The Determinants and Impact of Property Rights: Land Titles on the Brazilian Frontier

This paper provides new empirical results regarding the demand and supply of title, its impact on land value, and its effects on agricultural investment on Brazilian frontiers. We use survey data from 1992 and 1993 from the state of Par  with data on the characteristics of the settlers, land tenure, land agencies involved, land values, and investment. We then turn to census data from the Brazilian agricultural census from 1940 through 1985, with observations at the municipio (county) level to examine the development of property rights to land in the southern state of Paran  during the agricultural boom between 1940 and 1970 and in the Amazon state of Par  during the period of rapid migration to the region after 1970. By examining frontiers we can follow the rise in land values, the increase in the demand for title, and the response of government. The empirical findings support the predictions of the theory regarding the effects of title and investment on land value, the role of expected change in value on demand for title, and the contribution of title in promoting investment. Governments, however, have not exactly followed the predictions of the analytical framework in supplying title. Political and bureaucratic factors play an important role in the government response to demands for title. This result suggests that researchers must pay special attention to the complex political process by which property rights are assigned in studying the emergence of tenure institutions.

Special Feature Introduction: Indigenous Persistence in Colonial California

There are more than one hundred federally recognized Native American tribes found within the present-day borders of California, a roughly equivalent number of indigenous Californian communities who are either unrecognized or currently petitioning for recognition by the United States government, and another eight indigenous reserves just across the international border in Baja California, Mexico. This impressive array of more than 200 Native American communities is not surprising, given what oral narratives, early ethnography, and precontact archaeology tell us about the densely populated sociopolitical landscape comprised of many hundreds of small-scale autonomous tribes that existed before colonization in the late-1700s. Separating these two eras of Native California, however, is the colonial period—a time when indigenous peoples faced directed culture change in the Spanish missions, joined multiethnic communities at mercantile outposts, and suffered greatly due to disease, violence, and the disastrous policies of elimination enacted during the early American period

Total Station Mapping: Practical Examples from Alta and Baja California

The use of electronic total data stations for mapping archaeological sites is examined through two California case studies. Mission Santa Catalina, located in the high desert of Baja California, and a cluster of three shell mounds, located in a forest in the San Francisco Bay area, represent two different examples of organizing and implementing a mapping program using a total station. In this article, we will discuss the basic use of total stations for mapping archaeological sites and provide an overview of the process of creating digital maps from data obtained using a total station. The two case studies will offer in-depth consideration of different data collection strategies and techniques used for the production of digital maps, and we stress the broad application of total stations for accurate and efficient mapping in a variety of study settings

The Marine Radiocarbon Reservoir Effect in Tomales Bay, California

This paper examines the marine reservoir effect for Tomales Bay, a 25.5-km-long tidal estuary along the northern coast of California. We determined the regional ∆R through radiocarbon (14C) measurements of pre-1950 shells from a museum collection as well as archaeologically recovered shell samples from a historical railroad grade of known construction date. These results are compared against four sets of paired shell and bone samples from two local archaeological sites. Our results indicate little spatial variation along the inner bay, but the proposed ∆R value is lower than those previously reported for nearby areas along the Pacific Coast. We also note potential variability in regional ∆R of approximately 200 14C years for the late Holocene, and comparison with an older paired bone and shell sample points toward more significant temporal variation earlier in tim

On the Effective Communication of the Results of Empirical Studies, Part II

In an important and certainly timely article published in the N.Y. U. Law Review, Nancy C. Staudt demonstrates that, in taxpayer standing cases, judges are motivated by politics but can be constrained when the law is clear and oversight exists. As part of that demonstration, Professor Staudt offers an empirical analysis of the decision to grant standing to federal taxpayers-the results of which we reproduce in Table 1.2 What are we to make of this rather ominous-looking table? Professor Staudt suggests two key takeaways. First, the analysis, she reports, shows that doctrine helps explain standing decisions even when political factors are taken into account. Both legal variables ( Spending and Spending and Establishment Clause ) are statistically significant, controlling for all other factors listed in the table. Second, she finds an important role for the politics of the plaintiff: Judges are more likely to grant standing to a liberal plaintiff, regardless of their own political leanings. No doubt, the data support Professor Staudt\u27s claim about the importance of politics. The asterisk on the Plaintiff Politics variable, for example, tells us that a statistically significant relationship exists between a plaintiffs political ideology and the decision to grant standing

