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Social psychological scholarship has emphasized the importance of effective leadership during the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, the wider material contexts of these dynamics have often remained understudied. Through a critical discursive lens, this paper investigates differences in the social constructions used by leaders of richer and poorer nations during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We identify a sharp economic bifurcation in global discourses of pandemic leadership. Pandemic leadership in wealthier nations exercises power in abundance by mobilizing institutions and inspiring communities through discursive frames of coordination and collaboration. Conversely, pandemic leadership in poorer settings negotiates agency amid scarcity by tactically balancing resources, freedoms and dignity within discursive frames of restriction and recuperation. Implications of these findings are unpacked for understanding leadership especially during an international crisis, highlighting the need for critical sensitivities to wider societal structures for a genuinely global social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous systematic reviews considered the relationship between socioeconomic status and obesity, almost 200 peer-reviewed articles have been published since the last review on that topic, and this paper focuses specifically on education, which has different implications. The authors systematically review the peer-reviewed literature from around the world considering the association between educational attainment and obesity. Databases from public health and medicine, education, psychology, economics, and other social sciences were searched, and articles published in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish were included. This paper includes 289 articles that report on 410 populations in 91 countries. The relationship between educational attainment and obesity was modified by both gender and the country's economic development level: an inverse association was more common in studies of higher-income countries and a positive association was more common in lower-income countries, with stronger social patterning among women. Relatively few studies reported on lower-income countries, controlled for a comprehensive set of potential confounding variables and/or attempted to assess causality through the use of quasi-experimental designs. Future research should address these gaps to understand if the relationship between educational attainment and obesity may be causal, thus supporting education policy as a tool for obesity prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses estimation methods for models including an endogenous spatial lag, additional endogenous variables due to system feedback and an autoregressive or a moving average error process. It extends Kelejian and Prucha's, and Fingleton and Le Gallo's feasible generalized spatial two-stage least squares estimators and also considers HAC estimation in a spatial framework as suggested by Kelejian and Prucha. An empirical example using real estate data illustrating the different estimators is proposed. The finite sample properties of the estimators are finally investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulation. Resumen. Este artículo discute métodos de estimación para modelos incluyendo un intervalo espacial endógeno, variables endógenas adicionales debido a retroalimentación del sistema y un proceso autorregresivo o uno de error de media móvil. Amplia Kelejian y Prucha's, y los estimadores de mínimos cuadrados bietápicos espaciales generalizados factibles de Fingleton y Le Gallo y considera también la estimación HAC en un marco espacial tal y como sugieren Kelejian y Prucha. Proponemos un ejemplo empírico utilizando datos de bienes inmuebles ilustrando los diferentes estimadores. Las propiedades en muestras finitas de los estimadores se estudian finalmente mediante simulación de Monte Carlo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many transition policies, based on the existing neoclassical economic theories, failed in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China. This paper argues that the failure is due to the implicit viability assumption of neoclassical economics. The existing neoclassical economics implicitly assumes that a firm is expected to earn a socially acceptable profit in an open, competitive market as long as the firm has normal management. However, many firms in socialist as well as transitional economies are not viable, that is, they will not be able to earn a socially acceptable profit in an open, competitive market even if they are under normal management because they are in sectors that are inconsistent with their economies' comparative advantages. Under the viability assumption, neoclassical-based reform policies focus on issues related to property rights, corporate governance, government interventions and other issues that may obstruct a firm's normal management. However, many of these issues are in fact endogenous to the firms' viability problem. Therefore, without resolving the firms' viability problem, such reforms fail to achieve their intended goals. Not only in socialist and transition economies but also in many developing economies there exist many nonviable firms. This paper suggests that the viability assumption in neoclassical economics should be relaxed when analyzing socialist, transition and developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the present state of applied economics and the difficulties of integrating its findings and insights with those of other social sciences. The philosophical basis of social science is re-considered as a route to resolving these difficulties. Without a more integrated narrative about how our social systems work, applied economics, and all applied social sciences, run the substantial risk of being considered part of the world's problems, rather than offering serious routes to their solution. Some possible strands of a more coherent and integrated framework are outlined, which indicate some potentially fruitful avenues for further development. The paper concludes with illustrations of this outline for the food chain and land use agenda of the Research Councils' Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between interpersonal trust and membership in voluntary associations is a persistent research finding in sociology. What is more, the notion of trust has become a central issue in current social science theorizing covering such diverse approaches as transaction costs economics or cognitive sociology. In different ways and for different purposes, these approaches address the role of voluntary organizations, although, as this paper argues, much of this thinking remains sketchy and underdeveloped. Against an empirical portrait of this relationship, the purpose of this paper is to assess such theorizing. We first set out to explicate major approaches to trust in economics, sociology and political science, using the non-profit or voluntary organization as a focal point. We then examine the various approaches in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and, finally, identify key areas for theoretical development. In particular, we point to the social movement literature, the social psychology of trust, and recent thinking about civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that recent debates over the future of rural studies have been, in some cases, highly dualistic, claiming that it is necessary to choose between political–economy or poststructuralism and between adopting a structuralist/modernist class–analysis or a poststructuralism/postmodernism in which class does not figure. It is argued that there are good reasons