This paper develops an empirical methodology for the construction of a synthetic multi-dimensional cross-country comparison of the performance of governments around the world in improving the livelihood of their younger population. The devised "Youth Welfare Index" is based on the nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology and…

Extreme-value statistics is often used to estimate so-called return values (actually related to quantiles) for environmental quantities like wind speed or wave height. A basic method for estimation is the method of block maxima which consists in partitioning observations in blocks, where maxima from each block could be considered independent.…

Describes similarities and differences between additive conjoint measurement and the Rasch model, and formalizes some new nonparametric item response models that are, in a sense, probabilistic measurement theory models. Applies these new models to published and simulated data. (SLD)