Graphic Geopolitics: An Interview with Comics Artist Joe Sacco

Joe Sacco is best known for works that blend journalism with the format and structure of comic books. Sacco’s prior work has considered themes of political conflict, legacies of violence, and marginalization across a range of geographic contexts, including Bosnia, the Middle East, and the United States. This interview, conducted by the authors with Joe Sacco on 16 November 2015, explores these and other themes in an attempt to situate the positionality and choices of the creator of geopolitical narratives in the broader literature on critical geopolitics. We consider the themes of subject, representation, audience response, and stylistic influences, among others, in our conversation.     

Creating an Environment for Economic Growth: Creativity,Entrepreneurship or Human Capital?

Scholars and policymakers interested in the growth and prosperity of regions have long recognized that talent and knowledge are fundamental. Yet the question is what types of talent are needed in a growing twenty‐first‐century economy: human capital, creativity and innovation, or entrepreneurship? The latter we define broadly to include any type of risk taking, and not only radical innovation. The literature does not clearly point to one factor as being the most essential. This study assesses this question separately for rural and urban United States (US) counties. We find that human capital––measured by educational attainment––is considerably more conducive to employment growth than the share of creative occupations. Likewise, the share of small and medium businesses is also very conducive to local growth, although this does not apply to the self‐employment share. Rural and urban areas experience similar patterns, although the magnitude thereof tends to be larger for urban counties, whereas high‐technology employment share has had a positive effect in rural areas. Policy conclusions suggest that enhancing small business development and increasing educational attainment are the two strategies that are most likely to succeed.     

Insurance Portfolio Risk Retention

In this article, I introduce a statistic for managing a portfolio of insurance risks. This tool is based on changes in the risk profile when changes in a risk parameter, such as a deductible, coinsurance, or upper policy limit, are made. I refer to the new statistic as a risk measure relative marginal change and denote it as RM². By examining data from the Wisconsin Local Government Property Fund, I show how it can be used by an insurer to identify the “best” and “worst” risks in terms of opportunities for risk management. The RM² changes reflect the underlying dependence structure of risks; I use an elliptical copula framework to demonstrate the sensitivity of risk mitigation strategy to the dependence structure.     

Indonesian Politics in 2014: Democracy’s Close Call

Indonesian democracy experienced a near miss in 2014, when Jakarta governor Joko Widodo (Jokowi) defeated former general Prabowo Subianto by a margin of 6.3% in the presidential election. Both candidates were populists who rose to prominence in the context of public disillusionment with incumbent president Yudhoyono; Prabowo, however, condemned Indonesia's democratic system and promised to take Indonesia in a more authoritarian direction. We trace democracy's close call through five phases: the dying months of Yudhoyono's presidency, the rise of populist alternatives, the parliamentary elections of April 2014, the July presidential campaign, and the aftermath. We attribute the strength of Prabowo's campaign to superior organisational and financial support, while Jokowi's victory rested upon strong identification with him among poor and rural voters. Also determining the outcome was the fact that public satisfaction with democracy remained strong, undermining the effectiveness of Prabowo's authoritarian-populist message. Nevertheless, democracy's future remains uncertain, given that Prabowo and his supporters now control a sufficiently large number of parliamentary seats to continue promoting a rollback of democratic reforms.     

Tradespace exploration of in-space communications network architectures

Making architectural decisions in long lifecycle systems is challenging because the time between system definition and end of operations can span multiple decades, resulting in shifts in stakeholder needs and major advances in technologies. Space-based communications using relay satellite constellations is one such example, requiring substantial up-front planning to define capabilities and size capacity due to the large investment of time and resources. Additionally, there are numerous viable system architectures. In this paper, we build on existing methods to develop a graph-based decision method to assess and explore architectural flexibility in the future evolution of long lifecycle systems. The tradespace graph defines edges between similar architectures, quantifies the switching cost between architectures, using graphs to analyse the potential system evolution pathways. In a test case on NASA communication satellites, we find that hosting government communications payloads, in particular optical payloads, on commercial satellites could reduce cost and increase flexibility of the NASA network.     

Understanding employee preferences for investing in employer stock: evidence from France

In this article, we broaden the focus of existing research on employee stock purchase plans by analysing employee preferences for investing in employer stock as a construct distinct from actual investment behaviour. In our analysis of original survey data in a sample of 900 employees in four French companies, we find that employee preferences are influenced by two common cognitive heuristics (representativeness and familiarity), organisational commitment, the perceived quality of corporate communications about these plans and perceived managerial commitment to employee ownership. We did not find, however, that risk aversion, turnover intentions or perceived employee involvement in decision making influenced preferences for investing in employer stock. Our findings have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding and operating these types of employee benefit plans, which are becoming more common across the globe.     

