Economic valuation of coastal water quality and protest responses: A case study in Mitilini, Greece

The aim of this study was to evaluate environmental benefits resulting from the construction of a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Mitilini, Greece. The main benefits identified were the improvement of the coastal water quality and subsequent impacts on citizens’ activities. The valuation was conducted using the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) through the elicitation of individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP). Due to the significant amount of zero and protest responses, different measurements of mean WTP were calculated and the need for further research on social factors which influence individuals’ valuation is emphasized.     

Grassroots Mobilization and Voter Turnout in 2004

Voter turnout increased sharply in 2004. At the same time, 2004marked a change in campaign strategy, as both presidential campaignsand allied organizations placed unprecedented emphasis on votermobilization. This article attempts to assess the degree towhich grassroots mobilization efforts contributed to the surgein voter turnout. We conclude that although grassroots effortsgenerated millions of additional votes, they probably accountfor less than one-third of the observed increase in turnout.Increased turnout in 2004 primarily reflects the importancethat voters accorded the presidential contest.     

环境运动中正义的多维度含义——读《对环境正义的界定：理论、运动和自然》

大卫·施朗斯伯格（David Schlosberg）的《对环境正义的界定：理论、运动和自然》一书,旨在深入理解美国及全球范围内环境和生态正义运动中所体现的各种有关正义的含义。作者认为,正义理论已经超越了以罗尔斯为代表的单纯的分配正义模型,而形形色色的环境正义运动正是对正义理论发展趋势在实践中的确证。在施朗斯伯格看来,无论是一般意义上的正义还是环境和生态正义,仅仅关注分配是不够的,     

Income Variance Dynamics and Heterogeneity

Recent theoretical work has shown the importance of measuring microeconomic uncertainty for models of both general and partial equilibrium under imperfect insurance. In this paper the assumption of i.i.d. income innovations used in previous empirical studies is removed and the focus of the analysis is placed on models for the conditional variance of income shocks, which is related to the measure of risk emphasized by the theory. We first discriminate amongst various models of earnings determination that separate income shocks into idiosyncratic transitory and permanent components. We allow for education‐ and time‐specific differences in the stochastic process for earnings and for measurement error. The conditional variance of the income shocks is modelled as a parsimonious ARCH process with both observable and unobserved heterogeneity. The empirical analysis is conducted on data drawn from the 1967–1992 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find strong evidence of sizeable ARCH effects as well as evidence of unobserved heterogeneity in the variances.     

EVALUATING THE EMPLOYMENT IMPACT OF A MANDATORY JOB SEARCH PROGRAM

This paper exploits area‐based piloting and age‐related eligibility rules to identify treatment effects of a labor market program—the New Deal for Young People in the U.K. A central focus is on substitution/displacement effects and on equilibrium wage effects. The program includes extensive job assistance and wage subsidies to employers. We find that the impact of the program significantly raised transitions to employment by about 5 percentage points. The impact is robust to a wide variety of nonexperimental estimators. However, we present some evidence that this effect may not be as large in the longer run. (JEL: J18, J23, J38)     

Changes in the Distribution of Male and Female Wages Accounting for Employment Composition Using Bounds

This paper examines changes in the distribution of wages using bounds to allow for the impact of nonrandom selection into work. We show that worst case bounds can be informative. However, because employment rates in the United Kingdom are often low, they are not informative about changes in educational or gender wage differentials. Thus we explore ways to tighten these bounds using restrictions motivated from economic theory. With these assumptions, we find convincing evidence of an increase in inequality within education groups, changes in educational differentials, and increases in the relative wages of women.     

Conformity to implicit social pressure: the role of political identity

Although studies have shown that implicit social cues, such as images of watchful eyes, can elicit prosocial behavior, little research to date has examined individual differences in people’s susceptibility to such subtle social cues. For example, individuals with a conservative ideology typically value social conformity, obedience, and adherence to social norms more than liberals. To examine partisan heterogeneity, we analyze data from two large randomized field experiments on voting behavior. Results suggest that the impact of eyespots on voter mobilization is indeed likely driven by political identity, with a significant effect for Republicans but not Independents or Democrats. These findings are consistent with an emerging line of research revealing individual differences in how susceptible humans are to implicit social cues.     

A Marxist Critique of Marx's Theory of History: Beyond the Dichotomy Between Scientific and Critical Marxism

This article argues that an application of Marxism to itself can help us transcend Gouldner's (1980) dichotomy between scientific and critical Marxism. After demonstrating that the paradigmatic document of scientific marxism, Marx's Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, turns the structural logic of capitalist economy into the basis for a transhistorical theory of social-economic development, this article explores the limitations of critical Marxism's response to scientific Marxism and concludes that a viable, not class-centered, reformulation of the emancipatory project is possible through an analysis of capitalism's "dialectic of scarcity." The task of the emancipatory project, it is argued, is to turn humanity, and not the working class, from a political subject in itself to a political subject in and for itself.