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Despite the growing relevance of business corporations to the lives of older persons, gerontology has given very little, if any, attention to this field. Further, it seems that both the conceptual and the empirical study of what we firstly term "corporate gerontology"—the rich and diverse ways that corporations interact with, influence, and are influenced by older persons and the aging of society—are quite rare. This systematic literature review was designed and executed to explore and present the current state of academic research in the multidisciplinary realm of aging and the business corporation. Of the 46 papers surveyed, the majority belong to the category in which aging is an independent variable that influences the performance of business corporations. Only 27% belong to the second category, which explores how the conduct of corporations can influence various aspects of aging. In light of the retreat of the welfare state and the rising neoliberal system, the lack of adequate governmental responses to aging has paved the way for profit-guided business corporations to enter the field. Their conduct should not be overlooked, and in establishing a new theoretical framework of corporate gerontology, we hope it will draw future research and public attention and raise awareness of this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates for a shift from insular paternalism to developmental paternalism in education, contending that students' engagement with erroneous ideas is crucial for building the ability to resist harmful notions and support democracy. The proposed inoculative approach exposes students to problematic ideas, guiding them through the process of overcoming these beliefs using the pedagogy of relation. The author employs behavioral economics to explore the shortcomings of insular paternalism and the early Christian notion of metanoia to explain the importance of changing one's mind. This developmentally-informed approach fosters rational thinking and curbs extremist ideologies. The paper asserts that prioritizing an inoculative approach over an insulatory one equips students to navigate the complexities of the modern world and uphold democratic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a larger study, this paper presents findings from my exploration of discourses about China-US geopolitics through popular discussions on Chinese international students (CIS) who are attending American universities during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. The study seeks to advance scholarship for international students attending American colleges, with particular implications for Chinese students, as agents of geopolitical relations. In doing so, it investigates (a) how these students are represented in American media and (b) the criticality of international geopolitics in the mobility of international students. The findings reveal that American popular media sources assume a tone when writing about CIS that may stem from a deeper anti-Chinese sentiment that exists in the US. They also suggest that American institutions of higher education, and American companies that employ CIS after graduation, treat these students as imported subjects/objects that support America's intellectual and economic advancement. In doing so, the media perpetuates narratives of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, while representing CIS as unwitting agents of those tensions. The study seeks to advance scholarship on international students attending US colleges, particularly those from China, during an era of rising populism and right-wing movements in the US coupled with rapidly deteriorating US-China relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In health intervention research, epidemiologists and economists are more and more interested in estimating causal effects based on observational data. However, collaboration and interaction between both disciplines are regularly clouded by differences in the terminology used. Amongst others, this is reflected in differences in labeling, handling, and interpreting the sources of bias in parameter estimates. For example, both epidemiologists and economists use the term selection bias. However, what economists label as selection bias is labeled as confounding by epidemiologists. This paper aims to shed light on this and other subtle differences between both fields and illustrate them with hypothetical examples. We expect that clarification of these differences will improve the multidisciplinary collaboration between epidemiologists and economists. Furthermore, we hope to empower researchers to select the most suitable analytical technique from either field for the research problem at hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, social scientists have begun to study the implications of increasing pressures in the early academic career. Studies focusing mostly on the life sciences have shown junior scholars making research decisions based on a productivity logic to increase their chances of career success. In this paper, we extend this literature to the very different context of economics, characterized by a dominant mainstream, a clear hierarchy, and an independent/small-team approach to scholarship. Adopting a culture-in-action framework, we analyze how cultural repertoires help early career economists deal with the sometimes competing career pressures associated with working in high-status departments. Drawing from in-depth interviews with tenure-track economists in three Scandinavian countries, we find that skillful use of discovery-talk and delivery-talk helps respondents respond to the challenges they face as junior academics. Implications for research include the avoidance of, e.g., interdisciplinary work and questions of only regional importance. Furthermore, the data indicate that discovery and delivery notions partly overlap and so contribute to preserving economics as a relatively coherent and homogenous field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is to explore the clinical effect of transvaginal single-port laparoscopic appendectomy, a minimally invasive technique for acute appendicitis. The clinical data of 8 lady cases with acute simple appendicitis undergoing transvaginal single-port laparoscopic appendectomy from May 2019 to September 2020 were analyzed. The process of the procedure and details were recorded, and its safety and feasibility are retrospectively analyzed. The operation of all 8 cases was successfully completed, with no case required conversion to routine laparoscopic or open surgery. The average operation time was (50.27 SD8.66) min. The average intraoperative bleeding was (2.77 SD0.90) ml. The average intestinal function recovery time was (8.87 SD3.94) h. The average hospitalization time was (3.86 SD0.74) day. And the average hospitalization cost was (1.28 SD0.10) thousand yuan. Besides, 24-h postoperative pain score, CRP and IL-6 were (2.66 SD0.89) mg/l, (40.93 SD5.56) mg/l, and (68.66 SD15.19) pg/ml, respectively. No postoperative complications were observed during hospital stay, but two patients developed complications after discharge, including one abdominal infection and one poor healing of the wound. Patients' satisfaction with their incision accounted for 87.5% after 1-month follow-up. And none of the patients had discomforts after 6-month follow-up, especially for sexual life. At the same time, patients' self-confidence was improved greatly. Traditional single-port laparoscopic approach is a safe and feasible method for transvaginal appendectomy, which broadens the path of appendectomy and avoids the drawbacks of transabdominal surgery. Besides, it is more minimally invasive, without scars on the skin, and has accurate cosmetic effect. Therefore, it is considered to be a feasible approach for lady patients with appendicitis and higher cosmetic requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulp yield is an important measure of pulpwood quality, which is used regularly by the pulp and paper industry for which the possibility of using rapid methods to predict pulp yield would be very useful for screening and quality control. This work addresses the prediction of Kraft pulp yield under standard identical conditions and targeted to a kappa number of 15, using near-infrared (NIR) partial least squares regression modelling. A total of 75 pulp samples of Acacia melanoxylon R. Br. (blackwood) with a pulp yield variation range of 47.0-58.2 % were used. Very good correlations between NIR spectra and pulp yield were obtained. Ten methods were used for PLS analysis (cross-validation with 62 samples), and an external validation was made with 13 samples. The 2ndDer pre-processed spectra coupling two wavenumber ranges from 9087 to 5440 and 4605 to 4243 cm allowed the best model with a standard error of prediction of 0.4 %, a r of 98.1 %, and the ratios of performance to deviation (RPD) of 4.8. According to AACC Method 39-00, the present model is sufficiently accurate to be used in screening programs and in quality control (RPD = 6.9). