Women,urban social movements and the lesbian ghetto

Le but de cette étude ect d'éclairer sous un autre jour la position des femmes en sociologie urbaine. Cette discussion va illustrer les directions dont on a tiré les analyses précédentes et l'effet qui s'ensuit sur la sociologie urbaine vis-à-vis des femmes. Tout d'abord, la présentation s'attache principalement à l'articulation de la politique des femmes au sein de l'expérience urbaine. Un exemple de ce développemcnt est l'émergence du mouvement de libération de la femme. On soutient que ce domaine constitue un sujet d'enquête valable en sociologie urbaine. De ce fait, des phénomènes liés à sa progression en tant que force sociale seront discutés. Finalement, l'étude d'un cas, (le ghetto lesbien) dans un contexte urbain précis, sera inclus.     

Social movements and globalization

Pierre Hamel, Henri Lustiger‐Thaler and Margit Mayer (eds.) Urban movements in a globalizing world John Guidry, Michael Kennedy and Mayer Zald (eds.) Globalizations and social movements: culture, power, and the transnational public sphere     

Large price movements and short-lived changes in spreads,volume, and selling pressure

In this paper we examine changes in dollar and relative bid-ask spreads of stocks following large price movements. We investigate large increases and decreases separately and link our results to current market microstructure theories on trading activities and spreads. We also look at changes in volume and selling pressure to interpret the changes in trading activity. Our results show that the market reacts differently to price increases and decreases. For large price decreases, trading increases on the sell side even when spreads have increased. For large price increases, trading increases on the buy side during a period of higher spreads. However, the increases in dollar spreads and price pressure are most pronounced at the end of trading day. Our results are consistent with microstructure models that link trading activities and costs to the level of asymmetric information.     

Post-war movements in teachers' salaries

Public sector white collar employees are a large and important part of the labour force. It is interesting, therefore, to look at the forces determining the pay of such workers, given the highly administered nature of the markets for their services, and at the operation of their negotiating procedures which have remained highly centralized at a time when there has been a growing tendency to move away from national bargaining. This paper looks at some aspects of the pay of one group of public employees – school teachers. The examination deals mainly with global aspects of teachers' pay, comparatively little attention being given to structural aspects of the problem. The discussion is confined to the full-time teaching force in England and Wales, though the growth in the number of part-time teachers and para-teaching personnel has been an important feature of the market in recent years.     

Popular movements and urban alternatives in post-Franco Spain

L'Espagne se trouve à l'encontre de sévères problèmes urbains que le régime authoritaire ne peut résoudre. Au fǔr et à mesure que ce régime se désintère, de nouvelles revendications surgissent; mais en Espagne, contrairement au Portugale, ce sont des mouvements organisés qui réclament une nouvelle politique. Ces mouvements populaires sont fondés sur les quartiers (Barrios); cette communication s'addresse à leurs développement à Barcelone. Les mouvements urbains de cette ville ont évolués à partir d'une contestation d'issus d'envergure locale, à une qui s'addresse aux processus et planification de toute la ville. Un réseau de groupes a créé les moyens pour une renaissance d'une vie collective et démocratique. Le droit à un logement convenable, aux aménagements adéquats, au contrǒle sur l'industrie et la pollution, et à une suspension des rénovations urbaines, s'est fait valoir. Les moyens par lequels ces objectifs sont accomplis sont esquissés. Une critique de la planification implique celle de l'administration municipale. Divers genres de protestations ont eu lieu à différentes périodes dans l'évolution de cette critique. C'est maintenant que les mouvements communautaires, les analystes de l'urbain, et les nouveaux groupes politiques ont besoin de travailler ensemble afin développer un nouveau contexte pour le gouvernement municipal, à l'intérieur d'un programme socio-économique plus large. Dans n'importe quel système futur, les groupes des Barrios continueront de jouer un rǒle essentiel. Un mouvement vers une réforme municipale accompagnera vraisemblablement un changement social plus grand, surtout celui de la lutte pour l'autonomie Catalane.     

