On the Truly Noncooperative Game of Life on Earth: Darwin, Hardin, & Ostrom's Nontrivial Errors

This paper introduces a game-theoretical framework for The Problem of Sustainable Economic Development, axioms which help clarify the problem itself, and, reductio ad absurdum, falsify many widely-held economic, evolutionary, and ecological principles. This brief communiqué lays the foundation for evolutionary stable economic development and survival strategies – strategies which foster international cooperation, global threat mitigation, food & energy security, long-distance dispersibility, and thus, ultimately, the long-term survival of the human species.sustainable economic development; tragedy of the commons; noncooperative games; natural selection; global threats; food security; national security; human survival

On the Problem of the Island of Earth: Introducing a Universal Theory of Value in an Open Letter to The President of the United States

This paper introduces a unified theory of value.theory of value; evolutionary stable solution; economic power; military power; national security; global threat mitigation; extinction; human evolution; ideological environmentalism; the problem of induction; karl popper; F.A. von Hayek; austrian economics

On the Problem of Vague Terms: A Glossary of Clearly Stated Assumptions & Careful, Patient, Descriptions

Coase 1930 endures through the decades as one of the most-cited papers in economics due to the fact that it highlights a fundamental and equally enduring problem: "Economic theory has suffered in the past from a failure to state clearly its assumptions. Economists in building up a theory have often omitted to examine the foundations on which it was erected. This examination is, however, essential not only to prevent the misunderstanding and needless controversy which arise from a lack of knowledge of the assumptions on which a theory is based, but also because of the extreme importance for economics of good judgement in choosing between rival sets of assumptions." In 1944 Von Neumann and Morgenstern offered the simply, yet invariably rejected solution: "In… economics the most fruitful work may be that of careful, patient description; indeed this may be by far the largest domain for the present and some time to come….Economic problems [have been and are often] not formulated clearly and are often stated in such vague terms as to make mathematical treatment a priori appear hopeless because it is quite uncertain what the problems really are. There is no point in using exact methods where there is no clarity in the concepts and issues to which they are to be applied. Consequently the initial task is to clarify the knowledge of the matter by further careful descriptive work." This paper offers a stone along the path to the solution to this problem by offering a glossary in this spirit, a glossary germain to some of the most fundamental, open problems in economics. As the fate of the human race may lay in the balance to finding solutions to these problems, this glossary may be a steop in the right direction.economic terms; methodology; scientific method; coase 1930; Von Neumann & Morgenstern 1944; definitions; careful, patient descriptions

Towards engaged pluralism in the study of European Union trade politics

Going back to the Kuhnian debate about the assumed incommensurability of different paradigms, we point at the need for engaged pluralism in political science. We illustrate this by giving illustrations from the different paradigmatic perspectives included in the special issue and how they could speak to each other. While this analysis clearly shows the limits and difficulties encountered during such an endeavor, we hope to have laid the basis for a more reflexive dialogue within the literature

Islands at the periphery : integrating the challenges of island sustainability into European policy

This research was carried out within the framework of the European FP6 project SENSOR, on science-based ex-ante Sustainability Impact Assessment Tools (SIAT) to support decision making on policies related to multifunctional land use in European regions (‘Sustainability Impact Assessment: Tools for Environmental, Social and Economic Effects of Multifunctional Land Use in European Regions’ (SENSOR), Contract Number 003874).Sustainable development is a fundamental objective of the European Union and the global community. The considerable sustainability challenges faced by small islands are recognised at UN level, however the sustainability challenges faced by EU islands are not well reflected in EU policy, where the approach to island issues has been incremental and fragmented. After identifying EU islands and their main sustainability issues, this paper argues for a stronger awareness of islands issues in EU policy processes. It notes in particular three issues that needed to be addressed before this is done. These relate to the current restrictive definition of islands, which excludes island states, and the fact that the island issues of peripherality and insularity do not fit into any of the categories provided in the EU’s impact assessment guidelines, a key tool for internalizing sustainability concerns in EU policy. Third, since European islands are found at various administrative scales, there is a lack of harmonized statistical data on fundamental factors necessary for monitoring sustainable development in EU insular regions. The role of Malta in highlighting challenges and concerns faced by European islands is also explored, vis a vis the European Union policy-making and policy- designing mechanisms.peer-reviewe

Economic concepts and applications with special reference to climate change. In: Winter School on Impact of Climate Change on Indian Marine Fisheries held at CMFRI, Cochin 18.1.2008 to 7.2.2008

Economics is the social science, which examines how people choose to use limited or scarce resources in attempting to satisfy their unlimited wants. Alfred Marshall defined economics as “a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing”. Thus it is on one side a study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the study of man. Most contemporary definitions of economics are based upon choice and scarcity. One of the earliest definitions in this category is by Lionell Robbins in 1935: “Economics is a science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.

Generational Effects on Adult Height in Contemporary Spain: Exploring Gender and Individual Heterogeneity

As adult height is a well-established retrospective measure of health and standard of living, it is important to understand the factors that determine it. Among them, the influence of socio-environmental factors has been subjected to empirical scrutiny. This paper explores the influence of generational (or environmental) effects and individual and gender-specific heterogeneity on adult height. Our data set is from contemporary Spain, a country governed by an authoritarian regime between 1939 and 1977. First, we use normal position and quantile regression analysis to identify the determinants of self-reported adult height and to measure the influence of individual heterogeneity. Second, we use a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition approach to explain the gender height gap and its distribution, so as to measure the influence on this gap of individual heterogeneity. Our findings suggest a significant increase in adult height in the generations that benefited from the countrys economic liberalization in the 1950s, and especially those brought up after the transition to democracy in the 1970s. In contrast, distributional effects on height suggest that only in recent generations has height increased more among the tallest. Although the mean gender height gap is 11 cm, generational effects and other controls such as individual capabilities explain on average roughly 5% of this difference, a figure that rises to 10% in the lowest 10% quantile.blinder-oaxaca decomposition, quantile regression, generational effects, adult height, gender gap, individual heterogeneity

A global assessment of the drivers of threatened terrestrial species richness

High numbers of threatened species might be expected to occur where overall species richness is also high; however, this explains only a proportion of the global variation in threatened species richness. Understanding why many areas have more or fewer threatened species than would be expected given their species richness, and whether that is consistent across taxa, is essential for identifying global conservation priorities. Here, we show that, after controlling for species richness, environmental factors, such as temperature and insularity, are typically more important than human impacts for explaining spatial variation in global threatened species richness. Human impacts, nevertheless, have an important role, with relationships varying between vertebrate groups and zoogeographic regions. Understanding this variation provides a framework for establishing global conservation priorities, identifying those regions where species are inherently more vulnerable to the effects of threatening human processes, and forecasting how threatened species might be distributed in a changing world

Autism research : An objective quantitative review of progress and focus between 1994 and 2015

The nosology and epidemiology of Autism has undergone transformation following consolidation of once disparate disorders under the umbrella diagnostic, autism spectrum disorders. Despite this re-conceptualization, research initiatives, including the NIMH's Research Domain Criteria and Precision Medicine, highlight the need to bridge psychiatric and psychological classification methodologies with biomedical techniques. Combining traditional bibliometric co-word techniques, with tenets of graph theory and network analysis, this article provides an objective thematic review of research between 1994 and 2015 to consider evolution and focus. Results illustrate growth in Autism research since 2006, with nascent focus on physiology. However, modularity and citation analytics demonstrate dominance of subjective psychological or psychiatric constructs, which may impede progress in the identification and stratification of biomarkers as endorsed by new research initiatives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio