Diminishing Returns to Labour and Technical Inertia

Spearman's Law of Diminishing Returns (SLODR) with regard to age was tested in two different databases from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The first database consisted of 6,980 boys and girls aged 12–16 from the 1997 cohort ( NLSY 1997 ). The subjects were tested with a computer-administered adaptive format (CAT) of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) consisting of 12 subtests. The second database consisted of 11,448 male and female subjects aged 15–24 from the 1979 cohort ( NLSY 1979 ). These subjects were tested with the older 10-subtest version of the ASVAB. The hypothesis was tested by dividing the sample into Young and Old age groups while keeping IQ fairly constant by a method similar to the one developed and employed by Deary et al. (1996) . The different age groups were subsequently factor-analyzed separately. The eigenvalue of the first principal component (PC1) and the first principal axis factor (PAF1), and the average intercorrelation of the subtests were used as estimates of the g saturation and compared across groups. There were no significant differences in the g saturation across age groups for any of the two samples, thereby pointing to no support for this aspect of Spearman's “Law of Diminishing Returns.”

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A Law of Diminishing Returns: Transitional Justice in Post-Revolutionary Libya

AlMuntaqa ◽

10.31430/almuntaqa.3.1.0023 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 23

Author(s):

Hamad

Keyword(s):

Transitional Justice ◽

Diminishing Returns

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Laws of Diminishing Returns

10.1007/978-3-642-48314-1 ◽

1980 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Rolf Färe

Keyword(s):

Diminishing Returns

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The value of ecosystem services

10.1093/oso/9780198808978.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Linus Blomqvist ◽

R. David Simpson

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Random Sample ◽

International Institutions ◽

Evidence Base ◽

Conservation Strategy ◽

Critical Examination ◽

Opportunity Costs ◽

Monetary Value ◽

Pollution Treatment ◽

Diminishing Returns

This chapter investigates whether the growing enthusiasm for ecosystem services recently expressed by conservation NGOs and international institutions is supported by evidence. Ecosystem services—the benefits humans receive from nature—have become the darlings of conservation on the assumption that the valuation of selected services may justify protecting land. A critical examination of a random sample of monetary valuations for regulating ecosystem services such as pollution treatment, finds that only onethird can be considered reliable, and that only ten percent of monetary value estimates can be transferred to other contexts. This suggests that the overall evidence base for assigning monetary value to nature is limited. Furthermore, diminishing returns, high opportunity costs, and technological substitutes might limit the amount of conservation that can be justified on the basis financial assessments of ecosystem services. As such, this chapter concludes that ecosystem services as a conservation strategy should not be embraced uncritically.

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Diminishing returns drive altruists to help extended family

Nature Ecology & Evolution ◽

10.1038/s41559-020-01382-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 468-479

Author(s):

P. Kennedy ◽

S. Sumner ◽

P. Botha ◽

N. J. Welton ◽

A. D. Higginson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Extended Family ◽

Diminishing Returns

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Speed of evolution in large asexual populations with diminishing returns

Journal of Theoretical Biology ◽

10.1016/j.jtbi.2014.09.042 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 365 ◽

pp. 23-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Maria R. Fumagalli ◽

Matteo Osella ◽

Philippe Thomen ◽

Francois Heslot ◽

Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino

Keyword(s):

Diminishing Returns ◽

Speed Of Evolution ◽

Asexual Populations

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Small change: individual farm work and collective life in a western Nigerian savanna town, 1969–88

Africa ◽

10.2307/1161346 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 62 (4) ◽

pp. 465-489 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Jane I. Guyer

Keyword(s):

Farming System ◽

Farm Size ◽

Small Scale ◽

Cropping Patterns ◽

Farm Work ◽

Small Change ◽

Returns To Labour ◽

Individual Farm ◽

Ceremonial Life ◽

Nigerian Savanna

AbstractA comparison of data collected in western Nigeria (the Yoruba area) in 1968-69 and 1988 suggests that small-scale male farmers' patterns of work remained quite similar in the total amount of work they did and in the amount by task. This finding seemed surprising, since the study area lies in the food supply hinterland of the rapidly growing cities of Ibadan, Lagos and Abeokuta. The farming system has changed in several ways in response to increased urban demand and improved transport, including an increase in farm size on the part of male farmers. Changed cropping patterns, the increased use of hired labour and somewhat increased returns to labour seem only partly to account for the persistence. Analysis of the work data in terms of its timing, rather than in terms of time, suggests that farmers are tending to work at the same task in longer stretches ofconsecutive days, and this, in turn, is related to the marked rescheduling of traditional ceremonial life and the intensified politico-associational life moved to the weekend.

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