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This paper investigates evidence on deficits in economic inclusion, focussing on the labour market in Indonesia. Increasing job polarization and an accompanying rise in earnings inequality on account of technological development and globalisation over the past few decades have augmented concerns about the attainability of governments' perennial objective of inclusive growth. However, there are circumstances in which declining or levelling earnings gaps may be more of a bane than a boon for a country's long-term economic health. Using the particularly interesting case of Indonesia, which has reduced and subsequently levelled off its earnings inequality in the midst of impressive growth, this paper studies how structural factors and labour market policies influence dynamics of inequality. The study finds evidence of a strong role of structural characteristics, which appears to indicate that reductions in earnings inequality may be more of a bane than a boon for Indonesia's long-term prosperity. The paper concludes with broader insights and a discussion on policy implications that extend beyond the Indonesian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have found that as the proportion of female workers in an occupation grows, wages generally decline. Yet, we know little about how this gender inequality intersects with other labor market inequalities. This study evaluates the feminization-wage relationship of an increasingly economically polarized post-2000 US labor market. First, I hypothesize that the negative effect of feminization on wages has diminished in high-skilled occupations due to the declining prejudice against (highly educated) women and increasing requirements for higher education, which functions as a form of social closure. Second, because of the increasing demand for "people skills" in higher-skilled occupations and their association with women, workers in higher-skilled occupations that require these skills may experience positive effects of feminization on wages. Not all people skills, however, are associated with women and similarly rewarded. Thus, I examine three people skills—persuasion, managerial, and sociability—that have different gender stereotypes. I test hypotheses using occupational-level fixed-effects models with individual-level data from the American Community Survey 2003–2019 (N  = 15,996,526) and time-varying occupational-level data from the Occupational Information Network 2003–2019 (N  = 460). Results show that for workers in occupations requiring more than sixteen years of education, feminization corresponds with higher wages. Additionally, the positive feminization-wage relationship is larger in occupations with a high demand for a gender-neutral people skill, persuasion. This moderation effect is not found for sociability and managerial skills, which are associated with women and men, respectively. This study calls for greater attention to how labor market polarization has shaped gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I investigate the impact of automation on political behavior in postindustrial societies, particularly focusing on political disengagement. I argue that structural changes in the labor market lead to political alienation due to increased economic insecurities, diminished resources from lower wages, and greater economic polarization. Using hierarchical logistic modeling with varying intercepts by country, I present evidence from survey data across several advanced democracies. I find that workers exposed to technological change are less likely to feel close to a political party, participate in elections, and take part in protests. The impact of automation on political engagement is smaller among wealthier citizens and in highly unionized environments. The political message from these interaction effects speaks to the reinforcing forces between economic inequality and automation and the role of collective organization. My findings have important implications for understanding the links between structural change in labor markets and politics, especially since disengaged workers are the reservoir for radical right parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An organizer seeks to extract rents from competing interests in a polarized environment. We model these interests as three potential bidders, a neutral bidder, and two bidders who are "polarized" in that they prefer the neutral bidder to win rather than the other polarized bidder. The organizer cannot commit to an optimal mechanism, but can decide which bidders to allow to participate. While greater competition is generally thought to benefit the organizer, we identify conditions under which she increases expected revenue by preventing the neutral bidder from participating, thereby increasing the willingness to pay for polarized bidders. Thus, rather than seeking to bring about compromise, organizers have an incentive to exacerbate conflict. Excluding the neutral bidder always makes the auction less efficient, but the incentive to exclude her is greatest precisely when it lowers efficiency the most. We discuss applications in economics and politics (JEL D44, D62, D72). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In continuity with the research on social segregation and the phenomenon of urban gentrification, this article examines the cohabitation patterns of populations with diametrically opposed incomes within the same neighborhood, typically observed in the city center. This phenomenon is defined here as internal socio-economic polarization. It is measured through the combination of two original indexes (poverty and wealth indexes) constructed based on income deciles per consumption unit for the year of 2017. The analysis focuses on the municipality of Nice, characterized by a low demographic dynamic, a relative concentration of seniors, and a strong tourist attractiveness, particularly in the highly polarized neighborhoods that occupy almost the entire city center. This study is complemented by a principal component analysis summarizing the characteristics of the population and housing stock in the neighborhoods of Nice. The main objective of this research is to identify and locate polarized neighborhoods within the urban context of Nice, to analyze the distinctive traits of their population and housing