Refinancing the Rentier State: Welfare, Inequality, and Citizen Preferences toward Fiscal Reform in the Gulf Oil Monarchies

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-317
Author(s):  
Justin J. Gengler ◽  
Bethany Shockley ◽  
Michael C. Ewers

Against the backdrop of fiscal reform efforts in Middle East oil producers, this article proposes a general framework for understanding how citizens relate to welfare benefits in the rentier state and then tests some observable implications using original survey data from the quintessential rentier state of Qatar. Using two novel choice experiments, we ask Qataris to choose between competing forms of economic subsidies and state spending, producing a clear and reliable ordering of welfare priorities. Expectations derived from the experiments about the individual-level determinants of rentier reform preferences are then tested using data from a follow-up survey. Findings demonstrate the importance of non-excludable public goods, rather than private patronage, for upholding the rentier bargain.

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Alvaro Muñoz ◽  
F. Javier Nieto

The simplest cohort design is to obtain exposure data at baseline and follow-up individuals to obtain data up to the point when the event of interest occurs. A richer design includes regularly scheduled visits at which data on exposures are updated. The exposures can be either fixed over time (e.g. race), change directly with time (e.g. age and calendar), or change at their own pace (e.g. biological markers). According to the scientific aims of a cohort study, disease occurrence can be measured as an event in person-time, time-to-endpoint of interest, or change in a biomarker repeatedly measured at follow-up visits. Analytical methods include survival analyses to handle censored observations and late entries due to incomplete observation of the development of events and origin, and longitudinal data analyses for the trajectories of markers of disease progression. Stratification, multivariate regression, and causal inference methods are key tools to accomplish comparability among exposed and unexposed groups. Identification of exposures and risk factors for disease provides a basis for prevention strategies. Data from cohort studies can be used to assess the effects of interventions by using data at the individual level to determine individual effectiveness or by comparing occurrence of disease in the population when typically none or only a few are intervened to determine population effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Heather Getha-Taylor ◽  
Alexa Haddock-Bigwarfe

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine public service motivation (PSM) and the connection with collaborative attitudes among a sample of homeland security actors representing the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Design/methodology/approach – This study examines relationships between measures of PSM and collaboration using original survey data and hierarchical multiple regression. Findings – Findings reveal strong positive relationships between PSM measures and attitudes toward collaboration at the individual and organizational level. Research limitations/implications – Survey results are cross-sectional and are from respondents participating in a single state's homeland security summit. Practical implications – It is expected that results can be used to enhance collaboration at the individual and organizational levels. At the organizational level, results can be used for matching individuals with collaborative opportunities. At the individual level, results can be used for enhanced self-reflection and effectiveness purposes. Originality/value – This study provides insights on the relationship between PSM measures and collaborative attitudes. The research contributes to the body of scholarly work connecting PSM and correlates of interest.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002202212110447
Author(s):  
Plamen Akaliyski ◽  
Christian Welzel ◽  
Michael Harris Bond ◽  
Michael Minkov

Nations have been questioned as meaningful units for analyzing culture due to their allegedly limited variance-capturing power and large internal heterogeneity. Against this skepticism, we argue that culture is by definition a collective phenomenon and focusing on individual differences contradicts the very concept of culture. Through the “miracle of aggregation,” we can eliminate random noise and arbitrary variation at the individual level in order to distill the central cultural tendencies of nations. Accordingly, we depict national culture as a gravitational field that socializes individuals into the orbit of a nation’s central cultural tendency. Even though individuals are also exposed to other gravitational forces, subcultures in turn gravitate within the limited orbit of their national culture. Using data from the World Values Survey, we show that individual values cluster in concentric circles around their nation’s cultural gravity center. We reveal the miracle of aggregation by demonstrating that nations capture the bulk of the variation in the individuals’ cultural values once they are aggregated into lower-level territorial units such as towns and sub-national regions. We visualize the gravitational force of national cultures by plotting various intra-national groups from five large countries that form distinct national clusters. Contrary to many scholars’ intuitions, alternative social aggregates, such as ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups, as well as diverse socio-demographic categories, add negligible explained variance to that already captured by nations.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Meryem Grabski ◽  
Jon Waldron ◽  
Tom P. Freeman ◽  
Claire Mokrysz ◽  
Ruben J.J. van Beek ◽  
...  

