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Kinds of Find Terms modified by Find Selected AbstractsFINDS FROM THE 2002 EXCAVATIONACTA ARCHAEOLOGICA, Issue 1 2009Article first published online: 5 JUL 2010 No abstract is available for this article. [source] SODOHOMÉ CULTURE: OTHER FINDSACTA ARCHAEOLOGICA, Issue 1 2009Article first published online: 5 JUL 2010 No abstract is available for this article. [source] PHOSPHATES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS: IMPLICATIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS OF BURIAL,ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 4 2004L. MARITAN The occurrence of coarse-grained vivianite and mitridatite aggregates in a potsherd, a grand ring and a timber imprint from the Second Iron Age site of Adria (Rovigo, northeastern Italy) suggest contrasting environmental conditions of burial. In particular, bone fragments were replaced by vivianite at relatively low pH and Eh, due to the presence of deteriorating organic matter, together with slag and iron flakes. Subsequent interactions with Ca-rich groundwater characterized by higher pH and Eh determined the growth of mitridatite after vivianite. Although phosphates crystallized after burial, the examined samples were not involved in pervasive chemical contamination. [source] ,Where Shall I Find a White Rose . . . ?': an end-of-life narrativeEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CANCER CARE, Issue 2 2010A. JONES rmn, adult psychotherapist, phd cpn cert ., post grad dip psychotherapy No abstract is available for this article. [source] Oval Shield Representations on the Black Sea LittoralOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 4 2000Juliet Gunby Finds of representations of oval shields in Nymphaeum, Panticapaeum, Myrmekia, and the Taman peninsula have raised the possibility of the presence of Celtic groups in the Greek colonies of the Pontic littoral. However, these identifications have been based on the traditional association, based on classical history and sculpture, of oval shields exclusively with Celtic groups , an association which recent research has called into question. [source] Globalization and Prison Privatization: Why Are Most of the World's For-Profit Adult Prisons to Be Found in the American South?INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2007Phillip J. Wood For a generation, students of comparative public policy and international politics have argued that global market discipline and the increasing mobility of international "best practices" have given rise to policy convergence at the global level. This paper uses the American case to investigate some of the forces thought to have given rise to the spread of private prisons. It finds that while there are prisons in a number of countries, the evidence of convergence is thin and seems to suggest that the core of the prison privatization is in the American South. It then examines several theories,the political economy of the prison boom and overcrowding, globalization theory, the politics of the new right and the idea of a "prison-industrial complex",that have been used to explain prison privatization and the extent to which they are consistent with the empirical pattern. Each takes us some way to understanding that pattern, but none can provide a clear theoretical mapping. [source] Who Cares about Auditor Reputation?,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005JAN BARTON Abstract I provide evidence on the demand for auditor reputation by examining the defections of Arthur Andersen LLP's clients following the accounting scandals and criminal conviction marring the auditor's reputation in 2002. About 95 percent of clients in my sample did not switch auditors until after Andersen was indicted for criminal misconduct regarding its failed audit of Enron Corp. I test whether the timing of client defections and the choice of a new auditor are consistent with managers' incentives to mitigate potentially costly information and agency problems. I find that clients defected sooner, mostly to another Big 5 auditor, if they were more visible in the capital markets; such clients attracted more analysts and press coverage, had larger institutional ownership and share turnover, and raised more cash in recent security issues. However, my proxies for agency conflicts , managerial ownership and financial leverage , are not associated with the timing of defections or the choice of new auditor. Overall, my study suggests that firms more visible in the capital markets tend to be more concerned about engaging highly reputable auditors, consistent with such firms trying to build and preserve their own reputations for credible financial reporting. [source] The North American Industry Classification System and Its Implications for Accounting Research,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2003Jayanthi Krishnan Abstract Industry classification is an important component of the methodological infrastructure of accounting research. Researchers have generally used the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system for assigning firms to industries. In 1999, the major statistical agencies of Canada, Mexico, and the United States began implementing the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The new scheme