If citizens have a voice, who's listening? Lessons from recent citizen consultation experiments for the European Union. CEPS EPIN Working Paper No. 24, 12 June 2009

Are European Union institutions, as they claim, really listening to citizens thanks to more ‘deliberative’ consultation tools? The European Commission and the European Parliament in particular have committed themselves to engaging in a dialogue with citizens in recent years. But to what effect? This paper notes how official policies have adopted language borrowed from the deliberative democracy school of thinking, but denounces the lack of clarity in the role assigned to deliberation with citizens in EU policy-making processes. It also invites EU policy-makers to think more critically about recent and future experiments that present themselves as ‘deliberative’. It does so by highlighting areas for improvement in recent initiatives. Finally, it makes a number of recommendations for the future of dialogue with citizens, suggesting in particular the creation of a European Observatory for Democracy and Opinion, as well as a list of criteria to assess the design and role of such activities, and the concentration of efforts on one high-quality, high-impact initiative per year

Testing the Gender Role-Perception Theory: A Proposed Explanation for the Lack of Maternity Leave Policy in the United States

The United States is the only industrialized country in the world to not have a federally mandated paid maternity leave. While there is an obvious lack of maternity leave policy in the United States, there is not adequate explanation of this lack. There are some current theories used to explain this problem, such as Hofstede’s theory of individualism, and historical influence, but they are not able to fully explain why there is not maternity policy in the United States. A new proposed theory, the Gender Role-Perception Theory combines gender roles in the United States and attitudes/perceptions towards working mothers to explain how society’s negative views of working mothers who abandon their traditional gender roles leads to the unavailability of maternity policy. Results indicated that while the Gender Role-Perception Theory did not predict attitudes towards a federally mandated maternity leave in general, it did predict attitudes towards paid federally mandated maternity leave. Additional findings included males being more supportive of maternity leave than females, and a liberal political affiliation being significantly correlated with attitudes towards a federally mandated maternity leave

Nonlinear Receding-Horizon Control of Rigid Link Robot Manipulators

The approximate nonlinear receding-horizon control law is used to treat the trajectory tracking control problem of rigid link robot manipulators. The derived nonlinear predictive law uses a quadratic performance index of the predicted tracking error and the predicted control effort. A key feature of this control law is that, for their implementation, there is no need to perform an online optimization, and asymptotic tracking of smooth reference trajectories is guaranteed. It is shown that this controller achieves the positions tracking objectives via link position measurements. The stability convergence of the output tracking error to the origin is proved. To enhance the robustness of the closed loop system with respect to payload uncertainties and viscous friction, an integral action is introduced in the loop. A nonlinear observer is used to estimate velocity. Simulation results for a two-link rigid robot are performed to validate the performance of the proposed controller. Keywords: receding-horizon control, nonlinear observer, robot manipulators, integral action, robustness

“Winners take all competition”, creative destruction and stock market bubble

From the model of Hobijn and Jovanovic (2001), we modelize a technological shock with uncertainty. We assume that this technological shock appears in the shape of new firms. Only a part of these firms will be productive. Uncertainty relates to the identification of the viable firms. This uncertainty decreases with the time and the diffusion of fundamentalist information that makes it possible to identify without error the viable firms. Without this fundamentalist information, the behavior of agents follows a rule of decision similar to that formulated by Heiner (1983). Uncertainty concerning the identification of viable firms which emerge of the technological shock, leads to a stock market bubble even though agents have a perfect knowledge of the impact of the shock and date on which it occurs. This type of uncertainty seems to characterize firms of the Information Communication Technology industries, which are confronted with a "winners take all" competition.Uncertainty, technological change, asset price bubble, winner takes all.

Stock Market Valuation : the Role of the Macroeconomic Risk Premium

Using annual and quarterly data since 1952, we estimate a fundamentals- based empirical model for the earning-price ratio of US stocks. The key fundamental-variable is a time-varying discount rate, decomposed into a time-varying measure for the real interest rate and the equity risk premium. Applying the Johansen procedure, we implicitly estimate the equity risk premium with cointegration test in an error correction model. This equity risk premium is determined by GDP volatility and price inflation. In a lesser extent, the share of U.S. equities held by institutional investors can explain the risk premium. Demographic variables explain the earning-price ratio but only as a short-run phenomenon. Our results suggest that change in the macroeconomic equity risk premium has driven much of the recent run-up in stock prices.Johansen Procedure, Valuation Ratios, Equity Risk Premium, Present Value Model.

Movind the Debate Forward. Interculturalism's contribution to multiculturalism

In this article, we compare Ricard Zappata-Barrero’s interculturalism with Tariq Modood’s multiculturalism. We will discuss the relation between distinct elements that compose both positions. We examine how recent discussions on interculturalism have the potential to contribute to theories of multiculturalism without undermining their core principles. Our position is close to that of Modood’s as he has already carefully tried to incorporate interculturalist insights into his own multiculturalism. Yet we provide a raise a few questions regarding Modood’s treatment of the relation between multiculturalism and interculturalism. After summarizing each author’s potion (I), we will comment on the following set of relations between their basic elements: (II) The relation between intercultural contact and intercultural dialogue; (III) The relation between contact at the local level and the societal/state level; (IV) The relation between group-specific measures, intercultural contact and mainstreaming

Skew-cyclic codes

We generalize the notion of cyclic codes by using generator polynomials in (non commutative) skew polynomial rings. Since skew polynomial rings are left and right euclidean, the obtained codes share most properties of cyclic codes. Since there are much more skew-cyclic codes, this new class of codes allows to systematically search for codes with good properties. We give many examples of codes which improve the previously best known linear codes