bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Currency Substitution: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis for Germany and Europe
Authors: Seitz Franz , Reimers Hans‐Eggert
Published: March 2003

The deutschmark is the anchor currency within the asymmetrical functioning of the European Monetary System (EMS). Thus the proper functioning of the monetary targeting strategy of the Bundesbank is a necessary prerequisite of the success of the system. This strategy relies heavily on stable monetary relations. Because of the big weight of the German monetary aggregate in a European aggregate this stability also has very important repercussions for monetary policy of the future European System of Central Banks. Currency substitution (CS) relative to other European currencies may cause instability in the German money demand equation. Theoretically there are arguments in favour of and against CS in the EMS. Empirically this phenomenon is analysed for a German money demand equation for M3. CS effects are investigated by testing the significance of CS variables in the short‐run dynamics of an error correction mechanism. In most cases there are no significant CS effects. Exceptions are Italy and the European Union as a whole, where the weight of currencies which have frequently depreciated against the deutschmark is high.
Consumption and Wealth: An International Comparison
Authors: Sefton J. A. , In’t Veld J. W.
Published: March 2003

This paper derives the discrete‐time counterpart of Blanchard’s overlapping generations model of consumer expenditure. The model is combined with two different models of liquidity‐constrained consumers; in the first the percentage of income accruing to such consumers is constant; in the second it is allowed to decrease over time. These models are estimated for five countries over the period 1967–92, and pass all standard specifications as well as some alternative non‐parametric tests.

Our estimates suggest that in Canada and the USA the number of liquidity‐constrained consumers decreased substantially in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Germany and the UK these changes occurred later and were less pronounced.
Trade Policies and Equilibrium Unemployment
Authors: Batra Ravi , Beladi Hamid
Published: March 2003

In this paper we develop a simple general equilibrium model of trade to analyze the impact of tariffs and technical progress on the equilibrium rate of unemployment. We demonstrate that if a country imposes a tariff its equilibrium rate of unemployment is likely to rise, whereas the impact of technology on equilibrium unemployment depends on the labor intensity of the two sectors.
A Memoir on the Life of Harold Thayer Davis (1892–1974)
Authors: Farebrother Richard William
Published: March 2003

In this paper we give brief details of the life of Harold Thayer Davis (1892–1974) and outline his contributions to econometrics in its early years.
Output Taxation, Human Capital and Growth
Authors: Capolupo Rosa
Published: March 2003

In this paper we investigate the long‐run effects of government spending and taxation in an endogenous growth setting. The model is a variant of Barro’s model (‘Government Expenditure in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 98, 1990, pp. S103–S125) and Lucas’s model (‘On the Mechanics of Economic Development’, Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 22, 1988, pp. 3–42) in which human capital accumulation is driven by government spending on public education. To balance the budget the government levies a tax on output in two alternative specifications of the human capital accumulation equation. The results consolidate some recent findings that taxation, when it is used for productive purposes, may lead to faster growth. Growth rates increase with taxes up to a level around 60–70 per cent.
Is Aggregate Consumer Borrowing Consistent with the Permanent Income Hypothesis?
Authors: Park Sangkyun , Rodrigues Anthony P.
Published: March 2003

Using US data covering from 1959 to 1994, we examine the consistency of aggregate consumer borrowing with the permanent income/life‐cycle hypothesis (PI/LCH) and the predictive power of consumer borrowing. The PI/LCH implies that consumer borrowing should be an increasing function of the gap between permanent and current income. In addition, if consumers accurately estimate permanent income, large borrowing should be associated with rapid income growth in the future. Our empirical results support the PI/LCH; consumer borrowing increases with the estimate of permanent income and decreases with current income. The predictive power of consumer borrowing, however, is marginal; lagged consumer borrowing explains only a small portion of income growth and does not Granger‐cause income growth.
It’s Different for Girls: Participation and Occupational Segregation in the USA
Authors: Johnes Geraint
Published: March 2003

An empirical model is estimated which evaluates the determinants of labour market participation and occupational choice. The response of the latter to changes in expected earnings is somewhat weaker amongst women, especially married women, than amongst men. One interpretation of this finding is that occupational segregation is present.
Mean–Variance Efficiency, Aggregate Shocks and Return Horizons
Authors: Fraser Patricia , Groenewold Nicolaas
Published: March 2003

Using monthly, semi‐annual and annual sampling frequencies from February 1974 to June 1996, we reject the mean–variance efficiency of the Australian stock market while supporting the view that conditional variances are not constant in time. Results indicate that unexpected movements in key aggregate factors have added value in explaining industrial sector conditional volatility, particularly at horizons of six months and greater.
Stochastic Money Demand and the Inflation–Uncertainty Relationship
Authors: Powers Dennis
Published: March 2003

