JAQM Volume 10, Issue 1 - March 30, 2015

Contents

Evaluating Social Tracking in the Primary School: Evidence from the Lombardy Region (Italy)
Emanuela RAFFINETTI, Isabella ROMEO

Recently, the Italian schools were deeply affected by the “social tracking” phenomenon, intended as the process of segregating students into socio-economic classes. Typically, this phenomenon occurs within the lower secondary school. In such a perspective, the study reported in the paper is innovative, since addressed to investigate the actual presence of the social tracking phenomenon as an event starting from the primary school. For this purpose, we considered data provided by Invalsi (Istituto Nazionale per la Valutazione del Sistema di Istruzione e Formazione) with regard to students of the fifth grade of primary schools in the Lombardy region (Italy). The study was carried out following two different approaches. First, a preliminary descriptive analysis of the segregation phenomenon was carried out by computing the Gini coefficient of the the socio-economic status average at class level. Second, due to the usual hierarchical structure of educational data, multilevel models were considered with the aim of partitioning the pupils’ socio-economic status variability within the student, class and school level. In this way, school and class social segregation indicators were obtained. Subsequently, a conditional multilevel model including school and class social segregation indicators as explanatory variables was built. Results underline that even though in general social tracking is not an actual threat for the Lombardy primary schools, a remarkable socio-economic heterogeneity among classes appears especially in some provinces of the Lombardy region.

A Logistic Model on Panel Data for Systemic Risk Assessment – Evidence from Advanced and Developing Economies
Smaranda CIMPOERU

The present paper proposes a framework for developing a new early warning system (EWS) for identifying systemic banking risk and finding the macroeconomic indicators which turn to be the best indicators in predicting stressful situation on the financial market. The research problem is very much debated in the specialty literature, as the exposure of the financial system is generally derived from deteriorating macroeconomic conditions. We propose a logistic model applied on two panel data sets – advanced and emerging economies. Results are satisfactory, as apart from the GDP Growth or Debt level, as main triggers for financial stress situation, we also find the Output Gap as a significant early warning signal for predicting financial crisis.

Stochastic Optimization using Interval Analysis, with Applications to Portfolio Selection
Silvia DEDU, Florentin SERBAN

In this paper we study a class of optimization problems under uncertainty, with parameters modeled by stochastic random variables. Interval analysis and multiobjective stochastic programming concepts are introduced. Then these two concepts are combined to build a stochastic programming model, with the coefficients of the constraints and the coefficients of the objective function modeled by interval numbers and discrete interval random variables. This model can be used to solve a portfolio optimization problem.

Bounds Test approach for the Long Run Relationship between Shadow Economy and Official Economy. An Empirical Analysis for Romania
Adriana AnaMaria DAVIDESCU

The paper aims to investigate the nature of the relationship between the shadow economy (SE) and recorded GDP for the case of Romania using Pesaran et al.(2001) bounds tests approach for cointegration for the period 2000-2010. The size of Romanian shadow economy is estimated using a revised version of the currency demand approach based on autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration analysis. To investigate the long-run causal linkages and short-run dynamics between shadow economy and recorded GDP, ARDL cointegration approach is applied.The ARDL causality results revealed only the existence of a long-run unidirectional causality that runs from shadow economy official economy, revealing a negative relationship between them on long-run. In addition, the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests confirm the stability of causal relationships.

The Application of Grey System Theory in Predicting the Number of Deaths of Women by Committing Suicide- A Case Study
Kalyan MONDAL, Surapati PRAMANIK

Sexual harassment, dowry problem, torture, importation of girls, kidnapping, rape and other social problems are forced a woman to commit suicide. These risk factors include man dominated social structure, insecurity of woman, unequal priority level of man and woman, family problems, un-employment etc. Indian constitution offers equal rights for male and female. So the problem of woman suicide becomes a complicated one that restricts the development of country and threatens for the parallelism of male-female ratio. Considering the complexity and uncertainty of the influencing factors on woman suicides, suicide forecasting can be regarded as a grey system with unknown and known information, so it can be analyzed by grey system theory. Grey models require only a limited amount of data to estimate the behavior of unknown systems. In this paper, the original predicted values of woman suicides are separately obtained by the GM (1, 1) model, the Verhulst model and the GM (2, 1) model. The results obtained from these models on predicting woman suicide show that the forecasting accuracy of the GM (1, 1) is better than the Verhulst model and the GM (2, 1) model. Then, the GM (1, 1) model is proposed to predict woman suicide in Indian context.

