none

The importance of education for individual well-being, social cohesion and economic growth is widely accepted by researchers and policymakers alike. Yet there exist vast numbers of people around the world, largely poor, who continue to lag behind wealthier people, often within their own nations. Conditional cash transfer programs were created to encourage investments in education and health by subsidizing their cost and changing household preferences. The programs increase short-term income as well as future wage potential, thus decreasing short-term and long-term poverty, as well as the poverty that is passed from generation to generation. Begun in Mexico and Brazil, the conditional cash transfer model is being replicated in many countries, but its replicability across socioeconomic and political contexts is far from clear. The present study adds to the research on conditional cash transfer programs through a comparative quantitative analysis of the effects of two programs on key educational outcomes in Nicaragua and Colombia. Using secondary panel data for the Nicaraguan Red de Proteccion Social and the Colombian Familias en Accion programs, a model reflecting demand constraints to education is used to determine the relative impacts of individual and household characteristics in the schooling decision, as well as to measure program impact in some of the most impoverished communities in the two countries. The empirical analysis is situated within a description of the historical, political and demographic contexts into which the programs were introduced. The results indicate that both programs increased enrollment and attendance, with lesser but still positive effects on retention. These effects were stronger for boys in Colombia, as was the importance of schooling expectations in determining enrollment. The study suggests that conditional cash transfer programs should be effective in other settings in which low educational attainment is caused largely by a lack of household resources. / text

In financial econometrics the modeling of asset return series is closely related to the estimation of the corresponding conditional densities. One reason why one is interested in the whole conditional density and not only in the conditional mean, is that the conditional variance can be interpreted as a measure of time-dependent volatility of the return series. In fact, the modeling and the prediction of volatility is one of the central topics in asset pricing. In this paper we propose to estimate conditional densities semi-nonparametrically in a neural network framework. Our recurrent mixture density networks realize the basic ideas of prominent GARCH approaches but they are capable of modeling any continuous conditional density also allowing for time-dependent higher-order moments. Our empirical analysis on daily DAX data shows that out-of-sample volatility predictions of the neural network model are superior to predictions of GARCH models in that they have a higher correlation with implied volatilities. (author's abstract) / Series: Report Series SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

This thesis reports the results of both normative and empirical investigations into human conditional reasoning, i.e. reasoning using if ... then and related constructions. Previous empirical investigations have concentrated on experimental paradigms like Wason's Selection Task, where subjects must assess evidence relevant to the truth or falsity of a conditional rule. Popperian falsification provided the normative theory by which to assess errorful behaviour on these tasks. However, it is doubtful whether this is an appropriate normative theory from which to derive a competence model of human reasoning abilities. The relationship between normative theory and competence model need not be direct, no more than the relationship between competence model and performance needs to be. However, research in this area has imported a theory directly into individual psychology from the philosophy of science. On the apparently orthodox assumption of directness, continued adherence to this import may stand in need of re-assessment in the light of the quite radical descriptive inadequacy of falsification as a model of rational scientific inquiry. However, this model also possesses the virtue of relating the interpretation of the rule directly to the normative task strategy. Hence, this thesis has two aims: first, to retain the virtue of a direct relation between normative task strategy and interpretation while simultaneously offering a competence model which is consistent with more recent and descriptively adequate accounts of the process of scientific inquiry. In Part I, this will involve introducing a semantic theory (situation semantics) and showing that the process of inquiry implicit in this semantic theory is consistent with recent normative conceptions in the philosophy of science. The second aim is to show that the competence model derived in Part I can provide a sound rational basis for subjects' observed patterns of reasoning in conditional reasoning tasks. In Part II, chapter 5, the data obtained from the Wason Selection Task using only affirmative rules is discussed and the behaviour observed rationally reconstructed in terms of the competence model of Part I. A central concept of that model is partial interpretation (motivated by concerns of context sensitivity). Prima facie evidence for partial interpretation is provided by the observation of defective truth tables. However, in conditional reasoning experiments using negated constituents, this evidence has been interpreted differently. A subsidiary aim of Part II (which will constitute the largest section of this thesis) therefore concerns the empirical demonstration of the consistency of this data with the competence model.

The purpose of this study is to re-analyze existing findings in order to demonstrate and summarize relationships between criteria and the sub-scales/dimensions of the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (CRT-A): Externalizing, Internalizing, and Powerlessness. A CRT-A sub-scale was expected to relate more strongly with criteria categorized as being more relevant to the dimension that is represented by that sub-scale. For criteria that were categorized as relevant to only a subset of the dimensions represented by CRT-A sub-scales, the regression of a criterion on all three sub-scales was expected to create a better fitting model than the regression of a criterion on the CRT-A total score alone. Scales were also expected to interact to predict criteria. This was expected to be most likely when multiple dimensions of implicit aggression were activated by environmental factors to influence specific behaviors. Support was found for all expectations

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Giessen.

Inaug.-Diss.--Tübingen, 1970. / Vita. Includes the German text of Lag om vad som är fast egendom and Lag om företagsinteckning. Bibliography: p. vi-xv.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Heidelberg.

Three experiments arranged a concurrent chained schedule that probabilistically arranged reinforcement or extinction. In Experiments 1 and 2, the probability of obtaining food in the terminal link period, following a given left or right lever choice, was the complement of the probability that the initial link choice would produce a transition to the terminal link. Also, the probability of reinforcement in the terminal link was either signaled or unsignaled, depending upon condition. In Experiment 1, a steady-state environment kept the relative probabilities of reinforcement constant within-session and Experiment 2 varied the relative probabilities of reinforcement within-session. Experiment 3 arranged equal rates of terminal link transition to either a signaled-reinforcement or an unsignaled-reinforcement terminal link. The location of the signaled option and the relative probabilities of reinforcement changed within-session. The signaled option produced either a reinforcement-correlated terminal link stimulus (i.e., conditional reinforcement) or an extinction-correlated terminal link stimulus. The unsignaled alternative produced the same terminal link stimulus regardless of the outcome. Overall, Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that rats frequently favor the option providing higher rates of terminal link transition at the expense of the probability of terminal link unconditional reinforcement. However, in Experiment 2, this tendency was reduced when the probabilities of reinforcement were signaled, suggesting weak control by conditional reinforcement. Experiment 3 did not show preference for the reinforcement-correlated signaled option in rats. Rather, it appears overall preference was controlled by an avoidance of the extinction-correlated option.

Memory, or the ability to recall previously learned information, has been evaluated among different populations. Some previous research has utilized different forms of verbal prompts to assist participants in recalling associations. These verbal prompts can be categorized as simple or elaborative. Although previous research has indicated that both forms of verbal prompts are effective in teaching individuals to relate stimulus pairs, there is currently no research that compares these prompting methods. Therefore, the current study sought to compare simple and elaborative prompts for teaching a picture-association task with four typically developing preschool children. Data suggest that elaborative prompts were more effective in teaching associations across all participants and resulted in similar levels of maintenance at 1-week and 1-month probes. Keywords. associative learning, memory, verbal prompts