Web-cam’s potential for collaborative activities in the Earth sciences

We report here our experiences from using easily acquired web-cam components for collaborative ventures in the Earth sciences. We have used a variety of hardware and different software. We demonstrate from various locations in the U.S.A. the feasibility of using web-cam in multitudinous activities, relevant for conducting research and knowledge dissemination. We summarize the quality of the connections from the various combinations of communicating parties. Today, web-cams can be utilized as an economical and viable means of point-to-point communication in the Earth science community. Greater bandwidth is sorely needed for activities such as multi-party conferencing on the present internet network. We propose that web-cam can be readily deployed as a web-service for facilitating collaborative research over the GRID infrastructure, using the middleware Narada-Brokering. Web-cam will play an important role in the emerging field of geoinformatics.     

Searching for the Fed’s reaction function

There is still some doubt about those economic variables that really matter for the Fed’s decisions. In comparison with other estimations, this study uses the approach of Bayesian model averaging (BMA). The estimations show that over the long-run inflation, unemployment rates and long-term interest rates are the crucial variables in explaining the Federal Funds Rate. In the other two estimation samples, also the fiscal deficit and monetary aggregates were of relevance. There is also evidence for interest rate smoothing. In addition, we account for parameter instability by combining BMA with time-varying coefficient (TVC) modelling. We find strong evidence for structural breaks. Finally, a model average is constructed via an TVC-BMA approach.     

Human agency and convergence: Gaus’s Kantian Parliamentarian

Public reason is justified to the extent that it uses (only) arguments, assumptions, or goals that are allowable as “public” reasons. But this exclusion requires some prior agreement on domains, and a process that disallows new unacceptable reasons by unanimous consent. Surprisingly, this problem of reconciliation is nearly the same, mutatis mutandis, as that faced by micro-economists working on general equilibrium, where a conceit—tâtonnement, directed by an auctioneer—was proposed by Leon Walras. Gaus’s justification of public reason requires the “as if” solution of a Kantian Parliamentarian, who rules on whether a proposal is “in order.” Previous work on public reason, by Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls, have all reduced decision-making and the process of “reasoning” to choice by a unitary actor, thereby begging the questions of disagreement, social choice, and reconciliation. Gaus, to his credit, solves that problem, but at the price of requiring that the process “knows” information that is in fact indiscernible to any of the participants. In fact, given the dispersed and radical situatedness of human aims and information, it is difficult for individuals, much less groups, to determine when norms are publicly justified or not. More work is required to fully take on Hayek’s insight that no person, much less all people, can have sufficient reasons to endorse the relevant norm, rule or law.     

acing power industry reform-how to further deepen the reform in power in

4月17日～18日,国务院召开了第六次全国环境保护大会。温家宝总理和曾培炎副总理出席大会并发表了重要讲话。这是深入贯彻党的十六届五中全会和十届全国人大第四次会议精神,以科学发展观为指导,落实国务院关于加强环境保护的决定,部署“十一五”时期环保工作的一次重要会议。如     

Testing Okun’s law with Swiss industry data

Okun’s law postulates a stable relationship between quarterly output growth and changes in (un)employment. This proposition has so far been tested with macroeconomic data at the highest level of aggregation. The article goes beyond that in extending the analysis to industry data from Switzerland, applying a method suggested by the International Monetary Fund. Another focus is on whether expansions in production have become more ‘jobless’ over the most recent business cycle compared to earlier ones. This does not seem to be the case in Switzerland, except in the construction industry.     

Tracing the US Military’s Presence in Africa

In recent years there has been growing recognition of the militarisation of US foreign policy in Africa, especially following the establishment of a dedicated, regional combatant command (Africa Command, or AFRICOM) in 2007. At the same time knowledge of the extent and aims of US military activities in Africa remains murky, especially when compared to other regions such as the Middle East and Europe. This article begins by conceptualising AFRICOM as a geopolitical assemblage, an approach we believe useful for analysing its composition and emergence. Next we discuss the challenges involved in tracing the US military’s evolving presence in Africa and the methods utilised in our analysis. Following this we present three case studies: the first compares the composition and geographies of manned and unmanned aerial surveillance assemblages, the second details logistics infrastructures and the military’s use of contractors to develop logistical capabilities across the continent, the third examines growing counterterrorism entanglements in West Africa. We conclude with some observations concerning the divergence between purported aims and the focus and outcomes of the US military’s presence in Africa.     

Assessing the competition in Angola’s banking industry

This article analyses the level of competition in Angola’s banking industry using the Panzar–Rosse model with data from 2005 to 2014. Competition is a vital aspect of the banking market and therefore it is central to policy-making. The results reveal that Angola banking competition is monopolist and therefore lower competition is found in Angola banks. Policy implication is derived.     