It has long been asserted that there exists a correlation between expected inflation and inflation uncertainty. While the empirical evidence seems to support this hypothesis there have been relatively few formal explanations offered for the phenomenon. I argue that there is a very simple reason for the observed correlation between expected inflation and inflation uncertainty. If real money demand is stochastic, inflation must also be stochastic. Any increase in the growth rate of money merely rescales the distribution of inflation causing an increase in the conditional standard deviation of inflation.
Malliavin's Calculus in Insider Models: Additional Utility and Free Lunches
Authors: Imkeller Peter
Published: March 2003

We consider simple models of financial markets with regular traders and insiders possessing some extra information hidden in a random variable that is accessible to the regular trader only at the end of the trading interval. The problems we focus on are the calculation of the additional utility of the insider and a study of his free lunch possibilities. The information drift—that is, the drift to eliminate in order to preserve the martingale property in the insider's filtration—turns out to be the crucial quantity needed to answer these questions. It is most elegantly described by the logarithmic Malliavin trace of the conditional laws of the insider information with respect to the filtration of the regular trader. Several examples are given to illustrate additional utility and free lunch possibilities. In particular, if the insider has advance knowledge of the maximal stock price process, given by a regular diffusion, arbitrage opportunities exist.
Philosophy: National and International
Authors: Erjavec Alešs
Published: March 2003

The recent upsurge of national sentiments in the former socialist countries has also brought about the desire to create “national”philosophies. Such attempts are bound to be unsuccessful, partly because of the increasingly internationalized contexts of philosphical inquiry. What is possible instead and is actually taking place in many countries, cultures, and even cities are philosophical “schools” In smaller countries frequently the most productive position for philosophy is to be simultaneously national and international, facilitating in this way a critical discussion within the limited national cultural space and simultaneously pursuing universal philosophical problems.
On the Special Logic Thesis in Chinese Philosophy
Authors: Tang Paul C.L.
Published: March 2003

I address the problem of whether philosophy can be international by its claim to represent rationality, hence universality. I argue in favor of this claim by focusing on the special logic thesis in Chinese philosophy. This thesis holds that a different type of logic must be used when studying the Chinese texts. I argue at length against the special logic thesis by examining the problem of human nature in the Confucian philosophers Mencius, Hsün Tzu and Kao Tzu. I show how their arguments can be reconstructed as inductive analogical arguments and as deductive argument. I then broaden the notion of the logic of argumentation into a discussion of metaphysical anti‐essentialism and underdetermination in order to resolve the problem of human nature and also to show how the same types of logical analysis (more generally construed) can be applied to the arguments from these Confucian philosophers. Under my treatment, Kao Tzu, somewhat surprisingly, turns out to provide the most insight.
A French Perspective on Internationalism in Philosophy
Authors: Delacampagne Christian
Published: March 2003

Attached for a long time to the illusion of its national “singularity”, French philosophy has remained, for a good part of this century, closed to any foreign influence (with the exception of German phenomenology and existentialism). This situation started to change, however, in the early 1980’s. From that moment on, the tendency to translate foreign philosophy has strongly increased among French publishers, allowing France to take a more active part in the international philosophical conversation. The French‐American dialogue, in particular, is currently experiencing an expanding phase –but this recent trend must continue to be encouraged from both sides of the Atlantic.
Should a Naturalist Be a Supervenient Physicalist?
Authors: Moreland J. P.
Published: March 2003

I clarify a widely accepted form of contemporary naturalism and argue that supervenient physicalism should not be considered an option for those who embrace this version of naturalism. Among other things, my thesis implies that if there are insuperable difficulties for strict physicalism, then the move toward supervenience views of the mind/body problem amounts to an abandonment of this version of naturalism and not a minor adjustment of it. More precisely, my argument is this: strict physicalism excludes both substance and property or event dualism. But the supervenience thesis entails some form of property or event dualism. So strict physicalism excludes the supervenience thesis. Moreover, given the nature of a widely accepted contemporary understanding of naturalism, it is best construed along strict physicalist lines and naturalists of this persuasion should not be supervenient physicalists. To make my case, I offer a characterization of a ubiquitous version of contemporary naturalism followed by an analysis of the most plausible version of supervenient physicalism consistent with this form of naturalism. I then try to show why this version of supervenient physicalism should not be an option for a naturalist of a certain persuasion.
Teaching Legal Theory with Venn Diagrams
Authors: Burgess‐Jackson Keith
Published: March 2003

