bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Amerisclerosis?: The Puzzle of Rising U.S. Unemployment Persistence
Authors: Coibion Olivier , Gorodnichenko Yuriy , Koustas Dmitri
Published: May 2014

The persistence of U.S. unemployment has risen with each of the last three recessions, raising the specter that future U.S. recessions might look more like the “Eurosclerosis” experience of the 1980s than like the traditional V-shaped recoveries of the past. We revisit several explanations for this rising persistence, decomposing them into three possible sources: business cycle fluctuations, changing policy responses, and propagation mechanisms. First, we find that financial shocks do not systematically lead to more persistent unemployment than monetary policy shocks, casting doubt on the hypothesis that different drivers of business cycles are the primary explanation. Second, we find that changing monetary and fiscal policy responses account for approximately one-third of the rise in unemployment persistence. Third, after examining three propagation mechanisms we find that jointly they cannot account for any rising persistence of unemployment. The three propagation mechanisms we focus on—declining labor mobility, changing age structures, and the decline in trust among Americans—are consistent with four other cyclical patterns that have evolved since the early 1980s: a rising cyclicality in long-term unemployment, lower regional convergence after downturns, rising cyclicality in disability claims, and missing disinflation. We exploit regional variation in labor market outcomes across Western Europe and North America during 1970–91 to assess the predictive capacity of each propagation mechanism for unemployment persistence. In summary, two-thirds of the rise in unemployment persistence is unexplained.
Is This Time Different?: The Slowdown in Health Care Spending
Authors: Chandra Amitabh , Holmes Jonathan , Skinner Jonathan
Published: May 2014

Why have health care costs moderated in the last decade? Some have suggested that the Great Recession alone was the cause, but health expenditure growth in the depths of the recession was nearly identical to growth prior to the recession. Nor can the Affordable Care Act (ACA) take credit, since the slowdown began prior to its implementation. Instead, we identify three primary causes of the slowdown: the rise in high-deductible insurance plans, state-level efforts to control Medicaid costs, and a general slowdown in the diffusion of new technology, particularly for use by the Medicare population. A more difficult question is: Will this slowdown continue? On this question we are pessimistic, and not entirely because a similar (and temporary) slowdown occurred in the early 1990s. The primary determinant of long-term growth is the continued development of expensive technology, and there is little evidence of a permanent slowdown in that pipeline. Proton beam accelerators are on target to double between 2010 and 2014, while the market for heart-assist devices (costing more than $300,000 each) is projected to grow rapidly. Accountable care organizations (ACOs) and emboldened insurance companies may yet stifle health care cost growth, but our best estimate over the next two decades is that health care costs will grow at GDP plus 1.2 percent, a rate lower than previous estimates but still on track to cause serious fiscal pain for taxpayers and workers who bear the costs of higher premiums.
Boom, Bust, Recovery: Forensics of the Latvia Crisis
Authors: Blanchard Olivier J. , Griffiths Mark , Gruss Bertrand
Published: May 2014

Latvia’s boom, bust, and recovery provide a rare case study for macroeconomists: an economy that responded to a balance-of-payments crisis by maintaining its currency peg and adjusting through internal devaluation and front-loaded consolidation. This paper lays down the facts about Latvia’s boom and bust and analyzes the policy response and the mechanics of the adjustment through internal devaluation. While Latvia’s adjustment was very costly, with a large drop in output, a big increase in unemployment, and substantial emigration, it was eventually successful. The internal devaluation worked faster, though quite differently, than what had been expected. Productivity increases, rather than nominal wage cuts, drove much of the unit labor cost reduction. These then led to an increase in profit margins, rather than a decrease in prices, and to a surprisingly fast supply response. The strong front-loaded adjustment did not prevent the recovery. The lessons of the Latvian experience for other countries may however be limited, since many of the elements of the eventual success appear to have been due to factors largely specific to Latvia, factors that are not present in southern euro countries, in particular.
The Decline of the U.S. Labor Share
Authors: Elsby Michael W. L. , Hobijn Bart , Şahin Ayşegül
Published: May 2014

Over the past quarter century, labor’s share of income in the United States has trended downward, reaching its lowest level in the postwar period after the Great Recession. A detailed examination of the magnitude, determinants, and implications of this decline delivers five conclusions. First, about a third of the decline in the published labor share appears to be an artifact of statistical procedures used to impute the labor income of the self-employed that underlies the headline measure. Second, movements in labor’s share are not solely a feature of recent U.S. history: The relative stability of the aggregate labor share prior to the 1980s in fact veiled substantial, though offsetting, movements in labor shares within industries. By contrast, the recent decline has been dominated by the trade and manufacturing sectors. Third, U.S. data provide limited support for neoclassical explanations based on the substitution of capital for (unskilled) labor to exploit technical change embodied in new capital goods. Fourth, prima facie evidence for institutional explanations based on the decline in unionization is inconclusive. Finally, our analysis identifies offshoring of the labor-intensive component of the U.S. supply chain as a leading potential explanation of the decline in the U.S. labor share over the past 25 years.
Unseasonal Seasonals?
Authors: Wright Jonathan H.
Published: May 2014