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Monitoring emerging trends in the increasingly dynamic European drug market is vital; however, information on change at the individual level is scarce. In the current study, we investigated changes in drug use over 12 months in European nightlife attendees. <b><i>Method:</i></b> In this longitudinal online survey, changes in substances used, use frequency in continued users, and relative initiation of use at follow-up were assessed for 20 different substances. To take part, participants had to be aged 18–34 years; be from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, or the UK; and have attended at least 6 electronic music events in the past 12 months at baseline. Of 8,045 volunteers at baseline, 2,897 completed the survey at both time points (36% follow-up rate), in 2017 and 2018. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The number of people using ketamine increased by 21% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001), and logarithmized frequency of use in those continuing use increased by 15% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001; 95% CI: 0.07–0.23). 4-Fluoroamphetamine use decreased by 27% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001), and logarithmized frequency of use in continuing users decreased by 15% (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001, 95% CI: −0.48 to −0.23). The drugs with the greatest proportion of relative initiation at follow-up were synthetic cannabinoids (73%, <i>N</i> = 30), mephedrone (44%, <i>N</i> = 18), alkyl nitrites (42%, <i>N</i> = 147), synthetic dissociatives (41%, <i>N</i> = 15), and prescription opioids (40%, <i>N</i> = 48). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> In this European nightlife sample, ketamine was found to have the biggest increase in the past 12 months, which occurred alongside an increase in frequency of use in continuing users. The patterns of uptake and discontinuation of alkyl nitrates, novel psychoactive substances, and prescription opioids provide new information that has not been captured by existing cross-sectional surveys. These findings demonstrate the importance of longitudinal assessments of drug use and highlight the dynamic nature of the European drug landscape.


2020 ◽  
pp. 001112872094096
Author(s):  
Erin A. Orrick ◽  
Alexander H. Updegrove ◽  
Alex R. Piquero ◽  
Tomislav Kovandzic

Research addressing the purported relationship between immigration and crime remains popular, but some gaps remain under-explored. One important gap involves disentangling differences in crime and punishment by immigrant status, as measured across different definitions of immigration status and in relation to U.S. natives, at the individual level. Using data from Texas, results show that native-born U.S. citizens are incarcerated for homicide at higher rates than almost all immigrant groups. While the incarceration rate for undocumented immigrants was 24% greater than the rate for all foreign-citizens, this rate was significantly less than that for U.S. citizens. Among the immigrant status classifications available in this study, all were associated with lower incarceration rates for homicide than that of U.S. citizens.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2006 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Steel ◽  
M. Tranmer ◽  
D. Holt

Ecological analysis involves analysing aggregate data for groups of individuals to make inferences about relationships at the individual level. Often the results of such analyses give badly biased estimates. This paper will consider the sources of bias in linear regression analysis using aggregate data. The role of variation of the individual level relationships between groups and the consequent within-group correlations and how these are related to auxiliary variables that characterise the differences between groups is considered. A method of adjusting ecological regression for the effects of auxiliary variables is described and evaluated using data from the 1991 Australian Census.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 610-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Michiels ◽  
Lina Pugliano ◽  
Delphine Grun ◽  
Jana Barinoff ◽  
David A. Cameron ◽  
...  

