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Books in Social sciences and humanities

Studies in Macroeconomic Theory
Employment and Inflation
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Edmund S. Phelps
Karl Shell
English
Studies in Macroeconomic Theory, Volume 1: Employment and Inflation is a collection of scholarly papers that accounts the development of a microeconomic theory of wage and price decisions and commitments. The book presents some features of the modern inflationary process and makes sense of some still accepted elements in the postclassical macroeconomics of Keynes and Phillips. The papers in this volume are grouped into seven sections. Part I describes disequilibrium models of employment. Part II gives closer scrutiny to the idea of the "natural" rate of unemployment. Part III studies the welfare economics of inflation in an equilibrium context. The fourth part deals with inflation planning. The papers in Part V discuss hypotheses about the causes of the rise in the rate of inflation in two historical episodes: the American inflation between 1955 - 1957 and 1972 - 1974. Part VI addresses some questions in the theory of economic stabilization by monetary and fiscal policy. The final section of this volume attempts to apply to matters of stochastic social choice, stabilization policy being one instance of such a choice, the conception of justice advanced by Rawls. The compendium will be of value to economists and economic policy makers.
Protecting the Social Service Client
Legal and Structural Controls on Official Discretion
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Joel F. Handler
Robert H. Haveman
English
Protecting the Social Service Client: Legal and Structural Controls on Official Discretion examines the treatment of clients of public and private social service agencies and highlights the role of consumer protection in dealing with the existence and abuse of administrative discretion. Of particular concern is the legal rights of these social service clients — principally the poor — and how effectively these rights are being enforced. The history of due process protection (that is, by means of appeals and court hearings) is discussed and a number of legal and structural remedies are offered. Comprised of six chapters, this book begins by setting forth the issues and reviewing the experiences of client protections under the due process model, with emphasis on discretion as a key legal issue in social services. The reader is then introduced to legal theory, particularly how constitutional and statutory law defines the legal interests of social service clients and what system of protection is provided by the law. Subsequent chapters focus on the protection of client rights in practice as well as several different legal and structural remedies to client protections. The legal protection of clients is analyzed, first from the client perspective and then from the point of view of the policymaker. This monograph is intended for social work professionals, administrators, policymakers, and advocates of the rights of people who deal with social welfare agencies.
Distributional Consequences of Direct Foreign Investment
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Robert H. Frank + 1 more
Karl Shell
English
Distributional Consequences of Direct Foreign Investment examines the net effect of direct foreign investment (DFI) on both U.S. employment demand in the short run and on the level and distribution of domestic income in the long run. Topics covered range from measurement of home-foreign substitution to the employment impact of DFI and the long-run distributional consequences of overseas investment. Short-run labor market adjustments to unemployment resulting from overseas production transfers are also discussed. Comprised of nine chapters, this volume begins with a survey of existing studies of the DFI phenomenon that critically evaluates the question of what firms would or could have done in the absence of a DFI alternative. The reader is then introduced to an alternative framework within which to estimate the degree of substitutability of home for foreign production. This framework consists of a microeconomic model of the multinational firm as it operates under two alternative policy regimes, one of which places no restrictions on the firm's activities and the second denies it the option of establishing a foreign production subsidiary. Input-output techniques, together with information on substitutability, are used to obtain estimates of the net employment impact of DFI. A probabilistic model of an industry labor market is also presented. In addition, the book analyzes the effect of technology transfer through licensing on the size and composition of domestic income. This monograph will be useful to practitioners who employ econometrics and mathematical economics.
Portfolio Theory
With Application to Bank Asset Management
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Giorgio P. Szegö
Karl Shell
English
Portfolio Theory: With Application to Bank Asset Management provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of the management of bank assets and liabilities. This book presents the mean-variance approach to obtain many analytical results and a complete insight into the portfolio selection problem. Organized into 16 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the formalization of decision-making under uncertainty. This text then presents the construction and complete analysis of a Markowitz-type portfolio selection model. Other chapters consider the problems of portfolio selection in an inflationary or multicurrency environment. This book discusses as well an approximate technique for constructing a diagonal model at the cost of increasing by one the number of investments and the number of constraints. The final chapter deals with the study of the portfolio selection problem and to the analysis of the properties of the efficient set of the mean variance criterion. This book is a valuable resource for economists.
Language Development and Aphasia in Children
New Essays and a Translation of Kindersprache und Aphasie by Emil Fröschels
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
R. W. Rieber
English
Language Development and Aphasia in Children: New Essays and a Translation of Kindersprache und Aphasie by Emil Fröschels deals with problems of theory, method, and therapy as well as the interpretation of language development and aphasia in children. A translation of Emil Fröschels' book Kindersprache und Aphasie into English (Child Language and Aphasia) is included. Comprised of 26 chapters, this book begins with a historical review that illustrates how the ideas of other influential figures laid the groundwork for Child Language and Aphasia (1918), including Géraud de Cordemoy and Denis Diderot. The discussion then turns to the environment that surrounded Child Language and Aphasia and some of Fröschels' observations regarding the nature of aphasia in children. The effect of left hemisphere arteriopathy on communicative intent, expression, and language comprehension in a right-handed nine-year-old girl is also examined. Subsequent chapters focus on theories of reading and language development; the psychology of association; the theory of the transitive contents of consciousness; and stuttering in children and aphasics. This monograph should be of considerable interest to students, researchers, and specialists in the fields of neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, and neurophysiology.
