bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Integrated Approach to Managing Defined Benefit Plans
Authors: Baker August , Logue Dennis E. , Rader Jack S. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis chapter examines the policy implications of managing a defined benefit (DB) plan as a separate entity or as an entity integrated into the sponsoring organization. It shows how the pension liability affects investment policy and how different views on the nature of the labor market lead to different investment policies. In general, the management of DB pension plans should be integrated with the management of the sponsoring organization since the two are closely entwined. However, this will depend on the best interests of plan beneficiaries.
Asset Allocation for Defined Benefit Plans
Authors: Baker August , Logue Dennis E. , Rader Jack S. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis chapter begins by defining the strategic asset allocation decision and discussing how the strategic asset allocation should be set. It introduces the factors that should be considered in setting the defined benefit (DB) strategic asset allocation. Theoretical arguments favoring allocations to stocks and bonds are considered, followed by empirical evidence that shows what pension funds actually do. Finally, the allocation of DB assets over time is discussed.
Contemporary Perceptions
Authors: Smil Vaclav 
Published: August 2005

AbstractMost of the people who were alive during the Age of Synergy had only poor or uncertain understanding of the epochal nature of this new era but some scientists, engineers and historians perceived its revolutionary contributions with a remarkable accuracy and clarity. Most of these changes were welcome, but some, including the loss of artisanal labor, were regretted. And the gap between near-miraculous technical capabilities and dubious socio-economic arrangements that began to widen during that era of accelerated innovation shows no signs of closing.
In the Dreamtime
Authors: Tumminia Diana G. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis chapter explains the Unarian practice of dream analysis as a fact-finding process that constructs reality. Dreams are used for healing, contact with Space Brothers, viewing past lives, and solving problems of interpretation. The narrative accounts from members show the ways they use dreams in their sense-making process. The ethnographer recounts her dream about Space Brothers as part of the challenge of interpretation in fieldwork.
Death and Transition
Authors: Tumminia Diana G. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractRuth Norman, who played the role of Uriel the Archangel, illustrates the power of charisma in a spiritual group. The death of a leader can affect the transition of authority as illustrated by several examples (e.g., Theosophy, ISKCON, Spirit Fruit Company, among others). Max Weber’s theory of routinization of charisma indicates several possibilities for transition. The group coped with the death of Uriel and Antares through past-life therapy and channeling.
How Prophecy Endures
Authors: Tumminia Diana G. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThe discussion revisits the criticisms of Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory by indicating alternative explanations of disconfirmed prophecy and adherence to irrational beliefs. Subsequent empirical research on actual prophecies show Festinger’s original perspective to be flawed. Charismatic organizations that give rise to prophecy provide whole lifeworlds of activity and meaning that go beyond a single prediction. Groups, like Unarius, with repeated prophetic failure develop coping mechanisms and specific methods of interpretation that explain away the reality disjuncture connected with such disappointments. One Unarian method is to account for the non-arrival of the Space Brothers in terms of past lives.
Unobserved Heterogeneity
Authors: Arellano Manuel 
Published: August 2005

AbstractUnobserved heterogeneity is one instance in where correlation between observables and unobservables may be expected. This has been a pervasive problem in cross-sectional analysis. A major motivation for using panel data has been the ability to control from the possibly correlated, time-invariant heterogeneity without observing it. This chapter analyses fixed effects models, heteroskedasticity and serial correlation, likelihood approaches, and nonlinear models with additive effects.
Introduction
Authors: Rebick Marcus 
Published: August 2005

AbstractSets the stage for the analysis in the rest of the book. There is a review of Japan’s long recession, and the thesis is put forward that rising labour costs due to yen appreciation, the downturn of the 1990s, and changes in corporate governance that have made firms more sensitive to profits have all pushed firms to look for ways of lowering their labour costs through greater use of atypical forms of labour. Also discusses the difficulty in finding a single point at which the labour economy may have seen a structural break.
Changes to the Employment and Treatment of Regular Employees
Authors: Rebick Marcus 
Published: August 2005

AbstractExamines changes that have been taking place in the treatment of regular full-time workers in Japan. Among the developments examined are the introduction of performance-related pay, flattening of the age-earnings profile, specialist training, and shorter working hours. Looks at trends in labour mobility and concludes that long-term employment is still the rule for the majority of these employees.
Industrial Relations
Authors: Rebick Marcus 
Published: August 2005

AbstractExamines recent developments in industrial relations in Japan. The decline in union density is analysed and found to be due to a mixture of causes including sectoral shifts in employment and the failure of unions to organise new workplaces. The weakened role of the Shunto in the early 2000s and the increase in civil litigation and court-mediated dispute resolution are symptoms of the declining role of unions. Japanese labour relations are becoming more individualised.
The Diversity of Modern Capitalism
Authors: Amable Bruno 
Published: August 2005

