2,863 research outputs found
Samuel Beckett and the Writers of Port-Royal
Get PDFIt has been observed that ‘the literary influences on Beckett have been far more important than has been acknowledged, and more important indeed, than the philosophical influences’ (Smith 2002: 3). The truth of this statement is evidenced by the description that scholars have given of Samuel Beckett’s relationship to seventeenth century French classicism. To date, critical interest has been limited for the most part to the figure of the philosopher René Descartes on the (fragile) grounds that Beckett was exclusively concerned with the Cartesian imperative of clarity and order, the fundamental dualism between body and mind, and Nominalism.
Together with the assumption that Beckett’s vision was essentially Cartesian, his literary filiation with Pascal was suggested by critics, but only in terms of Beckett’s formal approach to the theatre. In his short article on En attendant Godot in 1953, the playwright Jean Anouilh was among the first reviewers to suggest that Beckett’s drama synthesizes the encounter between ‘classicism’ and a ‘modern’ form of art. It is well known that Beckett retained a lifelong admiration for Pascal – indeed, Pascal was one of his ‘old chestnuts’ (Knowlson 1997: 653). Little attention has been paid, however, to the originality of Pascal’s thought, the specific nature of his prose, and the impact these might have had upon Beckett’s mature work, especially the trilogy and the subsequent short prose. Yet, in the literary and philosophical context of post-war France, Beckett’s filiation with Pascal, their corresponding preoccupations, were evident to his contemporaries, who identified Pascal as an underlying presence in his works
Now for the long term: the report of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations
Get PDFThis report is the product of a year long process of research and debate undertaken by a group of eminent leaders on the successes and failures in addressing global challenges over recent decades.
As the world slowly emerges from the devastating Financial Crisis, it is time to reflect on the lessons of this turbulent period and think afresh about how to prevent future crises.
The Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations focuses on the increasing short-termism of modern politics and our collective inability to break the gridlock which undermines attempts to address the biggest challenges that will shape our future. In Now for the Long Term, they urge decision-makers to overcome their pressing daily preoccupations to tackle problems that will determine the lives of today’s and tomorrow’s generations. Dr James Martin, the founder of the Oxford Martin School, highlights that humanity is at a crossroads. This could be our best century ever, or our worst. The outcome will depend on our ability to understand and harness the extraordinary opportunities as well as manage the unprecedented uncertainties and risks.
The report identifies what these challenges are, explains how progress can be made, and provides practical recommendations. The Commission outlines an agenda for the long term. The case for action is built in three parts. The first, Possible Futures , identifies the key drivers of change and considers how we may address the challenges that will dominate this
century. Next, in Responsible Futures, the Commission draws inspiration from previous examples of where impediments to action have been overcome, and lessons from where progress has been stalled. We then consider the characteristics of our current national and global society that frustrate progress. The final part, Practical Futures, sets out the principles for action and offers illustrative recommendations which show how we can build a sustainable, inclusive and resilient future for all.
 
Corpus of Spanish Adjective-Adverbs and Prepositional Phrases in CORDIAM: Sp_AP_Cordiam
No full textThis database consists of over 1.200 historical examples which were collected and
annotated in 2018 by Pascal Striedner, under the supervision of Martin Hummel and
Katharina Gerhalter. The data shows the Latin-American Spanish usage of
adjective-adverbs (cierto, fijo, etc.) and related prepositional
phrases (de cierto, por cierto; de fijo, a la fija, etc.) in
different functions, such as verb modification or as discourse markers. The corpus
includes examples from the 16th to the 19th century, especially from colonial
administrative and legal documents as well as chronicles and private letters. The data
was compiled via search requests of adjective lemmas such as seguro in CORDIAM and manual filtering of adverbial functions. All records of
adverbial usage as well as the corresponding prepositional phrases (e.g. de seguro) were selected and registered. The list of
adjective-adverbs used for this search query was based on the list of adjective-adverbs
found in the previously annotated corpora Sp_A_CDH and Sp_AP_SH3, and complemented by
older orthographic variants. The lemmatization of both the adjective-adverbs and the
prepositional phrases is based on the underlying adjectival base (e.g. seguro, fijo) and on standard Spanish orthography. In
total, 86 different adjectival bases (lemmata) are registered, as shown in the List of
Lemmata, which includes the number of tagged examples per lemma
The fiscal theory of the price level puzzle: A non Ricardian view
Get PDFThe fiscal theory of the price level says that the price level can be made determinate if the government uses fiscal policies such that government liabilities explode unless the price in the first period is at the "right" level. The policy implications are disturbing, as they call for rather adventurous fiscal policies. We show that these disturbing policy implications are specific to the "Ricardian" models that have been used to develop the theory. By moving to "non Ricardian" models we see that price determinacy is consistent with reasonable fiscal policies.fiscal theory of the price level ; fiscal policy ; global determinacy ; monetary policy
sj-pdf-1-wem-10.1016_j.wem.2023.05.014 - Supplemental material for Wilderness Medical Society Clinical Practice Guidelines for Prevention and Management of Avalanche and Nonavalanche Snow Burial Accidents: 2024 Update
No full textSupplemental material, sj-pdf-1-wem-10.1016_j.wem.2023.05.014 for Wilderness Medical Society Clinical Practice Guidelines for Prevention and Management of Avalanche and Nonavalanche Snow Burial Accidents: 2024 Update by Christopher Van Tilburg, MD, Peter Paal, MD, Giacomo Strapazzon, MD, PhD, Colin K. Grissom, MD, Pascal Haegeli, PhD, Natalie Hölzl, MD, Scott McIntosh, MD, MPH, Martin Radwin, MD, William “Will” R. Smith, MD, Stephanie Thomas, MS, Bruce Tremper, MS, David Weber, FP-C, Albert R. Wheeler, MD, Ken Zafren, MD, and Hermann Brugger, MD in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine</p
AN OVERVIEW OF MAJOR SOURCES OF DATA AND ANALYSES RELATING TO PHYSICAL FUNDAMENTALS IN INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY MARKETS
Get PDFThe debate on whether price movements in commodity markets are determined by changes in physical supply and demand fundamentals or by the speculative effects of financial investors seems to find some element of agreement on one particular point: the need for increased transparency and improved information on futures markets and physical commodity markets. This discussion paper provides an assessment of the current situation with regard to availability of information on physical commodity markets, pointing to some of the existing information gaps and areas for improvement. The paper presents a comprehensive account of the different information sources for physical commodity markets (including their websites), and could therefore be considered a practical information tool in itself, of use to different stakeholders interested in knowing about developments in these markets.