changes industry classification by introducing production as the basis for grouping firms, creating 358 new industries, extensively rearranging SIC categories, and establishing uniformity across all NAFTA nations. We examine the implications of the change for accounting research. We first assess NAICS's effectiveness in forming industry groups. Following Guenther and Rosman 1994, we use financial ratio variances to measure intra-industry homogeneity and find that NAICS offers some improvement over the SIC system in defining manufacturing, transportation, and service industries. We also evaluate whether NAICS might have an impact on empirical research by reproducing part of Lang and Lundholm's 1996 study of information-transfer and industry effects. Using SIC delineations, they focus on whether industry conditions or the level of competition is the main source of uncertainty resolved by earnings announcements. Across all levels of aggregation, we find inferences are similar using either SIC or NAICS. How-ever, we also observe that the regression coefficients in Lang and Lundholm's model show smaller intra-industry dispersion for NAICS, relative to SIC, definitions. Overall, the results suggest that NAICS definitions lead to more cohesive industries. Because of this, researchers may encounter some differences in using NAICS-industry definitions, rather than SIC, but these will depend on research design and industry composition of the sample. [source] Accounting Policy Disclosures and Analysts' ForecastsCONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2003Ole-Kristian Hope Abstract Using an international sample, I investigate whether the extent of firms' disclosure of their accounting policies in the annual report is associated with properties of analysts' earnings forecasts. Controlling for firm- and country-level variables, I find that the level of accounting policy disclosure is significantly negatively related to forecast dispersion and forecast error. In particular, I find that accounting policy disclosures are incrementally useful to analysts over and above all other annual report disclosures. These findings suggest that accounting policy disclosures reduce uncertainty about forecasted earnings. I find univariate but not multivariate support for the hypothesis that accounting policy disclosures are especially helpful to analysts in environments where firms can choose among a larger set of accounting methods. [source] Accounting Choices and Risk Management: SFAS No. 115 and U.S. Bank Holding Companies,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2002Leslie Hodder Abstract This paper provides evidence that regulatory contracts affect firms' accounting choices and risk-management decisions. Specifically, we investigate whether an exogenous shock to regulatory risk induced by Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 115, "Accounting for Certain Investments in Debt and Equity Securities" (SFAS 1993), encouraged U.S. banks to deviate from portfolio and risk benchmarks when they adopted the standard. Because we cannot observe relevant benchmarks, we model portfolio and risk decisions as functions of macroeconomic and firm-specific factors using data from a period when regulatory capital was immune to SFAS No. 115 accounting. We examine a sample of 230 publicly traded banks and find that (1) irrespective of adoption timing, banks classified too few securities available for sale (AFS) relative to estimated benchmarks; (2) weaker banks that adopted the standard early classified far more securities as AFS relative to benchmarks; (3) banks altered the size of their securities portfolios along with the levels of interest-rate risk and credit risk as regulatory capital decreased; and (4) the level of interest-rate risk on banks' loan portfolios increased at the time of SFAS No. 115 adoption. We also explore the 1995 Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) amnesty when firms could "readopt" SFAS No. 115. We find that banks used the 1995 FASB amnesty to undo strategic initial SFAS No. 115 adoption decisions. Taken together, our findings suggest that SFAS No. 115 caused some of the accounting and economic consequences predicted by bankers, analysts, and academics. [source] Maturation of Corporate Governance Research, 1993,2007: An AssessmentCORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2009Boris Durisin ABSTRACT Manuscript Type: Review Research Question/Issue: This study seeks to investigate whether governance research in fact is a discipline or whether it is rather the subject of multi-disciplinary research. We map the intellectual structure of corporate governance research and its evolution from 1993,2007. Research Findings/Results: Based on the analysis of more than 1,000 publications and 48,000 citations in Corporate Goverance: An International Review (CGIR) and other academic journals, our study identifies the most influential works, the dominant subfields, and their evolution. Our study assesses the maturation of corporate governance research as a discipline; it finds increasing sophistication, depth and rigor, and consistency in its intellectual structure. Theoretical Implications: There is a large body of accumulated corporate governance research in the US, yet there is an empirical gap on cross-national