bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Managing Migration: The Role of Economic Instruments
Authors: Widgren Jonas , Martin Philip
Published: March 2003

This paper reviews economic policies and instruments available to the developed countries to reduce unwanted migration from developing countries, not all of which is irregular migration. Countries generally welcome legal immigrants and visitors, try to make it unnecessary for people to become refugees and asylum seekers, and try to discourage, detect, and remove irregular foreigners.

There are three major themes:

1. There are as many reasons for migration as there are migrants, and the distinction between migrants motivated by economic and non–economic considerations is often blurred. Perhaps the best analogy is to a river – what begins as one channel that can be managed with a dam can become a series of rivulets forming a delta, making migration far more difficult to manage.

2. The keys to reducing unwanted migration lie mostly in emigration countries, but trade and investment fostered by immigration countries can accelerate economic and job growth in both emigration and immigration countries, and make trading in goods a substitute for economically motivated migration. Trade and economic integration had the effect of slowing emigration from Europe to the Americas, between southern Europe and northern Europe, and in Asian Tiger countries such as South Korea and Malaysia. However, the process of moving toward freer trade and economic integration can also increase migration in the short term, producing a migration hump, and requiring cooperation between emigration and immigration destinations so that the threat of more migration does not slow economic integration and growth.

3. Aid, intervention, and remittances can help reduce unwanted migration, but experience shows that there are no assurances that such aid, intervention, and remittances would, in fact, lead migrants to stay at home. The better use of remittances to promote development, which at US$65 billion in 1999 exceeded the US$56 billion in official development assistance (ODA), is a promising area for cooperation between migrants and their areas of origin, as well as emigration and immigration countries.

There are two ways that differences between countries can be narrowed: migration alone in a world without free trade, or migration and trade in an open economy. Migration will eventually diminish in both cases, but there is an important difference between reducing migration pressures in a closed or open world economy. In a closed economy, economic differences can narrow as wages fall in the immigration country, a sure recipe for an anti–immigrant backlash. By contrast, in an open economy, economic differences can be narrowed as wages rise faster in the emigration country.

Areas for additional research and exploration of policy options include: (1) how to phase in freer trade, investment, and economic integration to minimize unwanted migration; (2) strategies to increase the job–creating impacts of remittances, perhaps by using aid to match remittances that are invested in job–creating ways.
Long‐term Investments and Financial Structure
Authors: Yanagawa Noriyuki
Published: March 2003

This paper examines how the financial structure of a firm affects the incentives of managers to act myopically. The paper shows that managers tend to choose investments that pay off too quickly if there is a possibility that shareholders will fire the managers in the future. However, this problem can be avoided if firms are appropriately financed. Since the gains from firing the managers accrue first to the creditors, the shareholders’ incentive to fire the managers is reduced when the firm increases its debt ratio. The firm should thus choose an optimal financial structure to ensure that the level of incentive for shareholders to dismiss managers is appropriately controlled.
Changes in the Nikkei 500: New Evidence for Downward Sloping Demand Curves for Stocks
Authors: Liu Shinhua
Published: March 2003

This study investigates the price and trading volume effects of changes in the Nikkei 500. On average, prices increase (decrease) significantly for stocks added (deleted) with no significant post‐event reversals. Trading volume, on average, increases significantly for both stocks added and deleted in the short run. In the long run, however, trading volume falls (rises) significantly for stocks added (deleted), contrary to previous findings. These results support the hypothesis of downward sloping demand curves for stocks and refute three competing hypotheses. Finally, the Nikkei 500 changes cause considerably less pronounced price changes than do the S&\amp;P 500 changes.
Simple Trading Rules and the Market for Internet Stocks
Authors: Fong Wai Mun , Ho Yat Wai
Published: March 2003

We investigate the profitability of moving average trading rules for Internet stocks based on the Dow Jones Internet Composite Index. Consistent with previous studies e.g. Brock et al. (1992), returns after buy signals exceed returns after sell signals. The average buy–sell spread is large and significant even after accounting for transaction costs. Bootstrap simulations based on a version of the dynamic CAPM show that the model is able to replicate the pattern of buy and sell returns. Simulated buy–sell spreads amount on average to more than 39% of the actual spread. However, actual profits are still too large to be explained in terms of risk compensation.
New Patterns of Youth Transition in Education
Authors: Wyn Johanna , Dwyer Peter
Published: March 2003

