Suchergebnisse

The Tobin tax is a solution proposed by many economists for limiting the speculation in foreign exchange and stock markets and for making these markets stabler. In this paper we present a study on the effects of a transaction tax on one and on two related markets, using an artificial financial market based on heterogeneous agents. The microstructure of the market is composed of four kinds of traders: random traders, fundamentalists, momentum traders and contrarians, and the resources allocated to them are limited. In each market it is possible to levy a transaction tax. In the case of two markets, each trader can choose in which market to trade, and an attraction function is defined that drives their choice based on perceived profitability. We performed extensive simulations and found that the tax actually increases volatility and decreases trading volumes. These findings are discussed in the paper.

"For almost sixty years Professor David Jacoby devoted his research to the economic, social and cultural history of the Eastern Mediterranean and this new collection reflects his impact on the study of the interactions between the Italian city-states, Byzantium, the Latin East and the realm of Islam. Contributors to this volume are prominent scholars from across Medieval Studies and leading historians of the younger generation"--

Giovanni Caroli : life and works -- Giovanni Caroli in modern scholarly literature -- The historical background of the Liber dierum Lucensium : the drama of the Dominican observant reform movement in Italy in the fifteenth century -- The sources used in the Liber dierum Lucensium -- Style and genre of the Liber dierum Lucensium : between scholasticism and humanism -- Historical and cultural assessment of the Liber dierum Lucensium -- A synopsis of the Liber dierum Lucensium -- The codex and the method used in the edition and in the translation.

"With the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire increasing numbers of educated people converted to this new belief. As Christianity did not have its own educational institutions the issue of how to harmonize pagan education and Christian convictions became increasingly pressing. Especially classical poetry, the staple diet of pagan education, was considered to be morally corrupting (due to its deceitful mythological content) and damaging for the salvation of the soul (because of the false gods it advocated). But Christianity recoiled from an unqualified anti-intellectual attitude, while at the same time the experiment of creating an idiosyncratic form of genuinely Christian poetry failed (the sole exception being the poet Commodianus). In The Baptized Muse: Early Christian Poetry as Cultural Authority, Karla Pollmann argues that, instead, Christian poets made creative use of the classical literary tradition, and - in addition to blending it with Judaeo-Christian biblical exegesis exploited poetry's special ability of enhancing communicative effectiveness and impact through aesthetic means. Pollman explores these strategies through a close analysis of a wide range of Christian, and for comparison partly also pagan, writers mainly from the fourth to sixth centuries. She reveals that early Christianity was not a hermetically sealed uniform body, but displays a rich spectrum of possibilities in dealing with the past and a willingness to engage with and adapt the surrounding culture(s), thereby developing diverse and changing responses to historical challenges. By demonstrating throughout that authority is a key in understanding the long denigrated and misunderstood early Christian poets, this book reaches the ground-breaking conclusion that early Christian poetry is an art form that gains its justification by adding cultural authority to Christianity. Thus, in a wider sense it engages with the recently developed interdisciplinary scholarly interest in aspects of religion as cultural phenomena" --

The practice and composition of music require patronage and institutional support, and they require it in a different fashion from that found in other forms of art. This collection of essays brings together the most recent and important contributions by leading scholars in the field to this crucial aspect of Renaissance musical culture. The articles approach the topic from a number of perspectives and consider the institutions and individuals engaged in supporting music; the systems of employment, benefices and sponsorship put in place to facilitate the support; and where, how and why music was sung and played. Taken together, these articles enable conclusions to be drawn about the interests of patrons and about the social and artistic status of musicians and composers within the courtly and urban context. - Publisher

Frederick Levi Attenborough (1887-1973) studied at Cambridge and was a Fellow of Emmanuel College between 1920 and 1925. He later became the Principal of University College, Leicester. In 1922 Cambridge University Press published his edition of the early Anglo-Saxon laws, with a facing-page modern English translation. A few years earlier, Felix Lieberman had published his monumental three-volume Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, which is still the definitive specialist edition of the laws (as Attenborough rightly predicted), and which is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. Attenborough explains that his work is for social and legal historians who do not read German, or do not require the full critical apparatus and contextual material provided by Lieberman. Attenborough's book covers the laws from Aethelbert to Aethelstan; in 1925 Cambridge published a continuation by Agnes Robertson, The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, which is also available