A Choice Experiment Approach to the Valuation of Mortality

This paper presents an integrated framework for evaluating the reduction of several types of mortality risk using a Choice Experiment (CE) approach, a type of stated preference technique. Using this approach, we can distinguish the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for the amount of risk reduction from the MWTP for the opportunity of risk reduction and therefore calculate the “Quantity-based” Value of a Statistical Life. The risks in our survey include mortality risks due to accident, cancer, and heart disease. The Quantity-based VSL is calculated to be 350 million JPY (in 2002 Japanese Yen, about 2.9 million US dollars). Furthermore, we analyzed the influence of subjective risk perception and population characteristics of the respondents on their MWTP. Estimated results suggest that it is unnecessary to adjust the VSL according to the differences in the type of risk if the VSL is calculated using an adequate approach. However, adjustments for the timing of risk reduction and population characteristics are found to be significant for the execution of benefit transfer.JEL Classification: I18, D81, J17     

The effects of free trade areas on non-members: Modelling Kemp–Vanek admissibility

A multi-sector multi-country Numerical General Equilibrium model is used to endogenously determine the trade taxes that FTA members need to charge on non-member trade so that after the FTA is formed, FTA-member trade volumes with non-members remain at their pre-FTA level. We apply the notion of Kemp–Vanek admissibility in McMillan [McMillan, J. (1993), Does regional integration foster open trade? Economic theory and GATT's Article XXIV” In Anderson, K. & R. Blackhurst (Eds.), Regional Integration and the Global Trading System. London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf] to construct an FTA which does not make non-members of the FTA worse off, ensuring that the FTA is necessarily a building block and not a stumbling block to global free trade. We implement the path-independent welfare decomposition in Harrison et al. [Harrison, G., Rutherford, T. & Wooton, I. (1993). An alternative welfare decomposition for customs unions. Canadian Journal of Economics, 26(4), 961–68]. Results of such experiments are relevant to the current debate under the WTO's Doha Round of trade negotiations over GATT (1994) Article XXIV which evaluates the consistency of FTAs with the WTO.     

Government size and economic growth in Taiwan: A threshold regression approach

The Armey curve developed by [Armey, R. (1995). The freedom revolution. Washington, DC: Rognery Publishing Co.] and [Vedder, R. K., & Gallaway, L. E. (1998). Government size and economic growth. Joint Economic Committee] demonstrates that there is a non-linear relationship between government size and economic growth. In order to search for the threshold effects, this paper employs [Hansen, B. E. (2000). Sample splitting and threshold estimation. Econometrica, 68(3), 575–603] threshold regression model to test whether the Armey curve exists in Taiwan, allowing for endogenous government size thresholds. We apply the two-sector production function developed by [Ram, R. (1986). Government size and economic growth: A new framework and some evidence from cross-section and time-series data. American Economic Review, 76(1), 191–203] to construct the threshold regression model. Three classifications of government size are tested in sequence as threshold variables. The result indicates that all three classifications of government size have a threshold effect and that a non-linear relationship of the Armey curve exists in Taiwan.     

Where o’ where did my baseball cards go?: Race,performance, and placement in the Topps ERA, 1956–1980

On the surface, baseball cards appear to be little more than uninteresting object of child's play; yet they provide invaluable data for assessing unique aspects of the social order. They reveal much about the state of society when they were produced and the people who collected them. This paper examines the unique numbering system the Topps company developed to differentiate among the “royalty of the diamond” from 1956 to 1980. Their system assigned to each card in a set a number that explicitly designated its placement, while implicitly establishing a hierarchical ordering among the players, ostensibly based on performance. It is arguable whether the numbering system Topps developed was based on performance or the ascribed characteristic of race. The results of our work suggest that player performance, not race, was the primary factor in the assignment of “prestigious” card numbers in Topps’ system.     