stock, and, finally, to highlight potential trends in the population's socio-economic status. Moreover, the economic trajectories of polarized neighborhoods, in connection with their population and housing characteristics (such as the secondary use of a portion of the housing stock, often low-quality old buildings, social housing, and the overrepresentation of retirees), help explain the forms of socio-economic polarization observed in these neighborhoods (such as the indications of gentrification, unfinished gentrification, and sustainable cohabitation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covering the bulk of economic activity in ten developed countries over 1982–2005, this paper is the first to study the distinct effects of Information Technologies (IT) and Communication Technologies (CT) on labor, and in particular, the relative demand for different education groups of workers. Consistent with evidence on automation‐induced job and skill polarization, IT capital intensity decreased the demand for the middle‐educated relative to the highly and low‐educated. Instead, CT capital intensity increased the demand for the highly educated relative to the low‐educated, suggesting that CT facilitate the leverage of knowledge by the former group in production teams or the identification of new investment opportunities for their companies. Additional evidence, especially on the effects of CT, yields a richer set of insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A striking feature of the contemporary U.S. economy is the widespread adoption of technologies associated with the 4th Industrial Revolution (IR) including sensors, industrial robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Empirical work investigating the labor market impacts of 4th IR technological advances reveals they are skill‐biased, primarily advancing job opportunities for those with high levels of formal of education, unlike prior industrial revolutions that were skill neutral. This paper explains how the 4th IR has fostered job polarization, greater technological unemployment, and increasing wage inequality. Moreover, we delineate why these developments are worrisome and likely to expand over time. We assert that policy intervention to promote reinstatement of technologically unemployed persons is warranted, because displacement of labor caused by automation creates negative externalities. Consequently, we provide an example of how tax policies could be used to curtail technological unemployment—without creating hurdles for the adoption of 4th IR innovations. We advance and describe a new, innovative way, for fiscal policy to foster employment opportunities for those at greatest risk of job loss through automation. The initiative entails government subsidies to promote the provision and acquisition of skill certificates that employers view as complementary with 4th Industrial Revolution Technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the asymmetric effects of different types of capital-embodied technological change, as proxied by tangible and intangible assets, on relative wages (high- to medium-skilled, high- to low-skilled and medium- to low-skilled workers), relying upon the technology-skill complementarity and polarization of the labor force frameworks. We also consider two additional major channels that contribute to shaping wage differentials: globalization (in terms of trade openness and global value chains participation) and labor market institutions. The empirical analysis is carried out using a panel dataset comprising 17 mostly advanced European economies and 5 industries, with annual observations spanning the period 2008–2017. Our findings suggest that software and databases—as a proxy for intangible technologies—exert downward pressure on low-skilled wages, while robotics is associated with a polarization of the wage distribution at the expense of middle-skilled labor. Additionally, less-skilled workers' relative wages are negatively affected by trade openness and global value chain participation, but positively influenced by sector-specific labor market regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some voters believe that there is electoral fraud when this belief contradicts the best available evidence? While the literature on public opinion has explored misperceptions’ pervasiveness and the factors that contribute to them in advanced industrial democracies, the present study analyzes motivated reasoning among voters in a young democracy, Mexico. This study highlights the important role that partisanship plays in voters’ likelihood to believe the allegations of electoral fraud in the 2006 presidential election in Mexico, which continues polarizing both political elites and the electorate even today. To understand the mechanisms at work, this research finds that it is not voters lacking information but rather voters with high levels of affective polarization and conspiratorial thinking who are more likely to believe that there was electoral fraud. The study also includes a survey experiment that fact-checked the belief in the alleged electoral fraud. Consistent with motivated reasoning theory, MORENA partisans resisted efforts to reduce their misperception. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the conditions that make some voters hold misperceptions in young democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose an original analysis of the association between social status and attitudes toward Covid-19 vaccines regarding upper-secondary students in Italy. The research was conducted by administering an online survey on a probabilistic and stratified sample of 5,699 students, in the spring of 2021, when the vaccination campaign in Italy had been underway for only a few months. Following the bourdieusian perspective, we have used a multiple correspondence analysis to examine the polarization between pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine groups as the clash of stances that agents take in accordance with their position in the cultural field. Our results suggest that the construction of a negative school experience by the subordinate classes is the source of a lack of social recognition in the cultural field, which feeds an aversion to everything the main institutions in this field recommend should be done. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of computers, technology arrived in the developed world in the second half of the 20th century. The developing world, including India, followed the West with greater technological import within the domestic economy. With a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic and system-induced lockdown restrictions, technology has found its way into our daily lives more than before. The extent to which adoption of new technologies is occurring is prompting anxieties, especially among emerging markets like India. How is it changing the employment paradigm? We use a relatively recent longitudinal panel dataset—Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) to assess the impact on employment in a rapidly changing technology milieu for workers of varying skill types. Our analysis for the last five-year period starting from January 2019 shows—(i) a consistent decrease in the share of low-skilled workers across all sectors—primary, secondary, and tertiary, and (ii) a rise in the share of skill intensity across sectors; albeit at a varying pace. The observed changes were accentuated during the COVID-19 pandemic. All industries adapted to the changing needs by allowing remote working and greater flexibility. Automation enhances the demand for complementary skills for some workers while it generates fears of replacement for others. We perform an econometric analysis to examine the likelihood of a worker being employed by varying skill types and gender. Studying the first trimester for each of the last five periods, we observe a falling likelihood for low-skilled workers and an improvement in the likelihood of employment for skilled workers. Employment likelihood for skilled women has also picked up in recent years. Contrary to the developed market experience, we do not observe a hollowing out in the labour market, implying that evidence of job polarisation is so far absent for India. With skill upgradation occurring across verticals, we conclude that low-skilled workers will likely lose out in the short to medium run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are we, in 2024, navigating a world without American leadership or a world with contested leadership? Regardless of the winner in the US elections this autumn, contested leadership for influence in international affairs is sure to continue. If the United States fails to lead, little will stand in the way of Putin's vision of a new multipolar world where Russia, as an exceptional power pursues the domination of a natural sphere of geographic influence that extends beyond Ukraine, well into Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As recently as the early 1990s, Americans living in rural and urban areas voted similarly in presidential elections, yet in the decades since, they have diverged sharply as rural people in all regions of the country have increasingly supported the Republican Party. We seek to explain the sources of this growing cleavage by examining two interrelated processes of change: political-economic transformation that elevated many urban areas and marginalized rural ones, and the nationalization of policy goals. Our analytical approach is developmental, probing the timing and sequencing of trends across more than four decades. It is also comprehensive, testing theories related to economic decline, the educational gap, organizational mobilization, and racism and racial and ethnic threat. Our analysis reveals that while rural and urban counties resembled each other in several respects in the 1970s, they have since moved apart. We examine how key trends relate to political change in presidential voting. We find that in the 1990s and early 2000s, rural dwellers in places experiencing population loss or economic stagnation began to support Republican candidates. Then from 2008 to 2020, those in areas with higher percentages of less-educated residents, a higher presence of evangelical congregations per capita, and higher levels of anti-Black racism, each more prevalent in rural areas than urban areas, shifted their support to Republicans. Through sequential processes of polarization, with political-economic forces leading the way and activating rural resistance to the nationalization of policy goals subsequently, the rural-urban political divide emerged as a major fault line in the nation's politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars studying the electoral breakthroughs of right-wing illiberalism have arrived at two general conclusions: while they largely rejected the hypothesis that this phenomenon is grounded in voters' attitudinal shift, they have shown that those voting for the illiberal Right have distinguishing socio-economic and attitudinal characteristics. My analysis reconciles these two sets of findings by documenting the gradual emergence and transformation of the right-wing electorate in Poland in the period 1993–2018 and points to the consolidation of a right-wing partisanship as an organizing factor of the "illiberal moment." Using the POLPAN panel dataset I find that populist and authoritarian attitudes indeed emerge in Poland in the twenty-first century to distinguish those supporting the Right more and more centered around the PiS party. These attitudes, however, have been incorporated in the context of partisan rivalry—right-wing voters, for example, are more supportive of limiting democratic procedures but only when the Right is in power. In the first decade of the twenty-first century PiS also politicized the lack of partisan consensus on the expansion of the welfare state. PiS incorporated this demand in its stance legitimizing the expansion of the welfare state through what was available in its ideological repertoire: national solidarity, national victimhood, and the idea of a sovereign nation-state joined under the umbrella of Catholic symbolism. This post-consensus polarization and asymmetrical political radicalization resembles the "illiberal moment" in Western Europe that followed the convergence between center-left and center-right parties but they lack a crystallized class-based political identity and social-democratic understanding of political economy to build on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canonical work argues that macropartisanship—the aggregate distribution of Democrats and Republicans in the country at a given time—is responsive to the