251 research outputs found

    Economic Rent, inequality and public revenue - The Singapore Model

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    Private accumulation of economic rent from rising land values is increasingly identified as a key cause of rising inequality in advanced economies. Does the public collection of economic rent ensure greater equity? Singapore has been identified and praised for collecting a significant proportion of this rent, having achieved a high level of public ownership of land since independence in 1965. Anne Haila described this system, and Singapore, as a Property State (Haila, 2016). The system aligns with what Gavin Kerr calls Geo-classical liberalism (Kerr, 2017), where strong conditionality applies to land ownership, weak conditionality to wealth creation. Haila’s concept of the property state is used as a framework to research the socio-economic outcomes in Singapore. This thesis will fill a research gap, to provide a detailed analysis of how the system operates, why it was implemented, and reflect on its shortcomings. The public housing programme is considered a success, however, loopholes for significant private accumulation of economic rent by a professional elite remain, which through inheritance will be perpetuated, thus challenging Lee’s vision of the state’s foundation on principles of equity and reward for work. Through both quantitative and qualitative analysis of policy and institutional arrangements, I identify a partial implementation of the Geo-classical idea in Singapore, together with its dependence on foreign workers, and the constraints on political expression as potential weaknesses for the survival of an apparently stable polity. An extended Property State framework with a clearer application of Geo-classical principles is suggested as a means to resolve some of these inequities, for the future of Singapore. My contribution will be to illustrate how the Geo-classical theory might be applied fully in Singapore as a more complete model for other jurisdictions

    A review of commercialisation mechanisms for carbon dioxide removal

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    The deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) needs to be scaled up to achieve net zero emission pledges. In this paper we survey the policy mechanisms currently in place globally to incentivise CDR, together with an estimate of what different mechanisms are paying per tonne of CDR, and how those costs are currently distributed. Incentive structures are grouped into three structures, market-based, public procurement, and fiscal mechanisms. We find the majority of mechanisms currently in operation are underresourced and pay too little to enable a portfolio of CDR that could support achievement of net zero. The majority of mechanisms are concentrated in market-based and fiscal structures, specifically carbon markets and subsidies. While not primarily motivated by CDR, mechanisms tend to support established afforestation and soil carbon sequestration methods. Mechanisms for geological CDR remain largely underdeveloped relative to the requirements of modelled net zero scenarios. Commercialisation pathways for CDR require suitable policies and markets throughout the projects development cycle. Discussion and investment in CDR has tended to focus on technology development. Our findings suggest that an equal or greater emphasis on policy innovation may be required if future requirements for CDR are to be met. This study can further support research and policy on the identification of incentive gaps and realistic potential for CDR globally

    Macrocriminology and Freedom

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    How can power over others be transformed to 'power with'? It is possible to transform many institutions to build societies with less predation and more freedom. These stretch from families and institutions of gender to the United Nations. Some societies, times and places have crime rates a hundred times higher than others. Some police forces kill at a hundred times the rate of others. Some criminal corporations kill thousands more than others. Micro variables fail to explain these patterns. Prevention principles for that challenge are macrocriminological. Freedom is conceived in a republican way as non-domination. Tempering domination prevents crime; crime prevention reduces domination. Many believe a high crime rate is a price of freedom. Not Braithwaite. His principles of crime control are to build freedom, temper power, lift people from poverty and reduce all forms of domination. Freedom requires a more just normative order. It requires cascading of peace by social movements for non-violence and non-domination. Periods of war, domination and anomie cascade with long lags to elevated crime, violence, inter-generational self-violence and ecocide. Cybercrime today poses risks of anomic nuclear wars. Braithwaite’s proposals refine some of criminology’s central theories and sharpen their relevance to all varieties of freedom. They can be reduced to one sentence. Strengthen freedom to prevent crime, prevent crime to strengthen freedom

    ECOS 2012

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    The 8-volume set contains the Proceedings of the 25th ECOS 2012 International Conference, Perugia, Italy, June 26th to June 29th, 2012. ECOS is an acronym for Efficiency, Cost, Optimization and Simulation (of energy conversion systems and processes), summarizing the topics covered in ECOS: Thermodynamics, Heat and Mass Transfer, Exergy and Second Law Analysis, Process Integration and Heat Exchanger Networks, Fluid Dynamics and Power Plant Components, Fuel Cells, Simulation of Energy Conversion Systems, Renewable Energies, Thermo-Economic Analysis and Optimisation, Combustion, Chemical Reactors, Carbon Capture and Sequestration, Building/Urban/Complex Energy Systems, Water Desalination and Use of Water Resources, Energy Systems- Environmental and Sustainability Issues, System Operation/ Control/Diagnosis and Prognosis, Industrial Ecology

    Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century

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    This book looks at the one of the key commercial links between the Baltic and Atlantic worlds in the eighteenth century - the export of Swedish and Russian iron to Britain - and its role in the making of the modern world.; Readership: All those interested in Atlantic history, the history of the Baltic, the history of technology, the history of economic thought, and material culture in the eighteenth century

