The discourse of globalisation and the logic of no alternative : rendering the contingent necessary in the political economy of New Labour

Although convincingly discredited academically, a crude 'business school' globalisation thesis of a single world market, with its attendant political 'logic of no alternative', continues to dominate the discourse of globalisation adopted by the British Labour Party. Here, we identify three separate, albeit reinforcing, articulations of the policy 'necessities' associated with global economic change. Labour's leaders are shown to have utilised a flexible synthesis of potentially contradictory ideas in constructing their chosen discourse of globalisation to guide the conduct of British economic policy following the Party's election victory in 1997. We conclude that Labour appealed to the image of globalisation as a non-negotiable external economic constraint in order to render contingent policy choices 'necessary' in the interests of electoral rejuvenation

Globalisation : 'sceptical' notes on the 1999 Reith lectures

The contemporary debate concerning the limits of feasible public policy is invariably conducted in the somewhat sinister shadow cast by the image of globalisation. To have no opinion on globalisation is effectively to disqualify oneself from having anything to say about the way our world looks as we reach the millennium. The BBC’s recent Reith Lectures are therefore wholeheartedly to be welcomed for opening a public arena in which to conduct a debate whose significance could scarcely be overstated.1 In so doing, it offers the opportunity, if not to democratise globalisation, then at least to democratise the discussion of globalisation. Whether intentional or not, the BBC has made it possible to extend and refocus the debate beyond the narrow terms of political and academic reference in which it is so frequently cast, thereby rendering it accessible to those on whose futures it will impinge most directly. Moreover, in Anthony Giddens, the programmes’ producers could have made no better choice to lead the widening of the debate within the public domain

Pricing Lower or Buying Cheaper? How Grocery Consumers Pay Less during Seasonal Demand Peaks

The average price paid for a seasonal grocery category is (surprisingly) lower during the category\u27s seasonal demand peak. For several product categories at one supermarket chain, demand peaks are shown to be associated with 1) consumer substitution to lower-quality products, 2) product price reductions, especially on products that increase their market shares, and as a result 3) a decline in the average price paid for the product category. In one very seasonal category, price reductions are driven by intertemporal substitution associated with large weekly discounts. Findings are consistent with any of several loss leader models

Beyond prospective accountancy : reassessing the case for British membership of the single European currency comparatively

The fact that Britain will, at most, be a late signatory to the single European currency means that the strategic deliberations it faces in deciding whether to enter EMU are rather different to those of earlier entrants. However, this crucial point is lost in almost all discussion of the subject. To date, the academic debate has been dominated by what we term 'prospective accountancy', in which a series of abstract counterfactuals ostensibly inform a stylised cost–benefit analysis. This article moves beyond such an approach by combining conjectures about the specificities of the British case with a concrete analysis of the experiences of the Eurozone member whose economy appears most closely to resemble Britain's: namely, Ireland. The comparative dimension of our work facilitates more empirically-based analysis of the merits and demerits of British entry into EMU. Yet, it is important not to lose sight of the limits of an exclusively comparative approach, for the British growth model is qualitatively different to that of other European Union economies. British growth since the early 1990s has been consumption led, and this in turn has been fuelled to a considerable degree by the release of equity from the housing market. The likely impact of EMU on the British economy will be determined to a significant extent, then, by its effect upon this key catalyst of British growth. Sadly, no retrospective comparison can inform such an assessment

Essays in Industrial Organization with Disaggregate Data

This dissertation presents several empirical and methodological results in industrial organization, with a focus on settings with microdata or lightly aggregated data. Chapter 1 estimates a model of search and price discrimination in the US home mortgage market, using microdata from two types of consumers to identify the model. Consumers who fail to recall the interest rate pay more for their mortgages, with most of the disparity explained by price discrimination. Chapter 2 estimates an equilibrium model of the US auto insurance market. Consumers face search and switching costs, which firms take into account in their pricing decisions. Counterintuitively, consumers may be harmed in aggregate by lower search costs. Chapter 3 considers the standard problem of estimating logit or mixed logit demand, but in disaggregate data where markets are too small for the market shares to reliably equal the choice probabilities. I adapt binomial regression to estimate a multinomial logit model and show that a version of the Salanié and Wolak (2019) linearization can be applied to binomial regression to approximate the mixed logit model.PHDEconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162953/1/watsonco_1.pd

Limiting a Constitutional Tort Without Probably Cause: First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest After \u3cem\u3eHartman\u3c/em\u3e

