HUME'S LIBERALISM: AN EARLY THEORY OF SOCIAL CAPITAL

This study examines the relation between Hume's justice and his moral theory in regard to the role of a virtuous body of citizenry in politics. It is often argued that classical liberals detached the connection between virtue and politics and relied on enlightened interest and the state to establish and maintain social order. Yet, Humean liberalism reveals that this is a misleading generalization. In this study, I argue that Hume's politics has two fundamental components: the state (institutions) and a virtuous body of citizenry. Hume's developmental view of human nature allows him to argue that in parallel to the development of human society and because of private training and education, our moral sense improves. The improvement of moral sense creates new motives in individuals which cannot be reduced to self-interest. Hume relies on the improvement of moral sense to facilitate social cooperation in large modern society in addition to the state and self-interest. This study reveals that liberal thought cannot be reduced to its Hobbesian version

Prediction of Physical Parameters of Pumpkin Seeds Using Neural Network

The design of the machines and equipment used in harvest and post-harvest processing should be compatible with the physical, mechanical and rheological characteristics of the fruits and vegetables. In machine design for agricultural products, several characteristics of relevant products and seeds should be known ahead. Designers can either measure all these design parameters one by one, or they may use intelligent systems to estimate such parameters. Neural networks (NNs) are new computational tools that provide a quick and accurate means of physical properties prediction of agricultural materials, and have been shown to perform well in comparison with traditional methods. In this research, some physical properties of pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.) seeds, including linear dimensions, volume, surface and projected area, geometric mean diameter and sphericity were calculated tridimensional in lab conditions. Then, prediction of these parameters was carried out using NNs. The research was divided into two parts; experimental investigation and simulation analysis with NNs. Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) and Radial Basis Neural Network (RBNN) structures were employed to estimate physical parameters of the pumpkin seeds. The Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) was 0.6875 for BPNN and 0.0025 for RBNN structures. The RBNN structure was superior in prediction and could be used as an alternative approach to conventional methods

Determinants of Transitions across Formal/Informal sectors in Egypt

Informality is a salient feature of labor market in Egypt as it is the case with many developing countries. This is the first study of the determinants of worker transitions between various labor market states using panel data from Egypt. We first provide a diagnosis of dynamic worker flows across different labor market states. We develop transition probabilities by gender across different labor market states utilizing Markov transition processes. Next we identify the effects of individual, household, job characteristics and location on different mobility patterns by estimating a multinomial logit regression. The results point to the highly static nature of the Egyptian labor market. Government employment and the out of labor force are the most persistent labor market states. Further, only a few of the explanatory variables except high levels of education are found to have predictive power in explaining the transitions from formal wage, informal wage, self-employment, unemployment government employment and out of labor market states

Determinants of Transitions across Formal/Informal sectors in Egypt

Informality is a salient feature of labor market in Egypt as it is the case with many developing countries. This is the first study of the determinants of worker transitions between various labor market states using panel data from Egypt. We first provide a diagnosis of dynamic worker flows across different labor market states. We develop transition probabilities by gender across different labor market states utilizing Markov transition processes. Next we identify the effects of individual, household, job characteristics and location on different mobility patterns by estimating a multinomial logit regression. The results point to the highly static nature of the Egyptian labor market. Government employment and the out of labor force are the most persistent labor market states. Further, only a few of the explanatory variables except high levels of education are found to have predictive power in explaining the transitions from formal wage, informal wage, self-employment, unemployment government employment and out of labor market states

Unemployment and Labor Force Participation in Turkey

This paper investigates the relationship between labor force participation rate and unemployment rate in Turkey a developing country. Cointegration analysis is carried out for the aggregate and gender and age specific series. The findings indicate that there is no long-run relationship between labor force participation and unemployment rates in Turkey. Thus, unlike in the case of the developed countries the unemployment invariance hypothesis is supported in Turkey

Unemployment and Labor Force Participation in Turkey

This paper investigates the relationship between labor force participation rate and unemployment rate in Turkey a developing country. Cointegration analysis is carried out for the aggregate and gender and age specific series. The findings indicate that there is no long-run relationship between labor force participation and unemployment rates in Turkey. Thus, unlike in the case of the developed countries the unemployment invariance hypothesis is supported in Turkey

Are Labor Force Participation Rates Really Non-Stationary? Evidence from Three OECD Countries

This paper shows that the structural breaks are an important characteristic of the monthly labor force participation rate (LFPR) series of Australia, Canada and the USA. Therefore we allow for endogenously determined multiple structural breaks in the empirical specifications of fractionally integrated ARMA model. The findings indicate that contrary to the previous research the LFPRs of Australia, Canada and the USA are stationary implying that the informational value of the unemployment rates about the behavior of labor markets and the causes of joblessness are useful

Long memory in Turkish Unemployment Rates

In this paper we have examined the unemployment rate series in Turkey by using long memory models and in particular employing fractionally integrated techniques. Our results suggest that unemployment in Turkey is highly persistent, with orders of integration equal to or higher than 1 in most cases. This implies lack of mean reversion and permanence of the shocks. We found evidence in favor of mean reversion in the case of female unemployment and this happens for all the groups of non-agricultural, rural, urban and youth unemployment series. The possibility of non-linearities are observed only in the case of female unemployment and the degree of persistence is higher in the cases of female and youth unemployment series. Important policy implications emerge from our empirical results. Labor and macroeconomic policies will most likely have long lasting effects on the unemployment rates