In practice it may happen that a first-try econometric model is not appropriate because it violates one or more of the key assumptions that are needed to obtain valid results. In case there is something wrong with the variables, such as measurement error or strong collinearity, we may better modify the estimation method or change the model. In the present chapter we deal with endogeneity, which can, for example, be caused by measurement error, and which implies that one or more regressors are correlated with the unknown error term. This is of course not immediately visible because the errors are not known beforehand and are estimated jointly with the unknown parameters. Endogeneity can thus happen when a regressor is measured with error, and, as we see, when the data are aggregated at too low a frequency. Another issue is called multicollinearity, in which it is difficult to disentangle (the statistical significance of) the separate effects. This certainly holds for levels and squares of the same variable. Finally, we deal with the interpretation of model outcomes.

If God is eternal, then he has no beginning and no end, and His action extends to every moment, rather than being limited in time as our action is. St. Thomas unpacks the implications of these ideas. We already know from the previous Article that eternity has to do with changelessness, and we already know from Question 9 that God is changeless – so He must be eternal too, and there is nothing left to do in this Article – right? Not quite. Besides, most of the heavy lifting in this Article is in the Replies to the Objections.

Much migration research takes as its point of departure the migrant and the act of migration. In contrast, the Introduction foregrounds migrants and their families, treating migration projects like those at the heart of the book as domains of interaction between those who move and those who stay. It introduces and situates key concepts and topics, including ‘moral economies of transnational kinship’, imagination and distance, Christianity, and generation. The Introduction also discusses migrants’ arrival in the United Kingdom and the immigration context at the time, as well as the methodology used in conducting multi-sited fieldwork. It concludes with an outline of the book’s six chapters, which consider moral economies of transnational kinship from multiple perspectives and angles, from multiple social and geographic locations.

An introduction to the book, covering key ideas and concepts.

We look at the immediate consequences of the two axioms, and discover, qualitatively and then quantitatively, the phenomena of length contraction and time dilation.

Much of the current research on grammar of sign languages involves using acceptability judgments by native signers. In contrast to spoken languages, very little research has been done to investigate the validity and reliability of this method. In this chapter, I discuss the current practice of using acceptability judgments in sign linguistics. I further discuss some cases of empirical disagreement among researchers working on the same phenomena demonstrating the need for more thorough methodological research. I also argue that the fact that sign languages exist in the visual modality, and some unusual sociolinguistic features of sign languages, can also influence the use of acceptability judgments, which should be investigated further. I conclude with some practical recommendations for collecting acceptability judgments from native signers, and include an example of a hypothetical study designed according to these recommendations.

The Fraser F-index of economic freedom measures the freedom to run a private business, measured as an aggregate of many primary indices organized in five groups. It begins in 1970, but it has only a couple of observations from the countries of the Soviet Bloc before 1990, and they are not convincing. The index shows a strong rise from 1975/80 to 2000 and stability since then. The data have a highly significant transition curve. However, it is almost linear over the full range. The main direction of causality is from income to the F-index, but there is some simultaneity. The B- and the F-indices have a correlation of only 0.2, so they do not measure the same. However, the transition curves are very similar.

The two indices used in Chapters 8 and 9 cover many countries but a short period, and the period of Imperialism destroyed most traditional economic systems, so the chapter begins with a brief historical narrative including the two big waves of liberal and Socialist ideologies. An item in the World Values Survey polls the ownership preferences of the respondents. The B-index is a Gini-like aggregation of each poll of this item giving the excess preference in each of 295 polls for capitalism vs Socialism. The pattern of the polls has a significant transition curve, though the fuzziness is larger than for the political system. It appear that the preference for capitalism increases with income, contrary to Marx’s prediction. Causality is mainly from income to the index, but the relation has some simultaneity.

This chapter adds to the growing literature on the interpersonal metafunction by describing and analysing British Sign Language (BSL) from a systemic functional perspective. Whereas other chapters in this volume use the spoken and written modalities to communicate meaning, BSL operates principally in the visual-spatial modality. Nonetheless, various parallels can be drawn with other languages that have been described and analysed in SFL terms. This chapter provides a brief overview of the basics of BSL expression, focusing on the hands, upper body and space in front of a signer to give non-signing readers an insight into the basics of signed communication. Through discussions on the distinction between the planes of expression and content in BSL – and the associated difficulties when attempting to identify the distribution of semiotic labour between these planes – the interpersonal systems of MOOD, POLARITY and MODALITY are exemplified via lexicogrammatical analyses of two dialogic BSL interactions, including argumentation for a Predicator function in BSL. A full interpersonal analysis of the interactions is also presented, alongside proposals of future studies within the interpersonal metafunction and broader, more applied concerns.