The Sirens' Call of Relative Gains Concerns: A Critical Analysis of Their Presumed Rationality in the Prisoners' Dilemma

The notion that in international interactions state-actors care not only about their own absolute gains, but also about the size of these gains relative to what other actors receive, is one of the pillars on which rests neorealists' pessimism about the prospects of cooperation in repeated Prisoners' Dilemma (PD) and, by extension, in international politics. Although there has been a lively debate over the impact of relative gains concerns on the prospects of cooperation, the prior question, whether states should in fact care about relative gains at all, has not been seriously confronted. This article questions the assumption that rational states should care about relative gains in PD. As the literature motivates them, relative gains concerns are best understood as a heuristic device designed to guide states toward inter-temporal optimization of their absolute payoffs. Using simulated tournaments of a model of a dynamic, multi-player PD, this article puts to the test whether relative gains concerns in fact achieve this purpose. Contrary to what has been presumed, the analysis demonstrates that in many contexts it is harmful and dangerous for states to care about relative gains. Furthermore, whenever states are in a position to tell whether, in a particular setting, it might be rational for them to care about relative gains, the heuristic of relative gains concerns is redundant. The important issues that the literature on relative gains has sought to address should continue to be discussed, but not through the lens of the problematic and misleading conceptual apparatus of relative gains concerns.     

政府行政成本对经济增长影响的空间效应与门槛效应研究

采用空间计量模型与门槛面板模型,对2010-2015年的省际面板数据,检验政府行政成本对省域经济增长的影响。空间效应模型分析发现：各省政府行政成本和经济增长间存在明显的空间关联性,整体而言地方政府行政成本能够促进经济增长,二者在空间集聚类型和区域分布上,在中西部大部分地区保持一致,政府行政成本高值(低值)集聚区一般是经济增长的高值(低值)集聚区,而在东部地区出现差异。门槛效应模型分析发现：行政成本很低时,对经济增长的影响并不显著;行政成本处于第一、二门槛值之间时,促进经济增长的系数提高,显著性增强;当政府行政成本超过第二门槛值时,不利于经济增长。建议将政府行政成本控制在最优区间。     

明皇朝的覆没与中国社会政治治理模式碎裂——中国选择社会主义道路的历史辨析

中国从1840年鸦片战争失败后,逐步跌入半封建半殖民地的深渊.历史地看,近代以来中国之所以被西欧社会发展迅速拉开距离,实是明皇朝276年统治所造成的.两败俱伤的中国社会政治治理模式,使得明皇朝成为历朝历代最腐朽,阻碍中国社会发展最严重的封建皇朝.明皇朝的覆没,以及李自成建立的大顺朝如流星般地消逝,表明中国社会政治治理模式碎裂.中国走向现代化,必然要转换社会政治治理模式.17世纪中期至20世纪中期的三个世纪,经过艰难曲折的探索,中国终于接受马克思主义,完成新民主主义革命,走上社会主义发展道路,实现社会转型.历史表明：社会主义是中华文明发展的自我选择,是实现中华民族伟大复兴的必由之路.     

我国城镇贫困群体社会救助状况实证研究

社会救助是协调公平与效率关系的基本途径。本文从全国城镇贫困群体的社会救助出发,在对其整体状况进行分析的同时,以现有经济理论为基础,通过实证检验影响我国社会救助的重要因素,从而为进一步完善我国的城镇贫困群体社会救助制度提供相应的经验证据。     

Surface Curvature of Pelvic Joints from Three Laser Scanners: Separating Anatomy from Measurement Error

Recent studies have reported that quantifying symphyseal and auricular surface curvature changes on 3D models acquired by laser scanners has a potential for age estimation. However, no tests have been carried out to evaluate the repeatability of the results between different laser scanners. 3D models of the two pelvic joints were generated using three laser scanners (Custom, Faro, and Minolta). The surface curvature, the surface area, and the distance between co‐registered meshes were investigated. Close results were found for surface areas (differences between 0.3% and 2.4%) and for distance deviations (average <20 μm, SD <200 μm). The curvature values were found to be systematically biased between different laser scanners, but still showing similar trends with increasing phases/scores. Applying a smoothing factor to the 3D models, it was possible to separate anatomy from the measurement error of each instrument, so that similar curvature values could be obtained (p < 0.05) independent of the specific laser scanner.     