In any seasonal adjustment filter, some cyclical variation will be misattributed to seasonal factors and vice versa. The issue has long been well understood but it has resurfaced as a problem of special concern because the timing of the sharp downturn during the Great Recession appears to have distorted seasonals. In this paper, I find that initially this effect pushed reported seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls up in the first half of the year and down in the second half of the year, by slightly more than 100,000 in both cases. But the effect declined in later years and is quite small at the time of writing. Going beyond the special case of the Great Recession, I argue for using filters that constrain the seasonal factors to be more stable than the default filters used by U.S. statistical agencies, and also for using filters that are based on estimation of a state-space model. Finally, I report some evidence of predictability in revisions to seasonal factors.
Foreign Direct Investment, Financial Development, and Economic Growth: A Cointegration Model
Authors: Suliman Adil H. , Elian Mohammad I.
Published: May 2014

This paper examines causalities among foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth (GTH), and financial development proxied by both equity market size (EQM) and bank credit to private sectors (BANK). We use a structural cointegration model with a vector error correction (VEC) mechanism to test for the short-term dynamics of the model. The results show that there is a reinforcing causal relationship between FDI and EQM, and between EQM and GTH in the short term, and that these variables cointegrate in the long term. As far as practical implications are concerned, the results reinforce that developed financial markets are an essential precondition for the positive impact of FDI on economic growth, reflecting host countries’ ability to exploit FDI more efficiently. Moreover, the paper provides further substance for the notion that a country with a well-developed financial market gains significantly from FDI inflow.
Corruption, Poverty, and Economic Growth Relationship in the Nigerian Economy
Authors: Yusuf Muhammad , Malarvizhi C.A. , Huda Mazumder Mohammad Nurul , Su Zhan
Published: May 2014

This study examined the causality relationship between corruption and poverty by adding economic growth in Nigeria using data from 1970 to 2011. VECM with co-integration test was employed to test the causality. The results indicate a long run relationship between corruption, economic growth and poverty in Nigeria. Evidence from the dynamic economic growth model has established the linkage of growth influence on corruption. Therefore, our findings strongly supported a significant reduction in corruption through the institutional good governance approach. Also, there was significant improvement in GDP growth within the study period. Therefore, findings of the study recommend government to give emphasis on the development of critical sectors that are growth enhancing in the short and medium term.
Trade and Labor Demand in an Emerging Market Economy: An Analysis for Indian Manufacturing During 1991–2010
Authors: Das Simontini , Raychaudhuri Ajitava , Roy Saikat Sinha
Published: May 2014

The paper investigates into the impact of international trade on labor market in an emerging market economy. In specific, the paper estimates the impact of manufactured exports on demand for both production and non-production workers and employment elasticity for aggregate as well as disaggregated manufacturing in India during post reforms period. Econometric estimation is carried out for a panel data set comprising of fifteen disaggregated manufacturing industries for the period 1991 to 2010 using dynamic panel data estimation methods. The estimates show that exports have a positive impact on aggregate employment level and on employment elasticity for production as well as non-production workers in India’s aggregate manufacturing. However, the effect of trade on employment elasticity varies across industries. Employment elasticity increases in those industries, where the growth rate of real wage declines or labor market is relatively flexible due to high growth of contract labor during post reforms years.
Does the Informal Sector Thrive Under Democracy or Autocracy?: The Case of Nepal
Authors: Solomon Offiong Helen , Shrestha Sibhaa
Published: May 2014

Our paper investigates the size and development of the informal sector in Nepal using aggregate data over the period 1991 to 2009. Our estimation using the Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model shows that the average size of the informal sector has been about 44%. Nepal has been classified as having a hybrid political regime, so we show the effect that autocracy and democracy has had on the growth of the informal sector. Our results shows that a high degree of autocracy reduced the size of the informal sector by about 2% while greater direct democracy reduced the informal sector by about 10%.
The Effect of Financial Crisis on Hiring and Separation Rates: Evidence from Tunisian Labor Market
Authors: Haouas Ilham , Yagoubi Mahmoud , Guirreri Sergio Salvino
Published: May 2014

The goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of the global financial crisis on employment conditions in Tunisia, specifically regarding hiring and separation rates. A panel data model which utilized firm level data covering five sectors over the period of 2007– June 2010 is used to explain quarterly relationships between hiring and separation rates in Tunisia. A random effect model was also used to help understand the most significant variables that affect the variation of hiring and separation rates. The results indicate a decline in separation rates, highlighting the vulnerability of Tunisia’s labor market to a global slowdown. Weak labor demand is a response to the company’s inability to create more jobs, which causes many Tunisian youth to put off work for school. The research results in this paper should urge policymakers to create a comprehensive plan to bridge the unemployment gap while promoting increased job opportunities.
Foreign Aid, Growth, and Poverty Relation: A Quantile Regression Approach
Authors: Alvi Eskander , Senbeta Aberra
Published: May 2014

