'More Myth than Reality': the Independent Artisan in Nineteenth Century Sheffield

Abstract In the context of an industrial revolution dominated by technological change and factory-based production, nineteenth century Sheffield has been perceived as differing from the norm. Small workshops, numerous outworkers and the retention of handicraft skills have charcterised the cutlery trades until the present century and these economic structures are said to have produced a backward looking but independent and robust artisan class. In this paper we argue that the robust artisan was more a creature of myth than reality. We point to the critical role of the factor in the nineteenth century cutlery trade for an understanding of the slide of the little master into dependence.     

Public Opinion and Social Citizenship in Canada*

Un thème important de la documentation sur les restrictions des politiques sociales d'État au Canada porte sur les idées dominantes concernant l'État providence, qui ont considérablement changé. Un aspect de cette dynamique qui a reçu peu d'attention empirique est l'opinion publique sur les politiques de l'État providence. Cet article se penche sur la dynamique et la structure de l'opinion au fil du temps en ce qui a trait aux « droits conventionneis >> des dispositions sociales des services et avantages de l'aide sociale, de même qu'aux « nouveaux droits de citoyenneté sociale >> qui mettent l'accent sur les garanties d'égalité des groupes désavantagés fondées sur des motifs hors classe. Les auteurs arrivent à la conclusion que les attitudes à l'égard de la politique sociale canadienne semblent structurées par des dimensions qui peuvent s'insérer utilement dans un cadre de citoyenneté sociale.
An important theme in the literature on the retrenchment of state social policies in Canada has been that dominant ideas about the welfare state have substantially altered. One aspect of this dynamic that has received little empirical attention is public opinion relevant to welfare state politics. This paper looks at the dynamics and structure of opinion over time concerning "conventional rights" to social provision of welfare services and benefits, as well as "new social citizenship rights" that focus on equality guarantees to disadvantaged groups based on non-class grounds. It finds that Canadian social policy attitudes appear to be structured by dimensions that can be usefully ordered by a social citizenship framework.     

TV Violence and Viewer Aggression: A Cumulation of Study Results 1956-1976

Can watching television violence lead to an increased levelof aggression in the viewers of that violence? Using the datacumulation method, the author suggesu that the collective findingsof previous studies indicate that such a relationship does exist.Further, it is argued that the cumulation linking these twovariables should be used as a justification for reducing theamount of violence shown on television     

Zero-Bias Locally Adaptive Density Estimators

Strategies for improving fixed non-negative kernel estimators have focused on reducing the bias, either by employing higher-order kernels or by adjusting the bandwidth locally. Intuitively, bandwidths in the tails should be relatively larger in order to reduce wiggles since there is less data available in the tails. We show that in regions where the density function is convex, it is theoretically possible to find local bandwidths such that the pointwise bias is exactly zero. The corresponding pointwise mean squared error converges at the parametric rate of O ( n ⁻¹ ) rather than the slower O ( n ^−4/5). These so-called zero-bias bandwidths are constant and are usually orders of magnitude larger than the optimal locally adaptive bandwidths predicted by asymptotic mean squared error analysis. We describe data-based algorithms for estimating zero-bias bandwidths over intervals where the density is convex. We find that our particular density estimator attains the usual O ( n ^−4/5) rate. However, we demonstrate that the algorithms can provide significant improvement in mean squared error, often clearly visually superior curves, and a new operating point in the usual bias-variance tradeoff.     

Measures of Mortality Risks

Different risks of death are not equivalent because of differences in timing. This paper develops measures of mortality risks that recognize the probability of death, the duration of life lost, and the role of discounting. These adjustments lead to a substantial reordering of the major causes of death. Recognition of duration-related issues explains much of the public's misperception of mortality risk probabilities, which may reflect duration-related concerns rather than biases in risk beliefs. Our estimates suggest that in forming their risk beliefs the public discounts years of life lost at a rate from 3.3–12.4 percent. Standardization of lifetimes at risk also alters the relative efficacy of regulatory policies for which we provide a variety of cost-effectiveness measures.     

The Psychological Subject and Harré's Social Psychology: An Analysis of a Constructionist Case

Taking Rom Harré's social constructionism as a focus we point to and discuss the issue of the a priori psychological subject in social constructionist theory. While Harré indicates that interacting, intending beings are necessary for conversation to occur, he assumes that the primary human reality is conversation and that psychological life emerges from this social domain. Nevertheless, we argue that a fundamental and agentive psychological subject is implicit to his constructionist works. Our critical analyses focus upon Harré's understandings of persons, human development and human agency. Our intention is neither to suggest that this latent entity must be understood in a Cartesian sense nor is it to ask for an explicit accounting of an autonomous agent. Rather, our claim is simply that psychological subjectivity is reflexively entailed in Harré's human psychology. We suggest that this pertains more generally to social constructionist theory.     

ESTIMATING TIME‐VARYING BARGAINING POWER: A FISHERY APPLICATION

We propose an unobserved‐components‐inspired approach to estimate time‐varying bargaining power in bilateral bargaining frameworks. We apply the technique to an ex‐vessel fish market that changed management systems from a regulated open‐access system to an individual fishing quota (IFQ) system over the timespan analyzed. We find that post‐IFQ implementation fishers do improve their bargaining power and thus accrue more of the rents generated by the fishery. However, unlike previous studies, we find that fishers do not move to a point of complete rent extraction. Rather, fishers and processors appear to be in a near‐symmetric bargaining situation post‐IFQ implementation. (JEL C22, L11, Q22)