Economic crisis and oppositional movements in the USA

Une stratégie qui se dit neuve pour affronter la crise économique en cours semble avoir provoqué un nombre ? effets négatifs aux Etats-Unis (et ailleurs). Un taux de chǒmage élevé, une inégalité croissante, ainsi que des services publics qui se détériorent, sont les résultats ? un effort de re-capitalisation du capitalisme achevé par la promotion ? investissements et de profits privés. Ceci est le cadre pour un développement possible ? agitation ouvrière et de mouvements sociaux urbains. Les perspectives limités de beaucoup de mouvements sociaux urbains américains ne veulent nécessairement pas dire qu'ils manquent de signification. L'époque de la réforme structurelle doit ětre gagnée; elle est rarement déja acquise.     

Forecasting quarterly movements of the lira/pound-sterling exchange rate: Random walks,drift, seasonality and variable parameters

Quarterly logarithmic changes of the lira/pound-exchange rate for the period 1973 Q1 to 1989 Q1 are examined and the forecasting performance of some simple time series models is evalutated. The performance of the random walk model with drift is examined as a method of forecasting one quarter ahead lira/pound-sterling exchange rate changes. This model is then extended to incorporate seasonal movements. The assumptions of constant drift and seasonal patters are relaxed and the models are estimated using variable parameter regression based on state-space modelling using the Kalman filter. The within and out-of-sample performance of the models illustrates that an improvement in forecast accuracy is obtained by including seasonal variation. However, the results do not appear to be improved by allowing the parameters to follow a random walk, AR(1) or AR(2) process. The random walk model with drift and seasonal patterns performs better at predicting exchange rate movements than predictions based on the forward rate.

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Riassunto Questo saggio esamina il movimcnto dei valori logaritmici dei dati trimestrali per i tassi di cambio tra la lira e la sterlina, per il periodo che va dal primo trimestre del 1973 al primo trimestre del 1989.Si valuta la bontà della previsione dei modelli semplici. Si dà una valutazione dell' attendibilità del modello di passeggiata a caso con variazione, intendendolo come un metodo per prevedere, con un anticipo di tre mesi, i movimenti dei tassi di cambio tra la lira e la sterlina.Questo modello viene poi esteso per incorporare movimenti stagionali, le ipotesi di movimenti costanti casuali e stagionali sono indebolite e i modelli vengono valutati usando analisi di regressione con parametri variabili fondate sui modelli di stato-spaziale usando il filtro di Kalman.L'attendibilità, dentro e fuori il campione, dei modelli dimostra che un miglioramento nell'esattezza delle precisioni viene ottenuto con l'inclusione della variazione stagionale.I risultati, però, non migliorano quando i parametri seguono una passeggiata a caso, un processo AR(1) o un processo AR(2).Il modello della passeggiata a caso con variazione e i movimenti stagionali riescono meglio a pronosticare movimenti dei tassi di cambio che non le previsioni fondate sui tassi fissi di cambio anticipati.

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A revised draft of the paper presented at the 6th. Meeting of the European Working Group on Financial Modelling at Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Liège, Belgium, 27/28 November, 1989     

The economics of diamond price movements

Diamonds are traditionally classified into three different market segments —industrial, jewellery and investment. The empirical findings support the argument that diamond prices of these three group types respond differently to business cycles. Industrial diamond prices, especially those of natural stones, have been found to be influenced by the level of economic activity in general and the volume of manufacturing production in partiular. However, the price of synthetic diamonds, especially in grit form, have declined irrespective of the business cycle as a result of technological developments and the expansion of the market which enabled producers to gait scale advantages. Prices of jewellery diamonds have been found to be most highly correlated with disposable income. As could be expected, these price have also been found to be positively correlated with inflation rates and negatively correlated with real interest rates. Prices of investment diamonds have been found to be particularly sensitive to real interest rates, to the value of the exchange rates of the US dollar and, like other gems, to disposable income. The paper also describes and discusses the activity in various diamond markets and the business policy of De Beers, the ‘king’ of the rough diamonds.     

Coefficient of stability of economic movements

According to von Neumann's conditions of equilibrium it follows that for balanced economic growth it is necessary for the relations of sectorial production to be constant and equal in the observed period. Beginning with the fact that a growth matrix of the economy can be decomposed into two matrices, of which one expresses sectorial growth rate and the other the conditions of equilibrium which follow from von Neumann's criteria, we can define the coefficient of stability of the economy which quantitatively expresses economic trends around the balance state.     

