J. A. Hobson and British Imperialism

A bstract . John A. Hobson made a significant contribution in his economic. social And political analysis of British imperialism. His views on the two leading political imperial issues ofthe 1880s and early 1900s—the schemes for imperial federation and imperial preference —are examined. Hobson discussed such topics with a substantial degree of balance and objectivity, chough he had strong personal feelings on the matters. Since historians of thought have neglected the discussion of imperial copies by Hobson s contemporary economists, Hobson's ideas are considered in relation Co those of ocher economists writing in the period, 1870-1914, including W. J. Ashley. W. Cunningham. H. Fawcett. R. Giffen. W. A. S. Hewins. A. Marshall and J. S. Nicholson. Hobson emerges as the most comprehensive and sophisticated of the group, even chough his ideas appear somewhat muddled.     

John Hobson, Thorstein Veblen and the Phenomenon of Imperialism

Abstract . Although Hobson (1858–1940) and Veblen (1857–1929) both wrote extensively on imperialism, a systematic comparison of their views has yet to be undertaken. This is corrected with reference to three issues: their respective condemnation and explanation of, and remedy for, imperialism. The contexts in which they wrote is outlined and it is shown that on the basis of a shared definition of imperialism: (1) they both condemned imperialism on economic and political grounds, although Veblen's hostility was arguably the greater; (2) they both advanced dualistic explanations of imperialism, but whereas Hobson developed more fully and emphasized economic rather than ideological forces, the reverse was the case for Veblen; and (3) they agreed that modern imperialism could be remedied by the establishment of an international system of law and order. Veblen, however, was far less confident that this would solve totally the problem of imperialism and hence argued for the abolition of both capitalism and patriotism. The convergencies and divergencies in their analyses of imperialism may reflect the British liberal and American radical traditions that the politically involved Hobson and the iconoclast Veblen, respectively, operated within. There is a lesson for our time in their views.     

A Conversation with John C. Gower

Editors' Note: This conversation covers the extensive contributions of John C. Gower to statistical methodology, computing and applications. It also touches on the pioneering development of statistical computing at Rothamsted Experimental Station and the relevant work of Frank Yates, John Nelder and others who were at Rothamsted. See also the accompanying paper by John Gower (1985) on developments in statistical computing at Rothamsted (see Note 1) and the epilogue from Roger Payne.     

约翰·汤普森:"叛逆者"

不做IBM风格的奴隶 　　反叛,是约翰·汤普森(John Thompson)最大的特点,但是他也很精明地把握住了反叛的度.在白人CEO占多数的美国企业界,他的肤色使他显得更加与众不同. 　　……     

Economic Transition and Growth: A Replication

Phillips and Sul (Journal of Applied Econometrics 2009, 24 , 1153–1185) provide an algorithm to identify convergence clubs in a dynamic factor model of economic transition and growth. We provide a narrow replication of their key results, using the open source R software instead of the original GAUSS routines. We are able to exactly replicate their results on convergence clubs, corresponding point estimates and standard errors. We comment on minor differences between their reported results and their clustering algorithm. We propose simple adjustments of the original algorithm to make manual intervention unnecessary. The adjustments allow automated application of the algorithm to other data. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.