Should I stay or should I go? Congestion pricing and equilibrium selection in a transportation network

Theory and Decision - When imposing traffic congestion pricing around downtown commercial centers, there is a concern that commercial activities will have to consider relocating due to reduced...     

Family and work-related risk factors in children's social–emotional well-being and parent–educator cooperation in flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care

Non-standard work schedules (NSWS) have become typical, but their associations with childcare arrangements and children's well-being are unknown. This study explores how risk factors are associated with the social–emotional well-being of girls and boys using flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care. Furthermore, the study investigates whether well-functioning cooperation between parents and educators buffers the negative effects of the risk factors. This study, which is a part of a larger survey carried out in three European countries, reports Finnish parents' (N = 146) perspectives. The results showed that high parental stress was associated with low child well-being. Strong parent–educator cooperation positively impacted both boys' and girls' social–emotional well-being. The risk factors of reconciling work and family life had negative associations with children's well-being and the fulfilment of their basic needs. The results illustrate the complex interrelations between children's well-being, risk factors relating to NSWS and the buffering effect of protective factors.     

Multidimensional Pigou–Dalton transfers and social evaluation functions

We axiomatize, in the multidimensional case, a social evaluation function that can accommodate a natural Pigou–Dalton principle and correlation increasing majorization. This is performed by building upon a simple class of inframodular functions proposed by Müller and Scarsini under risk.     

Kenya Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012

Euan Cameron, The Reformation of the Heretics: The Waldenses of the Alps, 1480–1580 (1984), xviii+291 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £22.50).

Ruth McClure, Coram's Children: The London Foundling Hospitalin the Eighteenth Century (1981), xiii+321 (Yale University Press, New Haven, £15.00).

Anthony S. Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain (1983), 440 (J. M. Dent &; Sons, £17.50).

Melanie Tebbutt, Making Ends Meet: Pawnbroking and Working‐Class Credit (1983), ix+235 (Leicester University Press, £14.00).

Lewis Pyenson, Neohumanism and the Persistence of Pure Mathematics in Wilhelmian Germany (1983), xi+136 (American Philosophical Society Memoirs 150, Philadelphia, n.p.).

Ken Plummer, Documents of Life (1983), xiv+175 (George Allen &; Unwin, £12.95, paperback £5#lb95).     

English Catholics and the Supernatural, 1553–1829

Blanche Wiesen Cook (ed.), Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution (1979), xiv + 388 (Oxford University Press, £8.50, paperback £2.95); Patricia Hollis (ed.), Women in Public 1850–1900: Documents of the Victorian Women's Movement (1979), xxii + 336 (George Allen and Unwin, £8.50); Marylin J. Boxer and Jean H. Quataert (eds), Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1978), x + 260 (Elsevier, New York, $17.55, paperback $10.95); Gail Malm‐green, Neither Bread nor Roses: Utopian Feminists and the English Working Class, 1800–1850 (1978), 44 (Studies in Labour History pamphlet, John Noyce, Brighton, £1.20 libraries, 75P individuals)     

Changing households and changing cities, 1970–1980

Applying urban ecological theory, this article examines the extent to which patterns of household location changed during 1970–1980. Households that tended to concentrate in the central city in 1970 (nonfamily households and female-headed families) exhibited a penchant for suburban residence in 1980. Married couples with children, meanwhile, remained largely deconcentrated. The degree to which married couples with children were residentially segregated from the other households changed little over the period.     

Randomized dictatorship and the Kalai–Smorodinsky bargaining solution

“Randomized dictatorship,” one of the simplest ways to solve bargaining situations, works as follows: a fair coin toss determines the “dictator”—the player to be given his first-best payoff. The two major bargaining solutions, that of Nash (Econometrica 18:155–162, 1950) and that of Kalai and Smorodinsky (Econometrica, 43:513–518, 1975), Pareto-dominate this process (in the ex ante sense). However, whereas the existing literature offers axiomatizations of the Nash solution in which this ex ante domination plays a central role (Moulin, Le choix social utilitariste, Ecole Polytechnique Discussion Paper, 1983 ; de Clippel, Social Choice and Welfare, 29:201–210, 2007), it does not provide an analogous result for Kalai–Smorodinsky. This paper fills in this gap: a characterization of the latter is obtained by combining the aforementioned domination with three additional axioms: Pareto optimality, individual monotonicity, and a weakened version of the Perles–Maschler (International Journal of Game Theory, 10:163–193, 1981) super additivity axiom.     

The contingency of Senate consent: a study of the determinants of roll call confirmation voting on executive branch appointments, 1945–1996

I develop a model to explain U.S. Senate roll call confirmation vote tallys (i.e., the level of affirmative voting) for executive branch appointments submitted by the president from 1945 to 1996. The theoretical framework assumes senators as strategic actors operating within the confirmation context where many senators are cross-pressured between a norm of deference towards the appointing president which pervades the environment and their own policy/constituency agenda. The dampening effect on negative voting by this presidential leverage on appointments is attenuated when senators assess the situation and determine it is politically safer to vote to reject. The findings show that the grounds of opposition voiced against a nomination and aspects of the appointing president’s political strength are important components in explaining negative voting in confirmation roll calls.     