Current research provides evidence that new relationships are being forged between youth people and education. Increased participation in post‐compulsory education, combinations of work and study and uncertain career outcomes havebecome common experiences. There is an emerging disparity between the stated goals of education and the changing priorities and choices of young people. In particular, the linear notion of transitions, expressed in the metaphorsof pathways used in policy documents, is increasingly at odds with the patterns of life experienced by young people in many nations. Three themes stand out in the research on young people in the 1990s. First, an awareness of foreclosed options in educational outcomes is a consistent thread across a range of studies. Secondly, there is a discernible shift by the end of the 1990s toward more complex life‐patterns and a blending or balancing of a range of personal priorities and interests. Thirdly, the need to give ‘active voice’ to young people about the dramatic social and economic changes they have been subjected to, is unmistakable in the light of the increasing disparity between the rhetoric of youth and education policy and their own experience of its out‐comes.
Putting a Human Face on Development
Authors: Ricupero Rubens
Published: March 2003

The century is ending with failure to solve two major threats to the future: mass unemployment and growing inequality. Furthermore, in the poor parts of the world, the very possibility of sustainable development has been questioned by the economic crisis that started in Asia two years ago. This monetary and financial crisis truly deserved to be called a “crisis of development”, for three main reasons. First, it hit almost exclusively most of the developing countries, at the same time sparing and even benefitingthe industrial economies. Second, paradoxically, it was much more destructive in the most advanced of the developing nations. Third, it has created uncertainties and questions regarding the possibility of regaining the previous levels of economic performance that characterised “the Asian tigers”. Competition is very analogous to games. Both need fair rules and impartial arbiters. Governments and trade negotiators think that these are sufficient, forgetting a third and fundamental element. To play a game, you have to learn how to play it; through education and time to train. A key to success will be access to information.
India, the Washington Consensus and the East Asian Crisis
Authors: Rammanohar Reddy C.
Published: March 2003

The stability and continued growth of the Indian economy in the midst of the East Asian crisis does not suggest an alternative economic model. India, in a cautious approach to market reforms, especially on capital controls, did protect its economy from the East Asian contagion. But the presence of capital controls was more a result of chance than of choice, and in spite of the regional crisis, the average standard of living in India remains far below that in East Asia. The larger caution in the Indian reform process has been the result of compulsion rather than choice. Political and public opposition within a few years of the introduction of market reforms in the early 1990s, has forced successive governments to go slow on liberalisation. This resistance has developed alongside the emergence of a more fractious and assertive democraticprocess. Unless there is a broad political consensus on economic issues, there is little likelihood of policy decisions that will facilitate an economic transformation that will make an impact on India's huge poverty. Moreover,while the overall pace of economic growth since the introduction of reforms in the early 1990s has been substantial, it has taken place in fits and starts.
Facing diversity
Authors: Fleiner Thomas
Published: March 2003

Ethnic diversity can fragment political communities, since in every multi‐ethnic state conflicts arise that cannot be solved through a majority decision‐making process. The issue of diversity is not only one of human rights, but in most cases an issue concerning the state and the classic majority principle of modern democracy. It is indispensable for the functioning of the state that it be legitimate for all communities. Diversity can be upheld in fragmented societies only on the basis of a trust among the different communities, in state institutions, state leaders, and institutional forms of power sharing. Federalism, regionalism, constitutions, governmental and electoral systems are institutions through which minorities and the majority are accepted as equal parts of the state and feel represented and protected, with consensus‐driven democracy promoting diversity. Citizens' rights can promote diversity through affirmative action, through the‘state‐action doctrine’, and through collective rights when an effective court system exists. The international community increasingly claims the right to enforce minority rights based on international law. However there is no known case until now, where the international community has succeeded in upholding existing diversity constituent by enforcement.
Language and federalism: the multi‐ethnic challenge
Authors: Mitra Subrata K.
Published: March 2003

Ethnic, linguistic, and religious identities have emerged during the past decade as major challenges to the institutional capacity of the modern state to cope with cultural diversity. As such, multilingualism, which formulates a response to this challenge, has emerged as a new focus of empirical research on federalism. This provides a contrast to classic studies of federalism, which concentrated on the institutional division of powers between a state and its constituent units. Language plays a double role in this: as a thin bond for communication and negotiation between political actors, and a thick system of meanings, carrying the burden of history, religion, culture, ritual, and memory. The article studies this ambivalence of language through a comparison of India and Switzerland, two quite different cases of relatively successful accommodation of linguistic diversity and discusses the constitutional means and policy measures that might enable a modern state to balance regional diversity and national unity in the face of the multi‐ethnic challenge.
Towards a normative theory of federalism
Authors: Weinstock Daniel
Published: March 2003