Hungary in transition: a computable general equilibrium model comparison with Austria

We approach the problem of Hungary's transformation from a partially centrally planned to a market-oriented economy with a cross-country comparison using two computable general equilibrium (CGE) models of Hungary, 1977 and 1986, and one of Austria, 1976. These three models represent a continuum of small open economies and allow a “quasidynamic” analysis using static CGE models. We examine two types of transformation issues: external (trade liberalization, import price reductions, and redirection of foreign trade; “Dutch Disease reversal”) and internal (decreases in subsidy levels). Overall, it is clear that with Hungary's borrowing constraints, liberalization should not be pursued in isolation; a change in the tax structure is necessary at the same time. The results for Austria indicate that liberalization brings smaller welfare improvements accompanied by smaller increases in the current account and government deficits.     

Capacity Updating Rules and Rational Belief Change

Choquet expected utility substitutes capacities for subjective probabilities to explain uncertainty aversion and related phenomena. This paper studies capacities as models of belief. The notions of inner and outer acceptance context are defined. These are shown to be the natural acceptance contexts when belief expansion is described by naïve Bayesian and Dempster–Shafer updating of capacities respectively. We also show that Eichberger and Kelsey's (1999b) use of Dempster–Shafer updating as a model of belief revision may lead to violations of the AGM axioms for rational belief change.     

Explaining a productive decade

This paper analyzes the sources of U.S. productivity growth in recent years using both aggregate and industry-level data. We confirm the central role for information technology (IT) in the productivity revival during 1995–2000 and show that IT played a significant, though smaller, role after 2000. Productivity growth after 2000 appears to have been boosted by industry restructuring and cost cutting in response to profit pressures, an unlikely source of future strength. In addition, the incorporation of intangible capital into the growth accounting framework takes some of the luster off the performance of labor productivity since 2000 and makes the gain during 1995–2000 look larger than in the official data. Finally, we examine the outlook for trend growth in labor productivity; our estimate, though subject to much uncertainty, is centered at a year, faster than the lackluster pace that prevailed before 1995 but somewhat slower than the 1995–2006 average.     

Black portraits in African-American literature: A perpective from 1920–1996, including the midwest

What is the effect of sociocultural conditioning in creating black portraits in African-American literature? As twentieth century cultural attitudes change, stereotyped portraits have evolved to more individualized portraits. The question of how these changes have occurred caused me to research the “spirit or ethos” of selected black literature from 1920–1996. After screening various works, I selected authors representing the Harlem Renaissance 1920–1930; the Depression Era 1930–1940; World War II and the Post-War Period 1940–1960; Civil Rights/Black Power Movement 1960–1970; and Contemporary Literature 1970–1996. The results show these particular qualities in African-American Literature: use of explicit, distinctive language and folk idioms; protests against dehumanization and victimization; awakened moral and racial consciousness; emphasis on cultural nationalism; rebellion against racism, and a private search for self-realization by the characters.     

What accounts for China''s trade balance dynamics?

This paper proposes a structural VAR model which extends the frameworks of Hoffmaister and Roldós [Hoffmaister, A. W., & Roldós, J. E. (2001). The sources of macroeconomic fluctuations in developing countries: Brazil and Korea. Journal of Macroeconomics, 23, 213–239] and Prasad [Prasad, E. S. (1999). International trade and the business cycle. Economic Journal, 109, 588–606]. The model is then used to analyse the sources of China's trade balance fluctuations in the period of 1985–2000. Efforts are made to distinguish the forces which underlie the long-run trend in trade balance from those with transitory impacts. The effects of four types of shock are examined—the foreign supply shock, the domestic supply shock, the relative demand shock and the nominal shock. Among other findings, two emerge as important. First, the movements in China's trade balance are largely the result of real shocks. Second, the Renminbi is undervalued, yet changes in the exchange rate bear little on the trade balance. Therefore, monetary measures would not suffice to redress China's trade ‘imbalance’.     

Environmental Consequences of the Community Support Framework 1994–99 in Spain

In this article we consider the energy and environmental implications of the extra GDP growth that the CSF, for the period 1994–99, is capable of entailing. In doing so, we have developed an illustration of the so-called three Es approach: economy–energy–environment. The extra growth induced by the CSF package and its incremental effects on energy consumption and CO₂ emissions have been evaluated against an energy–economy baseline provided by the HERMIN-Spain model and the Spanish energy plan (PEN). The most salient aspect of the analysis performed is that the energy-saving and emission-cutting margins embodied in the so-called PEN scenario (due to energy substitution and energy efficiency) are rapidly exhausted when growth accelerates, for example, due to a CSF like shock. However, these margins also reveal the promising prospects of progrowth strategies with high energy-efficiency content.     

