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Modalist empiricism and physical laws
Get PDFFrom an empiricist perspective, we argue that physical modality best accounts for the modal status of laws (understood in empiricist terms as suitable empirical regularities). Nomic modality need not be construed in terms of metaphysical modal features. Rather, we submit, we live in a world full of physical possibilities and necessities that are investigated by such processes as gathering evidence, improving inferential practices, and undertaking theory and model construction. Empiricists can safely take distance from Humean accounts of nomic modality, hence maintaining that laws are not restricted to yielding summaries of actual phenomena but inform us about the range of physical possibilities and necessities in their domains. None of this requires the introduction of a metaphysical basis for nomic modality
ROK-UK partnership on building capacity in digital and critical technologies standards
No full textAs global competition over digital and Critical and Emerging Technologies (CETs) intensifies, standardisation has become a central pillar of this rivalry. The Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United Kingdom (UK) view standardisation not only as a means of promoting innovation and market expansion, but also as a key component of their national strategies for both security and technology. Building on bilateral frameworks such as the Downing Street Accord and the Digital Partnership, this project aims to identify shared interests, increase coordination in international Standards Development Organisations (SDOs), and build sustainable mechanisms for collaboration at the technical and policy levels. The project focuses on three technologies: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum, and Semiconductors. These areas are selected based on their strategic importance and potential for joint leadership in standardisation efforts
Encouraging politicians to act on climate: a field experiment with local officials in six countries
No full textLocal governments play an important role in addressing the climate crisis. However, despite public support for climate action, local policy responses have been limited. We argue that (1) biased beliefs about voter preferences, (2) the time horizon for credit claiming, and (3) source credibility are barriers for legislators to learn and adopt new environmental policies. We test these arguments in a real policy-learning context. Representatives from six Western countries received customized invitations to a webinar on climate solutions for local governments. We find that constituency opinion on climate issues made local office-holders more responsive to public preferences. Invitations sent by a climate scientist and emphasizing shorter term policy effects increased interest in the webinar, but did not boost the likelihood of policy commitments. Only US officials responded negatively to climate scientists. The results reveal concrete steps to induce climate action and contribute to scholarship on policy learning
Shaping states into nations: the effects of ethnic geography on state borders
No full textBorders define states, yet little systematic evidence explains where they are drawn. Putting current challenges to state borders into perspective and breaking new methodological ground, this paper analyzes how ethnic geography and nationalism have shaped European borders since the 19th century. We argue that nationalism creates pressures to redraw political borders along ethnic lines, ultimately making states more congruent with ethnic groups. We introduce a Probabilistic Spatial Partition Model to test this argument, modeling state territories as partitions of a planar spatial graph. Using new data on Europe's ethnic geography since 1855, we find that ethnic boundaries increase the conditional probability that two locations they separate are, or will become, divided by a state border. Secession is an important mechanism driving this result. Similar dynamics characterize border change in Asia but not in Africa and the Americas. Our results highlight the endogenous formation of nation-states in Europe and beyond
Replication package for: "Encomienda, the Colonial State, and Long-Run Development in Colombia"
No full textFaguet, J.P., C. Matajira and F. Sánchez. Forthcoming. “Encomienda, the Colonial State, and Long-Run Development in Colombia.” Economic Journal
Compulsory activation of young welfare recipients: Revisiting the trade-off between workfare and welfare generosity
No full textWe revisit the trade-off between workfare and welfare through a quasi-natural experiment by exploiting municipal variation from a 2017 Norwegian reform introducing compulsory activation for young welfare recipients. The results show a significant negative effect on social assistance. On the other hand, we find no effect on income adequacy, implying that other transfers mitigate the drop in social assistance. Our results convey therefore that the trade-off between workfare and welfare is binding when focusing exclusively on social assistance: investing in activation policies creates challenges to poverty alleviation channelled through the last social safety net. However, the trade-off is mitigated through other transfers, allowing us to conclude that social investment does not need to be inimical to the poor.