economic and political environment. In other words, if times are good when Democrats are in charge (or bad when Republicans are in charge), more Americans will identify with the Democratic Party. We extend the pioneering work of MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson (1989), who analyzed macropartisanship from 1953 through 1987, to 2021, assessing whether consumer sentiment and presidential approval still influence macropartisanship in an era of nationalized elections and affective polarization. We find that change has occurred. The effect of consumer sentiment on macropartisanship is no longer statistically distinguishable from zero, and we find evidence of "structural breaks" in the macropartisanship time series. Macropartisanship appears to have become less responsive to economic swings; approval-induced changes in macropartisanship have become more fleeting over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the evidence of job polarization—the relative decline of mid-wage jobs—in developing and emerging economies. We carry out an extensive literature review, revealing that job polarization in these countries is only incipient compared to advanced economies. We then examine the possible moderating aspects explaining this lack of job polarization. We distinguish three groups of explanations: Limited technology adoption; structural change; and changes in the global value chains. Finally, we suggest new microeconomic data and empirical analyses that should be developed in order to guide evidence-based policy-making addressing those issues in developing and emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developed nations have experienced a longstanding trend of reshaping the labour market's occupational structure. This trend, named job market polarization, describes how middle‐level jobs have decreased their relative share of the labour market in favour of high‐ and low‐complexity jobs. The literature has pointed to technological change as the main factor in setting this configuration, which accompanied the transition to a knowledge economy as a source of competitive advantages. Still, the narratives of technological change are anchored to specific technologies and times that do not fit the emerging challenges of the fourth industrial revolution and the increasing relevance of the digital economy. In this paper, I explore how job polarization dynamics have interacted with active labour market policies' effectiveness by focusing on job training skill premiums. I use nationally representative data to evaluate cross‐sectionally and longitudinally the relationship between job training access, job polarization, and wages. The results show that polarization poses a wage penalty while it increases the relative value of training skill premium. I discuss how the setting of a polarized market could be considered for future skill‐based interventions concerning digital technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to evaluate one of the wastes of the olive oil industry, olive pulp powder (OP), due to its consisting of mainly polarizable lignocellulosic biomass, as a dispersed phase in electric field-responsive (ER) fluid whose rheological properties can be tuned by an externally applied electric field (E). The supplied OP was extracted with n-hexane, and structural and thermal analysis revealed the removal of residual oil and soluble small molecules. The OP and n-hexane treated-OP (h-OP) were dispersed in silicon oil (SO), and their rheological and dielectric properties, and dispersion stabilities were investigated. According to the flow test results, the yield stresses (ty) of both dispersions increased with increasing concentration and the E. The ty of the OP/SO and h-OP/SO dispersions (25 wt%) under E=3.5 kV/mm increased 29 and 130 times greater than their ty values under no E, respectively. The dielectric spectrum analysis showed that enhanced interfacial polarization and decreased nonpolarized forces after the n-hexane extraction improved the ER response of the h-OP/SO dispersion. The enhanced dispersion stability (90%) was determined for h-OP/SO dispersion at 25 wt%. As a result, the h-OP could be a sustainable candidate for evaluation as a dispersing phase of ER fluids for vibration-damping systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's urban life has encountered with a number of challenges especially in social and spatial arenas. Socio-economic inequalities, sometimes, emerges in the form of spatial inequality. Tehran, as a metropolis and capital, enjoys effective system with higher sensitivities in national system. The city, though, with a multi and complex system has brought a large population under its arena but at the same time it is considered imbalanced with continuous growth and development. In other words, Tehran, despite a role model for macro socio-economic system, suffers from spatial disparity and imbalanced services. One of the most obvious and sharp characteristics of Tehran is its north-south spatial inequality and polarization thanks to modernisation and its elements such as cars and emerging business districts. In the post-1979 Islamic revolution, the gap between rich and poor and spatial inequality in Tehran has widened despite the promise otherwise. Urban planners and sociologists in Iran have conflicting views about the spatial disparity where some call it a historical trend and nothing to do with the globalisation process whereas others think vice versa. To know whether or not Tehran can be called a global city, the current paper tries to illustrate old and new emerging inequality patterns in Tehran. For that matter, the theory of' Global City (propounded by Saskia Sassen) has been analyzed based on spatial maps between 1996 and 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature generally focuses on the impact of robots or artificial intelligence on the employment and wages, but ignores the effect of robotization on the skill structure and its underlying mechanisms and lacks empirical evidence from developing countries. We theoretically develop a task model by introducing the skill structure and empirically investigate the effect of robotization on the skill structure based on Chinese provincial panel data from 2006 to 2018. Results show that: (1) the development of robotization in China is conducive to improving the skill