AbstractCapitalist economies have developed with a fair amount of diversity among themselves, which should have resulted in dramatic differences in levels of development. The fact that these differences are for the most part not noticeable may indicate that capitalism is based on such robust mechanisms that it accommodates varied institutional environments. In other words, institutional differences would be akin to national folklore, with few if any consequences for economic dynamics. If institutional specificities did have an effect, competition among nations would sooner or later lead to the adoption of international ‘best practices’. This book challenges these views on several counts. There are some elements of truth in the statement that differences in macroeconomic policy mix could explain in part the differences in economic performance. But this does not amount to saying that institutional specificities do not matter in explaining important differences in the basic economic mechanisms of the different countries. There is a considerable amount of theoretical and historical work that insists on the central role of institutions in economic dynamics.
Institutions, Complementarity, and Hierarchy
Authors: Amable Bruno 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis chapter provides the theoretical background for the book. It proposes a theory of institutions as political equilibriums, and presents the concepts of institutional complementarity and hierarchy. It shows how institutions influence the economic equilibrium, and that these are political-economy choices. An economy is characterized by a set of complementary institutional forms resting on specific political equilibria defining the hierarchy among institutions.
Whither Continental European Capitalism?
Authors: Amable Bruno 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis chapter examines the main transformations that have taken place in the Continental European model of capitalism, in connection with the opposition between the main ideological and political currents. It analyses the opposition between a project of regulated capitalism, which corresponds to a renewal of the Continental model, and a neo-liberal project, which aims at transforming the EU countries into market-based economies. It is argued that the Third Way was one political strategy compatible with the neo-liberal project, and that its relative failure can be explained with the help of our theory of the diversity of capitalism.
Sovereign Debt Workouts
Authors: Chui Michael , Gai Prasanna 
Published: August 2005

AbstractExplains how policymakers must trade the ex-post costs of creditor coordination failure, which can help discipline sovereign debtors, against the ex-ante costs of debtor moral hazard. The threat of a liquidity crisis—a creditor run—is shown to be a powerful, albeit blunt, disciplining force in international capital markets, and the chapter explores the circumstances under which official intervention by the IMF can substitute for this discipline. The efficacy of collective action clauses as a means of ameliorating creditor coordination problems is also given a formal treatment.
Overview
Authors: Sapir André , Aghion Philippe , Bertola Giuseppe , Hellwig Martin , Pisani-Ferry Jean , Rosati Dariusz , Viñals José , Wallace Helen , Buti Marco , Nava Mario , Smith Peter M. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis chapter begins with a brief description of the three facets of the European economic system: the single market and complementary microeconomic policies, macroeconomic policies in the monetary union, and the EU budget. An overview of the chapters included in this volume is then presented. These cover European Union policies, growth, stability, cohesion, economic trade-offs, economic governance, sustainability, enlargement, and policy recommendations.
Economic performance: Growth, stability, and cohesion
Authors: Sapir André , Aghion Philippe , Bertola Giuseppe , Hellwig Martin , Pisani-Ferry Jean , Rosati Dariusz , Viñals José , Wallace Helen , Buti Marco , Nava Mario , Smith Peter M. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThis chapter presents an in-depth analysis of the European Union’s economic performance in terms of growth, macroeconomic stability, and cohesion. The discussion on growth focuses on long-term economic performance, the reasons behind Europe’s slow growth, educational attainment and expenditure, new entry and product markets, innovation, finance, and labour markets. Macroeconomic stability covers the importance of stability, good practices vs. good luck in achieving stability, macroeconomic policies in the EU, and the European Monetary Union. Under cohesion, the theoretical motivation and effects of European redistribution policies are reviewed, including the evolution of regional and interpersonal inequality in last decades.
The Winner–Loser Gap: Contours and Boundaries
Authors: Anderson Christopher J. , Blais André , Bowler Shaun , Donovan Todd , Listhaug Ola 
Published: August 2005

AbstractInvestigates the gap in winners’ and losers’ attitudes with regard to different kinds of attitudes about the political system across established and newly emerging democracies. The results show that being in the political majority generally translates into more positive attitudes toward government, while losers have more negative attitudes toward the political system. We find that there usually is a gap in winners’ and losers’ sense of whether elections are fair, their evaluations of the performance of the political system, as well as feelings about whether government is responsive. Moreover, losing elections appears to diminish people’s support for democratic principles overall, and losers exhibit a heightened propensity to engage in political protest.
Winning and Losing in Old and New Democracies
Authors: Anderson Christopher J. , Blais André , Bowler Shaun , Donovan Todd , Listhaug Ola 
Published: August 2005