studies in the literature. Furthermore, hardly any of the top cited works undertake their study in a cross-national setting. Thus, corporate governance research and CGIR in its quest to contribute to a global theory of corporate governance might benefit if articles have a cross-national methodological approach and empirical grounding in their research design and if articles explicitly aim at stating the theoretical underpinnings they draw on. Practical Implications: Globalists find in CGIR an outlet addressing economics and finance (e.g., whether and how compensation or dismissal of CEOs is related to board characteristics), management (e.g., whether and how best practice codes adoption is related to board characteristics and performance), and accounting (e.g., whether and how earnings manipulations is related to board characteristics) issues globally. [source] THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SOCIAL CONTROL IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS OF VICTIMIZATION RISK,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2001MARÍA B. VÉLEZ This study introduces public social control into multilevel victimization research by investigating its impact on household and personal victimization risk for residents across 60 urban neighborhoods. Public social control refers to the ability of neighborhoods to secure external resources necessary for the reduction of crime and victimization. I find that living in neighborhoods with high levels of public social control reduces an individual's likelihood of victimization, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Given the important role that residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods can play in securing public social control, this contingent finding suggests that disadvantaged neighborhoods can be politically viable contexts. [source] EXTENDING SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY: A MULTILEVEL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF VIOLENCE AMONG PERSONS WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2000ERIC SILVER Prior studies of violence among individuals with mental illnesses have focused almost exclusively on individual-level characteristics. In this study, I examine whether the structural correlates of neighborhood social disorganization also explain variation in violence. I use data on 270 psychiatric patients who were treated and discharged from an acute inpatient facility combined with tract-level data from the 1990 U.S. Census. I find that living in a socially disorganized neighborhood increased the probability of violence among the sample, an effect that was not mediated by self-reported social supports. Implications for future research in the areas of violence and mental illness are discussed. [source] Framing French Success in Elementary Mathematics: Policy, Curriculum, and PedagogyCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2004FRANCES C. FOWLER ABSTRACT For many decades Americans have been concerned about the effective teaching of mathematics, and educational and political leaders have often advocated reforms such as a return to the basics and strict accountability systems as the way to improve mathematical achievement. International studies, however, suggest that such reforms may not be the best path to successful mathematics education. Through this qualitative case study, the authors explore in depth the French approach to teaching elementary mathematics, using interviews, classroom observations, and documents as their data sets. They apply three theoretical frameworks to their data and find that the French use large-group instruction and a visible pedagogy, focusing on the discussion of mathematical concepts rather than on the completion of practice exercises. The national curriculum is relatively nonprescriptive, and teachers are somewhat empowered through site-based management. The authors conclude that the keys to French success with mathematics education are ongoing formative assessment, mathematically competent teachers, policies and practices that help disadvantaged children, and the use of constructivist methods. They urge comparative education researchers to look beyond international test scores to deeper issues of policy and practice. [source] Enhancing Knowledge Transfer in Classroom Versus Online Settings: The Interplay Among Instructor, Student, Content, and ContextDECISION SCIENCES JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE EDUCATION, Issue 1 2009Louise Nemanich ABSTRACT This article integrates management education and organizational learning theories to identify the factors that drive the differences in student outcomes between the online and classroom settings. We draw upon theory on knowledge transfer barriers in organizations to understand the interlinking relationships among presage conditions, deep learning process, and product in the 3P model of student learning. We test our model in the context of undergraduate education and find that confidence in the instructor's expertise, perceived content relevance, and the social richness of the classroom learning environment enhance student enjoyment of the course. Confidence in instructor's expertise and perceived content relevance also contribute to greater understanding of causal relationships