Venn diagrams, which are widely used in introductory logic courses, provide a convenient and illuminating way of presenting the various theories concerning the nature of law. When combined with the Aristotelian square of opposition, these diagrams show not only how the theories are related to one another, logically, which is essential to understanding them, but also which theories are compossible. One surprising result of this approach is that it shows the substantive compatibility of the theories of law set forth by H. L. A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin, who are usually pitted against one another. I show, through quotation and visual representation, that there is no essential disagreement between these jurisprudential stalwarts concerning the relation of law and morality.
Perplexity and Mystery
Authors: Mann William E.
Published: March 2003

In this paper I comment on Gareth B. Matthews's “The Socratic Augustine” and Peter King's “Augustine on the Impossibility of Teaching.” Matthews's paper adduces several instances of Augustine's apparent willingness to accept Socratic perplexity in some philosophical matters. Matthews suggests that these cases are compatible with Augustine's dogmatism because Augustine presupposes that the phenomena in question, although perplexing, are actual. I suggest instead that Augustine can be viewed as taking a neutral stance toward many of his examples, because they arise in areas of philosophical inquiry where it is not important to the tenets of his faith that he hold the right opinion. King defends the Augustinian thesis that teaching, construed as the causal transmission of knowledge from teacher to learner, is, if not impossible, at least mysterious. I suggest that much of the alleged mystery may rest on a confusion between epistemological dependency and metaphysical dependency.
Is Wittgenstein's Resort to Ordinary Language an Appeal to Empirical facts?
Authors: Kindi Vassiliki
Published: March 2003

There are two widely held views in the literature as regards Wittgenstein’s philosophy. One says that Wittgenstein in his later work appeals to ordinary language in his effort to show how the philosophical problems can be dissolved, and the other says that his investigation is a grammatical one. This paper undertakes to examine what is meant by a grammatical investigation, especially in view of the fact that this investigation relies on empirical facts that have to do with linguistic usage. The examination is carried out by concentrating on what Wittgenstein has to say on the issue of knowledge – in particular, how the way we use the word contributes to the dismissal of Moore's answer to the challenge of scepticism. The conclusion is that Wittgenstein's resort to ordinary language is not typically empirical. The examples of ordinary usage that he cites may be contingent, but they could not have been different given the language games they are part of. The correct use of words Wittgenstein appeals to is not fixed by some kind of essence, but neither is it decided by a majority rule. It gets entrenched in a complex nexus of practices. Wittgenstein's reference to “use” instead of ‘usage”and to “linguistic facts” instead of “sociological facts” lends support more to a logical than to an empirical investigation.
Far Away Now: Time and Distance Revisited
Authors: Boyle Dennis E.
Published: March 2003

Einstein claimed that we do not know what it means to say that events distant from one another are simultaneous, because there is no way to determine this operationally. Reichenbach and Grunbaum claimed that determinate time relations just do not exist among events not connectible by a causal signal and that, therefore, such relations can, within certain limits, be stipulated by convention. But I argue that the independent existence of such relations is demonstrated by asking and answering a series of questions based on the intelligibility, though not the existence, of faster‐than‐light signals. I further argue that (1) only by demonstrating the unintelligibility of such questions and their answers can the conventionality thesis be maintained; (2) none of the available arguments to show such unintelligibility works; and (3) the conventionality thesis is therefore false.
A Solution to the Paradox of Analysis
Authors: Kuczynski John‐Michael
Published: March 2003

This essay attempts to solve the so‐called paradox of analysis: if one is to have any questions about x, one must know x; but if one knows x, one has no questions about x. The obvious solution is this: one can inquire into x if one knows some, but not all, of x's parts. But this solution is erroneous. Let x′ be those parts of x with which one is acquainted, and let S be the percipient in question. As with x, either S knows x′, in which case he has no questions about it; or S does not know x′, in which case he has no questions about it.

My solution is this. Perception and cognition give us, not the thing‐in‐itself, but a certain analogue of the thing‐in‐itself. To inquire into x, it is necessary to know not x, but only some analogue of x; and to learn more about x is to become acquainted with increasingly precise analogues of x.
Rescher's Metaphilosophy
Authors: Triplett Timm
Published: March 2003

Books reviewed in this article:

Nicholas Rescher, Philosophical Standardism

Nicholas Rescher, The Strife of Systems

Nicholas Rescher, A System of Pragmatic Idealism. Vol. III, Metaphysical Inquiries
Women, Evil, and Grey Zones
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: March 2003

Gray zones, which develop wherever oppression is severe and lasting, are inhabited by victims of evil who become complicit in perpetrating on others the evils that threaten to engulf themselves. Women, who have inhabited many gray zones, present challenges for feminist theorists, who have long struggled with how resistance is possible under coercive institutions. Building on Primo Levi's reflections on the gray zone in Nazi death camps and ghettos, this essay argues that resistance is sometimes possible, although outsiders are rarely, if ever, in a position to judge when. It also raises questions about the adequacy of ordinary moral concepts to mark the distinctions that would be helpful for thinking about how to respond in a gray zone.
Computation and Causation
Authors: Scheines Richard
Published: March 2003

