bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Autonomy and Incentives in Chinese State Enterprises
Authors: Groves Theodore , Hong Yongmiao , McMillan john , Naughton Barry
Published: October 2023

In deciding the best way to reform a planned economy, one of the crucial questions is about the prospects for improvements in state-owned firms’ notoriously low productivity. Can changes in policy induce state firms to perform better? We shall offer evidence that in one reforming economy, China, state-owned firms’ productivity has been significantly improved by the introduction of some elementary incentives.
Corporate Income Tax and Other Business Taxes
Authors: Messere Ken , Kam Flip de , Heady Christopher
Published: October 2023

A major problem for a book of this kind is that issues relating to the corporation income tax base tend to be complicated and technical—more so than those of any other major tax. Also, country practices sometimes change almost yearly regarding the various possible adjustments to the tax base. Most of those details are provided in annual reports put out by large accountancy firms and are not covered here. Another group of important policy choices affecting countries with imputation systems are also omitted because of their technical complexity, but since such systems appear to be in decline, this is perhaps not too important. The almost universal trend towards lowering nominal rates and widening the base has already been discussed in Section 2.4.4. Trends in the share of corporation income tax (CIT) in total tax revenues were reviewed in Chapter 3.
Pension Reform and Demographic Trends: Is Funding the Solution?
Authors: Attanasio Orazio P , Violante Giovanni L
Published: October 2023

The issue of pension reform has recently received a considerable amount of attention both in developed countries and in developing ones. In most developed countries, the debate was stimulated by the fact that the current demographic trends, which project a dramatic increase in dependency ratios in the next 20-40 years, make the unfunded pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems, that are in place in most of these countries, simply unsustainable. Some countries in Latin America, on the other hand, have pioneered the move towards pension systems that are funded and private. Chile was the first country to go into that direction, followed in recent years by several countries, including Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. The issue of the future liabilities of pension benefits is also being discussed in other large countries, such as Brazil.
Regional Integration Agreements: A Force for Convergence or Divergence?
Authors: Venables Anthony J
Published: October 2023

We examine the way in which the benefits-and costs-of a free trade area (PTA) are divided between member countries. Outcomes depend on the comparative advantage of member countries, relative to each other and relative to the rest of the world. We find that free trade agreements between low-income countries tend to lead to divergence of member country incomes, while agreements between high-income countries will cause convergence. These comparative advantage induced changes may be amplified by agglomeration effects. Our results suggest that developing countries are likely to be better served by ‘north-south’ than by ‘south-south’ free trade agreements.
The Precautionary Principle: Different Cases and Viewpoints
Authors: Godard Olivier , Gouyon Pierre-Henri , Henry, Claude , Lagadec Patrick
Published: October 2023

In the past, health and environmental protection policies, on the one hand, and competition and international trade rules, on the other, have always developed along largely separate lines, both nationally and internationally, even though certain more or less disparate interactions can be observed, such as the impact of environmental policies on trade restrictions, as in the case of endangered species; the EU directive on state aids, based on the principle that the polluter pays while avoiding distortion of competition that would trigger a public assistance bidding war; as well as apparent attempts at protectionist measures cloaked in environmental considerations, such as the selective obligation to use reusable packagings for beverages, a measure that can penalize imported drinks.
Determinants of the Fertility Transition in Bangladesh
Authors: Caldwell Barkat-E-khuda John C , Caldwell Bruce K , Pieris Indrani , Caldwell Pat , Ahmed Shameem
Published: October 2023

Demographic theory has failed to keep up with the spread of fertility transition to most parts of the world. There is still a tendency to exclude the role of national family planning programmes and to regard their activities as extraneous or artifi cial, lying outside the scope of the socioeconomic theory of demographic transition. This paper will argue that the programmes are indeed a social phenomenon and an integral part of the larger social process that constitutes the fertility transition.
Strategic Experimentation: the Undiscounted Case
Authors: Bolton Patrick , Harris Christopher
Published: October 2023

Bolton and Harris (1999) consider a game of strategic experimentation. In this game, each player divides her time in any given period between a ‘safe’ action and a ‘risky’ action. The underlying pay-off of the safe action is known. The underlying pay-off of the risky action is unknown, and can be higher or lower than that of the safe action. The actual pay-off received by any player from an action is the underlying pay-off plus noise. Once players’ actions have been chosen and pay-offs realized all players observe all choices and pay-offs. Through these observations they are able to learn about the underlying pay-off of the risky action and thus revise their common beliefs and optimal choice of action. In other words, players can learn from others’ current experimentation as well as their own.
Adjusting One’s Standard of Living: Two-Period Models
Authors: Diamond P , Mirrlees J
Published: October 2023