among course concepts. Enjoyment is positively associated with learning performance in the classroom, but not online, and student ability is positively associated with learning performance in the online context, but not in the classroom. Our results have implications for course designs in the traditional classroom context and the more innovative online environment. [source] Forensic psychiatry, ethics and protective sentencing: what are the limits of psychiatric participation in the criminal justice process?ACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 399 2000S. N. Verdun-Jones As clinicians, psychiatrists are unequivocally dedicated to relieving the suffering of those who are afflicted with mental disorders. However, the public and those individuals, who are assessed, find it difficult to draw a distinction between forensic psychiatrists acting in a clinical role and the very same professionals acting in an evaluative role, on behalf of the state. This paper examines the ethical issues raised by psychiatric involvement in the sentencing process. It rejects the view that a forensic psychiatrist, who undertakes an evaluation for the state, is to be considered as an advocate of justice who is not bound by conventional ethical duties to the individual whom he or she assesses. It contends that the forensic psychiatrist has an important role to play in presenting evidence that may result in the mitigation of the sentence that may be imposed on a person who is mentally disordered. The paper will focus on these issues in the particular context of the situation in England and Wales, Canada and the United States. [source] Rapid evolution in introduced species, ,invasive traits' and recipient communities: challenges for predicting invasive potentialDIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS, Issue 4 2008Kenneth D. Whitney ABSTRACT The damaging effects of invasive organisms have triggered the development of Invasive Species Predictive Schemes (ISPS). These schemes evaluate biological and historical characteristics of species and prioritize those that should be the focus of exclusion, quarantine, and/or control. However, it is not clear how commonly these schemes take microevolutionary considerations into account. We review the recent literature and find that rapid evolutionary changes are common during invasions. These evolutionary changes include rapid adaptation of invaders to new environments, effects of hybridization, and evolution in recipient communities. Strikingly, we document 38 species in which the specific traits commonly associated with invasive potential (e.g. growth rate, dispersal ability, generation time) have themselves undergone evolutionary change following introduction, in some cases over very short (, 10 year) timescales. In contrast, our review of 29 ISPS spanning plant, animal, and microbial taxa shows that the majority (76%) envision invading species and recipient communities as static entities. Those that incorporate evolutionary considerations do so in a limited way. Evolutionary change not only affects the predictive power of these schemes, but also complicates their evaluation. We argue that including the evolutionary potential of species and communities in ISPS is overdue, present several metrics related to evolutionary potential that could be incorporated in ISPS, and provide suggestions for further research on these metrics and their performance. Finally, we argue that the fact of evolutionary change during invasions begs for added caution during risk assessment. [source] Clinical issues in using buprenorphine in the treatment of opiate dependenceDRUG AND ALCOHOL REVIEW, Issue 3 2000Dr A. Chadderton MB Abstract This paper looks at the current role of buprenorphine in the treatment of opiate dependence. It suggests that buprenorphine is a useful alternative to methadone and that in at least some cases it may be the preferred option. Buprenorphineis a partial agonist and a partial antagonist with a ceiling of opiate activity probably approximately equal to 30mg methadone. It achieves this at a dose of 10-12mg, although there is considerable individual variation. Because of its ceiling effect it has a good safety profile compared to full agonists such as methadone although some overdose deaths, particularly in conjunction with benzodiazepine abuse, have been reported in France. Induction of buprenorphine may take slightly longer than for methadone and there is a higher dropout rate compared to methadone in the first 2 weeks. This is probably due to the antagonist action of buprenorphine causing more withdrawal symptoms in comparison to methadone. Also, the ceiling effect for buprenorphine means that some clients do not experience sufficient opiate activity to satisfy them. Buprenorphine has a long half-life and dissociates slowly from opiate receptors. Most clients can be dosed second-daily but some find this unacceptable due to mood swings and/or withdrawal symptomson the second day. For these clients daily dosing is required. Transferring from buprenorphine to methadone is straightforward and well tolerated by clients. Transferring from methadone to buprenorphine, however, is more difficult because of the partial antagonist action of buprenorphine. Clients experience withdrawal symptoms that can take up to 2 weeks to settle. Most clients find these symptoms unacceptable when transferring from doses of over 30mg of methadone. The optimum method for transferring from methadone to buprenorphine is still to be determined. Withdrawal from buprenorphine appears to be relatively easier than from methadone. This is presumably due to buprenorphine's partial agonist effect at mureceptors. It is expected that during 2000 buprenorphine will be approved for use in Australia for the treatment of opiate dependence. It may well becomea first-line choice for opiate replacement in heroin dependence. It is also likely to be useful in assisting detoxification fromboth methadone and heroin. [source] Real Time Myocardial Contrast Echocardiography During Supine Bicycle Stress and Continuous Infusion of Contrast Agent.ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY, Issue 6 2007Cutoff Values for Myocardial Contrast Replenishment Discriminating Abnormal Myocardial Perfusion Background: Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) is a new imaging modality for diagnosing coronary artery disease (CAD). Objective: The aim of our study was to evaluate feasibility of qualitative myocardial contrast replenishment (RP) assessment during supine bicycle stress MCE and find out cutoff values for such analysis, which could allow accurate detection of CAD. Methods: Forty-four consecutive patients, scheduled for coronary angiography (CA) underwent supine bicycle stress two-dimensional echocardiography (2DE). During the same session, MCE was performed at peak stress and post stress. Ultrasound contrast agent (SonoVue) was administered in continuous mode using an infusion pump (BR-INF 100, Bracco Research). Seventeen-segment model of left ventricle was used in analysis. MCE was assessed off-line in terms of myocardial contrast opacification and RP. RP was evaluated on the basis of the number of cardiac cycles required to refill the segment with contrast after its prior destruction with high-power frames. Determination of cutoff values for RP assessment was performed by means of reference intervals and receiver operating characteristic analysis. Quantitative CA was carried out using CAAS system. Results: MCE could be assessed in 42 patients. CA revealed CAD in 25 patients. Calculated cutoff values for RP-analysis (peak-stress RP >3 cardiac cycles and difference between peak stress and post stress RP >0 cardiac cycles) provided sensitive (88%) and accurate (88%) detection of CAD. Sensitivity and accuracy of 2DE were 76% and 79%, respectively. Conclusions: Qualitative RP-analysis based on the number of cardiac cycles required to refill myocardium with contrast is feasible during supine bicycle stress MCE and enables accurate detection of CAD. [source] Resource discovery in ant communities: do food type and quantity matter?ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 5 2010JESSICA M. C. PEARCE-DUVET 1. Omnivorous woodland ant species trade off between the ability to find and behaviourally control food resources. Dominant species can limit the ability of subordinates to harvest certain food items. However, subordinate species, by being faster discoverers, could gain access to such food items by arriving at them first. 2. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that resource-directed discovery occurs in ant communities and that good discoverers preferentially discover high value resources. We did this by measuring time to discovery and the number of discoveries of high and low levels of two resource types, crickets and honey, for species occurring in Texas and Arizona woodland ant communities. 3. Ants discovered resources roughly 10 times faster in Texas than in Arizona. They discovered crickets more rapidly than honey in both communities, but there was no difference in the discovery of different resource levels. We also found that species were not biased in their discovery of different resource types or levels. 4. These results provide indirect evidence that discovery is directed by resource stimuli but that such directedness does not impact interspecific exploitative competition. [source] Forage collection, substrate preparation, and diet composition in fungus-growing antsECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 3 2010HENRIK H. DE FINE LICHT 1. Variation and control of nutritional input is an important selective force in the evolution of mutualistic interactions and may significantly affect coevolutionary modifications in partner species. 2. The attine fungus-growing ants are a tribe of more than 230 described species (12 genera) that use a variety of different substrates to manure the symbiotic fungus they cultivate inside the nest. Common ,wisdom' is that the conspicuous leaf-cutting ants primarily use freshly cut plant material, whereas most of the other attine species use dry and partly degraded plant material such as leaf litter and caterpillar frass, but systematic comparative studies of actual resource acquisition across the attine ants have not been done. 3. Here we review 179 literature records of diet composition across the extant genera of fungus-growing ants. The records confirm the dependence of leaf-cutting ants on fresh vegetation but find that flowers, dry plant debris, seeds (husks), and insect frass are used by all genera, whereas other substrates such as nectar and insect carcasses are only used by some. 4. Diet composition was significantly correlated with ant substrate preparation behaviours before adding forage to the fungus garden, indicating that diet composition and farming practices have co-evolved. Neither diet nor preparation behaviours changed when a clade within the paleoattine genus Apterostigma shifted from rearing leucocoprinous fungi to cultivating pterulaceous fungi, but the evolutionary derived transition to yeast growing in the Cyphomyrmex rimosus group, which relies almost exclusively on nectar and insect frass, was associated with specific changes in diet composition. 