Can Arabic Proverbs Enhance Arabic-Speaking Students’ Comprehension of Financial Concepts?: An Empirical Study in Randomly Selected Business Schools in Dubai

In this study, we investigated the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes for teaching finance courses to Arabic-speaking students who are nonnative speakers of English. The study found that the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes greatly enhances the students’ comprehension of the finance topics covered. Similarly, the study revealed that the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes for Arabic-speaking students in teaching finance courses creates rapport between the student and instructor, thus enhancing learning. Finally, the study confirmed that the use of Arabic proverbs and quotes for Arabic-speaking students in teaching finance courses does not lead to confusion or complicate matters, but enhances comprehension and bolsters retention.     

A rapid assessment of wildlife tourism risk posed to cetaceans in Asia

Dolphin-watching tourism is growing globally. In developing countries, the typically low environmental awareness of operators and poorly enforced or non-existent regulations exacerbate risks to wildlife. Ecological indicators like behavioural responses are useful to assess wildlife tourism, but obtaining such data is slow and expensive. We modified the Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework to rapidly assess the risk of dolphin-watching tourism harming, displacing or causing local extinction to dolphin populations, using human dimension data to complement limited ecological data. We assessed industries at seven dolphin-watching sites in six countries in Asia: Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. All sites have reached or almost reached financial saturation except Cambodia and Malaysia. We find high risk to dolphins at the sites in India and Indonesia and intermediate risk at the site in Cambodia. Pending more ecological data, the risk at Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysian sites might be low. Our analysis also indicates site-specific conservation recommendations for Driver, Pressure and Response. We suggest that the DPSIR framework is useful to assess the risk of a wildlife watching industry, even when the impact is uncertain due to insufficient ecological data.     

Assessing Poverty Trends in Indonesia by International Poverty Lines

Indonesia has made well-documented and drastic progress in raising average incomes and reducing poverty. This article adds to the literature by providing a complementary perspective of poverty between 1984 and 2011. We discuss the evolution of poverty in Indonesia using international poverty lines—$1.25 per person per day (in 2005 purchasing power parity dollars) and $2.00 per day, and we add $10.00 per day. We generate estimates of poverty since 1984 and make projections based on various trends in growth and inequality. We find that Indonesia has the potential to become a high-income country by around 2025 and end $1.25-per-day and $2.00-perday poverty by 2030, but this will require strong economic growth and favourable changes in distribution. Looking ahead, the end of poverty in Indonesia may mean that a large proportion of the population will remain vulnerable to poverty for some time to come, suggesting that public policy priorities will need to balance insurance and risk-management mechanisms with more ‘traditional’ poverty policy.     

When does economic model type become a decisive factor in health technology appraisals? Learning from the expanding treatment options for relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis

Objectives: Specific economic model types often become de facto standard for health technology appraisal over time. Markov and discrete event simulation (DES) models were compared to investigate the impact of innovative modeling on the cost-effectiveness of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) in relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). Fingolimod was compared to dimethyl fumarate (DMF; in highly active [HA] RRMS), alemtuzumab (in HA RRMS) and natalizumab (in rapidly evolving severe RRMS). Comparator DMTs were chosen to reflect different dosing regimens.

Materials and methods: Markov and DES models used have been published previously. Inputs were aligned in all relevant respects, with differences in the modeling of event-triggered attributes, such as relapse-related retreatment, which is inherently difficult with a memoryless Markov approach. Outcomes were compared, with and without different attributes.

Results: All results used list prices. For fingolimod and DMF, incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were comparable (Markov: £4206/quality-adjusted life year [QALY] gained versus DES: £3910/QALY gained). Deviations were observed when long-term adverse events (AEs) were incorporated in the DES (Markov: £25,412 saved/QALY lost, versus DES: £34,209 saved/QALY lost, fingolimod versus natalizumab; higher ICERs indicate greater cost-effectiveness). For fingolimod versus alemtuzumab, when relapse-triggered retreatment was included in the DES, large cost differences were observed (difference between incremental cost is £35,410 and QALY is 0.10).

Limitations: UK payer perspective, therefore societal approach was not considered. Resource utilization and utilities for both models were not derived from the subpopulations; as the focus is on model type, input limitations that apply to both models are less relevant.

Conclusions: Whilst no model can fully represent a disease, a DES allows an opportunity to include features excluded in a Markov structure. A DES may be more suitable for modeling in RRMS for health technology assessment purposes given the complexity of some DMTs. This analysis highlights the capabilities of different model structures to model event-triggered attributes.