In the summer of 1967, Jim and I began collaborating on optimal taxation. Our paper was essentially finished that summer, although it was a number of years before it appeared in print. Since then, we have collaborated continuously and have published eight more papers plus one forthcoming. At one point, we contemplated writing a graduate text. We got as far as a table of contents and an allocation of who would write the first version of each chapter for our working style, after initial results, was to alternate writing complete drafts. But, neither of us was really interested in taking on a task of the magnitude needed to write a book we would be satisfied with, and the project had a mercifully quick ending.
Who Should Provide Public Goods?
Authors: Itaya Jun-Ichi , Meza David De , Myles Gareth D
Published: October 2023

This paper asks a simple question: who should provide public goods? It may seem surprising that we do not yet have a satisfactory answer to what is one of the core issues of public policy. We know the quantity of public goods that should be provided (Samuelson 1954), how successful private provision would be under a variety of motives for giving (Andrconi 1990; Comes and Sandler 1996), and how taxes interact with provision when either the government (Atkinson and Stern 1974) or private individuals (Itaya, de Meza, and Myles 1996) provide the public goods. But there has been no analysis of how private and public provision should be best combined. This is a significant gap in our understanding of a major policy question.
A Reconsideration of the Optimal Income Tax
Authors: Roberts Kevin
Published: October 2023

Following on from the seminal work of Mirrlees (1971), an extensive literature on the design of optimal non-linear tax schedules has developed. Whilst some of this literature (e.g. Sadka 1976) has dealt with easily understandable properties possessed by such schedules, a major drawback of the ‘state-of-the-art’ is that formulae used to characterize optimal schedules are defined in terms of functions that, whilst open to limited interpretation (Atkinson and Stiglitz 1979), lack the straightforwardness of direct supply elasticities, etc., that have become a commonplace of linear tax formulae.
Valuing Our Future: Cost-Benefit Analysis and Sustainability
Authors: Heal Geoffrey
Published: October 2023

Can existing patterns of human activity safely continue unaltered over the long term, or will they eventually lead to catastrophe? This central issue underlies the growing concern about sustainability.
Chinese Reforms from a Comparative Perspective
Authors: Hussain Athar , Stern Nicholas , Stiglitz Joseph
Published: October 2023

We have been profoundly influenced by our intellectual interactions with Janies Mirrlees for more than three decades.1 This paper, our contribution to the volume in his honour, provides an account of two decades of policy reform in China, making comparisons with the transition (in the last decade) from command towards market economies in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Thus, at first sight, it might seem a far cry from the formal analysis of highly focused policy models that many would associate with Jim. But we see it as firmly in the Mirrlees tradition.
Arbitrage and Option Pricing
Authors: Eichberger Jürgen , Harper Ian , Pfeil Christian , Scheid Florian
Published: October 2023

Arbitrage pricing is the centrepoint of this chapter. Exercise 1 demonstrates that Arrow security prices can be viewed as discount factors for state-dependent pay offs. Forward contracts are the derivative assets studied in Exercise 2.If short-selling is unrestricted, then a bond with a certain return is sufficient to price any forward contract by arbitrage. If buying and selling rates of the bond differ, one can deter mine a price range for the forward contract. Exercises 3 and 4 study option pricing for an asset with two pay-off states. Hedging portfolios and the implied Arrow security prices are calculated. Arbitrage possibilities are investigated for option prices that deviate from the arbitrage-free price. In Exercise 5 we consider repeated trading of an asset. Arbitrage-free option prices and Arrow security prices are computed for twice-repeated trade.
Debt Contracts and Credit Rationing
Authors: Eichberger Jürgen , Harper Ian , Pfeil Christian , Scheid Florian
Published: October 2023

In this chapter, asymmetric information is introduced. The insurance problem serves as an introduction to the economic problems arising from asymmetric information. Contract forms depend on the type of informational asymmetry. The form of a standard debt contract can be explained by costly state verification. This special form can in turn lead to credit rationing if one also assumes asymmetric information about the quality of loan applicants.

Exercise 1 shows that price competition alone cannot solve the adverse selection problem of insurance. In Exercise 2 we study incentive-compatible and individually rational insurance contracts. Exercise 3 states the optimal insurance contract problem and derives characteristic properties of an optimal contract. In Exercises 4 and 5 we deal with a bank facing two types of loan applicant. The bank’s adverse selection problem is reflected in the expected returns from loans.
Context and Content: Sunningdale and Belfast Compared
Authors: Wolff Stefan
Published: October 2023

Since the re-escalation of the Northern Ireland conflict in the 1960s, several attempts have been made to arrive at an inclusive settlement satisfying the con flicking parties in the province as well as the Republic of Leland and the United Kingdom. At the heart of each of these attempts has been the recognition by the majority of the parties involved in the conflict that there are at least two dimensions to any potentially successful settlement—an internal dimension providing for the more equal political participation of both communities and the protection of their identities; and an external dimension taking account of the relationship between the nationalist community in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Since the first introduction of direct rule in 1972 only two initiatives found, at least for some time, sufficient support in both communities to lead to formal agreements and the implementation of negotiated institutional structures. These were the Sunning dale Agreement of 1973 and the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
International Dimensions of the Belfast Agreement
Authors: Guelke Adrian
Published: October 2023

