ENTERTAINING MALTHUS: BREAD,CIRCUSES, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Motivated by the basic adage that man does not live by bread alone, we offer a theory of historical economic growth and population dynamics where human beings need food to survive, but enjoy other things, too. Our model imposes a Malthusian constraint on food, but introduces a second good to the analysis that affects living standards without affecting population growth. We show that technological change does a good job explaining historical consumption patterns and population dynamics, including the Neolithic Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. Our theory stands in contrast to models that assume a single composite good and a Malthusian constraint. These models generate negligible growth prior to the Industrial Revolution. However, recent revisions to historical data show that historical living standards—though obviously much lower than today's—varied over time and space much more than previously thought. These revisions include updates to Maddison's dataset, which served as the basis for many papers taking long‐run stagnation as a point of departure. This new evidence suggests that the assumption of long‐run stagnation is problematic. Our model shows that when we give theoretical accounting of these new observations the Industrial Revolution is much less puzzling. (JEL B10, I31, J1, N1, O30)     

Object Relations Family Therapy: Articulating the Inchoate

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in psychodynamic ideas within the family therapy literature. While some authors have explored the usefulness of psychodynamic concepts in the systemic context (Byng-Hall, 1995; Flaskas, 1993, 1996; Luepnitz, 1988, 1997), others have argued that psychodynamic models of family therapy should be given more credence in systemic work with families (Guttman, 1991). This paper describes Object Relations Family Therapy (ORFT), a psychoanalytic model of family therapy, in plain English in order to minimise the obscurity of some of the existing terminology and to emphasise the utility of more contemporary formulations. ORFT addresses the interface between psychoanalytic and systemic theories. It offers a way of conceptualising complex family dynamics at both the interpersonal and intrapsychic levels. It also integrates an understanding of nonverbal, unstated and often implicit processes in its formulation of problem development. The unique contribution of ORFT is elaborated using a clinical example.     

Child sexual abuse in Leeds before and after Cleveland

We report a retrospective cohort study in which clinical and outcome features of 237 cases of child sexual abuse diagnosed by Leeds paediatricians after Cleveland in 1989 were compared with previously published characteristics of 337 children diagnosed by the same paediatricians before Cleveland in 1985 and 1986. Clinical and diagnostic features also were analysed in two subgroups of the 1989 cohort, those for whom there was no case conference and those in whom further abuse was detected at follow-up examination. The number of cases diagnosed annually remained high, and source of referrals and age and sex distribution were similar. Most suspected perpetrators were from within the home in both cohorts. Some clinical features of the 1989 cohort suggested more physically severe abuse. In 1989 fewer children were registered as sexually abused, or were taken into care, and fewer suspected perpetrators were convicted. From the 1989 cohort those children for whom there was no case conference tended to be older, to disclose and were abused less severely by someone outside their home as compared to those for whom a case conference was held. The children in whom further abuse was detected tended to be younger, to not disclose. to be more severely abused by a perpetrator within the home and to be taken into care as compared to those in whom further abuse was not detected. One or more case conferences were held for nearly all of the children in whom further abuse was detected. For most of the 1989 children no evidence was found indicating receipt of mental health services from other than the key social worker. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of professional and public knowledge and attitudes regarding children's and parental rights and family preservation.     

Without-replacement sampling for particle methods on finite state spaces

Combinatorial estimation is a new area of application for sequential Monte Carlo methods. We use ideas from sampling theory to introduce new without-replacement sampling methods in such discrete settings. These without-replacement sampling methods allow the addition of merging steps, which can significantly improve the resulting estimators. We give examples showing the use of the proposed methods in combinatorial rare-event probability estimation and in discrete state-space models.     

ON EMPIRICAL BAYES STOPPING TIMES

We consider the empirical Bayes decision theory where the component problems are the optimal fixed sample size decision problem and a sequential decision problem. With these components, an empirical Bayes decision procedure selects both a stopping rule function and a terminal decision rule function. Empirical Bayes stopping rules are constructed for each case and the asymptotic behaviours are investigated.     

Ghostly Images,Phantom Discourses,and the Virtuality of the Global

The central premise of this article is that the conceptual terrain of the global is fundamentally unstable, that its content is far from determined. This opens the door to many different interpretations and uses of the term, where the referent is not so much to a pre-given reality, or even a tangible geographical space. Rather, the global constitutes its own content in the various fields in which it gets deployed, selectively affirming particular images and representations, while denying, repressing, or otherwise excluding others. I draw on the early history of film to argue that the global is a virtual distribution of value and intelligibility, where its images and signs no longer ‘represent’ an independent reality, but actually shape and transform the inter-subjective experiences of its virtual subjects. I use a recent documentary film on call centers in India to demonstrate how distinct regimes of cinematic images enable different kinds of interventions into these virtual distributions, revealing the global as a richly imagined terrain of discourses and representations, which are always already subject to re-distribution.

El argumento principal de este artículo es que en el ámbito conceptual, lo global es fundamentalmente inestable, aún falta mucho para determinar su contenido. El término global tiene muchas interpretaciones y usos variados, dado que el referente no aplica a una realidad preestablecida ni corresponde a un espacio geográfico tangible. El término global constituye su propio contenido en los diferentes campos en los cuales es utilizado, aseverando imágenes y representaciones particulares selectivas, mientras que a la vez niega, reprime, o excluye otras. Me inspiro en los comienzos de la historia del cine para argumentar que lo global es la distribución virtual del valor y de la ininteligibilidad, donde las imágenes y los letreros ya no “representan” una realidad independiente, sino que forman y transforman las experiencias inter-subjetivas de sus sujetos virtuales. Utilizo un documental fílmico reciente sobre los “call centers” de la India para demostrar cómo diferentes regímenes de imágenes fílmicas permiten diferentes tipos de intervenciones a estos distribuidores virtuales, que revelan lo global como un rico imaginario de discursos y representaciones que siempre han sido y son sujetas a una re-distribución.