The computer’s effect on our understanding of causation has been enormous. By the mid‐1980s, philosophical and social‐scientific work on the topic had left us with (1) no reasonable reductive account of causation and (2) a class of statistical causal models tied to linear regression. At this time, computer scientists were attacking the problem of equipping robots with models of the external that included probabilistic portrayals of uncertainty. To solve the problem of efficiently storing such knowledge, they introduced Bayes Networks and directed graphs. By attaching a causal interpretation to Bayes Networks, the philosophy of causation changed dramatically. We are now able to be extremely general about how causal structure connects to data, and systematic about when causal structures are empirically indistinguishable. In this essay I try to motivate and describe this synthesis.
Philosophy for Computers: Some Explorations in Philosophical Modeling
Authors: Grim Patrick
Published: March 2003

Philosophical modeling has a long and distinguished history, but the computer offers new and powerful prospects for the creation and manipulation of models. It seems inevitable that the computer will become a major tool in future philosophical research. Here I offer an overview of explorations in philosophical computer modeling that we in the Group for Logic and Formal Semantics at SUNY Stony Brook have undertaken: explorations regarding (1) the potential emergence of cooperation in a society of egoists, (2) self‐reference and paradox in fuzzy logic, (3) a fractal approach to formal systems, and (4) on‐going explorations with models for the emergence of communication. The attempt is not to give a detailed report on any of these but to give a bird s‐eye view of them all, emphasizing the general form that the models take, the philosophical motivations behind them, and the kinds of philosophical results that they may have to offer.
Theories of Practical Reason
Authors: Wiland Eric
Published: March 2003

Leading theories of practical reason can be grouped into one of four families: psychologism, realism, compatibilism, and Aristotelianism. Although there are many differences among the theories within each family, I ignore these in order to ask which family is most likely to deliver a satisfactory philosophical account of reasons for action. I articulate three requirements we should expect any adequate theory of practical reason to meet: it should account for (1) how reasons explain action, (2) how reasons justify action, and (3) how an agent can act for the reason that justifies her action. Only the Aristotelian theory, however, can meet all three requirements. It avoids the problems that plague the other theories by grounding reasons neither in psychological states nor in facts totally independent of the agent in question, but in the nature of the kind of creature the agent is. Our explanations of action need descend to the biographical only when explaining why a human being does not act in ways characteristic of her kind. The Aristotelian view of practical reason, then, appears to be the most promising program for future work.
Does the Public Intellectual Have Intellectual Integrity?
Authors: Alcoff Linda Martín
Published: March 2003

This article is concerned with the devaluation of the work of public intellectuals within the academic community. The principal reason given for this devaluation is that the work of the public intellectual does not have intellectual integrity as independent thought and original scholarship. I develop three models of public intellectual work: the permanent–critic model, the popularizer model, and the public–theorist model. I then consider each model in relation to the concern with intellectual integrity and conclude that both independent thought and original scholarship are possible within work that is engaged with nonacademic publics.
Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Luck
Authors: Pritchard Duncan
Published: March 2003

The recent movement towards virtue–theoretic treatments of epistemological concepts can be understood in terms of the desire to eliminate epistemic luck. Significantly, however, it is argued that the two main varieties of virtue epistemology are responding todifferenttypes of epistemic luck. In particular, whilst proponents of reliabilism–based virtue theories have been focusing on the problem of what I call “veritic” epistemic luck, non–reliabilism–based virtue theories have instead been concerned with a very different type of epistemic luck, what I call “reflective” epistemic luck. It is argued that, prima facie at least, both forms of epistemic luck need to be responded to by any adequate epistemological theory. The problem, however, is that one can best eliminate veritic epistemic luck by adducing a so–called safety–based epistemological theory that need not be allied to a virtue–based account, and there isnofully adequate way of eliminating reflective epistemic luck. I thus conclude that this raises a fundamental difficulty for virtue–based epistemological theories, on either construal.
Technical Changes and the Rate of Profit in Models with Joint Production and Externalities: A Duality Approach
Authors: Fujimoto Takao , Ranade Ravindra R.
Published: March 2003

This paper generalizes a result due to Okishio: the rate of profit increases as a result of cost reducing technical changes. The generalization is carried out first in a model of joint production which allows for new processes and commodities to be introduced or some of the old ones to be discarded. Then we consider nonlinear models incorporating external and internal (dis)economies
A Note on Dynamic Optimization, Maintenance Expenditure and Quality of Capital
Authors: Moretto Michele
Published: March 2003

