EVIDENCE FOR ELITE CONVERGENCE IN CROSS-NATIONAL HOMICIDE VICTIMIZATION TRENDS, 1956 TO 2000

The two dominant perspectives in cross-national comparative criminology (modernization and conflict) make competing predictions about the convergence of national crime rates over time. The modernization perspective predicts convergence in crime rates for all nations of the world whereas the conflict perspective predicts growing divergence between industrializing poor nations and highly industrialized rich nations. I also explore an intermediate possibility: that convergence is limited mostly to nations of the industrial elite. I use econometric methods to test for convergence and divergence in homicide victimization rates for 34 nations from 1956 to 2000. My results show the most support for an elite convergence model: although there are several examples of crime convergence among the nations in this study over time, all of these examples are drawn from the wealthy, highly industrialized nations.     

Economic convergence and life satisfaction in the European Union

The issue of convergence or divergence in the European Union (EU) is usually viewed from a macroeconomic perspective, using indicators such as the income per head, the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. Little attention has been paid to the possibility of an associated convergence in ‘well-being’ across countries. Since recent literature has shown that subjective well-being (life satisfaction, ‘happiness’) is significantly affected by macroeconomic variables, it is natural to ask not only whether or not subjective well-being converges, but also, whether, how and to what extent this process is linked to macroeconomic convergence. In this paper we use self-rated life satisfaction elicited in large scale surveys to address these questions. We find evidence of convergence of life satisfaction across the member states of the EU, which can be attributed to a considerable extent to the convergence in macroeconomic conditions. Among the various macroeconomic indicators, the convergence in inflation rates has played a major role for the convergence in life satisfaction.     

The Narrowing Regional Gap in Church Attendance in the United States1

Abstract Students of the South have postulated that southern distinctiveness is eroding. Using General Social Survey data for 1972–1991, the convergence hypothesis is tested for regular church attendance. Regional convergence is found, but only for the rural South. Also, narrowing of regional differences in church attendance is especially pronounced among the young, indicating that the convergence is likely to continue. Despite these results, present church attendance levels remain significantly higher in the South than in the non South.     

Income Inequality and Economic Convergence in Turkey

Even though the convergence of regional per capita incomes has been a highly debated issue internationally, empirical evidence regarding Turkey is both limited and contradictory. This paper is an attempt to investigate regional income inequality and convergence dynamics in Turkish gross domestic product. First, the Theil coefficient of concentration index has been employed in order to analyze the dispersion aspects of the convergence process which shows a procyclical character. Then, we investigate the convergence dynamics, taking regional interdependencies into account. Empirical results indicate that there is convergence at the national level. Moreover, the spatial error model is preferred by the model selection criteria, indicating that the typical least-squares regional convergence model is misspecified.     

MONETARY INTEGRATION, INFLATION CONVERGENCE AND OUTPUT SHOCKS IN THE EUROPEAN MONETARY SYSTEM

Studies on monetary convergence in Europe have reached mixed conclusions, raising questions about whether the European Monetary System failed to expedite convergence, or whether convergence requires redefining. A definition of convergence is explored that conditions monetary policy on factors affecting real exchange rates. Inflation rates have converged, while unconditional monetary policies have not. Once conditioning factors are considered, much of the gap between inflation and monetary convergence is explained. Differences in output trends do not explain the gap, while velocity variability does. (JEL F33)     

The Convergence Continuum: A Model for Studying Collaboration Between Media Newsrooms

This article offers a conceptual framework for filling a void in the research on convergence and for extending research into gatekeeping and diffusion of innovation. It offers the convergence continuum as a dynamic model that defines news convergence as a series of behavior-based activities illustrating the interaction and cooperation stages of staff members at newspapers, television stations, and Web organizations with news partnerships. The continuum's components provide media professionals with a better understanding of an evolutionary trend in their industry as they develop cross-media alliances. This article makes no attempt to quantify convergence efforts or any of the theories and concepts that inform the efforts; instead, it is an attempt to develop the conceptual and empirical tools needed to conduct such studies.     

Convergence in Foreigners’ Rights and Citizenship Policies? A Look at Japan

Citizenship laws and immigrant rights in rich, democratic countries are widely understood to be converging. Since most accounts of convergence are based on Western examples, Japan is an important test case. I distinguish three theoretical accounts of convergence: global‐institutionalist, liberal‐democratic, and problem‐solving perspectives. I then examine trends in foreigners’ rights in Japan since World War II in three domains: entrance, rights of residents, and citizenship. I find that convergence is occurring in the expansion of rights, partially in access to the territory, but not in formal citizenship. While the liberal‐democratic perspective fails to account for trends, a combination of global‐institutionalist and problem‐solving accounts provides the most powerful analytic insight into convergence processes.     