In this paper, we examine the aid-growth-poverty relation by using quantile regression, which enables us to estimate the impact of growth and growth enhancing policies at different quantiles in the conditional distribution of poverty. The coefficient estimates in a quantile regression capture the marginal impact of a change in the explanatory variable observed at the τ th quantile of the dependent variable. We find that growth in average income and other growth enhancing policies have heterogeneous impact on poverty, specifically that the marginal effect of growth and growth enhancing policies decreases at higher levels of poverty. These results are robust to the consideration of endogeneity of aid and use of alternative measures of poverty—poverty gap and squared poverty gap.
Size and Liquidity Effects in Nigeria: An Industrial Sector Study
Authors: Hearn Bruce
Published: May 2014

This study estimates liquidity premiums using the recently developed Liu (2006) measure within a multifactor capital asset pricing model (CAPM) including size premiums and a time varying parameter model for the West African emerging market of Nigeria. The evidence suggests that liquidity factors are relevant only for financial and basic materials sector stocks while size factor is more generally relevant in explaining the cross section of stock returns in the Nigerian domestic equity market. Costs of equity estimates are high further underlining the limitations of this market as a capital-raising venue in contrast to the dominant banking sector.
Do FDI and Public Investment Crowd in or Crowd out Private Domestic Investment in India
Authors: Rath Badri Narayan , Bal Debi Prasad
Published: May 2014

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between Private Domestic Investment (PDI), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Public Investment (PU) in India for the period 1978–79 to 2009–10. Zivot and Andrews test has been used to know the structural break points in the data series. The empirical results derived from structural VAR model indicate that FDI has crowding in effects on PDI, whereas, PU neither ‘crowd out’ nor ‘crowd in’ PDI. Further, we found the evidence that shocks in PU and PDI have positively improved the FDI inflows in India.
Psychological Tendencies in an Emerging Capital Market: A Study of Individual Investors in India
Authors: Pandit Ameet , Yeoh Ken
Published: May 2014

Recent findings in the finance and consumer behaviour literature have shown that investors’ investment decisions are likely to be affected by their psychological tendencies. The focus of this paper is to understand how investors’ psychological tendencies influence purchase postponement of shares. Furthermore, the moderating effects of product involvement on the relationship between psychological tendencies and also purchase postponement are examined. Using a survey research design, data was collected from Indian investors to empirically test the model using moderated regression analysis. Our findings show that investor’s psychological tendencies do significantly impact purchase postponement. Furthermore, a profile of Indian retail investors is presented in the paper. Our findings documents another distinct phenomenon of investors’ persistent departures from rationality as posited by behavioural finance and also provides a better understanding of the nature of individual investor participation in the Indian capital market.
The Asymmetric Impact of Growth Fluctuation on Human Development: Evidence from Correlates of Growth Decelerations and Accelerations
Authors: Conceição Pedro , Kim Namsuk
Published: May 2014

This paper studies the impact of growth fluctuation on human development indicators using country level panel data between 1980 and 2009. The evidence from mean comparison and regression analysis suggests that, globally and on average, periods of decelerating economic growth are correlated with worse indicators of health and education outcomes and that the reverse happens for periods of growth accelerations. However, in line with the findings from the literature, these effects are asymmetric: things do not improve as much during good times as they worsen during bad times. And the negative effects of growth collapses are severe for developing countries, especially for Least Developed Countries, along with little or no improvement during good times.
Is Domestic Stock Price Cointegrated with Exchange Rate and Foreign Stock Price?: Evidence from Malaysia
Authors: Kabir Sarkar Humayun , Bashar Omar K M R , Masih A. Mansur M.
Published: May 2014

The growth of the financial sector of an economy such as, the stock market is usually found to be highly correlated with the growth of the real sector of an economy. In this study, we make an attempt to investigate whether there is any significant relationship between the stock prices, macroeconomic variables and foreign stock prices in an economy. Using the Malaysian quarterly data from 1991–2010 and the time series techniques such as, cointegration, long run structural modeling, vector error correction, variance decompositions, impulse response functions, and persistence profile approaches, we evidence a significant statistical relationship existing between the Malaysian stock prices, exchange rate and foreign stock prices with the exchange rate being the most leading variable. We also found evidence of negative impact of the Asian Financial Crisis on Malaysian stock prices in the short run. The results appear to be plausible and contain strong policy implications.
Labor Market Transitions and Social Security in Colombia
Authors: Cuesta Jose , Bohorquez Camilo
Published: May 2014