AbstractExamines the dimensions of losers’ consent in old and new democracies. We expect that losing has stronger negative effects in new democracies relative to mature democracies since losers have not yet learned to lose in countries where democratic governance is of recent vintage. The results show that, with few exceptions, political losers have lower support levels than winners across all dimensions of political support, including beliefs in core principles of democracy. Moreover, we find that the winner–loser gap is more prominent in newly democratized and democratizing states. The data also indicate that the supporters of the old communist parties exhibit significantly lower levels of support for the democratic system than voters for other parties, and in particular, if they are not in power.
Sentiment and Sentimentality
Authors: Pugmire David 
Published: August 2005

AbstractSentimentality, the most easily recognizable of emotional vices, is often charged with subordinating truth to desired emotional effect. Yet there can be good reasons for doing that. Where there is fault, it lies in allowing the real importance of the object to be subordinated to its emotive utility to the agent. Sentimental concern is narcissistic: it is not with the actual significance of an object but with the emotional impact of that on oneself. In thus being indifferent to the object in its own right, the sentimental attitude is actually cynical.
Sketching the Rise of Real Inequality in Early Modern Europe
Authors: Hoffman Philip T. , Jacks David S. , Levin Patricia A. , Lindert Peter H. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThe concept of real, as opposed to nominal or conventional, income inequality reveals pronounced inequality movements, because relative prices happened to move very differently for the poor and the rich before 1914. Between 1500 and 1790 to 1815, the prices of staple foods rose much more than the prices of what the rich consumed. This greatly magnified the rise in real-income inequality. The opposite happened between 1815 and 1914. Looking at life expectancy, rather than at annual income or consumption, we again find a widening of inequality in the eighteenth century, at least within the countries of Western Europe.
Economic Growth, Human Capital Formation and Consumption in Western Europe Before 1800
Authors: Reis Jaime 
Published: August 2005

AbstractArgues that during the early modern period in Europe living standards gradually rose not only because probate inventories reveal that people were acquiring more and better quality durable goods. They were also increasingly allocating resources to the acquisition of the skills of literacy. Partly, this human capital served to enhance their productivity and earning ability, but it also served for pleasure, edification and gaining status and to this extent it should be considered as a consumer durable too. A quantitative exercise tries to show that if this is factored into the more traditional ‘material consumption’ approach, it can lead to a significant reconsideration of the standard of living debate, in particular, as regards the eighteenth century.
Institutions in Transition
Authors: Ho Peter 
Published: August 2005

AbstractStudying institutional change regardless of whether it is focused on transitional or developing economies, may prove most fruitful when focused on its structuring of the means of production—land, labour, and capital. This book does exactly that: it singles out land as an object of study and places it in the context of one of the world’s largest and most populous countries undergoing institutional reform, the People’s Republic of China. The book argues that private property protected by law, the principle of ‘getting-the-prices-right’, and the emergence of effectively functioning markets can not be imposed, but are the outcome of a society’s historical development and institutional fabric. In other words, the creation of institutions that are trusted and perceived as ‘credible’ in the eyes of social actors hinges in part on choice and timing in relation to the constellation of socio-economic and political parameters. It is demonstrated that disregarding these might result in the establishment of ‘empty institutions’ that have little effect on social actors’ actions, and can even cause rising inequality, bad land stewardship, and social conflict. The book concludes that the key to understanding China’s successes in rural reforms lies in the state’s hands-off approach and upholding an intentional institutional ambiguity that allowed for local, credible institutions to arise.
Deep root function in soil water dynamics in cerrado savannas of central Brazil
Authors: OLIVEIRA R. S. , BEZERRA L. , DAVIDSON E. A. , PINTO F. , KLINK C. A. , NEPSTAD D. C. , MOREIRA A. 
Published: August 2005

