The Diffusion of Mexican Immigrants During the 1990s: Explanations and Impacts

Mexican immigrants were historically clustered in a few cities, mainly in California and Texas. During the past 15 years, however, arrivals from Mexico established sizeable immigrant communities in many "new" cities. We explore the causes and consequences of the widening geographic diffusion of Mexican immigrants. A combination of demand-pull and supply push factors explains most of the inter-city variation in inflows of Mexican immigrants over the 1990s, and also illuminates the most important trend in the destination choices of new Mexican immigrants %u2013 the move away from Los Angeles. Mexican inflows raise the relative supply of low-education labor in a city, leading to the question of how cities adapt to these shifts. One mechanism, suggested by the Hecksher Olin model, is shifting industry composition. We find limited evidence of this mechanism: most of the increases in the relative supply of low-education labor are absorbed by changes in skill intensity within narrowly defined industries. Such adjustments could be readily explained if Mexican immigrant inflows had large effects on the relative wage structures of different cities. As has been found in previous studies of the local impacts of immigration, however, our analysis suggests that relative wage adjustments are small.

Russia's New Authoritarianism

Studies the transformation of Russian domestic politics and foreign policy under Vladimir Putin Asks what kind of political system ‘Putinism’ denotes Engages with the scholarly and policy debate on the growth of illiberal politics and authoritarianism globally in the post-Soviet space and in countries as diverse as Hungary, Egypt, Turkey and the Philippines Uses contemporary case studies – including Russia’s legal system, the annexation of Crimea and Russian policy in Syria – to critically examine Russia’s political ideology Why did Russia’s post-Soviet political system developed into a new form of authoritarianism? And how did its foreign policy came to pose such a profound challenge to the West? David G. Lewis goes beyond current polemical debates to address these questions. Lewis investigates the Russian understanding of key concepts such as sovereignty, democracy and political community. He analyses the Russian political system as a novel form of authoritarian political order, unpacking the ideological paradigm that underpins it. He reveals that Russia's new order is characterised by the consolidation of political and economic power around a sovereign leader, together with a willingness to take political decisions outside the law both at home and in international affairs

Natives in the Nation\u27s Archives: The Southwest Oregon Research Project

The Southwest Oregon Research Project, initiated by members of the Coquille Indian tribe broke ground in Oregon for archival collections. Tribal scholars, working to restore and support their tribal nations collected documents and learned skills of archival research and organization. The last phase of the project returned collections to regional tribes in a community process of potlatch. The project theory reversed the trend of the late 19th and early 20th centuries of collecting information from tribes with little or no reciprocity. Tribes today are using the information to write histories, restore cultural identities and support tribal sovereignty

Tackling Corruption in Uzbekistan

In February 2016, the Amsterdam-based telecoms company Vimpelcom paid almost US$800 million in fines to settle charges of paying bribes to operate in Uzbekistan. The case came on top of several other investigations, and highlights the elaborate system of corruption and bribery that undermines business, governance, and the economy in this Central Asian state.Tackling Corruption in Uzbekistan provides a detailed account of these problems, and chronicles how they became endemic in the country's political and economic life. It is an environment of informal decision making, opaque regulations, and a lack of independent oversight. These conditions contribute to growing inequality, and fuel power struggles among Uzbekistan's economic and political leaders. All of this poses a grave threat to the country's long-term stability.The Uzbek government's anticorruption campaigns do little to address systemic problems. Instead, they are used by officials to settle scores and consolidate power through selective prosecutions. The government also uses harassment, persecution, and imprisonment to stifle independent journalists and civil society activists who monitor and report on corruption. Up to now, international technical assistance programs have had limited impact. Tackling Corruption in Uzbekistan provides analysis and recommendations to help the international community strengthen its efforts to investigate allegations of money laundering and corporate malpractice, and support those who challenge corruption both inside and outside the country.Downloa

Russia's New Authoritarianism

Studies the transformation of Russian domestic politics and foreign policy under Vladimir Putin Asks what kind of political system ‘Putinism’ denotes Engages with the scholarly and policy debate on the growth of illiberal politics and authoritarianism globally in the post-Soviet space and in countries as diverse as Hungary, Egypt, Turkey and the Philippines Uses contemporary case studies – including Russia’s legal system, the annexation of Crimea and Russian policy in Syria – to critically examine Russia’s political ideology Why did Russia’s post-Soviet political system developed into a new form of authoritarianism? And how did its foreign policy came to pose such a profound challenge to the West? David G. Lewis goes beyond current polemical debates to address these questions. Lewis investigates the Russian understanding of key concepts such as sovereignty, democracy and political community. He analyses the Russian political system as a novel form of authoritarian political order, unpacking the ideological paradigm that underpins it. He reveals that Russia's new order is characterised by the consolidation of political and economic power around a sovereign leader, together with a willingness to take political decisions outside the law both at home and in international affairs

Genetic and phenotypic divergence in an island bird: isolation by distance, by colonization or by adaptation?