This paper quantifies the magnitude of transitions across occupational categories in Colombia, a country with high unemployment and informality but quickly increasing its social security coverage in healthcare. The analysis makes use of a panel of households between 2008 and 2009 and representative of the main metropolitan areas in the country. Results confirm that transitions are large and asymmetric (twice as likely to happen from formal to informal occupations as vice versa ). These results, however, conceal an additional asymmetry typically overlooked: salaried formal workers are more likely to transition first into salaried informal occupations than self-employment and unemployment; instead, informal self-employed are more likely to transition into unemployment or out of the labor force than formal occupations. Furthermore, better education (better chances) and lower earnings (more need) increase the probability of labor transitions. Those already affiliated to health insurance are less likely to transition but affiliation to old-age pension insurance does not affect transitioning decisions. Females transition more than males. In the presence of these high-volume asymmetric transitions (and other factors such as workers’ preferences and risk perceptions) the expansion of non-contributive social security schemes may seriously de-incentivize formality.
Can there be Rural Development from Agglomeration Externalities & Household Efficiencies?: Lessons from a Field Study in India
Authors: Gangopadhyay* Partha
Published: May 2014

Two important developments in agricultural economics highlight the role of agglomeration externalities in agriculture. First, Fujita (2006; 2007) stresses the role of agglomeration forces in driving rural development. Secondly, the role of microeconomic behavior of rural households in harnessing the benefits of agglomeration externalities has also been highlighted as a source of agrarian development. Despite these recent advancements, we still have little evidence if household behavior and agglomeration externalities can blend to create household prosperity and, thereby, promote rural development. In this paper we report the findings from a field study in one of the poorest villages of South Asia to confirm that the sources of rural prosperity can derive from the idiosyncratic household behavior as well as agglomeration externalities of a village economy. We offer a simple methodology to identify the impacts of agglomeration externalities and household efficiency on the generation of household incomes.
Risk, Profitability, and Competition: Evidence from the Chinese Banking Industry
Authors: Tan Yong , Floros Christos
Published: May 2014

This paper investigates the inter-temporal relationship between banking profitability, competition and risk of a sample of Chinese commercial banks by employing several profitability and risk indicators and using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) under a panel data framework over 2003–2009. The results support the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) theory which states that there is a negative impact of competition on bank profitability. We also find that banks with higher profitability normally operate in a less competitive environment. The results have potentially important implications for the government and banking regulatory authorities to make relevant policies.
Does Higher Productivity and Efficiency Lead to Spillover?: Evidence from Indian Manufacturing
Authors: Sahu Pritish Kumar , Solarin Sakiru Adebola
Published: May 2014

This paper empirically analyzes spillover effects from foreign direct investment using the firm level panel data of Indian manufacturing during 2000–01 and 2009–10. It first estimates the productivity and efficiency of the domestic and foreign firms separately before examining the spillover effects by using PROWESS dataset. The use of the Cobb-Douglas production function for productivity and stochastic frontier approach for efficiency reveals higher productivity and efficiency of the foreign firms over their domestic counterparts. Similarly, the findings show a significant impact of FDI on output growth. This indicates that any increase in foreign equity at the firm and sector level directly affects productivity. We attempt to find the possible reason for positive spillover effects by analyzing the detail of the present trends and the dataset.
Business Cycles in the Haitian Economy
Authors: Dorsainvil Kathleen
Published: May 2014

This paper has two objectives. The first one is to build an index of coincident indicators of economic activity n the Haitian economy during the identified cycles using Hardin and Pagan (2001) algorithm. The second objective is to enable policymakers to gauge with relative accuracy the probability that the Haitian economy be in expansion or recession during a specific quarter. To achieve these two objectives I use a probit analysis and a certain number of financial and fiscal indicators. The results appear promising for developing economies where data needed for policy guidance are often unavailable. Policymakers may find here an effective decision-making tool.
Harnessing Remittances through Formal Channels for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Kemegue Francis M. , Owusu-Sekyere Emmanuel , van Eyden Reneé
Published: May 2014

This paper investigates how sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries could harness remittances through formal channels for development using annual data for 35 countries from 1980 to 2008. We control for country heterogeneity, endogeneity and cross-sectional dependence of the error term using the least square dummy variable (LSDV) estimator with Driscoll and Kraay (1998) corrected standard errors, the Kiviet (1995) bias-corrected LSDV estimator and feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) by Parks (1967) and Kmenta (1986). We find that financial deepening in the home country is critical to the use of formal channels and the ability of sub-Saharan African countries to harness remittances for development. Besides remitting home for altruistic reasons, sub-Saharan African migrants would also respond to investment opportunities in their home countries, contingent on a stable exchange rate. Sub-Saharan African migrants also remit more money home when their incomes increase in the host country.
High-Tech Products Export Competitiveness, BRIC Countries in U.S Market: A Comparative Analysis
Authors: Ying Sun , Miao Li , Yibo Chen
Published: May 2014