The transition of people’s preferences for the intervention of the government in the economy of re-unified Germany

Covering the first fifteen years immediately after German reunification, this paper analyzes the people??s support to the transition. The focus is on individuals?? preferences for the intervention of the government in the economy and on the opinion about competition per se. Eastern German data are compared with Western German data. Using suitable data that allow for interpersonal comparisons, the paper shows that Eastern Germans have always preferred an intervention of the public hand in the economy deeper than Western Germans; these different positions have hardly converged during the examined period of time. However there are no significant differences with respect to how Germans perceive competition per se: it is considered as a good by the people living in both parts of the country.     

Testing for long memory in Chinese stock market

This paper proposes a long memory analysis based on wavelet transform of financial data. This method treats return series and volatility series in the stock market as a fractional differenced noise process, and analyzes it by MODWT（maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform）. The result shows there is a lineal relationship between wavelet variance logarithm and scale logarithm, so a long memory parameter can be obtained by using the relationship. This method is proved to be effective and feasible by analyzing the return series and volatility series of composite indexes of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock market.     

On the assessment of the performance in earnings management for the banking industry: the case of China’s banks

Earnings management is popular in the banking industry. Earnings can be manipulated by discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP). Analysing the trajectories of banks’ DLLP (i.e. their change in DLLP over time) is an effective way to assess the performance in earnings management for the banking industry, but seems not to have been addressed in the earnings management literature. In this study, we analyse the trajectories of DLLP with the yearly data from 2007 through 2012 for four types of banks in China. The results have indicated that state-owned banks, policy banks and city commercial banks seem to manage earnings well. Cautionary notes about bank risks are provided.     

Testing the validity of the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle for Australia

This article presents the details of an investigation into the relationship between investment and savings in Australia over the period 1960 to 2007. Using five time series techniques our results reveal that the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle exists in a weak form, with a lower saving retention coefficient. Granger causality tests illustrate that savings Granger causes investment, both in the short and long runs. Our results suggest Australia could effectively adopt policies that focus on increasing investment through increasing domestic savings.     

Walter Eucken’s place in the history of ideas

German neoliberalism, as represented by the so called Freiburg School, was mainly influenced by the economist Walter Eucken. Eucken’s economic methodology can only be understood if placed in the context of the German philosophical and sociological debate of that time. The revelation of these connections is at the center of this paper. To this purpose, first, the influence of Max Weber and of his ideal typical approach will be discussed. Second, the role played by Walter Eucken’s father, the philosopher Rudolf Eucken and the significance of the Freiburg phenomenologist Edmund Husserl for the concept of ordoliberalism will be analyzed. Third, it will be shown that Eucken’s method is set against all relativist currents and sustained by the hope of discovering the “realm of truth” (Edmund Husserl) in economics as well. On this basis, Eucken’s oeuvre can be characterized by the aspects of order, freedom and truthfulness.     

On Hegel’s Interpretation of the Conflict in Antigone

This essay will argue that Hegel’s balanced interpretation of the Antigone is the correct one on the grounds that any interpretation that favors either Creon or Antigone or reduces the conflict to one of personalities and not values would render Antigone a weaker tragedy.     

Testing Böhm-Bawerk’s theory of capital: Some evidence from the Finnish economy

This paper considers the pure labour theory of value and Böhm-Bawerk’s theory of capital as approximations of Sraffa’s model of single production, and tests them with data from the Symmetric Input-output Tables of the Finnish economy. The results show that (i) in comparison with the labour values, the actual Böhm-Bawerkian production prices are ‘equally’ good or even better approximations of the actual Sraffian production prices and market prices; and (ii) the Sraffian production price-profit rate relationship is, by and large, governed by the differences in the Böhm-Bawerkian average periods of production.     

Testing for the stability of money demand in Italy: has the Euro influenced the monetary transmission mechanism?

Stability of money demand is a crucial issue for the efficacy of monetary policy. This is particularly true in the presence of significant exogenous shocks to the monetary system. By implementing the most recent econometric testing procedures, this article intends to investigate the consistency of the stability of money demand in Italy, one of the larger European Monetary Union (EMU) countries, before and after the EMU. Among others, the objective is, indeed, to ascertain the effect of a change in the currency regime on the monetary aggregates and to provide a valid empirical model which is a viable tool for policy performance.     

Africa’s industrialization and China’s OFDI in the manufacturing sector: rationales and practices

The article examines the rationales and practices for three types of manufacturing outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) into Africa in the context of the cooperation between Africa’s industrialization and China’s OFDI on manufacturing. African economies have achieved impressive growth in the new century, but sustainable economic growth in this vast continent is still constrained by lagging industrialization and weak manufacturing sector. While China’s economy has made great achievements in Gross Domestic Product growth and poverty reduction, it witnessed hikes of factor price such as wage, land and exchange rate at varying degrees in the recent decade, imposing pressure on economic restructuring. Against the background, the new trend of Chinese manufacturing OFDI provides new opportunities for Africa to solve structural problems of weak manufacturing. Policy implications of this study on China–Africa industrial capacity cooperation are briefly discussed.