Methods of Measuring Core Inflation in Inflation Targeting Countries
Ion PARTACHI, Vitalie MOTELICA

This article tackles the issue of the transitory effects on growth of prices and the main methods for the calculation of monetary policy relevant inflation in inflation targeting countries. In order to have an indicator which would capture the medium term inflation pressures, several measures of core inflation are considered. Besides that this article mentions the main advantages and disadvantages of the different measures of medium term inflation pressures. Most of the central banks which are implementing the inflation targeting regime are using core inflation indicators based on the exclusion of certain components, however there are several central banks which are using statistical measures of core inflation such as the trimmed mean and weighted median. This article also describes the existing core inflation indicators as well as the main features of the trimmed mean and weighted median for the Republic of Moldova. Even though the obtained indicators of core inflation have different values, they have similar trajectories.

Connections between Will to Emigrate and Attachment Theory – A Data Mining Approach
Angel-Alex HAISAN, Vasile Paul BRESFELEAN

Many studies have been carried out in the last years in Romania, due to the scale of the phenomenon, on the factors that are responsible for the migration decision of people and the consequences of this act. The family is being generally accepted as the nucleus of a society and that’s why is very important to create a medium where it can develop and grow in a healthy way. Family is one of the 12 domains of our main study direction, quality of life and it still is the first options when it comes to individual’s support. A new aspect that should be brought into attention should be represented by the recent findings in the emigration research domain, which show that there is a significant relationship between the will to emigrate and an unresolved attachment status. So, we would like to see if indeed the emigration decision is based on financial motivations, as we’ve discovered so far, or it also has ties with other indicators.

A Study of Survival Modelling in Dialysis Patients Applying Different Statistical Tools
Diana-Silvia ZILISTEANU, Ion Radu ZILISTEANU, Mihai VOICULESCU

The aim of this study is to develop a model for survival probabilities of incident dialysis patients based on demographic, clinical and biological characteristics. We used statistical methods, mainly Cox regression, and 2 statistical tools: SPSS version 21 and Excel. During the first stage, data were analysed using SPSS software, edition 21. We performed survival analysis using Cox proportional hazard regression test, to assess the relationship of explanatory variables with survival time. Second stage of analysis was performed using Excel computations based on the results provided by Cox analysis. Starting from the basal risk curve, and applying the coefficients derived from the Cox regression analysis, the hazard curve was calculated for any combination of values for the variables included in the equation. Based on these elements, we constructed an Excel model for survival simulation.

The Redistributive Effect of the Romanian Tax-Benefit System: A Microsimulation Approach
Eva MILITARU

This paper attempts to investigate the income distribution of Romanian households, focusing on the role of the tax-benefit system in income redistribution. We evaluate the redistributive effect by estimating income inequality changes due to tax-benefit components. We use EU-SILC microdata and the EUROMOD microsimulation model to simulate income components. The results point out that income inequality is considerably reduced through the tax-benefit system, as a great deal of income is redistributed among households. The analysis of the income components that contribute to inequality reduction emphasizes that pensions, personal income taxes and social benefits are in favour of inequality reduction, while social contributions act the opposite way. Our results are sensitive to social and fiscal policy changes.

Survey Regarding Resistance to Change in Romanian Innovative SMEs from IT Sector
Eduard Gabriel CEPTUREANU

Unfortunately, few changes predominantly generate positive effects involving major effort and costs are often not far short of expectations. Why efforts to implement the changes result in failure or do not match the expected results? We will try to formulate a response based on achieving an investigation on a sample of 819 SMEs innovative IT Romanian order: (i) identify the types of resistance to change prevailing in the analyzed companies; (ii) identify change management tools used to reduce resistance to change; (iii) proliferation substantiate future directions of change management in Romanian.