This paper compares the competitive advantages of high technology products export from BRIC countries to the United States using quantitative (ESI and RCA index) and qualitative analyzing of export value and distribution performance. We estimate a Varying Coefficient Model on panel data for BRIC countries from 2000 to 2010, using the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) estimator to correct cross-sectional heteroscedasticity and serial autocorrelation. We found that BRIC countries high tech products have comparative advantages. Research and Development investment and patents are significantly positively related to the high tech export of the United State market while FDI still does not directly promote the competitiveness. The BRIC countries should learn from each other’s successful ways concerning FDI management, patent application and research regulation to achieve better and more comprehensive improvement of high tech export competitiveness.
A Higher Financial Premium Leads to the Depletion of Foreign Reserves?
Authors: Wang Fuhmei
Published: May 2014

Previous literature believes that a commercial depreciation is associated with higher financial premium and more depletion of foreign reserves. This study re-investigates this belief. Analytical results indicate that a commercial depreciation with higher financial premium and more depletion of foreign reserves depend on the combined influences of the conditions that individuals are impatient as well as foreign interest rates are bigger than time preference rates rather than only policies of commercial depreciation. Non-distortion taxation does not solve the balance-of-payments difficulties. An exact negative relationship between foreign reserves and the financial premium cannot be found.
Who Hires Foreign Domestic Workers?: Evidence from Lebanon
Authors: Fakih Ali , Marrouch Walid
Published: May 2014

Foreign domestic workers’ activities provide important market and non-market services in a large number of middle-income countries as these activities have an impact on the labor force participation and time allocation decisions of household members. This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of foreign domestic workers’ employment using a socio-economic dataset from Lebanon. Controlling for household, household head, dwelling and regional characteristics, contrary to popular beliefs we find that the size of the household and the presence of elderly persons are not important determinants of the hiring decision of foreign domestic workers, while the probability of hiring a domestic worker is significantly higher for households with children and disabled persons. Interestingly, we find that the number of rooms in the residence rather than its total surface area or type to be the only relevant dwelling characteristic. The paper offers insights about the demand for foreign domestic workers that may be useful to policy makers in developing nations.
In Search of the Grail: The Conceptual Origins of the “Encyclopedia Africana”
Authors: Benjamin Michael
Published: May 2014

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience , which offers comprehensive summaries by persons of African descent about persons of African descent throughout the world, appeared in 1999, but its origins have eluded scholars. They attribute the project’s idea to W. E. B. Du Bois. But archival evidence tells us the conception of such an encyclopedia emerged independently of him. Proceeding from an effort contemporaneous to Du Bois’s project backward to a much earlier conception of this publishing goal reveals that the idea to publish an encyclopedia of the African diaspora was not handed down by members of its intellectual elite but bubbled up to meet the needs of their ordinary lives.
Working-Class Women’s Education in Huddersfield: A Case Study of the Female Educational Institute Library, 1856–1857
Authors: Gerrard Teresa , Weedon Alexis
Published: May 2014

The Huddersfield Female Educational Institute claimed to be the first in England established for working-class women. It had close ties to the men’s Mechanics’ Institute, and its origins lie in that nineteenth-century movement for British working-class education. The article adds to existing research on gender and library use by examining the factors that shaped working-class women’s education in the 1850s. Using the Female Institute’s library records from 1856 and 1857, the authors analyze the borrowing habits of its members. They compare the origins of the Female Institute with its male equivalent and demonstrate how middle-class definitions of working-class masculinity and femininity shaped education.
The Development of Public Libraries in the United States, 1870–1930: A Quantitative Assessment
Authors: Kevane Michael , Sundstrom William A.
Published: May 2014

The period 1870–1930 witnessed the emergence of the local public library as a widespread and enduring American institution. We document the expansion of public libraries in the United States using data drawn from library surveys conducted by the federal Bureau of Education. We then review causal accounts for that expansion. Exploiting cross-state and temporal variation in the data, we use statistical techniques to assess a number of plausible demand-and-supply factors affecting the pace of library development. Social and economic variables in the analysis include state income or wealth, urbanization, ethnic composition, and gender ratios. We also examine the effect of institutional innovations, such as state library commissions and library associations, that likely affected the establishment of public libraries. We confirm that library expansion was robustly related to urbanization and greater ethnic (immigrant) diversity and to institutional innovations and that it was greatly delayed in southern states.
Rise of the Shadow Libraries: America’s Quest to Save Its Information and Culture from Nuclear Destruction during the Cold War
Authors: Spencer Brett
Published: May 2014

