Castellu di la Chitati

One of the least understood of all the works of fortification to have stood watch over the Maltese islands in antiquity is the castellu di la chitati - the medieval castle of the old town of Mdina. The arcanum that surrounds this ancient stronghold stems primarily from the fact that it was dismantled way back in the 15th century and what little had remained of the building thereafter, eventually disappeared altogether in the metamorphosis that accompanied the Hospitaller refortification of the medieval town into a gunpowder fortress throughout the course of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. This, coupled with the limited nature of contemporary documentary information has ensured that the true form and features of the medieval stronghold have been lost to the point that now only archaeology can hope to really figure out. Whilst acknowledging the severe limitations imposed by any approach that falls short of a full archaeological investigation, this paper seeks to re-examine the existing documentary, cartographic and physical evidence unearthed to-date in order to suggest a rudimentary model of Mdina's medieval stronghold. Undoubtedly, the greatest contribution to-date to the study of Mdina and its medieval fortifications has been the masterly work of Prof. Stanley Fiorini and Dr. Mario Buhagiar. This paper only undertakes to re-evaluate the evidence and some of the conclusions presented so far in the light of my own research into medieval military architecture and castle typologies.peer-reviewe

UK domestic energy contracts, the 28 day rule, and experience in Sweden

In the UK, domestic customers must be able to terminate energy contracts at 28 days� notice. This has been seen as a transitional protection for customers and for competition. This paper reviews the arguments for and against the 28 day rule, and examines the extent to which UK suppliers have offered fixed-price fixed-term contracts. It also looks at experience in Sweden, where there is no such restriction and where there is greater use of fixed-price fixed-term contracts. The paper concludes that there is no longer a need for the 28 day rule to protect customers, and that it is more likely to restrict than to protect competition

Pre-passage questions: the influence of structural importance

Bibliography: leaves 23-26Supported in part by the National Institute of Education under contract no. 400-76-011

Judging Rules, Ruling Judges

Bureaucracy and complexity are not pejorative terms, but they are limiting terms, and it makes sense to examine the limitations that inhere in them. The US needs to return from a system of judicially created rules back to a system of judicially scrutinized rules

Municipal Aggregation and Retail Competition in the Ohio Energy Sector

We study incumbency advantage in a dynamic game with incomplete information between an incumbent and a voter. The incumbent knows the true state of the world, e.g., the severity of an economic recession or the level of criminal activities, and can choose the quality of his policy. This quality and the state of the world determine the policy outcome, i.e., the economic growth rate or the number of crimes committed. The voter only observes the policy outcome and then decides whether to reelect the incumbent or not. Her preferences are such that she would reelect the incumbent under full information if and only if the state of the world is above a given threshold level. In equilibrium, the incumbent is reelected in more states of the world than he would be under full information. In particular, he chooses inefficient policies and generates mediocre policy outcomes whenever the voter's induced belief distribution will be such that her expected utility of reelecting the incumbent exceeds her expected utility of electing the opposition candidate. Hence, there is an incumbency advantage through inefficient policies. We provide empirical evidence consistent with the prediction that reelection concerns may induce incumbents to generate mediocre outcomes