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Southern slaveholders proudly pronounced themselves orthodox Christians, who accepted responsibility for the welfare of the people who worked for them. They proclaimed that their slaves enjoyed a better and more secure life than any laboring class in the world. Now, did it not follow that the lives of laborers of all races across the world would be immeasurably improved by their enslavement? In the Old South but in no other slave society a doctrine emerged among leading clergymen, politicians, and intellectuals -- "Slavery in the Abstract," which declared enslavement the best possible condition for all labor regardless of race. They joined the Socialists, whom they studied, in believing that the free-labor system, wracked by worsening class warfare, was collapsing. A vital question: to what extent did the people of the several social classes of the South accept so extreme a doctrine? That question lies at the heart of this book. - Publisher

In this paper, we consider a spatiotemporal growth model where a social planner chooses the optimal location of economic activity across space by maximization of a spatiotemporal utilitarian social welfare function. Space and time are continuous, and capital law of motion is a parabolic partial differential diffusion equation. The production function is AK. We generalize previous work by considering a continuum of social welfare functions ranging from Benthamite to Millian functions. Using a dynamic programming method in infinite dimension, we can identify a closed-form solution to the induced HJB equation in infinite dimension and recover the optimal control for the original spatiotemporal optimal control problem. Optimal stationary spatial distributions are also obtained analytically. We prove that the Benthamite case is the unique case for which the optimal stationary detrended consumption spatial distribution is uniform. Interestingly enough, we also find that as the social welfare function gets closer to the Millian case, the optimal spatiotemporal dynamics amplify the typical neoclassical dilution population size effect, even in the long-run.

Sciences Po Economics Discussion Papers This paper studies discrimination in financial markets in the context of the "Dreyfus Affair" in 19th century France. We analyze the market performance of firms with Jewish board members during this historical episode. Building on empirical evidence and a model with antisemitic and unbiased agents, we show how investors betting on firms with Jewish connections earned higher returns during the media campaign organized to rehabilitate Dreyfus, the unfairly accused Jewish officer at the center of the Affair. Our paper provides novel evidence that discrimination can affect stock prices and create rents for some market participants. While these rents may attract betting against discriminators, the uncertainty surrounding discriminatory beliefs can limit the extent of arbitrage and allow discrimination to survive in the long run.

Using daily price quotes from about 8,000 French gas stations, this paper empirically analyses whether the level of competition determines the degree of price stickiness on the retail gasoline market. The degree of price rigidity is measured by the frequency of price changes, while the distance to the nearest station and the number of gas stations within a given radius are considered as proxies for local competition. The results confirm that local competition is an important determinant of the price-setting behavior of gas stations. Indeed, considering Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and spatial regression models, we find that the degree of price rigidity is positively related to the distance to the nearest station, and negatively related to the concentration of firms in a given geographical area. This result can be notably explained by the fact that gas stations facing a high competitive pressure are more likely to adjust their prices more quickly and more frequently in response to crude oil price decreases than stations enjoying market power.

This work proposes to study the emergence of aggregate instability, in the form of macroeconomic fluctuations due to the volatility of agents' expectations, caused by imperfect competition on the labor market. We consider that firms have some monopsony power which is introduced by a) considering that firms face a finite elasticity of labor supply, b) there is a finite number of firms operating under Cournot competition on the labor market. We show that given a free-entry and zero profit conditions, we obtain local indeterminacy when the elasticity of the sectoral labor supply is sufficiently low and factors are substitutable enough. We illustrate numerically our results with some empirical estimates for OECD countries and we conclude that expectation-driven fluctuations is obtained for plausible values.

International audience Using Benford's Law, we find evidence supporting the hypothesis that countries at times misreport their economic data strategically. We group countries with similar economic conditions and find that for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes, high negative net foreign asset positions, negative current account balances or more vulnerable to capital flow reversals we reject the first-digit law for the balance of payments data. This corroborates the intuition of a simple economic model. The main results do not seem to be driven by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa or those with low institutional quality ratings.