The dynamic interaction between investment–maintenance decisions and uncertainty about the capital's future productivity status is considered. Maintenance influences the flow of services provided by a stock of capital, affecting the firm's technological knowledge of capital productivity. In a simple Lerner–Haavelmo–Jorgenson framework with constant returns to scale and linear homogeneous cost of adjustment, two closed forms for the firm's market value are presented and the impact of uncertainty on investment–maintenance policy is analyzed. The optimal management strategy uses maintenance to sustain the profitability of existing capital. This smooths out investment fluctuations and lengthens the periods of time in which the firm invests. Nevertheless, since the random movement of quality of capital makes the marginal revenue products of capital decline over time and maintenance cannot offset this tendency, a stochastic switching time emerges at which the firm will find it optimal to stop investing and let the stock deplete.
Fiscal Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model with Productive Government Spending
Authors: Greiner Alfred
Published: March 2003

The goal of this paper is to analyse the effects of fiscal policy upon the long‐run balanced growth rate in an endogenous growth model in which sustained per capita growth is the result of productive government spending. Assuming that labour is supplied inelastically, it is shown that increases in non‐productive government spending, i.e. public consumption or lump‐sum transfers, always reduce the balanced growth rate, whereas there exists a growth‐maximizing investment subsidy rate and income tax rate. Moreover, a rise in a tax on consumption increases economic growth if it raises public investment. If labour supply is elastic the elasticity of labour supply crucially determines the growth‐maximizing income tax rate and an increase in the tax on consumption may raise or lower economic growth.
The Organization of Production
Authors: Antonelli Cristiano
Published: March 2003

The organization of production depends on both technical and governance factors. The integration of recent advances in cost theory into production theory makes it easier to appreciate the joint effects of transaction and coordination costs interacting with wages and capital costs in the decision‐making of firms. The corporate function, integrating the production function and the governance function, facilitates the joint analysis of the full array of factors including the effects of interrelatedness and complementarities of new technologies and of pecuniary economies of scale. The corporate function and pecuniary economies of scale also provide new elements in the understanding of the ever present variety of firms in industrial structures and the role of historic time in the theory of the firm.
Profit Margins in Mexico's Manufacturing Industry: an Econometric Study
Authors: Lopez G. Julio , Puchet A. Martin , Sanchez H. Joel
Published: March 2003

Prices, wages and profit margins in Mexico have varied considerably. The purpose of this study is to analyze the evolution of profit margins in the Mexican manufacturing industry during the last two decades and to provide an explanation for the changes. The econometric study shows that surges in the exchange rate provoke increases in prices, both because imported input costs rise and because pressures from foreign competition are relaxed when domestic prices of imported goods rise. A second factor influencing margins is trade openness. Third, the level of profit margins also depends positively on the level of labor costs. An increase in labor costs tends to be passed along in a more than proportional manner to prices. Finally, an increase in interest rates seems to stimulate increases in profit margins, at least in some manufacturing divisions.
Decisions on Production and the Behaviour of Savers in Recent General Equilibrium Models
Authors: Ravagnani Fabio
Published: March 2003

Modern general equilibrium theory faces notorious difficulty in extending the analysis of production to economies without complete forward markets, since at the ‘initial date’ the owners of any firm will typically disagree about the choice of the production plan. This paper examines the main approaches to the problem, with the specific aim of verifying whether they allow a satisfactory account of the interplay between firms and savers. It is argued that the theory oscillates between assumptions that may prove incompatible with savers' rationality, and hypotheses that prevent this shortcoming but render the formation of production decisions quite hard to explain.
Uneven Development and Bilateral Conflict
Authors: Skott Peter , Sethi Rajiv
Published: March 2003

We consider the dynamics of bilateral conflict within the framework of a standard two‐country, two‐sector model of international trade with increasing returns in one sector. Free trade leads to asymmetric equilibria among otherwise identical countries and, in some circumstances, to uneven development in the sense of persistent disparities in wages, income and welfare. In the latter case, distortionary industrial policy by the less developed country may be welfare enhancing. When the dynamics of policy change are endogenized, the model gives rise to periodic changes in industrial leadership or leapfrogging. Implications of this phenomenon for the empirical literature on convergence are discussed.
Durable Goods Monopoly, Buyer Uncertainty, and Concurrent Selling and Renting
Authors: Goering Gregory E.
Published: March 2003