The onward sweep of social capital: causes and consequences for understanding cities,communities and urban movements

This article examines the way ‘social capital’ has been deployed by researchers and practitioners in the field of urban movements and community development. It reveals the powerful and in many ways effective role the concept is playing in framing the contemporary reconfigurations of local state‐society relations which impact especially on the trajectory of third or voluntary sector development. The article identifies the gaps and weaknesses the ‘social capital’ perspective responds to, thereby explaining why it looms so large within the urban development discourse. Its own blind spots and ambiguities, however, limit our understanding of contemporary urban change. By prioritizing specific forms of civic engagement (and neglecting others), the concept filters the contemporary reconfigurations in the relationship of civil society, state and market in a peculiar way, which is conducive to supporting the spread of market forces to areas so far beyond the reach of capital. By directing attention to the self‐activation potential of different communities, whether in the form of civic engagement of well‐to‐do volunteers or in the form of activation/reinsertion (into the low‐wage labour market) of the marginalized, this new discourse plays a crucial role not only in current efforts to unburden the local (welfare) state, but also in the expansion of market forces into new areas. L'article examine comment les chercheurs et spécialistes ont fait usage du ‘capital social’ dans le domaine des mouvements urbains et de l'évolution des communautés. Il dévoile le rô le dynamique et, par bien des aspects, efficace que ce concept joue en structurant les reconfigurations contemporaines des relations société‐gouvernement local, lesquelles influent notamment sur les tendances du secteur associatif ou du bénévolat. L'article identifie les lacunes et faiblesses que comble la perspective du ‘capital social’, expliquant ainsi les raisons de son omniprésence dans la rhétorique de l'urbanisme. Ses propres faiblesses et ambiguïtés limitent toutefois notre compréhension du changement urbain contemporain. En mettant en avant des formes spécifiques d'engagement civique (et en en négligeant d'autres), le concept dégage les reconfigurations modernes qui interviennent sur la relation entre société civile, É tat et marché, et ce d'une manière particulière qui contribue à la propagation des forces du marché dans des zones jusqu'alors inaccessibles au capital. En s'intéressant au potentiel d'auto‐activation de diverses communautés, que ce soit sous la forme d'un engagement civique de nantis volontaires ou de l'activation ou la réinsertion (sur le marché du travail des bas salaires) des marginaux, ce nouveau discours est essentiel, non seulement dans le cadre des efforts actuels visant à soulager l'É tat (providence) local, mais aussi dans l'expansion des forces du marché vers des zones nouvelles.     

Explaining movements in UK stock prices

We examine movements in aggregate UK stock prices by decomposing the variance of unexpected real stock returns into components due to revisions in expectations of future dividends, discount rates, and the covariance between the two. The contribution of news about future discount rates is about four times that of news about future dividends, with no significant covariance between them. Our analysis of excess returns uncovers a positive covariance between news about dividends and news about real interest rates. Since these two elements have opposite effects on current stock prices, their combined effect is negligible. Persistence in expected returns, as well as predictability, are found to be important in explaining stock price movements.     

Digital organizing for social impact: Current insights and future research avenues on collective action,social movements,and digital technologies

Digital technologies such as social media have drastically transformed the contexts and processes associated with collective action. New actors have gotten involved in efforts at changing the societal status quo, existing actors have adjusted to new ways of organizing digitally, and original forms of social movements have emerged and grown. All these developments do not, however, hold the potential for unequivocally positive societal impact. New forms of abuse and many unintended consequences have also multiplied. It is high time to take stock of the insights from current scholarship on these important issues.Here we bring together major findings from existing scholarship and introduce the papers of this special issue. We also propose an agenda for future research by highlighting ongoing debates and issues that require further consideration. Questions associated with the increasingly intricated participation of human and technological agents deserve attention, for instance. Careful considerations of the actual impact of digital organizing at different levels (e.g., individual, group, organization, society) also require further scholarship. We finally caution researchers to be ethical and to remain careful of the potential for use and misuse of their scholarship on these important and often polemical topics.     

