Jobs, Workers and Changes in Earnings Dispersion

The 'fractal' nature of the rise in earnings dispersion is one of its key features and remains a puzzle. In this paper, we offer a new perspective on the causes of changes in earnings dispersion, focusing on the role of labour reallocation. Once we drop the assumption that all firms pay a given worker the same, the allocation of workers to firms matters for the dispersion of earnings. This perspective highlights two new factors that can affect the dispersion of earnings: rates of job and worker reallocation, and the nature of the process allocating workers to jobs. We set out a framework capturing this idea and quantify the impact of reallocation on earnings dispersion, using a dataset that comprises almost the universe of workers and the universe of employers in Maryland. We show that these factors have potentially large effects in general on earnings dispersion. In the case of Maryland over the period 1985-1994, the changing allocation of workers to jobs played a significant role in explaining movements in the dispersion of earnings.Earnings inequality, labour reallocation, matched worker and firm panels

A Story of the Homeless and Anti-Social Behaviour

If I were to say that the architecture in our public spaces is ‘really speaking to us’, you would be forgiven for thinking this is a piece about the aesthetics of our cities. In some ways in fact, it is, but not in any artistic sense. I am not discussing a collection of monuments, town houses or grandiose buildings. Alas, the architecture I talk of is more humble and yet perhaps more sinister. There is a message encoded into it, within our parks, streets and centres, which when presented together, seems to be part of a wider narrative. This paper is an attempt to read it and find out what it says, but also, to set up a discussion on how we choose to read it. In short, this is a substantive example of a storytelling approach to political theory which I believe could help us when we wish to aspire to public engagement . I hope this example allows me to discuss the method behind it in the panel

How to Be Good at Telling Others to Be Good: A Case for Epilogue Storytelling

The first part of this article looks at the methods we use in ideal theory to achieve a principles-first approach – idealisations, thought experiments and reflective equilibrium - and the criticisms this brings from nonideal theorists. Specifically, the criticisms I focus on are the issues with translating ideals into reality, thus questioning the use of ideal theory, and the more extreme claim that ideal theory methods create principles built upon falsehoods. I then bring another perspective to bear upon the issues of ideal theorising: Patricia Hill Collins Black Feminist Epistemology and how it problematizes a position of the abstracted, ‘detached observer’ (Collins, 2000, p. 19). The conclusion to these criticisms is to propose an addition to the way we do ideal theory – epilogue storytelling. I explain what this is and how it can connect to existing schools of thought regarding normative guidance, focussing briefly on moral sentimentalism

What is Legitimate to Study? In Pursuit of the ‘normative’ in Normative theory

When both academic critique and funding criteria essentially say to political theory, ‘what is the point?’, anxiety creeps into the heart of every normative theorist and agonising self-reflection ensues; the study of the political without advisory comment and application may not seem a legitimate use of public finances, where demands to ‘make better use’ of research (in a UK context at least) reveal a common tendency towards impact (Council E. a., 2017). Thus, our response appears urgent: not just for the standing of the subject, but for its very survival, for the continuation of PhD funding relies upon the quality of the reply. The problem is, the replies do not merely conflict, they rest upon fundamentally opposed views of what the subject actually is – effectively, whether or not it should be in pursuit of actual impact. With the premise of an impact agenda therefore set up, in this paper I intend to deliver three objections to a consequential ‘impact theory’, and seek to resolve those objections with an altered methodological approach. I hope this gives us a normative theory that can be seen as ‘legitimate’ in terms of being able to explicitly rise to the challenge of ‘why it should be funded by the taxpayer’, and ‘legitimate’ in the sense that it still retains its philosophical identity; that social prescription does not come at the cost of, what I believe, should be key elements of theorising – conceptual analysis and deep reflection

Storytelling political theory and an anti-homeless public space

This thesis investigates the present reality of an anti-homeless public space and its construction of the street homeless subject, with normative conclusions. The recent history of various tactics of dispersal and their interconnection are revealed. I argue that it is not just archaic laws and legislative heirs to such laws which impede the survival of the street homeless, but the physicality of public space itself. Prior to presenting this case however, I first engage in an examination of political theory methods. I do this to form a storytelling method suited to the task of, but not limited to, exploring an anti-homeless public space

Three Steps to Heaven: Semantic Publishing in a Real World Workflow

Semantic publishing offers the promise of computable papers, enriched visualisation and a realisation of the linked data ideal. In reality, however, the publication process contrives to prevent richer semantics while culminating in a `lumpen' PDF. In this paper, we discuss a web-first approach to publication, and describe a three-tiered approach which integrates with the existing authoring tooling. Critically, although it adds limited semantics, it does provide value to all the participants in the process: the author, the reader and the machine.Comment: Published as part of SePublica 201

Extreme radio-wave scattering associated with hot stars

We use data on extreme radio scintillation to demonstrate that this phenomenon is associated with hot stars in the solar neighbourhood. The ionized gas responsible for the scattering is found at distances up to 1.75pc from the host star, and on average must comprise 1.E5 distinct structures per star. We detect azimuthal velocities of the plasma, relative to the host star, up to 9.7 km/s, consistent with warm gas expanding at the sound speed. The circumstellar plasma structures that we infer are similar in several respects to the cometary knots seen in the Helix, and in other planetary nebulae. There the ionized gas appears as a skin around tiny molecular clumps. Our analysis suggests that molecular clumps are ubiquitous circumstellar features, unrelated to the evolutionary state of the star. The total mass in such clumps is comparable to the stellar mass.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Ap