Suchergebnisse

This paper studies the evolution of income inequality in central Spain during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, taking as case study the province of Guadalajara. The first part of the paper presents the sources and the dataset that was created to estimate income inequality using grain tithes. The second section shows that through the period grain represented the lion share of total income and therefore that it can be used as a reliable proxy. The following part of the paper introduces an analysis of income inequality in the province during the period 1690 1800 and concludes that inequality decreased during the last third of the eighteenth century. Finally the paper addresses thisunexpected result and concludes that itwas consequence of the success of the land reform carried out by the central government in the late 1760s. The reform was a success in Guadalajara, thanks to the characteristics of its population and the lack of bargaining power of pressure groups. ; European Community's Seventh Framework Program ; Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation project Explicando el desarrollo de las regiones europeas, 1850-2008 ECO2009-13331-C02-01 and from the HI-POD Project, Seventh Research Framework Programme Contract no. 225342 ; Publicado

Inhibitory control processes have been recently considered to be involved in interference resolution in bilinguals at the phonological level. In this study we explored if interference resolution is also carried out by this inhibitory mechanism at the grammatical level. Thirty-two bilinguals (Italian-L1 and Spanish-L2) participated. All of them completed two tasks. In the first one they had to name pictures in L2. We manipulated gender congruency between the two languages and the number of presentations of the pictures (1 and 5). Results showed a gender congruency effect with slower naming latencies in the incongruent condition. In the second task, participants were presented with the pictures practiced during the first naming task, but now they were asked to produce the L1 article. Results showed a grammatical gender congruency effect in L1 that increased for those words practiced five times in L2. Our conclusion is that an inhibitory mechanism was involved in the suppression of the native language during a picture naming task. Furthermore, this inhibitory process was also involved in suppressing grammatical gender when it was a source of competition between the languages. ; Andalusian Government (P08-HUM-03600) ; EDU2008-01111 and CSD2008-00048 (Spanish Ministry of Education) ; P07-HUM-02510 and P08-HUM-03600 from the Andalusian Government

Immigration is often seen as an instrument of adaptation for aging countries. In this paper, we evaluate, using a dynamic general equilibrium model, the contribution of migration policy in reducing the tax burden associated with the aging population in France. Four variants, compared to a baseline scenario based on official projections, are simulated with the aim to quantify the immigration effects on the French social protection finances. The first variant assesses the economic effects of immigration in France as projected into official forecasts. The three other variants are built on the same more ambitious annual flows of immigrants (corresponding to net migration that have characterized the second great wave of immigration in France in the twentieth century). These three variants only distinguish in terms of the skill structure of new migrants. We show that the age and skill structure of immigrants are the key feature that mainly determine the effects on social protection finances. Overall, these effects are all the more positive in the short-medium term that the migration policy is selective (in favor of more skilled workers). In the long term, beneficial effects of a selective policy may disappear. But the financial gains from more consequent migration flows are relatively moderated in comparison of demographic changes it implies.

« Enterrer les morts et les honorer », dossier co-dirigé par Emmanuel BELLANGER et Danielle TARTAKOWSKY, ; International audience ; Le présent numéro de la revue Le Mouvement social est une contribution à l'analyse de la mort comme « affaire publique » , politique, réglementaire, patrimoniale et mémorielle. Il s'essaye à une étude des constructions socio-politiques que sont les cimetières et à leur inscription dans la Cité. Deux approches ont été retenues. La première concerne l'administration de la mort par les Églises, les autorités publiques et leurs délégataires. Elle s'intéresse à leurs relations complexes, à géométrie variable en fonction des traditions nationales, des régimes politiques, des traditions confessionnelles et des cultures partisanes et idéologiques. La seconde s'attache aux circonstances et aux processus qui permettent à la puissance publique, à des individus ou, plus fréquemment, à des collectifs, de donner sens à la mort ou du moins de s'y essayer en érigeant les cimetières, ou telles de leurs divisions, en expression d'une identité collective chargée d'une sacralité qui s'enracine dans le sacrifice accompli et dans l'Histoire. Elle prête une attention particulière aux conflits qui peuvent surgir pour la définition du sens de la mort et pour sa pleine maîtrise.

The emergence of entrepreneurial university has pushed the governments and institutions involved in higher education into research and implement new systems for measuring performance and efficiency. However the evidence is critical: a lot of data, a lot of models, a lot of ways to be entrepreneurial, and a great difficulty to make comparative, and definitely, a great complexity in the application of methodologies of assessment for heterogeneous scenarios. A rich literature has developed indicators of inputs and outputs of activities involving first, second and third mission of research, patents and licensing. A great obstacle in the management and assessment of universities is to provide timely and meaningful feedback loops on performance, efficiency and potential to students, teachers, researchers, innovation and academic managers at higher levels. The new model of university needs to identify and assess the main actors of universities by means structured set of scaffold assessment focusing to use their knowledge base, analytical, practical and creative skills and attitudes, and wisdom/based to become society's leaders. The aim of this paper is to explore the application of methodologies of portfolio, understood as a tool to management, quality assurance, assessment and accreditation of KT processes, to the assessment of universities.

