Suchergebnisse

Abstract. Many world views and complicated laws within a society have evolved from simpler forms. In general, this process works well. However, on occasion the original basis, no matter how well it worked at inception, does not work well in later, more complex, or different societies. One such case is that of the current law of intellectual property, which does not seem to adapt well to the introduction of new technologies. This paper explores this problem and its causes, and then proposes some possible changes that might, with minimal disruption, minimize many of these difficulties in the future.

ABSTRACT California's Proposition 13 and Massachusetts'Proposition 2½ attempted to shrink state and local tax burdens by reducing property taxes and limiting future tax growth. Both initially succeeded. However, following a brief lag, those governments made up lost revenues primarily through increased non‐tax fees and charges; within a decade, real per capita revenues and expenditures exceeded their pre‐tax revolt peaks. This development is consistent with the hypothesis that voter‐initiated limits on a subset of revenue sources, intended to reduce state and local tax burdens, succeed temporarily but are then undermined by expansions in other revenue sources.

Abstract. The Portuguese economist Francisco Pereira de Moura passed away on April 4, 199B. During the late 1960s and well on into the 1970s, Moura gained international fame when he stood with the students against the repressive fascist regime in Portugal. After the fall of the dictatorship on April 25, 1974, he returned to Portugal's celebrated Superior Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences (ISEG) to carry on the work of curriculum reform. In the essay that follows he is remembered by one of his most distinguished students who now serves as a Professor of Economics at the ISEG.

Abstract The paper presents a framework for the formulation and testing of ontological theories embodied in human cognition, concentrating primarily on the domain of geographic categories. Evidence for and against alternative theories of cognitive categories, for example on the part of E. Rosch and her associates, has been hitherto hased primarily on studies of categorization of entities of table‐top space (pets, tools, fruits). We hypothesize that the structure of our categories does not remain constant as we move from categories of abjects at manipulable scales to geographic categories suchas nation, mountain, river. Mre precisely: Geographic objects are not merely located in space, they are tied intrinsically to space in such a way that they inherit from space many of its structural (mercological, topological, geometrical) properties. Categorization in the geographic world is often size‐or scale‐dependent (consider:pond, lake, sea, ocean), and to a much greater extent than in the world of table‐top space, the realization that a thing or type of thing exists at all in the geographic world may have individual or culturalvariability. Geographic objects are in very many cases the products of delineation within a continuum, and the boundaries of such objects are themselves highly salient phenomena for purposes of categorization. A battery of experiments is described to test these hypotheses and to serve as bases for more detailed ontological theorizing.

ABSTRACT This paper explores a topic of much speculation but relatively little empirical investigation: How those in charge of recruiting and hiring new employees assess the advantages and disadvantages of various recruiting techniques. We also examine how organizational characteristics shape hiring managers'perceptions of the primary advantages and disadvantages of recruiting techniques. A sample of hiring managers in a major metropolitan labor market identified the primary advantage of informal recruiting to be the quality of applicants and of formal recruiting to be the volume of applicants. Our analysis also shows that hiring managers in smaller firms and in the private sector more often cite quality as an advantage of informal recruiting, while hiring managers in the public sector more often identify volume of applicants as an advantage of formal recruiting.

Abstract This article deals with the ontological and modal status of the things we watch on television. I apply Adolf Reinach's distinction between what he calls 'simple objects' and 'states of affairs' to the wider problem of distinguishing between 'seeing as perception' and 'seeing as comprehension.' These considerations lead me to conclude that those who produce and edit together a television story commit to a communicative act and there is no escape from this fact about television viewing. Television provides us with objects that have been actively created by other people.

Abstract. The effort to categorize nature dates at least to Aristotle and is still ongoing. The study of categories is termed "ontology"–a field whose use in the philosophy of social science has most recently been revived. Last April 1998, the State University of New York at Buffalo hosted a conference on "Applied Ontology: A Marvin Farber Conference on Law and Institutions in Society." The following papers were selected from the group of papers presented at the conference.

ABSTRACT While generally known today for his famous proposal for a Single Tax, Henry George has not been widely recognized as one of the first economists to write about the possibility of political market failure. Based on his appreciation for the allocational efficiency of markets and his suspicion of government intervention, George was an early advocate of public choice ideas who repeatedly warned of the dangers of rent seeking.

Abstract There has recently been a great deal of interest in the question of whether job stability has declined in the United States. However, a satisfactory answer to this question has not been agreed upon. In this article, data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) are examined to bring new evidence to bear on the subject of job stability trends. Using these data, job retention rates for various groups of workers between 1976 and 1992 are calculated. Then, a series of models that relate individual and economic factors to job retention over this period are estimated. These analyses suggest a general but mild decline in job stability during the period. However, trends in job stability vary dramatically across different groups of workers. Most clearly, job stability fell precipitously for black men and fell for men who were high‐school dropouts or who has completed some college.

ABSTRACT In an earlier article on faculty salary discrimination at a Southern, historically black, public university (SHBU), the authors presented evidence of salary discrimination by black males against other race‐sex groups (Riggs and Dwyer 1995). The authors now contrast SHBU's salary model with the model of Riggs and Dwyer and apply the latter to new data to determine whether SHBU eliminated race and sex discrimination in faculty salaries. After equity adjustments, the evidence suggests that SHBU has eliminated the salary discrimination found by Riggs and Dwyer in their earlier study.