for resisting such constructions of choice, and the paper seeks to demonstrate the value of paying attention to discursive constructions of class. Drawing on four pieces of rural research, it is suggested that class is still a salient discursive construct, both within popular images of rurality and within the descriptions of rural life made by, at least some, rural residents. It is also argued that while many rural residents do explicitly reject class identities, often preferring to construct identities through a range of rural lifestyle discourses, these themselves often draw upon cultural textures of class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between the development of industrial capitalism and the development of modern social science in the United States through the writings of two of the best–known writers on social science in the late nineteenth century: Henry George, the apostle of the rights of labor and author of the classic critique of private ownership of land, Progress and Poverty; and William Graham Sumner, the arch defender of the rights of capital and author of a pioneering treatise on Folkways. The paper traces and analyzes their mutual movement away from classical political economy and toward a new social psychology in response to rising economic inequality. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of heavy- or long-tailed densities (or distributions) has attracted much well-deserved attention in the literature. A quick search in Google using the keywords long-tailed statistics retrieves almost 12 million items. The concept has become a pillar of the theory of extremes, and through its connection with outlier-prone distributions, long-tailed distributions also play a central role in the theory of robustness. The concept of tail heaviness is by now ubiquitous, appearing in a diverse set of disciplines that includes: economics, communications, atmospheric sciences, climate modeling, social sciences, physics, modeling of complex systems, etc. Nevertheless, the precise meaning of 'long-' or 'heavy tails' remains somewhat elusive. Thus, in a substantial portion of the early literature, long-tailedness meant that the underlying distribution was capable of producing anomalous observations in the sense that they were 'too far' from the main body of observations. Implicit in these informal definitions was the notion that any distribution that behaved that way had to do so because its tails were longer than those of the normal distribution. This paper discusses tail orderings and several approaches for the classification of probability distributions according to tail heaviness. It is concluded that an approach based on the limiting behavior of the residual life function, and its corresponding characterizations based on functions of regular variation and asymptotic distribution of extreme spacings, provides the more natural and illuminating concepts of tail behavior. WIREs Comput Stat 2013, 5:30-40. doi: 10.1002/wics.1236 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been an article of faith amongst regional economists that increasing returns to scale are necessary to explain the punctiform location of economic activity and population. However, there is no consensus in the empirical literature over whether returns to scale are constant or increasing. A notable example of this lack of agreement is provided by the static-dynamic Verdoorn law paradox. While the dynamic Verdoorn law (specified using growth rates) yields estimates of substantial increasing returns to scale, the static Verdoorn law (specified using log-levels) indicates only the presence of constant returns to scale. In this paper, we explain the static-dynamic Verdoorn law paradox by showing that estimates of returns to scale obtained using the static law are subject to a spatial aggregation bias, which biases the estimates towards constant returns to scale. We illustrate our arguments by means of simulation exercises. The results obtained hold general lessons for applied economic analysis using spatial data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue is special in two major dimensions: the papers range intentionally over a much wider spectrum of social and natural science approaches and disciplines than is normal for the Journal of Agricultural Economics; and, the articles relate to ongoing research rather than completed work. These reflections, perhaps peculiar to a practicing applied economist and policy analyst, concentrate on the lessons to be learned and messages to be heard from the RELU programme, both by those engaged on the programme's research portfolio, and by other researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that the nature of potential shocks impinging on a set of countries or regions may have important implications for relevant aspects of economic policy. This paper addresses the shocks issue empirically by applying the State Space methodology and the Kalman Filter to the case of the Spanish regions. The main conclusions are as follows: (i) it seems that the shocks affecting the Spanish regions have been mostly symmetric; (ii) their effects have been persistent rather than transitory; and (iii) supply shocks have been slightly more frequent than demand shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes issue with Stehr and Grundmann's argument in this journal that sociology's poor record of contribution to practical knowledge results from sociologists' misguided attachment to the idea that social phenomena are peculiarly complex, and so peculiarly resistant to efforts at practical knowledge formation. Stehr and Grundmann develop their thesis by contrasting sociology to economics, claiming the latter's superior methods and disciplinary cultures enable it to contribute more successfully to solving practical problems. We argue that Stehr and Grundmann's comparison of the relative success of economics and sociology as policy sciences underestimates the extent to which the complexity argument has been destructive of economics' capacity to contribute practical knowledge, and overestimates the importance of disciplinary methods and cultures in explaining the use of economics in policy making. Further, we argue that the 'complexity argument' can contribute to better policy making, by virtue of its capacity to highlight the dangers of simplistic or fundamentalist solutions to social problems with complex causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the rise of governance and the risks of its failure. It also examines the roles of markets, states, and partnerships in economic co-ordination and considers their respective tendencies to failure. The rise of governance is partly due to secular shifts in political economy which have made heterarchy more significant than markets or hierarchies for economic, political, and social co-ordination. It also examines the roles of markets, states, and partnerships in economic co-ordination and considers their respective tendencies to failure. It addresses the growing interest in governance and seeks explanations in recent theoretical developments. It examines whether the rise of the governance paradigm might also reflect fundamental shifts in economic, political and social life, such that governance will remain a key issue for a long time, or is a response to more cyclical shifts in modes of co-ordination. The paper considers the logic of heterarchic governance in contrast to anarchic, ex post co-ordination through market exchange and imperative exante co-ordination through hierarchical forms of organization. It also offers some preliminary reflections on the nature, forms, and logic of governance failure. It addresses the state's increasing role in meta-governance, that is, in managing the respective roles of these different modes of co-ordination.

