American Progressives and the European Left

Until comparatively recently, historians treated progressivism of the early twentieth century variety as if it were a purely American affair. In 1952, Eric F. Goldman argued that progressivism was ‘as exclusively national a movement as the United States ever knew’. But in the years that followed, a number of works appeared which challenged the validity of this narrowly national interpretation. Arthur Mann, in 1956, suggested that American reformers were much influenced by British social thought. Gertrude Almy Slichter drew attention to the European background of American reform in a 1960 dissertation. A number of essays then showed that progressivism itself could be regarded as part of an international movement. Peter F. Clarke pointed out that there had been a progressive movement in England which, in fact, predated the American equivalent. Kenneth O. Morgan, reviewing the nature of the links between British and American reformers, thought it meaningful to write in terms of ‘ Anglo-American Progressivism’. Other historians, looking at the matter in a more general, European context, were struck by the apparent similarities between American progressives, British Liberals or Labourites, and French and German socialists. George E. Mowry argued that American progressives should be regarded as part of western ‘social democracy’. Arthur A. Ekirch came to much the same conclusion

American Liberalism and the Neo-Consensus School

Until comparatively recently, there were three main ways of interpreting the history of modern American liberalism. Each was associated with a different school of historical thought. Scholars wrote about liberalism from either a progressive, a consensus or a New Left point of view and their analyses differed accordingly. Over the last few years, however, it has become possible to discern a fourth interpretation. Like the others, it reflects a particular way of viewing the past: in this case, from what might be described as a "neo-consensus " perspective. The purpose of the present essay is to assess the validity of this new interpretation. But first it is necessary to define it and explain the ways in which it differs from its predecessors

VALUING AGRICULTURAL MORTGAGE-BACKED SECURITIES

A model to value Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac) agricultural mortgage-backed securities (AMBS) is developed and numerically solved. The results suggest prepayment penalties currently being used by Farmer Mac reduce yields on AMBS considerably. Even with prepayment penalties, it can be advantageous for profit maximizing mortgagors to optimally prepay or even default on agricultural mortgages. The model is used to quantify prepayment and default risk by valuing the embedded options in the mortgages. Monte Carlo simulation is also used to determine the probability to optimal prepayment given the term structure assumption used to develop the model.agricultural mortgage-backed securities, default, dynamic programming, simulation, prepayment, Agricultural Finance, G13, G21,

Teen Fertility and Gender Inequality in Education

Previous studies in developed countries have found a micro-level association between teenage fertility and girls’ educational attainment but researchers still debate the policy implications of these associations. First, are these associations causal? Second, are they substantively important enough, at the macro-level, to warrant policy attention? In other words, how much would policy efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy among teens pay off in terms of narrowing national gender gaps in educational attainment? Third, under what contexts are these payoffs likely to be important? This paper focuses on the latter two questions. We begin by proposing a contextual hypothesis to explain cross-national variation in the gender-equity payoffs from reducing unintended teen fertility. We then test this hypothesis, using DHS data from 38 countries.gender equity, life tables, population and development, teen fertility

Demographic transitions and children's resources: growth or divergence?

How do fertility transitions affect children’s resource endowments? Existing perspectives provide two seemingly different answers: Dilution arguments focusing on family size predict an average gain, while divergence arguments focusing on family structure predict increased inequality. We attempt to integrate these two perspectives, to show how changes in family size and structure additively and interactively shape the levels and inequality in children’s resource endowments. Failure to consider these interactions can severely bias estimates of the magnitude or even direction of the influences of fertility transitions. An empirical illustration is provided with Cameroon data.children’s resources, decomposition, family size, family structure, fertility transition, inequality, resource dilution, simulation

Rethinking Griffith and racism

Most years I teach a course called “American History through Hollywood Film.” One of the movies I use for teaching is The Birth of a Nation. This year, in the exam at the end of the course, I asked my students to comment on a particular clip from the film: the scene of the fight in the saloon in which the muscular white blacksmith Jeff (Wallace Reid) battles a group of African Americans and beats them all in a brawl before he is shot in the back. What I expected from the students were some comments on the linkage between alcohol and race, together with a discussion of the wider historical resonances of the sequence, particularly those associated with black boxer Jack Johnson and the attempts to find a “great white hope” able to seize his crown as, since 1908, heavyweight champion of the world. What I got were a number of further suggestions relating to class as well as race that made me want to rethink, at least to some extent, the analysis of this sequence I gave in my 2007 book

Multifactorial analysis of human blood cell responses to clinical total body irradiation

Multiple regression analysis techniques are used to study the effects of therapeutic radiation exposure, number of fractions, and time on such quantal responses as tumor control and skin injury. The potential of these methods for the analysis of human blood cell responses is demonstrated and estimates are given of the effects of total amount of exposure and time of protraction in determining the minimum white blood cell concentration observed after exposure of patients from four disease groups

Standard comparison test procedures for initiator output

Standard test procedures for initiators of explosive device