Present political circumstances make it absolutely essential to seek an appropriate normative framework for reflection on the future of federal institutions the world over. This essay outlines the main normative parameters that any normative theory of federalism would have to take into account. Federal institutions are justified primarily by considerations relating to liberty, the promotion of active citizenship, and democracy. In multination states, federal arrangements will also be necessitated by considerations of equity and the right to self‐determination. Federal constitutions nevertheless tend to make it difficult to achieve efficiency, solidarity, and a shared political identity. States opting for a federal constitution may, however, counter these difficulties by establishing institutional mechanisms making for social trust among the different forces in society. A particularly appropriate example for multination federal states is given of such a mechanism: a constitutionally entrenched right to secede under specific conditions and in accordance with a strictly defined process.
Adaptability and change in federations
Authors: Simeon Richard
Published: March 2003

Like all other governing institutions, federal structures must be able to adapt and adjust to changing economic, political, and social circumstances. This article outlines the major drivers that call for change in the institutions and processes of federalism. These include changing citizen orientations and expectations, changing policy agendas arising from the environment, new patterns of governance and public administration, and the pressures of globalisation. Although some worry that federal institutions are rigid and inflexible, the paper describes a wide variety of mechanisms and processes through which federal institutions have been able to respond. These include constitutional amendment, judicial interpretation, coordination through intergovernmental relations and associated intergovernmental agreements, fiscal federalism, asymmetrical arrangements, the delegation of powers, and, in limited cases, the use of emergency powers.
The Crisis of Confidentiality in the Control of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Botswana
Authors: Fombad Charles Manga
Published: March 2003

This paper looks at the recent challenges to the confidentiality of the status of HIV patients in Botswana, the country with the highest rate of infection in the world. The nature and scope as well as the legal and ethical basis of confidentiality are examined. It is argued that this concept is not only an aspect of the fundamental human rights of patients but is also crucial in any effective strategy to halt the spread of the virus by encouraging voluntary disclosure which should help in eliminating the stigma, ostracism, and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS. Although widely recognised as sacrosanct, confidentiality has never been an absolute principle. The derogations to it reflect a compromise, which balances the patient’s right to his privacy and confidence, and the protection of persons exposed to the risk of infection by the patient. Therefore, it is argued that, any radical measures which undermine the principle of confidentiality will discourage rather that encourage the candour that is essential in controlling the spread of the HIV virus.
Fundamentalist violence: political violence and political religion in modern conflict
Authors: Weisbrod Bernd
Published: March 2003

There is more to modern ‘political religions’ than political ritual and religious semantics as is normally assumed with regard to National Socialism and other totalitarian regimes. Ideologies and political style do matter, but they do not provide the answer as to how ‘dead certainty’ was achieved about the ultimate mission. The terror of the revolutionary ‘furies’ and the ‘sacrifice’ of national revivalism provide a historical trajectory for the proposition that in the modern world it is not the violence religion, but the religion that is in the violence. Fundamentalist violence ‐ from the Holocaust to the attacks of 11 September 2001 ‐ must therefore be seen as the touchstone for an economy of the sacred in a secularised world. Thus, the ‘morality of violence’ (Sorel) feeds into acts of political terrorism and genocide not just by way of legitimation but also as a proof of the transcendent quality of political violence itself.
An ethic of responsibility in practice
Authors: Pouligny Béatrice
Published: March 2003

This contribution sets out to consider certain ethical and methodological issues raised by the conduct of investigations in situations of extreme violence. It proposes to explore the relationship with the specific ‘object’ in terms of researchers' responsibility towards the people about whom their research is conducted. That approach is based primarily on the development of a ‘comprehensive’ sociology from the perspective of meaning, with the aim of entering the subjectivity of the other person. Within the context of extreme violence, such an approach poses increased difficulties, which this article endeavours to explore. That involves the researcher in constant, complex critical analysis of situations that disrupt all his or her bearings. Making the other person not simply an ‘object’ but a ‘subject’ of research also means going beyond categories that might constrain the researcher and entails continuous linkage of individual and collective histories. This naturally raises questions concerning not only the investigative but also the analytical techniques employed by the researcher.
Complexities in Assessing Unemployment Benefits and Policies
Authors: Kvist Jon
Published: March 2003

Employed workers cannot access unemployment insurance as a matter of choice. Benefit periods and benefit amounts vary between groups in the population. Unemployment benefit recipients have not only rights to benefits but also obligations to meet in order to maintain eligibility. The existence of functional equivalent benefit schemes contributes to benefit transition and substitution. All these aspects are of crucial importance both for the economic well‐being of families with unemployed members and for policymaking. This article illustrates some of these complex institutional aspects through an analysis of benefits for unemployment in a number of northern European countries in 1996 and by reference to recent Danish experiences.
Reforms And Performance of the Medical Systems in the Transition States of the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Authors: Davis Christopher
Published: March 2003

The States of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe inherited acute health problems and introduced numerous reforms in their health sectors in the 1990s. In the initial years of transition most countries experienced increases in morbidity and mortality that were caused by deterioration in health conditions (demographic, consumption, social, environmental) and deficiencies in medical systems. The latter were the result of malfunctioning economies, continued low priority status of health, and ineffective health reforms. Although health trends in the East have become more positive in recent years, they are unlikely to converge rapidly with those in western Europe unless health sector institutions in transition countries are allocated more resources and improve their efficiency and effectiveness.
Social Security Systems in Low‐Income Countries: Concepts, Constraints and the Need for Cooperation
Authors: Jütting Johannes
Published: March 2003

This paper describes existing social security systems in developing countries and analyses their institutional strengths and weaknesses. To this end, it identifies four main providers of social security, namely the State, the market, member‐based organizations, and private households. Given the strengths and weaknesses of each system, the paper explores the possibilities of a public‐private partnership which should be based on the use of local information on the one hand while profiting from possibilities of risk sharing and risk pooling on the other.
Older people, work and equal opportunity
Authors: Taqi Ali
Published: March 2003

People in industrialized countries are living longer, having fewer children and retiring sooner. The proportion of older people in the population is rising; their labour force participation is declining. These trends are arousing apprehensions about future labour supply and pension financing as contributor/beneficiary ratios decrease. A widely advocated policy response is to seek higher participation rates, especially by raising pensionable ages and restricting early retirement. Little has been done to improve the labour market position of seniors. Three‐pronged action is needed: promoting training, placement and workplace flexibility; changing attitudes through education and information; and prohibiting age discrimination in employment.
Social insurance schemes in the Gulf countries
Authors: Mohammed Zakariya Sultan
Published: March 2003

Being economically well established, the member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council have unique social insurance schemes. Based on the defined benefit principle, they have succeeded in creating large reserves, which are managed and invested independently by the social insurance institutions. However, the schemes are facing a continuous escalation in their costs, due to their generosity rather than the population ageing observed in industrialized countries. This trend may well support the argument that the schemes in the region can cope with conventional reforms like increasing contribution rates, raising retirement age and restricting early retirement, rather than switching to a defined contribution system.
Making welfare work: UK activation policies under New Labour
Authors: Walker Robert , Wiseman Michael
Published: March 2003

This paper describes and briefly evaluates the major “New Deal“ activation policies introduced by the UK New Labour government since 1997. It outlines the ambitious project to modernize the UK economy and welfare state and, within this overall strategy, to end child poverty and to tackle social exclusion by encouraging movement from welfare benefits into work, and by making work pay. Three sets of New Deal programmes are discussed: those targeted on unemployed claimants, lone parents and people with disabilities. The paper concludes that real change has been achieved with measurable beneficial effects but that there are threats to the further elaboration and extension of the New Deal model.
Wissensteilung: Thünen- Vorlesung bei der Jahrestagung 2000 des Vereins für Socialpolitik, Berlin 20. September 2000
Authors: Helmstädter Ernst
Published: March 2003

Friedrich A. Hayek’s notion of division of knowledge arouses new interest in an economy for which knowledge represents the most important resource. Hayek’s problem was how to use the knowledge scattered in society efficiently. In Hayek’s solution the prices emerging by competition play the crucial role. They indicate to the individual agents what they can do expediently for their own advantage and also for society, even though they dispose only of limited (implicit) knowledge. But which conditions must be fulfilled in order that the agents are prepared to engage in an interactive process of division of knowledge? - New Institutional Economics does not yet answer this question. It is only interested in questions of interactions in view of a division of labor. Its central notion of transaction is not appropriate for the analysis of the interactive process of division of knowledge, where sharing of knowledge matters. The contribution of the article mainly consists in the attempt to provide a New Institutional Economics basis to the division of knowledge problem. ß
Fluctuations of answer and confidence rating in a general‐knowledge problem task: Is confidence rating a result of direct memory‐relevant output monitoring?
Authors: Saito Masahiko
Published: March 2003

