2,108 research outputs found
Payments and finance problems in the Commonwealth of Independent States
No full textPayments problems constrained interstate trade among the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries in 1992-95, especially during the prolonged demise of the ruble zone. Two kinds of solutions should be sought: 1) more effective stabilization measures to improve the prospects of currency convertibility among CIS countries; and 2) strengthening of institutional arrangements to permit payments and settlements through correspondent bank accounts. Strengthening institutions will require not only strengthening commercial banks but liberalizing foreign exchange markets and promoting the use of letters of credit and other mechanisms to increase the security of trade transactions. A multilateral clearing arrangement operated among central banks would have been a useful alternative to the chaotic payments prevailing earlier, but such arrangements are no longer needed as considerable progress has been made toward convertibility. Nor is a payments union desirable. Trade deficits are likely to persist in such countries as Belarus and Ukraine. Surplus countries such as Russia and Turkmenistan must develop transparent means of trade financing that take into account the recipient countries'ability to pay. External financing will remain important for practically all CIS countries. The best way to mobilize private financing will be to establish macroeconomic stability and stable, transparent rules on private capital inflows. Improving the flow of public resources requires improving countries'capacity to quickly absorb the large amounts already committed. Donors need to expedite procurement and other procedures and recipient countries must address governance problems and institutional weaknesses that delay disbursements. Certain smaller CIS countries face significant debt servicing problems and often the creditors are other CIS countries that themselves need additional financing. The smaller countries need debt relief on concessional terms, which is possible only if external assistance allows local creditors to offer such relief.Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Trade Policy,Financial Intermediation
Andrew Alföldi, The Conversion of Constantine and Rome. Translated by Harold Mattingly
No full textBouchery H. F. Andrew Alföldi, The Conversion of Constantine and Rome. Translated by Harold Mattingly. In: L'antiquité classique, Tome 20, fasc. 1, 1951. pp. 233-235
Andrew Alföldi, The conversion of Constantine and pagan Rome. Translated by Harold Mattingly, 1948
No full textPalanque Jean-Rémy. Andrew Alföldi, The conversion of Constantine and pagan Rome. Translated by Harold Mattingly, 1948. In: Revue des Études Anciennes. Tome 51, 1949, n°3-4. pp. 371-373
The self in relationships: whether, how, and when close others put the self “in its place”
No full textWe examined whether, how, and when relational closeness reduces self-enhancement and, more specifically, the self-serving bias (SSB). Relational closeness was either measured or induced. In several experiments, either relationally close or relationally distant dyads worked on interdependent outcomes tasks. The SSB was present in members of distant dyads (i.e., participants took individual credit for the dyadic success but blamed the partner for the dyadic failure), but absent in members of close dyads (i.e., participants were equally likely to take personal responsibility for the success or the failure of the dyad). The gracious attributional pattern of close dyad members is due to: (a) forming a favorable impression of the partner; and (b) expecting attributional generosity from the partner. In fact, when the partner violates this expectancy (i.e., when helshe displays the SSB), members of close dyads respond by manifesting the SSB in turn. We discuss these and several other contingencies that are likely to keep an individual's self-enhancement tendencies in check
The 'Servant of God':Divine Favour and Instrumentality Under Constantine, 318-25
No full textThis article focuses on the doctrine of divine favour and instrumentality as viewed from the emperor's own perspective, in relation to the early development of the ‘Arian controversy’ as far as the Council of Nicaea. While modern writers have focused on explicit statements by Constantine to suggest that unity was the emperor's highest priority, this article reveals a pattern by which he sought to manage divine favour and argues that doing so effectively was of primary importance to him. Such a shift in understanding the emperor's priorities adds to the range of explanations for his later apparent inconsistencies as the actual achievement of unity continually eluded him
Constantine and the Christian Empire
No full textUnder Constantine, Christianity was transformed from a persecuted cult into an established religion, and pagan Rome became the Christian empire of Byzantine times. This biography is a detailed, comprehensive, and compelling portrayal of the life and times of arguably the greatest of Roman emperors. In a seamless combination of vivid narrative and historical analysis, the crisis of the Roman Empire and the Great persecution, Constantine\u27s political maneuvers and military campaigns, his conversion to and patronage of Christianity, and his church-building programs in Rome, Jerusalem, and Constantinople are brought to life and made understandable for modern readers. The author\u27s comprehensive knowledge of the literary sources, and his extensive research into the material remains of Constantine\u27s reign, mean that this volume provides a more rounded and accurate portrait of the emperor than ever before. Extensively illustrated and fully documented, Constantine and the Christian Empire is a landmark publication in Roman imperial, early Christian, and Byzantine history.https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/fac_books/1489/thumbnail.jp
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Interpretation and edification in Eusebius' Life of Constantine
No full texttextThis dissertation approaches Eusebius’ De Vita Constantini (hereafter VC) as a
literary work, focusing on the ways in which the concepts of interpretation and moral
edification inform the text. In the tradition of Plutarchan biography Eusebius states that
he writes for the sake of the reader’s moral improvement, but as a Christian theologian
he assumes that moral improvement follows spiritual enlightenment. Thus his
biography of Constantine not only portrays a virtuous life but interprets what it portrays
in order to reveal underlying spiritual truths. This interpretive activity arises from a
mental habit that Eusebius shared with others, Christian and non-Christian, in his
Platonizing intellectual milieu and that I term “symbolic thought,” namely, a view of
the material world as a set of signs representing supra-mundane reality.
In Chapter One I examine Eusebius’ comparison of Constantine with Moses in
VC 1 as an example of typology, a comparative interpretive strategy favored by
Christian writers. Typology is often sharply distinguished from allegory in modern
theological studies; I argue that both can be forms of symbolic thought, when they are
used to direct the reader to a spiritual truth. In Chapter Two I discuss the ways in which
Eusebius’ idealized portrayal of Constantine conforms to the literary stereotype of the
philosopher. I argue that Eusebius viewed VC as a whole as a symbolic composition:
through the accumulation of mundane details about Constantine, Eusebius claims to
give the reader a glimpse of a profoundly spiritual soul. In Chapter Three I argue that
Eusebius’ writings reveal a positive view of the capacity of the visual arts to function
symbolically, despite the tendency of modern scholarship to associate him with
iconophobia. I analyze several passages in which Eusebius makes artistic mimesis a
significant adjunct to a Platonizing theory of mimetic relationships between the material
and spiritual realms, in that he presents products of the visual arts (like VC itself, which
Eusebius describes as a “verbal portrait” of Constantine) as able both to represent
spiritual reality and to assist the viewer in the process of assimilation to the divine.Classic
The why's the limit: curtailing self-enhancement with explanatory introspection
No full textSelf-enhancement is linked to psychological gains (e.g., subjective well-being, persistence in adversity) but also to intrapersonal and interpersonal costs (e.g., excessive risk taking, antisocial behavior). Thus, constraints on self-enhancement may sometimes afford intrapersonal and interpersonal advantages. We tested whether explanatory introspection (i.e., generating reasons for why one might or might not possess personality traits) constitutes one such constraint. Experiment 1 demonstrated that explanatory introspection curtails self-enhancement. Experiment 2 clarified that the underlying mechanism must (a) involve explanatory questioning rather than descriptive imagining, (b) invoke the self rather than another person, and (c) feature written expression rather than unaided contemplation. Finally, Experiment 3 obtained evidence that an increase in uncertainty about oneself mediates the effect
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