Flash mobs are an urban movement in which it seems that random people meet at a random place and do something out of the ordinary to amuse people as well as to make them think, 'What just happened?' They begin as a communication in cyberspace and end as participation in real life, and with the growing popularity of flash mobs, corporations are starting to use this urban movement for commercial purposes. This research seeks to understand the perceptions and attitudes of both participants and the audience of flash mobs and will also examine the impact that commercial use has on this movement. The research is divided into three parts. The first part involves interviewing the audience of an actual flash mob organized by the author in London and will examine their perceptions towards the event they have just watched. The second part involves a questionnaire sent out to the general public, including a video of a real flash mob and a video of a commercialized flash mob. This questionnaire is divided into two parts, whether the interviewee knows what a flash mob is or not. The third part of the research involves interviewing the participants of the flash mob movement and examining their perceptions towards the commodification of the flash mobs by a corporation and the possible impacts of this commercialization on the urban movement. The analysis shows that the majority of the interviewees can detect the commodification of the real flash mob and the agents see the possibility that the urban movement may become mainstream through the commercial use by corporations.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: AbstractIII Table of ContentsIV List of Figures1 List of Appendices2 Introduction3 1.Literature Review5 Chapter Outline5 Flash mob5 The development of a flash mob6 Word-of-mouth7 Viral Marketing9 Online Communities11 Community Marketing12 Authenticity13 2.Research Methods17 Chapter outline17 Problem Statement19 Objectives of this research19 Defining the Research Method21 Philosophies23 Data analysis27 Limitations27 Ethics27 3.Empirical Findings Analysis28 Chapter outline28 Audience survey28 General public survey29 General Public A29 General Public B42 Agent Survey54 4.Conclusion Recommendations81 Chapter outline81 Conclusion81 Recommendations83 Future Research83 References List84 Appendices87Textprobe:Text Sample: Chapter 2, Philosophies: This part of the 'research onion' consists of Pragmatism, Positivism, Realism, and Interpretivism. According to Saunders, Pragmatism argues that the most important determinant of the epistemology, ontology and axiology you adopt is the research question – one may be more appropriate than the other for answering particular questions. Ontology is related to the nature of reality and can be divided into objectivism, which is the existence of social entities in reality external to social actors; and subjectivism, which is the creation of social phenomena from the perceptions and consequent actions of social actors. In order to the current study, the ontology of subjectivism is used as it studies the details of the situation in order to understand the reality or perhaps a reality behind them. In this case, the perceptions of an audience watching a real and a fake flash mob are investigated as well as the impact of a commercialization of an urban movement to its members. Epistemology concerns what constitutes acceptable knowledge in a field of study. According to Saunders there are two different researchers, one who is researching objects, the 'resources' researcher; and the 'feelings' researcher, who is more interested in the feelings and attitudes. Regarding the current case study, the 'feeling' researchers has been used, as feelings and attitudes have been researched in order to collect data for a social phenomena, which has no external reality. Positivism and realism adopt the philosophical stance of the natural scientist and does not play a role for this study. Interpretivism, on the other hand, plays an important role, as it is used to understand differences between humans in our role as social actors. Interpretivist researchers enter the social world of the research subjects and understand their world form their point of view. The author of this research paper has entered the world of flash mobs and became an agent, organized several flash mobs and took part in different flash mobs to understand this urban movement. Relating Saunders definition, the philosophy of this research is Axiology, 'the researcher's view of the role of values in research' in combination with Interpretivism, as the research is value but the researcher is part of what is being researched and cannot be separated and so will be subjective. The next 'onion-ring' is the research approach. Two approaches are possible, the deductive and the inductive. The deductive approach involves the development of a theory, which consists of five stages: - Deducing hypothesis. - Expressing the hypothesis in operational terms. - Testing this operational hypothesis. - Examining the specific outcome of the inquiry. - If necessary, modifying the theory. The inductive approach makes first the research and then develops, with the help of the findings, a theory. Regarding the flash mob research, the deductive approach has been used. The hypothesis