DOES THE LAUNCH OF THE EURO HINDER THE CURRENT ACCOUNT ADJUSTMENT OF THE EUROZONE?

This paper examines current account adjustments before and after the launch of the euro. Applying a dynamic panel model, we provide robust evidence to support that the adoption of the euro facilitates rather than hinders the adjustment of current accounts. This finding agrees with our results that the use of the euro assists real exchange rate and inflation rate adjustments. We also find that the independence of exchange rate regimes from current account, real exchange rate and inflation rate adjustments is observed when standard panel estimation methods are applied and when time‐varying smooth shifts in mean are not controlled. (JEL C33, F32, F41)     

THE LIFE OF THE DISABLED IN TANGSHAN

TANGSHAN, in northeastern Hebei Province, is noted for its coal, steel, iron,porcelain and the great earthquake that astonished the world. When the earthquake occurred in 1976, 240,000 people died and 160,000 people were injured. By now, the total     

THE SITES OF THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN

The Beijing International Convention Center will be the conference hall for government delegations of the Fourth World Conference on Women. The Beijing International Convention Center was built in 1990. With advanced facilities, Chinese and Western-style cuisine, and comfortable surroundings, it is an ideal venue for     

WHAT MAKES THE LOCAL? A BRIEF CONSIDERATION OF THE REJUVENATION OF HONG KONG IDENTITY

This paper ascertains what makes the local and why the local is important, in the context of change in Hong Kong due to the political transition to PRC sovereignty.In doing so, I hope to pose a modest polemical challenge to cultural studies' tendency to overlook seemingly simplistic empirical information. The return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 has led to a contraction of the political sphere, as the convergence of political structures curbed the development of local identities. The label or category ‘Hong Kong people’ was then appropriated with a specific meaning for the local to resist encroachment of the national. It was true that the high intensity of dominant national discourses during the political transition created a favourable atmosphere for re-nationalization. However, as soon as the political transition was over, Hong Kongers re-adhered to their own label in their struggle for cultural autonomy.Their strong cultural affect toward various national icons during the transition quickly diminished. This multiyear discourse study (1996–1998), which utilizes social scientific methods in conjunction with cultural theories, illustrates important political and methodological impulses necessary for the formulation of a socio-political approach to cultural studies within the Hong Kong context.     

IS LOVE BLIND? THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIENCE AND INFATUATION ON THE PERCEPTION OF LOVE

We hypothesized that participants in love and more experienced in romantic love (e.g., schematics) would perceive love more accurately than those who were not in love and less experienced. Judges viewed and rated a series of 25 thin-slice video clips of couples for whom their love for another was known via Sternbergs (Psychological Review, 93, 119–135) love scale. Individual differences in love judgment accuracy were large. Not surprisingly, participants who were in love at the time of the study and who reported having had a lengthy romantic relationship were more confident in their love judgment accuracy but, in fact, were less accurate. Apparently the love schemas people develop subjectively may not adequately represent the way in which the construct manifests among the population in general. Although love judgments may come easier to those in love, their perceptions of the love around them may be biased and inaccurate.     

Boutros Boutros-Ghali MESSAGE OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL TO THE WOMEN OF CHINA ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 1995

THIS year's International Women's Day has special significance, for it takes place during the fiftieth anniversary year of the United Nations. The purposes of International Women's Day: to celebrate past achievements, to highlight continuing problems, and to stimulate thought about the future, will this year be conducted in the context of a similar effort focused on the entire United Nations system. But the connection between International Women's Day 1995 and the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations goes far deeper than similarity of purpose. There is increasing recognition that the problems     

CHINA:STORMING THE CITADEL OF POVERTY

Development is a catchword among farmers in Longshan County nowadays.     

THE LIFE AND LOVES OF WANG LUOBIN

WANG was born in 1913 in Beijing. When he studied at the Beijing Art School, he fell in love with Luo Shah, who was five years younger than he. Luo's grandfather was an official in charge of salt transportation at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Her father was a professional revolutionary. The sharp contradiction between her feudal family background and her progressive thoughts made her a radical youth. When Luo left Beijing for her hometown in Henan Province after the     

THE DIASPORA OF WEST AFRICA: THE INFLUENCE OF WEST AFRICAN CULTURES ON “JODY CALLS” IN THE UNITED STATES MILITARY

This research addresses the influences of West African cultures on a rarely studied area: marching cadences of the United States military. This article details the evolution of these military marching cadences tracing their form back to slave songs and to the music of precolonial West Africa. Six elements are identified that link these forms of music. These are: call and response, focus on the voice, percussion backbeat to create energy, functionality in nature, focus on the experiences of daily living, and oral history. These suggest a great influence of West African music on the United States military marching cadences.     

