On solow's residual with intermediate goods

Many efforts have been made to identify the sources of the ‘unexplained’ output, better known as the ‘residual’ generated in the process of growth. The paper is an attempt to show that the magnitude of the estimated residual based on Professor Solow's well‐known method actually depends on how the dependent variable in the production function is defined. Part of the computed residual is built‐in if value‐added, instead of gross production, is chosen as the dependent variable when Solow's method is applied to a disaggregated model. The paper also demonstrates how the extent of the bias is measured.     

Mother's Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and U.S. Servicemen,World War II

Mother's Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and U.S. Servicemen, World War II. Edited by Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2016), pp.xxiv + 379, US$65.00 (hb).     

Experimental and casework validation of ambient temperature corrections in forensic entomology

This paper expands on Archer (J Forensic Sci 49, 2004, 553), examining additional factors affecting ambient temperature correction of weather station data in forensic entomology. Sixteen hypothetical body discovery sites (BDSs) in Victoria and New South Wales (Australia), both in autumn and in summer, were compared to test whether the accuracy of correlation was affected by (i) length of correlation period; (ii) distance between BDS and weather station; and (iii) periodicity of ambient temperature measurements. The accuracy of correlations in data sets from real Victorian and NSW forensic entomology cases was also examined. Correlations increased weather data accuracy in all experiments, but significant differences in accuracy were found only between periodicity treatments. We found that a >5°C difference between average values of body in situ and correlation period weather station data was predictive of correlations that decreased the accuracy of ambient temperatures estimated using correlation. Practitioners should inspect their weather data sets for such differences.     

The effect of time after body discovery on the accuracy of retrospective weather station ambient temperature corrections in forensic entomology

Weather station data are used by forensic entomologists to estimate ambient temperatures at body discovery sites. Correlation data from sites may also be collected to correct for site and station differences. This experiment tested the accuracy over time of retrospective weather data correction using linear regression between stations and sites. Temperatures were logged at six hypothetical body discovery sites during a seven-day period for which a hypothetical body lay in situ, and a further four correlation periods. The accuracy of weather data for hypothetical body in situ periods improved after correction in 22 of 24 correlations; however, mean predicted body in situ temperatures for sites differed significantly between correlation periods. Predicted temperatures generally rose with time after body removal, which correlated with rising site temperatures accompanying seasonal change. Therefore, practitioners should be cautious in making correlations if weather patterns during correlation differ greatly from those while the body was in situ.     

The Political Science of Democratic Transition in Eastern Europe

Political science is presented with an unprecedented case of democratic transition in Eastern Europe with a set of societies that are said to have been atomized by party state organs and without the other formal preconditions for transition to liberal democracy. The article surveys current writings and theories on transition to see whether they fit the East European cases. The stress in the literature on the primacy of endogenous factors, the role of entrepreneurial capitalism and the leading role of elites in facilitating a transition to democracy is of little value in the Eastern European context where exogenous factors, the absence of capitalism and the role of the masses were crucial in the downfall ofcornmunism. The prospects for the survival of democracy are discussed in the light of the way the new regimes were inaugurated.