Russia\u27s Missing Link? Social Capital, Entrepreneurialism, and Economic Performance in Post-Communist Russia

This paper argues that there is a spurious correlation between social capital and economic development in the regions of post-communist Russia. This argument rejects Robert Putnam\u27s collectivist hypothesis that social capital is the ubiquitous cause of economic growth. Rather, the data presented in this paper indicates that individualistic behavior in the form of entrepreneurialism, has been the prerequisite for growth in post-communist Russia. While social capital may slow or accelerate economic growth, it will not cause it. Without entrepreneurialism, social capital cannot be harnessed for economic development. In essence, social capital does not create wealth, entrepreneurs do

Incorporating geodiversity into conservation decisions/Incorporación de la geodiversidad en las decisiones de conservación

In a rapidly changing climate, conservation practitioners could better use geodiversity in a broad range of conservation decisions. We explored selected avenues through which this integration might improve decision making and organized them within the adaptive management cycle of assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring. Geodiversity is seldom referenced in predominant environmental law and policy. With most natural resource agencies mandated to conserve certain categories of species, agency personnel are challenged to find ways to practically implement new directives aimed at coping with climate change while retaining their species-centered mandate. Ecoregions and ecological classifications provide clear mechanisms to consider geodiversity in plans or decisions, the inclusion of which will help foster the resilience of conservation to climate change. Methods for biodiversity assessment, such as gap analysis, climate change vulnerability analysis, and ecological process modeling, can readily accommodate inclusion of a geophysical component. We adapted others' approaches for characterizing landscapes along a continuum of climate change vulnerability for the biota they support from resistant, to resilient, to susceptible, and to sensitive and then summarized options for integrating geodiversity into planning in each landscape type. In landscapes that are relatively resistant to climate change, options exist to fully represent geodiversity while ensuring that dynamic ecological processes can change over time. In more susceptible landscapes, strategies aiming to maintain or restore ecosystem resilience and connectivity are paramount. Implementing actions on the ground requires understanding of geophysical constraints on species and an increasingly nimble approach to establishing management and restoration goals. Because decisions that are implemented today will be revisited and amended into the future, increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring and adaptation will be required to ensure that conservation efforts fully consider the value of geodiversity for supporting biodiversity in the face of a changing climate.\ud \ud Incorporacion de la Geodiversidad en las Decisiones de Conservacion En un clima que cambia rapidamente, quienes practican la conservacion podrian usar la geodiversidad de mejor manera en una gama amplia de deciones de conservacion. Exploramos vias selectas por medio de las cuales esta integracion puede mejorar la toma de decisiones y las organizamos dentro del ciclo de manejo adaptativo de evaluacion, planeacion, implementacion y monitoreo. En pocas ocasiones se menciona a la geodiversidad en las leyes y la politica ambiental predominantes. Como la mayoria de las agencias de recursos naturales bajo mandato de conservar ciertas categorias de especies, el personal de las agencias se ve enfrentado a encontrar formas de implementar de manera practica nuevas directivas con miras a salir adelante frente al cambio climatico mientras se retienen los mandatos centrados en especies. Las ecoregiones y las clasificaciones ecologicas proporcionan mecanismos claros para considerar a la geodiversidad en los planes o decisiones. Esta inclusion ayudara a fomentar la resiliencia de la conservacion ante el cambio climatico. Los metodos para la evaluacion de la biodiversidad, como el analisis de intervalo, el analisis de vulnerabilidad ante el cambio climatico, y el modelado de procesos ecologicos, pueden adaptarse pronto a la inclusion del componente geofisico. Adaptamos las estrategias de otros para caracterizar paisajes de resistente, a resiliente, a susceptible, y hasta sensible, a lo largo de un continuo de vulnerabilidad ante el cambio climatico de la biota que presentan y despues resumimos las opciones para integrar a la geodiversidad en la planeacion en cada tipo de paisaje. En los paisajes que son relativamente resistentes al cambio climatico, existen opciones para representar completamente a la geodiversidad mientras se asegura que los procesos ecologicos dinamicos pueden cambiar a lo largo del tiempo

Cross-Cultural Consistency and Relativity in the Enjoyment of Thinking Versus Doing

Which is more enjoyable: trying to think enjoyable thoughts or doing everyday solitary activities? Wilson et al. (2014) found that American participants much preferred solitary everyday activities, such as reading or watching TV, to thinking for pleasure. To see whether this preference generalized outside of the United States, we replicated the study with 2,557 participants from 12 sites in 11 countries. The results were consistent in every country: Participants randomly assigned to do something reported significantly greater enjoyment than did participants randomly assigned to think for pleasure. Although we found systematic differences by country in how much participants enjoyed thinking for pleasure, we used a series of nested structural equation models to show that these differences were fully accounted for by country-level variation in 5 individual differences, 4 of which were positively correlated with thinking for pleasure (need for cognition, openness to experience, meditation experience, and initial positive affect) and 1 of which was negatively correlated (reported phone usage)