Introduction to a Debate on City-Regions: New Geographies of Governance,Democracy and Social Reproduction

In this introduction to a special Debates and Developments forum on city-regions, we argue that the recent revival of interest in city-regions has been constructed around a rather narrow set of empirical and theoretical issues relating to exchange, interspatial competition and globalization. The ‘new’ city-regionalism results in a reification of the city-region as an autonomous political agent of the global space economy. We outline an alternative approach to investigating and understanding geographies of city-regionalism, highlighting: a politics of governance and state re-territorialization around the city-region; the role of democracy and citizenship in city-region politics; and tensions around social reproduction and sustainability across the city-region.     

Incentives,technology and the shift to year‐round dairying in late nineteenth‐century Denmark1

This article uses monthly trade data to document the decline in the seasonality in Danish butter exports that occurred from the 1880s onwards. This decline contrasted with steady or increasing seasonality elsewhere. Monthly butter prices in Britain, Denmark, and Ireland show that the incentives to shift into winter dairying were particularly high in the 1880s and 1890s; however, this cannot on its own explain the Danish shift, since our price data show that farmers elsewhere faced winter premia that were every bit as high as the Danish premia. The crucial factor in Denmark was the generation of empirical knowledge by the private and public sectors systematically analysing empirical evidence; the rapid diffusion of this knowledge in a highly educated society via lectures, exhibitions, written materials, and by institutions such as the new cooperative sector; and a willingness to absorb this knowledge by profit‐maximizing farmers.     

Baking for the common good: a reassessment of the assize of bread in Medieval England1

This article reassesses the structure of the assize of bread and its relevance for bakers and consumers in late medieval England. It has long been thought that the laws governing the manufacture and sale of bread, although adhering to a logical relationship between weight and price, were nevertheless ill‐considered in formulation, calculation, and enactment and did not, in reality, provide the stable allowance recommended for bakers. By examining the economic and moral ideology underlying the assize of bread it is possible to demonstrate that legislators were actually employing a rationale that best fitted contemporary circumstances and retail practices. There nevertheless remained one fundamental flaw in its construction, which was to have implications for its enforcement.     

Mandatory Portfolio Disclosure,Stock Liquidity,and Mutual Fund Performance

We examine the impact of mandatory portfolio disclosure by mutual funds on stock liquidity and fund performance. We develop a model of informed trading with disclosure and test its predictions using the May 2004 SEC regulation requiring more frequent disclosure. Stocks with higher fund ownership, especially those held by more informed funds or subject to greater information asymmetry, experience larger increases in liquidity after the regulation change. More informed funds, especially those holding stocks with greater information asymmetry, experience greater performance deterioration after the regulation change. Overall, mandatory disclosure improves stock liquidity but imposes costs on informed investors.     

Are Market‐Based Measures of Global Systemic Importance of Financial Institutions Useful to Regulators and Supervisors?

We analyze whether four market‐based measures of the global systemic importance of financial institutions offer early warning signals during three financial crises. The tests based on the 2007–2008 crisis show that only one measure (?CoVaR) consistently adds predictive power to conventional early warning models. However, the additional predictive power remains small and it is not normally confirmed for the Asian and the 1998 crises. We conclude that it is problematic to identify a market‐based measure of systemic importance that remains valid across crises with different features. The same criticism also applies to several conventional proxies of systemic importance, of which size is the most consistent performer.     

中国经济政策重心转向促增长

正欧洲可能陷入衰退,美国正在勉强维持脆弱的复苏,而日本又遭遇沉重打击,在这种情况下,中国的出口增长持续低迷,预计未来的情况会更加糟糕。中国果断采取刺激经济的行动,在近三年来首次下调银行存款准备金率。这可能是一轮放松货币政策的行动之始,目的是在贸易和房地产领域双双疲弱之际提振中国经济。