In order to examine whether confidence rating is a result of direct memory‐relevant output monitoring, a general‐knowledge test was used. A question set was answered in experimental session 1, and the same question set was employed in session 2. Subjects chose one answer from two alternatives. No significant difference in answer accuracy was found between sessions, which suggests that identical information processing was carried out, and that any difference between sessions was based on probabilistic fluctuation. The major results were as follows: (a) In both sessions, answer accuracy was an increasing function of confidence. (b) Answer‐change rate (rate of different answers to the same question between sessions) decreased monotonically with confidence. (c) The distributions of confidence rating in session 2, conditional on the rating in session 1, were nearly identical in no‐answer‐change and answer‐change cases. These results suggest that confidence rating is not a result of monitoring memory‐relevant output itself but an estimation of possibility of answer fluctuation.
Effects of angularity of the figures with sharp and round corners on visual evoked potentials
Authors: Ito Motoo , Sugata Tatsuya , Kuwabara Hiroshi , Wu Chiajong , Kojima Kazufumi
Published: March 2003

Following a study in which equilateral triangles elicited larger visual evoked potentials (VEPs) than either squares or circles, we examined the effect of single‐line angular figures with a sharp or a round corner at angles of 45°, 90°, 135° or 180°. VEPs were recorded monopolarly at four locations on the midline of scalp for 10 subjects, while the figure was tachiscopically presented to the lower visual field. Subtracted waves were obtained between figure and control (blank) conditions. N1 (peak latency 135–142 ms) and P2 (235–237 ms) waves were identifiable. N1 amplitude tended to decrease as a function of angularity, irrespective of orientation (angle pointing up or down). The effect of the sharpness/roundness of the corner was much smaller than that of its angularity. These findings suggest that the greater VEP response with triangles than with squares and circles may be attributable to the acute angularity of triangles. Related cortical processes and VEP components are also discussed.
The study of early emotion processing in the frontal area using a two‐dipole source model
Authors: Yoshida Tomoyuki , Iwaki Tatsuya
Published: March 2003

The present study explored early emotion processing in the frontal area using the two‐dipole source model. The 21‐channel recordings of event‐related potentials (ERPs) produced by a pure tone were analyzed in order to assess information processing. In the test conditions, the pure tone followed the presentation of one of two unpleasant sounds to enhance anxiety. In the control condition, only the pure tone was presented. There were two groups of eight subjects, one with low scores for trait anxiety and one with high scores. The ERPs were separately averaged for the groups, as well as for the high‐ and low‐anxiety sound and control session. A negative peak around 120 ms (C2) and a positive peak around 280 ms (C5) after stimulus onset were identified in all the sessions. The two‐dipole source model was applied to these two components. In the C2 component, dipole sources were located in the left frontal area in the control sessions, and in the right frontal area in the high‐anxiety sessions. This activation pattern was clearer in the group with low trait anxiety. In contrast, with the C5 component, lateralization of the dipole source in the frontal area was not seen. These findings suggest that the frontal area is involved in early emotion processing. A dual‐stage model of emotion processing is therefore proposed.
Movable Peace: Engaging the Transnational in Cambodia’s Dhammayietra
Authors: Poethig Kathryn
Published: March 2003

The Dhammayietra is an annual peace walk in Cambodia that originated at the historic repatriation of refugees in the Thai border camps at the U.N.‐monitored transition to democracy in 1992. It situates itself within the discourse and practice of “socially engaged Buddhism” that has gained visibility in Asia and American Buddhism during the last two decades. As Cambodia’s particular form of socially engaged Buddhism is marked by refugee return, I will argue that the Dhammayietra’s revival of Buddhism in postsocialist Cambodia is only possible because of its transnational formation. Represented as a quintessential Khmer Buddhist response to Cambodia’s entrenched conflicts, the networks forged beyond the border of Cambodia have been instrumental in fashioning the face of the Dhammayietra. Though it forges its discursive identity vis a vis the “local” space of the nation, this local space is mobile. Maha Ghosananda’s instruction to move “step by step” toward peace reappropriates dangerous mobility—the massive relocations during the Khmer Rouge era, refugee flight, the danger of treading on land fed with mines—and turns walking into a religious act. It is this discursive “move” that loosens the Dhammayietra’s ties to the nation and allows it to slip across political and religious borders and ally itself with a diverse network of interfaith peace groups that are its transnational public forum.
Religiosity and Tolerance in the United States and Poland
Authors: Karpov Vyacheslav
Published: March 2003

Survey research shows important links between religion and tolerance in the United States. Yet it is not known to what extent its findings have broader, cross‐national relevance. This article compares religious influences on political tolerance in the United States and Poland. Despite the marked political and cultural differences between their national contexts, data from the NORC GSS and Polish GSS reveal similar patterns of religious influences. Both in the United States and Poland, intolerance appears to be linked primarily to theocratic beliefs, that is, to a political correlate of religiosity rather than to its essential components, such as religious commitment and participation that have weak direct effects only on tolerance of atheists, and weak indirect effects on other dimensions of tolerance.
The Effect of Group Size on Interfaith Marriage Among Catholics1
Authors: Davidson James D. , Widman Tracy
Published: March 2003

