Distributional impact assessments and the record of the Coalition Government: the tyranny of numbers without interpretation

This paper reflects upon the gross discrepancies between the reassurances given in 2010 by the 2010-2015 UK Coalition Government that their budget and welfare cuts would fall ‘fairly’ across the income spectrum, and the reality of what had happened by the end of that government. It asks how the ‘distributional impact assessment’ provided with the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review could have been so wrong. In seeking to answer this question, types of systematic bias are considered along with a discussion of ‘marginality’ in assessments of impact. Drawing upon the role of ‘power’ in impact assessment, it traces the ways in which methodological assumptions can eclipse the real life effects of policies behind ‘the average’ as well as by the unfair selection of the ‘unit-of-analysis’.     

The Society's 2006 tour of Southern India

Global cities are almost by definition somewhat detached from their geographical hinterlands. Cosmopolitan and modern, they are open to external influences from other cultures and from overseas trade. But they are also vulnerable to the rise of nationalism in the country which surrounds them, as is shown by the fate of three famous cities of the Levant, Alexandria, Smyrna and Beirut. They were multicultural trading cities, linking the economies of Europe and Asia, “windows on the world”, in contrast to inland capitals like Cairo Ankara and Damascus. New global cities like London, Hong Kong and Dubai also have hybrid and polyglot inhabitants, like Levantine cities of bygone days. But they will need support if their cosmopolitanism is to prevail over nationalism.     

Eliciting Risk Attitudes in the Field: Surveys or Experimental Methods? An Empirical Comparison in Rural Niger

We compare several risk preference elicitation methods – including incentivised, non-incentivised, and framed methods as well as a traditional Likert survey question – in a developing country and empirically test how well consequent measures of risk attitudes predict risk taking behaviour. We find that Likert scale and non-incentivised framed survey questions are not sufficient substitutes for costlier incentivised methods in rural Niger. Instead, the incentivised framed question works best while a simplified incentivised lottery question works almost as well. More risk and ambiguity averse farmers are less likely to adopt fertiliser microdosing indicating the importance of insurance and strategies to promote learning.     

The Eye of the beholder: Background notes on the US-Japan military relationship

Abstract

In the last half century, the pivotal steps in American-Japanese relations have been paced off at roughly ten-year intervals. At the Washington Conference of 1921-1922, American and other Western pressure brought about cancellation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and forced Japan to rely upon uncertain international guarantees for its security. The Manchurian Incident of 1931 dispelled the professed hopes of the twenties, and a full decade later Pearl Harbor marked the total bankruptcy of Japan's relationship with the West. At the San Francisco peace conference in 1951, America led forty-eight other nations in restoring Japan's sovereignty, and five hours after the signing of the peace treaty the U.S. summoned forth shades of the old Anglo-Japanese Alliance by signing its own bilateral military pact with Japan. Nine years later, nationalistic resentment against this security arrangement of 1951 erupted in Japan, forcing cancellation of President Eisenhower's proposed visit. Now another decade has passed, and 1970 is clearly destined to mark yet another watershed in the American-Japanese relationship.     

The Gouffre à Bataillons — A French artillery officer at Dienbienphu, 1954

Abstract

If I wake up in the morning with an ache in my left ball I send a couple of rounds through the post just to let them know I'm off for breakfast.     

Social Learning,Self-Control,and Offending Specialization and Versatility among Friends

American Journal of Criminal Justice - While it is generally understood that people tend not to specialize in specific types of deviance, less is understood about offending specialization and...