Showing papers by "School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences published in 2006"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss microsimulation techniques and their theoretical background as a tool for the analysis of public policies, with emphasis on tax incidence, redistribution, and poverty analysis.
Abstract: During the last 20 years, microsimulation models have been increasingly applied in qualitative and quantitative analysis of public policies. This paper discusses microsimulation techniques and their theoretical background as a tool for the analysis of public policies. It next analyses basic principles for using microsimulation models and interpreting their results, with emphasis on tax incidence, redistribution and poverty analysis. It then discusses social welfare analysis permitted by microsimulation techniques and points to the limits of present approaches and some directions for future developments.
406 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss couplings between phonological short-term memory (pSTM) and speech perception and speech production, and propose that pSTM arises from the cycling of information between two phonological buffers, one involved in speech perception, and one in speech production.
209 citations
TL;DR: There were significant relationships between motion coherence detection and motor control in both groups of children, and also between motion detection, fine motor control and 2D:4D in the group of children with autistic spectrum disorder.
Abstract: Children with autistic spectrum disorder and controls performed tasks of coherent motion and form detection, and motor control. Additionally, the ratio of the 2nd and 4th digits of these children, which is thought to be an indicator of foetal testosterone, was measured. Children in the experimental group were impaired at tasks of motor control, and had lower 2D:4D than controls. There were no group differences in motion or form detection. However a sub-group of children with autism were selectively impaired at motion detection. There were significant relationships between motion coherence detection and motor control in both groups of children, and also between motion detection, fine motor control and 2D:4D in the group of children with autistic spectrum disorder.
148 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the conditions of a sociological operationalization of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum are discussed and a qualitative method of inquiry that draws on a pragmatist and configurational approach is presented.
Abstract: This article asks about the conditions of a sociological operationalization of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Raising the question of freedom and social opportunities, the capability approach has so far mainly been discussed by economists and philosophers. In order to adopt this approach for a sociological and pragmatist perspective, it engages with methodological and theoretical issues. Whereas capabilities have until now mainly been studied within quantitative frameworks, the author opts for a qualitative method of inquiry that draws on a pragmatist and configurational approach. Such a shift towards qualitative inquiry is a key condition for a better sociological understanding of notions like freedom and opportunities that stand at the core of the capability approach.
147 citations
TL;DR: It is found that SAH should be used cautiously for the assessment of income-related health inequalities in France, and it is however possible to minimize the reporting heterogeneity bias by converting SAH into a binary variable for poor health vs other health statuses.
Abstract: This paper tests for income-related reporting heterogeneity in self-assessed health (SAH). It also constructs a synthetic measure of clinical health to decompose the effect of income on SAH into an effect on clinical health (which is called a health production effect) and a reporting heterogeneity effect. We find health production effects essentially for low-income individuals, and reporting heterogeneity for the choice between the medium labels, i.e. 'fair' vs 'good' and for high-income individuals. As such, SAH should be used cautiously for the assessment of income-related health inequalities in France. It is however possible to minimize the reporting heterogeneity bias by converting SAH into a binary variable for poor health vs other health statuses.
146 citations
TL;DR: A statistical learning algorithm is implemented for the acquisition of one type of rule, namely allophony, which introduces context-sensitive phonetic variants of phonemes, and the role of a priori linguistic knowledge in the statistical learning of phonology is discussed.
125 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that mirror neurons do not by themselves provide a sufficient basis for the forms of agentive understanding and shared intentionality involved in cooperative collective actions, but they provide the basic constituents of implicit agent-neutral representations and are useful elements in a process of online mutual adjustment of participants' actions.
86 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that recent cognitive and neurophysiological evidence favours an endorsement model of the delusion of alien control, and the debate between endorsement and explanationist models with respect to the 'alien control' delusion is examined.
80 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the problem in general smooth bounded domains and show that it possesses nontrivial solutions provided that: f is sublinear, or f is superlinear and the equation admits a priori bounds.
Abstract: We study the equation in general smooth bounded domain Ω, and show it possesses nontrivial solutions provided that: f is sublinear, or f is superlinear and the equation admits a priori bounds. The existence result in the superlinear case is based on a new Liouville type theorem for − ℳλ,Λ +(D 2 u) = u p in a half-space.
74 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce financial constraints in a theoretical analysis of illegal immigration, and show that there are complementarities between employer sanctions and deportation policies, which may result in an increase of debt-financed migration.