5. The co-evolutionary transitions in diet composition across the genera of attine ants indicate that fungus-farming insect societies have the possibility to obtain more optimal fungal crops via artificial selection, analogous to documented practice in human subsistence farming. [source] Avoidance by grazers facilitates spread of an invasive hybrid plantECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 2 2010E. Grosholz Ecology Letters (2010) 13: 145,153 Abstract Biological invasions greatly increase the potential for hybridization among native and non-native species. Hybridization may influence the palatability of novel hybrids to consumers potentially influencing invasion success; however, the palatability of non-native hybrids relative to the parent species is poorly known. In contrast, studies of native-only hybrids find they are nearly always more palatable to consumers than the parent species. Here, I experimentally demonstrate that an invasive hybrid cordgrass (Spartina) is dramatically less palatable to grazing geese than the native parent species. Using field and aviary experiments, I show that grazing geese ignore the hybrid cordgrass and preferentially consume native Spartina. I also experimentally demonstrate that reduced herbivory of the invasive hybrid may contribute to faster spread in a California estuary. These results suggest that biological invasions may increase future opportunities for creating novel hybrids that may pose a greater risk to natural systems than the parent species. [source] Trading off the ability to exploit rich versus poor food qualityECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 5 2002Alan J. Tessier Abstract Lakes differ in the quality of food for planktonic grazers, but whether grazers adapt to this resource heterogeneity is poorly studied. We test for evidence of specialization to resource environment within a guild of suspension feeding daphniids inhabiting lakes that differ in food web structure. Using bioassays, we demonstrate that food quality for grazers increases from deep to shallow to temporary lakes, which also represents a gradient of increasing predation risk. We compare growth rates and reproductive performance of daphniid taxa specific to each of the three lake types and find they differ greatly in minimum resource requirements, and in sensitivity to the resource gradient. These differences express a trade-off in ability to exploit rich vs. poor resources. Taxa from deep lakes, poor in resources, have low minimal needs, but they do relatively poorly in rich resource environments. We conclude that grazer distribution is consistent with an adaptive match of exploitation ability to resource environments. [source] The Unemployment Volatility Puzzle: Is Wage Stickiness the Answer?ECONOMETRICA, Issue 5 2009Christopher A. Pissarides I discuss the failure of the canonical search and matching model to match the cyclical volatility in the job finding rate. I show that job creation in the model is influenced by wages in new matches. I summarize microeconometric evidence and find that wages in new matches are volatile and consistent with the model's key predictions. Therefore, explanations of the unemployment volatility puzzle have to preserve the cyclical volatility of wages. I discuss a modification of the model, based on fixed matching costs, that can increase cyclical unemployment volatility and is consistent with wage flexibility in new matches. [source] Long-Term Debt and Optimal Policy in the Fiscal Theory of the Price LevelECONOMETRICA, Issue 1 2001John H. Cochrane The fiscal theory says that the price level is determined by the ratio of nominal debt to the present value of real primary surpluses. I analyze long-term debt and optimal policy in the fiscal theory. I find that the maturity structure of the debt matters. For example, it determines whether news of future deficits implies current inflation or future inflation. When long-term debt is present, the government can trade current inflation for future inflation by debt operations; this tradeoff is not present if the government rolls over short-term debt. The maturity structure of outstanding debt acts as a "budget constraint" determining which periods' price levels the government can affect by debt variation alone. In addition, debt policy,the expected pattern of future state-contingent debt sales, repurchases and redemptions,matters crucially for the effects of a debt operation. I solve for optimal debt policies to minimize the variance of inflation. I find cases in which long-term debt helps to stabilize inflation. I also find that the optimal policy produces time