Engel’s Law Around the World 150 Years Later

One of the most enduring relationships in economics is that proposed by Ernst Engel in 1857: “The poorer is a family, the greater is the proportion of the total outgo [family expenditures] which must be used for food. … The proportion of the outgo used for food, other things being equal is the best measure of the material standard of living of a population.” The 150th anniversary of Engel’s law passed in 2007. With this in mind, the present paper looks at the extent to which Engel’s law is relevant in today’s world by looking across countries at the relationship between the share of household expenditure spent on food and national income per capita. This working paper provides an empirical analysis of Engel’s law based on data for almost every country and territory in the world. This facilitates analysis of the relationship between the food share of household expenditure and national income per capita, especially how this differs by development level.History of economic thought, Economic history, Consumer economics, Consumption, Measurement and analysis of poverty, Household behavior

In Kind Benefits as Partial Payment of Wages: A Review of Laws Around the World

This paper is concerned with in kind benefits received by workers and how they are treated in national laws – in particular whether the value of in kind benefits are considered as partial payment of wages and, if so, under what conditions and how their monetary value is determined. This review is based to a large extent on information on national laws in 162 countries from around the world. This analysis is supplemented by analysis of how in kind benefits are treated in International Labor Organization ( ILO ) conventions; laws and regulations of the federal government and five states in the United States; and collective bargaining agreements from six developing countries. Despite data limitations, this is, as far as we know, the most comprehensive and systematic international review of in kind benefits and how they are treated as partial payment of wages

The Genealogy of Duplicity in Henry James

Departing from Nietzsche's conception of man's expropriation from nature (The Genealogy of Morals), this article proposes an interpretation of trope in Henry James

Mutability as Counterplot. Apocalypse, Time and Schematic Imagination in DeLillo's The Body Artist

International audienceCet article commence par situer l'écriture tardive de Don DeLillo dans le contexte critique qui procède du Romantisme, et établit une analogie entre le poème tardif de Keats, "The Fall of Hyperion," et la dynamique narrative qui sous-tend plusieurs des textes les plus récents du romancier. Il entreprend ensuite une lecture plus détaillée de The Body Artist, où la notion d'apocalypse est interprétée comme un trope qui permet une réflexion sur la temporalité du langage littéraire. Le contexte du Romantisme facilite l'établissement d'un lien entre l'écriture de DeLillo et la "crise" kantienne qui a fait venir au jour, avec des conséquences littéraires importantes, la faculté d'Imagination (Einbildungskraft) en tant que mise-en-figure, et la mimèsis comme "présentation" (Darstellung), étudiées ici en tant qu'effets d'une expérience traumatique de perte subie par le body artist. This article begins by situating Don DeLillo's late writing in the critical context proceeding from Romanticism, and establishes an analogy between Keats's late poem, "The Fall of Hyperion," and the narrative dynamic that underwrites several of the novelist's most recent works. It then takes up a more detailed reading of The Body Artist, interpreting apocalypse as a trope enabling reflection on the temporality of literary language. Situating DeLillo's work in the context of Romanticism enables the establishment of a link between the author's late work and the Kantian "crisis" which brought to light, with profound literary consequences, the faculty of Imagination (Einbildingskraft) as a putting-into-figure, and mimèsis as "presentation" (Darstellung), studied here as effects of the body artist's traumatic experience of loss

The Pastoral Ethos of Joseph McElroy’s Writing: Lookout Cartridge and Women and Men

This article begins by proposing a very partial reading of Lookout Cartridge (1974) as a means of opening the way to a more comprehensive analysis of Women and Men (1987), an analysis which restricts itself, however, to a treatment of the main “man” of the novel, James Mayn, and in particular to his relation to his apparently suicidal mother. In doing so, it attempts to conceptualize various pastoral themes and intentions that appear in McElroy’s writing, thus finding a way of rendering an account of the author’s anti-paranoid stance with respect to science and technology, and enabling certain observations on the viability of an eco-critical approach to literature. The main objective, however, is an attempt to understand McElroy’s intention to “transmute” our technological fears without merely rejecting them, which involves a fundamental rethinking of the Art-Nature, Technè-Phusis conflict at the heart of the pastoral tradition. This rethinking, as it is deployed by the text of Women and Men, enables a critique of Western power and of its will to domination and destruction that appear infinitely capable of ignoring themselves. What McElroy’s pastoral ethos ultimately amounts to is a respect for the enigma of appearance in its difference from nature, an ethos which neither dominant modes of power nor eco-critical approaches to its catastrophic effects seem eager to acknowledge.Cet article commence par proposer une lecture partielle de Lookout Cartridge (1974) afin d’ouvrir la voie à une analyse de Women and Men (1987), une analyse qui se borne toutefois à une discussion de l’ « homme » principal du roman, James Mayn, et en particulier à la relation de celui-ci avec sa mère apparemment suicidaire. Ce faisant, certains thèmes et intentions liés à la tradition pastorale, qui apparaissent dans l’œuvre de McElroy, sont abordés dans l’optique de rendre compte de l’attitude de l’auteur vis-à-vis de la science et de la technologie modernes, ce qui permettra par ailleurs quelques observations à propos du bien-fondé des approches éco-critiques de la littérature. L’objectif principal, cependant, consiste en une tentative de comprendre l’intention, telle que la formule McElroy, de « transmuer » nos craintes technologiques au lieu de simplement les fuir, intention qui implique la nécessité de repenser de manière fondamentale le conflit Art-Nature, Technè-Phusis, qui est au cœur de la tradition pastorale. Cette pensée, telle qu’elle se déploie dans le corpus de Women and Men, permet à son tour une critique fondamentale de la volonté de puissance occidentale et d’une volonté de domination et de destruction qui semblent infiniment capables de s’ignorer. Ce en quoi consiste finalement l’éthos pastoral de McElroy est un respect pour l’énigme de l’apparence dans sa différence vis-à-vis de la nature, un ethos que ni les formes dominantes du pouvoir ni les approches éco-critiques qui tentent de prendre en compte leurs effets catastrophiques semblent vouloir reconnaître

Randomized controlled trial comparing different single doses of intravenous paracetamol for placement of peripherally inserted central catheters in preterm infants

__Background:__ The availability of a safe and effective pharmacological therapy to reduce procedural pain in preterm infants is limited. The effective analgesic single dose of intravenous paracetamol in preterm infants is unknown. Comparative studies on efficacy of different paracetamol doses in preterm infants are lacking. __Objectives:__ To determine the analgesic effects of different single intravenous paracetamol doses on pain from peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) placement in preterm infants. __Methods:__ In a blinded randomized controlled trial, the an

Effects of several types of biomass fuels on the yield, nanostructure and reactivity of soot from fast pyrolysis at high temperatures

peer-reviewedThis study presents the effect of biomass origin on the yield, nanostructure and reactivity of soot. Soot was produced from wood and herbaceous biomass pyrolysis at high heating rates and at temperatures of 1250 and 1400° C in a drop tube furnace. The structure of solid residues was characterized by electron microscopy techniques, X-ray diffraction and N2 adsorption. The reactivity of soot was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis. Results showed that soot generated at 1400° C was more reactive than soot generated at 1250° C for all biomass types. Pinewood, beechwood and wheat straw soot demonstrated differences in alkali content, particle size and nanostructure. Potassium was incorporated in the soot matrix and significantly influenced soot reactivity. Pinewood soot particles produced at 1250° C had a broader particle size range (27.2–263 nm) compared to beechwood soot (33.2–102 nm) and wheat straw soot (11.5–165.3 nm), and contained mainly multi-core structures