Converging on food sovereignty: transnational peasant activism,pluriversality and counter-hegemony

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to debates on left-wing convergence by reflecting on the convergence of a diverse transnational peasant movement around a value of and demand for food sovereignty. It reads convergence on food sovereignty through the idea of pluriversality developed by decolonial theorists. In so doing, it argues, first, that a politics of pluriversality has been key in fostering convergence on food sovereignty. Second, it suggests that convergence on food sovereignty highlights possibilities for convergence at a theoretical level across hitherto opposed decolonial and counter-hegemonic positions.     

Growing up global and equal? Inequality trends among world children, 1980–2005

Children are increasingly expected to grow up global yet their worldwide inequality is understudied; while countries’ incomes may be converging, it is unclear whether children's outcomes also do. This paper investigates the recent trends in global inequality among children. Findings show a fall in resource inequality, driven by Asia's exponential economic growth and Africa's slowing fertility trends. Paradoxically, this resource convergence occurred alongside divergence in infant mortality. Such findings have three implications. First, they caution against assuming automatic convergence in children's well-being in response to income convergence between nations. Second, they illustrate how national differences in age dependency account for global inequality among children. Third and more broadly, they stress the importance of demographic and policy – in addition to economic – convergence in bridging substantive inequality among the world‘s children.     

DISCONTINUITY OF OUTPUT CONVERGENCE WITHIN THE UNITED STATES: WHY HAS THE COURSE CHANGED?

Has the progress of output convergence changed within the United States? This article examines the output convergence among U.S. states for the last five decades by making several improvements over the extant literature. By applying a battery of convergence tests designed to capture nonlinear transitional dynamics to real output per worker data (i.e., nominal values deflated by state‐level price), we find that output convergence has not been a feature of the continental United States since the 1970s. Instead, output convergence has proceeded among four subgroups within which constituent states have certain characteristics in common. Our regression analysis suggests that state‐level characteristics related to technology and human capital play a crucial role in accounting for the formation and composition of convergence clubs, in agreement with the recent theoretical models of growth and development (e.g., Aghion et al. 2009; Gennaioli et al. 2013b). The level of technology, proxied by patents, turns out to be a consistently significant determinant even after controlling for endogeneity, suggesting that frictions in the diffusion of technology and human capital may have led to clustering of states with different levels of productivity. Our results therefore cast doubt on the common view that diffusion of knowledge and technology across state borders is frictionless. (JEL O47, O51)     

Rising Powers and Regional Orders: China's Strategy and Cross-Strait Relations

The neo-Gramscian approach has become popular within academic debates to theorize processes of global neoliberal convergence. But, it has also been challenged in the context of the ever more pronounced regionalizing tendencies of the current multipolar global order. This is especially so with the rise of China which introduces an alternative logic to regional social order formation processes from a typical neoliberal capitalist social order convergence. This paper argues, however, that a Gramscian approach can precisely account for such regional social order formation processes through the concept of regional historical blocs. This is demonstrated through a case study of the social order shaping effects that a Cross-Strait historical bloc forged between China's ‘contender state’-wielding elite bureaucracy and Taiwan's ascendant social forces has had on fostering Taiwan's internationalization toward China. This illustrates that, in addition to a broader global social order convergence process, a neo-Gramscian approach is equally useful to explain similarly defined regional social order convergence.     

Recent Trends in Metropolitan-Nonmetropolitan Fertility1

Abstract Although decline and convergence in metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) fertility levels are longterm trends, a detailed analysis of the period since 1970 shows a pattern of exceptions and conditions which underscore the need for giving continued attention to differences by residence. There was a divergence of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan fertility rates in the 1970–1980 decade, but the renewed convergence since 1980 has made an important contribution to the turnaround reversal of metropolitan-nonmetropolitan population change. This recent rate convergence is not a simple coming together of the age-specific rates, but the balancing of changes in opposite directions for younger and older women. Metro-nonmetro differences widened in favor of nonmetro for women 20–24 years of age and in favor of metro for women over 30 years of age. The apparent catching up of postponed first and second births is found primarily among metropolitan women over 30 years of age.     

Convergence in the OECD: Transitional Dynamics or Narrowing Steady-State Differences?

In this article we show that the picture emerging from models that allow for generalized parameter heterogeneity in convergence equations changes our view of the convergence process within the OECD. Estimation methods that allow for non- or partial heterogeneity stress the importance of transitional dynamics. Thus the observed reduction in the dispersion of per capita income is mostly explained by transitional dynamics. When generalized parameter heterogeneity is allowed for, we find that the observed narrowing of incomes has little bearing on transitional dynamics. Convergence in this case happens because the long-run features of these countries are becoming increasingly similar.     

