Human Capital and Growth in the Post-Bellum South: A Separate but Unequal Story

This paper tests the importance of human capital in explaining convergence across states of the United States after 1880. Human capital levels are found to matter not only to a state's income level but also to its growth rate through technological diffusion. The South's low human capital levels immediately after the Civil War, combined with its active resistance in the Post-Bellum period to educating its population, both white and black, played an important role in reducing the speed of Southern conditional convergence toward the rest of the nation after the Civil War.

‘I’m excluded – who’s gonna care?’ Multi-agency teams supporting the care of excluded children in educational settings – policy into practice, what works and what doesn’t? (Sharing our experience, Practitioner-led research 2008-2009; PLR0809/062)

The aim of the research was to discover who meets the needs of children at risk of exclusion, an interest sparked by meeting vulnerable children and listening to their stories. The research team wanted to discover whether strategies used do meet policy and best practice guidance. Are multi-agency teams successful? How do children feel about those who provide their care? Semi-structured interviews were used, as well as discussion groups, with the following professionals and young people: • one Further Education administrator • two Further Education programme co-ordinators • one primary school Pastoral Support team member • one primary school head teacher • two secondary school Pastoral Support team members • three social workers • one sports coach • one sports coach assistant • three foster carers • seven young people. In addition, we carried out a literature review to discover that when schools work in conjunction with a range of other professionals, in a manner which includes children and parents and makes the process comfortable and child-led, results are good. Children feel supported and are able to achieve. The research also identified that our agencies appear, at times, to misinterpret the guidance, or simply ignore it – allowing egos, personalities and inconsequential agendas to interfere with pastoral care. Examples of good practice to share with others have been identified, as have a few challenges, the avoidance of which might make the difference for some children. The research discovered that behaviour support personnel in schools appear to have a valuable role to play for vulnerable children, as do many others however; also, excitingly there are instances of good practice which may limit incidents of exclusion. This PLR project has provided opportunity to discover how outcomes for children can be improved by working together, also that one person alone can make all the difference

How much of South Korea's growth miracle can be explained by trade policy?

South Korea's growth miracle has been well documented. A large set of institutional and policy reforms in the early 1960s is thought to have contributed to the country's extraordinary performance. In this paper, the authors assess the importance of one key set of policies, the trade policy reforms in Korea, as well as the concurrent GATT tariff reductions. They develop a model of neoclassical growth and trade that highlights two forces by which lower trade barriers can lead to increased per worker GDP: comparative advantage and specialization, and capital accumulation. The authors calibrate the model and simulate the effects of three sets of tariff reductions that occurred between the early 1962 and 1995. Their main finding is that the model can explain up to 32 percent of South Korea's catch-up to the G7 countries in output per worker in the manufacturing sector. The authors find that the effects of the tariff reductions taken together are about twice as large as the sum of each reduction applied individually.Trade ; Tariff ; Economic policy

How much of South Korea’s growth miracle can be explained by trade policy?

South Korea’s growth miracle has been well documented. A large set of institutional and policy reforms in the early 1960s is thought to have contributed to the country’s extraordinary performance. In this paper, we assess the importance of one key set of policies, the trade policy reforms in Korea, as well as the concurrent GATT tariff reductions. We develop a model of neoclassical growth and trade that highlights two forces by which lower trade barriers can lead to increased per worker GDP: comparative advantage and specialization, and capital accumulation. We calibrate the model and simulate the effects of three sets of tariff reductions that occurred between the early 1962 and 1995. Our main finding is that the model can explain up to 32 percent of South Korea’s catch-up to the G7 countries in output per worker in the manufacturing sector. We find that the effects of the tariff reductions taken together are about twice as large as the sum of each reduction applied individually.

