Racial Harassment,Ethnic Concentration,and Economic Conditions*

In this paper, we analyse the association between the spatial concentration of ethnic minorities and racial harassment. Ethnic concentration relates to racial harassment through at least three channels: hostility in the attitudes of majority individuals that finds expression in harassment behaviour, the probability that minority individuals meet majority individuals, and the cost of expressing hostility aggressively. Thus, harassment cannot simply be modelled as a stronger form of hostility. Using unique data for Britain, we show that, in areas of higher local ethnic concentration, experience of harassment is lower, even though hostility on the side of the majority population is not.     

The ‘Duce hometown effect’ on local industrial development: The case of Forlì

Abstract

The history of fascist intervention and rescue in support of Italian banks and firms (either through nationalisation or direct aid) in the inter-war years is well known. The case of Forlì adds an important piece of information to the broad literature on state-sponsored development. Benito Mussolini was born in Predappio, a small village in the Apennines in the province of Forlì. And Forlì was meant to become ‘la città del Duce’ (‘the Duce’s hometown’). The case of Forlì offers an original perspective: entrepreneurs who chose Mussolini’s hometown to obtain special concessions, a novel element in the crowded panorama of special relationships between government and industry in Italy. But on the other hand, this article will also underline the unsuitability of big business to local economic characteristics (and post-war challenges) and the return to a traditional growth path centred around the small-firm model specialising in traditional sectors and family-owned, centralised management. State-sponsored business failed and provided no stimulus to local growth: any talk of ‘industrial continuity’ in Forlì requires us to acknowledge that it is based on the steady presence and continuous regeneration of locally grown, small family businesses.     

The Effects of Liberalisation on Market and Currency Risk in the European Union

This paper investigates the effects of liberalisation on the pricing of market and currency risk for a number of financial markets in the European Union (EU). An International Asset Pricing Model with a multivariate GARCH‐in‐Mean specification and time‐varying prices of risk is used for the four markets with the largest capitalisation in the EU. Only one price of market risk exists and international investors are rewarded for their exposure to currency risk. The evidence shows that all prices of risk are time‐varying and have been decreasing during the process of liberalisation. There is also evidence that markets react to period of uncertainty in the process toward the completion of liberalisation. In addition, the operation of the European Monetary System has generated lower covariances. As a consequence, total risk premia have declined in the last decade.     

Linear operators,time dominance and IRR

This paper studies the duality underlying the notion of time dominance among cash flows, by providing a dual characterization which is based on linear structures. This approach is prone to meaningful interpretations of both the same notion of time dominance and the well known results concerning it. In particular, we provide a general outline of the links interconnecting time dominance and the internal rate of return by following an alternative course as against other authors.

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Sommario Questo lavoro studia la dualità che sottende alla nozione di dominanza temporale per flussi di cassa, fornendo una caratterizzazione duale di tale relazione d'ordine. L'approccio proposto, basato sull'uso di strutture lineari, permette interpretazioni significative sia del concetto stesso di dominanza temporale, sia di alcuni noti risultati attinenti ad essa. In particolare, con riferimento a quest'ultimo aspetto, si fornisce, seguendo una via alternativa rispetto alla letteratura, un quadro generale dei legami intercorrenti tra dominanza temporale e tasso interno di rendimento.

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Financial support from M.U.R.S.T. and Bocconi University is gratefully acknowledged.     

Harmonizing public sector accounting in Europe: thinking out of the box

A broad debate about the harmonization of public sector accounting standards in Europe is underway. The authors provide arguments in favour of harmonization, but they also acknowledge the existing pluralism and diversity by taking stock of the state of play in 14 European countries. The paper makes a proposal for a way forward for policy-makers and standard-setters, in which the benefits of harmonization can be obtained without obliging EU member countries to necessarily abandon their current public sector accounting systems.     

The paradox of exclusion and multiculturalism in postcolonial identity†

This article analyzes the discriminatory representation of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong advertisements through a semiotic analysis of a TV commercial for an insurance company. The ridiculing of a foreign domestic helper through a colorist representation is inscribed in an ethnographic inquiry that explores how the representation of the foreign “other” in terms of dark skin color serves to project a common conceptualization of Hongkongers’ own identity. The discussion explores the paradoxical understanding of Hong Kong as a multicultural and global city, in contrast with the apparently homogenous Chinese mainland, while excluding from the concept of “multiculturalism,” non-Chinese ethnicities through discrimination based on skin color. Thus, the role the TV commercial plays is to shape and reinforce this paradox, perpetuating the idea of the Hong Kong identity as Chinese, but multicultural at the same time.^?? An early version of this paper was presented at the Kern Conference in Visual Communication, Rochester, New York, April 2014.     

Resisting media marginalisation: Black women’s digital content and collectivity

ABSTRACT

Based on analysis of 23 interviews, this paper examines how social media and online content is implicated in the collective, resistant and transnational media experiences of Black women in Britain. It contributes to scholarship concerning race and the virtual marketplace by examining tensions between the countercultural, communal and commercial qualities of Black women’s online experiences. Drawing upon theorising of the oppositional spectator gaze of Black women, and narratives of technology consumption, we unpack how Black women’s digital activity can enable them to navigate the hegemony of US content, their marginalisation in British mass-media, and situate them within a Black experience that transcends Britain’s borders. Our work illustrates how Black women’s online encounters can be a source of resistance, Black digital commentary and community, as well as being subject to corporate co-optation. We conceptualise such online experiences as being shaped by transnational dimensions of the relationship between race, media and markets.     

Social media marketing in wine tourism: winery owners’ perceptions

This paper examines winery owners’ attitudes and perceptions regarding the use of social media in marketing and promoting wine tourism online. Empirical evidence is provided by a sample of 20 winery owners in the North Italian region of Langhe, who have engaged to a greater or lesser extent in social media. The findings show that while the majority of winery owners recognise the social, economic and emotional benefits of social media, they are far from exploiting its full potential, partially due to barriers such as their agricultural mentality and the time-consuming nature of social media.