for this research is: 'Urban movements, such as the flash mob, are used by companies to promote their products/services and therefore these urban movements become mainstream and loose its originality'. The expression in operational terms can be found in the three surveys, developed for this research. One questionnaire has been developed for the audience at a flash mob taking place; another questionnaire for the general public, which has been sent out via e-mail; and a third questionnaire, which was published online and done by the Agents of ImprovEverywhere. Both questionnaires were tested with two test persons of each group and necessary changes, such as spelling mistakes or unclear questions were undertaken. The examination can be found in the Chapter 'Findings'. The research strategy, the first inner circle in Saunders Research Onion, used in this research is the Survey, as three different questionnaires have been developed. This research strategy has been chosen to understand the phenomena of a flash mob and to evaluate the impacts upon the urban movement due the commercial use by companies such as T-Mobile and vtm. The time horizon for this research is a cross-sectional study, the study at a particular time, which is June 2009 until September 2009. Within this time this research paper will be executed. The data collection for this research is only primary data as there was no secondary data found on the subject of flash mobs. As mentioned above, the research is divided into three primary researches. The first one will be a flash mob organized by the author and the audience of this flash mob will be interviewed. The research target is 20 interviews. The author organized a meeting with two other agents of UPN and discussed the strategy for the flash mob. It was agreed on a double flash mob on one day. The first one will be at Trafalgar Square in London and will be a 'Staring flash mob', in which the first agent starts freezing at a random spot on Trafalgar Square and stares at a random spot. Other agents will join that agent one by one until a whole group of agents stand at the same place and stare at the same spot. This flash mob will last for approximately 5 minutes and the sign for the agents to spread out again will be a whistle blow by the author. While this flash mob is happening, the author will conduct the research and interview the audience – the people standing around and watching the flash mob. After the first flash mob is done, all the agents will gather again and move together to Piccadilly Circus, where the second flash mob will take place. This flash mob is called 'Traffic Light Party'. There are a lot of traffic lights at Piccadilly Circus and the agents will stay together at the first traffic light and will be very sad that the traffic light is red. As soon as the traffic light turns green, all agents will cheer and make a big party. Every participant will be asked to bring noise making items, such as whistles. This flash mob continues for several times, as the traffic lights for pedestrians go around the whole Piccadilly Circus and a lot of tourists will be there. Meeting point for this day will be a little park in Soho, where all the agents will be instructed about the two flash mobs. Meeting time will be Saturday, August 25th 2009 at 2pm. The three organizers also developed a marketing strategy and a marketing plan for the two flash mobs. Three weeks in advance of the meeting day, a Facebook group will be created, as well as a post on UPN, giving only very few information to the agents to create curiosity. More details will be given as the day of the event moves closer. Further more Twitter has been used to spread the word. Twitter is a 'real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices'. The messages on Twitter will be also very short and more detailed information will be given as the event moves closer. A reminder will be sent to every interested person a week before the event and one day in advance via Facebook and within UPN. Messages as a reminder will be posted on Twitter at the same time. The second part of the research will be a questionnaire sent to friends, acquaintances and fellow students. The questionnaire is divided into two parts. The division takes place after the first question, whether the interviewee know what a flash mob is (this group will be called 'General Public B') or not know what a flash mob is (this group will be called 'General Public A'). The target for this group is 20 questionnaires. The first and second research will help to understand the perceptions of the general public towards flash mobs as well as the impact upon the urban movement due the commercial use. The third part of the research is an online survey for the agents of ImprovEverywhere. The target for this research is 20 questionnaires. This part of the research will help to understand the perceptions of the people actually doing a flash mob and their view towards the commercial use by T-Mobile, vtm and others. LimeService has been used as the platform for the survey. After creating the survey, it was activated on August 10th, 2009 and the agents have been invited on that day via UPN. The survey has been deactivated on August 18th, 2009, after 19 agents have (partially) filled in the questionnaire.