Stylized durable goods monopoly models typically conclude that monopolists prefer to rent their output due to commitment problems associated with sales. However, we commonly observe monopolistic firms in durable goods industries simultaneously selling and renting output. To address this apparent discrepancy a simple two‐period asymmetric information model is constructed where buyers are uncertain of the good's durability and the firm's manufacturing costs. This is a natural asymmetric information specification since the firm typically has more precise knowledge of product durability and production costs than buyers do. The analysis indicates that a monopolist may wish to concurrently sell and rent output when buyers do not have perfect knowledge. If, for example, consumers believe that product durability and manufacturing costs are higher than they truly are, the firm may wish to simultaneously sell and rent output. Thus buyers' expectations about firm costs and product durability are of critical importance in durable goods models, particularly in terms of explaining concurrent rentals and sales.
Government Spending Composition in an Endogenous Growth Model with Congestion
Authors: Piras Romano
Published: March 2003

We build an endogenous growth model in which government expenditure is divided into public consumption and investment in public capital, and where both components suffer from some degree of congestion. We demonstrate that the socially optimal growth rate is negatively related to the degree of congestion. As regards the optimal share of government spending on infrastructure, we prove that an increase in congestion leads to a decrease in this share and that the optimal share of government spending on output can increase or decrease with congestion. In addition, we compare the social planner optimum with the second‐best outcome and show that, in this second case, welfare is lower. In this framework, we derive a necessary condition, which must hold in the second‐best equilibrium, involving the income tax rate and the share of government spending on public investment.
The Struggle over Employee Benefits: The Role of Labor in Influencing Modern Health Policy
Authors: Rosner David , Markowitz Gerald
Published: March 2003

Health care policy has often been described as the work of political actors seeking to benefit the larger community or a particular group of individuals. In 20th‐century America, those actors worked in a historical context shaped by demographic and political pressures created during a period of rapid industrial change. Whereas scholars have placed the emergence of European social welfare in such a larger frame, their analysis of movements for health insurance in the United States has largely ignored the need for a frame. If anything, their studies have focused on the lack of a radical political working‐class movement in this country as an explanation for the absence of national or compulsory health insurance. Indeed, this absence has dominated analyses of the failure of health policy reform in this country, which generally ignore even these passing historical allusions to the role of class in shaping health policy. Explanations of why health care reform failed during the Clinton administration cited the lack of coverage for millions of Americans but rarely alluded to the active role of labor or other working‐class groups in shaping the existing health care system.

After organized labor failed to institute national health insurance in the mid‐twentieth century, its influence on health care policy diminished even further. This article proposes an alternative interpretation of the development of health care policy in the United States, by examining the association of health policy with the relationships between employers and employees. The social welfare and health insurance systems that resulted were a direct outcome of the pressures brought by organized and unorganized labor movements. The greater dependency created by industrial and demographic changes, conflicts between labor and capital over the political meaning of disease and accidents, and attempts by the political system to mitigate the impending social crisis all helped determine new health policy options.
Regulatory Realities and Hopes
Authors: Miller Velvet G.
Published: March 2003

A New Jersey health commissioner discusses how “responsive regulation” could improve the health care industry.
Disability Management, Employee Health and Fringe Benefits, and Long‐Term‐Disability Claims for Mental Disorders: An Empirical Exploration
Authors: Salkever David S. , Goldman Howard , Purushothaman Mohankumar , Shinogle Judith
Published: March 2003

Mental disorders account for a large share of claims and benefit costs in both private and public long‐term‐disability (LTD) insurance programs. This is the first empirical study to explore factors that may explain variations in private‐sector LTD claims incidence and cost across groups of employees. Employee fringe‐benefit arrangements, including patterns of coverage for mental health treatment, are found to be important predictors of incidence rates. Award rates for public disability insurance coverage (SSDI) are also strongly related to claims incidence, suggesting that private LTD is an important pathway to SSDI benefits. Some employee disability‐management strategies, such as front‐line manager involvement and provision of alternative jobs for employees returning from disability leave, are predictive of lower claims rates and/or costs.
Alternative Funding Policies for the Uninsured: Exploring the Value of Hospital Tax Exemption
Authors: Kane Nancy M. , Wubbenhorst William H.
Published: March 2003

The tax exemption accorded private, nonprofit hospitals is being subjected to more scrutiny as the numbers of uninsured grow; meanwhile, charity care competes with market‐driven priorities. Current public policies tie hospital tax exemption to the provision of charity care, but there is a gap in the size and distribution of values between tax exemption and the charity care that is provided. Most hospitals, in a study reported here, provided free care at a level below the value of their tax exemption, even when 50 percent of bad debt was included in the care value. However, hospitals in the poorest communities offered considerably more care than the value of their tax exemption, whereas those in wealthier communities offered considerably less. Policies at local, state, and federal levels should be designed to exert leverage on hospitals to provide free care at a level commensurate with the value of their tax exemptions.
The Children's Health Insurance Program: Expanding the Framework to Evaluate State Goals and Performance
Authors: Shi Leiyu , Oliver Thomas R. , Huang Virginia
Published: March 2003

