Understanding conflicting views of endocrine disruptor experts: a pilot study using argumentation analysis

Abstract

To what extent do substances have the potential to cause adverse health effects through an endocrine mode of action? This question elicited intense debates between endocrine disrupting substances (EDS) experts. The pervasive nature of the underlying differences of opinion justifies a systematic analysis of the argumentation put forward by the experts involved. Two scientific publications pertaining to EDS science were analyzed using pragma-dialectical argumentation theory (PDAT). PDAT’s methodology allowed us to perform a maximally impartial and systematic analysis. Using PDAT, the structure of the argumentation put forward in both publications was reconstructed, main standpoints, and arguments were identified, underlying unexpressed premises were made explicit and major differences in starting points were uncovered. The five differences in starting points identified were subdivided into two categories: interpretative ambiguity about underlying scientific evidence and normative ambiguity about differences in broader norms and values. Accordingly, two differences in starting points were explored further using existing risk and expert role typologies. We emphasize that particularly the settlement of normative ambiguity, through the involvement of broader ethical, social or political values, inherently requires multi-stakeholder approaches. Extrapolation of our findings to the broader discussion on EDS science and further exploration of the roles of EDS experts in policy processes should follow from further research.     

Inflation and Default Dynamics

Changes in inflation, particularly if they are sharp, can have important consequences for nominal contracts, especially debt instruments such as fixed-rate bonds. This paper examines the intricate dynamics of inflation and defaults. The experience of the United States during the past four decades is subjected to empirical analysis to examine how the nature of the relationship changed as we shifted from a high inflation to a low inflation regime. The paper is organized as a three-part study. We initially examine the U.S. default experience, as summarized in Moody's speculative grade default rate, along with industry differences. The paper then scrutinizes U.S. inflation dynamics as seen in different summary measures of the general price level and delves into pricing power issues. The study proceeds to examine co-movements in the inflation and default series from a theoretical and empirical standpoint and the results confirm the intuitive postulate: higher the inflation rate, the more pricing power companies have; greater pricing power leads to, better earnings and repayment abilities for firms and a lower incidence of defaults.     

Governing farmland conversion: Comparing China with the Netherlands and Germany

Farmland conversion has become an increasing concern in China and other parts of the world, including Europe and the USA. Be it for environmental or food security reasons, questions arise concerning how urbanization should be governed, i.e. what rules and regulations could enhance the efficiency and sustainability of land use. Taking a first step toward answering such questions, this paper describes different governance structures for farmland conversion in the Netherlands, Germany, and China. Secondly, it compares five identified differences between these countries in the realms of land property, land use planning, the role of the market, the role of government, and the performance of governance structures. The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach for comparing governance structures for land conversion that: (a) offers some opportunities for exchange of experience between the three countries and (b) provides a framework for further research on governance structures in farmland conversion.     

The impact of monetary policy on the financing behaviour of firms in the Euro area and the UK

Abstract

According to the ‘broad credit view’ bank-dependent firms are more strongly affected by monetary contractions than firms with access to non-bank forms of external finance. Within the credit view the bank lending channel focuses on the special role of bank loans, and predicts that monetary contractions reduce loan supply to firms facing information problems. However, the ‘relationship lending channel’ argues that, especially in bank-based economies, bank-dependent firms have close ties with banks, which may reduce the sensitivity of their use of bank debt to monetary shocks. The sensitivity of corporate debt structures to changes in the monetary policy stance is analysed using a sample of 22,000 firms in the Euro area and the UK. Evidence is found for the credit view, the relationship lending channel, but not for the bank lending channel.     

A Spatial Interpretation of the Density Dependence Model in Industrial Demography

In this paper the density dependence model, which was developed in organizational ecology, is compared to the economic-geographical notion of agglomeration economies. There is a basic resemblance: both involve some form of positive feedback between size of the population and growth. The paper explores how the theoretical concepts compare to each other, and if an interdisciplinary cross-fertilization between both is fruitful. It is found that there are a number of important similarities in the underlying theories. These refer to the process of legitimation, which has some close similarities to concepts derived from theories of new industrial districts, such as social capital, institutional thickness, and innovative milieux. Differences remain important as well. For instance, the sociological interpretation of competition is not transferable into notions of agglomeration economies. An important conclusion is that agglomeration effects can and should be incorporated into the density dependence model.     

Moral Hazard and Reciprocity

We investigate the motives behind reciprocal behavior by making selfish acts anonymous and not common knowledge. In one treatment, subjects were assigned to the role of proposer or responder and played a trust game with random matching for 20 rounds. In a second treatment, the modified game, the procedures were the same, but responders were allowed to choose with only 80% probability. With 20% probability, responders were restricted to keep any money passed. Only responders knew whether they were restricted or not. We find that the behavior of responders is different in this modified trust game. The fact that responders can hide selfish acts generates more selfish behavior. This in turn makes proposers less likely to pass money to responders, thereby destroying trust. We find important session effects in the standard trust game but less so in the modified game. Our experiments show that information conveyed in actions is important to subjects' decisions.     

Water markets as a vehicle for water reform: the case of New South Wales

Water reform in NSW is being undertaken using an adaptive approach in recognition of the uncertainty and imperfect knowledge embodied in the riverine environment. However, the reform process also relies, in part, on the ability of markets for tradable water entitlements to develop and thereby assist in allocating scarce water resources to their highest value use. This article explores impediments to the formation of efficient markets in permanent tradable water entitlements in NSW. The article concludes that more attention should be paid to market failures and related problems which manifest themselves in thin markets for permanent water entitlements.     

A polarization-cohesion perspective on cross-country convergence

Understanding whether the gap between rich and poor country wellbeing is narrowing is really about whether rich and poor groups can be identified in the overall size distribution of the characteristic of interest, and how those respective subgroup size distributions are changing. Here two simple statistics for analyzing the issue are introduced which are capable of discerning, in many dimensions, changes in the underlying distributions which reflect combinations of increasing (decreasing) subgroup location differences and decreasing (increasing) subgroup spreads, which are the characteristics of polarization (de-polarization). When applied in an examination of the distribution of lifetime GDP per capita over time, the population weighted version exhibits de-polarization and the unweighted version exhibits polarization. As a collection of countries, Africa is diverging from the rest of the world regardless of the weighting scheme.     

The development of a conceptual model of greening in the business events tourism sector

This paper examines the process of corporate greening, and proposes a general conceptual model of the process, which may be relevant in a number of different corporate sectors. The model includes drivers of greening and barriers to greening and also the organisational context in which greening decisions are taken. In addition, this paper considers the role of media coverage in influencing pro-environmental behaviour amongst organisations. The paper then tests the model in one particular tourism context – that of business events – in order to ascertain the specific nature of the corporate greening process in that context. The paper concludes that the general model may be applied to a number of industry sectors, and the model specific to business events tourism may be used to underpin future research in this area.