Price Setting and Price Adjustment in Some European Union Countries: Introduction to the Special Issue

This introductory essay briefly summarizes the eleven empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank’s Inflation Persistence Network.Price Rigidity; Price Flexibility; Cost of Price Adjustment; Menu Cost; Managerial and Customer Cost of Price Adjustment; Pricing; Price System; Price Setting; New Keynesian Economics; Store-Level Data; Micro-Level Data; Product-Level Data

Price Setting and Price Adjustment in Some European Union Countries: Introduction to the Special Issue

This introductory essay briefly summarizes the eleven empirical studies of price setting and price adjustment that are included in this special issue. The studies, which use data from several European countries, were conducted as part of the European Central Bank’s Inflation Persistence Network.Price Rigidity, Price Flexibility, Cost of Price Adjustment, Menu Cost, Managerial and Customer Cost of Price Adjustment, Pricing, Price System, Price Setting, New Keynesian Economics, Store-Level Data, Micro-Level Data, Product-Level Data

Влияние иноязычных заимствований на коммуникативное ядро русского лексикона

Общеизвестно, что на земном шаре насчитывается около 5000 языков [7, с. 330]. Носителями этих языков являются представители разных культур и народностей. Все они имеют свои особенности и свою специфику, что является, как указывает А. А. Потебня, неотъемлемой составляющей существования человечества: «Если бы объединение человечества по языку и вообще по народности было возможно, оно было бы гибельно для общечеловеческой мысли, как замена многих чувств одним, хотя бы это одно было не осязанием, а зрением. Для существования человека нужны другие люди; для народности – другие народности

Bayesian hierarchical age-period-cohort models with time-structured effects: An application to religious voting in the US, 1972–2008

To examine dynamics of political processes using repeated cross-section data, effects of age, cohort, and time period have to be disentangled. I propose a Bayesian dynamic hierarchical model with cohort and period effects modeled as random walk through time. It includes smoothly time-varying effects of covariates, allowing researchers to study changing effects of individual characteristics on political behavior. It provides a flexible functional form estimate of age by integrating a semi-parametric approach in the hierarchical model. I employ this approach to examine religious voting in the United States using repeated cross-sectional surveys from 1972 to 2008. I find starkly differing nonlinear trends of de- and re-alignment among different religious denominations

Microfoundations

This paper argues that the microfoundations programme can be understood as an implementation of an underlying methodological principle—methodological individualism—and that it therefore shares a fundamental ambiguity with that principle, viz, whether the macro must be derived from and therefore reducible to, or rather consistent with, micro-level behaviours. The pluralist conclusion of the paper is not that research guided by the principle of microfoundations is necessarily wrong, but that the exclusion of approaches not guided by that principle is indeed necessarily wrong. The argument is made via an examination of the advantages claimed for dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, the relationship between parts and wholes in social science, and the concepts of reduction, substrate neutrality, the intentional stance, and hypostatisation

Performative Work: Bridging Performativity and Institutional Theory in the Responsible Investment Field

Callon’s performativity thesis has illuminated how economic theories and calculative devices shape markets, but has been challenged for its neglect of the organizational, institutional and political context. Our seven-year qualitative study of a large financial data company found that the company’s initial attempt to change the responsible investment field through a performative approach failed because of the constraints posed by field practices and organizational norms on the design of the calculative device. However, the company was subsequently able to put in place another form of performativity by attending to the normative and regulative associations of the device. We theorize this route to performativity by proposing the concept of performative work, which designates the necessary institutional work to enable translation and the subsequent adoption of the device. We conclude by considering the implications of performative work for the performativity and the institutional work literatures

Structure and activity of lacustrine sediment bacteria involved in nutrient and iron cycles

Knowledge about the bacterial community structure in sediments is essential to better design restoration strategies for eutrophied lakes. In that regard, the aim of this study was to quantify the abundance and activity of bacteria involved in nutrient and iron cycling in sediments from four Azorean lakes with distinct trophic states (Verde, Azul, Furnas and Fogo). Inferred from quantitative PCR, bacteria performing anaerobic ammonia oxidation, were the most abundant in the eutrophic lakes Verde, Azul and Furnas (4.5 % to 16.6 %), followed by nitrifying bacteria (0.8 % to 13.0 %), denitrifying bacteria (0.5 % to 6.8 %), iron-reducing bacteria (0.2 % to 1.4 %), and phosphorus-accumulating organisms (<0.3 %). In contrast, denitrifying bacteria dominated sediments from the oligo-mesotrophic lake Fogo (8.8 %). Activity assays suggested that bacteria performing ammonia oxidation (aerobic and anaerobic), nitrite oxidation, heterothrophic nitrate reduction, iron reduction and biological phosphorus storage/release were present and active in all Azorean lake sediments. The present work also suggested that the activity of denitrifying bacteria might contribute to the release of phosphorus from sediments.The authors are indebted and grateful to the Regional Department of Water Resources and Land Planning (Azores) for the grant (Contrato Excepcionado no. 4/2008/ DROTRH) and its staff (Dina Pacheco), and to Virgilio Cruz and Paulo Antunes (Geosciences Department, University of Azores) for the useful help in sediments' collection, to the technical staff of the Department of Environmental Engineering - DTU for chemical analysis, to Laurent Philippot (INRA - University of Burgundy) for positive controls for DNB, to Richard Glaven and Derek Lovley (Department of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts) for Geobacter strains, to Paul Bodelier, Marzia Milleto and Marion Meima (Netherlands Institute of Ecology, NIOO-KNAW) for SRB clones and to Yunhong Kong and Per Halkjaer Nielsen (Department of Life Sciences, Section of Environmental Engineering, Aalborg University) for PAO clones. The authors also acknowledge the Grant SFRH/BD/25639/2005 from the Foundation for Science and Technology/M.C.T.(Portugal) awarded to G. M. and a Marie Curie Excellence Award (EC FP6) to B.F.S