We use a regression discontinuity design in rural Morocco to study whether the enrollment gains from conditional cash transfer programs translate into learning benefits. Unlike most previous studies, we estimate the effects of a sustained exposure during whole primary school. We find small and seemingly negative effects on test scores at the end-of-primary school exam. Concomitant increases in class size suggest that the program constrained learning by putting additional pressure on existing resources in beneficiary areas. These results are particularly relevant for settings where transfers are geographically targeted with no measures to absorb the extra influx of students.

International audience Purpose: Sentiment analysis is built from the information provided through text (reviews) to help understand the social sentiment toward their brand, product, or service. The main purpose of this paper is to draw an overview of the topics and the use of the sentiment analysis approach in tourism research. Methods: The study is a bibliometric analysis (VOSviewer), with a systematic and integrative review. The search occurred in March 2021 (Scopus) applying the search terms "sentiment analysis" and "tourism" in the title, abstract, or keywords, resulting in a final sample of 111 papers. Results: This analysis pointed out that China (35) and the United States (24) are the leading countries studying sentiment analysis with tourism. The first paper using sentiment analysis was published in 2012; there is a growing interest in this topic, presenting qualitative and quantitative approaches. The main results present four clusters to understand this subject. Cluster 1 discusses sentiment analysis and its application in tourism research, searching how online reviews can impact decision-making. Cluster 2 examines the resources used to make sentiment analysis, such as social media. Cluster 3 argues about methodological approaches in sentiment analysis and tourism, such as deep learning and sentiment classification, to understand the usergenerated content. Cluster 4 highlights questions relating to the internet and tourism. Implications: The use of sentiment analysis in tourism research shows that government and entrepreneurship can draw and enhance communication strategies, reduce cost, and time, and mainly contribute to the decisionmaking process and understand consumer behavior.

A two-country, two-period model of international migration with heterogeneous agents highlights microeconomic foundations for examining the interrelation between brain drain, brain gain and whether human capital formation is undertaken at home or abroad. Ex ante choices regarding where to study depend on abilities, relative qualities of university systems, sunk educational investments, government grants, and endogenously determined, individual foreign employment probabilities. Self-selection critically defines an inherently wide-range of conceivably positive or negative net welfare effects. The optimal design of alternative educational grant schemes, aimed at enhancing the source country's welfare, also depends on the heterogeneity of abilities and associated informational assumptions.

We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states, in line with the view that this isolation reduces accountability. We then provide direct evidence that the spatial distribution of population relative to the capital affects different accountability mechanisms: newspapers cover state politics more when readers are closer to the capital, voters who live far from the capital are less knowledgeable and interested in state politics, and they turn out less in state elections. We also find that isolated capitals are associated with more money in state-level campaigns, and worse public good provision.

This paper provides evidence of a change in the relationship between individual satisfaction with the state of country's economy and income inequality during transition from a command to market economic system. Using data from a series of extensive and frequent surveys of Polish population, we identify a structural break in this relationship. In the beginning of transition, an increase in income inequality is interpreted by population as a positive signal of increased opportunities; this sentiment is particularly strong among older people and people with right-wing political views. Later in the transition period, increased inequality becomes an important reason for dissatisfaction of the public with the country's economic situation and reforms, as people become more skeptical about the legitimacy of income generation process. We also provide direct evidence from opinion polls of a change in the public sentiment about income inequality. ; Cet article illustre le retournement de la tolérance aux inégalités au cours d'une période de forte croissance et de transformation économique et politique rapide. Il s'appuie sur l'expérience polonaise de transition économique et explore les attitudes subjectives des citoyens recueillies dans des enquêtes répétées, à haute fréquence, de 1992 à 2005. Une rupture entre l'inégalité et la satisfaction est identifiée aux alentours de l'année 1997. Cette évolution coïncide avec la montée, au sein de la population, d'un certain rejet des élites politiques.