International mobility of professional knowledge from the Global South: Indian IT workers in the Netherlands

Although there are many studies on both expatriates and the phenomenon of brain drain, there are few on those professionals who move from a less to a more advanced economy through a transfer from one division of a transnational corporation to another. In a study of Indian IT professionals employed by the Dutch division of the producer‐service company Capgemini, we assessed the reasons for their recruitment and the type of professional knowledge they bring to the job. Our main findings are that the international mobility of Indian professionals is not just a matter of reducing labour costs and that, though some Indian IT professionals engage in routine programming activities, others are involved in activities that require tacit forms of knowledge. This applies to those who link the Dutch and Indian offices of Capgemini and to those who acquire assignments operating in the epistemic community of the international business milieu.     

SOCIAL SECURITY AND AGGREGATE CAPITAL ACCUMULATION REVISITED: DYNAMIC SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATES IN A WEALTH-GENERATION MODEL

This paper re-examines Feldstein's(1974, 1982)results of the effect of social security on private capital accumulation in the context of a simultaneous-equation model of capital accumulation. The model incorporates dynamic feedback effects in capital accumulation and is estimated by FIML to incorporate theoretical restrictions that are tested against the data. It is then simulated as a full dynamic model to analyze the long-run effect of SSW on private capital accumulation. The simulated effects are in the same direction as found by Feldstein, but are considerably weaker.     

Mass Communication and Voter Volatility

This study attempts to explicate empirically the concept ofvoter volatility and to test the assertion that the use of televisionfor political news contributes to this electoral instability.Voter volatility is defined as the level of unpredictabilityof election outcomes from traditional demographic and politicalparty variables. The effects of television and newspaper exposureon each of seven volatility dimensions were examined beforeand after the introduction of two control variables: educationand political interest. Neither the media exposure measuresnor the control variables predicted to all volatility dimensionsin a uniform way. Contrary to expectations, the dominant directionof television exposure's relationships was toward lower levelsof volatility. While newspaper use effects were largely in theexpected direction of lower volatility, reversals were shownhere as well. Education and political interest, traditionallythought to be stabilizing electoral forces, also revealed positiveas well as negative relationships to various volatility factors.     

Staging environmental risk: a methodological cosmopolitanism approach to Chinese media events

The aim of this study is to enrich Beck's (2016) concept of methodological cosmopolitanism and digital metamorphosis from the perspective of communication researchers using a ‘media event', namely the live broadcasting of history through communication technology (Dayan and Katz 1992) as the research unit. Based on our observation of media events of environmental crises in China, we argue that digital metamorphoses are happening, albeit in a complicated form. These disruptive events that netizens evoke, participate in and resolve make a stronger and longer lasting impact on the social consensus about environmental protections than do pre‐set pseudo‐events. The effects of the digital empowerment of people are, however, case specific and the nation‐state still dominates many media events pertaining to environmental crises.     

Weeping and Transformations of Self

All relevant sources agree that weeping is a human universal. There is disagreement, though, as to whether tears experienced during episodes of happiness or joy derive from the experience of joy itself, or whether such tears result merely from incidental physical constriction of the lacrimal gland ( Darwin [1872 ]) or from a "sadness rebound" induced by anticipated loss of the source of joy ( Feldman [1956 ]; Katz [1999 ]). It is argued here that adult weeping does not exclusively express suffering but rather is an emotional and physical register of changes in self, both positive and negative. In outlining the argument concerning weeping the paper also presents an account of the registration and consolidation of changes in self-identity and self-feelings, and therefore provides an account of the internal process of transformation of self.     

ASYMMETRIC VALUATION OF GAINS AND LOSSES AND PREFERENCE ORDER ASSUMPTIONS

Recent findings of large differences between people's valuations of gains and losses imply that the common preference order axioms of completeness, transitivity, and dominance, on which economic analyses and predictions of consumer behavior are largely based, may not be consistent with actual choices. This paper reports the results of an experimental test of the preference order assumptions using real exchanges of two goods and money. The findings show consistent differences in the valuation placed on goods and money depending on whether the entitlements are being acquired or given up, and provide direct evidence of preference assumption violations.