The external factors that contributed to the political settlement of the ‘Irish Question’ embodied in the Belfast Agreement are perhaps best conceived of as a series of threads woven into a pattern of influence on a conflict which had been sustained largely by its own internal dynamics. At least five significant dimensions of external influence on the peace process can be identified:

(1) change in the strategic environment;

(2) the imact of South Africa’s example;

(3) the role of the American connection;

(4) European integration; and

(5) human rights norms;

All of these ‘threads’ became intertwined during the peace process. However, it remains possible to separate them and this chapter will examine each of these influences in turn, pointing out, when appropriate, connections among the various dimensions. This list is not exhaustive and, in passing, the chapter will refer to other factors that deserve mention.
Insider and Liquidity Trading in Stock and Options Markets
Authors: Biais Bruno , Hillion Pierre
Published: October 2023

What are options useful for? In incomplete markets, they can be used to improve hedging opportunities for risk-averse agents [see Ross (1976)]. Financial markets are not only useful to reallocate risk across agents, however. Financial prices can reveal private information. Easley, O’Hara, and Srinivas (1993) provide empirical evidence that insiders trade in options markets. The present article analyzes how the introduction of a nonredundant option that completes the market affects information revelation and risk sharing. In this way we are able to evaluate the interaction between information asymmetry and market incompleteness.
Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks
Authors: Morris Stephen , Shin Hyun Song
Published: October 2023

Speculative attacks are sometimes triggered without warning, and without any apparent change in the economic fundamentals. Commentators who have attempted to explain episodes of speculative crises have pointed to the self-fulfilling nature of the belief in an imminent speculative attack. If speculators believe that a currency will come under attack, their actions in anticipation of this precipitate the crisis itself, while if they believe that a currency is not in danger of imminent attack, their inaction spares the currency from attack, thereby vindicating their initial beliefs.1
India’s Population—The Past
Authors: Dyson Tim
Published: October 2023

This chapter reviews India’s population history. It begins with the time before the year 1800, when it is only really appropriate to consider the subcontinent as a whole. It then considers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the key points of divide are around 1871 (with the initiation of decennial censuses) and independence in 1947.These more recent periods are considered in greater depth, and the focus shifts to the territory of contemporary India. Finally, the chapter comments on some implications of the country’s population history for the present and the future.
India’s Population—The Future
Authors: Dyson Tim
Published: October 2023

This chapter presents population projections for India’s major states to the years 2026 and 2051. These state-level projections underpin virtually all the work presented elsewhere in this book. When summed and adjusted for the existence of smaller states and union territories, they also provide population projections for all-India. The present projections constitute a best assessment of how India’s population will grow. But it should be made clear that they are only projections, not predictions. That is, they involve making assumptions about how trends in fertility and mortality might unfold. Actuality will certainly depart from what is assumed and projected here: the more so because 15 state populations are involved. Nevertheless, we can gain some broad indications regarding the country’s demographic future.
Turkey
Authors: Özdek Yasemin , Karacaoğlu Emine
Published: October 2023

As a member of the Council of Europe since 1949, Turkey ratified the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), shortly after its entry into force, and Protocol No. I in 1954. Turkey also ratified Protocols Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 and signed Protocols Nos. 7 and 9. In addition, the competence of the European Commission on Human Rights under Article 25 was recognized in 1987 and of the European Court of Human Rights under Article 46 in 1990.
Economics of Monetary Unification
Authors: Einaudi Luca
Published: October 2023

The theoretical basis of monetary union had not been fully developed when the deliberation on the formation of the LMU began. Parieu’s articles appeared after the creation of the Latin Union in 1865 and became the focus of the European debate, summarizing all previous contributions to the subject and updating the public on further developments and polemics.
Is it not remarkable that Nietzsche ... should have hated Rousseau?’ Woman, femininity: distancing Nietzsche from Rousseau
Authors: Deutscher Penelope
Published: October 2023

Sarah Kofman, Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man have all suggested curious similarities between the work of Rousseau and Nietzsche. This chapter uses that circumstance as a springboard from which to argue that the Rousseauist and Nietzschean conceptions of femininity, whiJe apparently similar, are radically opposed when assessed by Nietzschean criteria.
Introduction: The Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)
Authors: Chan Alfred L
Published: October 2023

During 1957 and 1958 Mao Zedong was seized by a vision that economic development in China could proceed rapidly in leaps and bounds by relying on improvisation and mass spontaneity, rather than moderately by the planned and gradual way pursued during the First Five-Year Plan (lFYP, 1953-7). Mao singlehandedly initiated the Great Leap Forward (GLF), pushing his views relentlessly, and his changing ideas and preferences shaped the momentous events of 1958 to 1960.