structure, and the baseline conclusion still holds even though adopting multiple indexes of skill structure and controlling the endogeneity bias. (2) Robotization generates not only job displacement effect by displacing unskilled workers with robots but also structural transformation effect by increasing the proportion of technology-intensive industries, which can improve the skill structure. (3) In coastal provinces with strong Internet foundation, information transmission capacity and labour protection intensity, high labour cost and ageing rate, robotization plays a stronger role in improving the skill structure. Moreover, robotization can induce the employment polarization. These conclusions can help avoid technical unemployment and promote the upgrading of the skill structure in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has identified a strong correlation between polarization and democratic backsliding. The creation of antithetical groups in society is a necessary element in this type of autocratization process. Nevertheless, the agency-driven mechanisms through which elite polarization becomes harmful for democracy have been less explored in the literature. By resorting to process tracing methodology, the article analyses how elite polarization contributed to derailing the democratization process in Tunisia. The article identifies three necessary mechanisms through which elite polarization became a risk for democracy: politicization reinforcing pre-existing party cleavages; exclusion politics based on ontological contestation ("either us or them"); and the systematic delegitimization of democratic institutions and processes. In Tunisia, Parti Destourien Libre's (PDL) political campaign followed these steps creating the context in which President Saied could start a democratic backsliding process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the Israeli war on Gaza raging, the Palestinian national movement must overcome divides that have weakened the cause. This study delves into the ramifications of divisive discourse on factionalism in Palestine, focusing on the dynamic between Hamas and Fatah. To do so, it investigates the effects of polarization on the sense of collective consciousness among university students in the occupied territories. Through a questionnaire designed to elicit the perspectives of these young adults, this research sheds light on the extent to which rhetoric employed to provoke or incite aggressive behavior has affected cohesion in Palestinian politics and society, as well as individuals' beliefs in the possibility of a national movement. The article finds that in all of these facets, young adults have a high degree of cynicism and see divisive discourse reducing faith in institutions and leaders, causing rifts among friends and neighbors, and even leading them to think about emigrating. While the study was conducted before the Israel‐Hamas war that began in October 2023, which may force some compromise between factions, the survey results indicate the immense amount of work required to unify the movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments took measures to restrict political liberties, claiming that these restrictions were necessary to contain the spread of the virus. In this study, we scrutinize differences in citizens' willingness to accept three types of political restrictions: restricting the media, banning protests, and introducing extensive state surveillance. We focus on two European countries: Austria and Hungary. While we find that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions, we also find that citizens differ in their willingness to support the three types of restrictions depending on whether the given measure affects them directly. We also find differences between Austria and Hungary concerning the way political trust and political values affect the acceptance of restrictions, which may be rooted in the larger polarization of Hungarian society. Furthermore, we observe that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirically, the poor are more likely to support increases in the level of tax progressivity than the rich. Such income-stratified tax preferences can result from differences in preferences of what should be taxed as argued by previous literature. However, it may also result from income-stratified perceptions of what is taxed. This paper argues that the rich perceive higher levels of tax progressivity than the poor and that tax perceptions affect individuals' support for progressive taxation. Using data from an Austrian survey experiment, we test this argument in three steps: First, in line with past research, we show that individuals' income positions are connected to individuals' tax preferences as a self-interest rationale would predict. However, second, we show that this variation is mainly driven by income-stratified tax perceptions. Third, randomly informing a subset of the sample about actual tax rates, we find that changing tax perceptions causally affects support for redistributive taxation among those who initially overestimated the level of tax progressivity. Our results indicate that tax perceptions are relevant for forming tax preferences and suggest that individuals are more polarized in their perceptions of who pays how much taxes than in their support for who should pay how much tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that job polarisation—i.e. the disappearance of routine jobs—is changing the characteristics of the labour market. This has structural implications for the relationship between inflation and unemployment, the price Phillips curve. Using data from the European Monetary Union and exploiting the fact that job polarisation accelerates during recessions, we obtain two empirical results. First, countries experiencing a bigger shift in the occupational structure during a downturn exhibit a flatter Phillips curve afterwards. Second, the occupational shifts experienced during the Great Recession and the Sovereign Debt Crisis explain more than a fourth of the flattening of the curve in the 2002–18 period. Then, using a New Keynesian model with unemployment and search and matching frictions, we highlight a channel through which labour market characteristics operate on the slope of the Phillips curve. Increasing labour market fluidity —i.e. a higher separation and hiring