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Traditional face-to-face cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has been successful at reducing fear of falling (FOF) in older people but can be labour-intensive and costly. Online CBT has been suggested as a cost-effective alternative but has not yet been tested in the context of FOF. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a readily available, self-guided and generalised online CBT program (myCompass) on reducing FOF in older people. Methods: Fifty community-dwelling older people with FOF received a paper-based health education program, and half were randomly assigned to receive three selected modules from myCompass for 6 weeks. The primary outcome was feared consequences of falling at 6 weeks. Secondary outcomes were concern about falling, balance confidence, activity avoidance, physical activity, exercise self-efficacy, health literacy and mental health at 6/26/52 weeks and falls incidence at 12 months. Results: All intervention participants completed at least 2-out-of-3 myCompass modules. There was a significant main effect of time on feared consequences of falling (Cohen's f = 0.55). The group by time interactions for concern about falling (f = 0.28), stress (f = 0.26) and social support for health (health literacy) (f = 0.26) was also significant, favouring the control group. The overall attrition rate at 12 months was 24% (n = 12). Conclusion: The high program compliance and low attrition rate suggest that online CBT is feasible among older people. However, the myCompass program had no effect at reducing FOF in older people. A more targeted CBT program with a well-integrated psychoeducation module on FOF might be the solution to boost the therapeutic effects of a generalised CBT program at reducing FOF for older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper defends that it is possible to offer a Kantian argument for justifying the introduction of Universal Basic Income (UBI). It first briefly presents Philippe van Parijs' argument for UBI based on the concept of real freedom for all. In doing so, it will focus on its general structure and central insight, without entering too much into other issues like the economic feasibility of UBI. It second briefly presents Kant's concept of external freedom and especially focuses on some of its components to assess whether there is some closeness to van Parijs' concept of real freedom. It further considers whether UBI is not only compatible with a Kantian position, but can be justified from such a position because it represents a tool for concretely realizing external freedom as presented in the Doctrine of Right and for attaining the ethical ideal of virtuosity presented in the Doctrine of Virtue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In West Africa, there is a disjuncture between historical processes in the second millennium BC and late first millennium AD due to a comparative lack of archaeological data. In the Mouhoun Bend of western Burkina Faso, recent research has found that beginning in the second quarter of the first millennium BC, a landscape emerged of dispersed agricultural homesteads spaced 1–3 km apart. This paper synthesizes published data from the basal levels (Yellow I subphase) of the site of Kirikongo, adds new survey and excavation data from three sites identified by the Kirikongo Regional Project, and integrates data from previous archaeological research in the region. During Yellow I, Mouhoun Bend residents lived in economically generalized multi-family houses that produced their own material culture (ceramics, iron), farmed, kept domestic animals, fished, hunted, and managed wild plants. Funerary rituals involved the creation of earthen structures and the ritualized deposition of material culture and food remains in pits or concavities. Comparing these sites with contemporary and earlier communities in the region including Kintampo, Rim, and Jenne-jeno, we argue that West Africa from the second millennium BC through the early first millennium AD was home to a complex and culturally diverse interconnected network of dispersed farming societies. The capillary network they created facilitated broader trade and exchange including transfers of technologies and new economic resources throughout the region. The emergence of early marketplace centers was supported by and served these networks and may have been linked to mineral salt production and/or exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses aspects of economic analysis of law developed because of the status quo existing on the Internet and of the evolution of legal theory on copyright. It also explores the massive increase of interest in the law and economics of intellectual property during the first decade of twenty-first century. The paper argues that law and economics discourse on copyright foregrounds policymaking with a focus on copyright's economic ramifications. This paper also examines Coase's theorem and its influence on considerations about copyright regulatory frameworks and potential reform to keep abreast of ongoing technological advancements and their impact on copyright protection in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, large oil and gas companies formed the Climate Leadership Council (CLC) in response to increased social pressure to reduce their emissions to combat climate change. The CLC developed the Carbon Dividends Plan (CDP), which proposes a carbon emissions market mechanism to solve the climate change crisis. The CLC's lobbying arm, the Americans for Carbon Dividends (AFCD), is currently working to educate US congressional leaders on the importance of a carbon tax, like the one proposed in the CDP. In the paper, I address the following question: what can Polanyi's theoretical insights tell us about the CDP and its social implications? I first discuss the CDP within the context of the current climate change crisis. Then, I apply Polanyi's market embeddedness, fictitious commodities, and double movement concepts to the discussion. I illustrate four main points in this paper. First, the CDP is part of an ongoing societal double movement. Second, despite the CLC's neoliberal "free" market ideals, the self-regulated market proposed in the CDP is a social construction, embedded in social relations, itself. Third, the CDP, and carbon markets in general, comprise one specific type of unconscious countermovement that extends the self-regulated market to combat the destructive forces of the market itself. Fourth, the CDP's proposal for a carbon emissions market mechanism is an unsatisfactory solution to address the climate change crisis, as it will not address the inherent contradictions in the overall system as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the first elite business schools were founded in Europe and the United States during the late 1800s and early 1900s, they have enjoyed an intimate relationship with economics. Despite some notable analyses of economics' importance for the successful institutionalization of business schools, an understanding of the relation between economics and elite business schools requires further development. As such, this paper focuses on 'economics as symbolic capital' for the consecration of business schools as elite settings, with particular emphasis on the symbolic aspects of economics' cultural and social