Although Mao’s initial goal of ‘overtaking Britain in fifteen years’ (in total quantity of major industrial output, not per capita) was not entirely unrealistic, under political pressure the internal timetable became progressively shortened finally into only two years while numerous ambitious plans were continuously piled one onto another. Mao was confident that rapid economic development and social progress could be achieved by boosting production through mobilizing every Chinese to transform the country.
Irreversibility, Innovation, and Technological Complementarities
Authors: Antonelli Cristiano
Published: October 2023

Superfixed production factors are a pervasive condition which economic theory is more and more taking into account. Technical interrelatedness, system bottlenecks, long-term obsolescence, limited span of application of intangible assets, location in well-defined regions are all factors that reduce the capability of firms to adjust, even in the long term, significant chunks of their stock of intangible and tangible capital to the changing conditions of both products and factors markets. In these conditions, all actual and expected changes in relative prices and desired output levels are likely to induce a significant decline in both output and price efficiency: firms are unable to produce with the ‘correct’ combination of flexible and fixed production factors. Standard textbook firms should accept their decline or the impossibility of taking advantage of new emerging market conditions for their products.
Conclusions
Authors: Antonelli Cristiano
Published: October 2023

The economics of innovation is facing the emergence of a new approach to understanding the microdynamics of technological change which parallels the diffusion both in the history and the sociology of science and technology of the social constructionism school (David, 1992, 1993, 1994; Bijker et al., 1987; Smith and Marx, 1995; Latour, 1987; Misa, 1995). Social constructionism, as articulated by Latour (1987), contrasts with the deterministic model based upon technological trajectories and stresses the role of the collective undertakings of a myriad of innovators.
Money and inflation
Authors: Bårdsen Gunnar , Eitrheim Øyvind , Jansen Eilev S , Nymoen Ragnar
Published: October 2023

The monetarist view of inflation—that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon (Friedman 1963, p. 17)—runs contrary to the inflation models we have considered in the preceding chapters. Despite the notable differences that exist between them, they all reflect the view that inflation is best understood as reflecting imbalances in product and labour markets. This view is inconsistent with a simple quantity theory of inflation, but not with having excess demand for money as a source of inflation pressure.
Evaluation of monetary policy rules
Authors: Bårdsen Gunnar , Eitrheim Øyvind , Jansen Eilev S , Nymoen Ragnar
Published: October 2023

Taking full account of inflation targeting entails that we supplement our model description of the economy with a monetary rule in terms of an interest rate reaction function for the central bank. The monetary rule can be forecast-based or focused on contemporary values of the target variables in the reaction function. We have chosen to analyse the latter alternative, although our discussion below is related to Levin et al. (2003), who consider (optimised) forecast-based interest rate rules which they derive for several different models assuming that the preference function of the central bank depends on the variances of inflation and the output gap.
Forecasting using econometric models
Authors: Bårdsen Gunnar , Eitrheim Øyvind , Jansen Eilev S , Nymoen Ragnar
Published: October 2023

Economic forecasts are statements about the future which are generated with a range of methods, ranging from wholly informal (‘gut feeling’) to sophisticated statistical techniques and the use of econometric models. However, professional forecasters never stick to only one method of forecasting, so formal and informal forecasting methods both have an impact on the final (published) forecast. The use of judgemental correction of forecasts from econometric models is one example.
‘Young Memnon’ and Romantic Egyptomania
Authors: Leask Nigel
Published: October 2023

Between December 1817 and January 1818 two Egyptian statues appeared before the British public. One was a 7-ton antique bust carved out of red and black granite brought from Thebes; the other, miniaturized within the fourteen lines of Shelley’s sonnet ‘Ozymandias’ was first published in The Examiner, no. 524 on 11 January 1818.
Introduction
Authors: Goodhart Charles , Illing Gerhard
Published: October 2023

During the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century, fmancial crises were a common phenomenon in many countries. Frequently, bank runs and currency crises occurred at the same time, forming twin crises. Under the gold standard, bank runs caused a drain on the gold reserves of central banks. What at first sight might have seemed to be a natural response, the contraction of credit, would just make the crisis worse. Only since central banks learnt that they should do exactly the opposite—to be ready to supply credit to stop a panic—did banking panics become a rare event.
The Ends of Life
Authors: Thomas Keith
Published: October 2023

