Environmental novelty differentially affects c-fos mRNA expression induced by amphetamine or cocaine in subregions of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and amygdala

The environmental context in which amphetamine or cocaine are administered modulates both their acute psychomotor activating effects and their ability to induce sensitization. Here we report that environmental context differentially affects patterns of amphetamine- and cocaine-induced c-fos mRNA expression in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and amygdala of male rats. In the medial amygdala and medial posterior BST, exposure to novelty resulted in a marked increase in c-fos mRNA. Amphetamine given at home did not induce c-fos mRNA, and when given in the novel environment, did not increase levels beyond that observed for novelty alone. In the basolateral and lateral amygdala, amphetamine or cocaine at home or exposure to novelty induced c-fos mRNA. When amphetamine or cocaine was given in a novel environment the c-fos mRNA respons

Wage Theory, New Deal Labor Policy, and the Great Depression: Were Government and Unions to Blame?

A growing number of economists blame the length and severity of the Great Depression on factors that rigidified wage rates, raised production costs, and interfered with the market allocation of labor. The target of their critique is President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal labor program, which they portray as creating a series of large negative supply shocks through encouragement of unions, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and other anticompetitive industrial relations practices. The author uses a combination of institutional and Keynesian theory to present the other side of the story. Drawing principally from the works of J. R. Commons and J. M. Keynes, he develops both a spending and productivity rationale for stable wages during the Great Depression and demonstrates that the New Deal’s interventionist labor program was on balance necessary and beneficial. He also highlights the neglected macroeconomic dimension of industrial relations theory and policy