capital. Consecration can be seen as critical to the institutionalization of elite business schools; in contrast to the primary focus of previous studies on the material significance of economics in business schools, my chief concern is the discipline's symbolic power and importance for business schools' status as elite institutions in many countries today. Data from a study on Sweden's elite business school, The Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), were based on both historical and contemporary sources, including archival material, biographies, statistics, participant observations, and interviews with faculty and students. The SSE is one of the world's oldest elite business schools where economics has played a critical role ever since its establishment; the SSE's economics faculty has a unique relation to the ultimate source of capital for contemporary global economics, namely, The Nobel Prize in Economics, which exerts a significant influence on the discipline's general standing and status today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dams are multipurpose structures that provide water for drinking purposes, hydroelectric power generation, navigation, industrial uses, and irrigation, in addition to flood control. The loss of storage due to siltation or submergence can be remedied by constructing an ungated spillway or weir over the dam structure. Many researchers have studied different shapes of the weir to reduce the submergence problem; some used the modified shape of the weir named Labyrinth weir in their studies, which gives the concept of a new shape of the nonlinear Piano Key Weir (PKWs). The PKW is a cost-effective solution for rehabilitation and new dam projects with a high level of constraints, for instance, limited space, small reservoir level, high specific flood discharge, etc. This paper reviews the previous studies on the historical development of the PKW, the geometry and structural integrity, the methodologies developed by researchers, and the stability of flow hydrodynamics at the PKW. The purpose of this study is to summarize the available information to date about PKW hydraulics and compare it to other alternative rectilinear or nonlinear weirs from the literature in terms of discharge capabilities, sediment transportation efficiency, aeration performance, and economic aspects. The comparison shows that the PKW is an excellent alternative for dam risk mitigation due to its high spillway capabilities, aeration performance, and economic point of view with other alternatives. Furthermore, in addition to field applicability, this study identifies future research possibilities that merit further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how a discourse about the role and value of public participation in science, technology, and innovation emerged and evolved in the research policies of the European Commission. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, two main discourses have been successively institutionalized: the first focused on participation in policy-making, while the second aimed at participation in the production of knowledge and innovation. This paper distinguishes three main institutional phases: (i) a phase dedicated to public participation in the governance of science and technology (2000–2010); (ii) a reframing period of science and technology policies by the Commission to integrate the growing emphasis on innovation (2010–2014); (iii) a period focusing on co-creation and citizen science as new ways to involve the public in science and technology (2014-today). Factors such as individual commitments of key policy actors, specific epistemic communities and institutional dynamics within the Commission played a crucial role in shaping the policies of participation. But broader factors are also essential to account for these changes. In this respect, the economic crisis of the late 2000s appears fundamental to understanding how the conception and promotion of public participation in the European science and technology policies have evolved over time. This paper thus offers new insights to the analysis of the political economy of public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Loneliness and social isolation can occur at all stages of the life course and are recognized as a global health priority. The aim of this study was to review existing literature on the economic costs associated with loneliness and social isolation as well as evidence on the cost-effectiveness of interventions to prevent or address loneliness and social isolation.Methods: A bibliographic database search was undertaken in Medline, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Embase, supplemented by a grey literature search and a reference list search. Papers were included that were published in English language in peer-reviewed literature in the past 10 years, reporting costs of loneliness and/or social isolation or economic evaluations of interventions whose primary purpose is to reduce loneliness and/or social isolation, including return on investment (ROI) or social return on investment (SROI) studies.Results: In total, 12 papers were included in this review, consisting of four cost-of-illness studies, seven economic evaluations and five ROI or SROI studies. Most studies were conducted in the UK and focused on older adults. Due to the inconsistent use of the terms loneliness and social isolation, as well as their measurement, the true economic burden can only be estimated to a certain extent and the comparability across economic evaluations and ROI studies is limited.Conclusions: The paucity of evidence that is available primarily evaluating the economic costs of loneliness indicates that more research is needed to assess the economic burden and identify cost-effective interventions to prevent or address loneliness and social isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of this systematic review was to review the available evidence on the disparity between willingness to accept (WTA) and willingness to pay (WTP) for healthcare goods and services.Methods: A tiered approach consisting of (1) a systematic review, (2) an aggregate data meta-analysis, and (3) an individual participant data meta-analysis was used. MEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, Scisearch, and Econlit were searched for articles reporting both WTA and WTP for healthcare goods and services. Individual participant data were requested from the authors of the included studies.Results: Thirteen papers, reporting WTA and WTP from 19 experiments/subgroups, were included in the review. The WTA/WTP ratios reported in these papers, varied from 0.60 to 4.01, with means of 1.73 (median 1.31) for 15 estimates of the mean and 1.58 (median 1.00) for nine estimates of the median. Individual data obtained from six papers, covering 71.2% of the subjects included in the review, yielded an unadjusted WTA/WTP ratio of 1.86 (95% confidence interval 1.52-2.28) and a WTA/WTP ratio adjusted for age, sex, and income of 1.70 (95% confidence interval 1.42-2.02). Income category and age had a statistically significant effect on the WTA/WTP ratio. The approach to handling zero WTA and WTP values has a considerable impact on the WTA/WTP ratio found.Conclusions and Implications: The results of this study imply that losses in healthcare goods and services are valued differently from gains (ratio > 1), but that the degree of disparity found depends on the method used to obtain the WTA/WTP ratio, including the approach to zero responses. Irrespective of the method used, the ratios found in our meta-analysis are smaller than the ratios found in previous meta-analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last six years or so, a number of interesting papers discussed systems with line segments of equilibria, planes of equilibria, and with more general equilibrium configurations. This note draws attention to the fact that such equilibria were considered previously by Miklós Farkas (1932–2007), in papers published in 1984–2005. He called zip bifurcations those involving line segments of equilibria, and velcro bifurcations those involving planes of equilibria. We briefly describe prototypical situations involving zip and velcro