SHARE OF LABOUR COMPENSATION AND AGGREGATE DEMAND – DISCUSSIONS TOWARDS A GROWTH STRATEGY
Get PDFEconomic growth strategies of developing countries have focused in the last decades on expanding their exports. In that scheme, wage compression seems necessary in order to compensate the observed slow productivity pace achieving, therefore, “competitiveness”. The core of this discussion is, undoubtedly, how the national product is appropriated through wages and surplus, i.e. the factorial income distribution. From that viewpoint, this paper discusses the long-term impoverishment of Argentinean workers through two key aspects of the economic process: on one hand, the way in which labour force is allocated, by analysing the relationship between real wage and productivity. On the other, how income is used in the acquisition of consumer goods and capital formation. In order to fully comprehend those trends, this paper recourses to an international comparison with two types of countries: the developed ones (United States of America, France and Japan) and the largest Latin American economies (Brazil and Mexico). As these processes take place in the long run, this paper’s analysis period will start from the 1950s.
THE SCOPE FOR FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKET INTERVENTIONS
Get PDFThe discussion on exchange rate policy is dominated by the so-called “impossible trinity”. According to this principle an autonomous monetary policy, a control over the exchange rate and free capital movements cannot be achieved simultaneously. In this paper, a strategy of managed floating is developed that allows transforming the “impossible trinity” into a “possible trinity”. If a central bank targets an exchange rate path which is determined by uncovered interest parity (UIP), it can at the same time set its policy rate autonomously. As a UIP path removes the incentives for carry-trade, it is also compatible with capital mobility. The approach can be used unilaterally to prevent carry trade as a central bank can always prevent an appreciation of its currency. But it can also be applied bilaterally or multilaterally. Successful examples are the European Monetary System and the exchange rate policy of Slovenia before its EMU membership.
SOME REFLECTIONS ON CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN GROWTH ILLUSIONS AND DEVELOPMENT SPACE
Get PDFMany economists and policy makers advocate a fundamental shift towards “green growth” as the new, qualitatively-different growth paradigm, based on enhanced material/resource/energy efficiency and drastic changes in the energy mix. “Green growth” may work well in creating new growth impulses with reduced environmental load and facilitating related technological and structural change. But can it also mitigate climate change at the required scale (i.e. significant, absolute and permanent decline of GHG emissions at global level) and pace? This paper argues that growth, technological, population-expansion and governance constraints as well as some key systemic issues cast a very long shadow on the “green growth” hopes. One should not deceive oneself into believing that such evolutionary (and often reductionist) approach will be sufficient to cope with the complexities of climate change. It may rather give much false hope and excuses to do nothing really fundamental that can bring about a U-turn of global GHG emissions. The proponents of a resource efficiency revolution and a drastic change in the energy mix need to scrutinize the historical evidence, in particular the arithmetic of economic and population growth. Furthermore, they need to realize that the required transformation goes beyond innovation and structural changes to include democratization of the economy and cultural change. Climate change calls into question the global equality of opportunity for prosperity (i.e. ecological justice and development space) and is thus a huge developmental challenge for the South and a question of life and death for some developing countries (who increasingly resist the framing of climate protection versus equity).
Fiscal Multipliers over the Business Cycle
Get PDFThis paper illustrates why fiscal policy becomes more effective as unemployment rises in recessions. The theory is based on the equilibrium unemployment model of Michaillat (forthcoming), in which jobs are rationed in recessions. Fiscal policy takes the form of government spending on public-sector jobs. Recessions are periods of acute job shortage without much competition for workers among recruiting firms; hiring in the public sector does not crowd out hiring in the private sector much; therefore fiscal policy reduces unemployment effectively. Formally the fiscal multiplier—the reduction in unemployment rate achieved by spending one dollar on public-sector jobs—is countercyclical. An implication is that available estimates of the fiscal multiplier, which measure the average effect of fiscal policy over the business cycle, do not apply in recessions because the multiplier is much higher in recessions than on average.Fiscal multiplier, unemployment, business cycle, job rationing, matching frictions
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