This article examines the relationship between the religious composition of Catholic dioceses and interfaith marriage rates among Catholics. Building on Blau’s(1977) theory of intergroup relations and previous research on intermarriage, we argue that Catholics are most likely to marry outside their group when they comprise a relatively small percent of the population in their dioceses. They are most likely to marry other Catholics when they are a large percentage of the population. Research in the 1940s and 1950s supports this hypothesis, as do diocesan–level data reported in the 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, and 1995 editions of the Official Catholic Directory. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings imply for future research on interfaith marriage among Catholics and among members of other religious groups.
Orthodox (Eastern Christian) Churches in the United States at the Beginning of a New Millennium: Questions of Nature, Identity, and Mission
Authors: Krindatch Alexei D.
Published: March 2003

This article presents selected results of the study on 22 major Orthodox (Eastern Christian) Churches in the United States. This research was sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies as a part of the nationwide “Religious Congregations Membership Study: 2000.” The data were obtained directly from the headquarters of different Orthodox Churches in North America through personal visits and by interviewing the church’s leaders—the bishops or the chancellors.
On the Prospect of Linking Religious‐Right Identification with Political Behavior: Panacea or Snipe Hunt?
Authors: Hood III M. V. , Smith Mark Caleb
Published: March 2003

Although it is a popular topic, the religious right is understudied in two areas. First, scholars have not developed an agreed‐upon profile of religious‐right adherents at the individual level. Second, little is known about how religious‐right status functions as a predictor of political behavior. There is a possibility that religious‐right status functions similarly to party identification, as an indicator that is both related to a wide range of variables and capable of functioning independently of those variables as a predictor of political behavior. Using multivariate statistical techniques we analyze survey data that allows respondents to self‐identify as members of the religious right. We find that religious‐right identifiers are social and theological conservatives who demonstrate high levels of religious commitment. However, they are neither monolithically Republican nor ideologically conservative. Religious‐right status does have cross‐cutting characteristics, for it is fluid across partisan, ideological, and denominational lines. This status is not, however, politically distinguishing as whatever impact it has on political behavior is apparently subsumed by traditional political variables.
Forward to Aristotle: the Case for a Hybrid Ontology
Authors: Harré Rom
Published: March 2003

It behooves a science to pay careful attention to its ontological assumptions, especially in cases where they are likely to be complex. Psychology seems to require both material states of humans as organisms, and symbolic productions. But we must be careful not to think that the grammars of the latter are some sort of superscience. The duality shows up strongly in the difference between skilled perfomances and their material enabling conditions. I argue that the dual ontology appears in a science of psychology as a hybrid grammar. If we try to colonize one or the other side of the hybrid by terms from the other, the transplanted terms make no sense in their new surroundings. We find ourselves with a double or hybrid grammar and three main patterns of action to explain, causal, habitual and monitored. By assimilating the latter two under the symbolic ontology apparent problems dissolve. This is illustrated with a sketch of the sources and character of the sense of personal uniqueness.
Language and Authenticity
Authors: Marková Ivana
Published: March 2003

It is argued that the analysis of language should play a central role in the study of social psychological phenomenon. For example, there is evidence that habitual inauthenticity in the use of language which was practised in the Eastern and Central European totalitarian systems was partly related to the breakdown of moral principles and to the loss of identity. Using two sentences, ‘Proletarians of the whole world – unite’ and ‘The Bororo are arara’, it is shown that they can carry content which goes beyond their semantic meanings. In the given examples, the former sentence is analysed in terms of an ideology and the latter in terms of a social representation. It is pointed out that subjectivation, which is a pervasive feature of modern individualism, just as totalitarianism, represents a threat to autheniticity in language.
The Break of Conversation
Authors: Gurevitch Zali
Published: March 2003

The present essay explores conversation as a phenomenon of mutual turning (con‐versation). The act of turning reveals a basic tension between two approaches – that which puts the unmediated turn as the basis of dialogue (as in Buber’s I and Thou), and the present approach that regards speech and the creative text as part and parcel of the conversational turn. The controversy is brought to the point of “break” which is both theoretical and refering to actual gaps of silence that occur at the midst of conversation. Three such gaps or critical silences are explored – silence about, silence between and silence within. From these a general notion of break is discussed in a negative sense of a conversational crisis and in a positive sense of a creative breakthrough.
Direct Perception and Symbol Forming in Positioning
Authors: Jones Raya
Published: March 2003

