Working musicians: exploring the rhetorical ties between musical labour and leisure

This essay explores the implications of a common but rarely examined trope about music, leisure and labour. The idea that music should appear effortless – that its execution should not require work – has shaped critical and consumer interpretation in a wide variety of historical settings. The trope of effortless music suggests that music is an outgrowth of one’s individual genius, heritage or social identity rather than a product of one’s labour. Close attention to the work involved in learning and performing music can expand our understanding of the multiple ways in which music creates value, and the historical ways in which the dialectic between conception and execution in modern capitalism have paralleled the distinctions between composition and performance in the Western music scholarship. Two historical case studies from the late nineteenth and early twentieth‐century US provide the evidence for my argument. I examine the overlapping discourses of musical effort and work in the world of female parlour pianists in the middle‐class home and among academic folksong collectors and some of the southern musicians whom they courted as informants. I conclude by suggesting what music history might look like if we chose to place the work of learning and performing music at the centre of the story.     

Über die verwendung von mittelwertprocessen in der bevölkerungsstatistik und in der Zinsrechnung

Abstract

Im Anschluss an die im Jahre 1916 erschienene Monographie von E. J. Gumbel: “Die Berechnung des Bevölkerungsstandes durch Interpolation” (Leipzig, Vogel) hat Verfasser dieser Zeilen den formalen Aufbau der für die Praxis einfachsten Interpolationsmethoden der mathematisch-statistischen Behandlung zugeführt; auf dieser Grundlage hat dann Gumbel die so erhaltenen verallgemeinerten Ansätze bereits auf praktische Fragen der Bevölkerungslehre angewendet. Im Folgenden sollen einige Resultate dieser Untersuchungen mitgeteilt werden, und zwar in Hinblick darauf, dass dieselben bei der Konstruktion von Volkssterbetafeln und bei der Ausarbeitung der Deckungssysteme in der Socialversicherung Verwendung finden können. Die für die Statistik und für die wirtschaftliche, Mathematik (z. B. Grundlegung der Zinsfunktionen). so wichtigen Mittelwertoperationen erscheinen erst durch die nähere methodische Bearbeitung in der für die zielbewusste Anwendung notwendigen Beleuchtung. Die mathematische Diskussion der Mittelwert-Interpolationen dünkt uns vom statistischen Gesichtspunkt als wesentlich, wenn auch der Verwaltungsstatistiker für primitivere Zwecke eine kürzere Behandlung der präcisen Auseinandersetzung bevorzugt. Dieser Standpunkt erweist sich als gerechtfertigt, sobald man — wie es z. B. in der Lebensversicherungstechnik der Fall ist — nicht nur Abschätzungen im Grossen vornimmt, sondern auf Grundlage des empirischen Materials feinere Berechnungen anstellt, deren numerisches Resultat von der Präcision der Ausgleichungsprocesse abhängt. Hauptziel der folgenden Betrachtung ist die genauere Festlegung der in der Verwaltungsstatistik üblichen rohen Interpolationsansätze, um auf diesem Wege solche Formeln zu gewinnen, die den Erfahrungen besser angepasst werden können und die es weiterhin ermöglichen, dass die Berechnung der auf den Interpolationsprocess beruhenden wichtigern Masszahlen (z. B. verlebte Zeit, Vermehrungsintensität, Fixirung partieller Bevölkerungsmassen, etc.) einer mathematjschen Kritik unterworfen werden können.     

Does the Linder effect hold for differentiated agri-food and beverage product trade?

