Liberty and the Post‐utilitarian Society

Utilitarian foundations for limited government are shaky insofar as they assume rational and consistent individuals. Recently economists’ assumption of rational actors has come under sustained attack. Behavioural economics has suggested that people are plagued by irrational biases and inconsistencies. These developments have led to a post‐utilitarianism which is held to justify paternalistic interventions by the state via ‘sin taxes’, direct bans or new obligations. Individual responsibility is seriously undermined, as is faith in markets. Supporters of individual freedom need to move away from utilitarian reasoning, reassert core values of autonomy and responsibility, and define strict limits on the scope of government intervention.     

Cropping systems,structural change and rural-urban migration in Brazil

Rural out-migration is related interactively to differences in the structure of cropping systems. Individual, rational-decision explanations of migration are inseparable from structural, social explanations. In Cruz das Almas, a municipality in the north-eastern Brazilian state of Bahia, the principal cropping systems are based on production of cassava, tobacco and citrus fruit. Migration differences appear in response to different kinds of demographic pressure, to capital movements and to patterns of productive organization.     

Islam in Diaspora: Between Reterritorialization and Extraterritoriality

The concept of ‘diaspora’ seems to be a relevant framework for reading and understanding the parallel strategies of the settled state and mobility in contemporary flows of migration. This article presents a critical overview of the evolution of the concept, and then goes on to hypothesize the long‐term emergence of an Islamic diaspora in Europe, by analysing how Muslims today are reshaping their relations to time and space. The reappropriation of time is articulated on two distinct but complementary levels. The first is expressed through developments in interpretation of the religious sources (ijtihad), demonstrated by a dynamic of conflict in the reterritorialization of the Revelation: the adaptation of Koranic categories to new sets of social issues, individual reappropriation of the Text, the questioning of consistency between belief and normative behaviour by women and young people. The second, more complex level reflects the creation of a form of subjectivity through the development of collective memory and identity. In this, the structuring of a Muslim ‘community’ stumbles against difficulty in accepting the legitimacy of internal pluralism, which is reflected in the struggles between movements and religious leaderships for control of codes of meaning and symbolic boundaries. In contrast, the appropriation of space appears to be broadly under way: this is demonstrated by the successful integration of the majority of Muslims into the local urban space in Europe. This parallel process of settlement and transnational mobility is made possible by the current vitality of the field of religion – a spiritual extraterritoriality that enables fluid, pragmatic management of integration into the European space. Thus, the diaspora is becoming a true social laboratory, in which a flexible category of belonging is developing. La condition diasporique apparait comme une grille de lecture pertinente pour appréhender les stratégies parallèles de sédentarisation et de mobilité des flux migratoires contemporains. Après une synthèse critique de l’évolution du concept, on fait ici l’hypothèse de l’émergence à long terme d’un islam de diaspora en Europe en analysant comment les musulmans y recomposent aujourd’hui leur rapport au temps et à l’espace. La réappropriation du temps s’articule sur deux plans distincts mais complémentaires. Le premier s’exprime à travers l’évolution de l’interprétation des sources religieuses (ijtihad) qui se traduit par une dynamique conflictuelle de re‐territorialisation de la Révélation: adaptation des catégories coraniques aux nouvelles problématiques sociales, réappropriation individuelle du Texte, questionnement des femmes et des jeunes sur la cohérence entre croyance et conduite normative. Le deuxième plus complexe, exprime une subjectivité en marche qui passe par l’élaboration d’une mémoire et d’une identité collective. C’est ainsi que la structuration d’une ‘communauté’ musulmane trébuche encore sur la difficile acceptation de la légitimité d’un pluralisme interne que reflátent les luttes entre mouvements et leadership religieux pour le controle des codes de sens et des frontiáres symboliques. L’appropriation de l’espace apparait par contre largement entamée: en témoigne l’insertion réussie de la majorité des musulmans dans l’espace local urbain européen. Le processus parallále de sédentarisation et de mobilité transnationale est rendue possible grace à l’actuelle vitalité du champ religieux, extra‐territorialité spirituelle, qui permet ainsi une gestion fluide et pragmatique de l’insertion dans l’espace européen. La diaspora devient alors un véritable laboratoire social où s’élabore une catégorie flexible de l’appartenance.     

