The development of industrial pensions in the United States in the twentieth century

Pensions are retirement income. They offer protection in case you live long enough to quit collecting a paycheck and can stop working. In the United States, pensions are provided by both public and private sectors. Private sector pension funds are the largest formal financial institution for life-cycle saving, with assets of trillions of dollars. Pensions developed when more traditional forms of life-cycle saving became more difficult to carry out, job tenure increased, and there was a movement away from the spot labor market. Employers wanted to create a stable, experienced work force that was reluctant to leave - that is, a stock of firm-specific human capital. Thus they had an incentive to create a deferred wage. And workers wanted retirement insurance that was secure. As developing countries begin to employ an older work force with longer job tenure, the demand for defined benefit pensions will rise. Which institution can best provide pensions: the employer, a financial intermediary, or the state? If markets fluctuate because of financial instability, workers will prefer defined benefit plans, and they will want them to be provided by the institution in which they have the most faith. Funding is important in the long run. Sound accounting practices would dictate that the cumulative reserves match pension liabilities as they accumulate. The regular contribution to these funds would be the deferred wage. But historically, in the United States, pensions were funded only when profits were high or tax incentives or regulation dictated. Developing countries will need a sound corporate tax structure and must be willing to forgo some immediate tax revenue, to create a large pension savings fund.Public Health Promotion,Banks&Banking Reform,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Municipal Financial Management,Gender and Law

The pupillary response of cephalopods

This paper provides the first detailed description of the time courses of light-evoked pupillary constriction for two species of cephalopods, Sepia officinalis (a cuttlefish) and Eledone cirrhosa (an octopus). The responses are much faster than hitherto reported, full contraction in Sepia taking less than 1 s, indicating it is among the most rapid pupillary responses in the animal kingdom. We also describe the dependence of the degree of pupil constriction on the level of ambient illumination and show considerable variability between animals. Furthermore, both Sepia and Eledone lack a consensual light-evoked pupil response. Pupil dilation following darkness in Sepia is shown to be very variable, often occurring within a second but at other times taking considerably longer. This may be the result of extensive light-independent variations in pupil diameter in low levels of illumination

Examining the role of smart TVs and VR HMDs in synchronous at-a-distance media consumption

This article examines synchronous at-a-distance media consumption from two perspectives: How it can be facilitated using existing consumer displays (through TVs combined with smartphones), and imminently available consumer displays (through virtual reality (VR) HMDs combined with RGBD sensing). First, we discuss results from an initial evaluation of a synchronous shared at-a-distance smart TV system, CastAway. Through week-long in-home deployments with five couples, we gain formative insights into the adoption and usage of at-a-distance media consumption and how couples communicated during said consumption. We then examine how the imminent availability and potential adoption of consumer VR HMDs could affect preferences toward how synchronous at-a-distance media consumption is conducted, in a laboratory study of 12 pairs, by enhancing media immersion and supporting embodied telepresence for communication. Finally, we discuss the implications these studies have for the near-future of consumer synchronous at-a-distance media consumption. When combined, these studies begin to explore a design space regarding the varying ways in which at-a-distance media consumption can be supported and experienced (through music, TV content, augmenting existing TV content for immersion, and immersive VR content), what factors might influence usage and adoption and the implications for supporting communication and telepresence during media consumption

The Roots of Latin American Protectionism: Looking Before the Great Depression

This paper uncovers a fact that has not been well appreciated: tariffs in Latin America were far higher than anywhere else in the century before the Great Depression. This is a surprising fact given that this region has been said to have exploited globalization forces better than most during the pre-1914 belle epoque and for which the Great Depression has always been viewed as a critical policy turning point towards protection and de-linking from the world economy. This paper shows that the explanation cannot lie with output gains from protection, since, while such gains were present in Europe and its non-Latin offshoots, they were not present in Latin America. The paper then explores Latin American tariffs as a revenue source, as a protective device for special interests, and as the result of other political economy struggles. We conclude by asking whether the same pro-protection conditions exist today as those which existed more than a century ago.

After Columbus: Explaining the Global Trade Boom 1500-1800

This paper documents the size and timing of the world inter-continental trade boom following the great voyages in the 1490s of Columbus, da Gama and their followers. Indeed, a trade boom followed over the subsequent three centuries. But what was its cause? The conventional wisdom in the world history literature offers globalization as the answer: it alleges that declining trade barriers, falling transport costs and overseas "discovery" explains the boom. In contrast, this paper reports the evidence that confirms unambiguously that there was no commodity price convergence between continents, something that would have emerged had globalization been a force that mattered. Thus, the trade boom must have been caused by some combination of European import demand and foreign export supply from Asia and the Americas. Furthermore, the behavior of the relative price of foreign importables in European cities should tell us which mattered most and when. We offer detailed evidence on the relative prices of such importables in European markets over the five centuries 1350-1850. We then offer a model which is used to decompose the sources of the trade boom 1500-1800.

New Precision Orbits Of Bright Double-Lined Spectroscopic Binaries. III. HD 82191, Omega Draconis, And 108 Herculis

We have determined improved spectroscopic orbits for three double-lined binaries, HD 82191 (Am), omega Dra (F5 V), and 108 Her (Am), using radial velocities from the 2.1 m telescope at McDonald Observatory, the coude feed telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, and 2 m telescope at Fairborn Observatory. The orbital periods range from 5.28 to 9.01 days, and all three systems have circular orbits. The new orbital dimensions (a(1) sin i and a(2) sin i) and minimum masses (m(1) sin(3) i and m(2) sin(3) i) have accuracies of 0.2% or better. Our improved results confirm the large minimum masses of HD 82191 and also agree with the values previously found for. Dra. However, for the components of 108 Her our minimum masses are about 20% larger than the previous best values. We conclude that both components of HD 82191 as well as the primary of 108 Her are Am stars. However, the A9 secondary of 108 Her has normal abundances. We estimate spectral types of F4 dwarf and G0 dwarf for the components of. Dra. The primaries of the three binaries are synchronously rotating as is the secondary of 108 Her. The secondaries of HD 82191 and omega Dra are possibly synchronously rotating.NASA NCC5-511NSF HRD-9706268Astronom

Does Globalization Make the World More Unequal?

The world economy has become more unequal over the last two centuries. Since within- country inequality exhibits no ubiquitous trend, it follows that virtually all of the observed rise in world income inequality has been driven by widening gaps between nations, while almost none of it has driven by widening gaps within nations. Meanwhile, the world economy has become much more globally integrated over the past two centuries. If correlation meant causation, these facts would imply that globalization has raised inequality between nations, but that it has had no clear effect on inequality within nations. This paper argues that the likely impact of globalization on world inequality has been very different from what these simple correlations suggest. Globalization probably mitigated rising inequality between participating nations. The nations that gained the most from globalization are those poor ones that changed their policies to exploit it, while the ones that gained the least did not, or were too isolated to do so. The effect of globalization on inequality within nations has gone both ways, but here too those who have lost the most from globalization typically have been the excluded non-participants. In any case far too small to explain the observed long run rise in world inequality.

Bimodal Feedback for In-car Mid-air Gesture Interaction

This demonstration showcases novel multimodal feedback designs for in-car mid-air gesture interaction. It explores the potential of multimodal feedback types for mid-air gestures in cars and how these can reduce eyes-off-the-road time thus make driving safer. We will show four different bimodal feedback combinations to provide effective information about interaction with systems in a car. These feedback techniques are visual-auditory, auditory-ambient (peripheral vision), ambient-tactile, and tactile-auditory. Users can interact with the system after a short introduction, creating an exciting opportunity to deploy these displays in cars in the future