How should we live? That question was no less urgent for English men and women who lived between the early sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries than for this book's readers. Keith Thomas's masterly exploration of the ways in which people sought to lead fulfilling lives in those centuries between the beginning of the Reformation and the heyday of the Enlightenment illuminates the central values of the period, while casting incidental light on some of the perennial problems of human existence. Consideration of the origins of the modern ideal of human fulfilment and of obstacles to its realization in the early modern period frames an investigation that ranges from work, wealth, and possessions to the pleasures of friendship, family, and sociability. The cult of military prowess, the pursuit of honour and reputation, the nature of religious belief and scepticism, and the desire to be posthumously remembered are all drawn into the discussion, and the views and practices of ordinary people are measured against the opinions of the leading philosophers and theologians of the time. The Ends of Life offers a fresh approach to the history of early modern England, by one of the foremost historians of our time. It also provides modern readers with much food for thought on the problem of how we should live and what goals in life we should pursue.
Masculine/Feminine: The Thought of the Difference
Authors: Heritier Francoise
Published: October 2023

At the College de France, she directs the laboratory of social anthropology formerly headed by Levi-Strauss. Heritier has been actively involved in public debate on social and public health issues, including bioethics, HIV/AIDS, reproductive rights, and violence. From 1989 to 1994, she was President of the French Conseil national sexes au fondement de la societff and ‘Le Sang du Guerrier et le sang des femmes: Controle et appropriation de la fecondite’ in Mascu/in/feminin: La Pensee de la difference. (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1996), 17-29 and 205-35 (abridged). Reprinted by permission of Editions Odile Jacob.
Hollywood: The Red Menace
Authors: Caute David
Published: October 2023

Greta Garbo was not called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, though she might have been when her delectable Ninotchka (1939)was rereleased in 1947. Reviewing Ernest Lubitsch’s comedy in the New York Times (10 November 1939), Frank S. Nugent began gaily: ‘Stalin won’t like it. Molotoff may even recall his envoy from Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer. . . ‘ Garbo’s Ninotchka is a deadpan, sternly puritan, icily aloof, but stunningly beautiful Bolshevik emissary sent to Paris by her commissar to take over the duties of a comically floundering three-man mission entrusted with the sale of the former Duchess Swana’s court jewels.
The Peculiarity of Cyprus, 1878–1931
Authors: Holland Robert , Markides Diana
Published: October 2023

Both the territorial expansions of the Greek state we have dealt with so far—the integration of the Ionian Islands achieved in 1864, and the absorption of Crete in 1913—created paradigms within the wider ideological and emotional world of Hellenic enosis. Both paradigms were defined in terms of ‘struggle’. These struggles were not identical. The first was conducted directly against British occupiers. The latter was first and foremost against the Ottoman Porte, and in its final phases against the collective constraints imposed by the protecting powers. In the latter case, as we have seen, Great Britain was along the way the immediate instrument of redemption, and later the principal agency for sustaining an impossible status quo. Yet, whatever the differences, Ionian and Cretan experiences were held to validate the ultimate triumph of a ‘steady and persistent will’ within Hellenic society. The complex international and regional factors which triggered the climaxes of 1863–64 and 1912–13 subsequently tended to be airbrushed away.
Understanding Social Exclusion
Authors: Agulnik Phil , Barry Brian , Burchardt Tania , Burgess Simon , Evans Martin , Glennerster Howard , Hobcraft John , Kiernan Kathleen , Lupton Ruth , McKnight Abigail , Mumford Katharine , Power Anne , Propper Carol , Richardson Liz , Sparkes Jo , Sutherland Holly
Published: October 2023

This book explores the issue of social exclusion. It asks three main questions: How can social exclusion be measured? What are its main determinants or influences? And what policies can reduce social exclusion? The authors aim to consider how a focus on social exclusion may alter the policy questions that are most relevant by fostering debate in government, research, and academic circles.
Intermediation and crises
Authors: Allen Franklin , Gale Douglas
Published: October 2023

With the exception of the Bretton Woods period from 1945 to 1971, banking crises have occurred fairly frequently in the past 150 years, as we saw in Chapter 1. There are two traditional ways of understanding crises. The first asserts that crises result from panics; the second asserts that crises arise from fundamental causes that are part of the business cycle. Both have a long history. Forexample, Friedman and Schwartz (1963) and Kindleberger(1978) argued that many banking crises resulted from unwarranted panics and that most of the banks that were forced to close in such episodes were illiquid rather than insolvent.
Intermediation and markets
Authors: Allen Franklin , Gale Douglas
Published: October 2023

In the preceding chapter we studied financial fragility from the point of view of positive economics, that is, trying to understand the factors that give rise to financial crises and the reasons why a fiancial system might be sensitive to small shocks. We noted in passing that financial crises might be inefficient, but this was not the focus of ouranalysis. Now it is time to turn to normative questions and try to understand why financial crises are a “bad thing.”
Money and prices
Authors: Allen Franklin , Gale Douglas
Published: October 2023

