Mussolini\u27s Gladius: The Double-Edged Sword of Antiquity in Fascist Italy

Mussolini and the Fascist Party used a plethora of propaganda techniques in order to suggest the renewal of the old Roman Empire with the rise of the Italian Fascist Party. Through the use of ideology, race issues, religion, educational control, posters, theatre, architecture, and archeology, the Fascists used the Roman past to glorify modern Italy and the Fascist party. The Fascists’ use of these Roman allusions made their own deficiencies more apparent and led to a general failure of their propaganda program in terms of creating a new Italian identity focused upon the Ancient Roman past

What is the Amenity Value of Golf Course Living?

This paper estimates the amenity value of golf course living in both McMinnville and Newberg, Oregon. The data set consists of homes on and off the golf course in both cities and was collected on Zillow’s website from the past two years of home sales. I defined a home as being on the golf course if it was on the course-side of nearby streets, was located in the “green area” on the aerial map which roughly outlines the golf course perimeter, and also if the home description mentioned golf course frontage. I test the hypothesis that private golf courses have a higher percentage markup on the value of a home than public courses. The results of the regression analysis support the percentage markup hypothesis. The markup on the price of a home on Chehalem Golf Course is 11.5%, while the percentage markup of Michelbook Country Club is 13.6%

Fish assemblages and indicator species: reef fishes off the southeastern United States

For many fish stocks, resource management cannot be based on stock assessment because data are insufficient-a situation that requires alternative approaches to management. One possible approach is to manage data-limited stocks as part of an assemblage and to determine the status of the entire unit by a data-rich indicator species. The utility of this approach was evaluated in analyses of 15 years of commercial and 34 years of recreational logbook data from reef fisheries off the southeastern United States coast. Multivariate statistical analyses successfully revealed three primary assemblages. Within assemblages, however, there was little evidence of synchrony in population dynamics of member species, and thus, no support for the use of indicator species. Nonetheless, assemblages could prove useful as management units. Their identification offers opportunities for implementing management to address such ecological considerations as bycatch and species interrelations

Catalytic enantioselective synthesis of quaternary carbon stereocentres.

Quaternary carbon stereocentres-carbon atoms to which four distinct carbon substituents are attached-are common features of molecules found in nature. However, before recent advances in chemical catalysis, there were few methods of constructing single stereoisomers of this important structural motif. Here we discuss the many catalytic enantioselective reactions developed during the past decade for the synthesis of single stereoisomers of such organic molecules. This progress now makes it possible to incorporate quaternary stereocentres selectively in many organic molecules that are useful in medicine, agriculture and potentially other areas such as flavouring, fragrances and materials

National Sovereignty in an Interdependent World

What are the sovereign rights of nations in an interdependent world, and to what extent do these rights stand in the way of achieving important international objectives? These two questions rest at the heart of contemporary debate over the role and design of international institutions as well as growing tension between globalization and the preservation of national sovereignty. In this paper, we propose answers to these two questions. We do so by first developing formal definitions of national sovereignty that capture features of sovereignty emphasized in the political science literature. We then utilize these definitions to describe the degree and nature of national sovereignty possessed by governments in a benchmark (Nash) world in which there exist no international agreements of any kind. And with national sovereignty characterized in this benchmark world, we then evaluate the extent to which national sovereignty is compromised by international agreements with specific design features. In this way, we delineate the degree of tension between national sovereignty and international objectives and describe how that tension can be minimized and in principle at times even eliminated through careful institutional design.

Vertical Channel Analysis of the U.S. Milk Market

The objective of the research in this study is to evaluate the pricing and market conduct of milk manufacturers and retailers. Using data from a U.S. Midwestern state, we estimate a random coefficient logit demand model (RCL) to empirically investigate a range of possible scenarios in the milk supply chain. These include vertical leader-follower model with underlying Bertrand-Nash pricing, models allowing for nonlinear pricing contracts, and collusion scenarios at various levels in the supply chain. This study contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, it generalizes the RCL demand model via Box-Cox power transformation. While previous studies rely on ad hoc specified linear indirect utility, this procedure allows data to determine the functional form of utility. Power transformation parameters cannot be obtained analytically with product-level data, given that consumer choices are unobserved. We propose an algorithm to estimate the transformation and consumer heterogeneous taste parameters sequentially. The model is identified using annual variation in consumer demographics along with cross-sectional and time series variation in milk consumption. Finally, the milk choice set is allowed to vary across markets. It should be mentioned that jointly estimating the manufacturing sector, the vertical channel, and the retail sector will more likely yield reliable estimates of structural parameters vis-à-vis studies investigating food supply chain sectors in isolation. Several key results are obtained from the research. First, the estimate of demand “superelasticity”suggests that retailers have incentives to adjust retail markups to enhance their market power. Next, supply selection bias associated with imposing restriction on the demand-side framework is shown to have formidable policy implications. Namely, empirical results from the general demand show that retailers are more powerful than they would appear otherwise. In the face of high concentration and a small presence of Wall-Mart in these markets this seems a plausible scenario.Market conduct, random coefficient logit, vertical chain, Box-Cox power transformation, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization, D43, L13,

Can the Doha Round be a Development Round? Setting a Place at the Table

A fundamental objective of the Doha Round of WTO negotiations is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries. The 2001 declaration from the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, commits the member governments to negotiations aimed at substantial improvements in market access with a view to phasing out export subsidies, while embracing “special and differential treatment” for developing countries as an integral part of all elements of the negotiations. The main message of this paper comes in three parts. First, these stated aims are incompatible from the perspective of our economic analysis; thus, if these aims are pursued as stated, then we conclude that they are unlikely to deliver the meaningful trade gains for developing countries that the WTO membership seeks. Second, in attempting to integrate its developing country membership into the world trading system, the WTO may face a “latecomers” problem that, while occurring also in earlier rounds, is unprecedented in its scale in the Doha Round, and which could potentially account for the current impasse. And third, we argue that if the Round maintains its stated aims but moves away from the non-reciprocal special-and-differential treatment norm as the cornerstone of the approach to meeting developing country needs in the WTO, and if developing countries prepare, in markets where they are large, to come to the bargaining table and to negotiate reciprocally with each other and with developing nations, then it might be possible to break the impasse at Doha, to address the latecomers problem, and to deliver trade gains for developing countries.

Domestic Policies, National Sovereignty and International Economic Institutions

To what extent must nations cede control over their economic and social policies if global efficiency is to be achieved in an interdependent world? This question is at the center of the debate over the future role of GATT (and its successor, the WTO) in the realm of labor and environmental standards. Current GATT rules reflect the primacy of market access concerns in GATT practice, and this orientation is seen increasingly as unfriendly to labor and environmental causes. Fundamental changes to GATT are being considered as a result, changes that would expand the scope of GATT negotiations to include labor and environmental policies, and would lead to a significant loss of sovereignty for national governments. In this paper we establish that there is no need for the WTO to expand the scope of its negotiations in this way. We show instead that the market access focus of current GATT rules is well-equipped to handle the problems associated with choices over labor and environmental standards, and that with relatively modest changes that grant governments more sovereignty, not less, these rules can in principle deliver globally efficient outcomes.