610 Background: The gold standard endpoint in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in MBC is OS, which has the disadvantage of requiring extended follow-up and being confounded by subsequent anti-cancer therapies. Although therapeutics have been approved based on PFS, its use as a primary endpoint is controversial. This study, the first IPD meta-analysis of targeted agents in MBC, aimed to collect data from RCTs of HER2-targeted agents in HER2+ MBC, assessing to what extent PFS correlates with, and may be used as, a surrogate for OS. Methods: A search was conducted in April 2011. Eligible RCTs accrued HER2+ MBC patients (pts) in 1992-2008. Collaboration was obtained from industrial partners (Roche, GSK) for industry-led studies. Investigator-assessed PFS was defined as the time from randomization to clinical or radiological progression, or death. A correlation approach was used: at the individual level, to estimate the association between PFS and OS using a bivariate survival model and at the trial level, to estimate the association between treatment effects on PFS and OS. Squared correlation values close to 1.0 would indicate strong surrogacy. Results: The search strategy resulted in 2137 eligible pts in 13 RCTs testing trastuzumab or lapatinib. We collected IPD data from 1963 pts in 9 RCTs. One phase II RCT did not have sufficient follow-up data so that 1839 pts in 8 RCTs were retained (5 evaluating trastuzumab, 3 lapatinib); 6 out of 8 RCTs were first-line. At the individual level, the Spearman rank correlation using Hougaard copula was equal to r=0.66 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.66) corresponding to an r2 of 0.42. At the trial level, the squared correlation between treatment effects on PFS and OS was provided by R2=0.33 (95% CI -0.22 to 0.86) using Hougaard copula and R2=0.53 (95% CI 0.22 to 0.83) using log hazard ratios from Cox models. Conclusions: In RCTs of HER2-targeted agents in HER2+ MBC, PFS is moderately correlated with OS and treatment effects on PFS are modestly correlated with treatment effects on OS, similarly to first-line chemotherapy in MBC (Burzykowski et al JCO 2008). PFS does not completely substitute for OS.


1990 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert E. Beaton ◽  
Eugene G. Johnson

The average response method (ARM) of scaling nonbinary data was developed to scale the data from the assessments of writing conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The ARM applies linear models and multiple imputations technologies to characterize the predictive distribution of the person-level average of ratings over a pool of exercises when each person has responded to only a few of the exercises. The derivations of “plausible values” from the individual-level distributions of potential scale scores are given. Conditions are provided for the unbiasedness of estimates based on the plausible values, and the potential magnitude of the bias when the conditions are not met is indicated. Also discussed is how the plausible values allow for an accounting of the uncertainties due to the sampling of individuals and to the incomplete information on each sampled individual. The technique is illustrated using data from the assessment of writing.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALAN L. GUSTMAN ◽  
THOMAS L. STEINMEIER ◽  
NAHID TABATABAI

AbstractStudies using data from the early 1990s suggested that while the progressive Social Security benefit formula succeeded in redistributing benefits from individuals with high earnings to individuals with low earnings, it was much less successful in redistributing benefits from households with high earnings to households with low earnings. Wives often earned much less than their husbands. As a result, much of the redistribution at the individual level was effectively from high earning husbands to their own lower earning wives. In addition, spouse and survivor benefits accrue disproportionately to women from high income households. Both factors mitigate redistribution at the household level. It has been argued that with the increase in the labor force participation and earnings of women, Social Security now should do a better job of redistributing benefits at the household level. To be sure, when we compare outcomes for a cohort with a household member age 51 to 56 in 1992 with those from a cohort born twelve years later, redistribution at the household level has increased over time. Nevertheless, as of 2004 there still is substantially less redistribution of benefits from high to low earning households than from high to low earning individuals.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Glänzel

Publication activity, citation impact and communication patterns, in general, change in the course of a scientist's career. Mobility and radical changes in a scientist's research environment or profile are among the most spectacular factors that have effect on individual collaboration patterns. Although bibliometrics at this level should be applied with the utmost care, characteristic patterns of an individual scientist's research collaboration and changes in these in the course of a career can be well depicted using bibliometric methods. A wide variety of indicators and network tools are chosen to follow up the evolution and to visualise and to quantify collaboration and performance profiles of individual researchers. These methods are, however, designed to supplement expert-opinion based assessment and other qualitative assessments, and should not be used as stand-alone evaluation tools. This study presents part of the results published in an earlier study by Zhang and Glänzel (2012)4 as well as new applications of these methods.


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