    Growing Intercommunalist "pockets of resistance" with Aloha 'Aina in Hawai'i

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    In der hawaiianischen Vorstellung steht das Land in einer Kinship- oder Verwandtschaftsbeziehung als lebendes und atmendes Familienmitglied, von dem man abstammt. Aloha 'Aina („Liebe zum Land“) ist eine Onto-Epistemologie der Indigenen auf Hawai'i, analog zu anderen gemeinschaftlichen Organisationsformen, die Mensch, Nicht-Mensch und Natur als miteinander verbunden betrachten, wie etwa im Glauben der Haudenosaunee. Anstatt Aloha 'Aina als eine Methode der „dekolonialen Klimagerechtigkeit“ zu präsentieren, die im globalen Norden nachgeahmt werden soll, und damit Aloha 'Aina von jenem „Land“ zu entfernen, theoretisiere ich ein ortsbezogenes Konstrukt, das ich „Spirit of Relationality“ nenne. Ich verknüpfe das hawaiianische Aloha 'Aina mit der politischen Theorie des Interkommunalismus des Black Panther Huey P. Newton, um dekoloniale Formen globaler Klimagerechtigkeit für nicht-Indigene Positionalitäten zu entwickeln. Der Zweck dieser Verbindung war es, den „Geist“ innerhalb der postmarxistischen Theorien neu zu verorten, wie sie von Vanessa Watts (Haudenosaunee & Anishinaabe) kritisiert werden, da dieser Geist für eurozentrische Perspektiven entfernt wurde. Indem ich hawaiianische Geschichten und zeitgenössische Poesie analysiere, vergleiche ich auch Vorstellungen von lokalem Glauben anderswo, wie auf den Philippinen und im Ästuargebiet, durch die Verbundenheit des Pazifiks und von fluidem Wasser und Luft. Metaphern von Spirit/Geist und Kinship, sowie eine materialistische Analyse des Antikolonialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung auf Hawaii führten dazu, dass ich meine eigenen Konzepte als „Pneumaterialismus“ bezeichnete. Dies ergibt sich aus der Metaphorik von „pneuma“ als liminaler Geist und hawaiianischem „ea“ („Atem,“ „Leben,“ „Wiederaufleben“), mit Wortspielen zur Metaphysik und Antagonismen zwischen Materialismus/Materie und Idealismus. Die Dynamik interkultureller und organischer Symbiosen und indigener Solidaritäten bildet ebenfalls die Grundlage dieser Metaphern.In Indigenous Hawaiian conceptualization land is relational, a living and breathing family member that one is descended from. Aloha 'Aina (“love of the land”) is an Indigenous way of knowing and being in Hawai'i, analogous to other communal forms of organization that consider human, non-human, and nature as interrelated, such as in Haudenosaunee beliefs. Instead of presenting Aloha 'Aina as a method of “decolonial climate justice” to emulate within the global North, and thus remove Aloha 'Aina from its land, I theorize a place-based construct I call “spirit of relationality.” I connect Hawaiian Aloha 'Aina with Black Panther Huey P. Newton’s political theory of Intercommunalism towards decolonial forms of global climate justice for non-Indigenous positionalities. The purpose of this connection was to relocate “spirit” within post-Marxist theories, as critiqued by Vanessa Watts (Haudenosaunee & Anishinaabe) of having been removed for Eurocentric perspectives. Analyzing Hawaiian stories and contemporary poetry, I also compare notions of localized beliefs elsewhere, such as in the Philippines and in the estuary space, through the connectedness of the Pacific Ocean, in-flux waters, and air. Metaphors of spirit/ghost and kinship, as well as materialist analysis of anticolonialism and labor organizing in Hawai'i, led to labelling my own concepts as “Pneumaterialism.” This is from metaphors of “pneuma” as in-between spirit and Hawaiian “ea” (“breath,” “life,” “resurgence”), with wordplay on metaphysics and antagonisms between materialism/matter and idealism. Dynamics of intercultural and organic symbiosis and Indigenous solidarities also ground these metaphors

    Archaeology on the Apulian – Lucanian Border

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    The broad valley of the Bradano river and its tributary the Basentello separates the Apennine mountains in Lucania from the limestone plateau of the Murge in Apulia in South East Italy. For millennia the valley has functioned both as a cultural and political divide between the two regions, and as a channel for new ideas transmitted from South to North or vice versa depending on the political and economic conditions of the time. Archaeology on the Apulian – Lucanian Border aims to explain how the pattern of settlement and land use changed in the valley over the whole period from Neolithic to Late Medieval, taking account of changing environmental conditions, and setting the changes in a broader political, social and cultural context. There are three levels of focus. The first is on the results of a field survey (1996-2006) in the Basentello valley by teams from the Universities of Alberta, Edinburgh, and Bari, directed by the authors. The second concerns the discoveries of earlier field surveys in the late 1960s and early 1970s undertaken in connection with excavations on Botromagno near Gravina in Puglia. The third is a much broader synthesis of the results of recent scholarship using archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources to reconstruct an archaeological history of the valley and the surrounding area. The creation of a vast imperial estate at Vagnari around the end of the 1st century BC and its long-lasting impact on the pattern of settlement in the area is a significant theme in the later chapters of the book

    Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies

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    In the second volume a wide range of economic actors – from kings and armies to cities and producers – are discussed within different imperial settings as well as the tools which enabled and constrained economic outcomes. A central focus are nodes of consumption that are visible in the archaeological and textual records of royal capitals, cities, religious centers, and armies that were stationed in imperial frontier zones
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