Abstract: We introduce financial constraints in a theoretical analysis of illegal immigration. Intermediaries finance the migration costs of wealth-constrained migrants, who enter temporary servitude contracts to repay the debt. These debt/labor contracts are easier to enforce in the illegal than in the legal sector of the host country. Hence, when moving from the illegal to the legal sector becomes more costly—for instance, because of stricter deportation policies—fewer immigrants default on debt. This reduces the risks for intermediaries, who are then more willing to finance illegal migration. Stricter deportation policies may thus, ex ante, increase rather than decrease the flow of illegal migrants. Furthermore, stricter deportation policies worsen the skill composition of immigrants. While stricter border controls decrease overall immigration, they may result in an increase of debt-financed migration. We also show that there are complementarities between employer sanctions and deportation policies. We use available evidence to check the empirical consistency of the theory. (JEL: J61, K42, O17)
73 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that the striatum has a core function in linguistic rule application generalizing to perceptive aspects of morphological operations and pertaining to implicit language processes, and may enclose computational circuits that underpin explicit manipulation of regularities.
Abstract: On the assumption that linguistic faculties reflect both lexical storage in the temporal cortex and combinatorial rules in the striatal circuits, several authors have shown that striatal-damaged patients are impaired with conjugation rules while retaining lexical knowledge of irregular verbs [Teichmann, M., Dupoux, E., Kouider, S., Brugieres, P., Boisse, M. F., Baudic, S., Cesaro, P., Peschanski, M., & Bachoud-Levi, A. C. (2005). The role of the striatum in rule application. The model of Huntington's disease at early stage. Brain, 128, 1155–1167; Ullman, M. T., Corkin, S., Coppola, M., Hickok, G., Growdon, J. H., Koroshetz, W. J., & Pinker, S. (1997). A neural dissociation within language: Evidence that the mental dictionary is part of declarative memory, and that grammatical rules are processed by the procedural system. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 266–276]. Yet, such impairment was documented only with explicit conjugation tasks in the production domain. Little is known about whether it generalizes to other language modalities such as perception and whether it refers to implicit language processing or rather to intentional rule operations through executive functions. We investigated these issues by assessing perceptive processing of conjugated verb forms in a model of striatal dysfunction, namely, in Huntington's Disease (HD) at early stages. Rule application and lexical processes were evaluated in an explicit task (acceptability judgments on verb and nonword forms) and in an implicit task (lexical decision on frequency-manipulated verb forms). HD patients were also assessed in executive functions, and striatal atrophy was evaluated with magnetic resonance imaging (bicaudate ratio). Results from both tasks showed that HD patients were selectively impaired for rule application but lexical abilities were spared. Bicaudate ratios correlated with rule scores on both tasks, whereas executive parameters only correlated with scores on the explicit task. We argue that the striatum has a core function in linguistic rule application generalizing to perceptive aspects of morphological operations and pertaining to implicit language processes. In addition, we suggest that the striatum may enclose computational circuits that underpin explicit manipulation of regularities.
TL;DR: The observed double dissociation suggests that the conscious task instruction modulates the stimulus-driven activation of the lateral temporal cortex for lexico-phonological activation and the inferior parietal cortex for spoken word production, and thereby engages a different neural network for generating the appropriate behavioral response.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated links between corruption and collusion in procurement and found that collusion is more likely in auctions where firms are small relative to the market and that self-interested abuse of discretion to extract rents (corruption) provides a mechanism to enforce collusion.
Abstract: This paper investigates links between corruption and collusion in procurement. A first-price multiple-object auction is administered by an agent who has legal discretion to allow for a readjustment of (all) submitted offers before the official opening. The agent may be corrupt, that is, willing to "sell" his decision in exchange for a bribe. Our main result shows that the corrupt agent's incentives to extract rents are closely linked with that of a cartel of bidders. First, collusive bidding conveys value to the agent's decision power. Second, self-interested abuse of discretion to extract rents (corruption) provides a mechanism to enforce collusion. A second result is that package bidding can facilitate collusion. We also find that with corruption, collusion is more likely in auctions where firms are small relative to the market. Our main message to auction designers, competition authorities and criminal courts is that risks of collusion and of corruption must be addressed simultaneously. Some other policy implications for the design of tender procedures are discussed.
TL;DR: Quaas et al. as mentioned in this paper showed that convex positively 1-homogeneous operators possess two principal eigenvalues and eigenfunctions, and obtained existence and uniqueness results for non-proper operators whose principal Eigenvalues (in some cases, only one of them) are positive.
TL;DR: In this paper, the Groupe Intergouvernemental d'Etude du Climat (GIEC) plays a role determinant dans la reconfiguration du champ and tend aujourd'hui a devenir un ideal-type for d'autres projets d'expertise internationale.
Abstract: Resume En moins de trente ans, le changement climatique d’origine anthropique est devenu un enjeu, tant scientifique que geopolitique, majeur, concernant un nombre croissant de communautes de recherche, de partenaires et d’acteurs politiques. Une instance intergouvernementale d’expertise tres singuliere – le Groupe Intergouvernemental d’Etude du Climat (GIEC) – a joue un role determinant dans la reconfiguration du champ et tend aujourd’hui a devenir un ideal-type pour d’autres projets d’expertise internationale. L’objet principal de cet article est d’etudier la transformation du regime climatique, le role du GIEC, et les repercussions de cette evolution sur la communaute des sciences du climat en France.