rate—decreases the slope of the Phillips curve. Using micro-data, we find that in the European Monetary Union non-routine jobs are more fluid. We conclude that job polarisation flattened the Phillips curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policy management has an intractable nature, and the institutional complexity of governance further exacerbates its practice. Transnational learning cutting across countries and policy areas can contribute to this policy knowledge in dealing with multifarious issues in public management. Understanding the institutional mix in public management in various contexts enhances the existing comprehension of how the national pattern of public management works differently in different socio-economic, cultural, and political settings. The present research aims to study the institutional framework in the form of state structure (unitary or federal) and the nature of executive government (majoritarian or consensual) in delineating the influence of institutions on public management processes in divergent policy systems. The paper undertakes four in-depth country case studies and the public management reforms as a response to institutional pressure are examined using the 4 M strategy-Maintain (holding on to existing administrative structures and processes), Modernize (keeping service delivery and regulation up to date), Marketize (efficiency and userresponsive public management), and Minimize (reducing state-led regulation). The case studies highlight the differences in the broad direction and energy of implementation that characterize a particular policy style. The results of the study indicate that even though the institutional dimensions are not present in strict polarization, the impact of the institutional mix is evident in the dominant strategies of public management reforms adopted at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recombinant human proteoglycan 4 (rhPRG4) is a macromolecular mucin‐like glycoprotein that is classically studied as a lubricant within eyes and joints. Given that endogenously produced PRG4 is present within atherosclerotic lesions and genetic PRG4 deficiency increases atherosclerosis susceptibility in mice, in the current study we investigated the anti‐atherogenic potential of chronic rhPRG4 treatment. Female low‐density lipoprotein receptor knockout mice were fed an atherogenic Western‐type diet for 6 weeks and injected three times per week intraperitoneally with 0.5 mg rhPRG4 or PBS as control. Treatment with rhPRG4 was associated with a small decrease in plasma‐free cholesterol levels, without a change in cholesteryl ester levels. A marked increase in the number of peritoneal foam cells was detected in response to the peritoneal rhPRG4 administration, which could be attributed to elevated peritoneal leukocyte MSR1 expression levels. However, rhPRG4‐treated mice exhibited significantly smaller aortic root lesions of 278 ± 21 × 103 μm2 compared with 339 ± 15 × 103 μm2 in the aortic root of control mice. The overall decreased atherosclerosis susceptibility coincided with a shift in the monocyte and macrophage polarization states towards the patrolling and anti‐inflammatory M2‐like phenotypes, respectively. Furthermore, rhPRG4 treatment significantly reduced macrophage gene expression levels as well as plasma protein levels of the pro‐inflammatory/pro‐atherogenic cytokine TNF‐alpha. In conclusion, we have shown that peritoneal administration and subsequent systemic exposure to rhPRG4 beneficially impacts the inflammatory state and reduces atherosclerosis susceptibility in mice. Our findings highlight that PRG4 is not only a lubricant but also acts as an anti‐inflammatory agent. Key points: Endogenously produced proteoglycan 4 is found in atherosclerotic lesions and its genetic deficiency in mice is associated with enhanced atherosclerosis susceptibility.In this study we investigated the anti‐atherogenic potential of chronic treatment with recombinant human PRG4 in hypercholesterolaemic female low‐density lipoprotein receptor knockout mice.We show that recombinant human PRG4 stimulates macrophage foam cell formation, but also dampens the pro‐inflammatory state of monocyte/macrophages, eventually leading to a significant reduction in plasma TNF‐alpha levels and a lowered atherosclerosis susceptibility.Our findings highlight that peritoneal recombinant human PRG4 treatment can execute effects both locally and systemically and suggest that it will be of interest to study whether rhPRG4 treatment is also able to inhibit the progression and/or induce regression of previously established atherosclerotic lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital journalism has been a reality in Spain for nearly 30 years. In this time, the number of digital media outlets has steadily increased to become the most abundant type of media in the 2020s, ahead of print, radio and television. Based on a quantitative analysis of the authors' own database of active digital media outlets (n = 2726) and an examination of Spain's technological, sociopolitical and economic development in recent decades, this article identifies several factors that have spurred the evolution of digital journalism in Spain. The study results show a correlation in the period from 1994 to 2020 between the percentage of Internet users and the number of active digital media outlets, which showed very similar progress. The study also detects a relationship between the country's economic evolution and the expansion of digital media, albeit with a seemingly paradoxical effect: digital media, especially digital native media companies, proliferated even more when the economy was at its worst. The article highlights the subtle effects of political factors on the development of digital media in the period under study, although increasing political polarization has triggered additional transformation processes in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of the rise in Chinese import competition on the Australian labour market from 1991 to 2007. Using the data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Labour Force Survey, I find three main results. First, the Chinese import competition generates net job gains for the economy at both aggregate and sectoral levels. The manufacturing and service sectors both experience a growth in employment due to the movements of