Review of Maximum Likelihood Estimation with Stata by Gould, Pitblado, and Sribney

The new book by Gould, Pitblado, and Sribney (2003) is reviewed. Copyright 2003 by StataCorp LP.maximum likelihood, Stata programming

The Dynamics of Social Assistance Receipt: Measurement and Modelling Issues, with an Application to Britain

We model the dynamics of social assistance benefit receipt in Britain using data from the British Household Panel Survey, waves 1–15. First, we discuss definitions of social assistance benefit receipt, and present information about the trends between 1991 and 2005 in the receipt of social assistance benefits, and in annual rates of transition into and out of receipt. Second, we review potential multivariate modelling approaches especially the dynamic random effects probit models that are used in our empirical analysis and, third, discuss sample selection criteria and explanatory variables. Fourth, we present our regression estimation estimates and interpret them. The final section contains a summary of the substantive results, and highlights some lessons concerning application of the analysis for other countries and some methodological issues.social assistance, welfare benefits, dynamic random effects probit, income dynamics

Informal but not Insignificant: Unregistered Workers in North Cyprus

The size of the informal labour force and its contribution to the national income of North Cyprus has been an issue of considerable controversy and political significance. Because of the relatively free movement of labour between Turkey and North Cyprus, a significant body of unregistered workers have accumulated in North Cyprus. The findings are that from 1996 to 2000 the informal employment is between 35 to 40 per cent of the total labour force. Because not all the informal sectors production is excluded from the official national income statistics, the understatement of the official statistics is estimated to be between 12 to 17 percent of GNP. The fiscal losses are estimated to be about 9 percent of total tax revenues and a loss of social security revenues is approximately 38 per cent of the total annual contributions.Cyprus, informal sector, informal labour force, fiscal losses, unrecorded income, underground economy

Wall-Enhanced Convection in Vibrofluidized Granular Systems

An event-driven molecular dynamics simulation of inelastic hard spheres contained in a cylinder and subject to strong vibration reproduces accurately experimental results[1] for a system of vibrofluidized glass beads. In particular, we are able to obtain the velocity field and the density and temperature profiles observed experimentally. In addition, we show that the appearance of convection rolls is strongly influenced by the value of the sidewall-particle restitution coefficient. Suggestions for observing more complex convection patterns are proposed.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Regulation and Taxation of Casinos under State-Monopoly, Private Monopoly and Casino Association Regimes

This paper considers alternative forms of regulation and taxation of the casino sector. The model considers the situation of a typical tourist destination country that is using casinos to attract and entertain foreign tourists. The objective is to invest in the sector efficiently while maximizing the amount of government revenue or profits accruing to the country. The regulator must determine how the price of gambling will be set, how many casinos will be allowed to enter the industry and the form and rates of taxation. Four alternative forms of regulation are considered: price regulation, state-owned monopoly, private monopoly and casino association regulation. Turnover taxes on the amount of funds gambled and also annual taxation of the fixed costs of the casinos are evaluated. Applications of the models are carried out for North Cyprus. The conclusion is that the economic efficiency costs and the revenue losses from the absence of effective regulation in these tourist destinations can be very substantial with welfare costs equal to the approximately 75 percent of the tax revenue generated by this sector. Furthermore it shows that while a tax on turnover can be efficient in the case of a competitive industry or a cartel association form of regulation, it will be distortunary if a private monopoly is controlling the sector. In contrast a tax on fixed costs will lead to an efficient result in the case of a competitive or private monopoly cases, but it will lead to allocate inefficiencies if the sector is regulated by a casino association that can only control the number of casino entering the sector.Casino regulation, taxation, state-monopoly, welfare cost

The Intergeneratinal Transmission of Poverty in Industrialized Countries

This paper reviews research about the intergenerational transmission of poverty in industrialized countries. In order to make our survey manageable, we restrict attention to studies that consider the relationship between parental poverty (or 'income') during childhood and later-life outcomes; we do not explicitly consider the impact of other family background variables such as parental education. The general message is that growing up poor has a deleterious impact on later-life chances, and that this impact is not wholly explained by other factors that are themselves correlated with childhood poverty. At the same time, the studies also show that one should be cautious about drawing more specific conclusions. For example, the degree of intergenerational persistence appears to vary depending on the definition of the outcome variable, and different estimation methods provide a range of estimates. In addition, most of re-search about intergenerational links has been undertaken using US data, and it is not clear that any specific conclusions should carry over to another country with very different social norms and institutions including e.g. differences in labour market regulation, and in systems of edu-cation and social security benefits. However we conclude that, broadly speaking, the analyti-cal framework that has been used for high-income countries can also be applied to low-income countries.Poverty, intergenerational transmission, mobility, family background, income, industrialized countries

Accounting for Poverty Differences between the United States, Great Britain, and Germany

We propose a framework for comparing the relationship between poverty and personal characteristics across countries (or across years), and use it to compare levels and patterns of relative poverty in the USA, Great Britain and Germany during the 1990s. The higher aggregate poverty rates in the USA and in Britain relative to Germany were mostly accounted for by higher poverty rates conditional on characteristics, which were only partly offset by a more favourable distribution of poverty-relevant characteristics, in particular higher employment rates.Poverty, Singh-Maddala Distribution

The Effect of Family Income during Childhood on Later-life Attainment: Evidence from Germany

We examine the impact of family income during childhood on the type of secondary school that German children attend, a good indicator of their lifetime socioeconomic attainment. By contrast with several US child outcome studies, we find that late-childhood income is a more important determinant of outcomes than early-childhood income, and income effects are not greater for poor households compared to rich households, other things equal. The income effects are small for native-born German children and non-existent for children from guestworker households. Income effects are also small relative to the impact of differences in parental educational qualifications or institutional factors related to the federal state of residence.child poverty, educational achievement, schooling, family background