bifurcations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is only one of several organisations internationally that uses economic evaluation as part of decision making regarding funding and pricing of new medical technologies. However, it can be argued that NICE has developed a more prominent international profile than most in their use of economics. After 20 years of operation, it is timely to assess the extent of NICE's achievements, including the economic evaluation methods it has used and its willingness to adapt these as new evaluative approaches emerge and when NICE faces particular policy challenges. This paper considers some of the important policy and contextual developments in the UK over the last 20 years and how these may have shaped NICE's approach to economic evaluation. It then assesses key areas of NICE methods, including perspective, defining benefits, modelling and uncertainty. The paper concludes that NICE has provided important support for the development of new methods, in particular through its role in identifying priorities for methods research funding and its sponsorship of the NICE Decision Support Unit. However, potentially important developments in methods in a number of important areas have yet to be formally included in NICE's methods guidance and this should be addressed in the Institute's 2019/2020 methods review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reconsiders the problem of whether traditional economics constitutes or comprises rational choice theory in the sense of a comprehensive economic model of and approach to human action and society. Rational choice theorists in economics as well as sociology and beyond claim that their theory and approach is founded in, derived from and justified by classical and neoclassical economics, especially its major figures. This reconsideration casts strong doubt on such claims to "rational choice" traditional economics. It argues and shows that both classical political economy and neoclassical economics essentially is or has no rational choice theory. This applies to virtually all the major economics classics and neoclassics, with some exceptions among their lesser counterparts. The paper aims to contribute to understand better the origins and rationale or lack thereof of rational choice theory and the economic approach to behavior and their implications for its sociological version. The rationale/benefit of this analysis and its finding for contemporary sociologists is three-fold. The first relating to rational choice sociologists is showing that classical/neoclassical economics is not rational choice theory and does not represent their theoretical foundation and precursor. The second pertaining to economic sociologists is demonstrating that conventional economics has elements of economic sociology, especially more than of rational choice theory. The third concerning other sociologists is to make them more familiar with the original ideas of conventional economics as distinct from their interpretations by contemporary economist pursuing the economic approach and rational choice theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is open government? The contemporary conceptualization of open government remains rooted in transparency and accountability, but it is embedded within the political economy of policy, where forces of globalization through supranational organizations strongly influence the creation and dispersion of policy across the globe. Recognizing the direct impact of subnational governments on residents, in 2016 the Open Government Partnership (OGP) launched the Subnational Pioneer's Pilot Project with 15 participating government authorities globally. Each subnational participant submitted an action plan for opening their government information and processes in 2017. The uniformity of the OGP action plan provides a unique opportunity to assess the conception of open government at the subnational level globally. This paper uses a document analysis to examine how open government is conceptualized at the subnational level, including the salience of various components, and how local context can influence the development of action plans that are responsive to the realities of each participating jurisdiction. This paper assesses whether being a part of the political economy of policy homogenizes the action plans of 15 subnational governments or allows for local context to influence the design of commitments still aligned within a general theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Head and neck cancer is a significant public health concern in India and globally, with substantial social and economic consequences for affected individuals and their families. The study aimed to assess the socioeconomic impact of head and neck cancer. This paper presents the results of a questionnaire-based study involving 178 head and neck cancer patients who were evaluated at least two years post-completion of their treatment. The questionnaire data collected data on various factors, including site of cancer, treatment modality, speech and diet impairment, changes in earning capacity, occupation, and salary. This was collected from all patients visiting our tertiary cancer care center outpatient department in Ahmedabad, India, between January 2023 and August 2023. The findings highlight the diverse and profound socioeconomic consequences of head and neck cancer. The findings emphasize the need for comprehensive support systems for affected individuals and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the contemporary politics of the minimum wage came to focus on whether the minimum wage kills jobs. It begins by showing that the debates over the minimum wage shifted from an initial rhetoric in the 1930s that accepted the inevitability and in some cases desirability of unemployment in order to eliminate child labor and sweatshops and reconstruct the economy along high wage lines, to one where the existence of minimum wage–caused unemployment was called into question. Policymakers in the Department of Labor borrowed from the newfound authority of economics in the post-war American state to make the argument for substantial increases to the minimum wage in the 1950s and 1960s because they found that it had no negative effect on employment, but in so doing lashed the fate of the minimum wage to the empirical question of whether or not the minimum wage resulted in lower employment. In the 1970s and 1980s, the fate of the minimum wage was bound up by the question of the impact of the minimum wage on teenage employment. A new wave of external research by economists questioned the rosy findings of Department of Labor experts, pointing to teenagers as potentially bearing the economic brunt of minimum wage increases. This debate would be hashed out in the 1981 Minimum Wage Study Commission, as economic theory and policy rhetoric came together in the same place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial incentives, learning (feedback and repetition), group consultation, and increased experimental control are among the experimental techniques economists have successfully used to deflect the behavioral challenge posed by research conducted by such scholars as Tversky and Kahneman. These techniques save the economic armchair to the extent that they align laypeople judgments with economic theory by increasing cognitive effort and reflection in experimental subjects. It is natural to hypothesize that a similar strategy might work to address the experimental or restrictionist challenge to armchair philosophy. To test this hypothesis, a randomized controlled experiment was carried out (for incentives and learning), as well as two lab experiments (for group consultation, and for experimental control). Three types of knowledge attribution tasks were used (Gettier cases, false belief cases, and cases in which there is knowledge on the consensus/orthodox understanding). No support for the hypothesis was found. The paper describes the close similarities between the economist's response to the behavioral challenge, and the expertise defense against the experimental challenge, and presents the experiments, results, and an array of robustness checks. The upshot is that these results make the experimental challenge all the more forceful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that a group of researchers say they will stop buying, publishing, or reviewing for any scientific journal that refuses to place its research papers in a proposed online database, Public Library of Science, within six months of initial publication. Reaction of publishers, who claim that free access will leave journals without enough revenue to support peer review; Speculation that the research will end up on the publicly-funded PubMedCentral rather than on a private site.