Bones
Ancient Men and Modern Myths
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Lewis R. Binford
English
Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths focuses on bone structures and characteristics, including bone modifications, breakage, processing, and destruction by animals. The publication first elaborates on the transitions to relics to artifacts and monuments to assemblages and middle-range research and the role of actualistic studies, including artifact and assemblage phase and relic and monument phase. The text then takes a look at the patterns of bone modifications produced by nonhuman agents and human modes of bone modification. Discussions focus on breakage related to other forms of bone processing, morphology of bone breakage, chopping and bone breakage as butchering techniques, butchering marks, bone breakage and destruction by animals, tooth marks, and previous approaches to understanding the significance of broken and modified bone. The manuscript ponders on patterns of association stemming from the behavior of man versus that of beast, as well as control collections of animal-structured assemblages; information on kill behavior and comparisons; observations of wolves and their behavior; and studies of assemblage composition caused by beasts. The publication is a valuable source of information for researchers interested in bone structure and modifications.
The Regulatory Process and Labor Earnings
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Richard B. Freeman
English
The Regulatory Process and Labor Earnings focuses on one form of government intervention in the marketplace—state regulation of public utilities. This book provides the most comprehensive study of labor costs in a regulated industry and includes a summary of a major econometric study. This text addresses a number of related issues, such as the effect of regulatory process to the structure of collective bargaining and labor earnings in regulated industries, legal rights of state utility commissions to deny proposed rate increases that are based on excessive upturns in labor cost, and incentive schemes that can be used to encourage public utilities to hold down labor and non-labor cost increases. This publication is a good reference for students and individuals involved in the regulatory process.
Developments in Japanese Economics
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Ryuzo Sato + 1 more
English
Developments in Japanese Economics provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of the developments in Japanese economics. This book presents the process innovative aspect of Japanese science and technology. Organized into three parts encompassing 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the heterogeneous capital goods model that is stable even with an infinitely short forecast. This text then emphasizes that the changes in capital accumulation are relevant for economic growth and decline. Other chapters consider the examples of how Japanese economists apply theory to empirical endeavors. This book discusses as well the durable capital stock of the Japanese manufacturing industries. The final chapter attempts to investigate the validity of the theory of self-dual demand functions, which can be integrated into consumer's utility function, by using both Japanese and U.S. data. This book is a valuable resource for economists, sociologists, political scientists, financial historians, statisticians, and research workers.
Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Change
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Ben G. Blount + 1 more
English
Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Change focuses on the influence of sociocultural terms on the forms of languages. The selection first underscores the sociocultural dimensions of language change and language evolution and speech style. Discussions focus on the relation of speech style and language evolution, linguistic evidence of language evolution, autonomy of code and style, language contact phenomena, and extension of the concept of language. The book then takes a look at speech and social prestige in the Belizian speech community; Japanese numeral classifiers; and speculations on the growth of ethnobotanical nomenclature. Topics include appearance of varietal names, differentiation and formation of specific names, six universal categories of ethnobotanical nomenclature, salience of speech, and prestige, social success, and language. The publication elaborates on color categorization in West Futunese; creolization and syntactic change in New Guinea Tok Pisin; relexification processes in Philippine Creole Spanish; and the historical and sociocultural aspects of the distribution of linguistic variants in highland Chiapas, Mexico. The selection is a valuable source of data for language experts and researchers interested in the sociocultural dimensions of language change.
The Economics of Housing Vouchers
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Joseph H. Friedman + 1 more
English
The Economics of Housing Vouchers is a seven-chapter text that examines the housing choices of low-income families in two metropolitan areas, namely, Phoenix and Pittsburgh. Some of these households are offered a novel kind of housing subsidy, including a housing allowance or housing voucher, in an experimental framework designed to test this approach to demand-side housing assistance. Chapter 1 presents an overview of U.S. housing programs and the dimensions of the U.S. housing problem. Chapter 2 provides a simple microeconomic model that conceptualizes household behavior, as well as a summary of some of the extant evidence on housing demand. This chapter also estimates the housing demand models for the low-income population in the Demand Experiment, using housing expenditures to measure housing. Chapter 3 applies a hedonic index of housing services that abstracts from particular characteristics of the household or landlord that may affect rent and attempts to measure housing in a more objective manner. Chapter 4 describes a model of household behavior that leads to the methodology for estimating experimental effects. Chapter 5 repeats the analysis for Minimum Rent households, while Chapter 6 examines the effect of both kinds of Housing Gap allowance payment on the consumption of housing services. Lastly, Chapter 7 focuses on the implications of the experimental findings for housing policy. This chapter compares a housing allowance strategy with two other approaches, namely, a pure income-transfer approach and a construction-oriente... approach. This book is of value to workers in housing policy, including economists, regional and other social scientists in academia, housing analysts, the Congress, housing lobby groups, and state and local government housing officials.

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