The First Nations/Métis/Inuit Mobility Study examines the mobility patterns of Aboriginal persons moving into the city of Winnipeg. The intent is to interview the same persons, over successive periods, in order to examine issues and concerns arising as they adjust to living in the city. The intent of the study is to examine the reasons for migration to Winnipeg with the intent of better understanding the factors affecting mobility. A second concern is to identify potential gaps in the provision of services during the time of transition to the city and the subsequent adjustment. A strength of the study is that it examines changes in the circumstances of respondents who remain in the city for an extended period of time. To date, survey participants have been interviewed twice between May 2002 – February 2003. Thus far, approximately 900 interviews have been completed. The First Nations/Métis/Inuit Mobility Study represents the collaborative efforts of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Manitoba Metis Federation, Western Economic Diversification, and the Institute of Urban Studies (the coordinating consultant). The study received further support from a steering committee comprised of representatives from a diverse set of government departments.

Reédition d'un article paru sur la Revue "Cuadernos de Información" ; International audience ; The logic of hegemonic domination that was established in Colombia and in Latin America after the Conquest is based on a scheme of elitist power. Using the perspective of the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, we can classify these elites in lions or foxes. In the first case, they use the force and the violence (the Macht of Weber) to impose their sovereignty; in the second case, they use persuasion and the masquerade (the Herrschaft)--the propaganda. This power is based on a more stable legitimacy and is able to transform itself in a matrix-effect reality. This form of social control has allowed the Colombian (and Latin American) �lites the uncontrolled starvation of the natural resources found in these territories, under the influence of a wild capitalism which is strictly linked to the mass media community of the continent. This paper will expose the panorama of community media with an ethnic perspective in Colombia that hopefully works as process to facilitate the building of social links based on dialogue, reconciliation, respect, and participation, acting as watchdog of economic and political power, reporting the injustice and looking for peace solution in the region.

Recent research on the generation of social trust and social capital gives public institutions prominent roles as instruments for creating social capital, the trust and connections between community members that yield collective action. Less is known about specific institutions and the mechanisms involved in creating social capital. In this paper, public library programs directed towards immigrants are explored as one possible mechanism for generating social capital. The data are unstructured interviews with U.S. library directors on strategies for immigrant programs and the creation of social trust. The interviews are analyzed and discussed, and they contribute to research on social capital formation. The programming activities in the libraries studied, which included classes in English as a second language (ESL), computers, and civics, attracted target immigrant populations. According to the library directors interviewed, these classes, which were carefully designed for these populations, were successful in generating trust and social capital: People "come back" to the library. Public libraries are promising arenas for generating social trust, and follow-up studies looking at the attitudes of immigrants who participate in these programs are important for increasing our knowledge on the mechanisms creating trust and social capital—that is, for theory development and for library practice.

L'architettura è un gesto. Ludwig Wittgenstein architetto [Architecture is a Gesture: Ludwig Wittgenstein, architect] Daniele Pisani. Quodlibet Studio, 2011 (261 pp., € 28) With great earnestness, Daniele Pisani tells the story of the Kundmanngasse house, designed by Paul Engelmann and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and built by Wittgenstein in the period from 1926 to 1928. Pisani quietly puts together all the pieces necessary for understanding the house and its role in the evolution of Wittgenstein's thought. He accurately describes the philosopher's biography as well as that of his sisters who were involved in the project (Margaret, but also Hermine), providing us with information about the Wittgenstein family and the political and cultural situation in Vienna at the time. He reconstructs the era's architectural debate in which the story of the house is (reluctantly) placed. The quiet tone and the accuracy of the story help eliminate the many legends that have accumulated over time about the house. The Kundmanngasse house is in fact a favourite subject for architects' philosophical dilettantism (second to this is only the exegesis, "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" by Martin Heidegger) as well as for philosphers' architectural dilettantism (think of the crazy interpretations that see in the house a petrified philosophy, a logic transformed into a house—hausgewordene Logik ).

This paper concerns a neglected aspect of Lucas's work: his methodological writings, published and unpublished. Particular attention is paid to his views on the relationship between theory and ideology. I start by setting out Lucas's non-standard conception of theory: to him, a theory and a model are the same thing. I also explore the different facets and implications of this conception. In the next two sections, I debate whether Lucas adheres to two methodological principles that I dub the 'non-interference' precept (the proposition that ideological viewpoints should not influence theory), and the 'non-exploitation' precept (that the models' conclusions should not be transposed into policy recommendations, in so far as these conclusions are built into the models' premises). The last part of the paper contains my assessment of Lucas's ideas. First, I bring out the extent to which Lucas departs from the view held by most specialized methodologists. Second, I wonder whether the new classical revolution resulted from a political agenda. Third and finally, I claim that the tensions characterizing Lucas's conception of theory follow from his having one foot in the neo-Walrasian and the other in the Marshallian-Friedmanian universe.

