Correcting Things as Correcting Feelings: A Phenomenological Study of Wang Yang-ming’s Doctrine of Ge-Wu

This article is designed to offer a phenomenological reading of Wang Yang-ming’s (王陽明) doctrine of ge-wu (格物), which, as a part of Wang radical reading of The Great Learning (Da-Xue 大學), distinguishes his doctrine from that of Zhu Xi (朱熹). Wang argues that ge-wu, as rectifying things, is the same process with the act of cheng-yi (誠意), in which yi (意) and wu (物) form a relation of intentionality in Edmund Husserl’s sense. Since for Wang, what can be made sincere are emotional yi such as liking and disliking, Husserl\u27s phenomenology on emotional intentionality will be used in this article. The emotional intentionality is the unity of emotional noeses and valued noemata. For Wang, ge-wu is to change a wu improperly valued into a proper one, which is the same process of rectifying an immoral yi into a moral one

A Note on Perfect Slice Sampling

Perfect slice sampling is a method to turn Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers into exact generators for independent random variates. We show that the simplest version of the perfect slice sampler suggested in the literature does not always sample from the target distribution. (author's abstract)Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematic

Reproducible Econometric Research. A Critical Review of the State of the Art.

Recent software developments are reviewed from the vantage point of reproducible econometric research. We argue that the emergence of new tools, particularly in the open-source community, have greatly eased the burden of documenting and archiving both empirical and simulation work in econometrics. Some of these tools are highlighted in the discussion of three small replication exercises.Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematic

A Note on the Folding Coupler

Perfect Gibbs sampling is a method to turn Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers into exact generators for independent random vectors. We show that a perfect Gibbs sampling algorithm suggested in the literature is not always generating from the correct distribution. (author's abstract)Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematic

Analysing development to shape the future

This article links theory and politics in a systematic way by proposing Is-Shall-Do as a didactical model for analysing a concrete conjuncture, relating it to the desired future in the form of a concrete utopia. Aware of structural limits and potential space of manoeuvre for political agency adequate practical steps to implement the concrete utopia are elaborated. The paper is divided in a first section which exposes three interwoven aspects of development: the the idea of a good life, the complexity and multi-dimensionality of development and the relationship of knowledge and power. Section two exposes the model of Is-Shall-Do abstractly, while section 3 exemplifies it by exposing the challenges for the European left. The analysis of conjuncture as a concrete analysis of a concrete situation is centred in Europe today on the topic of inequality produced by finance-based accumulation. As the concrete utopia of a good life , the authors propose the values of the French revolution, freedom, equality and solidarity which are unfulfilled promises of European development. The paper ends with a plea for organising democratic and egalitarian alternatives. (...) (authors' abstract)Series: SRE - Discussion Paper

The Investment Effects of Price Caps under Imperfect Competition. A Note.

This note analyzes a simple Cournot model where firms choose outputs and capacities facing varying demand and price-cap regulation. We find that binding price caps set above long-run marginal cost increase (rather than decrease) aggregate capacity investment. (author's abstract)Series: Working Papers / Research Institute for Regulatory Economic

The Relative Effects of Family Instability and Mother/Partner Conflict on Children’s Externalizing Behavior

A growing body of research has found support for the idea that children’s behavioral development and school performance may be influenced as much by multiple changes in family composition during childhood as by the quality and character of the families in which children reside at any given point (Cavanagh and Huston 2006; Cavanagh, Schiller, and Riegle-Crumb 2006; Fomby and Cherlin 2007; Heard 2007a; Heard 2007b; Heaton and Forste 2007; Osborne and McLanahan 2007; Wu 1996; Wu and Martinson 1993; Wu and Thomson 2001). Much of the research on instability has focused specifically on the effects for children of experiencing the repeated formation and dissolution of cohabiting and marital unions. Underlying the research on the effects of union instability is the concept that children and their parents or parent-figures form a functioning family system, and repeated disruptions to that system, caused by either the addition or departure of a parent’s partner or spouse, may lead to behaviors with potentially deleterious long-term consequences.

Industrial cluster formation in European regions. U.S. cluster templates and Austrian evidence.

The paper will be organized in the following manner. We first provide a concise review of how industrial trade clusters were developed from available I/O coefficients (see box), including how regional industrial data may be embedded within their "templates". Second, we will review the steps taken, using available industrial concordances, that permit regional data from other advanced national industrial systems to be embedded within these templates. Third, we will illustrate the results of applying the U.S. template for the motor vehicle industrial trade cluster to regions in both Austria and North Carolina over 5-10 year time periods. Finally, we will offer some speculative observations about what the results may indicate about regional cluster development in these two regions. (authors' abstract, ed. M.Putz)Series: SRE - Discussion Paper