Irrationality and Happiness: A (Neo-)Shopenhauerian argument for rational pessimism

There is a long tradition in philosophy of blaming passions for our unhappiness. If only we were more rational, it is claimed, we would live happier lives. I argue that such optimism is misguided and that, paradoxically, people with desires, like us, cannot be both happy and rational. More precisely, if someone rational has desires he will not be fully happy, and if he has some desires that are rational and – in a yet-to-be-specified sense – demanding, he will be frankly unhappy. Call this claim Rational Pessimism. The argument for Rational Pessimism can be considered as a variation on a Schopenhauerian argument that bluntly claims that, because desires involve lack and suffering, desiring souls like us cannot be happy. I argue that, even if Schopenhauer’s argument escapes most attacks that have been targeted against it, it faces decisive empirical objections. I argue that Schopenhauer’s argument can, however, be rescued if it is assumed that we are rational

Fuelling War or Buying Peace: The Role of Corruption in Conflicts

conflict, corruption, structural change

Resources for Peace? Managing Revenues from Extractive Industries in Post-Conflict Environments

Revenues from extractive sectors such as oil and gas, minerals, and logging play an important role in many post-conflict environments, often providing more than 30% of state fiscal receipts. When managed well, these revenues can help to finance postwar reconstruction and other vital peace-related needs. When mismanaged, however, resource revenues can undermine both economic performance and the quality of governance, thereby heightening the risk of renewed violence. This paper offers a number of proposals for managing revenues from extractive industries to better support peacebuilding.Extractive resources; oil revenues; peacebuilding; revenue-sharing

Contract Renewal as an Incentive Device. An Application to the French Urban Public Transport Sector

In the French urban public transport industry, services are often delegated to a private firm by the mean of a fixed-term regulatory contract. This contract specifies the duties of the firm and a financial compensation. When it expires, a new contract is awarded, possibly to a different operator. Cost-plus and fixed-price (gross cost or net cost) contracts are commonly used to regulate the operators in the transport industry. In this paper, we analyse the incentives for the operator to reduce its cost. These incentives come from both the profit maximization during the current contract and the perspective of contract renewal. In our model, the amount of cost-reducing effort depends on the contract type and the time remaining till contract expiration. We use a sample of 124 French urban public transport networks covering the period 1995-2002 to test our predictions. Our proxy for the cost reducing effort is technical efficiency. The data largely confirm the importance of contract type on performances and the incentive effect of contract renewal.

Influence of the synthesis conditions of silicon nanodots in an industrial low pressure chemical vapor deposition reactor

Experiments conducted in an industrial tubular low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) reactor have demonstrated the reproducibility and spatial uniformity of silicon nanodots (NDs) area density and mean radius. The wafer to wafer uniformity was satisfactory (density and radius standard deviations <10%) for the whole conditions tested except for low silane flow rates, high silane partial pressures and short run durations(<20 s). Original synthesis conditions have then been searched to reach both excellent wafer to wafer uniformities along the industrial load of wafers and high NDs densities. From previous results, it was deduced that the key was to markedly increase run duration in decreasing temperature and in increasing silane pressure. At 773 K, run durations as long as 180 and 240 s have thus allowed to reach NDs densities respectively equal to 9 1011 and 6.5 1011 NDs/cm2 for the two highest silane pressures tested in the range 60–150 Pa

Development of an original model for the synthesis of silicon nanodots by Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition

Using the Computational Fluid Dynamics code Fluent, a simulation model of an industrial Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition reactor has been developed for the synthesis of silicon nanodots from silane SiH4 on silicon dioxide SiO2 substrates. A comparison between experimental and simulated deposition rates has shown that classical kinetic laws largely over-estimated these deposits. So, an original heterogeneous kinetic model is proposed as a first attempt to quantify the temporal evolution of deposition rates and of surface site numbers, as a function of operating conditions and of the chemical nature of substrate sites, for the early stages of silicon deposition. Contributions of silane and of the homogeneously born silylene SiH2 to nucleation and growth have been considered on different surface sites, silanol Si–OH, siloxane Si–O–Si and fresh silicon bonds. Simulations have revealed that for the conditions tested, the classical heterogeneous kinetic laws over-estimate, by more than 60%, silicon deposition during the first stages. The assumption that silylene and more largely all the unsaturated species formed in the gas phase contribute in priority to nucleation has been validated. Nucleation appears as a mandatory step to form the first fresh Si sites to allow deposition to occur from silane via growth phenomena

Conflict In Africa: The Cost of Peaceful Behaviour

aid, conflict, natural resources, sub-Saharan Africa

Finance in Conflict and Reconstruction

aid, conflict, financial development, sub-Saharan Africa

Contract renewal as an incentive device. An application to the French urban public transport sector

In the French urban public transport industry, services are often delegated to a private firm by the mean of a fixed-term regulatory contract. This contract specifies the duties of the firm and a financial compensation. When it expires, a new contract is awarded, possibly to a different operator. Cost-plus and fixed-price (gross cost or net cost) contracts are commonly used to regulate the operators in the transport industry. In this paper, we analyse the incentives for the operator to reduce its cost. These incentives come from both the profit maximization during the current contract and the perspective of contract renewal. In our model, the amount of cost-reducing effort depends on the contract type and the time remaining till contract expiration. We use a sample of 124 French urban public transport networks covering the period 1995-2002 to test our predictions. Our proxy for the cost reducing effort is technical efficiency. The data largely confirm the importance of contract type on performances and the incentive effect of contract renewal.incentive regulation, urban transport, stochastic frontier analysis.