Is there a J-Curve at the Industry Level?

There exits two groups of studies that have investigated the short-run and the long-run effects of currency depreciation on the trade balance. The first group has employed trade data at the aggregate level between one country and the rest of the world. The second group has used trade data at the bilateral level between one country and her major trading partners. Both groups have provided mixed conclusions. In this paper we employ import and export data at industry level. Sixty six industries in the U.S. (SITC Commodity Groupings) have been identified for which monthly data over the January 1991-August 2002 period are used in investigating the short-run and the long-run effects of real depreciation of the dollar. The results reveal evidence of the J-Curve effect only in six industries. However, the long-run favorable effect of real depreciation is supported in 22 industries

Subjectivity in Young Adult Literature (Philip Pullman\u27s His Dark Materials, Marjane Satrapi\u27s Persepolis

Subjectivity is a crucial concept in children’s books and is discernible both within a particular culture and in comparison among cultures. The stories of the two novels discussed, express a quest for a sense of identity. I explored first, the images of femininity that the fictions offer, and second, the interactions between selfhood, other selves, social and cultural forces, and displacement. I limited my discussion of Bakhtinian theory to the concept of dialogism. Both novels articulate the complexity of ways in which the subjectivity of female adolescents, Lyra and Marjane, is formed in dialogue with different literary works and social discourses, assumptions and practices which constitute the cultures of East and West. Both characters are depicted as fragmented, multiple and dependent on the social discourses and practices. Pullman for the most part challenges the male’s monomythic heroic prerogative by making Lyra the world’s macrocosmic transformer and savior by the time her journey is over. Marjane also, like a traditional fairy-tale hero, prevails over her personal oppressors. Thus renewed, Marjane finally achieves a microcosmic triumph