Product evaluation bias under minimal group situations

The present study was designed to identify the source of product evaluation bias. Three experiments were conducted to see if the evaluation bias occur in the minimal group situation defined by [Tajifel, H., Billig, M., Bundy, R., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149–178], and to determine the factors responsible for making evaluation bias. Relative measure of product evaluation played a major role in producing an evaluation bias in minimal group situation. Similarly, relative measure of distribution was a critical factor affecting distribution bias. The possible boundary condition of [Tajifel, H., Billig, M., Bundy, R., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149–178] minimal group situation in evaluation bias were also discussed.     

Hunger: A Modern History

Anthony Fletcher, Reform in the Provinces. The Government of Stuart England (1986), 386 (Yale University Press, London, £22.00).

Joan R. Kent, The English Village Constable, 1580–1642. A Social and Administrative Study (1986), 325 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £27.50).

David W. Howell, Patriarchs and Parasites: The Gentry of South‐West Wales in the Eighteenth Century (1986), xii + 310 (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, £27.00).

Gary B. Nash, Race, Class, and Politics: Essays on American Colonial and Revolutionary Society, with a Foreword by Richard S. Dunn (1986), xxii + 370 (University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, $37.50, paperback $15.95).

Joan M. Jensen, Loosening the Bonds: Mid‐Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850 (1986), xv + 271 (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, £25.00).

Toby L. Ditz, Property and Kinship: Inheritance in Early Connecticut, 1750–1820 (1986), xvi + 213 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, £21.80).

Steven Laurence Kaplan and Cynthia J. Koepp (eds), Work in France. Representations, Meaning, Organization, and Practice (1986), 576 (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, $47.50).

Catharina Lis, Social Change and the Labouring Poor: Antwerp, 1770–1860, trans. by James Coonan (1986), 1 + 237 (Yale University Press, £16.50).

Roger Davidson, Whitehall and the Labour Problem in Late‐Victorian and Edwardian Britain (1985), ix + 293 (Groom Helm, £18.95).

Rodney Lowe, Adjusting to Democracy. The Role of the Ministry of Labour in British Politics 1916–1939 (1986), viii + 284 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £27.50).

Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution (1986), vol. 1, xxiv + 619; vol. 2, xxiv + 679 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £37.50 per volume).

Emily Honig, Sisters and Strangers, Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919–1949 (1986), ix + 299 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, $37.50).

John F. Sweets, Choices in Vichy France: the French under Nazi Occupation (1986), x + 240 (Oxford University Press, New York, £22.50).

Robert A. Slayton, Back of the Yards: The Making of a Local Democracy (1986), xiv + 278 (University of Chicago Press, £18.75).

Paul Kleppner, Chicago Divided: The Making of a Black Mayor (1985), xviii + 313 (Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, 111., $26.00, paperback $9.50).

Bernard Elbaum and William Lazonick (eds), The Decline of the British Economy (1986), vii + 310 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £25.00).

Tony Judt, Marxism and the French Left: Studies on Labour and Politics in France 1830–1981 (1986), ix + 338 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £25.00).     

Economic globalization and violent civil conflict: Is openness a pathway to peace?

There has been little systematic assessment of the impact of globalization on armed conflict within states. Drawing from bargaining theories of conflict, we posit that the global marketplace functions as an “audience” that rewards or punishes the policy choices of states. Globalization, which connotes an increased exposure to this marketplace, increases the relevance of the “costs” that this “audience” may impose. These prospective costs thus encourage peace and stability, as states that are integrated into the global economy have more to lose by instigating and sustaining violent conflict within their borders. Employing a two-stage Heckman Model, we assess the impact of various facets of globalization, including access to information, trade, foreign investment and aid flows, on intrastate conflict within the developing countries for 1990–1996.     

