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Books in Social sciences and humanities

  • Modelling Welfare State Reform

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 225
    • June 28, 2014
    • G.M.M. Gelauff + 1 more
    • English
    In order to analyze the economic effects of various policy proposals for reforming the welfare state a model has been developed called MIMIC. The structure of this model is presented in the first part of this book. The model combines various modern labour market theories with a detailed description of relevant labour market institutions in an applied general equilibrium context. The second part of the volume contains an elaborate presentation of the simulation results of MIMIC, such as various tax policies, a reduction in benefits or the official minimum wage, individualization of the tax and social security system and the introduction of negative income tax. The model has proved to be a unique instrument for policy evaluation for the Netherlands.
  • Essays in the Economics of Exhaustible Resources

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 150
    • June 28, 2014
    • N.V. Long + 1 more
    • English
    Contributions to Economic Analysis, 150: Essays in the Economics of Exhaustible Resources focuses on the processes, principles, methodologies, and approaches involved in the economics of exhaustible resources. The selection first elaborates on the problem of survival, towards a more general theory of the order of exploitation of non-renewable resource-deposits, and the optimal order of exploitation of deposits of a renewable resource. Discussions focus on optimal trajectory, stable locus, assumptions and formulation, set-up costs and flow fixed costs, possibility of storage, costly extraction of deposits, and technical progress. The text then examines the transition from an exhaustible resource-stock to an inexhaustible substitute and the development of a substitute for an exhaustible natural resource, including dispersed ownership of the resource, social optimum, and single monopoly of the resource and its substitute. The manuscript takes a look at optimal taxation and economic depreciation, efficiency of competitive markets in a context of exhaustible resources, and oligopolistic extraction of a common-property resource. Topics include rational-expectation... equilibrium, implausibility of the assumption of competition, second-best taxation and the undesirability of the economic depreciation rule, and the effect of other taxes. The selection is a valuable reference for researchers interested in the economics of exhaustible resources.
  • Citizen Participation in Planning

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 19
    • June 28, 2014
    • M. Fagence
    • English
    The author's aim has been to draw together the threads of political and social science and of sub-specialisms within those broad areas of study and to interpret them in the context of urban and regional planning. Consideration is given to various interpretations of decision making in a democracy, to 'representation' and the public interest, to the opportunities for citizen participation in the planning process, to the range of potential participants, their motivation and competence, to the means which may be employed to secure different levels of citizen involvement; and to the impediments to meaningful participation. Therefore this book will contribute to the closing of the existing gap between theory and practice by drawing together a diversity of themes from political science, philosophy and psychology, community theory and regional science, rendering them comprehensible in the context of planning
  • Higher Education Policy: An International Comparative Perspective

    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • F. Kaiser + 5 more
    • English
    Tremendous changes are affecting the structure and funding of higher education in many countries. This volume attempts to identify and analyze the principles, structural features and modes of work of the different higher education policies operating in eleven countries, as well as their commonalities and differences in the light of both general international trends and country-specific factors. In order to gather the relevant information for the project, national correspondents were provided with an overarching framework to guide them in their work and to ensure maximum comparability of the resulting reports. Each country report is broken down into four sections: the structure and goals of higher education systems; authority in the system; higher education policy; and the impact of each on institutional governance and management.The final chapter draws together the general trends which have emerged: a move towards less state control; a strengthening of institutional autonomy and increased governance; competition between institutions; privatization of funding; greater market orientation and growing institutional accountability for quality and service.
  • The Aesthetic in Education

    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • M. Ross
    • English
    Features papers presented at one of Exeter University's Annual Creative Arts Summer Schools, together with especially solicited material. Contributors have focussed on the idea of the aesthetic as a special dimension of education, and the volume embraces a wide range of perspectives - philosophical accounts of the arts, aesthetics and creativity, multicultural education, the sociology of art, and the arts in further education.
  • Language Processing in Social Context

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 54
    • June 28, 2014
    • R. Dietrich + 1 more
    • English
    The book presents an interdisciplinary analysis of social, cognitive, situational and contextual aspects of language and language processing by first and second language speakers. Linguists and psychologists formulate theoretical models and empirical analyses of the influence of such factors on various levels of language processing. These relate specifically to syntactic and semantic parsing, lexical selection, and text production. The issue of ``hearer orientation'' in language use lies at the forefront of interest in this anthology and is tackled from such different fields as linguistics, text linguistics, formal semantics, social psychology, psychology of language, artificial intelligence, and second language acquisition.
  • Campus Strategies for Libraries and Electronic Information

    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • Caroline Arms
    • English
    A look at how ten American colleges and Universities bridged the gap between computing, administrative, and library organisationsDetaile... case studies from ten American colleges and universities will prepare you to make better plans and decisions for an electronic library, integrated information management system, or unified information resource. You'll find models and guidelines covering reference services, latest philosophies and strategies, management and organization issues, delivery mechanisms, and more.
  • Computer Security in Financial Organizations

    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • J. Essinger
    • English
    This book provides a unique in–depth focus on how financial organizations and suppliers of computer security are currently addressing – in strategic terms – the problem of computer security.Written in an easy to read, non technical style the book is essential reading for all those involved in the management of this sensitive area, from computer security managers, financial directors and managers to analysts and designers in financial software houses.The report analyses the computer security requirements of a wide variety of organizations in the financial services sector, ranging from retail, commercial and investment banks to financial trading and investment management organizations.
  • Economic Modeling in the Nordic Countries

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 210
    • June 28, 2014
    • L. Bergman + 1 more
    • English
    A selection of macroeconomic models used, or intended for, economic forecasting or policy analysis in the four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), is presented in this volume. New features and model applications are discussed and the models used by the Ministries of Finance are evaluated, with special attention to the role of relative prices and their treatment of the supply side. In addition there is a systematic comparison of results from model simulations on the main macroeconomic models in the four Nordic countries. The papers fall naturally into two sections. In Part One the focus is on the short-to-medium term models; in Part Two the focus switches to a presentation of three models that may all be classified as applied general equilibrium (AGE) models.
  • Handbook of Critical Issues in Goal Programming

    • 1st Edition
    • June 28, 2014
    • C. Romero
    • English
    Goal Programming (GP) is perhaps the oldest and most widely used approach within the Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) paradigm. GP combines the logic of optimisation in mathematical programming with the decision maker's desire to satisfy several goals. The primary purpose of this book is to identify the critical issues in GP and to demonstrate different procedures capable of avoiding or mitigating the inherent pitfalls associated with these issues. The outcome of a search of the literature shows many instances where GP models produced misleading or even erroneous results simply because of a careless formulation of the problem. Rather than being in itself a textbook, Critical Issues in Goal Programming is designed to complement existing textbooks. It will be useful to students and researchers with a basic knowledge of GP as well as to those interested in building GP models which analyse real decision problems.