Did Georgia’s Post-Pipeline-Hack Gasoline-Tax Suspension Lower Prices?

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

Working days in a London construction team in the eighteenth century: evidence from St Paul's Cathedral

This article provides new information and data on the work and pay of skilled and semi-skilled men on a large London construction project in the early 1700s. It offers firm-level evidence on the employment relation in the construction industry at the time and sheds some light on the number of days worked per year and per week, showing that employment was more irregular and seasonal than current estimates of income infer. The patterns are considered in the context of new debates about industriousness and economic growth.     

Travelling to the Ancestral Homelands: The Aspirations and Experiences of a UK Caribbean Community

This paper is based on an ethnographic study of the Caribbean community of Moss Side, Manchester (UK). Its aim is to reveal, interpret and analyse the personal meanings which members of the community attach to visiting the ancestral homeland in the Caribbean. This form of travel is defined in terms of 'ethnic reunion', which involves travelling for the purpose of visiting friends and relatives and/or searching for one's cultural roots. The study, which is based on an interpretive analysis of a range of ethnographic material, initially examines the reasons why first- and second-generation Caribbeans wish to participate in the 'homeland experience', and then illustrates ways in which they reconstruct an identity of themselves through their travel perceptions and experiences. The latter part of the paper discusses how people's travel encounters serve to illustrate how ethnic differences and boundaries between groups are constructed and/or reconstructed. It is argued that established perspectives of tourism motivation and behaviour do not fully account for the role of ethnicity as a significant variable in influencing specific forms of travel. The conclusion asserts that ethnic reunion should be conceptually viewed as a distinct form of 'travel', socioculturally dissimilar to conventional forms of 'tourism'.     

The present and future use of ‘land’ below ground

The world's subsurface space, including Britain's, is already used in a variety of ways, ranging from occupancy to disposal and the bulk storage of materials and fuels. In the future it is likely that it will be put to further use in response to trends in technology, resource supply and demand, socioeconomics and geopolitics. Here the present and future uses of underground space, and the potential planning and social issues affecting its development, are reviewed. Future uses are likely to be in the area of increasing occupancy (both commercial and residential), the secure storage of documents and data, the storage of carbon dioxide for carbon abatement, natural gas, compressed air stores of energy from traditional and renewable sources, the use of underground heat in buildings and the proposed deep geological disposal of radioactive waste. The article will also explore pressure points and challenges. These will include the regulation of multiple uses of subsurface storage space and, for projects of national importance including natural gas and radioactive waste storage, legislation to lessen the effect of local opposition relative to the ‘national need’. This article does not discuss future mining, hydrocarbon extraction, or water resources.     

Comparisons of the Educational Value of Distance Delivered versus Traditional Classroom Instruction in Introductory Agricultural Economics

As many universities are promoting distance courses, the comparative advantages and disadvantages over conventional classroom delivery are being debated. Student attitudes and test performance in an introductory microeconomics course are compared across the two different course delivery formats. Results show that students with average or below-average college aptitude test scores perform more poorly in the distance class.