The struggle for space: Past and future of the space race

This article is geared toward shedding some more light on what may be the next space race and its contours.Space flight is undoubtedly a human achievement of the second half of the 20th century, and probably the most audacious one of the past century. The space race started suddenly in the 1950s and has grown explosively during the following two decades, but decreased steadily after the 1970s. After the 1990s, however, we have seen a shy rebirth of space-related activities, when many other actors (states) entered the stage, adding up to the agonizing role of the two-actor piece that we have witnessed during the so-called Cold War.The opening years of the 21st century provided a more complex narrative for space exploration. At the start of the new millennium a new technosphere [1] emerged, dominated by what is used to be called as the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), with the Internet playing the leading role among the bandwagon of technological novelties that appeared during the twilight of space activities. In despite of the fact that artificial satellites represent the very backbone of the global communications system, space activities seem to play a secondary role amidst the apparently accelerated rate of change concerning the technological systems of the present technosphere. But, as it is demonstrated in this paper, things are changing, and very probably a renewed space race will unfold in the coming decades.A question may be placed: what happened? Why the Earth stood still with regard to the race toward the cosmos? Answer: futurists, even prestigious ones like Herman Kahn and Arthur Clarke, did not consider the existence of socioeconomic long waves (Kondratieff waves, or K-waves for short) with their two decades long economic downturn, which has contributed to the deceleration of space-related activities.Analyzing the worldwide evolving scenario of space-related activities during the last eighty years under the framework of the succeeding K-waves and applying some technological forecasting tools, namely the logistic analysis, technological surveillance and intensive data mining, scrutinizing more than 7500 events occurred in the period 1930–2010 related with space activities, it is demonstrated that the space race like the one that we have witnessed until now is a natural growth process that has saturated at the dawn of this century. The same analysis demonstrates that a new growth process in this field might be nowadays under way with contours very different from that imagined by futurists and science fiction writers sixty years ago. Also the main trends in the usage of launching vehicles and satellites are framed and discussed in this paper.     

The relationship between total factor productivity growth and employment: some evidence from a sample of European Regions

This paper provides a structural estimation of an equilibrium matching model with exogenous productivity growth on a sample of European Regions for the period 1976–2000. Using a three-stage least squares procedure, I estimate a simultaneous equation model for employment, wages and capital stock. The importance of the study of the relationship between growth and employment is due to the fact that the sign of this connection is not clear-cut. Theoretical models imply that the impact of productivity on employment is ambiguous. Furthermore, the empirical contributions are still not so many to reach a strong conclusion on the sign of the relationship above. This paper finds that the impact of productivity growth on employment is negative in the short-run and this effect remains negative even in the long-run. The implication of my results is that all new technology is embodied in new jobs and job creation plays no role in the employment dynamics of the sample I have considered.     

Ecosystem Service Value and Agricultural Conversion in the Amazon: Implications for Policy Intervention

We explore the welfare implications of agricultural expansion in the Brazilian Amazon by comparing spatially explicit estimates of soybean rents and the value of ecosystem services. Although these estimates are generated from different datasets, models, and estimation techniques, the values are comparable, such that the value of ecosystem services is greater than soybean rents for about 61% of the total area and 24% of the area where soybean rents are positive if protected areas are well enforced. Based on the balance between the benefits and costs of conversion, failure to value ecosystem services reduces total social welfare by 7.13 billion dollars annually relative to an optimum. Policy instruments that internalize the value of ecosystem services via protected lands, land conversion taxes, conservation subsidies, or excise taxes can avoid much of this loss. Regardless of intervention regime, policy makers should be cognizant of the diminishing net benefits of converting natural ecosystems to agriculture. Realizing the final 3.8% requires the conversion of an additional 15% natural ecosystems to soybean production.     

