Block Bootstrap Consistency Under Weak Assumptions

This paper weakens the size and moment conditions needed for typical block bootstrap methods (i.e. the moving blocks, circular blocks, and stationary bootstraps) to be valid for the sample mean of Near-Epoch-Dependent functions of mixing processes; they are consistent under the weakest conditions that ensure the original process obeys a Central Limit Theorem (those of de Jong, 1997, Econometric Theory).� In doing so, this paper extends de Jong's method of proof, a blocking argument, to hold with random and unequal block lengths.� This paper also proves that bootstrapped partial sums satisfy a Functional CLT under the same conditions.Resampling; Time Series; Near Epoch Dependence; Functional Central Limit Theorem

The promise of public sociology

extraordinary event. There was a buzz of excitement, the culmination of a week of high energy discussions of ‘public sociology’, and the product also of a year in which Burawoy had criss-crossed the USA speaking to dozens of groups and urging those who often give the ASA a pass in favour of local or activist meetings to come to San Francisco. The excitement was fueled also by a sense of renewed engagement with the reasons many – especially of the baby boom and 1960s generations – had chosen to become sociologists in the first place. A ballroom with seating for several thousand was filled to overflowing (I arrived early yet had to stand in the back). The talk ran to nearly twice the allotted time but few left. And at the end, teams of Berkeley students wearing black T-shirts proclaiming Marx ‘the first public sociologist ’ roamed the aisles to collect questions. The excitement was not a fluke, but reflected a coincidence of good timing with shrewd recognition of the enduring commitments and desires of many sociologists. Sociologists found not only found their activism encouraged bu