Between a rock and a hard place: corporate elites in the context of religion and secularism in Turkey

Drawing on discourse analyses of 36 in-depth interviews with elite business people from Turkey, the study identifies the networking patterns of new and established business elites in the context of economic liberalization and socioreligious transformation of the country. Through a comparative analysis of the so-called secular and religious elite networks, we demonstrate the role of institutional actors such as the government, and identity networks, based on religion and place of birth in shaping the form and content of social networks among business elites in Turkey. In order to achieve this, we operationalize Bourdieu's notion of theory of practice and Granovetter's theory of social networks, illustrating the utility of combining these approaches in explicating the form and content of social networks in their situated contexts, in which power and divergent interests are negotiated.     

Contribution to the study of grouped observation. II. Loss of information caused by grouping of normally distributed observations

Abstract

1. Introduction

(a) Maximum Likelihood.—In a previous paper (THIS JOURNAL, vol. XXXII, 1949, pp. 135–159) the author gave tables of the functions and where ?(x) denotes the normal law of distribution, φ(x) its integral and ?′(x) its first derivative. With the aid of these tables it is practicable to solve the maximum likelihood equations for coarsely grouped normal observations. The procedure was illustrated by examples.     

Technological progress and scientific indicators: a panel data analysis

Total factor productivity (TFP) is generally interpreted to be a proxy for technological advancement. In this paper, we use stochastic frontier analysis to decompose the growth in TFP into three components: technological progress, scale effect and change in technical efficiency. Then, we conduct a comprehensive panel data analysis using the technological progress component of the TFP growth and several scientific and technological indicators using data from 160 countries over the period from 1960 to 2009. Our results generally show that the technological progress component of the TFP growth properly reflects certain dimensions of actual scientific and technological progress. However, we also find that this result is somewhat sensitive to different econometric specifications and assumptions.     

Walls in Cities: A Conceptual Approach to the Walls of Nicosia

Walls play an important role in the spatial configuration of cities. In addition to being one of the main factors or components in the configuration of spatial structure, a wall can also be assigned various intangible social meanings. Multiplicity of walls in many cases especially in partitioned or divided cities, have been studied by many scholars. Nicosia, the capital of the island of Cyprus can best be interpreted with the use of the words: walls, division, buffer zone, green line, destruction, and re-connection. The main aim of this paper is, first, to discuss and interpret the two walls (hard borders) of Nicosia – the historic walls and the buffer zone. Second, the role of these walls with respect to the issue of forming a border will be investigated throughout the partitioning process of the city. Additionally, the paper will try to identify the changing meaning and interpretation of these walls with respect to the two major ethnic communities, who are divided within the city.     

Writing Clearly: The ECB's Monetary Policy Communication

The article presents a novel methodology for measuring the clarity of central bank communication using content analysis, illustrating the methodology with the case of the European Central Bank (ECB). The analysis identifies the ECB's written communication as clear in about 85–95% of instances, which is comparable with, or better than, similar results available for other central banks. We also find that the additional information on risk to inflation and especially projection risk assessment contained in the ECB's Monthly Bulletins helps to improve communication clarity compared to ECB's press releases. In contrast, the bulletin's communication on monetary developments has a negative, albeit small, impact on clarity.     

Contribution to the Study of Grouped Observations

§ 1. Introduction.

a. Grouping. From a purely mathematical point of view practical observations are often more or less grouped, but in applied mathematics only fairly coarse groupings need be taken into account. The statures of the individuals in a population are commonly given as an example of grouped observations. A measurement of between x - unit and x + unit is referred to as x units, and in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the estimates of the means and standard deviations calculated from such observations the use of certain corrections has been advised. The benefit hereof is, however, doubtful as usually grouping is comparatively fine and then it is not really disturbing. In the following an account will be given of some facts connected with far coarser grouping. As otherwise the subject would become too extensive, the exposition will here be confined to normally distributed observations. The problem of the “best estimates” of the mean and the standard deviation for the coarsely grouped normal observations will be solved in accordance with the principle of maximum likelihood.     

A test of the permanent income hypothesis on Czech voucher privatization

In 1992 the Czech Republic privatized state assets, which resulted in some citizens receiving an unexpected windfall. Whether the windfall was consumed or saved provides a clear test of the permanent income hypothesis in a transitional economy. Analysis of data from a survey conducted specifically to test this hypothesis indicates that only a small number of transferred assets were consumed, a finding which is consistent with the permanent income hypothesis. JEL classification: D31, E21, H24.     

Social and technological efficiency of patent systems

This article develops an evolutionary model of industry dynamics in order to carry out a richer theoretical analysis of the consequences of a stronger patent system. The first results obtained in our article are rather consistent with the anti-patent arguments and do not favor the case for a stronger patent system: higher social welfare and technical progress are observed in our model in industries with milder patent systems (lower patent height and patent life).     

Hayek’s monetary theory and policy: A note on alleged inconsistency

Challenging the dominant view, we claim that Hayek’s monetary views did not significantly change over his lifetime. The prevalent perception of early Hayek as a money stream stabilizer and late Hayek as a price level stabilizer is attributable to an unjustified normative interpretation of Hayek’s positive analysis. We argue that in his contributions to monetary theory, Hayek took the goals of monetary policy as exogenously given and analysed the efficiency of different means of achieving them. Hayek’s allegedly inconsistent transformation from a critic to an advocate of price level stabilization is explained by a change of issues under his focus, rather than by a change in his positive views. We also claim that Hayek was always aware that every practical monetary policy involves difficult trade-offs and that he was therefore reluctant to impose his own value judgments on what people should strive for.