602 research outputs found
Measuring Social Capital: Culture as an Explanation of Italy's Economic Dualism.
No full textThe paper presents a quantitative test of the oft-repeated view that Italy's backward and poor South suffered from low "social capital", a tendency to defect from co-operative engagements. The problem with such assertions is that they run the risk of taking as evidence in favour of the hypothesis the very observations that need to be explained. The analysis carried out in this work tries to break out of this impasse by analyzing the conditions under which it was ex ante welfare-improving for farmers in early 20th century Italy to join an unlimited liability rural co-operative bank which would give them access to cheaper credit but also exposed them to the risk of their neighbours' defection.POVERTY ; CULTURE ; SOCIAL CAPITAL
Output risk in Tuscan agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
No full textWe analyse output risk in Italian agriculture over the period 1870-1914. We use data on a set of 16 tenanted plots grouped into three farms comprising a single large estate. We estimate the degree of risk associated with each separate crop, with the portfolio of crops at the level of the plot, the farm and the estate. We highlight two particular features: the relatively high risk associated with tree crops (wine, oil and nuts); and the substantial scope for the landlord to reduce risk through crop diversification across plots. We discuss the implications of these for tenure contract theory
Paul Henry Gore-Booth and President F.L. Hovde
No full textPhotograph of President F.L. Hovde; Mr. Paul Henry Gore - Booth (British Diplomat and Author) and President Hovde, Ca. late 1940's
Measuring social capital: culture as an explanation of Italy’s economic dualism
No full textThe paper presents a quantitative test of the oft-repeated view that Italy’s backward and poor South suffered from low “social capital”, a tendency to defect from co-operative engagements. The problem with such assertions is that they run the risk of taking as evidence in favour of the hypothesis the very observations that need to be explained. The analysis carried out in this work tries to break out of this impasse by analysing the conditions under which it was ex ante welfare-improving for farmers in early 20th century Italy to join an unlimited liability rural co-operative bank which would give them access to cheaper credit but also exposed them to the risk of their neighbours’ defection. These co-ops are a prime testing ground for the cultural explanation in that they spread rapidly throughout Northern Italy in the late 19th century, but never gained a similar popularity in the South. I estimate the switching function for these co-ops in different parts of the country to test whether Northern and Southern farmers faced significantly different choice sets when making the decision to join. Identical choice sets but differential responses would of course favour the cultural explanation of the South’s backwardness. The results suggest that for the same parameter values, the choice sets for North and South were different, though whether this difference was large enough to explain the full difference in responses is not completely clear
From drought to flood: environmental constraints and the political economy of civic virtue
No full textThe paper models co-operative engagement under varying environmental constraints giving rise to different forms of collective action problems, specifically focussing on water management in pre-industrial societies. I show that societies where water availability is strongly seasonal develop no mechanism to encourage society-wide co-operative behaviour because the benefits of water storage are fully excludable. With pre-industrial technology water storage is a pure club good, and optimal club size can be shown to be very small under credible parameter values, converging to 1 in some cases (private good). The social consequences of the environmental constraint include strongly circumscribed co-operation and rent seeking. In contrast, areas where water management involved flood control and irrigation develop society-wide institutions based on self-sustaining co-operative engagement assisted by external policing. The model thus offers an explanation of varying levels of "civic virtue" in different areas
Unsupervised approach for misinformation detection in Russia-Ukraine war news
No full textThe Russian-Ukrainian war has attracted considerable global attention; however, fake news often obstructs the formation of public opinion and disseminates false information. To address this issue, we have curated the RUWA dataset, comprising over 16,500 news articles covering the pivotal events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These articles were sourced from established outlets in the USA, EU, Asia, Ukraine, and Russia, spanning the period from February to September 2022. The paper explores the use of semantic similarity to compare different aspects of articles from various web sources that cover the same events of the war. This unsupervised machine learning approach becomes crucial when obtaining annotated datasets is practically impossible due to the lack of real fact-checking during the ongoing war. The research goal is to uncover the potential of employing semantic similarity measures as a viable approach for detecting misinformation in news articles
An empirical relationship between the Deacon profile number and the Richardson number under convective conditions
No full textMean low-level temperature and wind profiles were constructed for 44 cases of free convection using the data O'Neill, Nebraska, during July and August 1956. Based upon the expression for the normalized logarithmic wind shear first suggested by Ellison and later refined by Panofsky, a theoretical formula for the Deacon number as a function of the Richardson number was derived, and values of the Deacon profile were computed. One of the parameters entering into this formula is the ration of the eddy diffusitivities for heat and momentum. This parameter was, in turn, computed from Priestley's expression for the dimensionless heat flux for free-convective cases. In using observed wind data from the mean profile in order to verify the theoretical computations of B, some marked discrepancies
occurred above the 100 cm level. These were due to inconsistent wind speed readings, and it was necessary to employ control data, based on neutral profiles to correct the wind speed. When this was done, the theoretical and
observed Deacon profile nurnbers were in very good agreement.
The author is deeply indebted to Dr. F.L. Martin
(Professor of Meteorology) for his suggestions and continued help throughout the investigations and during preparation of this paper. Special credit is due to Professor Martin for his large share in developing the derivations in this study.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Captain, Republic of Indonesian Navyhttp://archive.org/details/anempiricalrelat109451210
De stad van de toekomst wortelt in een gezonde bodem
No full textDe stad van de toekomst is een circulaire stad waar de toestand van de bodem cruciaal is voor de leefbaarheid en voor het succesvol doorvoeren van noodzakelijke transities. Gezien de huidige staat van de Nederlandse bodem is een gestructureerde aanpak nodig om de balans tussen boven- en ondergrond te herstellen.The city of the future is a circular city in which the condition of the soil is crucial to liveability and to the successful achievement of necessary transitions. Given the present condition of the soil in the Netherlands, a structure approach is needed to restore balance between subsurface and surface.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Environmental Technology and Desig
Amfibisch wonen in de delta
No full textAlle signalen wijzen erop: onze manier van bouwen en wonen in de delta is op de lange termijn niet vol te houden. Onderzoeker milieutechnisch ontwerpen en universitair hoofddocent aan de TU Delft Fransje Hooimeijer pleit daarom voor een radicale herijking van het deltabeheer. Een ontwerpende, interdisciplinaire aanpak is de eerste stap om de Nederlandse delta in de toekomst veilig en leefbaar te houden. En ja, dat levert soms provocatieve ontwerpen op.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Environmental Technology and Desig
De boven- en ondergrond van de stad als een samenhangend systeem: The surface and subsurface of the city as a united system
No full textNo healthy city without a healthy surface. And yet the soil and its associated eco- and water system are a final piece in area development practice. What if we were to draw cross-sections through the above- and underground city more often and pay more attention to the 'technical space' of nature and the city below ground level? Can we achieve a more sustainable design of urban space with this?Accepted Author ManuscriptEnvironmental Technology and DesignPractice Chair Urban Area Developmen
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