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Books in Social sciences and humanities

The Unreal Life of Oscar Zariski
1st Edition
Carol Parikh
English
The Unreal Life of Oscar Zariski records the life of Oscar Zariski that is based upon Carol Parikh's interviews with his family, colleagues, students, and his own memories from tape-recorded interviews conducted before his death in 1986. This book describes Oscar Zariski's work in mathematics that perpetually altered the foundations of algebraic geometry. The powerful tools he forged from the ideas of algebra allowed him to penetrate classical problems with a clarity and depth that brought a rigor to the way algebraic geometers carry out proofs. The strength of his work was matched by his forcefulness as a teacher, and the students he trained at Johns Hopkins and later at Harvard have made essential contributions to many areas of mathematics. This publication is beneficial to students and researchers interested in Oscar Zariski’s life and work in mathematics.
Contributions to Modern Economics
1st Edition
Joan Robinson
English
Contributions to Modern Economics includes contributions to two great intellectual upheavals in economic theory: the Keynesian Revolution and the revival of the classical theory of profits led by Piero Sraffa. The formation of prices in capitalist and socialist economies and of international trade is also discussed. The evolution of these ideas is linked to the personal and historical events that influenced them. Comprised of 24 chapters, this book begins by describing the second crisis of economic theory, which is related to the first crisis — the great slump of the 1930s. The reader is then introduced to the theory of money and the analysis of output; obstacles to full employment; and the concept of hoarding. Subsequent chapters explore capital, profits, and prices, with emphasis on the theory of capital, imperfect competition, and the theory of value. International trade, capitalism, and beggar-my-neighbor remedies for unemployment are also examined. This monograph should be of interest to economists.
Equity and Justice in Social Behavior
1st Edition
Jerald Greenberg + 1 more
English
Equity and Justice in Social Behavior provides a critical assessment of the social psychological knowledge relevant to justice. This book illustrates how the broad concept of justice pervades the core literature of social psychology. Organized into 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the primary justice theories and identifies some of the focal issues with which they are concerned. This text then provides the necessary theoretical background for the study. Other chapters consider the various individual difference variables known to affect adherence to social justice norms. This book explains as well how the perceived causes of justice affect attempts to seek redress, and how actors and observers diverge in their perspectives about justice. The final chapter deals with the normative and instrumental interpretations that have been offered to explain justice behavior. This book is a valuable resource for social psychologists, social scientists, philosophers, political actors, theorists, and graduate students.
Economics
Private and Public Choice
2nd Edition
James D Gwartney + 1 more
English
Economics: Private and Public Choice, Second Edition deals with modern Keynesian theory, monetarist theory, collective decision-making, and the traditional demand-side of macroeconomics. The book explains economic principles, such as taxation, government expenditure, public choice theory, rate of employment, aggregate supply, fiscal policy, low productivity, inflation, and adaptive expectation hypothesis. The text also covers microeconomics, particularly, capital interest, profits, energy market, and the indifference curve analysis. The book discusses inequality, income mobility, and the battle against poverty where a market system can encourage the careful use of resources, high productivity, and freedom of choice for individuals to bear the costs and reap the benefits. The text points out that income redistribution can result in some conflicts. As an example, the book analyzes income inequality in the United Sates, income inequality in other countries, as well as its causes. The book also describes the characteristics of less developed countries as having low per capita income, dominance of agriculture-househol... sector, rapid population growth, income that is more unequally distributed, including inadequate health care and education. The book is suitable for economists, sociologists, and policy makers involved in national economic development.
Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism
Applied Language Studies
1st Edition
John Edwards
English
Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism examines the position of some linguistic minority groups, including policies that affect them. This book provides a useful perspective on group relations, emphasizing the aims, purposes, and values held by the societies in which linguistic minority groups exist. The structure of society and perceptions of pluralism and assimilation are also described. This text demonstrates that there is not a simple opposition between pluralism and assimilation, there are difficulties with educational programs intended to support minority group language and identity, minority views are not themselves homogeneous, and advocates of cultural pluralism often hold over-simplified and unrealistic ideas. This publication is a good reference for students and researchers conducting work on pluralism, assimilation, language maintenance/shift, and ethnolinguistic identity.
Studies in Macroeconomic Theory
Employment and Inflation
1st Edition
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.
The Economics of Housing Vouchers
1st Edition
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.
Depth Perception Through Motion
1st Edition
Myron L. Braunstein
Edward C. Carterette + 1 more
English
Series in Cognition and Perception: Depth Perception Through Motion focuses on the processes, methodologies, and techniques involved in depth perception through motion, including optic array, rigid motions, illusions, and axis. The book first elaborates on the paradox of depth perception, illusions of motion in depth, and optic array. Discussions focus on rigid motions in three-dimensional space, perspective gradients, projection plane, stereokinetic effect, rotating trapezoid, and the windmill and fan illusions. The text then examines transformations leading to the perception of depth, slant perception, and perceived direction of rotary motion. Topics include shadow and computer projections, direct observation of rotating figures, a model of the perception of rotary motion, dynamic slant and static slant perception, translations along the Z axis, and rotations about the X or Y axis. The publication is intended for researchers and graduate students interested in depth perception in dynamic environments.
Macroeconomics: An Introduction to the Non-Walrasian Approach
1st Edition
Jean-Pascal Benassy
Karl Shell
English
Macroeconomics: An Introduction to the Non-Walrasian Approach provides the approach to macroeconomic theory based on the non-Walrasian method. This book presents the microeconomic concepts that can be applied in a simple and relevant manner to the fundamental topics of macroeconomic theory. Organized into five parts encompassing 14 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the fundamental concepts, describing the functioning of nonclearing markets, the role of expectations, the setting of prices by decentralized agents, and the derivation of optimal demand and supplies. This text then studies various non-Walrasian equilibrium concepts. Other chapters compare the classical and Keynesian theories of unemployment in the framework of a model. This book discusses as well the asymmetric price flexibility into the basic model. The final chapter deals with a dynamic model with explicit expectations, which allows a comparison of the employment effects of various expectations schemes and their realism. This book is a valuable resource for economists.
Prehistoric Man and His Environments
A Case Study in the Ozark Highland
1st Edition
W. Raymond Wood + 1 more
English
Prehistoric Man and His Environments: A Case Study in the Ozark Highland offers a preliminary model for the paleoecology of the western Ozark Highland in Missouri for the last 35,000 years and an interpretation of how humans have adapted to and exploited the area for the 10,500 years they are known to have lived there. The model, a set of hypotheses that includes a putative explanatory framework for the observations made at Ozark, is based on more than a decade of interdisciplinary fieldwork. Comprised of 14 chapters, this volume begins with a background on the interdisciplinary studies undertaken in the Pomme de Terre River Valley. The research has centered on the post-glacial deposits at the Rodgers Shelter and on five nearby spring bogs, each of which contained the bones of extinct mammals, pollen, and other material dating from late Pleistocene and early Holocene times. The archaeological investigations and subsequent analyses of these sites are discussed in detail. Sedimentary processes, changing subsistence patterns, material culture, and human burials at Rodgers Shelter are then analyzed. The final chapter describes the direction of research in the Ozark Highland, including plans to test aspects of the proposed model. This book will be of interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, geographers, geologists, and botanists.

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