The Right to Remain Silent

The paper points out that in dynamic games a player may be better-off if other players do not know his choice of strategy. That is, a player may benefit by not revealing (or not pre-determining) the choice of his action in an information set he (thereby) hopes will not be reached. He would be better-off by exercising his ``right to remain silent' if he believes –- as the empirical evidence shows –- that players display aversion to ``Knightian uncertainty'. In this case, a player who behaves strategically, may wish to avoid revealing his strategy. This is true under various interpretations of the notion of ``strategy profiles'.     

Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City

Barry Reay (ed.), Popular Culture in Seventeenth Century England (1985), 319 (Croom Helm, £19#lb95).

David Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England 1603–1660 (1985), xii + 324 (Oxford University Press, £17#lb50).

Gary Stuart De Krey, A Fractured Society: The Politics of London in the First Age of Party, 1688–1715 (1985), xvi + 304 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £25#lb00).

Gary Kates, The Cercle Social, the Girondins and the French Revolution (1985), xiv + 325 (Princeton University Press, £35#lb00).

John Belchem, Orator Hunt, Henry Hunt and English Working‐Class Radicalism (1985), xii + 304 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £25#lb00).

William H. Sewell, jun., Structure and Mobility: The men and women of Marseille, 1820–1870 (1985), xvi + 377 (Cambridge University Press, £32#lb50).

Angela V. John, Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England 1800–1918 (1986), 289 + index (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, £25#lb00 hardback, £6#lb95 paperback).

Patricia Hilden, Working Women and Socialist Politics in France, 1880–1914: A Regional Study (1986), x + 307 (Oxford University Press, £25#lb00).

Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn‐of‐the‐Century New York (1986), xi + 244 (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, $24#lb95).

Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee (eds), The German Peasantry: Conflict and Community from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (1986), xiii + 305 (Croom Helm, £22#lb50).

W. F. Bynum, Roy Porter and Michael Shepherd (eds), The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry, 2 vols (1985), xiv + 316; xiv + 283 (Tavistock Publications, £19#lb95 each volume.).     

A test of the Core,Bargaining Set,Kernel and Shapley models in n-person quota games with one weak player

n-person (n – 1)-quota-games where the quotas are positive for certain n – 1 (strong) players and negative for the remaining (weak) player, are discussed. Normative solutions predicted by the Core,the Kernel, the Bargaining Set, the Competitive Bargaining Set, and by the Shapley Value are presented and exemplified.Each of twelve groups of subjects participated in a four-person and a five-person (n – 1)-quota games with one weak player. The weak player was always excluded from the ratified coalition. The division of payoffs among the strong players was more egalitarian than the Kernel solution but less egalitarian than the Shapley value. The Core and the Bargaining Sets were fully supported for the two strongest players, but less supported for the other players. Analyses of the bargaining process confirmed a dynamic interpretation of the Bargaining Set Theory.This research was performed while the author was at the University of North Carolina. The research was partially supported by a PHS Research Grant No. MH-10006 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The author thanks Professor Amnon Rapoport for helpful advice in the design of this study.     

Gourmets in the Land of Famine: The Culture and Politics of Rice in Modern Canton

John T. Swain, Industry before the Industrial Revolution. North‐East Lancashire c. 1500–1640 (1986), xii + 235 (Manchester University Press for the Chetham Society, third series, vol. XXXII, Manchester, £27.50).

James Sutherland, The Restoration Newspaper and its Development (1986), ix + 262 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £25.00).

Cyril Ehrlich, The Music Profession in Britain since the Eighteenth Century. A Social History (1985), viii + 269 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £22.50).

Brian Young, In its Corporate Capacity: The Seminary of Montreal as a Business Institution, 1816–1878 (1986), xix + 295 (McGill‐Queen's University Press, Kingston and Montreal, $30.00).

J. A. Yelling, Slums and Slum Clearance in Victorian London (1986), xiii + 160 (George Allen &; Unwin, £25.00).

Zuzanna Shonfield, The Precariously Privileged: A Professional Family in Victorian London (1987), xix + 266 (Oxford University Press, £17.50).

John Springhall, Coming of Age. Adolescence in Britain 1860–1060 (1986), 270 (Gill &; Macmillan, Dublin, £30.00).     

