Modeling Strategies for Categorical Data: Examples from Housing and Tenure Choice

Models to investigate categorical data can be divided into preprocessing, limited parameterization, and formal logit models. To illustrate the advantages of preprocessing and limited parameterization models they are applied to a data set of tenure and type of housing choice before the data are examined with hierarchical logit and nested logit models. The preprocessing approaches are useful in selecting optimal subsets of independent variables with respect to the dependent variable. The ease of application and interpretation of a limited parameterization approach extends the clarity of the results from the preprocessing approaches. Because some variables are only relevant at specific levels of other independent variables, nonstandard (nested) logit models are necessary to understand the nested relationships.     

The Middle Stone Age of East Africa and the beginnings of regional identity

The history of research into the Middle Stone Age of East Africa and the present state of knowledge of this time period is examined for the region as a whole, with special reference to paleoenvironments. The known MSA sites and occurrences are discussed region by region and attempts are made to fit them into a more precise chronological framework and to assess their cultural affinities. The conclusion is reached that the Middle Stone Age lasted for some 150,000 years but considerably more systematic and in-depth research is needed into this time period, which is now perceived as of great significance since it appears to span the time of the evolution of anatomically Modern humans in the continent, perhaps in East Africa.     

THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, AMENITIES AND FISCAL FACTORS ON AGE-SPECIFIC MIGRATION RATES

ABSTRACT. Migration models have considered several different categories of determinants, including economic opportunities, amenities, and state and local fiscal factors. Migration has also been shown to depend on the individual's position in the life cycle. This paper represents a first attempt to integrate all three categories of determinants of migration into a life-cycle framework. Empirical findings generated from a countrywide model of white male migration, over the period 1970 to 1980, reveal that all three types of determinants are important. Specifically, economic opportunities are most influential for males during their working years. Amenities are also found to follow a life-cycle pattern with older migrants more attracted to amenable locations than their younger cohorts. Finally, state income and death taxes display life-cycle effects; working males in their peak earning years are detracted by high income taxes while all migrants aged 55 to 69 avoid counties in states with high inheritance and estate taxes.     

Evaluating the Environmental Effects of Agricultural Policy

The fact that agricultural policy decisions can have important environmental consequences has become common knowledge among policy scholars and policy practitioners. This relationship is reflected in the increasingly prominent soil conservation and environmental protection components of the 1985 and 1990 Farm Bills. In debating the value of continuing these provisions in the upcoming reauthorization of this legislation, scholars and politicians alike focus almost exclusively on their water quality benefits. However, the soil conservation components of agricultural policy also may affect air quality significantly. Using multivariate transfer function analysis, we find that implementation of the 1985 Farm Bill's Conservation Reserve Program has improved air quality significantly in that area of the country most plagued by agricultural air pollution.     

Auschwitz and Hiroshima

Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: History Writing and the Second World War, 1945–1990. By R. J. B. Bosworth (London and New York: Routledge, 1993) xv + 260 pps. £40.00 cloth.