Opposites Do Not Attract: The Impact of Domestic Institutions, Power, and Prior Commitments on Alignment Choices

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146950/1/0020-8833.00055.pd

Do Estate and Gift Taxes Affect the Timing of Private Transfers?

Proposals to alter the estate tax are contentious and have been debated largely in an empirical vacuum. This paper examines time series and cross-sectional variation to identify the effects of gift and estate taxation on the timing of private transfers. The analysis is based on data from the 1989, 1992, 1995, and 1998 waves of the Surveys of Consumer Finances. Legislative activity during this period reduced the tax disadvantage of bequests relative to gifts. Moreover, the magnitude of this reduction differed systematically across identifiable household categories. We find that households experiencing larger declines in the expected tax disadvantages of bequests substantially reduced inter vivos transfers relative to households experiencing small declines in the tax disadvantages of bequests. This implies that the timing of transfers is highly responsive to applicable gift and estate tax rates. These conclusions are based both on simple comparisons of the probability of giving across different time periods and groups, and on empirical specifications that control for a variety of potentially confounding factors, such as systematic changes in the fraction of wealth attributable to unrealized capital gains. The results also provide evidence of a systematic bequest motive for some high-wealth households.

Mellow yellow: An experiment in amber

Amber natron glasses were produced from at least the Hellenistic period and continued to be produced into the early second century CE. However, as with other strong colours used for Roman vessel production, this colour gradually declined in popularity as colourless and blue-green glass came to dominate. Whilst the colouring mechanisms for blue-green glasses are relatively well understood, the cause of the distinctive amber colour is more complex and can be attributed to the iron sulphur chromophore. This paper demonstrates, using analytical data and model glasses, that the amber colour develops during primary production, and that the sulphate-rich natron is key. The analytical data show that most natron amber glass was probably produced in the Levant alongside the more common blue-green glasses, however, its composition is different. Whilst many glass colours were made in a secondary stage, by adding colourants and opacifiers to a blue-green or colourless glass base, amber glass was not made this way since it required a slightly different set of raw materials and melting technologies. These findings suggest that the production of the glass required specialist knowledge, and particularly skilled furnace operation, in order to produce repeatable results. Skilled specialists would also be required to work amber glass whilst retaining the same clear amber hue, especially for complex wares, such as mosaic vessels, where the glass would be reheated more than once

Sociology, environment and health: a materialist approach

Objectives: This paper reviews the sociology of environment and health and makes the case for a postanthropocentric approach based on new materialist theory. This perspective fully incorporates humans and their health into ‘the environment’, and in place of humancentred concerns considers the forces that constrain or enhance environmental capacities. Study design: This is not an empirical study. The paper uses a hypothetical vignette concerning child health and air pollution to explore the new materialist model advocated in the paper. Methods: This paper used sociological analysis. Results: A new materialist and postanthropocentric sociology of environment and health are possible. This radically reconfigures both sociological theory and its application to research and associated policies on health and the environment. Theoretically, human health is rethought as one among a number of capacities emerging from humans interactions with the social and natural world. Practically, the focus of intervention and policy shifts towards fostering social and natural interactions that enhance environmental (and in the process, human) potentiality. Conclusions: This approach to research and policy development has relevance for public health practice and polic

Bypass or Engage? Explaining Donor Delivery Tactics

Abstract The conventional wisdom in the literature on aid allocation suggests that donors utilize bilateral aid as a tool to buy influence in the aid-receiving country. Those who conclude that aid is driven by donor self-interest focus on government-to-government aid transfers. However, this approach overlooks important variation in delivery tactics: bilateral donors frequently provide aid to non-state actors. This paper argues that donors resort to delivery tactics that increase the likelihood of aid achieving its intended outcome. In poorly governed recipient countries, donors bypass recipient governments and deliver more aid through non-state actors, all else equal. In recipient countries with higher governance quality, donors engage the government and give more aid through the government-to-government channel. Using OLS and Probit regressions, I find empirical support for this argument. Understanding the determinants of donor delivery tactics has important implications for assessing aid effectiveness

Reduction Algorithms for the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer

We describe the data reduction algorithms for the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) instrument. These algorithms were based on extensive preflight testing and modeling of the Si:As (24 micron) and Ge:Ga (70 and 160 micron) arrays in MIPS and have been refined based on initial flight data. The behaviors we describe are typical of state-of-the-art infrared focal planes operated in the low backgrounds of space. The Ge arrays are bulk photoconductors and therefore show a variety of artifacts that must be removed to calibrate the data. The Si array, while better behaved than the Ge arrays, does show a handful of artifacts that also must be removed to calibrate the data. The data reduction to remove these effects is divided into three parts. The first part converts the non-destructively read data ramps into slopes while removing artifacts with time constants of the order of the exposure time. The second part calibrates the slope measurements while removing artifacts with time constants longer than the exposure time. The third part uses the redundancy inherit in the MIPS observing modes to improve the artifact removal iteratively. For each of these steps, we illustrate the relevant laboratory experiments or theoretical arguments along with the mathematical approaches taken to calibrate the data. Finally, we describe how these preflight algorithms have performed on actual flight data.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, PASP accepted (May 2005 issue), version of paper with full resolution images is available at http://dirty.as.arizona.edu/~kgordon/papers/PS_files/mips_dra.pd