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This chapter analyzes the empirical relationship between the pricesetting/consumption behavior and the sources of persistence in inflation and output. First, a small-scale New-Keynesian model (NKM) is examined using the method of moment and maximum likelihood estimators with US data from 1960 to 2007. Then a formal test is used to compare the fit of two competing specifications in the New-Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) and the IS equation, that is, backward- and forward-looking behavior. Accordingly, the inclusion of a lagged term in the NKPC and the IS equation improves the fit of the model while offsetting the influence of inherited and extrinsic persistence; it is shown that intrinsic persistence plays a major role in approximating inflation and output dynamics for the Great Inflation period. However, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected at the 5% level for the Great Moderation period, that is, the NKM with purely forward-looking behavior and its hybrid variant are equivalent. Monte Carlo experiments investigate the validity of chosen moment conditions and the finite sample properties of the chosen estimation methods. Finally, the empirical performance of the formal test is discussed along the lines of the Akaike's and the Bayesian information criterion.

Ranking groups (schools, regions, counties) according to the average score of their constituent parts – say, ranking schools by the academic achievements of students – is a common yardstick in evaluation and a cornerstone of any planning process. In this paper we show that under certain circumstances the ranking of groups, unlike the ranking of individuals, can be affected by the examiner. The fact that a ranking reversal is possible does not necessarily imply that the test itself is deficient, it merely reveals that the groups are non-homogeneous and therefore, the ranking of groups is meaningless. An investigation of the conditions under which such manipulation can occur leads us to suggest new statistical indicators as warning signals that can help one recognize such situations if and when they arise. It turns out that these indicators are related to the indicators for finding whether one distribution dominates another.

We reformulate regression modeling so that ideas often associated with field theory and social network analysis can be brought to bear at every stage in the computation and interpretation of regression coefficients in studies of organizations. Rather than “transcending” general linear reality, we seek to get more out of it. We formulate a dual to regression modeling based on using the variables to learn about the cases. We illustrate our ideas by applying the new approach to a database of hundreds of violent extremist organizations, focusing on understanding which groups use or pursue unconventional weapons (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear).

The assumption that the family migrates as a unit downplays migrants’ circularity. This chapter focuses on China's rural–urban labor migrants that travel back and forth between the sites of work and home community and between places of work. I argue that migrants and their households pursue work flexibility in order to obtain the best of the urban and rural worlds, by gaining earnings from urban work and at the same time maintaining social and economic security in the countryside. Work flexibility demands flexibility in household organization, in the form of division of labor and collaboration between genders, generations, and households. Based on a study in Sichuan, I examine household biographies and narratives to identify migrants’ work and household strategies.

Migrants change jobs frequently, switch from one type of work to another and one location to another readily, and often return to the home village for months or even years before pursuing migrant work again. Not only are migrants ready to split the household between the city and the countryside, but also they frequently change from one form of division of labor to another. The inside–outside model, where the wife stays in the village and the husband does migrant work, used to be the dominant arrangement. Over time, the outside–outside model, where both the husband and wife migrate to work and leave behind other family members, is increasingly popular. This is facilitated by intergenerational and interhousehold division of labor in the form of assistance by the extended family. Intergenerational division of labor takes place when the second generation is replacing the parents in migrant work. This research's findings support the notion that rural–urban migrants are fast becoming a hybrid segment of Chinese society, playing dual roles of farmers and urban workers and straddling the peasant and urban worlds.