The effectiveness of interactive professional learning experiences as a pedagogical tool: Evidence from an audit setting

This paper describes an interactive professional learning experience (IPLE) and provides guidance for implementing an IPLE in an audit classroom. The IPLE described in this paper exposes students to a realistic practice environment within the classroom by bringing practitioners together with students in a professional supervisory setting. Practitioners review students’ work and then meet with students one-on-one to provide feedback on their work. We also document evidence of the pedagogical value of an IPLE by using a between-subjects experimental design in which learning outcomes for participants are compared to a control group that received the same instructions and completed the same written assignment, but did not participate in the professional interaction. In addition, pre- and posttests of students’ audit knowledge allowed for a within-subjects self-assessment of knowledge acquisition. The results strongly suggest that participation in the IPLE improves students’ performance on a skills test of relevant audit material and increases their self-perceptions of knowledge gained. In addition, results indicate that both students and audit professionals consider the IPLE a positive professional learning experience.     

A study of firms surrounding the threshold of Sarbanes–Oxley Section 404 Compliance

This study examines whether firms surrounding the Sarbanes–Oxley Section 404 market value compliance threshold behave opportunistically to reduce their market value to avoid compliance with Section 404. We find evidence that those firms reduce their market value temporarily during threshold measurement quarters, whereas control firms experience increasing market value. We find strong evidence of dampened stock returns and some evidence of insider trading as means to reduce the float. Additionally, we find that downward earnings management is used as a mechanism to alter investors’ expectations of firm value in order to temporarily reduce stock prices. We consider this opportunistic evidence of regulatory avoidance. Finally, we find that the likelihood of avoidance increases with the power of the CEO and decreases with the strength of the monitoring of the CEO, which suggest that avoidance is more likely to happen in firms with poor corporate governance mechanisms.     

On Welfare Criteria and Optimality in an Endogenous Growth Model

In this paper, we explore the consequences for optimality of a social planner adopting two different welfare criteria. The framework of analysis is an overlapping generations model with physical and human capital. We first show that, when the social welfare function is a discounted sum of individual utilities defined over consumption per unit of natural labor, the precise cardinalization of the individual utility function becomes crucial for both the characterization of the social optimum and the policies that support it. Also, decentralizing the social optimum requires an education subsidy that is definitely positive, but its size depends in a determinant way on the aforementioned cardinalization. In contrast, when the social welfare function is a discounted sum of individual utilities defined over consumption per unit of efficient labor, the precise cardinalization of preferences becomes irrelevant. More strikingly, along the optimal growth path, the education subsidy is negative, i.e., the planner should tax rather than subsidize investments in human capital.     

Regional Economic Disparity,Financial Disparity,and National Economic Growth: Evidence from China

The dynamic relations among national economic growth, economic disparity, and financial disparity in China are examined. Specifically, the focus is on whether economic disparity or financial disparity affects national economic growth. As measures of economic and financial disparity across regions and provinces, the Williamson coefficient of disparity is employed using both regional data (eastern, central, and western) and provincial data (from 31 provinces). Overall, it is found that both provincial financial disparity and, to a lesser degree, economic disparity have a negative effect on national economic growth. In addition, financial disparity appears to be exogenous, suggesting that financial disparity is not influenced by either economic disparity or national economic growth.     

INTERSECTORAL ALLIANCE AND SOCIAL INNOVATION: WHEN CORPORATIONS MEET CIVIL SOCIETY

ABSTRACT: This article analyses an alliance between a public utility company and a consortium of Associations upholding consumer rights. The project consists of developing means in order to help customers with very low income in a collection situation by suggesting payment arrangements that would take account of their financial situation. Inter‐organizational collaboration is a way to increase the capacities of organizations and to apply leverage to existing resources so as to solve social problems more effectively by pooling together resources, skills and knowledge. We examine the making of this social innovation through the arrangements taking in three institutional dimensions: cognitive, normative and regulative. The case study shows that the legitimacy of the agreement was based on recombining the values of fairness and solidarity. The innovation process was rooted in the exchange of knowledge and access to resources based on the expertise of actors. The agreement moved beyond the experimental framework when it was diffused as a newly learned procedure which became an organizational routine.     

The Distorting Impact of Capital Controls

Abstract. This paper uses panel data to show that capital controls have a significant impact on international interest rate differentials. Various types of controls can be distinguished within the data. The analysis shows that the aforementioned effects of capital controls on interest rates are especially strong in the case of capital import controls on portfolio capital; the implementation of these controls has been suggested in the wake of the Asian Crisis to prevent further crises. The results presented herein contradict the hypothesis that capital controls can achieve a restructuring of the maturity of capital inflows without a distortion in international capital allocation.