A comprehensive framework was devised to evaluate the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) established in 1997. The framework relies on a number of potential measures and data sources for reviewing the program information recorded by states in SCHIP applications, particularly their strategic objectives and proposed performance measures. The analysis reveals that the states propose a wide range of objectives and measures and that there is considerable variation among the states. Overall, states’ SCHIP plans tend to stress program enrollment and access to services but fail to emphasize the type and quality of services children receive once they are enrolled in the program. A broader conceptual framework is needed for policy makers, advocates, and researchers to make a full assessment of state goals and SCHIP performance.
2. More Conformity or More Data?
Authors: Crippen Dan
Published: March 2003

Sherry Glied and her colleagues have done an excellent job of laying out some of the modeling approaches and techniques, underlying assumptions, and results of various studies of health insurance coverage. Their observations about the lack of comparability of results are especially helpful.

Their proposed solution of a reference case may be premature, however, and, if widely adopted, stultifying. The truth is that health care research even beyond assumptions remains formative. That is, the results are scattered, not so much because of the investigators’ caprice, but because the models, and particularly the data, do not yet lend themselves to clear and consistent conclusions.

This does not mean that the typology of assumptions, for example, is not useful; quite the contrary. But it does mean that when regression results can explain only 10 to 20 percent of the variance, it may be counterproductive to attempt to impose a reference case.
4. The Problems with Estimates
Authors: Pauly Mark V.
Published: March 2003

The article by Sherry Glied, Dahlia Remler, and Joshua Graff Zivin is a useful summary and comparison of estimates of the impacts of proposals to subsidize the purchase of health insurance (private or public) as a way to reduce the number of uninsured persons. I will make one technical comment at the end of this discussion, but generally I agree with the article. What I want to discuss here is the contention (in Glied and her colleagues’ article and elsewhere) that these “cost” (really, spending) estimates either are or should be “central to the legislative prospects” of such proposals. I hasten to add that I am not arguing that the government can or should function without budgetary estimates. Of course, some numbers must be entered and then summed in order to provide estimates of total spending to be compared with estimates for total revenues. Instead, I will offer some reasons why, especially in the case of this policy intervention, such numbers need not and ought not to be central to the policy discussion.
6. Response to Comments
Authors: Glied Sherry , Remler Dahlia K. , Zivin Joshua Graff
Published: March 2003

We appreciate the interest and criticisms of our commentators. Our effort to encourage modelers to engage with one another and with the consumers of modeling results appears to have had an immediate benefit, and we hope this is the beginning of a continuing dialogue.

We recognize, as Crippen, Fishman, and Nexon noted, that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) operates under different constraints than do private modelers. While we do not specifically address how forthcoming the CBO should be about its model, we believe that greater transparency in the private modeling community regarding assumptions would help the CBO refine its model and respond to legislative requests. It would also, as Fishman and Nexon suggested, help the legislative staffers who work with the CBO.

Pauly points out a problem, the choice of an appropriate price variable, that we did not include in our sample of issues. Undoubtedly others—as well as new issues—will surface as policies evolve. As Fishman observed, there is ample room for improving models.
Neuroscience and the Mind
Authors: Ravenscroft Ian
Published: March 2003

Francis Crick has identified a doctrine‐the neuron doctrine‐which he apparently regards as both true and astonishing. I begin by carefully articulating Crick’s doctrine, arguing that whilst plausible it is certainly not astonishing. I then consider a related doctrine, the biological neuroscience thesis (BNT). According to BNT, mental science is biological neuroscience, where biological neuroscience is pretty much exhausted by neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neurochemistry. Stoljar and Gold argue that BNT is unsupported by current scientific developments. I argue that well‐established results in the cognitive sciences show that it is false.
A Connectionist Defence of the Inscrutability Thesis
Authors: Calvo Garzón Francisco
Published: March 2003

This paper consists of four parts. In section 1, I shall offer a strategy to bypass a counter‐example which Gareth Evans (1975) offers against Quine’s Thesis of the Inscrutability of Reference. In section 2, I shall introduce a criterion recently pro‐duced by Crispin Wright (1997) in terms of ‘psychological simplicity’ which threatens the perverse route offered in section 1. In section 3, I shall argue that a LOT model of human cognition could motivate Wright’s criterion. In section 4, I shall argue that if we instead model human cognition by a recurrent neural network, then Wright’s criterion is unmotivated. Thus I shall produce a Connectionist Defence of the Inscrutability Thesis.
Functionalism and Self‐Consciousness
Authors: McCullagh Mark
Published: March 2003

