The Pride and Prejudice of the Western World: The Iconicity of the Great Books

This article examines controversies arising from the perception of the instruments of cultural memory and the logic of their transmissibility. On the one hand, we have a carefully selected, temporally and geographically orchestrated body of texts, the Great Books, which are an enduring testament to the authority of Western intellectual artifacts. On the other hand, Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever locates a furtive transformation of collective memory in the informal practices exemplified by oral narrative and public discourse. Not only do both models rely on archives as a functional instrument of collective identity, but they also value them as institutions circumscribing social and cultural conventions. However, when synchronizing the traces embedded in oral discourse and written documents, the repositories are frequently subject to manipulation by interpretive communities. Recognizing the processes underlying archives and artifacts is essential to comprehending how canons and canonic practices impact Western cultural memory

Divine Justice and Profane Power: Benjamin’s and Kafka’s Approach to Messianism

Intrinsically dialectical in nature, sudden messianic change and the resolute character of the law are so closely connected with one another that both concepts should be among the key factors shaping a broad understanding of global cultures today. Whether we await the coming of the messiah as the Jewish religion teaches or commemorate his having come and died as most Christian teachings hold, it appears that Walter Benjamin’s “now of a particular recognizability” (The Arcades Project 493) remains elusive, especially with respect to the correlation between the past and the future. In the spirit of temporal vectors that converge, Benjamin’s and Franz Kafka’s approaches to messianism are considered within the dialectics that make divine justice and profane power pivotal concepts of twenty-first-century cultural theory

Scientific stochastic volatility models for the European carbon markets: forecasting and extracting conditional moments

This paper builds and implements a multifactor stochastic volatility model for the latent (and observable) volatility of the carbon front December forward contracts at the European Carbon Exchanges, applying Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation methodologies for estimation, inference, and model adequacy assessment. Stochastic volatility is the main way time-varying volatility is modelled in financial markets. Our main objective is therefore to structure a scientific model specifying volatility as having its own stochastic process. Appropriate model descriptions broaden the applications into derivative pricing purposes, risk assessment and asset allocation and portfolio management. From an estimated optimal and appropriate stochastic volatility model, the paper reports risk and portfolio measures, extracts conditional one-step-ahead moments (smoothing), forecast one-step-ahead conditional volatility (filtering), evaluates shocks from conditional variance functions, analyses multi-step-ahead dynamics, and calculates conditional persistence measures. The analysis adds insight and enables forecasts to be made, building up the methodology for developing valid scientific commodity market models

Kinesisk kullimport og norsk gassproduksjon/-eksport gir CO2-utslipp reduksjoner tilsvarende 7-8 norske komplette bilparker

Internasjonale miljøforkjempere som ønsker et forbud mot økt kinesisk import av kull og redusert produksjon av norsk naturgass tar grundig feil. Det faktum at Kina driver opp kullprisen i verdensmarkedet og Norge presser prisen på naturgass ned, reduserer de globale karbonutslippene (CO2). The International Energy Agency (IEA) har definert utslipp ved bruk av naturgass som innsatsfaktor for elektrisitetsproduksjon til omtrent halvparten CO2 per mega-watt time sammenlignet med kull. IEA oppgir at Europa og USA til sammen konsumerer 7 milliarder MWh elektrisitet per år. Et bytte av innsatsfaktorer fra kull til naturgass i internasjonal elektrisitetsproduksjon er den største enkeltstående faktor for reduksjon av globale CO2 utslipp. Dette skjer uten byråkratiske virkemidler som subsidier, avgifter eller direkte reguleringer