The Impact of the London Bombings on the Well-Being of Adolescent Muslims*

We exploit the timing of the London bombings of July 2005, coinciding with a large-scale national survey of adolescents, to identify the impact of extremist Islamic terror attacks on the well-being of adolescent Muslims. Our analysis reveals interesting gender differences. We find evidence of a decline in the happiness of Muslim teenage girls after the bombings, which is also accompanied by a rise in expectations of facing discrimination in the labour market. These findings are robust to several falsification tests. However, we fail to uncover compelling evidence of any impact of the bombings on Muslim teenage boys.     

Direct intervention or indirect support? The effects of cooperative control measures on farmers’ implementation of quality and safety standards

In recent years, labor-intensive agricultural products from developing countries have exhibited inferior performance in international trade due to quality and safety incidents, among which pesticide residue is a major issue. Aiming to improve food quality and safety in the context of cooperatives, we introduced three categories of control measures: outcome control, process control and social control. Based on the Pre-Harvest Interval Standard (PHIS), we selected three indices, farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance to PHIS and relative distance to PHIS, to evaluate appropriateness of pesticides use, reduction of pesticide residue and safety improvements of agricultural products. By using random sampling survey data, we empirically analyzed the marginal effects of control measures and their combinations on food quality and safety standards. The empirical results show that implementing process control, namely, unified production standards or supply of unified agricultural inputs, can comprehensively improve farmers’ implementation rate of PHIS, absolute distance and relative distance to PHIS respectively by 34.9%, 3.2 days and 46.0% on average. While the effects of outcome control (safety inspection) and social control (bonus-penalty incentive or training) are restricted to other measures. Therefore, we suggest cooperatives should take farmers’ features, implementation conditions and the effects of control measures into consideration in order to make a sustainable management plan for improving food quality and safety and enhancing competitiveness in international markets.     

A classroom experiment in monetary policy

The authors propose a classroom experiment implementing a simple version of a New Keynesian model suitable for courses in intermediate macroeconomics and money and banking. Students play as either the central bank or members of the private sector. The central banker sets interest rates to meet twin objectives for inflation and the output gap or to meet only an inflation target. In both settings, private sector agents are concerned with correctly forecasting the inflation rate. The authors show that an experiment implementing this setup is feasible and yields results that enhance understanding of the New Keynesian model of monetary policy. They propose alternative versions where the central bank is replaced by a policy rule and provide suggestions for discussing the experimental results with students.     

省域尺度下不同时序景观指数集与粒度效应分析

[目的]景观格局变化是景观生态学中的热点问题。研究省域尺度下不同时序景观指数的粒度效应、选取计算景观指数所需的适宜粒度范围并筛选出代表性景观指数集对分析景观格局变化具有重要意义。[方法]以安徽省土地覆被为研究对象,以2000年、2005年、2010年的Landsat TM遥感影像为主要数据源,采用土地利用转移矩阵对安徽省土地覆被的转移数量与方向进行研究;通过设置不同的栅格大小研究景观指数的粒度效应并选取合适的粒度范围;基于相关性分析、因子分析与敏感性分析,筛选出代表性景观指数集。[结果](1) 2000—2010年安徽省的土地覆被始终以耕地为主,其次是林地与人工表面;人工表面的增加是建立在耕地面积减少基础之上的,在10年间共有超过3 200km2的耕地转化为人工表面;(2)景观指数存在粒度效应,粒度变化会对景观指数的计算结果产生影响;省域尺度下计算景观指数所需的合适粒度范围为100～125m;(3)研究安徽省景观格局变化的代表性景观指数有4个,分别为最大斑块指数、景观形状指数、平均斑块面积、香农多样性指数。[结论]计算安徽省景观指数的适宜粒度范围为100～125m,安徽省的代表性景观指数集为最大斑块指数、景观形状指数、平均斑块面积、香农多样性指数,为进一步研究景观格局变化及驱动机制提供了依据。     

林权流转价格及其影响因素分析

以林农拥有的活立木为研究对象,利用2007—2017年浙江省1546宗活立木流转样本,采用多元线性回归实证分析了是否在林权交易中心交易对活立木流转价格存在影响。结果表明:关键解释变量是否在林权交易中心进行交易对活立木流转价格具有显著的正向影响;流转面积、单位面积蓄积、区域虚拟变量、坡度等对流转价格都产生一定程度的影响;流转期限对流转价格的影响不大。因此,需要加强对林权交易中心的宣传,降低相关的交易成本,从而吸引更多的小规模林农参与交易。     

Challenges and Changes in Gendered Poverty: The Feminization,De-Feminization,and Re-Feminization of Poverty in Latin America

Despite reductions in poverty generally, recent trends in Latin American countries show processes of both de-feminization and re-feminization of poverty. A rise in the numbers of women to men living in income-poor households has occurred despite feminized anti-poverty programs, most notably conditional cash transfers (CCTs), which target resources to women. This paper shows that methodological differences in what, how, and who is the focus of measurement may influence patterns of poverty “feminization.” It also suggests that feminized policy interventions might in themselves be playing a role in the re-feminization of poverty, not least because of data and definitional limitations in the way female-headed households and, relatedly, women’s poverty are understood. The somewhat paradoxical interactions between the feminization of household headship, the feminization of poverty, and the feminization of anti-poverty programs present interesting challenges for redressing gender gaps in poverty within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.     

Price Effects on Compound Commodities

We examine the effect of simultaneous price changes on the total demand for a group of goods, which we call a compound commodity. Specifically, we consider unit and proportional cost components (e.g., taxes, transportation costs) imposed on compound commodities. If the unit cost is positive, then the proportional cost raises the relative price of the more expensive good, and thus induces substitution towards the less expensive good within this group. Then, the substitution effect of the proportional cost for a compound commodity is non‐negative if and only if the compound commodity and the other goods are, on average, not strongly substitutable.     

Technological versus Pecuniary External Economies: The Former Should Rule the Roost

The paper endeavors to illustrate that though the existing literature emphasizes the dynamic role of Scitovskian pecuniary external economies to account for the growth of innovations, highlighting particular types of market interdependence, such interdependencies can just highlight quasi-rent-led static adjustments that do not ensure an endogenous growth of innovations; the possibility of the growth of innovations remains exogenous. In this context, the present paper highlights the importance of division of labor-led dynamic technological external economies that ensures the endogenous growth of innovations, underlining the need of reinterpretation of Allyn Young in a broader Kaldorian-Keynesian perspective. In this perspective, finance-led investment in more productive opportunities not only supports increases in market size but also begets further investment in (still) more productive opportunities. This understanding provides a more dynamic conceptualization of Keynesian pecuniary external economies that are driven by Youngian technological external economies.