I offer a philosophically well‐motivated work‐around for a problem that George Bealer (‘Self‐consciousness’, Philosophical Review v. 106, 1997) has identified, which he claims is fatal to functionalism. The problem concerns how to generate a satisfactory Ramsey sentence of a psychological theory in which mental predicates occur within the scopes of other mental predicates. My central claim is that the functional roles in terms of which a creature capable of self‐consciousness identifies her own mental states must be roles that items could play within creatures whose psychology is less complex than her own.
The Gospel’s Uniqueness: Election and Untranslatability
Authors: Lindbeck George
Published: March 2003

This essay is an experiment in looking at the uniqueness of Christianity from the perspective of religions as community‐forming comprehensive semiotic systems. Uniqueness in this outlook consists formally of untranslatability and materially of the unsubstitutable memories and narratives which shape communities identities. The thesis is explored that it is now possible to regain in non‐supercessionist form the memories and narratives which gave pre‐modern non‐Marcionite Christianity its community‐constituting self‐understanding as elect people in such a way as to help transform Christian relations to non‐biblical religions in an Israel‐like non‐hegemonic direction.
“Men of Stone and Children of Struggle”: Latin American Liberationists at the End of History
Authors: Bell Daniel M.
Published: March 2003

This article critiques the political theory of Latin American liberationists and suggests a theological source of resistance to the regnant capitalist order. Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams, the liberationists’' commitment to “politcs as statecraft,” manifest originally in the hopes of seizing the state and more recently in the praise of an emergent civil society, is shown to be unable to resist “paranational hyper capitalism.” Instead, liberationists should reconsider the church as a “public”, as a social, political, economic formation in its own right. Toward this end they might learn from the Christian base communities.
The Writing of the Kingdom: Thirty‐Seven Aphorisms Towards an Eschatology of the Text
Authors: Hart D. Bentley
Published: March 2003

Starting from the question of the identities—in a given text—of author and reader, subsumed under the broader (Hegelian and post‐Hegelian) question of “self” and “other” in exteriority, this essay attempts a theological response in three critical moments: the first follows the transcendental tradition of Western thought from the (Cartesian) turn towards transcendental subjectivity to the collapse of the dialectics of subjectivity in “postmodern” thought; the second moves the problem of exteriority from the realm of recognition that of promise and expectation (eschatology); and the third formulates a Trinitarian ontology of distance that accommodates this eschatology.
Review Essay: Religionists and Theologians: Toward a Politics of Difference
Authors: Ward Graham
Published: March 2003

Book reviewed in this article:

Mark C. Taylor, About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture
Who is My Neighbor?: The Good Samaritan as a Source for Theological Anthropology
Authors: Mcfarland Ian A.
Published: March 2003

As the title of this essay suggests, the author's aim is to offer a reading of Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan in the context of contemporary debates over the nature of personhood. The essay argues that our identity as persons is bound up with our relationship with Jesus in whose life is disclosed both the identity of the three divine persons of the Trinity and the form of human personhood they make possible. To know what it means to be a person, one needs to look to Jesus who provides, through the parable of the Good Samaritan, both the model and the source of our own personhood. [Editors]
Silence and the Patience of God
Authors: Muers Rachel
Published: March 2003

This article considers some of the implications of the assertion that God is patient, and in particular the appeal to God's patience as the ground of the possibility of human patience. Reflection of God's patience raises questions about the terms in which we speak of God's prevenient activity. I explore (via the work of Nelle Moreton) the possibility of characterising silence, divine and human, as active rather than passive, and consequently of qualifying accounts of God's prevenience that focus on the divine speech act. This in turn has implications for theological ethics, which are developed using Rowan Williams' and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's thought on silence and listening.
Luther’s Trinitarian Hermeneutic and the Old Testament
Authors: Helmer Christine
Published: March 2003

In this study, the author shows that Luther’s trinitarian understanding is shaped by the royal Psalms’ dialogical model as well as informed by a hermeneutics that moors a trinitarian semantics in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. The analysis concentrates on Luther’s translation into German of two Hebrew names for God and of passages classically associated with the trinitarian doctrine (Psalm 110:1; Psalm 2:2.12). The result is a trinitarian structure of transparency. The text’s syntax, narrative and direct speech mirror literally the transparency of the divine essence through the distinguishing characteristics of each trinitarian person.
Theology and the Crisis in Darwinism
Authors: Baker Anthony D.
Published: March 2003

In the past decade, the scientific challenges to “orthodox Darwinism” have multiplied rapidly, such that it is no longer unthinkable that natural selection’s days as a universal law are numbered. But if this is the case, theologians have their work cut out for them. If Darwin’s law proves to be historically and scientifically false, a new horizon appears for the discourse between theology and natural science. What will orthodox Christianity make of the crisis in Darwinism? This article, which follows the methodological imperative of “Radical Orthodoxy”, employs Aquinas and contemporary “post‐Darwinian” science to trace a space for a theological discourse beyond both natural selection and natural theology.