DID REGIONAL ECONOMIC DIVERSITY INFLUENCE THE EFFECTS OF THE GREAT RECESSION?

Using data for U.S. counties from 2005 to 2012, we test whether higher levels of economic diversity mediated the effects of the Great Recession via four measures of stability. Spatial spillover effects are modeled by the use of the spatial Durbin estimator with heteroscedastic errors. The data generally support the central hypothesis that higher levels of diversity within a county are associated with enhanced employment stability across all counties as well as subsets of metro and nonmetro counties. Results for wage stability, however, appear to contradict our other findings. We suggest that underlying labor elasticities can bridge these apparent contradictory results. (JEL R11, R12, O47)     

WHAT WAS THE MARKET VALUE OF DAIMLER DURING THE GERMAN HYPERINFLATION?

The claim of Bresciani‐Turroni that Daimler's equity capital reached the equivalent of only 327 of their cars during the German hyperinflation has spread widely through the hyperinflation literature. There are two critical errors in Bresciani‐Turroni's calculation, and the minimum market value of Daimler in November 1922 was far lower, at around 94 cars. (JEL E31, G12)     

THE END OF THE ART CONNOISSEUR? EXPERTS AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

In this digital age, declarations surface of the death of the expert and the democratization of information. Crowd wisdom is seen as the new guide in constructing and evaluating knowledge. In the context of the art world, this tension between the amateurs and the experts becomes particularly pronounced as popular meets high culture. Questions arise such as: what is the role of the expert in the evaluation of art in contemporary times? Do social media dismantle age-old hierarchies and established priesthoods in the art world? And can we assume that mass participation in valuation results in better judgments? This article addresses such popular notions of participation and expertise concerning social media in the art world through a historical lens by re-examining and positioning art experts from past to present. Particularly, characteristics of intermediaries in the art market are examined closely regarding their strategies in knowledge production and the establishment of expertise. This historical situatedness enables us to move beyond the hype of new media expectations, generating more appropriate avenues of investigation to better grasp possible changes amongst actors within the contemporary art world. This examination is not just theoretically relevant but practically so, given current pressures on art institutions to embrace and reach out to new audiences online.     

"THE SITUATION OF CHINESE WOMEN" RELEASED

ON June 2, the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China published the white paper "The Situation of Chinese Women." The white paper, which comprises about 20,000 characters, contains a preface and eight chapters: I. Historic Liberation of Chinese Women; II. Equal legal Status; HI. Equal Rights     

WILL THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY MAKE THE 1992 DEADLINE ON THE ABOLITION OF INTERNAL BORDER CONTROLS ?

The efforts by the 12 European countries to develop a single market are in jeopardy because of several factors including a failure to come to agreement on the Schengen Supplementary Agreement. If this agreement is not signed soon, the deadline of January 1, 1993 for the opening of the borders will pass. If this occurs, it will signify a failure of the 1st great test of European unity. The Schengen group includes the Benelux, FRG, and France, Italy (as of November 1991), and will probably include Spain and Portugal by June 1991. The primary reason for this trouble stems from the lack of parliamentary control during the negotiation process. Other problems stem from a failure to come to an agreement about the text of the agreement in regards to asylum seekers. The Agreement is not allowed to be modified by signatory States, they must either ratify it or not. There is a great deal of pressure to change this aspect of the Agreement, because it is felt by many that is abandons sovereignty about a crucial issue like frontier borders. Harmonizing rules of entry and granting of asylum are the 2 most powerful forces motivating people to fight against Community competency. Part of this problem is that the number of asylum seekers is growing rapidly and international rules of human rights are conflicting with the vested interests of the member states. Another source of discord was the Group of Coordinators's Palma Document which was approved by the European Council. In it, measures without consensus were called desirable, and those that could be approved were called essential. This way of doing things still created a democratic deficit and maintained the incoherent plan to lift internal borders. Decisive actions are required during the 2nd half of 1991 if the deadline is to be met because the rotating presidency goes to Portugal next. Portugal does not have the political power necessary to finalize the agreement. Denmark is then next after Portugal and is even less interested in coming to agreement than the UK. Therefore, if the agreement is to succeed it must be do so quickly or else suffer from political weakness.     

