103,177 research outputs found
Did Growth and Reforms Increase Citizens’ Support for the Transition?
No full textHow did post-communist transformations affect people’s perceptions of their economic and political systems? We model a pseudo-panel with 89 country-year clusters, based on 13 countries observed between 1991 and 2004, to identify the macro and institutional drivers of the public opinion. Our main findings are: (i) When the economy is growing, on average people appreciate more extensive reforms; they dislike unbalanced reforms. (ii) Worsening of income distribution and higher inflation interact with an increasing share of the private sector in aggravating nostalgia for the past regime. (iii) Cross-country differences in the attitudes towards the present and future (both in the economic and political dimensions) are largely explained by differences in the institutional indicators for the rule of law and corruption. (iv) Cross-country differences in the extent of nostalgia towards the past are mainly related to differences in the deterioration of standards of living.
Did Growth and Reforms Increase Citizens' Support for the Transition?
No full textHow did post-communist transformations affect people's perceptions of their economic and political systems? We model a pseudo-panel with 89 country-year clusters, based on 13 countries observed between 1991 and 2004, to identify the macro and institutional drivers of the public opinion. Our main findings are: (i) When the economy is growing, on average people appreciate more extensive reforms; they dislike unbalanced reforms. (ii) Worsening of income distribution and higher inflation interact with an increasing share of the private sector in aggravating nostalgia for the past regime. (iii) Cross-country differences in the attitudes towards the present and future (both in the economic and political dimensions) are largely explained by differences in the institutional indicators for the rule of law and corruption. (iv) Cross-country differences in the extent of nostalgia towards the past are mainly related to differences in the deterioration of standards of living.economic performance, economic reforms, post-communist transition, political economy, support for reforms, public opinion
Statistical mechanics of reparametrization-invariant systems. It takes three to tango
No full textIt is notoriously difficult to apply statistical mechanics to generally covariant systems, because the notions of time, energy, and equilibrium are seriously modified in this context. We discuss the conditions under which weaker versions of these notions can be defined, sufficient for statistical mechanics. We focus on reparametrization-invariant systems without additional gauges. The key is to reconstruct statistical mechanics from the ergodic theorem. We find that a suitable split of the system into two non interacting components is sufficient for generalizing statistical mechanics. While equilibrium acquires sense only when the system admits a suitable split into three weakly interacting components - roughly: a clock and two systems among which a generalization of energy is equi-partitioned. This allows the application of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics as an additivity condition of such generalized energy
Rovelli on disharmony between the quantum arrows of time
No full textRovelli (2016) argues that the there is disharmony with respect to the arrow of time from the perspective of testable predictions, as compared to the perspective of Schroedinger evolution, and uses this claim as evidence against realist interpretations of the wave function. I argue on the contrary that this disharmony arises only out of a non-standard definition of time reversal that ignores the 'big-T', and that harmony is restored when the standard definition is adopted
Monetary circulation in Byzantine and Carolingian Rome: a reconsideration in the light of Recent Archaeological Data
No full textAspetti numismatici e stratigrafici a Roma tra tardo antico e alto medioevo: una sintesi sui dati della Crypta Balbi
No full textLetter, [Author unclear] to Paulina T. Merritt
No full textHandwritten letter to Paulina Merritt from an unknown author, October 1, 1876.
Vortex pinning by natural defects in thin films of YBa2Cu3O7−δ
No full textAlthough vortex pinning in laser-ablated YBa2Cu3O7−δ films on (100) SrTiO3 is dominated by threading dislocations, many other natural pinning sites are present. To identify the contribution from twin planes, surface corrugations and point defects, we manipulate the relative densities of all defects by post-annealing films with various as-grown dislocation densities, ndisl. While a universal magnetic field B dependence of the transport current density js(B, T) is observed (independently of ndisl, temperature T and the annealing treatment), the defect structure changes considerably. Correlating the microstructure to js(B, T), it becomes clear that surface roughness, twins and point defects are not important at low magnetic fields compared to linear defect pinning. Transmission electron microscopy indicates that threading dislocations are not part of grain boundaries nor are they related to the twin domain structure. We conclude that js(B, T) is essentially determined by pinning along threading dislocations, naturally induced during the growth process. Even in high magnetic fields, where the vortex density outnumbers ndisl, it appears that linear defects stabilize the vortex lattice by means of the vortex–vortex interaction.
- …