This article argues that the ultimate goal of American doomsday planners during the Cold War was to defend informational and cultural materials from nuclear destruction. American leaders of the time hoped to protect the vital documents that the nation would need to function after a war, as well as safeguard materials related to the nation’s cultural heritage. Planners used vaulting, dispersal, and duplication as their three main protection strategies, and these strategies gave rise to “shadow libraries,” remote storage facilities often constructed underground.
“Cameroon Is Just Like Bolivia!”: Southern Expertise and the Construction of Equivalency in South–South Scientific Collaborations
Authors: Centellas Kate M.
Published: May 2014

Focusing on Bolivia and Bolivian researchers, this article discusses the emergence of South–South scientific and technical collaborations in the context of social change. Using ethnographic and historical data, I describe how these are predicated upon and create southern forms of expertise via the construction of equivalency. I define this as how southern experts are recognized on the basis of embodied experience and their production of southern geopolitical, historical, and scientific similarities. This does not erase place from scientific knowledge but valorizes it, making locality a key criterion for expertise, at least in some contexts. This challenges the very histories and legacies of scientific knowledge production in the Global South, how authoritative scientific knowledge is evaluated, and who is defined as a scientific expert.
Back to the Future: Tracking the Moral Imperative In, Of, and Through Samskara
Authors: Pillai Sharon
Published: May 2014

U. R. Anantha Murthy’s Samskara has been predominantly read in terms of a temporal-ideological encounter in which an older, essentially fixed tradition faces off against the dynamics of a fledgling modernity. While there are instances in the text that lend themselves to such inference, the broad matrix within which the interpretations find articulation slants one’s reading of the novel in telling ways. This essay argues that the central dialectic in Samskara is not between tradition and modernity but between two forms of traditional thinking that conceive value and (human) reality differently. In making this argument, the essay offers an alternative, culturally oriented frame for reading Samskara in which narrative structure, form, and sense cohere to present a markedly different interpretive and moral trajectory.
Lorine Niedecker “After the Bay of Pigs”
Authors: Cocola Jim
Published: May 2014

Ostensibly an oblique commentary on the Bay of Pigs invasion, Lorine Niedecker’s brief poem “J. F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs,” first published in 1967, also serves as a reflection on the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath. The poem’s elliptical content is indirectly elucidated by its distinctive form, which pivots around a quotation implicitly attributed—though never directly traceable—to Kennedy himself. Performing a close reading of Niedecker’s poem, this essay situates “J. F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs” in its literary, historical, and political contexts while also drawing upon speech act theory in order to gain a better understanding of what is at stake in Niedecker’s “quotation” of Kennedy.
Polyphony to Silence: The Jurors of the Oresteia
Authors: Fletcher Judith
Published: May 2014

The Chorus of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon seems to resemble a jury, although it cannot operate effectively because of the political structure of Argos. Embedded in the narrative voice of the Chorus are the critical words of Argive citizens that destabilize the equanimity of the Elders; their reluctance to confront Agamemnon’s culpability for the slaughter of his daughter sends them into impotent confusion. While they use the language of the law court, they are incapable of making any judgment themselves. After being confronted with the death of their king, they leave the theater in stunned silence. Similarities with the silent jury of Athenian citizens whose split vote is resolved by Athena’s intervention in the Eumenides suggest a contrast between the two groups of old men that privileges the democratic ideology of Athens.
“Maternal Space” and Intellectual Labor: Gramsci versus Kristeva and Žižek
Authors: Bjelić Dušan I.
Published: May 2014

Despite their theoretical and ideological differences, Lacanian psychoanalysts Julia Kristeva and Slavoj Žižek have in common authorship of a psychoanalytic geography of the Balkans as their shared maternal space. Both pathologize their desire for their maternal space and simulate oedipal rejection by abjecting their “maternal space” as the prerequisite for speaking the language of the cosmopolitan, global intellectual. In the process, they produce a new type of intellectual labor, that of the manager of symbolic normality. Considering the importance of the relation of intellectual labor to geography at the very moment in which the manual labor of global capitalism is being fragmented and marginalized, this essay conceptualizes their intellectual production more broadly. In doing so, it invokes some basic Gramscian concepts such as the geographic and historical specificity of intellectual labor and the internal plurality of the subject in order to remedy the radical conservatism of Kristeva—s and Zižek—s psychoanalysis of the Balkans.
Philip Marlowe, Family Man
Authors: Beal Wesley
Published: May 2014

Hardboiled detective fiction has long been considered an inherently conservative genre, typified by an individualist ethos, rampant misogyny, and antipathy for racial difference. This article, however, joins recent scholarship that locates a utopian impulse in the genre with a study of family in Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. Following Jameson’s “synoptic” method of reading Chandler’s fiction, Beal argues that Marlowe has a latent desire for the collective potential of family in The BigSleep (1939), but that as subsequent texts’ families become more chaotic, that wish becomes more suppressed. The synoptic reading demonstrates a widening gap in Marlowe’s wish fulfillment. Major upheaval in the institution during the modern period, as the family was moving from a hierarchal unit to a more democratic one, made the family an accommodating, even enviable, social experience for a character like Marlowe and granted him access as its normative strictures were easing.
Unsuited to Age Group: The Scandals of Children’s Literature
Authors: Miller Alyson
Published: May 2014

