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The path of a horizontally moving object, when viewed binocularly, appears distorted in depth if a light shines in only one of the observer's eyes. The image in the lighted eye has a shorter visual latency period than the image in the other eye, and this temporal difference between image latencies translates into an apparent spatial difference between image positions—binocular disparity—which results in the apparent depth displacement of the moving object. In the natural visual environment, one eye can be lighted by the sun while the other is shaded by the nose, and thus, distortions may be produced in the apparent paths of airplanes, or of traffic moving on the ground. The roles that such distortions may play in some air and highway accidents have not been considered previously.

We examine shifts in British income inequality and their causes from 1911–1949. Using newly rediscovered Inland Revenue income distribution estimates, we show that Britain had an unusually high concentration of personal incomes in 1911 compared to other industrial nations. We also find that Britain's substantial inequality reduction over the next four decades was largely driven by a collapse in top capital incomes. This parallels findings for France, the United States, and other western countries, that reduced inequality was mainly caused by declining top unearned incomes, owing to economic shocks, policy responses, and non-market mechanisms associated with the retreat from globalization.

PurposeThis article aims to analyze individual attitudes toward the impact of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on local businesses. These individual attitudes are important in understanding voters' preferences, which studies show to affect governmental policies. MNEs' market entry location decisions are conditioned by the host's political environment. Moreover, MNEs' attempts to attain legitimacy in their host contexts ultimately affect their bottom line, so how the public perceive MNEs matters.Design/methodology/approachUsing a large‐scale data set, the paper carefully delineates between a set of potential mechanisms influencing individual attitudes to globalization in the context of individuals' attitudes toward the impact of MNEs on local businesses.FindingsThe article demonstrates that there is remarkable heterogeneity and complexity in individual attitudes toward the impact of MNEs on local businesses and that these attitudes differ across regions and across countries. It is found that better educated individuals, those employed in the private sector, and those who do not have nationalistic tendencies are more likely to consider that MNEs are not harming local firms, while the opposite holds for those who are employed in "less skilled" occupations, such as those working in plants or in elementary occupations. The article also provides evidence that individuals' attitudes are determined by more than the labor market calculations these individuals might have. In fact, the socializing influence of education and the socializing impact of the individuals' type/sector of occupation also significantly determine the individual attitudes under study.Originality/valueThis area of research remains substantially under‐developed in the literature that analyzes individual attitudes toward globalization, which focuses on individual attitudes toward trade and immigration. Thus, the article not only aims to broaden the work on individual attitudes toward globalization, but it also aims to facilitate further discussion on the specific topic of individual attitudes toward MNEs.

AbstractFrom the mid‐1950s to the early 1980s the Treasury and the Bank of England successfully advocated a policy of restricting both private and public sector house‐building, as a key but covert instrument of their wider 'stop‐go' macroeconomic policy framework. While the intensity of restrictions varied over the economic cycle, private house‐building was restricted (through limiting mortgage availability) for almost all this period. This was achieved by keeping building society interest rates low relative to other interest rates and thus starving the building society movement of mortgage funds. Mortgage restriction was never publicly discussed and sometimes operated alongside ambitious housing targets and well‐publicized policy initiatives to boost housing demand. This article outlines the evolution of house‐building restriction, together with its impacts on the housing sector and the wider economy. We review the evolution of the policy framework and its consequences, compare the level and stability of British house‐building during this period—historically and relative to other countries—and undertake time‐series econometric analysis of its impacts on both house‐building and house prices. Finally, implications for debates regarding stop‐go policy, Britain's housing problem, and the distributional consequences of government macroeconomic policy are discussed.

AbstractThis article examines the impacts of British government 'stop‐go' policy on domestic sales of consumer durables over the period 1952–65, via hire purchase restrictions and punitive Purchase Tax rates. Our analysis includes a general review of contemporary evidence regarding the impacts of these measures, a more detailed study of the television sector, and time‐series econometric analysis for both televisions and a representative high‐ticket labour‐saving consumer durable: washing machines. We find that the restrictions had devastating impacts on Britain's consumer durables industries, preventing firms from fully exploiting economies of scale, reducing output growth and international competitiveness, and eroding industrial relations. Government officials were aware of these problems, but considered them a price worth paying to facilitate moves towards sterling convertibility and the re‐establishment of the City as a leading financial and trading centre.

We investigate how competition affected the survival of products in the UK automobile market between 1971 and 2002. We find, after using a host of controls to account for product characteristics and changes in market structure, that (i) within and between firm spatial competition significantly reduces the life of a model, (ii) initial product differentiation and variant proliferation obviate competition, and (iii) product innovation significantly extends model survival.

If an observer fixates a stationary object near the flight path of an airplane carrying a strobe flash, then the flash appears to trail behind the image of the airplane. In parallactic motion a strobe flash on a stationary tower appears to lag behind the apparently moving image of the tower. Considering the relationship between the latency and intensity of visual stimuli, those displacements seem paradoxical. If the latency of a bright flash is shorter than the latency of other image elements, then a flash should appear to precede the other elements of a moving image. However, the visual persistence of a stimulus is inversely related to its duration. Thus, the apparent displacement of a flash is due to its longer persistence in relation to the continuously lighted portions of a moving image. Under some conditions, the apparent displacement of a strobe flash may have important practical consequences.

The early twentieth century constituted the heyday of the 'breadwinner–homemaker' household, characterized by a high degree of intra‐household functional specialization between paid and domestic work according to age, gender, and marital status. This article examines the links between formal workforce participation and access to resources for individualized discretionary spending in British working‐class households during the late 1930s, via an analysis of household leisure expenditures. Leisure spending is particularly salient to intra‐household resource allocation, as it constitutes one of the most highly prioritized areas of individualized expenditure, especially for young, single people. Using a database compiled from surviving returns to the Ministry of Labour's national 1937/8 working‐class expenditure survey, we examine leisure participation rates for over 600 households, using a detailed set of commercial leisure activities together with other relevant variables. We find that the employment status of family members other than the male breadwinner was a key factor influencing their access to commercial leisure. Our analysis thus supports the view that the breadwinner–homemaker household was characterized by strong power imbalances that concentrated resources—especially for individualized expenditures—in the hands of those family members who engaged in paid labour.