In the preceding chapters, we have assumed that intermediaries offer depositors “real” contracts, that is, contracts that are denominated in terms of goods. For example, an intermediary offers its depositors a deposit contract that promises c  1 units of the good if the depositor withdraws at date 1 and c  2 units of the good if the depositor withdraws at date 2. In practice, the terms of deposit contracts and debt contracts in general are written in “nominal” terms, that is, they specify payments in terms of money. Economists often justify the substitution of “real” for “nominal” contracts by claiming that money is a “veil” that hides the reality we are interested in, namely, the goods and services that ﬁrms produce and individuals consume; but the fact that contracts are written in terms of money has some important implications that are not captured by “real” models.
Bubbles and crises
Authors: Allen Franklin , Gale Douglas
Published: October 2023

In the previous chapter we considered the role of money and the price level in sharing risk. In this chapter we consider the role of money and credit in the determination of asset prices and the prevention of crises. The idea that the amount of money and credit available is an important factor in the determination of asset prices is not new. In his description of historic bubbles Kindle berger (1978, p. 54) emphasizes the role of this factor: “Speculative manias gather speed through expansion of money and credit or perhaps, in some cases, get started because of an initial expansion of money and credit.”
Paramilitary Politics in Ireland
Authors: Hart Peter
Published: October 2023

Two of the biggest questions facing historians of m’entieth-century Ireland are: why revolution, and why violence? That is, why did Ireland’s long-standing political conflict metamorphose into a direct challenge to the British state after 1912, and why did this confrontation take the form of armed rebellion after 1915? After all, the Land War of 1879-82 presented many of the same features of mass mobilization, popular violence and official repression, a crisis of state legitimacy and radical political realignment-without descending into mass homicide. On the other hand, moving forward into the twentieth century we quickly encounter numerous civil conflicts in Europe and elsewhere based on the same premisses of ethnicity, nationalism, and state breakdown chat dwarf the Irish experience in the scale of their suffering. Seen from this perspective, the events of the Irish revolution can appear not only typical but minor.
Society
Authors: Power Daniel
Published: October 2023

Around the year 1000, European society underwent a number of major changes. Chris Wickham’s chapter in the early medieval volume of the Short Oxford History identifies several of them:1 the aristocracy came to monopolize all military activity, from which the peasantry was henceforth excluded; in judicial matters seigneurial courts replaced village assemblies; the nobles no longer sought the protection of kings, dukes, or counts, and began to profit more from new types of seigneurial exaction; and the theory of the ‘three orders’ reached ideological maturity.
Economy
Authors: Nicholas David
Published: October 2023

A strongly market driven economy emerged during the central Middle Ages. Population increased significantly, but the extent of the growth is debated. Virtually all demographic reconstructions face the problem of converting heads of households, who are listed in surveys, into a total population figure through the use of a multiplier that can somehow average out everything from ten-child families to celibates.
Earnings Dispersion, Low Pay, and Household Poverty in Italy, 1977-98
Authors: Brandolini Andrea , Cipollone Piero , Sestito Paolo
Published: October 2023

Last decade was a period of considerable transformation for the Italian labour market. Employment fell sharply in the early 1990s, in the course of the deepest recession of the post-war period, and returned to growth only after 1995. This recovery coincided with a profound modification in the composition of the work force by sex, age, and educational attainment, and it went along with a rapid increase in part-time and fixed-term jobs as well as other forms of contingent work. At the same time, important institutional changes affected the wage formation mechanism, such as the abolition of automatic indexation in 1991 and the phasing-out of contribution relief for firms in the South since 1994.
Sales By Auction
Authors: Dyson Henry
Published: October 2023

Sales by auction in France fall into two categories depending on whether the owner has the free choice of this method of sale or whether the sale of his property by auction is forced upon him by an Order of the Court obtained at the instance of his creditors. The sale in the former case is an adjudication volontaire. Sales by virtue of an Order of the Court are adjudications judiciaires. The law and procedures relating to each type differ in important ways. The former type of auction sale is probably less popular than in England and does not seem to enjoy moments when it is particularly in vogue. They are mainly limited to sales of property in the estates of deceased persons.
Charges On Property
Authors: Dyson Henry
Published: October 2023

There being no equitable jurisdiction in France, every mortgage is a legal mort gage and there is nothing to be found in the system which simplifies the securing of the relationship between lender and borrower, particularly when it is of a temporary duration, such as the deposit of a Land Certificate. Neither Land Certificate nor Charge Certificate exist and the only way in which the existence of or freedom from a charge on property can be discovered is through the medium of a search. The unsecured creditor is a creanciér chirographaire.
Capacity
Authors: Dyson Henry
Published: October 2023

