Informal Institutions and Cross-Country Income Differences

There is a growing literature which analyses, using cross-country data, whether institutions or geography is the most important deep determinant of income per capita. The empirical proxies used for institutions in this literature, however, focus only on formal institutions, rather than informal institutions, despite the fact that North (1990) emphasised the importance of informal institutions. We include a measure of informal institutions, a concept we argue is closely related to social capital and cultural norms, in a representative deep-determinants framework and find informal institutions to be just as important a deep determinant of income levels as are formal institutions.Institutions, deep determinants, social capital, culture.

Definition of temperature in nonequilibrium processes

Temperature of classical thermodynamics in nonequilibrium processe

Nonfiction, Documentary and Family Narrative: An Intersection of Representational Discourses and Creative Practices

Nonfiction, Documentary, and Family Narrative: An Intersection of Representational Discourses and Creative Practices explores the role of personal memory, family history, and inter-generational storytelling as the basis for making a nonfiction film. The film, American Boy, tells the story of my mother’s immigration to the United States after the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, opening a discussion of four generations of my family life in the context of historical events, exile, self re-invention, and identity formation. As a media producer and nonfiction author, I narrate my understanding of these events to my infant son, as a way of communicating my grandfather’s role in the revolution, my mother’s childhood, and my own mediation of my family’s trauma. Through the use of archival footage including newsreels and commercials, as well as my own archive of family photos and documents, I re-construct the existing materials to build my own associations concerning time, memory, and place. The film, as my creative practice, leads to a theoretical analysis of representational discourses which inform the work. This deconstruction of nonfiction and meta-analysis includes my study of several practitioners in the craft of non-fiction: Kati Marton, Robert Root, Primo Levi, Eva Hoffman, Patricia Hampl, Dinty W. Moore, Peter Balakian and others

THE MUSIC STUDENT AS ENTREPRENEUR: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY BASED IN THE NORTH EAST OF ENGLAND

At the heart of this thesis is the analysis of the entrepreneurial context within which communities of university music students learn, and how this affects students’ abilities to embark on self-managed careers. Traditionally, the creative sector has high numbers of self-employed workers and significantly nearly three quarters of musicians are self-employed. Based on and contributing to this knowledge, previous studies have been carried out on the lives of working musicians and the destinations of music students from conservatories, but little is known about the specific case of university music students (a more diverse group), whilst they are still studying and anticipating entry into the world of work. Building on existing ethnomusicological studies of conservatories and university music departments, and recent studies on the working lives of musicians, this study illuminates processes at work in three different communities of university music students in the North East of England. The methodology, drawn from ethnography, seeks to illustrate the students’ identities, perspectives and attitudes through observing their entrepreneurial behaviour, individually and within their wider communities, and exploring how they envisage their future life-worlds as working musicians. The thesis outlines a new conceptual model ‘the music student as entrepreneur’ arguing that a pedagogical approach which draws directly upon theories of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning, rather than generic theories of student employability and career development, offers a more appropriate working framework in seeking to facilitate professional development for university music students. In doing so, the thesis also repositions some key theories of entrepreneurship by drawing them into a new interdisciplinary location

The Michigan infant mental health home visiting model

Selma Fraiberg’s pioneering work with infants, toddlers, and families over 40 years ago led to the development of a field in which professionals from multiple disciplines learned to work with or on behalf of infants, very young children, their parents, and the relationships that bind them together. The intent was to promote social and emotional health through enhancing the security of early developing parent–child relationships in the first years of life (Fraiberg, 2018). Called infant mental health (IMH), practitioners from fields of health, education, social work, psychology, human development, nursing, pediatrics, and psychiatry specialize in supporting the optimal development of infants and the developing relationship between infants and their caregivers. When a baby is born into optimal circumstances, to parents free of undue economic and psychological stressors and who are emotionally ready to provide care and nurturing for an infant’s needs, an IMH approach may be offered as promotion or prevention, with the goal of supporting new parent(s) in developing confidence in their capacity to understand and meet the needs of the tiny human they are coming to know and care for. However, when parental history is fraught with abandonment, loss, abuse or neglect, or the current environment is replete with economic insecurity, threats to survival due to interpersonal or community violence, social isolation, mental illness, or substance abuse, the work of the IMH therapist may require intervention or intensive treatment and becomes more psychotherapeutic in nature. The underlying therapeutic goal is to create a context in which the baby develops within the environment of a parent’s nurturing care without the psychological impingement that parental history of trauma or loss or current stressors such as isolation, poverty, or the birth of a child with special needs, can incur.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154911/1/imhj21838_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154911/2/imhj21838.pd

Effective e-moderating: Engaging your students in online discussions

Unpublished conference presentation given at the University of Chester staff conference in Chester, 1 June 2007.This presentation discusses how to engage students in online discussions. The skills required to become an effective e-moderator and how online discussion board technology can improve engagement and focus discussion will be discussed

Infant mental health home visiting therapists- fidelity to the Michigan IMH- HV model in community practice settings

Implementation research suggests that fidelity to a therapeutic model is important for enhancing outcomes, yet can be difficult to achieve in community practice settings. Furthermore, few published studies have reported on characteristics of treatment fidelity. The present study examined fidelity to the Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH- HV) model among 51 therapists with a range of experience practicing in community settings across the state of Michigan. IMH therapists completed fidelity checklists after every session with participating families to track use of 15 treatment strategies central to the IMH- HV model across the 12- month study period. Results indicated that the most commonly endorsed components utilized in home visits were developmental guidance and infant- parent psychotherapy, followed by the provision of emotional support. Use of IMH- HV components did not vary over time for the entire sample; however, patterns of strategies used showed somewhat more variability among more experienced therapists and when serving higher risk families. Findings demonstrate that IMH- HV therapists report a range of adherence to the model in community settings, with greatest fidelity to several model core components. Ongoing training in the flexible use of all core strategies may further enhance fidelity and contribute to positive outcomes for caregivers and their children receiving IMH- HV services.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154900/1/imhj21839.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154900/2/imhj21839_am.pd

STUDIES OF PHYSIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE ARTHROPOD SECRETIONS: X. SEX PHEROMONE OF THE EASTERN SPRUCE BUDWORM, CHORISTONEURA FUMIFERANA (LEPIDOPTERA: TORTRICIDAE)

The sex pheromone of the female eastern spruce budworm was identified as trans-11-tetradecenal by a combination of electroantennogram techniques, laboratory bioassays, and chemical analysis. Subsequent field trapping showed that this compound is a potent attractant for both male Choristoneura fumiferana (Clem.) and C. occidentalis Free, thus supporting its identification as a sex pheromone of the eastern spruce budworm and suggesting that it is also a major component in the pheromone system of C. occidentali