COMMUNITY COHESION,ASYLUM SEEKING AND THE QUESTION OF THE ‘STRANGER’

This paper addresses the changing governance of the social through the conjunction of international, national and local strategies where attempts to regulate migration and promote community safety meet. Migration has been increasingly subjected to processes of ‘securitization’ and ‘criminalization’ that encounter and align with new pressures in ‘domestic’ crime and safety policies. The paper offers a critical evaluation of the sociological grand narratives that frame these events, arguing instead for a more nuanced analysis of the instabilities and volatilities of governance strategies and practices – and the normative issues that they bring into view.     

“I AM STILL SUFFERING:” THE DILEMMA OF MULTIPLE RECOVERIES IN THE LIVES OF METHADONE MAINTENANCE PATIENTS

This study examines narratives on the meaning of addiction recovery through interviews with 45 methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) patients. Results show that heroin addicts are dealing with multiple recoveries and many are simultaneous to each other: recoveries concerning (1) addiction, (2) associational disruptions, (3) self-identity and actualization, (4) drug induced diseases (HIV/AIDS, HCV, etc.), and (5) catalyzing event(s). The research findings, anathema of clinical MMT views on recovery, suggest that drug addicted individuals might benefit from interventions that address their multiple recovery issues as opposed to ones that emphasize recovery strictly in sobriety terms.     

SHOULD CITIES GO FOR THE GOLD? THE LONG‐TERM IMPACTS OF HOSTING THE OLYMPICS

The Summer Olympics bring hundreds of thousands of visitors and generate upward of $10 billion in spending for the host city. This large influx of tourism dollars is only part of the overall impact of hosting the Olympic Games. In order to host the visitors and sporting events, cities must make sizable investments in infrastructure such as airports, arenas, and highways. Additionally, the publicity and international exposure of a host city may benefit international trade and capital flows. Proponents argue that this investment will pay off through increased economic growth, but research confirming these claims is lacking. This paper examines whether hosting an Olympiad improves a city's long‐term growth. In order to control for the self‐selection of cities that host Olympic Games, this paper matches Olympic host cities with cities that were finalists for the Olympic Games, but were not selected by the International Olympic Committee. A difference‐in‐difference estimator examines post‐Olympic impacts for host cities between 1950 and 2005. Regression results provide no long‐term impacts of hosting an Olympics on two measures of population, real Gross Domestic Product per capita and trade openness. (JEL O18, R11)     

ON THE NATURE OF FUTURE WORLDS? - CONSIDERATIONS OF VIRTUALITY AND UTOPIAS

It has been a widespread belief that computers can create viable utopias, design the future and plan and co-ordinate things such that the world can be born anew. The exponential increase in computing power has allowed for interaction in imaginary places - utopian spaces - and the endless re-configuration of those places. There are then good reasons to make links between the realm of the virtual and the creation of utopian and future worlds. We explore some of these links in this article. Having offered a preliminary discussion of the nature of traditional utopian and future world thinking, we then draw a distinction between stable state and flexible utopias, the former characterized by structurally fixed blueprints, the latter by the possibilities of virtual technologies which allow us endlessly to re-configure virtual spaces. This distinction leads us on to a debate that is implicit in the writings of Sherry Turkle and Richard Coyne, namely the analysis of the virtual from a Husserlian, as opposed to the dominant Heideggerian view. We defend a Husserlian analysis which, it is shown, better satisfies the concept of 'flexible utopias'. The totalizing existential experience by a Heideggerian analysis corresponds well to 'immersion' technologies e.g. games and VR, utopias as ready-mades but, a Husserlian approach allows us to account for the creative process of making utopian or future worlds using software such as interior design when one changes items ad infinitum as part of the normal practices of being a designer. In the conclusion we will pull together the strands of the article and, end by noting how the contemporary theorist, Robert Nozick complements our arguments when he offers a version of utopia as a meta-utopia of flexible utopias or future worlds!