series that are similar to U.S. surplus and debt time series. To understand the data, I must assume that debt policy offsets the inflationary impact of cyclical surplus shocks, rather than causing price level disturbances by policy-induced shocks. Shifting the objective from price level variance to inflation variance, the optimal policy produces much less volatile inflation at the cost of a unit root in the price level; this is consistent with the stabilization of U.S. inflation after the gold standard was abandoned. [source] Cultivating Beyond-Capitalist EconomiesECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2010Sarah Wright abstract Conceptualizations of the economy as diverse and multiple have garnered increased attention in economic geography in recent years. Against the debilitating mantra of TINA (there is no alternative), these conceptualizations use an ontology of proliferation to insist that many viable and vital alternatives to capitalism do, in fact, exist. I aim to contribute to this project with a close reading of the diverse formal and informal economic practices associated with the village of Puno in the Philippines. In doing so, I respond to calls for work that begins in the majority world and that focuses on the broader political project associated with diverse economies. Research in this area has frequently been critiqued for not paying sufficient attention to the unstable yet persistent exclusions that may endure in, and may even be enhanced by, alternative economies. With this article, I aim to investigate the ways that power relations work through the diverse economies of Puno and the ways that residents act to transform these relations. In doing so, I draw on the experiences of three residents of Puno and their involvement in three social movement organizations. I find that the economy is usefully understood as a site of struggle in which residents work to redefine themselves and the economy. The diverse spaces of their economic lives are neither strictly alternative nor mainstream, inherently oppressive nor radical. Rather, the people of Puno are engaged in willfully cultivating spaces-beyond-capitalism through which they transform the very meaning of economic practice. [source] WHY CHINA INDUSTRIALIZED AFTER ENGLANDECONOMIC INQUIRY, Issue 4 2010BARRY S. KAHN Although industrialization first occurred in England, it is thought that China, not England, may have been the world leader in technology at the time. Yet, China did not industrialize until 150 yr after England and nearly a century after less advanced European countries. This represents a puzzle because two-sector neoclassical growth models, such as Hansen and Prescott (2002), that accurately match industrialization, require that more technologically advanced countries industrialize at an earlier date. I find that a model that accounts for cross-country heterogeneities in population density accurately predicts the timing of industrialization in China. (JEL F43, N10, N30, O11, O14, O41) [source] Firm outsourcing decisions: evidence from U.S. foreign trade zonesECONOMIC INQUIRY, Issue 2 2000DL Swenson This article examines the operations of firms located in U.S. foreign trade subzones to study the responsiveness of outsourcing to international cost changes. I find that firms reduce their reliance on foreign inputs when dollar depreciation increases the relative price of imported inputs. The effect is pervasive across industries and is economically significant. In addition, firms that rely more heavily on imported intermediate inputs reduce their overall shipments when dollar depreciation elevates their imported, input costs. However, the magnitude of the shipments effect is economically small, suggesting that firms respond to exchange rate movements by adjusting their operations on other dimensions. [source] Who Withdraws Housing Equity and Why?ECONOMICA, Issue 301 2009ANDREW BENITO The decision to extract home equity is examined using household-level data for the UK over 1993,2003. At its peak during the period, around 1-in-10 homeowners withdraw equity per year. Little is known about this financial decision. I find that the equity withdrawal decision conforms to predictions from the standard life-cycle framework and models that predict its use as a financial buffer. The paper also estimates responses to the large house price appreciation and significant reductions in mortgage rates seen during the period. [source] Austria's Demand for International Reserves and Monetary Disequilibrium: The Case of a Small Open Economy with a Fixed Exchange Rate RegimeECONOMICA, Issue 281 2004Harald Badinger Using a vector error correction approach, I estimate Austria's demand for international reserves over the period 1985:1,1997:4 and test for short-run effects of the disequilibrium on the national monetary market. I find that Austria's long-run reserve demand can be described as a stable function of imports, uncertainty and the opportunity cost of holding reserves with strong economies of scale. The speed of adjustment takes a value of 38 per cent. The results confirm that an excess of money demand (supply) induces an inflow (outflow) of international reserves as postulated by the monetary approach to the balance of payments. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||