The objective of this paper is to present a short survey of our new research results to mobility and stability of employment on a micro level. This area of conflict is analyzed from an individual and a firm's perspective, taking institutional issues into account. More than previous studies, we investigate interactions between individual and firm side issues. The results can be assigned to four subsections. First, individual, firm and macroeconomic determinants of employment stability are identified. Second, the relevance of wages and job satisfaction for job changes is investigated. In addition to other findings, the results show for Germany that high job stability and high wages go hand in hand. There exist also unobserved determinants which operate as compensating wage differentials. Third, the impact of institutions on job mobility is analysed. The outcome demonstrates that employment in firms with a collective agreement is more stable than in other firms, while company level pacts are not very successful in stabilizing employment at least in the medium term. Fourth, the effects of wage subsidies on wages and employment duration are investigated. The analysis shows that subsidised workers stay significantly longer at their first employer than similar unsubsidised workers, while entry wages do not differ significantly between both groups.

AbstractThe Lisbon Treaty has fundamentally revised the external relations of the EU in pursuit of more visibility, coherence and consistency. The EU is, for instance, given a single legal personality, the pillar structure is (formally) abolished, new functions are created to reinforce its external representation and external policies appear to be streamlined. But is there more to it than meets the eye? A critical legal assessment is given of the major Treaty modifications relating to the EU external relations whilst addressing two underlying issues. First it is questioned whether the Member States have really given up their traditional reluctance to share fully the international scene with the EU. It is argued that the Lisbon Treaty in fact means to redress the balance in favour of intergovernmentalism under CFSP. A second crucial and related issue links to the silent dialogue with the CJEU to be discerned in the Lisbon Treaty. It wavers between the codification of important case law, such as Kadi, and attempts at containing or even reversing case law which was more prejudicial to the Member States' interests, such as the Ecowas judgment. In so doing the Lisbon Treaty again raises interesting yet complex legal questions which will most likely necessitate further clarification through case law.

This paper uses a non-market valuation study to elicit consumers' preferences for a marine restoration programme in the Black Sea aiming to reduce the level of public health risk from bathing and improve water quality and the overall level of marine biodiversity. In this context, we administer a stated choice experiment in coastal settlements in Ukraine and Turkey and employ two tax revenue reallocation schemes as payment vehicles. One proposes the financing of the marine restoration programme by the reduction of the public budget for renewable energy and the second by the reduction of the public budget on training for civil servants. We examine the stated preferences and the subsequently derived economic value estimates in the two treatments with the aim to investigate whether the trade-off implied by the funding scheme has implications for the valuation outcome. Results reveal that preferences and marginal rates of substitution between the non-price attributes under consideration differ significantly. In the civil servants' budget reallocation scheme, the reallocation coefficient is positive, implying that ceteris paribus redistribution of public financial resources from this source is utility-enhancing. The magnitude of the results differs in the two considered countries mirroring their heterogeneity in political and cultural dimensions.

Adaptation to the consequences of climate change has attracted increasing interest as a necessary complement to greenhouse gas mitigation. Economic approaches to climate adaptation are rarely articulated and discussed explicitly despite many benefits of such a framework-level discourse. Therefore, this article investigates how climate adaptation is framed and approached in economics and attempts to contribute to the development of economic frameworks of climate adaptation. First, the paper identifies and critically reviews four major strands of current adaptation economics: estimation of adaptation benefits and costs, strategies for adaptation, the role of markets and governments, and policy instruments for adaptation. While having their merits, serious methodical difficulties prevail. Moreover, the applied neoclassical framing seems too narrow to capture the plethora of governance challenges and normative criteria revealed in adaptation policy discourses and in the multidisciplinary adaptation literature. The second part of this article outlines an institutional economics approach to climate adaptation that addresses caveats in the current state-of-the-art and offers additional concepts to study climate adaptation. Moreover, promising methods and strategies for adaptation research are presented and future research directions suggested. Finally, the paper assesses the normative foundations of climate adaptation economics and their implications for positive adaptation research.

Considering the investment in education as uncertain financial decision making we modify the short-cut method of calculating rates of return to education by incorporating the risk premium. Recognizing that market risk isn't the only factor affecting returns, we estimate the returns to education in fifteen member - states of the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development during the period 2005 2007 as seen from a macroeconomic point of view using Multifactor CAPM. Following this model we assess, except market risk, the impact of three key macroeconomic variables (investments, productivity and unemployment) on returns and, using panel data regression techniques, we investigate whether this holds true with respect to investment in education. We also evaluate the risk - adjusted performance of investment in education and the role of returns as well as that of the key macroeconomic variables to economic development. The results tend to confirm the theoretical expectations and empirical literature. The purpose of the present study is twofold: first, to estimate the relationship between education returns and risk and second to measure the impact of return and key macro factors on real GDP growth rate, therefore casting light in the channels through which the economicgrowth can be affected.