The social sciences offer two distinct approaches to understanding society. One originated with the Scottish moral philosophers and shaped the discipline of economics. The other emerged from the French enlightenment and influenced the study of sociology. The two approaches are based on radically different perceptions of man and man's relation to society. This paper explores these alternative hypotheses and examines some major implications. It concludes that the hypothesis reaching back to the Scottish philosophers provides the basis for a unified approach in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers hints for prospective authors of KYKLOS, one of the best ranked general economics journals in Continental Europe. The paper must address succinctly with a topical economic and/or social issue of interest to general readers. Analyses on a certain topic must bear originality and the paper must go beyond the narrow boundaries of prevailing economics. Theoretical propositions should be backed by econometric tests and historical or circumstantial evidence.

Cites the different types of contributions preferred by the editors of the periodical "Kyklos". Papers that deal succinctly with a topical economic and/or social issue of interest to general readers; Papers that analyze a topic in an original way; Suggestion that papers dealing with specific issues for only one particular country are less desirable.

This article presents information on the editorial policy of the journal KYKLOS. It is informed that KYKLOS is a refereed economics review with a large readership and circulation in Europe, North America and elsewhere around the globe. It is proud of being one of the best-ranked general economics journals in Continental Europe. Based on the referee reports about the general quality of the papers submitted, the editors decide, usually within about two months of submission, whether the paper is in principle suitable for publication in KYKLOS. To speed up the process, in obvious cases oral reports by the referees are sufficient.

Replies to the comments made by Thomas Mayer (2004) regarding the productivity of economic research. Optimal rate of scientific exploration and little evidence of socially efficient investment, at least with respect to economics; Technical issues raised by Mayer; Increased production of highly-cited papers.

This article focuses on several abstracts on sociology. "Ontology matters: The relational materiality of nature and agro-food studies," by David Goodman examines This paper examines the question of ontological choice in agro-food studies, and emphasizes that such choices are consequential, determining analytical points of entry, arenas of theory and praxis, and normative positioning. These questions are explored by examining the privileged place of the labor process in the development of agro-food studies and, as a more specific illustration, in analyses of agro-biotechnology. It is suggested that the modernist ontological priorities embedded in the unreconstructed conceptualization of the labor process not only have been ignored but also have found an unexamined place in post-structuralist agrarian political economy. The discussion closes by reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of actor-network theory as an alternative avenue of critical engagement with the new bio-politics of agro-food networks. "A matter of life and death? Men, masculinities and staying behind in rural Ireland," by Caitriona Ni Laoire is set within the context of a growing interest in the gendered nature of rurality and of rural life, and in particular in the context of an emerging literature on rural masculinities. It focuses on rural men and in particular on the phenomenon of rising male rural suicide rates.

The article presents the editorial policy of KYKLOS, one of the best ranked general economics journals in Continental Europe. A refereed economics review, the journal provides significant advantages to the authors, apart from the high quality and wide publicity. In accepting manuscripts for publication, based on the referee reports, the editors decide whether the paper is, in principle, suitable for publication.