As a general rule of French private international law, all questions of capacity are answered by the loi personnelle of the person involved. Not only, there fore, is the status and capacity of a person governed by the rules of the law of the country of his nationality when he is in that country but they apply when he is outside that country. In most cases, the capacity of a person of British nationality domiciled in England and Wales will be governed by English law and the French Court will have no jurisdiction.
Avoiding The Réserve
Authors: Dyson Henry
Published: October 2023

It has been said that Anglo-Saxon law is ‘too individualist to admit any restriction on the freedom of a deceased person’ such as is imposed by the French Code civil and indeed by the laws of many countries which are based on that Code. Such sympathy for a non-French legal system is surprising since it must be admitted that reverence for le patrimoine is still a noticeable feature of French life. There is no better moment to observe this than at the completion of the sale of a property in the country which is frequently attended by children and sometimes by other members of the seller’s family who watch, not without anxiety, the disappearance from the family patrimoine of what should have formed part of their inheritance.
Comments
Authors: Boeri Tito , Hanson Gordon , McCormick Barry
Published: October 2023

Since my lifecycle trajectory includes some intra- and inter-continental migration, even before reading this wide-ranging and very enjoyable report I knew only too well some details of US immigration rules and procedures for members of the 1990s immigration wave’s highly qualified segment. From the report, I learned about many interesting features of immigration into the US by the vastly more controversial and numerous low-skill component of the US immigration phenomenon: the Statue of Liberty’s wretched, poor, and huddled masses.
Institutional Cultures and Regulatory Relationships in a Liberalizing Health Care System: A Tanzanian Case Study
Authors: Tibandebage Paula , Mackintosh Maureen
Published: October 2023

This paper draws on a study of the formal and informal regulatory relationships that shape the Tanzanian health care system. Liberalization of private for-profit health care practice in Tanzania, and the introduction of officially set fees in government health care facilities, date from the early 1990s; before that, only government facilities and those owned by religious bodies were allowed to operate. The fieldwork on which this paper is based, undertaken in 1998, provides a set of observations, from staff, patients, and household members, of one moment in an emerging mixed (public/ private/ religious and non-governmental) health care system that is still changing rapidly.
The Distribution of Realized Exchange Rate Volatility
Authors: Andersen Torben G , Bollerslev Tim , Diebold, Francis X , Labys Paul
Published: October 2023

Using high-frequency data on deutschmark and yen returns against the dollar, we construct model-free estimates of daily exchange rate volatility and correlation that cover an entire decade. Our estimates, termed realized volatilities and correlations, are not only model-free, but also approximately free of measurement error under general conditions, which we discuss in detail. Hence, for practical purposes, we may treat the exchange rate volatilities and correlations as observed rather than latent. We do so, and we characterize their joint distribution, both unconditionally and conditionally. Noteworthy results include a simple normality-inducing volatility transformation, high contemporaneous correlation across volatilities, high correlation between correlation and volatilities, pronounced and persistent dynamics in volatilities and correlations, evidence of long-memory dynamics in volatilities and correlations, and remarkably precise scaling laws under temporal aggregation.
Which Chance was Lost? The Psychology of Damage Awards under the Loss of Chance Doctrine
Authors: Koehler Jonathan J
Published: October 2023

Behavioral decision theorists commonly think about their discipline in the binary terms given by normative and descriptive theory. Whereas normative theory is concerned with how people should behave (as given by models such as subjective expected utility or Bayes” theorem}, descriptive theory is concerned with how people actually do behave. Thanks in large part to the pioneering work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, behavioral research has shown that people frequently and systematically violate normative theory. For example, people violate various axioms of subjective expected utility theory (Kahneman and Tversky 1979; Tversky and Kahneman 1986) and make probability judgments that deviate from Bayesian norms (Wells and Harvey 1978). Although some deviations from normative theory are properly treated as errors, others may help us reflect on the completeness of normative theory as a guide for real world decision-making.
Flow-of-Funds Model of the Postal Savings System and Fiscal Investment and Loan Program
Authors: Cargill Thomas F , Yoshino Naoyuki
Published: October 2023

The previous chapter reviewed the role of the PSS and the FILP in Japan’s financial system from several perspectives. First, in quantitative terms, the PSS and FILP are large and pervasive institutions, and few aspects of Japan’s economy are immune to their influence. Second, despite an official policy of financial liberalization since 1976, the PSS and the FILP have increased their role in the economy.
Reforming the Postal Savings System and the Fiscal Investment and Loan Program: Summing Up of the Issues, Reform, and Recommendations
Authors: Cargill Thomas F , Yoshino Naoyuki
Published: October 2023

The PSS and the FILP are important features of Japanese post war finance, and despite an official policy of financial liberalization for over two decades, they have continued to expand their roles in Japan’s financial system. As of fiscal year-end 1999 (31 March 2000), postal deposits represented 34 percent of total household deposits and 18 percent of individual assets. Postal deposits accounted for 62 percent of FILP lending, and the FILP budget represented 10.9 percent of GNP. Postal life-insurance accounts for 30 percent of total life insurance sales. Postal deposits as a percentage of total deposits, postal life insurance as a percentage of total life insurance, and the ratio of the FILP budget to GDP were larger in 2000 than at any time since the start of reindustrialization in 1950.
‘But yet each circumstance I taste not fully’: Spectacles of Ruin
Authors: Engel William E
Published: October 2023

