months, suggesting that time-varying risk premia do not explain it all. We also describe hew this method can be used to test other asset pricing relationships.

Trends in Expected Returns in Currency and Bond Markets

Under conventional notions about rational expectations and market efficiency, expected returns differ from the actual expost returns by a forecast error that is uncorrelated with current information. In this paper, we describe how small departures from conventional notions of rational expectations and market efficiency can produce trends in excess returns. These trends are in addition to the trends typically found in the level of asset prices themselves. We report strong evidence for the presence of additional trends in excess foreign exchange and bond returns. We also estimate the additional trend component in excess returns on foreign exchange and find that it varied between -.8% and 1% for one month returns and between -6% and 8% for three month returns.

Do Expected Shifts in Inflation Policy Affect Real Rates?

This paper presents a new explanation for the negative correlation between ex post real interest rates and inflation found in earlier empirical studies. We begin by showing that there is a strong negative correlation between the permanent movements in ex post real interest rates and inflation. We argue that such a correlation can arise when people incorporate anticipated shifts in inflation policy into their expectations. Under these circumstances, a shift to lower (higher) inflation will lead to systematically higher (lower) ex post real rates. Using new time series techniques we are able to reject the hypothesis that nominal interest rates were unaffected by anticipated switches in inflation policy in the post-war era. To evaluate the impact of these switches, we then calculate the effects of inflationary expectations upon real rates using a Markov switching model of inflation. Inflation forecasts based upon the estimates of this rational model behave similarly to inflation forecasts from the Livingston survey. When ex ante real interest rates are identified with the Markov models of inflation, we find that ex ante real interest rate does not contain permanent shocks, nor is it related to permanent shocks in inflation.

INTERLINK at Indiana State University: Adventures in Library Instruction for International Students

Indiana State University (ISU) is one of four universities within the United States to provide a home for an INTERLINK Language Center; other locations include the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Valparaiso University in Indiana. According to their website for the ISU center, INTERLINK has partnered with ISU since 1987 to provide students with "quality training in English, culture, and academic preparation." Additionally, INTERLINK strives to provide assistance to students in a multitude of areas; including "speaking and understanding the English language, research and writing skills, an appreciation of cultural mores, and the ability to use technological tools" for academic, professional and personal use

Forward: Diversity in Indiana Libraries

We have become not a melting pot, but a beautiful mosaic, different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. -Jimmy Carter. Diversity, what does the word mean to you? How does the term influence your library

Creating a Library Fair

Almost two years ago, I was a new librarian at Indiana State University. Naively, I asked the head of reference what kind of event the library planned to welcome students when the fall semester started. “None,” she replied, “but it sounds like a good idea. Why don’t you work on something?” “Be glad to,” I answered (having no idea what I was getting into). Following is our adventure in creating an event to welcome students to the Cunningham Memorial Library