Modern marriage and ancient evidence

Harvey J. Graff, The Legacies of Literacy. Continuities and Contradictions in Western Culture and Society (1987), x + 493 (Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, $57.50).

Miri Rubin, Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge (1987), xiv + 365 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £30.00).

Herbert P. Bix, Peasant Protest in Japan, 1590–1884 (1986), xxxviii + 296 (Yale University Press, £30.00).

Stephen Vlastos, Peasant Protests and Uprisings in Tokugawa Japan (1986), xii + 184 (University of California Press, £16.95).

Howard Newby, Country Life: A Social History of Rural England (1987), 250 (Weidenfeld &; Nicolson, £14.95).

Pat Hudson, The Genesis of Industrial Capital: A Study of the West Riding Wool Textile Industry c. 1750–1850 (1986), xiii + 345 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £25.00).

R. J. Morris (ed.), Class, Power and Social Structure in British Nineteenth‐century Towns (1986), xiii + 222 (Leicester University Press, Leicester, £27.50).

Barbara Caine, Destined to be Wives. The Sisters of Beatrice Webb (1986), xvi + 276 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, £15.00).

Pat Jalland, Women, Marriage and Politics 1860–1914 (1986), xii + 366 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £19.50).

Frederick Cooper, On the African Waterfront. Urban Disorder and the Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombasa (1987), xvi + 290 (Yale University Press, New Haven, £25.00).

Donald Howard Bell, Sesto San Giovanni. Workers, Culture, and Politics in an Italian Town, 1880–1922 (1986), 295 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick and London, $38.00).

Alice A. Kelikian, Town and Country under Fascism. The Transformation of Brescia 1915–1926 (1986), 228 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £25.00).

David Gartman, Auto Slavery: The Labour Process in the American Automobile Industry, 1897–1950 (1986), xv + 348 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, $19.95).

Arthur J. Kuhn, GM Passes Ford, 1918–38: Designing the General Motors Performance‐Control System (1986), xii + 380 (Pennsylvania University Press, $29.75).

Steve Jefferys, Management and Managed: Fifty Years of Crisis at Chrysler (1986), xiv + 290 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £25.00).

Paul Buhle, Marxism in the USA: From 1870 to the Present (1987), 299 (Verso, paperback £8.95).

D.C. Coleman, History and the Economic Past: An Account of the Rise and Decline of Economic History in Britain (1987), 150 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, £17.50).     

Logic, liberty, and anarchy: Mill and Feyerabend on scientific method

On the surface, J. S. Mill and Paul Feyerabend appear to hold differing views of scientific method. Mill attempts to frame a set of rules or canons for testing evidence based on rationality and inference, whereas Feyerabend, in his so-called “epistemological anarchism”, calls for abandoning any attempt to separate the good from the bad in science according to a fixed view of rationality. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, Feryerabend cites Mill as the originator of what he (Feyerabend) has to say in defense of epistemological anarchy. First, I argue that those aspects of Mill’s On Liberty that are suggestive of an anti-rationalist philosophy are entirely compatible with the theory of scientific method Mill offers in A System of Logic. Second, in the process of reconciling these two works of Mill, I hope to shed light on how we are to understand Feyerabend’s critique of methodological dogmatism.     

How Many Balance Functions Does it Take to Determine a Utility Function?

Call b your balance function at wealth W if you are indifferent between W and a 50–50 lottery with outcomes x and b(x). Given one b, u is arbitrary on one side of W but then determined on the other. Given two b‘s, u is arbitrary between the two W′ s but then determined elsewhere. Additional properties of u restrict the b’s but do not ordinarily make u unique. Contradictions can occur. Given three b′ s, an algorithm is developed using minimal domains of definition that determines the relative utility of the W’s. If it is irrational, then the set S generated by applying all combinations of b’s to W′ s is dense and u is determined. If finitely many b’s are rationally related, then S is discrete, a further algorithm determines it, the values of u on S are equally spaced, and u is arbitrary between any two adjacent points of S but then determined elsewhere. Infinitely many balance functions determine u unless they are rationally related in a uniform way.JEL Classification: D81