According to economics, prices are determined by the relationship between supply and demand: They correspond to the equilibrium in which supply is exactly equal to the demand, i.e., for which the optimal amount that the seller is willing to sell at this price is exactly equal to the optimal amount that the buyer is willing to pay. In many situations, the corresponding prices are indeed uniquely determined by the supply–demand relation. From the purely mathematical viewpoint, there are situations when the equilibrium is not unique, but most economists believe that in practical situations, equilibrium prices are usually uniquely determined. In this paper, we provide a simple but realistic example in which the equilibrium is not unique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cassirer's philosophy of culture has been examined through various disciplines. Until now, however, no such assessment has taken place within the field of economics. In this paper, I attempt to develop this unexplored task through the economic concepts of commodity, money, capital, and culture. I argue that these concepts can help to draw an updated concept of capitalism and power relations created through capitalist planning. I also claim that these concepts can contribute to understanding the historical specificity of capitalist culture, by understanding it as an historical process of social production. I conclude that these concepts are able to defy Cassirer's view of capitalism as a system in which economic prosperity and political liberty could be achieved in a universal manner. Finally, I demonstrate that these concepts can shed light on Cassirer's failed quest to find a coherent universal culture within capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formal structures for evaluating climate change risk are important components of adaptation decision-making. In this paper, we present an accessible, cost-effective and user-tested climate change risk assessment framework which allows organisations to systematically apply a risk management process aligned with international standards to identify and manage their climate change risks. It is delivered through 'CoastAdapt', a resource supporting climate change adaptation in Australia. This three-tier framework offers four benefits to the adaptation process. First, it allows organisations to identify climate change risks and integrate them with their mainstream risk management process. Second, it makes optimal use of an organisation's limited adaptation resources by taking a tiered approach, so allowing an organisation to start from a low knowledge base using minimal resources and, only if required, then move to more complex and resource-intensive risk assessment processes. Third, it introduces a time-dependent vulnerability rating which recognises the particular characteristics of climate change risks—that they are long term and associated with a considerable degree of uncertainty. Finally, it takes into account business inter-dependencies that can exacerbate impacts but be overlooked in a sector-based impacts evaluation. In this paper, we highlight the appropriate context in which to use each risk assessment tier, explore key technical differences among the three tiers, describe performance testing and present one case study of application. We discuss the benefits of this tiered risk assessment approach in the context of broader adaptation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at a recent challenge to the liberal inclusivist view that everyone on the state's territory should have a path to citizenship. Economists have argued that giving immigrants an inferior legal status would persuade wealthy countries to admit more, with beneficial consequences for global justice. Whilst this trade-off might seem appealing from the impersonal perspective of the policymaker it generates incoherence from the perpective of the collective of democratic citizens, since it requires them to treat their own unjust attitudes as an objective constraint. The paper also rejects the idea that a voluntary choice to migrate can be taken as consent to an inferior status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between economic and social performance in an organizational context. We perform a meta-analysis to test this relationship and to examine the influence of the measurement criteria and organizational characteristics, such as activity, social orientation, technology and cultural environment. We find 678 effect sizes in 83 papers. Our results reveal a positive relationship between economic and social performance, although differences in the sign are detected depending on the measurement instrument and the type of organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many general-interest magazine publishers have had problems maintaining stability. What can these publications learn from smaller, niche titles that have  remained successful through the same industry changes? This paper will examine three major strengths for niche magazines that general-interest magazine publishers lack: their reader devotion, their careful approaches to digitalization, and their use of paid digital content. These strengths are analyzed in three case studies from different sub-genres of niche publishing: a city magazine, a luxury product magazine, and a hobby magazine. This paper offers practical suggestions general-interest magazines can implement. Looking at the successful practices suggests the potential to address industry-wide problems and to potentially yield more stable magazine publishing environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological change has interested archaeologists since the inception of the field, but persistence – particularly in a broader context of social transformation – is also a phenomenon that demands explanation. This paper examines the persistence of Indigenous silver production in Porco, Bolivia from Inka times to the twenty-first century, arguing that rather than solely being the result of either passive traditionalism or active identity creation, it can be most fully understood in terms of the intersection of technological practice with a changing local political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's struggle for equal legal rights, which is a critical component of their own economic growth, has always been a pressing social and human rights issue. While gains have been made for some women, important variability remains not only within nations but also across nations. How this accessibility manifests itself in social outcomes however, has received little attention. One important outcome that is of significant concern throughout the world is homicide. In this paper, we link women's rights to overall homicide rates. We use cross-national data for almost two hundred countries spanning the world's regions to investigate whether countries where women experience more gender discrimination in economic and family decisions have higher homicide rates. Using finite mixture modeling, we find significant variation in a discrimination index and that countries grouped by their level of discrimination experience significantly different overall homicide rates. In countries with the least discrimination, we found the lowest overall average homicide rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The telecommunications industry has evolved from voice-centric to provisioning of broadband data services. As witnessed in countries around the world, the industry has an oligopoly market structure with a few operators providing services. The services offered by the operators differ in both price and quality of service. On the other hand, consumers differ in