Using a generalized gravity equation, this study tests for the Linder effect in differentiated agri-food product trade, i.e. as the demand structures of two countries become more similar, their trade intensity increases. Two proxies of demand structure, the Balassa index and the absolute value of the difference in per capita Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) of trading partners, are used to capture the Linder effect. In addition, two measures of bilateral trade, the Grubel and Lloyd (GL) index, and the value of bilateral trade are used as the dependent variable. This study investigates the role of the Linder effect in explaining the trade of 37 differentiated agri-food and beverage products categorized into eight product groups: cereals, fresh fish, frozen fish, vegetables, fresh fruit, processed fruit, tea and coffee and alcoholic beverages. The data covers trade across 52 developed and developing countries from 1990 to 2000. The type of proxy used for the Linder effect and the way in which bilateral trade is measured influence the outcome of the statistical tests for the Linder effect. The Linder effect for cereals, frozen fish, vegetables, processed fruits and tea and coffee, using the value of trade as the dependent variable, is often accepted, but it is generally rejected when the GL index is used as the measure of trade intensity. In brief, the results do not provide strong support for the Linder effect in the trade of differentiated agri-food products.     

Gesetzliche Mindestlöhne: mit der Einführung kommen die Tücken der Umsetzung

Looking around the world, one realizes that national minimum wages are not uncommon. Yet it is still very difficult to estimate what effects a minimum wage might have in Germany. This is not just a question of how high the minimum wage should be — its impacts would also depend on many details of practical implementation. The present article addresses these issues.     

Ungleiche Verteilung der Einkommen bremst das Wirtschaftswachstum

In Germany in the last decade, corporate incomes have increased much more sharply than private household incomes. At the same time, the inequality of household incomes has increased. High-income households have profited particularly from investment income and self-employment. The income gap has not widened further in recent years, but the high level of inequality already reached in 2005 has resulted in a sustained reduction of consumer spending. What is needed now is a level of income and wealth distribution that will strengthen domestic demand.     

Does Technological Innovation Really Reduce Marginal Abatement Costs? Some Theory,Algebraic Evidence,and Policy Implications

The existing literature models innovation in pollution control as a reduction in marginal abatement costs. We show that this assumption is inappropriate for production process innovations such as fuel switching. Algebraically, we examine the effects of different innovation types on marginal abatement cost curves, showing that some desirable innovations increase marginal abatement costs. Empirically, we estimate marginal abatement costs for sulfur dioxide by measuring the output distance function for electric power in Korea. Regression results confirm that production process innovations did raise marginal abatement costs in this case. One policy implication: economic instruments do not always provide stronger innovation incentives than command-and-control policies.      

Exploring technology paths: The development of alternative transport fuels in Sweden 2007-2020

By using socio-technical scenarios, we investigate how present policy choices may affect the development of alternative transport fuels in Sweden. One important choice for policy lies in the balance between general tax exemptions stimulating the market for alternative fuels, and funding of research and development more directly promoting new technology. The implications of this choice are illustrated with four diverging development paths until 2020. In the market-oriented scenarios, we illustrate consequences of breaking the dominance of entrenched technologies and demonstrating a growing market potential for alternatives, but also the risks with a large focus on first generation renewable fuels. In the technology-oriented scenarios, we point out the value of keeping variety among niches in this stage of the transition. In conclusion, if policy is implemented without taking the dynamic forces within the system into account, there is a risk that any measure leads the system into a dead end. But if policy strives to balance the development in different parts of the technological system while making use of various prevailing forces of change, a multitude of different efforts can contribute to the development of a more sustainable transport system.     

Turning Agents into Psychological Principals: Aligning Interests of Non‐Owners through Psychological Ownership

Principals who delegate tasks to agents face the perennial challenge of overcoming agency problems. We investigate whether feelings of ownership among senior managers in the absence of formal ownership can align agents' interests with those of principals, thus turning agents into psychological principals. Using a moderated mediation model, we find that psychological ownership is positively related to company performance through the mediating effect of individual‐level entrepreneurial behaviour. We also find that the effect of psychological ownership on individual‐level entrepreneurial behaviour and, ultimately, company performance is weaker for high levels of monitoring compared to low levels. These findings offer important contributions to agency, psychological ownership, and entrepreneurship literatures.