These lines, spoken by Bianca, the factor’s wife, after she has seized the poisoned cup and drunk from it—the last in a series of many deaths depicted on stage—invite the audience to see her death as an object lesson. But we are asked to learn by her fate, not how to live more moral or chaste or well-ordered lives, but how to recognize our foes. As we saw in the previous chapter, the slumping into death calls forth a moment of reflection, during which time we can frame up, in the theatre of our minds, the image evoked through the presentation of fatal destiny. This passage also comments on the toppling of mortal strivings and attributes, and the contentment this can bring.
Introduction
Authors: Woolf Daniel
Published: October 2023

Early Modernists, Especially those interested in the evolution of the discipline of history, have long taken a special pride in their chosen period. During this age the foundations of modern scholarly and critical techniques are thought to have been laid, and a recognizable sense of distance from the ancient past is held to have been achieved. Renaissance historical thinkers have enjoyed a particularly privileged position, whether engaging in epistolary conversation with dead ancients in the manner of Petrarch; adapting the historical style of Livy to tell the story of Florence as did Leonardo Bruni; scouring the ruins of late medieval Italy for its architecture and archaeology as did Flavia Biondo; or ransacking the past for political examples as did Niccolo Machiavelli.
Popular Beliefs about the Past
Authors: Woolf Daniel
Published: October 2023

Among The Popular beliefs that one is likely to find in any society there is usually a significant component concerning the past. A curiosity as to one’s own origins and the origins of one’s material surroundings is not the exclusive prerogative of literate societies, and still less of the educated elite in those societies. Oral traditions form a large part of the popular discourse about the past in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century communities, urban and rural. The character and range of these traditions, the changing attitudes of those who recorded them to both the speakers and the speech, and their eventual decline as a historical source, offer a special set of questions, to be addressed in the next chapter. Although the subject matter makes some overlap inevitable, the principal aim of the present chapter is more descriptive than explanatory: it will illustrate a variety of popular beliefs about the past conveyed in various forms from the end of the Middle Ages to the early eighteenth century. The word ‘popular’ is here taken to mean ‘widely held’ within a broad cross-section of society.
As Above
Authors: Paterson Don
Published: October 2023

Having read a few of Don Paterson’s poems before I met him, I was aware of his craftsmanship with language, and the careful selection and juxtaposition of words in his work. For example, in his poem ‘The Sea at Brighton’ I was quite taken with the image of ‘The bird that skites over its blank flags ’, and in ‘The White Lie’ I liked ‘nor could I put a name to my own face’. When I spoke to him I realized that I was ignorant of the strategies for a poem’s construction.
Spirit Machines: The Human and the Computational
Authors: Crawford Robert
Published: October 2023

Shortly before my father died, I began to use a computer for the first time. It was in my office at work, and I ‘m not sure he ever saw it. For over a year after it was installed I didn’t ‘t do anything with it. Now at least I use it as a word-processor, and summon up one or two databases. Once, when it broke down, a technician came and prized open its casing, revealing drab chips and wiring. But when it is working in its closed body, it has its own sense of animation and activity. What appears on its screen appears tangibly present, yet has almost no being, seems part of a sensation connected both with faith and bereavement. I remember the last time I touched my father ‘s body where he lay collapsed. I knew he was dead, but his face was still warm and stubbly, the essential face of a Dad. The computer after a little while gives of a mild, but unhirsute warmth. It is somehow akin to the machines which replaced my father, yet to which he is linked and I connect him through printing out this. Memories feed the machine, the machine holds memory. The machine too dies, is replaced ‘not a soul, but a body through which the spirit can be known. My father’s lifetime saw the birth of these spirit machines.
A Fistful of Foraminifera
Authors: Maguire Sarah
Published: October 2023

Though not an avid reader of poetry, I nonetheless consider myself familiar with the poetic experience through my work on foraminiferal systematics. Over the years I’ve found very few people who can look at the wonderful diversity of shell shapes, colours, textures, and ornaments constructed by these minute creatures and not be moved. Perhaps it was this shared sense of the poetic side of natural history that caused Sarah Maguire and me to establish a rapport almost immediately. Prior to our meeting Sarah had mailed me a copy of her book The Florist’s at Midnight. Reading through her poems I learned that, aside from writing verse I could relate to, she was familiar with the scientiﬁc names of various plant species too. A poet who was comfortable with binomial nomenclature, and had an eye for natural history, even in urban settings. I was impressed.