Summary

Water is a key resource in tropical savannas. Changes in vegetation structure due to land‐use change and increased fire frequency may affect the availability of water and the flux of water through these ecosystems.
We compared the seasonal soil moisture dynamics of two adjacent savanna ecosystems with contrasting tree densities in central Brazil. Our goal was to investigate the influence of tree density on deep water uptake, soil water dynamics and evapotranspiration.
Soil water was measured using a depth of 7·5 m beneath the tree‐dominated cerrado denso ecosystem and to 4 m beneath the grass‐dominated campo sujo ecosystem. Plant‐available water (PAW) throughout the cerrado denso soil profile ranged from 293 mm at the end of the dry season to 689 mm during the wet season. In the grass‐dominated site, PAW in the profile ranged from 155 to 362 mm.
During the dry season, ≈82% of the water used in cerrado denso and 67% in campo sujo was extracted from the profile below 1 m. The tree‐dominated cerrado denso used 137 mm more water than the grass‐dominated campo sujo. Significant deep soil water uptake was also observed during the wet season of 1998, when rainfall was below average.
Evapotranspiration (ET) rates (estimated as change in soil moisture over time) were higher in cerrado denso than in campo sujo during both seasons. Estimated ET ranged from 1·4 mm day−1 during the dry season to 5·8 mm day−1 for the wet season in cerrado denso, and from 0·9 mm day−1 in the dry season to 4·5 mm day−1 in early wet season in campo sujo. The differences in PAW and ET rates between the two ecosystems are associated not only with differences in root distribution, but also with differences in tree densities and the phenology of full‐leaf canopies.
Our results suggest that deep‐rooted plants may contribute significantly to the water balance of cerrado ecosystems, and that the hydrological cycle of this biome could change as woody vegetation is replaced by exotic grasses and agricultural crops.
Nutrient availability induces contrasting allocation and starch formation in resprouting and obligate seeding shrubs
Authors: KNOX K. J. E. , CLARKE P. J. 
Published: August 2005

Summary

Woody plant responses to crown removal in fire‐prone vegetation are of two types: resprouting (resprouters) or killed (obligate seeders). Obligate seeders maximize their fitness by ensuring they are reproductively mature before the next fire; resprouters invest in structures that increase their chance of surviving the next fire.
We tested whether seven congeneric pairs of resprouter and obligate seeder shrubs differ in plant size, leaf traits, water relations, biomass allocation and root starch formation in response to resource availability. This was tested by examining the interactive effects of water and nutrient availability in a factorial experiment.
Plant size (dry mass and shoot length), leaf area and stomatal conductance did not differ consistently among resprouters and obligate seeders, but were affected by water and nutrient availability. Leaf‐area ratio and specific leaf area were not affected consistently by nutrient or water availability, and did not differ among obligate seeders and resprouters.
Biomass allocation responded to resource availability and differed between resprouter and obligate seeder pairs. Nutrient addition reduced allocation to root mass, and resprouters consistently allocated more than obligate seeders to root mass. Leaf mass ratios were higher in obligate seeders, and were maintained at the expense of stem mass when nutrients limited growth.
Starch concentrations in the roots of resprouters were higher than in obligate seeders. Resprouters increased the concentration of starch in their roots when growth was limited by nutrients, but obligate seeders did not. Resprouters appear to develop a starch‐storage capacity through both reserve formation and accumulation mediated by nutrient availability.
Allocation, rather than growth differences, provide some insight into why resprouters are often more common than obligate seeders, especially on fertile sites. Seedlings of resprouters may be advantaged at fertile sites because allocation to roots and starch reserve formation enable them to be better competitors after fire. We predict that the interplay of biomass allocation, reproduction, starch storage and disturbance frequency provide a framework for patterns of coexistence in shrubs in fire‐prone ecosystems.
Potential impacts of future land use and climate change on the Red List status of the Proteaceae in the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa
Authors: Bomhard Bastian , Richardson David M. , Donaldson John S. , Hughes Greg O. , Midgley Guy F. , Raimondo Domitilla C. , Rebelo Anthony G. , Rouget Mathieu , Thuiller Wilfried 
Published: August 2005

AbstractUsing spatial predictions of future threats to biodiversity, we assessed for the first time the relative potential impacts of future land use and climate change on the threat status of plant species. We thus estimated how many taxa could be affected by future threats that are usually not included in current IUCN Red List assessments. Here, we computed the Red List status including future threats of 227 Proteaceae taxa endemic to the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa, and compared this with their Red List status excluding future threats. We developed eight different land use and climate change scenarios for the year 2020, providing a range of best‐ to worst‐case scenarios. Four scenarios include only the effects of future land use change, while the other four also include the impacts of projected anthropogenic climate change (HadCM2 IS92a GGa), using niche‐based models. Up to a third of the 227 Proteaceae taxa are uplisted (become more threatened) by up to three threat categories if future threats as predicted for 2020 are included, and the proportion of threatened Proteaceae taxa rises on average by 9% (range 2–16%), depending on the scenario. With increasing severity of the scenarios, the proportion of Critically Endangered taxa increases from about 1% to 7% and almost 2% of the 227 Proteaceae taxa become Extinct because of climate change. Overall, climate change has the most severe effects on the Proteaceae, but land use change also severely affects some taxa. Most of the threatened taxa occur in low‐lying coastal areas, but the proportion of threatened taxa changes considerably in inland mountain areas if future threats are included. Our approach gives important insights into how, where and when future threats could affect species persistence and can in a sense be seen as a test of the value of planned interventions for conservation.