This project contains the codes to replicate the empirical analysis in the article: Compulsory activation of young welfare recipients: Revisiting the trade-off between workfare and welfare
generosity. Authored by…
The codes to fully replicate the analysis can be run in the interface microdata.no
Additional file 1 of Explaining the unmet information needs of family carers of people with dementia: a theoretical model of information behaviour
No full textAbstract Background Family carers of people with dementia often report unmet information needs, despite policy emphasis on the provision of information as key to enabling good care and empowering carers in their role. Although the consequences of unmet information needs are detrimental to both the person being cared for and the carer, a systematic understanding of the causes of unmet information needs is lacking. To address this gap, this article presents a theoretical framework centred on the concept of information behaviour and integrating the information seeking and communication model, candidacy theory, and discrepancy theory. The framework maps information behaviour across six phases (from the identification of an information need to its satisfaction) and three levels (individual, service, system) at which explanatory factors may be observed. Methods The framework was tested on data collected from 24 in-depth interviews and two focus groups with people with dementia and family carers of someone living with dementia in the North-East of England (UK). Data were analysed thematically to map the factors at play at each phase of the framework that might explain whether needs were met. Results Unmet information needs are not always the result of a lack of information. Issues such as inadequate support for the user in identifying the need, problems in finding information, the timing of information provision, the amount of information provided, the credibility of the information source, and the relevance of the information (given care needs, preferences, personal, and family circumstances) can all contribute to unmet information needs. This work shows that meeting an information need ultimately requires progress through the different stages of information behaviour, each of which is influenced by the interplay of individual-, service-, and system-level factors, and depends on both users and providers. Conclusions This work challenges the rational paradigm in health and care information, which assumes that more information will lead to better care, and contributes to a critical perspective on health and care information that reframes successful information behaviour as a set of complex activities that are relational, emotionally charged, contextually embedded, and require (and produce) situated knowledge. Trial registration Not applicable
Replication Data for: Protest and incumbent support: Evidence from a natural experiment in Ghana
No full textHow do protests shape incumbent support in lower-income democracies? Protests serve an accountability function by informing voters about government performance, but can also polarise opinion around pre-existing social and political identities. Leveraging an anti-government demonstration in Ghana that intersected an original survey in the field, we find that respondents interviewed immediately after the protest are more trusting and approving of the President. This effect is robust across multiple bandwidths, specifications, and placebo tests, and is driven by those who voted for the ruling party at the previous election. Our findings are consistent with theories of social identity and group threat, where supporters of an unpopular administration rally to their in-group’s defence. By contrast, the protest does nothing to shift opposition voters’ strongly negative prior beliefs. We show how anti-government protests can sometimes bolster incumbent support, extending the study of partisanship and identity politics to an understudied democratic context
Data and Code for: Background Matters, but not Whether Parents are Immigrants: Outcomes of Children Born in Denmark
No full textIn Europe, the children of migrants often have worse economic outcomes than those with local-born parents. This paper shows that children born in Denmark with immigrant parents (first-generation locals) have lower earnings, higher unemployment, less education, more welfare transfers, and more criminal convictions than children with local-born parents. However, when we condition on parental socio-economic characteristics, first-generation locals generally perform as well or slightly better than the children of locals. While children of immigrants are more likely to come from deprived backgrounds, they do not experience substantially different outcomes conditional on parental background
Data and Code for: Clean Identification? The Effects of the Clean Air Act on Air Pollution, Exposure Disparities and House Prices
No full textWe assess the US Clean Air Act standards for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Using high-resolution data, we find that the 2005 regulation reduced PM2.5 levels by 0.4μg/m^3 over five years, with larger effects in more polluted areas. Standard difference-in-differences overstates these effects by a factor of three because time trends differ by baseline pollution, a bias we overcome with three alternative approaches. We show that the regulation contributed to narrowing Urban-Rural and Black-White PM2.5 exposure disparities, but less than difference-in-differences suggest. Pollution damages capitalized into house prices, on the other hand, appear larger than previously thought when leveraging regulatory variation