Regional Infrastructure and Convergence: Growth Implications in a Spatial Framework

In this paper we contribute to the debate on convergence, by presenting an overview of the catch up process of the European regions between 1995 and 2006, focusing on both absolute and conditional β convergence. Our focus is on the role of infrastructure stocks in shaping the growth and convergence process between EU regions and to what extent the spatial dimension of the data affects results. We also explicitly examine the link between infrastructure evolution and regional economic growth with a spatial panel data approach. Our results confirm an ongoing convergence process at the EU regional level, and assess the important role of transport and telecommunication infrastructure, with traditional and spatial estimation techniques. We also confirm, in a panel setting, the strong positive correlation between transport and TLC indicators and GDP growth at the regional level.     

What is the Main Significance of Economic for Sociological Theory?

This paper reconsiders classical and neoclassical economics’ significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory. The paper identifies certain types or elements of classical and neoclassical economics that are potentially significant or convergent with sociological theory: pure market economics, the economics of society cum the “rational choice model”, and social or sociological economics. First, it argues that as pure economics economic theory’s significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory is low because the first is inconsistent with or divergent from the latter, notably theoretical economic sociology. Second, the paper suggests that as the economics of society economic theory’s significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory is non-existent or minimal, because the “rational choice model” is missing or an exception within conventional economics. Third, the paper proposes and demonstrates that classical and neoclassical economics’ main significance for or affinity and convergence with sociological theory lies in social economics as its second ingredient, alongside market economics. The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between economic and sociological theory and economics and sociology overall.     

Multilevel interterritorial convergence and additive multidimensional inequality decomposition

In this paper we justify the use of the between-groups S-convex relative inequality indices to measure interterritorial convergence. In addition, we provide two appealing extensions to the use of the additive decomposable General Entropy inequality indices. First, multilevel decomposition along several subpartitions is satisfied and a natural application to convergence decomposition along different territorial level arises. Second, further general inequality decomposition along several dimensions is also satisfied. Thus, this framework provides a better explanation of the determinants of convergence (and inequality) when it is decomposed into different dimensions in comparison with other indices available in the literature. Received: 21 May 1999/Accepted: 21 September 2000     

COMMUNITY, MOVEMENT, ORGANIZATION:

This article integrates resource mobilization and collective identity perspectives to show how understanding the degree of convergence of identities between a movement organization, its broader social movement, and the community in which it is located aids our analysis of social movement dynamics. The first part develops a model of identity convergence. The second part analyzes how identity convergence and divergence interacted with the movement resource base and affected the trajectory of the East Toledo neighborhood movement—a movement that changed over time from a protest movement to a development movement.     

基于信息化引领的产业融合研究

当前,信息产业融合型的增长模式正在快速改变着社会经济的运行方式。产业融合正在加速产业结构的变动,也在推动产业转型升级。产业间的融合渗透促进了新兴业务的活跃爆发,为产业发展带来了一股全新的力量。应当以此为契机,培育新一代产业增长极,以产业融合有力地推动战略性新兴产业发展。     

Organizational Effectiveness: An Empirical Comparision of the Goal and System Resource Approaches*

The goal and system resource approaches represent alternative conceptions of organizational effectiveness. The goal approach views effectiveness in terms of internal organizational objectives and performance. Organization-environment relations are the focus of the system resource approach, though previous applications of this perspective have been limited to profit-making organizations. This paper reconceptualizes the system resource approach for use in public agencies and examines the flow of organizational resources as an indicator of effectiveness. Goal approach indicators are matched with system resource measures in examining the convergence and consistency of the two approaches. The convergence of effectiveness measures is examined by observing the correlations between themselves and four organizational decision making variables that had previously been shown to be associated with effectiveness. An examination of the data collected through interviews with representatives of 110 public agencies reveals some consistency but no convergence between the two approaches.     

A LONG-RUN VIEW OF GERMAN DOMINANCE AND THE DEGREE OF POLICY CONVERGENCE IN THE EMS

A preliminary for European monetary union is convergence of the European Monetary System's members' policies. Using a cointegration framework with short-term interest rates and monetary bases as monetary policy measures, we find policy convergence has not occurred. Nor, contrary to popular belief, does the Bundesbank dominate other members' policies. Although the Bundesbank is influential, substantial policy interaction occurs among almost all the EMS countries examined. Finally, the "credibility" argument, that pegged exchange rate systems constrain and discipline monetary policymakers behavior, is undermined by our findings.