1,721,163 research outputs found
The clan and the corporation: sustaining cooperation in China and Europe
No full textOver the last millennium, the clan and the corporation have been the loci of cooperation in China and Europe respectively. This paper examines – analytically and historically – the cultural and institutional co-evolution that led to this bifurcation. We highlight that groups with which individuals identify are basic units of cooperation. Such loyalty groups influence institutional development because intra-group moral commitment reduces enforcement cost implying a comparative advantage in pursuing collective actions. Loyalty groups perpetuate due to positive feedbacks between morality, institutions, and the implied pattern of cooperation
Contract enforcement and institutions among the Maghribi Traders: Refuting Edwards and Ogilvie
Full text linkEdwards and Ogilvie (2008) dispute the empirical basis for the view (Greif, e.g., 1989, 1994,2006) that multilateral reputation mechanism mitigated agency problems among the eleventh-century Maghribi traders. They assert that the relations among merchants and agents were law-based. This paper refutes this assertion using quantitative and documentary evidence thereby vindicating the position that the legal system had a marginal role in mitigating agency problems in long-distance trade in this historical era. Edwards and Ogilvie constantly present legal actions in non-trade related legal cases as evidence for a reliance on the legal system for matters pertaining to long-distance trade. Their criticism of Greif’s documentary analysis also fails scrutiny. The claim that merchants' relations with their overseas agents were law-based is wrong. This paper is based on quantitative analyses of the corpuses containing the hundreds of documents on which the literature relies and a careful review of the documents and the literature Edwards and Ogilvie cite. Their assertion is shown to be based on unrepresentative and irrelevant examples, an inaccurate description of the literature, and a consistent misreading of the few sources they consulted. In particular, their examples for the use of the court are mainly taken from mandatory legal procedures associated with sorting out the assets and liabilities of deceased traders’ estates. Such examples do not support the claim that agency relations were law-based. The quantitative analysis reveals that empirical basis for the multilateral reputation view is stronger than originally perceived. This paper also sheds light on the roles of the legal system and reputation mechanism during this period.institutions; contract-enforcement; reputation; Maghribi traders; agency relations
Globalization, Trade, and Development: Some Lessons From History
Full text linkRecent research in international economic history has opened up new lines of enquiry on the origins of globalization, as well as its causes and consequences. Such findings have the potential to inform contemporary debates and this paper considers what lessons this body of historical work has for our current understanding of the linkages between trade and development.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies.
No full textThis paper integrates game-theoretical and sociological concepts to conduct a comparative historical analysis of the relations between culture and institutions. It indicates the importance of culture, and in particular cultural beliefs, in determining institutions, in institutional path dependence, and in forestalling intersociety successful adoption of institutions. Examination of institutional change in two premodern societies from the Muslim and the Latin worlds yields that their distinct institutional structures resemble those found by social psychologists to differentiate contemporary developing and developed economies. This suggests the historical importance of distinct cultures and the related societal organizations in economic development. Copyright 1994 by University of Chicago Press.
Political Organizations, Social Structure, and Institutional Success: Reflections From Genoa and Venice During the Commercial Revolution
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