Discerning the relative roles of adaptive and nonadaptive processes in generating differences among populations and species, as well as how these processes interact, is a fundamental aim in biology. Both genetic and phenotypic divergence across populations can be the product of limited dispersal and gradual genetic drift across populations (isolation by distance), of colonization history and founder effects (isolation by colonization) or of adaptation to different environments preventing migration between populations (isolation by adaptation). Here, we attempt to differentiate between these processes using island populations of Berthelot's pipit (Anthus berthelotii), a passerine bird endemic to three Atlantic archipelagos. Using microsatellite markers and approximate Bayesian computation, we reveal that the northward colonization of this species ca. 8500years ago resulted in genetic bottlenecks in the colonized archipelagos. We then show that high levels of genetic structure exist across archipelagos and that these are consistent with a pattern of isolation by colonization, but not with isolation by distance or adaptation. Finally, we show that substantial morphological divergence also exists and that this is strongly concordant with patterns of genetic structure and bottleneck history, but not with environmental differences or geographic distance. Overall, our data suggest that founder effects are responsible for both genetic and phenotypic changes across archipelagos. Our findings provide a rare example of how founder effects can persist over evolutionary timescales and suggest that they may play an important role in the early stages of speciation

Illusions of gunk

The possibility of gunk has been used to argue against mereological nihilism. This paper explores two responses on the part of the microphysical mereological nihilist: (1) the contingency defence, which maintains that nihilism is true of the actual world; but that at other worlds, composition occurs; (2) the impossibility defence, which maintains that nihilism is necessary true, and so gunk worlds are impossible. The former is argued to be ultimately unstable; the latter faces the explanatorily burden of explaining the illusion that gunk is possible. It is argued that we can discharge this burden by focussing on the contingency of the microphysicalist aspect of microphysical mereological nihilism. The upshot is that gunk-based arguments against microphysical mereological nihilism can be resisted

On the Substitution of Identicals in Counterfactual Reasoning

It is widely held that counterfactuals, unlike attitude ascriptions, preserve the referential transparency of their constituents, i.e., that counterfactuals validate the substitution of identicals when their constituents do. The only putative counterexamples in the literature come from counterpossibles, i.e., counterfactuals with impossible antecedents. Advocates of counterpossibilism, i.e., the view that counterpossibles are not all vacuous, argue that counterpossibles can generate referential opacity. But in order to explain why most substitution inferences into counterfactuals seem valid, counterpossibilists also often maintain that counterfactuals with possible antecedents are transparency‐preserving. I argue that if counterpossibles can generate opacity, then so can ordinary counterfactuals with possible antecedents. Utilizing an analogy between counterfactuals and attitude ascriptions, I provide a counterpossibilist‐friendly explanation for the apparent validity of substitution inferences into counterfactuals. I conclude by suggesting that the debate over counterpossibles is closely tied to questions concerning the extent to which counterfactuals are more like attitude ascriptions and epistemic operators than previously recognized

Hold the Gold Watch for now: delayed retirements

The services industries are always challenging. Any situation where point of delivery is coincidental with point of consumption, requires not only a first class product but also delivery mechanisms which allow for adaptability and improvisation in the face of the unexpected. An integral part of that mechanism is the workforce, and from this perspective the UK, Australia, and many other countries face some likely turbulent periods over the next five years. For example, data from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) show for the first time there are more than 10 million people aged over 50 in employment. This means that over 50s now make up nearly one third of the entire UK workforce, up from around one in five (21%) in the early 1990s. Looking ahead, by 2034, the estimate is that more than 25% of the population will be over 65 years old. Notwithstanding the advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and predictions from some quarters that ‘we’ll all be replaced by robots’, these statistics, coupled with the World Bank’s 2017 estimate of a likely annual population growth rate in the UK of 0.6% clearly suggest that the makeup of the workforce will have to change