“Ragged urchins play on marquetry floors”: The discourse of filtering is reconstructed, 1920s–1950s

The idea of filtering has played a key role in our understanding of housing markets and in framing federal policy. The origins of the idea, however, and of the term itself, are poorly understood. Drawing loosely on the approach of discourse analysis, this article clarifies both issues, arguing that language shapes how we think about housing policy, and indeed policy itself. The concept of filtering emerged in Great Britain in the late nineteenth century where, by 1900, it informed arguments in favor of municipal (public) housing. It became influential in the United States in the 1920s but in 1938 was still referred to in different ways, notably as “hand-me-down housing.” Here, it was understood more narrowly, as an alternative to public housing. After 1939, the Federal Housing Administration, though not its leading consultant Homer Hoyt, popularized the term “filtering.” The neutral connotations of this metaphorical term suited the agency's goal of developing an apparently objective discourse of housing markets and market analysis. The term was normalized by the early 1960s.     

Protection of Commercial Satellite Communications Infrastructure

Although a nation's interest in protecting its commercial assets in space would seem obvious, the task of protecting commercial satellites is inherently complicated. Protection of commercial space infrastructure requires coordination among multiple actors in the public and private sectors. Although most public sector actors ultimately report to the same political leadership, the process of establishing coherent policies across agencies can take time. Coordination is even more complicated in the private sector, where multi-national firms compete against each other for profits by serving a wide range of customers.

Given the complexities of this process, it is not surprising that efforts to protect commercial satellite communications (SATCOM) networks have been slow in coming. At the same time, recent progress in the U.S. may pave the way for a more coherent approach to commercial SATCOM protection. If successful, these efforts can provide increased assurance of uninterrupted satellite connectivity, thus benefiting the economic and national security interests of America, its allies and its trading partners.     

No miracles here: Trade policy,fiscal policy and economic growth

In this paper we consider whether the rate of growth following trade liberalisation differs significantly from growth in other developing countries. We find that it does not. Given this result we explore whether these growth effects are offset by changes in other policy variables, namely changes in fiscal policy. Governments increase welfare spending as a response to greater exposure to international trade. We find evidence that countries that liberalise their trade regimes increase their spending on welfare but not other forms of expenditure. However, once we control for the effects of fiscal policy, trade liberalisation still has no growth effects.     

The Pedagogy of Science and Environment: Experimental Evidence from Peru

In today's knowledge-based societies, understanding basic scientific concepts and the capacity to structure and solve scientific questions is more critical than ever. Accordingly, in this article we test an innovative methodology for teaching science and environment in public primary schools where traditional (teacher-centred) teaching was replaced with student-centred activities using LEGO kits. We document positive and significant improvements of 0.18 standard deviations in standardised test scores. Such positive results are mainly concentrated within boys that were located above the median of baseline academic performance.     

Three ‘Rs’ of Econometrics: Repetition,Reproduction and Replication

Development economics has become increasingly quantified in recent years, reflecting the aspirations of economists to practise hard science. We argue that standard applied econometric methodology lacks one key feature of the claim of science to be scientific, namely replication as part of independent confirmation of findings. Replication plays a large role in understanding the confidence we can place in the quantitative studies on which much policy advice rests, which is particularly salient in a UK context given the emphasis placed on evidence-based policy-making by the UK Department for International Development.