On the Effective Communication of the Results of Empirical Studies, Part II

In an important and certainly timely article published in the N.Y. U. Law Review, Nancy C. Staudt demonstrates that, in taxpayer standing cases, judges are motivated by politics but can be constrained when the law is clear and oversight exists. As part of that demonstration, Professor Staudt offers an empirical analysis of the decision to grant standing to federal taxpayers-the results of which we reproduce in Table 1.2 What are we to make of this rather ominous-looking table? Professor Staudt suggests two key takeaways. First, the analysis, she reports, shows that doctrine helps explain standing decisions even when political factors are taken into account. Both legal variables ( Spending and Spending and Establishment Clause ) are statistically significant, controlling for all other factors listed in the table. Second, she finds an important role for the politics of the plaintiff: Judges are more likely to grant standing to a liberal plaintiff, regardless of their own political leanings. No doubt, the data support Professor Staudt\u27s claim about the importance of politics. The asterisk on the Plaintiff Politics variable, for example, tells us that a statistically significant relationship exists between a plaintiffs political ideology and the decision to grant standing

Finding Mid-19th Century Native Settlements: Cartographic and Archaeological Evidence from Central California

Historical maps have the potential to aid archaeological investigations into the persistence of Native American settlements during the mid-19th century, a time when many Native communities disappear from archaeological view. Focusing on Tomales Bay in central California, we evaluate the usefulness of historical maps as a way to discover and interpret archaeological deposits dating to the period, with the aim of better understanding indigenous patterns of residence at the transition from missionary to settler colonialism. In particular, we focus on diseños and plats created to document Mexican-era land grants as well as early maps produced by the General Land Office and United States Coast Survey. Although we note inconsistencies regarding the inclusion of indigenous settlements on historical maps, our case study offers an example of how archaeologists can employ historical maps and targeted archaeological ground-truthing to discover sites that are poorly represented in the historical and archaeological records

Implications evinced by the phase diagram, anisotropy, magnetic penetration depths, isotope effects and conductivities of cuprate superconductors

Anisotropy, thermal and quantum fluctuations and their dependence on dopant concentration appear to be present in all cuprate superconductors, interwoven with the microscopic mechanisms responsible for superconductivity. Here we review anisotropy, in-plane and c-axis penetration depths, isotope effect and conductivity measurements to reassess the universal behavior of cuprates as revealed by the doping dependence of these phenomena and of the transition temperature.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure

Deep SDSS optical spectroscopy of distant halo stars II. Iron, calcium, and magnesium abundances

We analyze a sample of 3,944 low-resolution (R ~ 2000) optical spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), focusing on stars with effective temperatures 5800 < Teff < 6300 K, and distances from the Milky Way plane in excess of 5 kpc, and determine their abundances of Fe, Ca, and Mg. We followed the same methodology as in the previous paper in this series, deriving atmospheric parameters by chi2 minimization, but this time we obtained the abundances of individual elements by fitting their associated spectral lines. Distances were calculated from absolute magnitudes obtained by a statistical comparison of our stellar parameters with stellar-evolution models. The observations reveal a decrease in the abundances of iron, calcium, and magnesium at large distances from the Galactic center. The median abundances for the halo stars analyzed are fairly constant up to a Galactocentric distance r ~ 20 kpc, rapidly decrease between r ~ 20 and r ~ 40 kpc, and flatten out to significantly lower values at larger distances, consistent with previous studies. In addition, we examine the [Ca/Fe] and [Mg/Fe] as a function of Fe/H and Galactocentric distance. Our results show that the most distant parts of the halo show a steeper variation of the [Ca/Fe] and [Mg/Fe] with iron. We found that at the range -1.6 < [Fe/H] < -0.4 [Ca/Fe] decreases with distance, in agreement with earlier results based on local stars. However, the opposite trend is apparent for [Mg/Fe]. Our conclusion that the outer regions of the halo are more metal-poor than the inner regions, based on in situ observations of distant stars, agrees with recent results based on inferences from the kinematics of more local stars, and with predictions of recent galaxy formation simulations for galaxies similar to the Milky Way