workers between and within industries. Second, the job losses in manufacturing industries are accompanied by expansions in services industries. The Chinese import exposure reorganises the job allocations from manufacturing to services. Third, the industrial shifts and skill‐biased technical change caused by the Chinese imports bring about job polarisation. Estimates show evidence of job concentration on low‐skilled and high‐skilled workers while also a weakening focus on middle‐skilled occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important stylized fact about American government is that many societal problems persist despite expert recognition that better outcomes are technically feasible. What explains the weakness of the political demand for more effective public policies? This study investigates one factor that may contribute to the attenuated demand for policy improvements: namely, the belief among many affluent citizens that they are personally insulated from societal problems. Drawing on a national public opinion survey, we show that affluent Americans believe their resources and ability to activate powerful social networks affords them a measure of personal insulation from key problems in areas such as education, healthcare and neighborhood safety. We also find that the affluent express a more optimistic view than other respondents of the average citizen's financial situation and capacity to manage problems in several domains. Taken together, our results have important implications for understanding how highly influential Americans think about public policy in an era of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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With the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become increasingly prevalent and is expected to replace a range of human tasks. In this context, this study seeks to identify occupations that are vulnerable to AI, and focuses on their occupational and spatial characteristics. Korean patent data within Google Patents and tasks of occupations based on ISCO-08 were collected and analyzed via dependency parsing to reveal the corresponding tasks and occupations with AI's technical characteristics. Our analysis highlights the vulnerability of tasks that have remained unchanged for a long time, while managerial professions and other occupations involving new and complex tasks based on know-how are less susceptible to the influence of AI. The study also shows significant regional disparities in labor distribution according to AI vulnerability in Korea, forming a strong spatial cluster. While previous waves of automation primarily affected manual labor involving unskilled work and low levels of education, AI is expected to replace various forms of middle and high skilled and educated human work. As such, this study recommends that local governments prepare for the polarization of the labor market by AI based on the understanding of their employment structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keir Starmer's ambition is to lead a decade of national renewal. Labour sought to lean out of the politics of polarisation which has so often dominated the last decade in British politics. It was successful in winning a landslide election victory - yet Labour's 2024 electoral coalition was both extraordinarily broad and unusually narrow at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a general-purpose technology, artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to transform almost all industries and aspects of our society. Thus, it is important to understand the potential changes within the firms related to how AI applications change their labor force. Using a panel dataset with over 1,300 publicly-traded companies in China from 2007 to 2018, we examine the relationship between AI applications and firm labor structure with workers with or without formal college education. The study indicates that AI applications were positively associated with the overall employment as well as the employment of nonacademically- trained workers with no college degrees at the firm level. These associations were more significant in the service sector than in the manufacturing sector. Further causal analysis shows increasing AI applications have a positive effect on a firm's employment of nonacademically-trained workers and its overall employment but a negative effect on academically-trained workers. We attribute the findings to the technology deskilling effect of AI. The findings suggest that, in response to the potential labor force transformation with increasing AI applications, information-systems research needs to focus on structural changes of labor forces and the implications for preparing human employees to work with AI side by side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the spatiotemporal evolution of economic development in 23 cities across Guangdong Province, Hong Kong, and Macau from 1990 to 2022. The results indicated a general growth trend in overall economic development, with substantial fluctuations in absolute differences and a significant reduction in relative differences. The economic development appeared to be balanced both within and between cities. Spatially, the study revealed an increasing agglomeration effect, evident polarization in economic levels, and a distinct core–periphery structure, with central cities in the Greater Bay Area exerting a growing influence on their peripheries. Nevertheless, the peripheral cities, despite their economic strides, necessitate augmented policy interventions and capital influx to bridge regional chasms. The study's outcomes serve as a foundational reference for sharpening policy decisions, fostering regional amalgamation, and invigorating urban blueprinting and city-to-city synergies. This research provides an in-depth analysis of economic development trends across 23 cities in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau over 32 years. For policymakers, urban planners, and business leaders, the findings present a clearer picture of the region's economic landscape. Notably, while central cities within the Greater Bay Area have become influential economic hubs, surrounding cities still face challenges. These insights suggest a need for more targeted policies and investments, especially in peripheral cities, to promote more uniform growth