An Ottoman Letter of Recommendation for an Austrian Scientist

An Ottoman Letter of Recommendation for an Austrian ScientistAn Ottoman Letter of Recommendation for an Austrian Scientis

The politics of budgetary constraints. An ideational explanation for the variation in national fiscal frameworks in the eurozone

Situated in the fields of comparative and international political economy, this dissertation is interested in national fiscal frameworks in the eurozone. These sets of fiscal rules and institutions aim at reducing the fiscal policy discretion of political decision-makers. While national fiscal frameworks face substantial convergence pressures in Europe, we can nevertheless observe significant and persistent variation in their stringency, design and timing. The research project thus sets out to explain this fiscal framework variation studying six country cases (Germany, France, Austria, Slovakia, Ireland and Portugal). Building on a diverse case-selection strategy to maximise both the internal and external validity of the comparative research design, the empirical evidence includes interviews with 81 fiscal policy actors, as well as parliamentary debates, electoral manifestos, legal documents, reports, newspaper articles and descriptive statistics. Drawing on these varied materials, the dissertation tests several theories that could explain the variation in fiscal frameworks and their reforms between the early 1990s and the late 2010s. Among these potential explanations are domestic ideas, national economic interests, public opinion, financial markets, and coercion by powerful external actors. In-depth process-tracing of fiscal framework reforms in Slovakia, Austria and France highlights the role of country-specific macroeconomic idea-sets in explaining the variation of national fiscal frameworks. Macroeconomic idea-sets differ with regard to the role they assign to the state in the economy and to which extent they favour the use of rules and/or expertise to guide fiscal policy-making. They are embedded in domestic political, economic and research institutions. The case studies show how Slovak neoliberalism, Austro-pragmatism and French post-dirigisme, respectively, led to the implementation of a constraining, intermediate, and lenient fiscal framework in terms of stringency. Comparative analyses of all six country cases and the in-depth case studies help to evaluate the extent to which the four alternative theories can explain national fiscal framework variation. The findings suggest that financial markets (in Austria and Slovakia) as well as external coercion (in Ireland and Portugal) played a role in the timing and design of certain fiscal framework reforms. While correlational evidence also suggests an influence of economic interests on fiscal framework variation, the absence of process-tracing evidence puts this explanation into question. Both economic models and fiscal frameworks might be driven by the same macroeconomic idea-sets instead. Public opinion, finally, did not influence fiscal framework reforms in any significant manner

Geographic Modeling: Approaching Reality in Land Use Simulation Pragmatically

Geographic research necessitates different types of models that aim at reducing the complexity of reality, enabling us to analyze its representations. Models allow us to infer exploratory and confirmatory findings about causal links between different geographic conditions, different social, political, and economic actors, their behaviors, and land use and its dynamics. However, the spatial, temporal, and attributive nature of data complicates the appropriate model choice for specific research purposes. This conceptual paper keeps track of model construction in the context of land use and land use change. It reveals different issues where particular caution is required, such as spatial and temporal dependency and heterogeneity, scale dependency, and bidirectional causality. With geographic research being increasingly under the influence of econometric methods, we contend that it is necessary to provide intermediary qualitative layers of evidence between conceptual and, especially, empirical and simulative models of land use and land use change to ensure robust findings about causal relationships between observed variables

The Daughter of Kelemen Bemoans Her Father

The Daughter of Kelemen Bemoans Her FatherThe Daughter of Kelemen Bemoans Her Fathe

Caveat Emptor: Does Bitcoin Improve Portfolio Diversification?

Bitcoin is an unregulated digital currency originally introduced in 2008 without legal tender status. Based on a decentralized peer-to-peer network to confirm transactions and generate a limited amount of new bitcoins, it functions without the backing of a central bank or any other monitoring authority. In recent years, Bitcoin has seen increasing media coverage and trading volume, as well as major capital gains and losses in a high volatility environment. Interestingly, an analysis of Bitcoin returns shows remarkably low correlations with traditional investment assets such as other currencies, stocks, bonds or commodities such as gold or oil. In this paper, we shed light on the impact an investment in Bitcoin can have on an already well-diversified investment portfolio. Due to the non-normal nature of Bitcoin returns, we do not propose the classic mean-variance approach, but adopt a Conditional Value-at-Risk framework that does not require asset returns to be normally distributed. Our results indicate that Bitcoin should be included in optimal portfolios. Even though an investment in Bitcoin increases the CVaR of a portfolio, this additional risk is overcompensated by high returns leading to better return-risk ratios

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Summary of illegible or debatable wordsSummary of illegible or debatable word

Explaining Variation in Public Debt: A Quantitative Analysis of the Effects of Governance

