The impact of cooling measures : evidence from Hong Kong residential re-sale market

To understand the effects of credit constraints and transaction taxes in housing market, this paper exploits the cooling measures imposed by the Hong Kong government aimed at addressing the overheated property market. The cooling measures include mortgage tightening measure which decreases the financial leverage for households and stamp duty measure which heightens the transaction costs for certain buyers. By using a comprehensive transaction-level dataset, we first assess the impact of both measures on trading activity in the residential re-sale market. The empirical findings suggest that the mortgage tightening measure does not have a significant impact on the overall trading activity in the overall market, but forces certain buyers to purchase smaller-sized homes. The stamp duty measure leads to lower trading activity in the overall market and the negative effect spreads across the submarkets. We then examine the behavioral response in the timing of transactions and tax incidence to special stamp duty, a transaction tax aimed at combating speculators. We find that the imposition of the special stamp duty is associated with an average of 6.8% price reduction of properties that are subject to such tax duty compared to those that are not subject to such tax. We also provide graphical evidence on the bunching in transactions right above the notch on holding period where the tax rate drops to 0%, suggesting that special stamp duty rate generates significant lock-in effects. Lastly, we employ non-linear models to capture the regime switching behaviors of transactions and housing prices in the aggregate housing market. The models reveal the occurrence of regime switches in aggregate transactions following the government intervention, particularly after the introduction of stamp duty measure, while no abrupt regime switches are observed in the price dynamics since the intervention except for the episode in the end of 2015. The larger impact on trading activity may indicate that most of the effect of those measures falls on the quantity in the housing market rather than the price

A Study on Vagueness Used by the Defendant in Courtroom Discourse from the Perspective of Adaptation Theory

Court discourse is a typical legal language, recently arousing scholars’ interest. In the courtroom discourse, many language strategies would be applied in this special setting out of various purposes and vagueness is one of them. With the transcripts from the Jodi Arias’ murder case as the database, this paper investigates vagueness in the American courtroom from the perspective of adaptation theory, paying specific attention to the defendant. Two conclusions are reached: (1) the defendant uses vagueness commonly to adapt to the mental world, the social world and the physical world. As to the mental world, it can be divided into speaker-directed adaptation and hearer-directed adaptation. As to the social world, the study analyzes how the defendant adapts to the legal obligation. Defendant also adapts to the physical world in courtroom settings. (2) the study finds four pragmatic functions of vagueness used by the defendant in the courtroom discourse, they are 1) increasing the credibility of utterance; 2) avoiding absolute utterance; 3) providing appropriate information; 4) Being polite

Educational Memory of Chinese Female Intellectuals in Early Twentieth Century

Educational Memory of Chinese Female Intellectuals in Early Twentieth Century describes the campus life, teacher-student interaction, academic career, and ideological change of the first generation of female intellectuals trained in higher education in China as the Chinese society changed in the early 20th century. Using the research methods of life history, oral history, and history of mentalities, the author reveals the special experiences and ideological journeys of Chinese female intellectuals by the literature works of three first-generation Chinese female intellectuals and other people's interpretations and commentary on their works. It also analyzes the relationship between many factors such as society, academia and education, especially higher education, and female intellectuals

Sociological Theory from Dialogic Democracy

Despite the long dialogical tradition both in Eastern and Western societies, in recent years the social dialogical turn is more and more evident in many domains of life. Citizens increasingly demand to have a saying in the seeking of solutions for their problematics, and advocate for a more democratic approach to science that fosters the inclusion of all voices and enhances the agency of citizens in social transformation. Therefore, global scientific research is progressively more oriented towards co-creation as a means to ensure social impact. In this context, social theory can provide the theoretical foundations to better address the societal challenges of concern, as well as the mechanisms to properly design research oriented to produce social impact, such as communicative methodology, and to monitor and evaluate such impact. Social theory would then serve its ultimate goal: to contribute to the improvement of societies. Sociology was born as part of the democracies to provide citizens with elements of analysis that would make it possible for them to make their decisions with the prior evidence of the consequences of each option. After a process of democratization, we return to the original sense, but now in a more democratic situation

Sociological Theory from Dialogic Democracy

Despite the long dialogical tradition both in Eastern and Western societies, in recent years the social dialogical turn is more and more evident in many domains of life. Citizens increasingly demand to have a saying in the seeking of solutions for their problematics, and advocate for a more democratic approach to science that fosters the inclusion of all voices and enhances the agency of citizens in social transformation. Therefore, global scientific research is progressively more oriented towards co-creation as a means to ensure social impact. In this context, social theory can provide the theoretical foundations to better address the societal challenges of concern, as well as the mechanisms to properly design research oriented to produce social impact, such as communicative methodology, and to monitor and evaluate such impact. Social theory would then serve its ultimate goal: to contribute to the improvement of societies. Sociology was born as part of the democracies to provide citizens with elements of analysis that would make it possible for them to make their decisions with the prior evidence of the consequences of each option. After a process of democratization, we return to the original sense, but now in a more democratic situation

Investigation of Time-Difference-Of-Arrival Localization Method for Non-Line-Of-Sight Scenarios

A novel localization concept, which considers non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation, is proposed in this dissertation. By introducing a transfer function that relates the field at a given receiver to the source as a function of frequency and position, the NLOS effects can be mitigated and the propagation channel can be calibrated back to free space. The conventional Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) method under Line-of-Sight (LOS) and noisy conditions is implemented first, and then the theory is extended to the proposed method, which de-embeds the transfer function and extends the TDOA method to account for NLOS effects. A global search method and an iterative method are both introduced, based on the concept of de-embedding the transfer function. This involves using processed received signals (received signals after de-embedding the corresponding transfer functions). The localization accuracy achieved using the iterative method for various NLOS scenarios is investigated, including a refraction problem, a near field problem, and a scattering problem. Subsequently, the study is further extended to allow for multiple reflection effects. Three different models are provided. First, a parallel-wall model considers the case when the reflections are basically coming from a single horizontal direction. A 3D localization model and 2D enclosed wall model are then also presented to illustrate cases when the reflections come from either the vertical or the two horizontal directions. A hybrid iterative method, combining the iterative method and the global search method, is proposed to solve the problem of convergence that occurs when the transmitted signal is operating at high frequencies (so that the enclosed area of interest is large compared with a wavelength), especially with a narrow frequency bandwidth. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs much better than the usual TDOA localization method, and the accuracy is only limited by the sampling frequency. An experiment (performed at Sandia National Laboratories) is set up to verify the improvement in using the proposed method vs. the usual TDOA method.Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department o

Coping of Chinese Citizens Living in Spain during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for Personal Well-Being and Social Cohesion

Chinese citizens in China were the first affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Nevertheless, the disease rapidly spread around the world, leading to the worst pandemic experienced in modern societies. Spain has become one of the countries more severely affected by it, while having a large Chinese community. This study aims to explore the perception of Chinese citizens living in Spain regarding the outbreak in their host country. Communicative interviews were conducted with ten Chinese men and women who had been living in Spain for at least five years. Results show cultural differences in the coping strategies of the Chinese as a response to the pandemic, which differ from those observed by the participants in their fellow Spanish citizens. These findings unveil the potential of integrating the cultural knowledge and coping strategies of migrant groups in the host communities in managing a pandemic, as well as the negative outcomes for social cohesion and well-being from new racism emerging in the context of COVID-19