Drawing on the examples of Melvin Burgess’ Doing It (2004), Lesléa Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies (1989), Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three (2005), Paul Ruditis’s Rainbow Party (2005), and Michael Willhoite’s Daddy’s Roommate (1991), this paper explores a series of scandals in the genre of children’s literature, examining the taboos surrounding children and their exposure to particular literary forms and content. Figured as the most vulnerable members of society, children are at the center of the most vitriolic and numerous of public debates, as gatekeepers such as parents, schools, libraries, community agencies and the church contest what kinds of material—and what kinds of ideas—are appropriate for the developing minds of the nation. Focusing on scandalous children’s texts concerning sexuality, the paper explores how literature functions as a vehicle through which to prosecute both dominant and marginal agendas with the aim of protecting—or transforming—emergent identities.
Horsing Around Melayu : Kuda Kepang , Islamic Piety, and Identity Politics at Play in Singapore’s Malay Community
Authors: Hardwick Patricia A.
Published: May 2014

In Singapore the term Melayu refers to the Muslim descendants of pre-colonial inhabitants, Muslim immigrants from the Malay Peninsula and insular Southeast Asia and, occasionally, descendants of Muslim immigrants from India and the Hadhramaut. Thus, in the Singaporean context, ‘Malay’ encompasses a complex array of plural ethnic, regional, and linguistic identities. Kuda kepang is a hobbyhorse trance dance introduced by Javanese immigrants to Singapore, but has been localized by Singaporean Malay practitioners, and has become a unique expression of Singaporean Malay identity. Utilizing information gained through the ethnographic study of more than a dozen Singaporean kuda kepang troupes from 2011–2013, this article explores kuda kepang performance as one embodiment of Singaporean Malay identity and provides insight into how individual Singaporean Malay performers are actively transforming and refashioning the art of Singaporean kuda kepang to reflect their changing understandings of their ethnic, social, and religious identities in Singapore.
Interrogating ‘Malayness’: Islamic Transformations among the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) Cohort
Authors: Sloane-White Patricia
Published: May 2014

For over a century no institution in Malaysia has conferred elite and iconic Malay status more than the ‘school for sultans’ sons’, Malay College Kuala Kangsar. Since the 1970s many of the school’s ‘old boys’ have held crucial roles in playing out the primary objectives and principles of the ethnic Malay government: the creation of a powerful Malay capitalist and political class. Analysing old boy cohorts as ‘social generations’, this article traces changing genealogies of MCKK identity. It explores most closely a contemporary group of self-described ‘outlier’ old boys who increasingly critique NEP-era old boys. They seek to abrogate their MCKK connection, arguing that neither its production of status and ethnicity nor its economic and political rewards can be justified in Islam. In this counter-movement, new markers of piety, authenticity and belonging (as well as new networks for social, capitalist and political engagement) have emerged. This cohort seeks to demonstrate a re-fashioned moral identity which recasts business and social practices within a strictly shariah-based Islamic framework. For a small but growing number of the MCKK cohort, representing capitalist success via piety and religion—interrogating Malayness, ethnicity itself and the culture learned in the school for sultans’ sons—is becoming the principal foundation for identity.
The Orientalist Hans Friedrich Overbeck 1882–1942: His Entomological Work, Prisoner-of-War Experiences and Known Photographic Images
Authors: Taylor Robert W.
Published: May 2014

The Southeast Asia-based German mercantile trader and Orientalist Hans Friedrich Overbeck (1882–1942) published four books and over 60 articles on Malay cultural subjects, the latter largely in the Journal of the Straits (and Malayan) Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Before World War I he collected Asian ant specimens for Dresden entomologist Hugo Viehmeyer. Overbeck was arrested by the British Singapore administration as an enemy alien in 1915 and interned for almost five years in Australia, where his Malayological and entomological activities continued. After returning to Asia in 1919 he regularly contributed insect specimens to the Museum für Tierkunde, Dres-den. He was arrested, again as an enemy alien, in 1940 by the Netherlands East Indies authorities, and died a prisoner in 1942 when the steamer Van Imhoff was sunk by a Japanese aircraft while transporting German prisoners of war to India. Because his possessions were lost in this disruption, and in the firebombing of his parental home in Bremen in 1944, it has long been assumed that no photographs of Overbeck existed. Seven recently discovered archival images are reproduced here.
Malaysia and the Non-fulfilment of Two Agreements with Sabah and Sarawak
Authors: Hamzah YBM Tengku Razaleigh
Published: May 2014

