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Abundant popular discourses surround the O. J. Simpson double murder case. By contrast, Darnell M. Hunt scrutinizes these very discourses in order to further our understanding of the interests underlying them. Exploring the relationships between O. J.'s trial, the social location of television viewers (their race, gender and class) and everyday consciousness of social issues, his textual and audience analyses consider the incredible allure of the trial as 'media event'. Looking beyond the obvious explanations of celebrity, scandal and voyeurism, Dr Hunt asks: why was America so obsessed by this case? Why were so many people interested in particular outcomes? and what are we to make of the apparent racial divide in attitudes about the case, as shown in the opinion polls? O. J. Simpson Facts and Fictions incorporates insights from sociology and cultural studies to examine the implications for race relations in the United States at the dawn of the new millennium

This paper revisits the Kareken-Wallace model of exchange rate formation in a two-country overlapping generations world. Following the seminal paper by Arifovic (Journal of Political Economy, 104, 1996, 510-541) we investigate a dynamic version of the model in which agents' decision rules are updated using genetic algorithms. Our main interest is in whether the equilibrium dynamics resulting from this learning process helps to explain the main stylized facts of free-floating exchange rates (unit roots in levels together with fat tails in returns and volatility clustering). Our time series analysis of simulated data indicates that for particular parameterizations, the characteristics of the exchange rate dynamics are, in fact, very similar to those of empirical data. The similarity appears to be quite insensitive with respect to some of the ingredients of the GA algorithm (i.e. utilitybased versus rank-based or tournament selection, binary or real coding). However, appearance or not of realistic time series characteristics depends crucially on the mutation probability (which should be low) and the number of agents (not more than about 1000). With a larger population, this collective learning dynamics looses its realistic appearance and instead exhibits regular periodic oscillations of the agents' choice variables. ; Dieses Papier betrachtet das Kareken-Wallace-Modell für die Wechselkursbildung in einer Welt mit 2 Ländern und sich überlappenden Generationen. In der Nachfolge des zukunftsweisenden Papiers von Arifovic (1996) untersuchen wir eine dynamische Version des Modells bei dem die Entscheidungsregeln mithilfe genetischer Algorithmen jeweils aktualisiert werden. Unser Hauptinteresse geht dahin, herauszufinden, ob die Gleichgewichtsdynamik, die aus diesem Lernprozess resultiert, dabei helfen kann, die wichtigsten stilisierten Fakten von flexiblen Wechselkursen zu erklären (Einheitswurzeln bei den Niveaus mit dicken Enden der Ertragsverteilung und Klumpenbildung bei den Volatilitäten). Unsere Analyse simulierter Daten weist darauf hin, dass für bestimmte Parametrisierungen der Charakter der Wechselkursdynamik tatsächlich dem von empirischen Daten sehr ähnlich ist. Die Ähnlichkeit scheint sehr wenig von speziellen Eigenschaften des gewählten GA-Algorithmus abzuhängen (z. B. nutzenbasiert versus rangbasiert, binäre oder reale Kodierung). Dagegen ist die Mutationswahrscheinlichkeit (die niedrig sein sollte) und die Anzahl der Agenten (die nicht größer als 1000 sein sollte) wichtig. Mit mehr Teilnehmern verliert die kollektive Lerndynamik ihr realistisches Aussehen und es kommt zu regelmäßigen periodischen Schwankungen bei den Variablen, die die Agenten auswählen.

AbstractConsumers often form beliefs about credence attributes unsupported by the best available evidence. In particular, prior research has revealed many consumers have overly‐optimistic beliefs about the environmental and nutritional impacts of organic food. We propose and study the effects of a sustainability facts label (SFL), which displays quantitative environmental information related to global warming potential, land use, and energy use per serving size of the product. The SFL is akin to a nutrition facts label (NFL), which we also study. We surveyed a nationally representative sample of milk consumers in the United States (USA) to measure their choices and beliefs about organic vs. conventional milk under one of three different label information treatments; the NFL only, the SFL only, and both labels relative to a control without any nutrition or sustainability information. Unexpectedly, our results show that the SFL increased the likelihood of organic purchases. Facts panels altered beliefs; The participants exposed to the SFL increased their perception that organic performs better on environmental metrics, despite the fact the information contained in the label provided a nuanced picture with organic better in some dimensions and worse in others. Consistent with the information provided, consumers exposed to the NFL decreased their perception that organic had fewer calories and more protein than conventional milk. Prior beliefs about organic were found to be important determinants of choice and information acquisition.

Balisacan, A. M.: What do we really know - or don't know - about economic inequality and poverty in the Philippines. - S. 1-50. Collas-Monsod, S. and Monsod, T. C.: International and intranational comparisons of Philippine poverty. - S. 51-95. Fujisaki, S.: Complementarity, linkages and economic development. - S. 97-125. Fabella, R. V.: Globalization, poverty and inequality. - S. 127-153. Canlas, D. B.: Labor's income share in the Philippines. - S. 155-177. Tan, E. A.: Measuring poverty in education. - S. 179-195. Alonzo, R. P.: Local governance and poverty alleviation. - S. 197-228