across the region. By understanding these dynamics, governments and businesses can make more informed decisions that foster city-to-city collaborations and develop better urban and regional strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on affective polarization is at its peak. Causes that intensify or mitigate the affective polarization environments in the contemporary democracies, as well as their consequences, remain the subject of debate. What is the relationship between the mass media and social media and affective polarization climates? Traditional and social media are inserted into a macro structure in which circulate the bulk of the political information that can be consumed, so it is necessary an examination of their role. This systematic literature review addresses all articles in the Web of Science database on the subject without restrictions (N=73). After reading the articles, the main evidence, trends, consensus, and disagreements on the subject, as well as recommendations for future researchers, are presented. The results point to minimal and heterogeneous media effects in researchs very focused on polarizing rather than depolarizing effects. It should be noted that there is greater heterogeneity and partisan moderation in information consumption than expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We tested among Democratic and Republican perceivers the relative effects of social vs. economic ideology similarity information about individual members of the opposing party (i.e., information suggesting that a member of the opposing party has similar social or economic ideological views as the perceiver) on explicit and implicit affective polarization in evaluations of these target individuals and on perceived worldview conflict with these individuals. In Studies 1a and 1b, both types of ideology information reduced explicit affective polarization on some measures. Among both Democratic and Republican perceivers, the two types of similarity information were equally effective at reducing overall worldview conflict. Neither type of ideology information shifted implicit affective polarization (Studies 2a and 2b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural transformation toward the knowledge economy is often credited with increasing polarization and precarization of the low end of the labor market. Little is known, however, about the geography of low-income work since the literature has largely ignored sub-national variation. This article explores how the knowledge economy as the main driver of the transformation has affected the concentration of low-income work throughout the Swedish regional system for the last 30+ years. We propose a model where the knowledge economy affects the prevalence of low-income work through three mechanisms: polarization, upgrading, and labor market tightening. We find that the prevalence of low-income work in Sweden has decreased, and regions have converged under this metric over time. The penetration of the knowledge economy is, moreover, associated with lower levels of low-income work, and even though the knowledge economy is related to increasing polarization and, through it, an expansion of the low-income sector, the opposite effects of upgrading and tightening outweigh it. We discuss these findings in relation to studies conducted in different contexts and argue that institutional embeddedness, in particular (but not exclusively) labor market institutions, matters greatly in shaping these outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of economic growth patterns on employment structure, highlighting the effects of the main final demand components' variations. Brazil is an interesting case study, as it has experienced a combination of sustained economic growth, an improvement in income distribution, and a notable increase in job formalization in the 2004-2013 period. We explore how the Brazilian growth pattern contributed to the employment growth and changes in the occupational structure (informal and formal jobs, and wage-level) and provide original insights into the Brazilian labor market in the long 2000s. We find no signs of typical job polarization, as changes in job structure relate to reductions in wage inequality. We develop a structural decomposition analysis to measure the demand components' role in explaining the Brazilian labor market's transformations based on an effective demand input-output model. Drawing on an analysis of cumulative causation between income distribution, household consumption, and occupational structure, we find that induced consumption significantly impacted service and trade industries, increasing the low-wage jobs growth rate. Our analysis suggests that the combination of cumulative causation with government consumption and investment growth is crucial to explain distributive gains and the absence of job polarization in the Brazilian labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the discursive strategies employed by Oduduwa secessionists to construct polarization and otherness on Twitter. Using the socio-cognitive approach to CDA combined with social media CDA, the study illustrates how socio-cultural and spatiotemporal contexts are embedded in digital performances of resistance. Findings show that the secessionists employ four main discursive strategies, namely: (1) vitriolic socio-cognitive labels and coinages; (2) generalization and ethnocentrism; (3) language of threat; and (4) use of Yoruba language to legitimize their resistance, accentuate their ideological stances, construct polarization and otherness, and do social mobilization. These strategies are achieved via discursive, linguistic, and stylo-orthographic resources made available by digital technology. The paper concludes that the discursive strategies employed by the secessionists do not directly reflect polarization but are simply constitutive of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the detrimental impact of the "bubble effect" in cyberspace, exacerbated by personalized information sources and algorithmic recommendation systems, leading to polarization and hindering democratic discourse. It discusses the challenges posed by information bubbles to maintaining an open and diverse public sphere online. It evaluates the efficacy of the EU (European Union) Digital Services Act in addressing these challenges.