Fundamental accrued capital gains and the measurement of top incomes: an application to Chile

Most previous studies of income inequality have either ignored capital gains or have used taxable realized capital gains to estimate top incomes. Neither of these approaches is fully satisfactory. We apply for the first time a new methodology that allows us to account for fundamental accrued capital gains as part of the top incomes in a theoretically consistent manner. We estimate the shares of the super-rich in Chile showing that accrued capital gains have a large impact on these estimates. Also, the top income shares estimated using fundamental capital gains appear to exhibit a more stable and presumably more plausible time profile than estimates based on capital gains derived from asset market variations.     

Making Sense of Neoliberal Subjectivity: A Discourse Analysis of Media Language on Self-development

The influence of neoliberalism on culture and subjectivity is well documented. This paper contributes to understanding of how neoliberal ideology enters into the production of subjectivity. While subject formation takes place in multiple and contradictory ways and across multiple social sites, we focus on the increasingly popular media discourse of self-development, and examine it as a technology of neoliberal subjectification. Drawing on Foucauldian understandings, we analyze data from two different newspapers from two different national contexts, both of which are heavily influenced by neoliberalism. Based on our analysis, we detail four interrelated discourses—rationality, autonomy and responsibility, entrepreneurship, and positivity and self-confidence—demonstrating how these discourses constitute the neoliberal subject in ways consonant with neoliberal governmentality. There is no observable resistance to subject positions offered within these discourses. Self-development discourse instills stronger individualism in society, while constraining collective identity, and thus provides social control and contributes to preserving status quo of neoliberal societies.     

Implementation of Jefferson-d’Hondt rule in the formation of a parliamentary committee

Same parliaments, to form a committee of size $q$ , use a voting process like the following: every parliamentary member votes for one out of a fixed set of candidates, and those $q$ candidates receiving more votes are elected for the committee. Assuming total discipline of vote, this is a game form in which players are the parliamentary groups. We investigate, according to some natural hypotheses about preferences, the likely distribution of the members of this committee. The main results are: (a) when fractional votes are allowed, there is a complete agreement between the distribution among the groups of the elected candidates that are outcomes of a Nash equilibrium and the distribution that, according to the size of the groups, would compute the Jefferson-d’Hondt allocation rule, and (b) when fractional votes are not allowed, there is a near agreement for a majority of situations.     

Violence against women in Spain and Cuba: The same reality,two different visions / Violencia hacia la mujer en España y Cuba: una misma realidad,dos visiones diferentes

This study aims to analyse the acceptance of gender violence in Spanish and Cuban populations. We analysed the influence of sexist beliefs and other ideologies that justify unequal gender relationships. A total of 230 men and women from Spain and 200 from Cuba participated by answering a questionnaire. The results showed the effect of participants’ gender and nationality as well as ideological variables (sexism, beliefs in a just world and codes of honour) that legitimise the status quo of gender violence. The male participants and the Cuban participants accepted violence against women more than the female participants and the Spanish participants. What is more, the results showed a pattern in the influence of the ideological variables that differed depending on the participants’ nationality. In Spain, the relationship between participants’ benevolent sexism and the justification of violence was mediated by codes of honour. In Cuba, the relationship between hostile sexism and acceptance of violence against women was mediated by beliefs in a just world.     

Accommodating ‘foreigners’: narrative accounts of Berlin's German-born Turkish Ausländer

This paper examines the discursive messages conveyed through everyday encounters among German-born Turkish Ausländer (foreigners) and ethnic Germans in Berlin. Using narrative analysis, I explore how these messages operate to maintain a series of separate and unequal social relations based on gender, ethnicity, religion, and skin colour. The personal experiences of local residents illustrate how these discourses serve to mark some Ausländer as less threatening than others, some as preferable, and others as undesirable. Some Ausländer are also considered more valuable than others, and the status of one often depends on the superior or subordinate status of the other. Through exploring these complexities as experienced by local informants, this paper shows the importance of certain interactive processes that construct Ausländerness in varying ways, while still defining people's identities in relation to norms that privilege the dominant subjects.     

Turkish Capitalist Modernity and the Gezi Revolt

In this paper an attempt is made to reassess how and why the laic/Islamic dual opposition has come to be a decisive factor in the politics of Turkish capitalist modernity. The question as to whether this opposition may survive into the twenty‐first century is briefly discussed. It is noted that in the aftermath of the prolonged confrontation between the emergent imagined community of the Gezi Revolt and the Islamist AKP government, a religiously neutral political identity came into sight in public life, which can be considered as the harbinger of a new kind of social individuality, one which is incommensurate with the laic/Islamic dual opposition.     

The Nonprofit Catallaxy: An Austrian Economics Perspective on the Nonprofit Sector

This paper examines the nonprofit sector from the perspective of the Austrian school of economic thought. In contrast to the traditional market failure approach, the Austrian school locates the role of the nonprofit sector in the facilitation of the spontaneous order and the utilization of local dispersed knowledge about the societal needs through a Hayekian “discovery procedure.” Another contribution of the Austrian school is in calling attention to the “calculation challenge” faced by the nonprofit sector, i.e., the reduced role of monetary signals as the informational basis for decision making. The calculation challenge brings up the important issue of societal feedback mechanisms operating in the nonprofit sector. It is shown that, in the nonprofit sector context, this challenge takes the form of the accountability problem.     

Bringing ‘invisible’ side activities to light. A case study of rural female entrepreneurs in the Veenkoloniën,the Netherlands

Over the past 20 years, rural areas in Western societies have transformed from a production to a consumption space. Much research on rural diversification and revitalization has focused on farmers and their wives. However, it is useful to examine side activities run by non-farm women which have slowly emerged in the last few years. In view of discussions about rural decline, the value of such activities should be looked at in a new light. Although these activities may not significantly reverse unemployment figures, they have the potential to provide the social and emotional ‘glue’ to motivate a household to remain in declining areas as small-scale economic activities contribute to a better quality of life and a higher level of well-being. In this article we draw on the personal stories of women who undertake side activities in the Veenkoloniën, the Netherlands. We explore the factors that enable these women to start a side activity and the related organizational and emotional struggles they face while running such activities within the perimeter of their home. We further highlight the importance of side activities for the empowerment of women in rural households.