China’s rise in a liberal world order in transition – introduction to the FORUM

In a time of great uncertainty about the future and resilience of the liberal world order this Forum focuses on China’s rise and interplay with the foundations of that liberal order. The key question is the extent to and variegated ways in which China - with its (re)ascendance to power and potential global leadership – is adapting to and perhaps even strengthening liberal institutions and rules of the game, confronting them, or developing alternative paths. In this introduction to the Forum we advance three key points based on the contributions. First, contrasting the orthodox binary scenarios of either inevitable conflict or co-optation offered in the mainstream IR debate, the Forum highlights the possibility of a third scenario of China’s interplay with the liberal world and its key actors, institutions, and rules. A hybrid and variegated scenario that entails both conflict and adaptation, differently entangled in different issue areas. Second, it stresses the need to conceptualize and empirically comprise the essentially interlinked nature of domestic state-society models and the global political economy. Third, we argue for a perspective that incorporates underlying economic and social structures and the power relations embedded therein

Resilience: an evolutionary approach to spatial economic systems

The concept of resilience has received a great deal of attention in the past decades. Starting fromthe first fundamental definitions offered by Holling, Pimms and Perrings in an economic-ecologicalmodeling context, the present paper explores the ‘evolution’ of the resilience concept – as well asrelated different measures – in both a continuous and discrete time setting.From this perspective, the paper explores the relevance of the resilience concept in socio-economic systems, by focussing the attention on the relationships among resilience, transitiondynamics and lock-in effects, in particular in the light of the dynamics of technological innovationdiffusion and adaptive behaviour of firms. In this framework we will describe an empiricalapplication, in which the resilience and dynamics of the West-German labour market will beinvestigated. This empirical illustration is offered by making use of an algorithm constructed fordetecting Lyapunov exponents, so as to classify the resilience among employment sectors in ourcase study

Effects of ethnic geographical clustering on educational attainment in The Netherlands

Contemporary migration studies witness an increasing interest in the socio-economicrole of networks of migrants. Such networks are sometimes even regarded as the mostimportant attraction and location factors for migration, and may even exceed purelyeconomic factors like unemployment and wage levels in importance. The empiricalmeasurement and analysis of migrants' networks however, is far from easy. Usually, thesize of immigrant networks in a city is proxied by means of the share of foreigners, whilemuch less attention is given to the spatial distribution of immigrants. This paper aims toaddress the empirical assessment of spatial clustering of socio-cultural groups in thecity. It does so by modifying a geographical concentration measure developed by Ellisonand Glaeser (the gamma coefficient), with a view to the measurement of spatial clusteringof migrants in the Netherlands. Because of the scale-independent character of thegamma coefficient, we are able to investigate the degree of ethnic clustering at twodifferent spatial levels, namely urban districts and urban neighborhoods.The second research aim of the present paper centers around the explanation ofthe educational attainment of ethnic children with the help of this clustering index incombination with parental attributes and social network characteristics. The resultsobtained indicate that educational attainment may depend on geographical clustering,but that the geographical scale of analysis is highly influential on the findings

Welfare effects of road pricing and traffic information under alternative ownership regimes

This paper models strategic interactions between a product supplier, a provider of information about product quality, and end users, in the context of road transportation. Using a game-theoretical analysis of suppliers' pricing strategies, we assess the social welfare effects of traffic information under various road markets with different ownership regimes. The results show that in this context, the distortive welfare effect of monopolistic information pricing appears small to negligible. Collusion of the road operator and information provider yields higher social welfare than independent pricing by two firms. The intuition behind this result resembles that behind the welfare effects of double marginalization, but it is not exactly the same, as traffic information is not strictly complementary to road use

Product Heterogeneity, Intangible Barriers and Distance Decay: The Effect of Multiple Dimensions of Distance on Trade across Different Product Categories

We empirically examine the heterogeneity in the effects of multiple dimensions of distance on trade across detailed product groups. Using finite mixture modeling on bilateral trade data at the 3-digit SITC level, we endogenously group product categories into an, a priori unknown, number of segments based on estimated coefficients of multiple dimensions of distance in the gravity equation. We find that institutional distance, whether countries belong to the same trade block and especially geographical distance are crucial and distinct factors to classify commodities in homogeneous groups

Social Interactions and Crime Revisited: An Investigation Using Individual Offender Data in Dutch Neighborhoods

Using data on the age, sex, ethnicity and criminal involvement of 14.3 million residents aged 10-89 residing in 4,007 neighborhoods in the Netherlands, this article tests whether an individual's decision whether or not to be involved in crime is affected by the number of criminals in the neighborhood. Controlling for unobserved neighborhood heterogeneity and endogeneity of this decision, a small positive effect is found on violent crime, but not on property crime. The results suggest that individual characteristics and other neighborhood characteristics play a much greater role in an individual's decision to be involved in crime

Dusty tails of evaporating exoplanets. II. Physical modelling of the KIC 12557548b light curve

Evaporating rocky exoplanets, such as KIC 12557548b, eject large amounts of dust grains, which can trail the planet in a comet-like tail. When such objects occult their host star, the resulting transit signal contains information about the dust in the tail. We aim to use the detailed shape of the Kepler light curve of KIC 12557548b to constrain the size and composition of the dust grains that make up the tail, as well as the mass loss rate of the planet. Using a self-consistent numerical model of the dust dynamics and sublimation, we calculate the shape of the tail by following dust grains from their ejection from the planet to their destruction due to sublimation. From this dust cloud shape, we generate synthetic light curves (incorporating the effects of extinction and angle-dependent scattering), which are then compared with the phase-folded Kepler light curve. We explore the free-parameter space thoroughly using a Markov chain Monte Carlo method. Our physics-based model is capable of reproducing the observed light curve in detail. Good fits are found for initial grain sizes between 0.2 and 5.6 micron and dust mass loss rates of 0.6 to 15.6 M_earth/Gyr (2-sigma ranges). We find that only certain combinations of material parameters yield the correct tail length. These constraints are consistent with dust made of corundum (Al2O3), but do not agree with a range of carbonaceous, silicate, or iron compositions. Using a detailed, physically motivated model, it is possible to constrain the composition of the dust in the tails of evaporating rocky exoplanets. This provides a unique opportunity to probe to interior composition of the smallest known exoplanets.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, A&A accepte

The WTP for facilities at the Amsterdam Zuidas

This paper reports the results of a stated preference study investigating the Willingness-to-pay (WTP) of employees at the Amsterdam Zuidas for the presence of non-shopping and shopping facilities. The Amsterdam Zuidas area, surrounding the current train-metro-tram station Amsterdam Zuid World-Trade-Centre, is the largest multifunctional land use project currently under development in The Netherlands. For non-shopping facilities, the results show that employees have the highest WTP for the presence of day-care centres and public transport facilities, and the lowest for public and recreation facilities. The average WTP for the presence of non-shopping facilities amounts to approximately € 29 per month per employee. The WTP for the presence of shopping facilities is estimated at € 16 per month per employee on average, and is in absolute value highest for supermarkets and lowest for hairdressers and dry cleaners