Harreà’s positioning theory posits discourse as the concrete context within which selves are produced, but accentuates the dissociation between the physical engagement in a conversation and ‘location’ in a conceptual interpersonal space. The thesis that positioning involves selective attention, and that selected positions express ongoing transformations in the hearer’s experiential realm is expanded here initially by reference to Gibson’s direct‐perception theory. The concepts of indexical and symbolic affordances are introduced to describe the function of utterances in setting parameters for hearer’s behavioural and social‐relational engagement, respectively. This implicates a construct of ‘psychological value’ (i.e., the affective intensity and valence of elements of experience), as proposed by C. G. Jung. The essay draws attention to the idea of symbol forming as a process whereby abstract self/world relations are articulated in one’s actions and thoughts, and in which context the ‘reception’ of others’ actions and utterances as having positioning implications may be understood.
Nationality: Some Replies
Authors: Miller David
Published: March 2003

This paper defends the principle of nationality against a number of critical objections made in recent issues of the Journal. It starts from the claim that national solidarity has served and continues to serve as an essential support to liberal democratic institutions and practices of social justice. Such national allegiances are not easy to defend if one begins from a cosmopolitan standpoint. But defending them does not mean embracing everything that people ordinarily believe — a political philosophy that begins from existing national sentiments can be sharply critical of the practices that are said to embody those sentiments. In particular justice, although its principles are context‐dependent, is more than merely subjective.

The idea that nations are historic communities is defended against the charge that such ‘communities’ are in fact divided along lines of class, ethnicity, etc. Membership imposes obligations, but these are not merely to repeat what our ancestors have done; they are redefined in each generation. A principle of nationality that is reiterative and democratic, recognising the equal claims of other nations, and giving priority to the way the present inhabitants of a territory understand their identity, can remedy weaknesses in liberalism without licensing aggressive forms of nationalism.
Psychopathy and Responsibility
Authors: Glannon Walter
Published: March 2003

Some philosophers have argued that the psychopath serves as the ultimate test of the limits of moral responsibility. They hold that the psychopath lacks a deep knowledge of right and wrong, and that Kant’s ethics arguably offers the most plausible account of this moral knowledge. On this view, the psychopath’s lack of moral understanding is due to a cognitive failure involving practical reason. I argue that the deep knowledge of right and wrong consists of emotional and volitional components in addition to a cognitive one. Hence it is mistaken to claim that the psychopath’s moral deficiency is due solely to a cognitive failure, or that his lack of the deep knowledge of right and wrong can be explained entirely in terms of a defect of practical reason. I refer to empirical research to show that the Kantian model of practical reason does not provide a satisfactory account of responsibility of the psychopath in particular or of moral agents in general. On the basis of both philosophical and empirical considerations, I argue that the psychopath is at least partly responsible for his behaviour.
Interpreting Surrogate Consent using Counterfactuals
Authors: Barnbaum Deborah
Published: March 2003

Philosophers such as Dan Brock believe that surrogates who make health care decisions on behalf of previously competent patients, in the absence of an advance directive, should make these decisions based upon a substituted judgment principle. Brock favours substituted judgment over a best interests standard. However, Edward Wierenga claims that the substituted judgment principle ought to be abandoned in favour of a best interests standard, because of an inherent problem with the substituted judgment principle. Wierenga's version of the substituted judgment principle and his counterexample to the principle's successful interpretation of valid surrogate consent is presented. A new version of what is meant by the substituted judgment principle is advanced. The new version is not beset with the problems Wierenga initially ascribed to the substituted judgment principle.
Effects of Art Education in Secondary Schools on Cultural Participation in Later Life
Authors: Nagel Ineke , Ganzeboom Harry , Haanstra Folkert , Oud Wil
Published: March 2003

This paper reports on the effects of art education in secondary schools on the cultural participation of Dutch students 10–20 years after leaving school. We draw our conclusion from a sample survey among 1034 students from 31 schools, half of whom took art as a subject of examination. Art examination subjects were more often chosen by students who were already active in the arts, come from culturally active families, and who more often chose languages and other humanities in their examination package. However, in spite of their affiliation with art prior to choosing an examination package, training in the arts during secondary school was found to add to their participation in cultural activities ten to twenty years later. The effects are restricted to the same art discipline as the art lessons attended, and apply to both receptive [enjoying art of artists] and productive [producing art] cultural participation.
Art and Science in Education: The Common Ground
Authors: Wenham Martin
Published: March 2003