This paper examines the main political influence factors accounting for the variation in public debt accumulation on a global scale. This allows for a reassessment of the recent focus on a regime type theory of public debt and for a test of an alternative governance theory. I argue that political stability, the rule of law, the control of corruption, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality promote lower public debt accumulation by reducing the incentives for governments to “borrow from the future,” by increasing state capacity to collect taxes and effectively use public funds, and by providing more security and equity to private investment, inducing higher economic growth and tax revenues. Both theories are tested against a number of controls stemming from theories of public choice, theories of governmental distributional conflict, as well as from politico-institutional and macroeconomic explanations of public debt accumulation. Applying different specifications of quantitative models, the two governance indicators political stability and regulatory quality show consistent effects on public debt accumulation, partly confirming the proposed governance theory. Furthermore, the paper can reproduce a public debt-reducing effect of more democratic regime types across a number of model specifications – though without a high degree of robustness.[Expliquer la variation de la dette publique par la gouvernance ? Une analyse quantitative] Cet article examine les principaux facteurs politiques d’influence expliquant la variation de l’accumulation de dette publique selon les pays. Ceci permet de reconsidérer les explications en termes de théorie des régimes, actuellement privilégiées, et de mettre plutôt à l’essai une théorie de type gouvernance. L’idée est que la stabilité politique, l’État de droit, le contrôle de la corruption, l’efficacité administrative et la qualité de la réglementation favorisent une moindre accumulation de dette publique en réduisant la tentation des pouvoirs publics d’« emprunter aux générations futures », en accroissant la capacité de l’État à collecter l’impôt et à utiliser efficacement les fonds publics, et en offrant à l’investissement privé davantage de sécurité et d’équité, ce qui induit une croissance économique et des recettes fiscales plus élevées. Les deux théories sont mises à l’épreuve au moyen d’une série de contrôles tirés de la théorie du choix rationnel, de la théorie du conflit de répartition des ressources publiques, ainsi que des explications politico-institutionnelles et macro-économiques de l’accumulation de dette publique. L’application de différentes spécifications de modèles quantitatifs fait apparaître des effets constants de deux indicateurs de gouvernance, « stabilité politique » et « qualité de la réglementation », sur l’accumulation de dette publique, ce qui confirme partiellement la théorie de la gouvernance proposée. On a pu en outre reproduire un effet de réduction de la dette publique des types de régime plus démocratiques pour plusieurs spécifications de modèle, mais avec un degré de robustesse peu élevé.1 Introduction 2 Explaining variation in public debt 3 A governance theory of public debt 4 Data and methodology 5 Findings 6 Conclusions Reference

Zum Schaffen von Frank Zappa

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Thema Frank Zappa und hinterfragt, die Rolle, die der Ausnahmekünstler in der Musikgeschichte gespielt hat. Anhand des herangezogenen Werkes Joe´s Garage soll Zappas Schaffen im Allgemeinen verdeutlicht werden. Im Hinblick auf seinen Lebensweg, seine musikalische Ausbildung und die auf ihn einwirkenden Einflüsse des Rhythm & Blues und der Komponisten der Klassischen Moderne, im Besonderen Zappas großes Vorbild Edgar Varès, aber auch Anton von Webern und Igor Stravinsky, sollen die Auswirkungen dieser Faktoren auf Frank Zappas künstlerisches Schaffen verdeutlicht werden. Des Weiteren wird anhand der Darstellung von Zappas Tätigkeiten als Komponist, Musiker, Dirigent, aber auch Kritiker des „American Way of Life“ die Rolle Frank Zappas in der Musikszene erörtert

Pupil-centred spiritual leadership: an empirical study of thirteen church primary school headteachers in England

The place of Church school headteachers as spiritual leaders of the school community is rarely highlighted. This article investigates how 13 Church primary school headteachers (Catholic Church of England, and Methodist) interpret this role. It draws on the Faith in the Nexus research which investigated how church primary schools nurtured pupils’ spiritual development and facilitated faith activity in the home. The head teacher interviews revealed several recurring themes, such as empowering children, collective worship, relationships with church and parents, and the visibility of faith in school. This research brings together a comparison of leadership approaches from Catholic and Anglican headteachers. Evidence of differences emerged; Catholic headteachers tended to use ‘overtly religious’ language while many Anglican headteachers employed a more ‘secular’ language to express their vision of spiritual leadership. A comparison with Shaw’s (Citation 2015, 2017) model of ‘ethotic leadership’, highlighted much in common. The headteachers’ ethos was pupil-centric and shaped by a focus on the spiritual development of the child. An adaptation of Shaw’s model is offered which places the child at the centre

Improving Information Perception of Graphical Displays – an Experimental Study on the Display of Column Graphs

Due to the fact that the quality of decisions is linked to the availability of information and to the ability of the human brain to process this in an effective and efficient way, its selection and representation are of major importance in business communication. Graphs and tables are widely used to transform raw data into a more understandable format, but there are not any empirically tested guidelines that consider the cognition and perception abilities of humans. This paper therefore explores how specific visual designs applied to column graphs influence effectiveness and efficiency by applying the technique of eye-tracking to make an accurate assessment of what the observer is looking at. The tested design elements show significant results and allow the deduction of the following design guidelines for column graphs: do not use a 3D view for depicting two dimensional data, do not use non-zero or broken axes, do show label values, do not use horizontal gridlines or the label axis when showing label values and do align the label values depending on the available space (either horizontally or vertically)