Gender Determination of Adult Individuals by Three‐Dimensional Modeling of Canines

Gender determination is a fundamental issue in forensic anthropology. Many techniques based on bone and dental remains have been proposed. It is not always possible to implement the techniques using bones, but teeth are often perfectly preserved. It has been demonstrated that the canine has the greatest sexual dimorphism, and the aim of this work was to provide an easy and accurate dental technique for determining the gender in the absence of other skeletal elements. The sample was composed of 210 CT scans with four healthy canines. The 840 canines were modeled using MIMICS^® 10.01 software. The total volume of each tooth was determined. Seven mathematical models were determined by binary logistic regressions and ranked in order of relative performance. The seven proposed predictive models thus performed (0.910 ≤ AUC ≤ 0.938), with overall rates of correct predictions between 82.38 and 85.24%. The 4‐canine model is the most powerful for predicting the gender.     

Why Low-Income Households Become Unstably Housed: Evidence From the Panel Study of Income Dynamics

ABSTRACT

Because of a severe shortage of affordable housing in the United States, an increasing number of low-income households suffer from housing instability. However, little evidence exists as to why they experienced housing instability, although they were stably housed at other times. By applying hybrid models to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, this study estimates the effects of potential household-level predictors on the likelihood of experiencing housing instability. The results show that changes in family employment structure, job insecurity, automobile ownership, and the number of adult family members within a household correlate with housing instability after controlling for changes in household income and housing costs. Moreover, I find that households with children are particularly vulnerable to housing instability. These results contribute to identifying valid household-level predictors of housing instability and developing preventive policy interventions that help unsubsidized low-income households achieve housing stability.     

Compensator,Amplifier, or Distractor? The Moderating Role of Informal Political Talk on the Effect of News Media Use on Current-Affairs Learning Among First-Time Voters

With an increasing number of young people turning away from traditional news sources, an important question for democracy is whether alternative sources can help learning about politics and current affairs. In this study, we examine to what extent informal political talk with friends, family, and peers narrows or widens knowledge gaps amongst young people by compensating those with low news media use (“helping the poor”), amplifying news media effects amongst those with high news media use (“the rich get richer”), or distracting those with high news media use (“taxing the rich”). To test these different potentials, we take advantage of a four-wave panel study fielded ahead of the Danish National Election in 2015 among a sample of Danish first-time voters (ages 17 to 21). Our results show that informal political talk functions mostly as a compensator by informing those with low news media use about current political affairs and thereby helps decrease knowledge gaps caused by different levels of news media use.     

A comparison of proposed legislative data privacy protections in the United States

The use of online consumer tracking methods has raised significant privacy concerns for consumers and policymakers for decades. Advertisers using these methods analyze web-viewing habits to predict consumer preferences and actions. The advertising industry in the United States has promoted self-regulatory principles to respond to these concerns. However, in December 2010, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported that these efforts “have been too slow and up to now have failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection.” President Barack Obama's administration has supported broader legislation for comprehensive protection of individuals' private data. The leading model for data privacy protection is the 1980 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data. This article examines two leading legislative privacy proposals in the context of the OECD principles. This examination concludes that, although the proposals do not provide sufficient comprehensive privacy protections, they do fill significant gaps in current U.S. privacy laws.     

Paying the levy: Taxable wealth in Bridgetown,Barbados, 1680–1715

Differential fertility can be attributed to economic and cultural factors, but the family also plays an important role. Fertility behavior may be transmitted from parents to children through heritable dispositions or via socialization. Previous research has shown, however, that the expression of genetic effects depends on the interplay with the environment. In this article we take a long-term view and examine how the different mechanisms shifted over time and across social and local contexts on the basis of a large-scale database containing 100 thousand sibling pairs born between 1810 and 1870 in the Dutch province of Zeeland, a society undergoing demographic transition and industrialization. Corroborating earlier research, we find a significant increase in the expression of heritabilities and a fading of social influence for women born after the 1840s, who started their reproductive careers during the historical fertility decline in this region. Our study points out that the ‘social control’ of fertility was particularly reduced for women born in towns, women originating from the urban or rural laboring classes, and women from communities with a relatively liberal religious climate. Our findings are in line with research emphasizing the important role played by women in decision-making processes around childbearing, and could indicate the conditions that enhanced women's position in household bargaining during the historical fertility decline.