Glocalizing protest: urban conflicts and the global social movements

The emergence of global social movements is essentially symbolized by the names of cities like Seattle, Genoa or Porto Alegre. This is not accidental, because groups stemming from various parts of the world need places to constitute themselves as movements. But the role of cities in representing great parts of the movements' consciousness also hints at the importance urban struggles have for global protests. The article examines the relationship between urban conflicts and global social movements. By looking for continuities and ruptures between former and current urban conflicts it points out the specificity of the latter: to politicize the contradictions of neoliberal restructuring; to challenge the discursive and institutional terrains of urban politics which were shaped in the 1990s, often with active participation of former movement actors; and, finally, to act simultaneously on various spatial scales. In the last part of the article some examples of ‘glocalized’ urban protests are presented and analysed, pointing out their ambiguities as well as the specific contribution they can make to the strategic orientation of the global social movements: to fight the destructive influences neoliberal globalization exerts on everyday life and, thereby, to develop alternative forms of societalization.     

Principal component analysis of yield curve movements

An important issue in interest rate modeling is the number and nature of the random factors driving the evolution of the yield curve. This paper uses principal component analysis to examine (1) the inherent dimension of historical yield curve changes indicated by the significance of eigenvalues of the covariance matrix, (2) the practical dimension determined by a variance threshold, (3) the shape of the yield curve change associated with the first principal component, and (4) the persistence of this shape over time. We find that although the first two components explain 93% of the sample variation within a 90% confidence interval, the remaining components make statistically significant contribution to the covariance matrix. Consequently, we can establish a practical limit on the dimension only if we are willing to designate a threshold error variance. Further, our results on the persistence of the shape of the yield curve shift associated with the first component depend upon this threshold. If all components are included, the hypothesis that the shape persists between two sample time periods is rejected. On the other hand, if all but the first six components are eliminated, the hypothesis is not rejected.     

The time series characteristics of quarterly nominal and real lira/pound-sterling exchange rate movements, 1973–1988

Time series analysis is applied to quarterly data on nominal and real, lira/pound-sterling exchange rates for the period 1973 Q1 to 1988 Q2. The paper uses logarithmic values which are examined using both time and frequency domain techniques. Trends and cyclical characteristics are examined and related to the concept of purchasing power parity. Furthermore, the validity of the random walk model is considered, as well as the distribution of exchange rate movements. The results suggest that the nominal exchange rate follows a quasi-random walk with drift, whereas real exchange rates show a quasi-random walk without drift. There exists, however, evidence of a non-stationary mean. The frequency domain techniques do not clearly show that cyclical characteristics are a feature of exchange rate movements. The distribution of these movements shows approximate normality.     

Employers' organisations as social movements: Political power and identity work

The literature on employers' and business organisations (EOs) has failed to analyse them as contentious organisations that apply identity work as a power resource to mobilise resources and members. This article is based on a qualitative case study of Islamic EOs in Turkey. Developing a social movement model of EOs, I analyse the mechanisms through which identity work with local religious collaborators facilitated collective action and political power. I find that the role of identity work was threefold: providing internal solidarity, securing external legitimacy, and supporting contentious institutional change by developing new policy ideas. This model can be applied more widely as EOs have increasingly shifted from traditional roles to take on social movement characteristics.     

Oil price uncertainty and movements in the US government bond risk premia

In this paper, we analyze the predictability of the movements of bond premia of US Treasury due to oil price uncertainty over the monthly period 1953:06 to 2016:12. For our purpose, we use a higher order nonparametric causality-in-quantiles framework, which in turn, allows us to test for predictability over the entire conditional distribution of not only bond returns, but also its volatility, by controlling for misspecification due to uncaptured nonlinearity and structural breaks, which we show to exist in our data. We find that oil uncertainty not only predicts (increases) US bond returns, but also its volatility, with the effect on the latter being stronger. In addition, oil uncertainty tends to have a stronger impact on the shortest and longest maturities (2- and 5-year), and relatively weaker impact on bonds with medium-term (3- and 4-year) maturities. Our results are robust to alternative measures of oil market uncertainty and bond market volatility.