A Basic Analysis of Entry and Exit in the US Broadband Market, 2005-2008: More Detail and Additional Results

We conduct a basic yet thorough analysis of entry and exit in the US broadband market, using a complete FCC census of providers from 2005 to 2008. There is a tremendous amount of (simultaneous) entry and exit in the US broadband market. Most entry is from existing providers expanding into new geographic areas. Entry and exit vary widely across the various modes of provision, which argues against treating broadband as a homogenous service in theoretical or empirical work. The highest entry rates also generally have the highest entrant shares. Entry rates display positive autocorrelation, and the same is true for exit. There is also positive correlation between the entry and exit rates at various leads and lags, suggesting that there are systematic differences among the broadband types in the height of entry and exit barriers. We discuss some implications these results may have for both policy purposes and future work in the broadband market

A Basic Analysis of Entry and Exit in the US Broadband Market, 2005-2008

We conduct a basic yet thorough analysis of entry and exit in the US broadband market, using a complete FCC census of providers from 2005 to 2008. There is a tremendous amount of (simultaneous) entry and exit in the US broadband market. Most entry is from existing providers expanding into new geographic areas. Entry and exit vary widely across the various modes of provision, which argues against treating broadband as a homogenous service in theoretical or empirical work. The highest entry rates also generally have the highest entrant shares. Entry rates display positive autocorrelation, and the same is true for exit. There is also positive correlation between the entry and exit rates at various leads and lags, suggesting that there are systematic differences among the broadband types in the height of entry and exit barriers. We discuss some implications these results may have for both policy purposes and future work in the broadband market

Theorizing Radical Practice: Community Arts and Transformative Learning

This roundtable presentation provides an exploration of the role that creative, critical teaching and learning could play in addressing social and personal suffering through reflective practice, expressive ways of knowing and cultural resistance. It will draw on Freirean pedagogy, and feminist, critical and community theory to propose the way ahead

Characterising the research profile of the critical care physiotherapy workforce and engagement with critical care research: a UK national survey

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Objective: To characterise the research profile of UK critical care physiotherapists including experience, training needs, and barriers and enablers to engagement in critical care research. 'Research' was defined broadly to encompass activities related to quantitative and qualitative studies, service evaluations, clinical audit and quality improvements. Design: Closed-question online survey, with optional free-text responses. Setting: UK critical care community. Participants: UK critical care physiotherapists, regardless of clinical grade or existing research experience. Results: 268 eligible survey responses were received during the 12-week study period (21 incomplete, 7.8%). Respondents were based in university-affiliated (n=133, 49.6%) and district general (n=111, 41.4%) hospitals, and generally of senior clinical grade. Nearly two-thirds had postgraduate qualifications at master's level or above (n=163, 60.8%). Seven had a doctoral-level qualification. Respondents reported a range of research experience, predominantly data acquisition (n=144, 53.7%) and protocol development (n=119, 44.4%). Perceived research training needs were prevalent, including topics of research methods, critical literature appraisal, protocol development and statistical analysis (each reported by ≥50% respondents). Multiple formats for delivery of future research training were identified. Major barriers to research engagement included lack of protected time (n=220, 82.1%), funding (n=177, 66.0%) and perceived experience (n=151, 56.3%). Barriers were conceptually categorised into capability, opportunity and motivation themes. Key enabling strategies centred on greater information provision about clinical research opportunities, access to research training, secondment roles and professional networks. Conclusions: UK critical care physiotherapists are skilled, experienced and motivated to participate in research, including pursuing defined academic research pathways. Nonetheless wide-ranging training needs and notable barriers preclude further involvement. Strategies to harness the unique skills of this profession to enhance the quality, quantity and scope of critical care research, benefiting from a multiprofessional National Clinical Research Network, are required.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

What Does Engagement Look Like in a Media Studies Classroom?

In wider discourses about teaching and learning, “engagement” has become something of a contested term, with teachers and educationalists often arguing about what being engaged in education actually involves. This contestation is compounded in media education, because the teacher has to deal with multiple conceptions of audience and, as a consequence, multiple meanings of the term engagement. In this essay, these conceptions and meanings are explored using some primary data taken from surveys of students and teachers from A-Level Media Studies classes, who were asked about both their engagement with the texts they taught and studied on the course, and their engagement with the wider critical study of media texts. The analysis of the data shows varying types and levels of engagement, some of which are personal, some educational and some academically critical. The authors seek to categorise these “engagement events” in different ways and highlight the idea that engagement in the study of media texts is very different to other types of audience engagement