Federal law provides a cause of action for individuals who are the target of adverse state action taken in retaliation for their exercise of First Amendment rights. Because these constitutional torts are easy to allege and hard to disprove, they raise difficult questions concerning the proper balance between allowing meaningful access to the courts and protecting government agents from frivolous and vexatious litigation. In its recent decision in Hartman v. Moore, the U.S. Supreme Court tipped the scales in favor of the state in one subset of First Amendment retaliation actions by holding that plaintiffs in actions for retaliatory prosecution must plead and prove a lack of probable cause for pressing the underlying charge as an element of their claim. This Note argues that a careful reading of Hartman demonstrates that, despite the recent holdings and dicta of several courts, Hartman neither requires nor supports a rule that the presence of probable cause for effectuating the underlying arrest precludes a claim for First Amendment retaliatory arrest (the no-probable-cause rule ). This Note also seeks to demonstrate that pre-Hartman cases applying the no-probable-cause rule in actions for retaliatory arrest are bad law. After freeing courts from the constraints of Hartman and pre-Hartman circuit precedent, this Note argues that both legal arguments and policy considerations counsel against application of the no-probable-cause rule in actions for retaliatory arrest

The distinct element analysis of soil masses

The conventional Distinct Element Analysis of Cundall and Belytschko and their respective co-workers are prone to vibrations which must be damped out artificially if numerical problems are to be avoided. An alternative approach to this method is developed which eliminates such problems by allowing the elements to consolidate without gain in velocity. In the method employed here the contact forces, together with body forces due to gravity give rise to accelerations of the elements which in turn cause them to change position. Normally this change in position will produce an increase in the contact forces. Once these new contact forces have been calculated the elements are then returned to their original positions prior to the next iteration. The contact forces, therefore, increase during the analysis to counter the effects of gravity. Two methods using this new approach are described, for which computer programs have been written. The first program, SLICES, is designed to analyse slopes divided in to slices with a predetermined failure arc. During the analysis the program generates the stress profile acting on the failure arc and predicts the stability or otherwise of the slope. Program SLICES is compared with a traditional slice method under conditions of total and effective stress with cohesive and frictional soils. An analysis using a non-linear failure criterion is also carried out with program SLICES. The second program, CIRCLES, uses circles as the distinct element type and does not require a predetermined failure arc. It is shown that edge effects cause an incorrect stress regime to be set up that masks the failure process. However a sliding type failure is demonstrated where the edge effects do not mask the analysis. Submitted in accordance with the regulations for the degree of Ph. D. of the University of Durham. October 1989

Projected Self

Projected Self is a solo audiovisual performance from the artist C. Watson of original experimental music & video. Using pre-rendered visuals and live manipulated effects, the performance explores mental health themes of anxiety, depression, self-hatred, rage, and finally acceptance. Instead of simply telling a story about a mental health journey, Projected Self uses light and sound to bring the audience on the journey along with the artist; to evoke the feelings in the audience and not just explain them. The music borrows heavily from experimental music genres such as noise and drone while also retaining more rhythmic themes present in electronica and trap. The project went through multiple iterations until an ideal technical setup for one performer was developed. For the artist, writing, editing, mixing, filming, synthesizing visuals, and prepping a performance performing all while dealing with anxiety, fear, and depression was exceedingly difficult but after sharing the multiple versions of Projected Self with peers and Berklee faculty, the response started to show that people did in fact feel the emotions portrayed. In the future, the project has the potential to evolve into multiple new mediums—film, art gallery installation, interstitial during a longer set—but all in all, the project was a successful study in shared emotional experience.https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-production-technology/1108/thumbnail.jp

Understanding radionuclide migration from the D1225 Shaft, Dounreay, Caithness, UK

A 65 m vertical shaft was sunk at Dounreay in the 1950s to build a tunnel for the offshore discharge of radioactive effluent from the various nuclear facilities then under construction. In 1959, the Shaft was licensed as a disposal facility for radioactive wastes and was routinely used for the disposal of ILW until 1970. Despite the operation of a hydraulic containment scheme, some radioactivity is known to have leaked into the surrounding rocks. Detailed logging, together with mineralogical and radiochemical analysis of drillcore has revealed four distinct bedding-parallel zones of contamination. The data show that Sr-90 dominates the bulk beta/gamma contamination signal, whereas Cs-137 and Pu-248/249 are found only to be weakly mobile, leading to very low activities and distinct clustering around the Shaft. The data also suggest that all uranium seen in the geosphere is natural in origin. At the smaller scale, contamination adjacent to fracture surfaces is present within a zone of enhanced porosity created by the dissolution of carbonate cements from the Caithness flagstones during long-term rockwater interactions. Quantitative modelling of radionuclide migration, using the multiphysics computer code QPAC shows the importance of different sorption mechanisms and different mineralogical substrates in the Caithnesss flagstones in controlling radionuclide migration

Orientation dependence of the orientation-contingent face aftereffect

AbstractProlonged exposure to upright and inverted female and male faces produces opposite effects on subsequent judgments of the sex of faces depending on their orientation. We show that the magnitude of this orientation-contingent gender aftereffect can be predicted from simple aftereffects induced separately at the same orientations. The contingent aftereffect can also be induced in faces tilted 90° to the right and left, eliminating any difference in face-processing strategy that may be in operation with upright and inverted faces. This suggests that neurons employing a single face encoding strategy can be activated in an orientation-specific manner