Shifting attitudes and the labor market of minorities: Swedish experiences after 9-11

Several studies suggest that the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, caused at least a temporary change of attitude toward certain minorities in Sweden. We study unemployment exit around 9-11 using detailed data on the entire Swedish working-age population to investigate whether this change in attitudes also affected the labor market situation of these minorities. Contrary to what to expect from many theories of labor market discrimination, the time pattern of exits and entries for different ethnic groups, as well as difference-in-differences analyses, show no sign of increased discrimination towards these minorities.Labour market discrimination; minorities; etnic groups

q-Independence of the Jimbo-Drinfeld Quantization

Let $\mathrm G$ be a connected semi-simple compact Lie group and for $0<q<1$, let $(\mathbb{C}[\mathrm{G]_q}],\Delta_q)$ be the Jimbo-Drinfeld $q$-deformation of $\mathrm G$. We show that the $C^*$-completions of $\mathrm{C}[\mathrm{G]_q}$ are isomorphic for all values of $q$. Moreover, these isomorphisms are equivariant with respect to the right-action of the maximal torus

Dangerous Voices: On Written and Spoken Discourse in Plato’s Protagoras

Plato’s Protagoras contains, among other things, three short but puzzling remarks on the media of philosophy. First, at 328e5–329b1, Plato makes Socrates worry that long speeches, just like books, are deceptive, because they operate in a discursive mode void of questions and answers. Second, at 347c3–348a2, Socrates argues that discussion of poetry is a presumptuous affair, because, the poems’ message, just like the message of any written text, cannot be properly examined if the author is not present. Third, at 360e6–361d6, it becomes clear that even if the conversation between Socrates and Protagoras was conducted by means of short questions and answers, this spoken mode of discourse is problematic too, because it ended up distracting the inquiry from its proper course. As this paper 2 sets out to argue, Plato does not only make Socrates articulate these worries to exhibit the hazards of discursive commodifi cation. In line with Socrates’ warning to the young Hippocrates of the dangers of sophistic rhetoric, and the sophists’ practice of trading in teachings, they are also meant to problematize the thin line between philosophical and sophistical practice. By examining these worries in the light of how the three relevant modes of discourse are exemplifi ed in the dialogue, this paper aims to isolate and clarify the reasons behind them in terms of deceit, presumptuousness and distraction; and to argue that these reasons cast doubts on the common assumption that the dialogue’s primary aim is to show how sophistical rhetoric must succumb to Socratic dialectic

The Science of Philosophy: Discourse and Deception in Plato’s Sophist

At 252e1 to 253c9 in Plato’s Sophist, the Eleatic Visitor explains why philosophy is a science. Like the art of grammar, philosophical knowledge corresponds to a generic structure of discrete kinds and is acquired by systematic analysis of how these kinds intermingle. In the literature, the Visitor’s science is either understood as an expression of a mature and authentic platonic metaphysics, or as a sophisticated illusion staged to illustrate the seductive lure of sophistic deception. By showing how the Visitor’s account of the science of philosophy is just as comprehensive, phantasmatic and self-concealing as the art of sophistry identified at the dialogue’s outset, this paper argues in favor of the latter view

Do when and where matter? Initial labor market conditions and immigrant earnings

This paper investigates the long-term effects on immigrant earnings and employment from labor market conditions encountered upon arrival. We find substantial effects both of the state of the national labor market and of local unemployment rates. Comparing refugees entering Sweden in a severe and unexpected recession to refugees arriving in a preceding economic boom, we attempt to handle the issue of selective migration. The analysis of effects at the local level exploits a governmental refugee settlement policy to get exogenous variation in local labor market conditions.Immigration; earnings: labor market conditions