TL;DR: It is argued that the phonological buffer plays a role in sentence perception during the phonology analysis of the speech stream: It sustains the temporary storage of phonological input in order to check and resolve phonological ambiguities, and it also allows reexamination of the phonologically input if necessary.
Abstract: We report two case studies of aphasic patients with a working-memory impairment due to reduced storage in the phonological buffer. The two patients display excellent performance in phonological discrimination tasks as long as the tasks do not involve a memory load. We then show that their performance drops when they have to maintain fine-grained phonological information for sentence comprehension: They are impaired at mispronunciation detection and at comprehending sentences involving minimal word pairs. We argue that the phonological buffer plays a role in sentence perception during the phonological analysis of the speech stream: It sustains the temporary storage of phonological input in order to check and resolve phonological ambiguities, and it also allows reexamination of the phonological input if necessary.
TL;DR: In this article, the reactive Boussinesq equations in a slanted cylinder, with zero stress boundary conditions and arbitrary Rayleigh number, were considered and it was shown that the equations have non-planar traveling front solutions that propagate at a constant speed.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the transboundary pollution between Romania and Ukraine, coastal states along the Black Sea, and study the welfare consequences of institutional arrangements for controlling this problem.
Abstract: This paper analyses the transboundary pollution between Romania and Ukraine, coastal states along the Black Sea, and studies the welfare consequences of institutional arrangements for controlling this problem. To achieve this goal, we use a dynamic and strategic framework. We compare in terms of total welfare for two countries a first-best case with three different institutional arrangements: the non-cooperative game of countries, the uniform emission policy and the constant emission policy as proposed by the Black Sea Commission. Our findings indicate that the non-cooperative game provides a better level of total welfare than the other rules.
TL;DR: In this paper, a pilot study performed on asthmatics and based on a combined use of a biomarker such as metallothionein 2A (MT-2A) in the characterization of human exposure to one or a mixture of pollutants and of Geographical Information Systems (G.I.S.) which integrates climatic and urban anthropogenic parameters in the assessment of spatio-temporal dispersion of air pollutants.
TL;DR: In this article, a partir d'une enquete menee aupres de deux groupements, cet article se penche sur leurs pratiques, mais egalement sur ce travailler a temps partage signifie pour un salarie, sur les usages diversifies que sont amenes a en faire les entrepreneurs-adherents and les formes sociales inedites qui en resultent.
Abstract: Le groupement d’employeurs est une association loi 1901 qui met a disposition de ses membres des salaries a temps partage. Ces derniers sont salaries du groupement, mais realisent leur travail aupres de deux, voire trois entrepreneurs-adherents. Transformer des emplois occasionnels ou a temps partiel en contrats a duree indeterminee et a plein temps, concilier des besoins de flexibilite economique et de securite individuelle, tels sont les objectifs affiches par les groupements d’employeurs. A partir d’une enquete menee aupres de deux groupements, cet article se penche sur leurs pratiques, mais egalement sur ce que travailler a temps partage signifie pour un salarie, sur les usages diversifies que sont amenes a en faire les entrepreneurs–adherents et les formes sociales inedites qui en resultent. La presence intermittente dans les entreprises et la triangulation de la relation de travail determinent pour les salaries un echeveau de contraintes et de ressources socialement distribuees, de meme qu’une individuation renforcee des relations de travail que cet article propose d’analyser.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors measure the intergenerational transmission of wealth inequalities over the 1800-1938 period and find that those whose father had twice the average level of wealth themselves upon death leave behind 1.45 times the average wealth of their generation.
Abstract: This paper endeavors to measure the intergenerational transmission of wealth inequalities over the 1800–1938 period. For this purpose, we have consulted historical data composed of wealth genealogies covering the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The database was created from families included in the “3,000 families” survey of those individuals residing in the Loire-Inferieure departement. The empirical study reveals a relatively large degree of intergenerational immobility: those whose father had twice the average level of wealth themselves upon death leave behind 1.45 times the average wealth of their generation.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the production and diffusion internationale des savoirs d'Etat, comme l'economie, d'un triple point de vue: les strategies hegemoniques de la guerre froide, les rivalites professionnelles entre juristes and economistes dans les champs nationaux du pouvoir d’etat and l’internationalisation des filieres savantes de reproduction des elites nationales.