their preferences over price and quality with some displaying sensitivity towards price and others towards quality. In this paper, we provide the standard microeconomic framework of supply and demand for telecom services and derive equilibria under varying supply and demand conditions. In particular, we analyse the strategies of new entrants vis-à-vis incumbents in offering service plans over varying price and quality dimensions. We also analyse the equilibria for varying elasticities of demand of consumers. We then validate the analytical results by simulation using an agent-based model with operator and consumer agents. Our results show that new entrants ought to target relatively elastic consumers as their market entry strategy, by offering a combination of low price, high-quality service plans to gain market share. On the other hand, incumbent operators ought to continue to target relatively inelastic consumers who have loyalty towards them due to larger network effects and associated higher switching costs. Our simulation results also confirm the analytical results. Telecom regulators can use the study results in assessing and regulating (i) market power dynamics of incumbents and new entrants, (ii) tariff plans offered by operators for possible predatory pricing and (iii) quality of service to meet threshold minimum quality of standard levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the different biographic pathways to an economics and business studies professor position between 1957 and 2000 on the specific case of Switzerland. It focuses on the accumulation and conversion of capitals during academic trajectories, and their relation to three types of resources: scientific reputation, network relations, and internationality. Based on an original biographical database of 411 professors and an innovative use of sequence analysis and multinomial logistic regression, it shows that the three main principles of career structuration divide them between (1) academic and extra-academic trajectories, (2) "standard" positions and executive positions in influent academic organizations, and (3) according to the timing of the accession to a professor position ("early" vs. "slower" appointments). It also shows that careers are increasingly academic between 1957 and 2000. Academic only and long full professor trajectories are linked to reputation in the scientific field (through citations in "prestigious" journals) and internationality of the professors' profile, while an earlier appointment as professor is associated to developed scientific collaboration networks. Relatively long careers in executive positions in influent academic organizations are linked to important connections to economic, political, and administrative "elite" members (through the supervision of their PhD) as well as scientific expertise for the state, while extra-academic careers only lead to subordinate (associate) professor positions and no detention of other resources within economics and business studies whatsoever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an improved particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSOCS) that integrates with a clone selection (CS) principle of artificial immune system is proposed to solve dynamic economic emission dispatch (DEED) problem. Classical particle swarm optimization method is easy to fall into stagnation when no particle discovers a position that is better than its previous best position. To overcome the disadvantage, the CS mechanism is used to evolve the personal best swarm (i.e., P best ) at every generation. The fittest particles in P best will be cloned independently and proportionally to their fitness. In order to force PSOCS jump out of stagnation, a hybrid mutation scheme (called R/1orCB/1) is developed to mutate the clones generated. A constrain-handling approach is utilized to repair infeasible solutions for enhancing the ability of adapting to the DEED problem with various strong constraints. In numerical experiments, the proposed PSOCS is applied to solve three test cases (5-unit, 10-unit, and 15-unit systems) with nonsmooth fuel cost and emission functions. Simulation results indicate that the PSOCS can find the high-quality solutions for the DEED problem, when compared with the most recent methods reported in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon the renowned media reports-based “Economic policy uncertainty” (EPU) index and analyzes its Granger-causal interrelationships with consumer confidence and aggregate economic activity. Employing a heterogeneous panel Granger causality test on data from 13 world countries, the authors find that: (1) the analyzed countries are quite heterogeneous in terms of the found causality patterns; (2) the EPU index does not Granger-cause the overall economic activity in the vast majority of the analyzed economies; (3) consumer confidence is confirmed as a significant predictor of aggregate output in all countries; (4) news media uncertainty and consumer confidence largely represent two distinct psychological transmission channels. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that consumer confidence (i.e. first moment, expectation) is considerably more important for the aggregate economic activity than economic uncertainty (i.e. second moment, variance). Two robustness checks are provided (an alternative lag structure of the Granger causality test, and the usage of monthly (industrial production) instead of quarterly (GDP) economic activity data). The obtained inferences are quite robust to both model alternations. Additionally, the leading characteristics of EPU index are found to be less pronounced than those of GARCH uncertainty and forecast disagreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia’s several major mining booms since the 1840s have impacted positively on national economic growth and non-trivially on the competitiveness of other sectors of its economy. This paper shows the latter to be consistent with economic theory only when sectoral policy developments are taken into consideration. It reveals several features that make the sectoral composition of Australia’s economy unusual. One is that the manufacturing share of GDP was unusually high until protectionism was phased out from the 1970s. Another is that the farm sector continued to enjoy a strong comparative advantage despite mining booms and high rates of assistance to import-competing manufacturers. Also, the agricultural and services sectors’ shares of GDP remained fairly constant rather than diverging during 1860-1960. The paper concludes by drawing out implications for future policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of findings from a recent survey of quality of urban life (QOUL) in Hong Kong which focuses on: (a) individuals’ subjective assessment of their overall quality of life (QOL) and of a set of QOL life domains, and (b) their level of satisfaction for three levels of QOUL living domains: their housing, their neighbourhood, and Hong Kong as a whole. Differences between demographic and socio-economic groups are discussed. The paper also reports on preliminary results of multivariate modelling to identify factors that might explain variations in individual levels of satisfaction with their overall QOL and with the three levels of QOUL living domains. The Hong Kong survey of QOUL is compared to those of Brisbane and of the greater Detroit region to highlight differences between urban regions in the east and west. The results show that Hong Kong is still lagging far behind the two western regions in most aspects of the QOL life domains and the three QOUL living domains. The comparisons have implied that the differences between these urban regions are beyond east-west influence in the perception of quality of life and more attributable to disparities in urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple risks have been building up in the Chinese economy during the past decade, exposing it to a possible financial crisis of increasing likelihood. Based upon the inductive reasoning from the conventional key indicators discussed by economists, this paper also adds a deductive reasoning by examining the incentive structure for key players in the Chinese political