Recent work aimed at establishing a rational, objective basis for aesthetics and the arts repudiates the division between the ‘two cultures’ which is used politically to justify marginalization of the arts in education and society. Far from weakening this cultural division, however, such writing and research has reinforced it. With the aim of reversing this trend, it is argued that ‘scientism’ is a myth, that objectivity of knowledge in science is comparable but not superior to that in aesthetics and the arts, and that polarization of the ‘two cultures’ and marginalization of the arts is based on ideology, not reason. There is and always has been significant common ground between art and science, encompassing not only issues of mutual concern but also modes of enquiry, many of which are far more similar than seems commonly to be supposed. A consideration of some of the similarities and differences between art and science shows that there is no fundamental division between them: both are part of one culture, not paradigms of two. This observation leads to ideas on the possible re‐integration of art and science in education, particularly through development of observation and common curriculum content.
Integrating Public Art, Environmental Sustainability, and Education: Australia's ‘Creative Village’ Model
Authors: De Lorenzo Catherine
Published: March 2003

This paper will attempt to position the Creative Village project within the parameters of an international debate on public art, sustainability and education. It will begin with a brief history of the project and its community and arts origins, then examine its engagement with environmentally‐responsive art and design, and finally its integrative educational paradigm. I will argue that the value and significance of the programme is that it has successfully bridged complex educational, design, community and environmental goals through having clear core values and a practice of flexible delivery.
Do Stock Market Investors Overreact?
Authors: Dissanaike Gishan
Published: March 2003

This paper investigates the evidence on the stock market overreaction hypothesis (ORH), which holds that, if stock prices systematically overshoot as a consequence of excessive investor optimism or pessimism, price reversals should be predictable from past price performance. The ORH stands in contradiction to the efficient markets hypothesis which is a cornerstone of financial economics. This study is unique in the overreaction literature because it is restricted to larger and better‐known listed companies, whose shares are more frequently traded. This restriction more or less eliminates two alternative explanations to the overreaction hypothesis: it minimises the influence of bid‐ask biases and infrequent trading, and reduces the possibility that reversals are primarily a small‐firm phenomenon. The paper also investigates a third alternative explanation, namely that time‐varying risk explains the reversal effect. The study employs unbiased methods of return computation and uses data from 1975 to 1991 for nearly 1,000 UK companies. Overall, the evidence appears to be consistent with the overreaction hypothesis, subject to certain qualifications.
The Provision of Non‐audit Services and the Pricing of Audit Fees
Authors: Firth Michael
Published: March 2003

There have been a number of studies examining audit fees and this research has covered various nations. Recent legislation in Norway requires a company to disclose information on the audit fee and the fees for non‐audit services paid to its auditor. Using this data, models of audit fee structure are developed. As with other studies, the size of the company is a major determinant of the audit fee. Payments for non‐audit services are positively and significantly associated with audit fees; this relationship is difficult to explain although it parallels some research in the United States. Overall, the models explain about 75 per cent of the variability in audit fees.
Underpricing and Firm Quality in Initial Public Offerings: Evidence from Singapore
Authors: Hameed Allaudeen , Lim Guan Hua
Published: March 2003

Firms seeking initial public listings on the Stock Exchange of Singapore can choose between offering their shares at a fixed price or selling them in two tranches: the first tranche is offered at a fixed price while the issue price of the second tranche is determined via a tender system. Consistent with the existing signalling literature, tendering IPO firms underprice their fixed price tranche more than non‐tendering IPO firms. The underpricing in the fixed tranche is recouped through higher proceeds from the tender tranche. Our evidence suggests that IPO firms use the tender option to signal superior firm quality.
The Impulse of Stock Market Volatility and the Market Crash of October 1987
Authors: Cheung Daniel Wai‐Wah
Published: March 2003

This paper employs the technique of variance decomposition and impulse response functions to examine the dynamic nature of stock market volatility relationships among six major countries during the pre, around, and post October 1987 crash period. During the period around the crash, the US stock market volatility explains much better the variations of the stock market volatility of Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK. Our findings clearly indicate that the crash originated in the US and then spread to other major stock markets.
Regulated Managerial Insider Trading as a Mechanism to Facilitate Shareholder Control
Authors: Zhang Guochang
Published: March 2003

This paper shows that managerial insider trading, suitably regulated, reduces information asymmetry and helps shareholders better screen corporate decisions. In a setting where a firm's manager has private information about potential projects and his preferences differ from those of shareholders, I derive a unique perfect‐sequential equilibrium (Grossman and Perry, 1986) where the manager's inside information is partially revealed through his voluntary purchase of the firm's stock, and shareholders screen investment proposals based on the revealed information. However, to make information revelation credible, the manager should be required to report his trading publicly and be prohibited from making a short‐term reversal of his position.