Abstract: Cet article analyse la production et la diffusion internationale des savoirs d’Etat, comme l’economie, d’un triple point de vue : les strategies hegemoniques de la guerre froide, les rivalites professionnelles entre juristes et economistes dans les champs nationaux du pouvoir d’Etat et l’internationalisation des filieres savantes de reproduction des elites nationales. Afin de comprendre les obstacles qui ont freine la penetration du paradigme neoliberal en Asie, il revient d’abord sur la genese autoritaire de ces nouveaux champs de savoir economique, en tant qu’instrument des politiques de developpement mis en place par les dictatures de la guerre froide, comme celles de Suharto en Indonesie et de Marcos aux Philippines. Dans un deuxieme temps, en s’appuyant sur les exemples de l’Inde et de la Coree du Sud, il analyse l’institutionnalisation et la consolidation de ces nouveaux champs professionnels sur la base d’une division internationale du travail scientifique, dans laquelle les grands campus nord americains dominent la production theorique et les filieres de reproduction des elites peripheriques.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors criticise the optimistic approach of the theory of investment incentives through market signals when it is applied to deregulated electricity industries, and argue that reforms must be designed in view of the importance of the need for investment through long-term coordination and reduction of investment risks.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the social efficiency of two main regulatory instruments used to promote renewable energy sources in electricity generation (RES-E), taking into consideration their role in promoting the preservation of the climate.
Abstract: This paper compares the social efficiency of the two main regulatory instruments used to promote renewable energy sources in electricity generation (RES-E), taking into consideration their role in promoting the preservation of the climate. They are based on a purchase obligation and act either by price (feed-in tariffs) or by quantity (RES-E quotas). In their reference design, the instruments show different performances in several dimensions: market incentives intensity, control of the cost for consumers, safeguards of RES-E investments, and conformity with the new market regime of the electricity industry. The comparison shows that neither instrument offers an optimal solution in each of these dimensions. In particular, the intrinsic qualities of the quotas instrument that are put forward to mandate its adoption by the EU members are overestimated. A government will thus select an instrument in accordance with the relative importance of its objectives: environmental policy versus cost control by market pressure. © 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation © CIRIEC 2006.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the relationship between income inequality and opportunities for income acquisition in nine developed countries during the nineties was analyzed. And the authors developed a new definition of equality of opportunity, defined as the situation where income distributions conditional on social origin cannot be ranked according to stochastic dominance criteria.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between income inequality and inequality of opportunities for income acquisition in nine developed countries during the nineties. We develop a new definition of equality of opportunity and show how it can be implemented empirically. Equality of opportunity is defined as the situation where income distributions conditional on social origin cannot be ranked according to stochastic dominance criteria. Stochastic dominance is assessed using non-parametric statistical tests. We measure social origin by parental education and occupation and use national household surveys to assess inequality of income and opportunities. USA and Italy show up as the most unequal countries both in terms of outcome and opportunity. At the opposite extreme, income distributions conditional on social origin are very close in Scandinavian countries even before any redistributive policy. The analysis highlights that inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity can sometimes lead to different pictures. For instance, France and Germany experience a similar level of inequality of income but the former country is much more unequal than the latter from the point of view of equality of opportunity. Differences in rankings according to inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity underscore the importance of the policymaker's choice of the conception of equality to promote.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the social efficiency of two main regulatory instruments used to promote renewable energy sources in electricity generation (RES-E), taking into consideration their role in promoting the preservation of the climate.
Abstract: This paper compares the social efficiency of the two main regulatory instruments used to promote renewable energy sources in electricity generation (RES-E), taking into consideration their role in promoting the preservation of the climate. They are based on a purchase obligation and act either by price (feed-in tariffs) or by quantity (RES-E quotas). In their reference design, the instruments show different performances in several dimensions: market incentives intensity, control of the cost for consumers, safeguards of RES-E investments, and conformity with the new market regime of the electricity industry. The comparison shows that neither instrument offers an optimal solution in each of these dimensions. In particular, the intrinsic qualities of the quotas instrument that are put forward to mandate its adoption by the EU members are overestimated. A government will thus select an instrument in accordance with the relative importance of its objectives: environmental policy versus cost control by market pressure. © 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation © CIRIEC 2006.
TL;DR: Berestycki et al. as discussed by the authors defined generalized waves and fronts for reactiondiffusion equations in general domains and gave qualitative monotonicity and uniqueness results for invasion and almost-planar fronts.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide information on the unrest and republican model of integration in France, and the pre-dominant epistemological position on the French anthropology defines the discipline as the study of distant societies.
Abstract: The article provides information on the unrest and republican model of integration in France. The pre-dominant epistemological position on the French anthropology defines the discipline as the study of distant societies. Questions have been raised by the state of affairs regarding the origin of anthropology and reproduction of the discipline in the country
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnologist, a sociologist and an ecologist aim to capture and understand the identification processes of both the species itself and its effects on the ecosystem by different social and occupational groups of forest users.