Migration to London and the development of the north–south divide, 1851–1911

This article uses census data for England and Wales covering the period 1851–1911 to provide new insights into patterns of migration to London. It examines several related themes including the role migration played in London’s growth during this period, age and gender differentials and distance travelled. Calculating net migration rates, the article demonstrates that after age 30, of those born outside of London, more left the Capital than came, yet over time an increasing proportion of the migrant population was retained. The proportion of family migrants fluctuated over the period, yet compared to others tended to travel shorter distances, a feature which increased over time with suburbanization. Turning to the geographical origins of migrants, London drew migrants from across the entirety of England and Wales. However, the data suggest that the migrant sex ratio became more homogeneous over time, with distinct pockets of male dominated migration that were visible in 1851 disappearing by 1911. Lastly, the article investigates migration from the perspective of place of departure rather than destination, as is traditionally the case. This reveals a distinct regional geography, suggesting that the present-day north–south divide was already evident in 1851, and became increasingly distinct over time.     

China–Africa financial markets linkages: Volatility and interdependence

The China–Africa relationship has blossomed in recent years and the scale and scope of Chinese engagement and investment in the latter have expanded enormously in the last decade. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the dynamic linkages and volatility transmission mechanisms between Chinese and African stock markets in recent years while highlighting the relative importance of Chinese capital flows and investments. We utilise dynamic forecasting models including Bayesian VAR and BEKK GARCH to estimate both price and volatility behaviours of Chinese and 15 selected African stock markets. Our empirical results indicate strong evidence of spillover effects in terms of both price movement and volatility behaviour, implying that Chinese and African stock markets are showing signs of integration. For price movement, bidirectional feedback relationships between Chinese and most of the African stock markets are observed, suggesting that both Chinese and African stock markets could influence each other. China has been building a strong African partnership and, therefore, increasing its trade and investment influences in the region. Examining volatility transmissions, at least one spillover effect (shock and/or volatility) from China to most of the African stock markets is reported. This suggests that the Chinese stock market now plays an influential role across African stock markets given that it has major investments in 46 out of 54 countries. Our findings show important portfolio management implications as a surge in Chinese investments provide new portfolio diversification opportunities for international investors. Policy-wise, we believe further market-oriented reforms and carefully designed and long-term development policies are required to boost capacity for development and achieve sustainable trade and growth.     

The US–China trade war and Phase One agreement

The Trump administration changed US trade policy toward China in ways that will take years for researchers to sort out. This paper makes four specific contributions to that research agenda. The first is to carefully mark the timing, definitions, and scale of the products subject to the tariff changes affecting US–China trade from January 20, 2017 through January 20, 2021. One result was each country increasing its average duty on the other to rates of roughly 20 percent, with the new tariffs and counter-tariffs covering more than 50 percent of bilateral trade. The second contribution is to highlight two additional channels through which bilateral tariffs changed during this period that received less research attention. One tariff change is through product exclusions, another is trade remedy policies of antidumping and countervailing duties. The third contribution is to provide an initial exploration into why China fell more than 40 percent short of meeting the goods purchase commitments set out under the first year of the Phase One agreement. The last contribution is to consider additional trade policy actions—involving forced labor, export controls for reasons of national security or human rights, and reclassification of trade with Hong Kong—likely to affect US–China trade beyond the Trump administration.     

Linguistic competition and education spending in Spain 1992–2008

Linguistic competition occurs when two or more linguistic groups vie against each other for resources from the same state. What are the effects of this competition on education spending? In this paper, we examine two competing explanations. On the one hand, there is the claim that increasing levels of ethno-linguistic diversity can decrease education spending. On the other hand, there is also the argument that education spending is higher when there is electoral competition. Using a newly assembled dataset of education spending at the subnational level for Spain (1992–2008), we test these two arguments. We find (1) while ethno-linguistic diversity matters for spending, the effect is not in the expected direction and (2) electoral competition can affect education spending. We also find that the type of education curriculum (monolingual versus bilingual) can moderate the effects of ethno-linguistic diversity. These results shed light on the commonly held belief that diversity stunts education spending.     

Brain–Computer Interface Devices: Risks and Canadian Regulations

Implantable Brain–Computer Interface (BCI) devices are currently in clinical trials in the U.S., and their introduction into the Canada could follow in the next few years. This article provides an overview of the research, developments, design issues, and risks in BCIs and an analysis of the adequacy of the regulatory framework in place for the approval of medical devices in Canada, emphasizing device investigational testing. The article concludes that until better safeguards are in place, to best protect potential research subjects, BCIs should not be approved for investigational testing in Canada.