Feedback Trading and Autocorrelation Patterns in Sub-Saharan African Equity Markets

This article examines feedback trading and autocorrelation pattern of stock returns in the equity markets of Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. We find evidence that positive feedback trading induces negative autocorrelation in the stock returns of Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. The negative autocorrelation occurs during periods of increasing volatility, and all the four equity markets exhibit volatility asymmetry. We also find that Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa were influenced by the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, and South Africa experienced the largest impact. These findings may have implications for risk management and price discovery in these equity exchanges.     

The dynamics of environmental innovations: three stylised trajectories of clean technology

In this article, we explore the dynamics of environmental innovations developed by firms to comply with environmental regulations. Our analysis is based on a micro-simulation model of industrial dynamics. The question arises: how do firms competing in the same industry deal with environmental issues without altering their productive efficiency or the performance of the product? We focus on clean technology which seeks to combine environmental and productive dimensions by way of innovation offsets. Our simulations show that an innovative strategy based on a good balance between environmental and productive dimensions takes more time to develop and needs to address a ‘competence destroying effect’. Finally, we study favourable conditions for the development of this type of clean technology and draw some policy implications.     

Is there growth impact of tourism? Evidence from selected small island states

This study investigates the growth impact of international tourist arrivals on carbon emissions in selected small island states via Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. The study employed a panel-based multivariate model for seven small islands between the periods of 1995 and 2013 to evaluate the long-run equilibrium relationships between international tourism and carbon emissions through the channels of energy consumption and economic growth. Findings from the panel cointegration results show the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables of interest. International tourist arrivals have a negatively significant impact on carbon dioxide emissions in the long run. Thus, we infer that the law of diminishing marginal returns with regard to tourism-induced EKC hypothesis holds in the case of small island states.     

A dynamic policy license for flexible spectrum management

Electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communications is fully allocated by regulatory authorities, but this does not mean that it is fully utilized. Demand for greater capacity and new services requires new regulatory and technical models for spectrum sharing. This paper develops a regulatory model denoted the dynamic policy license. The dynamic policy license combines the assurances to licensees that come from holding a fixed license while maintaining regulatory flexibility. A dynamic policy license is similar to a traditional spectrum license that specifies a bandwidth, power, center frequency, location, and other parameters. However, one or more of these parameters is subject to change by the regulator over time. The allowed changes are restricted by the license to provide assurances and predictability to the licensee. The opportunities and challenges that this presents to both regulators and licensees is described. For instance, the dynamic policy license can be a regulatory tool for more aggressive spectrum sharing.     

Power, Distributive Conflicts, and Multiple Growth Paths

This article shows that multiple growth paths may occurin a politico-economic model of endogenous growth. This multiplicityis characterized by the coexistence of the low-tax, low-capital-flightequilibrium and a high-tax, high-capital-flight equilibrium.The likelihood of multiplicity is crucially related to the structureof power in society—namely, it is necessary that the politicallydecisive agents have a greater access to international capitalmarkets than the average in the economy.     

Farming for energy: social options under Brazil's National Alcohol Programme

The first 5 years of the Brazilian National Alcohol Programme are assessed in terms of their stated social objectives of reducing regional inequalities and rural-urban income disparities, and expanding employment opportunities. The effects of energy production systems based on the two principal competing energy feedstocks, sugar cane and cassava, are compared in terms of these objectives, as well as their impact on land distribution, food supply, migration and environment. Greater use of cassava is clearly indicated from a social standpoint, but initial policies, influenced by institutional interests, have favoured sugar cane. Possible strategies for enhancing the Programme's social development potential are suggested.     

Sectoral systems of environmental innovation: An application to the French automotive industry

This article seeks to show how a sectoral system approach may contribute to the analysis of the determinants of environmental innovations. By using Malerba's [F. Malerba: Sectoral systems of innovation and production, Res. Policy Vol. 102, 845-859, (2002)] concept of sectoral system of innovation and production, we develop a sectoral framework based on three building blocks: technological regimes, demand conditions and environmental and innovation policy. Within this framework, the sectoral patterns of environmental innovation result from the interplay between these three blocks. The conceptual framework is applied to the case of the French automotive industry, with a specific focus on the development of low emission vehicles. The analysis shows how technological regime and demand conditions lead to technological inertia, and so to a strong persistence of the dominant design. Finally, environmental and innovative policy are considered in an integrated way, so that we can study how they influence technological regime and demand conditions, and in the meantime how they are conditioned by these two blocks.