economy to gauge the risk of a financial crisis in China. It highlights the political and structural factors that are responsible for soft budget constraint, moral hazard from major players, and the lack of institutional foundation for sovereign credibility. It argues that recent policies have not only failed to address these issues but instead have further damaged the credible commitment of the state to the market economy and ratcheted up the course of a great meltdown. This paper calls for a fundamental institutional change in China’s political economy in order to prevent perversion in the state-market interaction from spawning both political and economic crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last two centuries, taxation has not only increased dramatically in level and volume; its structure has also changed: from a heavy reliance on customs revenue in the early nineteenth century to a stronger emphasis on income taxation in the twentieth. A common explanation for this development is the spread of democracy, which supposedly increases redistribution and the size of government. This paper argues that the effect of democratization on taxation depends on the distribution of tax preferences in society. These preferences are not uniform: rural farmers prefer different policies than urban workers. Thus, the impact of democratization varies depending on the urbanization rate. The paper uses a novel dataset providing data on government tax revenue in thirty-one countries in Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan—from as far back as 1800 up to the present day—in order to evaluate the conditional impact of democratization on tax structure. The results show that democracy decreases property taxes in rural countries but instead increases income taxes and decreases excise and consumption taxes in more urbanized states. These results are robust to different estimation methods, a number of control variables, such as interstate warfare, and to alternative measurements of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly accelerated life test (HALT) is a test methodology to evaluate reliability of mechanical and electromechanical devices. HALT is often used on devices that must be guaranteed for high reliability over a long time span. HALT simulates the life cycle of the device, usually until it experiments a failure. HALT tests are used to assess reliability of devices at the end of the production cycle, but are also used to improve the design and manufacturing process, allowing to find and correct potential problems when changes to the production process are less costly. HALT tests are usually difficult and time consuming, and there is a strong need for their automation. This paper proposes a methodology to design software and hardware for HALT automated tests. The goals pursued are to standardize the test process, to reduce the need for manual commands at the minimum and to simplify the data gathering process. The methodology proposed starts from domain requirement analysis and is conceived to be as general as possible, with the goal to make it easily extensible and adaptable to multiple testing domains. Finally, the paper reports on a case study describing a HALT test device designed according to the proposed methodology and currently in use to test electromechanical actuators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An old methodological obstacle confronts the use of Life Satisfaction surveys in Happiness Studies: a problem that economists recognize by the name of (the impossibility of) interpersonal comparisons of satisfaction/utility. But the recent implementation of insights from happiness studies into policy making transforms an originally theoretical obstacle into a real-world problematic, providing substantial motivation for engaging with this issue. Just this problem is highlighted by recent critics of happiness surveys. This paper locates the problem currently facing happiness studies at the intersection of two traditions or two histories: that of economic methodology and that of psychological methodology. Three dominant approaches to the issue revealed through these histories are identified: ‘the skeptical approach’, ‘the pragmatic approach’, and ‘the ethical-normative approach’. The paper works to bring together the two disciplinary histories and evaluate the three approaches in order to frame a suitable interpretation of inter-personal comparisons in happiness studies. The implications of this are twofold: it contributes to the legitimation of happiness studies, suggesting an answer to its critics, while, at the same time casting the status of its building blocks under a different light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the origins, promise, and subsequent development of social indicators/quality-of-life/well-being conceptualizations and research since the 1960s. It then assesses the state of this field in the 2010s and identifies four key developments—the development of professional organizations that nurture its conceptual and empirical development; the widespread political, popular, and theoretical appeal of the quality-of-life (QOL) concept; a new era of the construction of composite or summary social indicators; and a recognition of the key role of the QOL concept in connecting social indicators to the study of subjective well-being—that have evolved over the past five decades and that are very much with us today. The final section of the paper poses the question of where the field should focus its energies. Beyond carrying on the existing research program, it argues that the field needs to recognize the substantial changes in the social and economic organization of contemporary societies as compared to the mid-1960s launch period for the Social Indicators Movement and develop new research foci for the years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the Aldan-Maya sedimentary basin (AMSB) and the Yurubchen-Tokhomo zone (YuTZ) of oil-and-gas accumulation, which are located, respectively, on the southeastern and southwestern margins of the North Asian Craton. At present, only the YuTZ has unique reserves of oil, gas, and gas condensate (Yurubchen-Tokhomo, Kuyumba, and Omorin fields). The fundamental similarity of the facies and geodynamic sedimentation settings and lithological composition is shown for the Riphean sequences of the Baikit anteclise of the YuTZ and AMSB, which were formed at the aulacogen stage of the cover formation of the North Asian Craton. This fact indicates the great potential of the AMSB for discovery of economic petroleum fields. This paper represents a continuation of the complex study of the geology, deep structure, geodynamics, and hydrocarbon potential of the AMSB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses upon a neglected area of EU merger control, the acquisition of minority shareholdings that have the potential to cause competitive harm at the European Union level, and which therefore should be vetted under EU law. Using economic theory and actual cases vetted by European Regulators, the paper demonstrates an EU regulatory enforcement gap in respect of the aforesaid minority shareholdings. The Commission's recent proposal to end this gap, the so-called targeted transparency system, is then critically explored, revealing that the proposed system suffers from the same problem as the EU merger control regime in respect of mergers with a potential community competition concern: neither can guarantee that nearly all the said mergers and minority shareholdings cases would be vetted under EU law. Therefore, an alternative more cooperative approach, which guarantees that virtually all such cases would come under EU law, is put forward. The more cooperative approach concerning mergers is discussed first, as the approach toward minority shareholdings is an extension of it, establishing an integrated approach. The paper demonstrates how this approach would guarantee that virtually all mergers with a potential community competition concern would come under EU law, leading to a number of positives: the near elimination of the misallocation problem and associated issues, in addition to streamlining the operation of the said architecture. Thereafter, the paper reveals