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the formation of Malaysia, the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society organized a series of two lectures, one delivered in Malaysia and the other in Singapore to mark the occasion. YBM Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Malaysia’s former Finance Minister and now the country’s longest-serving lawmaker, began the lecture series. He delivered his lecture on Wednesday, 25 September 2013 at the Tan Sri Hamzah Hall, Royal Selangor Club Annexe, Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur. MBRAS President Tun Hanif Omar, who introduced the speaker, also chaired a lively discussion following the lecture.
El constitucionalismo imposible de Luigi Ferrajoli
Authors: Aguiló Regla Josep
Published: May 2014

El trabajo es una crítica a la concepción del constitucionalismo jurídico defendida por Ferrajoli. Se concluye que el constitucionalismo que propone es impracticable porque su asunción desemboca en sinsentidos prácticos. Para mostrarlo, el trabajo se centra en la crítica de tres tesis ferrajolianas: 1) la tesis de la rigidez (el Estado constitucional se identifica jurídicamente sólo por la lex superior); 2) la tesis de la normatividad (no hay diferencia estructural entre principios y reglas), y 3) la tesis de la correlatividad (los enunciados de derechos significan exactamente lo mismo que los enunciados que expresan sus deberes correlativos). Cada una de estas tesis se cruza con tres momentos (y/o contextos) que, en opinión del autor, una buena teoría de la constitución debe ser capaz de distinguir y de integrar: 1) «Tener una constitución»; 2) «darse una constitución», y 3) «vivir en constitución».
El constitucionalismo garantista: entre paleo-iuspositivismo y neo-iusnaturalismo
Authors: Ferrajoli Luigi
Published: May 2014

En el presente artículo, el autor responde a sus críticos, aprovechando la ocasión para redimensionar los disensos y aclarar los temas de fondo, regresando a los asuntos expuestos en su artículo anterior como la cuestión terminológica, la Constitución y los derechos fundamentales como conceptos de la teoría del Derecho, la relación entre constitucionalismo y democracia, la relación entre Derecho y moral, reglas y principios y la ponderación.
Target–Distractor Competition in the Oculomotor System Is Spatiotopic
Authors: Jonikaitis Donatas , Belopolsky Artem V.
Published: May 2014

In natural scenes, multiple visual stimuli compete for selection; however, each saccade displaces the stimulus representations in retinotopicaly organized visual and oculomotor maps. In the present study, we used saccade curvature to investigate whether oculomotor competition across eye movements is represented in retinotopic or spatiotopic coordinates. Participants performed a sequence of saccades and we induced oculomotor competition by briefly presenting a task-irrelevant distractor at different times during the saccade sequence. Despite the intervening saccade, the second saccade curved away from a spatial representation of the distractor that was presented before the first saccade. Furthermore, the degree of saccade curvature increased with the salience of the distractor presented before the first saccade. The results suggest that spatiotopic representations of target–distractor competition are crucial for successful interaction with objects of interest despite the intervening eye movements.
ŞEBEKE YOLUYLA PAZARLAMA SİSTEMİNDE TEŞVİK PLANLARI VE GELİR HESAPLAMA YÖNTEMLERİ COMPENSATION PLANS AND INCOME CALCULATION METHODS IN MULTILEVEL MARKETING SYSTEM
Authors: Çakmak Ali Çağlar
Published: May 2014

The multilevel marketing system which has been mentioned frequently nowadays takes place in marketing literature at direct selling, a non-store retailing’s subsection. In the multilevel marketing system that is a type of direct selling, there are two different selling incomes promised for the direct sellers. One of them is selling income which occurs to sell products and the other is a payment income over a new member’s selling who is sponsored by an old member referred as sponsor. The multilevel marketing firms can use different compensation plans and income calculation methods when income is distributed to their members. These compensation plans and income calculation methods in multilevel marketing system have been explained in this research.
KALKINMIŞLIK FARKI VE NEDEN-SONUÇ İLİŞKİSİ BAĞLAMINDA KIRSALDAN KENTE YAPILAN GÖÇLER: TÜRKİYE’DE TRA2 BÖLGESİ ÜZERİNE AMPİRİK BİR ANALİZ MIGRATIONS FROM RURAL TO CITY IN CONTEXT DIFFERENCE OF DEVELOPMENT AND CAUSE-AND-EFFECT RELATIONSHIP: AN EMPIRICA
Authors: Karakaş Adem , Yeşilyurt Cavit , Koçak Yüksel
Published: May 2014

Development distinction between regions and countries is the most essential triggering element of migration. Migration arising from wills related to living in better economic conditions, getting better education, getting better health services and generally living at higher socioeconomic welfare level bring out several consequences for both places left and recently settled. Social disorder and economic instability occur when public services halt, welfare level starts to decrease in populated areas and therewith social and economic levels decrease in areas left. These problems should be solved at base for carrying out practices directed to stop migration. General social and economic policies necessary for stopping migration and remigration should be determined and in this framework national and international implementation should be made. In this study, causes and effects on immigrants of migration have been analyzed and evaluations about possible practices for remigration have been made by using primary data.