how the more cooperative approach ensures that virtually all minority shareholdings with a potential to cause competitive harm at the EU level would be vetted under EU law, not only ending this enforcement gap but also leading to an architecture that is more streamlined than would be the case if the Commission's proposal became law. It is, of course, recognised that the more cooperative approach does not address the minority shareholdings' enforcement gap that exists at the national level, excluding the three member states which already have this vetting capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Studies generally find no relationship between economic deprivation and terrorist activities, leading to the conclusion that economic conditions have no role in the emergence of terrorist movements. The present paper challenges this conclusion. It argues that collective deprivation affects participation into terrorism, but in different directions depending on the ideology of terrorist movements: far-right terrorism should mobilize more under times of collective deprivation while far-left terrorism should mobilize more under times of collective improvement. Methods: I tested this hypothesis on the PIRUS database about domestic terrorists (N = 1295) in the United States from 1948 to 2016. I analysed whether the proportion of far-right (versus far-left) terrorists in a given year depends on collective deprivation in the US, operationalized through long-term recession of the income and long-term growth of inequality. Results: Hierarchical logistic regression analyses confirmed that far-right terrorism mobilizes more under periods of long-term economic deprivation, while far-left terrorism mobilizes more under improving economic conditions. Besides, the effect of collective deprivation appears to be of socio-tropic nature: it is especially determinant at the national level, rather than at the state or individual level. In contrast, results do not support the view that Islamist terrorism is affected by collective deprivation. Conclusions: The study challenges the view that economic conditions have no role in triggering terrorist mobilization. The differential effect of collective deprivation on far-right and far-left terrorism is compatible with system-justification and backlash theories. Besides, the findings suggest that collective deprivation affects radicalization at an early phase rather than the offending phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Paid family leave (PFL) is an important protective policy mechanism to support the health of mothers and children and the economic security of families This paper explores the links of employment and demographic characteristics on leave type and lengths of overall, paid, and unpaid leave in a large city in the United States. Methods: Using a sample of 601 women who worked during pregnancy from the 2016 New York City Work and Family Leave Survey, multinomial and linear regression models were used to assess disparities in the type and length of leave taking. Results: Women eligible for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) have higher relative likelihood to take only paid leave (RRR = 6.588, p < 0.01). While Black women utilized 3.739 weeks of leave more than white women overall, holding all else constant (p < 0.1), this additional leave is composed of 4.739 more weeks of unpaid leave (p < 0.05). Shortened leave taking by women with less than a college degree is driven by fewer weeks of paid leave (p < 0.01). Discussion: Using unique data from a survey of recent mothers in New York City, this study provides deeper understanding of disparities in the composition of leave. This study adds to the literature by identifying disparities in leave composition that are masked in consideration of total lengths of leave for Black women and those not eligible for FMLA protections. Given the consequences of short leave taking and reliance on unpaid leave, examination of leave composition is required to identify and address disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional practices constituting spiritual and religious (S/R) healing are an important component of the holistic healthcare model and are used in health, well-being, and treating a variety of diseases around the world. The main focus of this review is to summarize the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) studies that especially target S/R healing practices in Saudi Arabia (SA) and discuss the results in light of relevant international literature. From year 2013–2017, electronic searches of PubMed, OvidSP, Google Scholar, and two publishing housing Web sites (Sciencedomain.com and Dove Medical Press.com) were made using key words and Boolean operators and retrieved thousands of published papers from peer-reviewed journals. Two independent reviewers decided to include a total of 108 articles: 48 from SA and 60 from other international literature. The sociodemographic variables of the participants varied in local studies and were comparable with international data. The frequency and types of religious and spiritual practices reported in local and international zones varied in accordance with religious belief, gender, age, education, and prevalent chronic diseases. Most of professionals and practitioners showed fairly good knowledge and positive attitude toward spiritual and religious practices used in diverse clinical and non-clinical situations across the world. Furthermore, it was observed that in the international scenario, S/R researches using specific religious screening tools have been conducted on different aspects of clinical application including self-care, social cohesion, negative impact, and child development, whereas regional studies targeting varied participants mainly focused on the epidemiological trends of S/R therapies in Saudi Arabia. CAM practitioners and public tend to show great interest in prescribed and self-use of religious and spiritual therapies across the world because of multiple dynamic forces, including positive effects on health, sense of well-being and disease control, cost-effectiveness, easy access to services, and improvement in quality of life. Further studies are needed to assess the effectiveness of different types of religious and spiritual therapies and practices used in specific diseases, their role in promotion of health and well-being, and prevention of diseases nationwide and across the world. Besides integration of S/R into mainstream treatment modalities, medical education curriculum, continuous medical education, and training programs are needed for bridging the knowledge, attitude, and practice gaps concerning CAM in targeted population groups such as medical professionals, CAM practitioners, medical students, public and traditional healers, not only in SA but also around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy saving and emission reduction sometimes mean high cost, so companies do not have enough motivation to always support the related policy. By neglecting the economic cost and the imperfect substitution among input factors, widely used energy efficiency indicators such as "energy intensity" will sometimes lead to uneconomic results. Based on the theory of economic efficiency, "energy economic efficiency" is proposed as a new energy efficiency measurement to integrate cost information. In this paper, we further discuss energy economic efficiency, propose supplementary properties, and measure the efficiency of twelve public thermal power companies during the period of China's 12th five-year plan. Our results show that (2) the economic efficiency of the twelve public companies decreased slowly. The average economic efficiency was 0.82, and there was approximately 40 billion RMB in potential cost savings in 2015, accounting for 18% of the total cost. (2) The energy economic efficiency of these twelve companies increased by approximately 10% during 2011–2015. (3) The primary mission of most thermal power company is to improve the coal combustion technology. (Christensen 4) When expanding production, the input factors will sometimes be uncoordinated, which will lead to increased costs and decreased energy economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]