Some Metaphysical Implications of Hegel’s Theodicy

This paper examines Hegel’s claim that philosophy “has no other object than God‘ as a claim about the essentiality of the idea of God to philosophy. On this idealist interpretation, even atheistic philosophies would presuppose rationally evaluable ideas of God, despite denials of the existence of anything corresponding to those ideas. This interpretation is then applied to Hegel’s version of idealism in relation to those of two predecessors, Leibniz and Kant. Hegel criticizes the idea of the Christian God present within his predecessors in terms of his own heterodox reading of the Trinity in order to resolve a paradox affecting them -- the “paradox of perspectivism‘

It’s Really About Sex: Same-Sex Marriage, Lesbigay Parenting, and the Psychology of Disgust

The effects of gay and lesbian parenting on children has been the touchstone issue in much of the recent state litigation on same sex marriage, with opponents of same sex marriage arguing that there is a rational basis for denying marriage rights to gays and lesbians because the central purpose of marriage is procreation and childrearing, but that children are harmed or disadvantaged when raised by gay or lesbian parents. To interrogate this claim, I critique the social science research that informs the concerns frequently expressed about the possible negative effects of lesbigay parenting on children\u27s emotional, psychosocial, and sexual development. In particular, I focus on research relevant to whether growing up in a lesbigay household is as positive an experience for children as growing up in a heterosexual household, as much of the literature to date has addressed the issue of whether lesbigay parenting is harmful to children. I conclude that the research fails to support the theory that denying marriage or parenting rights to same sex couples serves the welfare of children. I further argue that public opposition to gay marriage, particularly in the context of lesbigay parenting, is animated by a deeper concern - the proverbial “elephant in the room” on gay rights issues. That elephant is the visceral disgust reaction that many Americans feel toward homosexual sex, and the resulting moral intuition that homosexuality and homosexual relationships are immoral. Thus, many people will conclude that it is better for children to be raised in heterosexual households because they do not want children exposed to the lesbigay “lifestyle.” Nor do they want to increase the “risk” that children will develop a homosexual orientation if they are raised by lesbigay parents. The article discusses new psychological research on moral decision making, which suggests that the “moral” emotion of disgust is at the root of much of the opposition to gay rights. The disgust reaction is likely a byproduct of human evolution that fails to inform rational judgments about the policy questions surrounding lesbigay parenting and marriage rights

Manifest Destiny in American Higher Education: Elite Tertiary Institutions and the Branch Campus Phenomenon

American colleges and universities are increasingly looking overseas to form collaborative partnerships that can enhance institutional prestige and increase revenue. The rise of this global branch campus model is helping to transform higher education today. There are currently 164 international branch campuses around the world, most of which have opened over the past decade in response to changing technological advancements and economic challenges.While successful proximal collaborations among tertiary institutions exist throughout the USA, they are not without their own challenges. These relationships can pose logistical obstacles for institutions that share both geography and ideology. When tertiary institutions collaborate on a global scale, these problems may be compounded by difficulties that arise from trans-national logistics, cultural differences, and conflicting political ideologies. To ensure success, it is important that clear goals are articulated to help institutions classify these relationships and define success.This paper is a first step towards establishing a set of standards to define quality international education at the tertiary level. Using the literature about nine global partnerships, we coded emergent themes and selected the six categories mentioned most frequently in these sources: (1) Academic Offerings, (2) Faculty Involvement, (3) Mutual Benefits, (4) Relationship with local government, (5) Admissions Standards, and (6) Leadership & Organization. Using these categories, we developed a taxonomy that can be used to define the type of relationship that exists: Branch Campus or Campus Outpost.The taxonomy is designed to facilitate reflection about mission, goals, and the ultimate purpose of an international collaboration. As such, it can be used to evaluate the components of each type of global partnership and to measure how these elements of the relationship may or may not contribute to its ultimate success. To demonstrate the taxonomy's usefulness in understanding global partnership arrangements, we used this tool to evaluate NYU's Abu Dhabi campus and to illustrate the strengths and challenges of this evolving relationship

Why It Is Essential to Teach About Mental Health Issues in Criminal Law (And a Primer on How To Do It)

Studies consistently show a high prevalence of mental disorders among criminal defendants. Forensic mental health issues thus arise frequently in the criminal justice system and are commonly encountered by prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judgesmuch more so than some criminal law doctrines (e.g., necessity, duress, impossibility) routinely taught in criminal law courses. Yet rarely are students taught about mental illness, how to represent mentally ill clients, adjudicative competence, the mental health needs of various offender groups and how these unmet needs may contribute to criminal behavior, or the use of mental health mitigation evidence at sentencing. If taught at all, such topics are only part of a survey course in mental health law.Forensic mental health issues should be an integral part of the criminal law curriculum, beginning with the first-year criminal law course. This Article presents recommendations for teaching mental health issues in first-year criminal law, presents empirical data indicating that first-year students have mixed, though generally positive, reactions to incorporating such non-traditional content into the course, and provides a syllabus for an upper-level course in criminal law and psychology. Incorporating mental health topics into the traditional criminal law curriculum is part of the ongoing trend in legal education towards expanding pedagogy beyond legal doctrine into relevant social science disciplines that can inform legal policy and students' understanding of the criminal justice system, perhaps more so than many of the doctrinal lessons we now teach.

In brief: Heterogeneous firms in international trade

Stephen Redding reports on a conference jointly organised by CEP's globalisation programme.

ARCH in the G7 Equity Markets: A Speculative Explanation

This paper explores whether speculative activity can,in practice,generate the ARCH- type behavior found in .nancial time series.Specifically,G7 equity marke indices are examined for evidence of a dynamic whereby speculative interest is self-sustaining, that is,markets can become 'hot'. A straightforward model,taken from Faruqee and Redding [9 ],generates some testable implications of the idea.Tests of the model on the data show that not only does he model offer an explanation for volatility clustering,but also can be considered a statistical improvement on standard GARCH representations.

Theories of Heterogeneous Firms and Trade

This paper reviews the recent theoretical literature on heterogeneous firms and trade, which emphasizes firm selection into international markets and reallocations of resources across firms. We discuss the empirical challenges that motivated this research and its relationship to traditional trade theories. We examine the implications of firm heterogeneity for comparative advantage, market size, aggregate trade, the welfare gains from trade, and the relationship between trade and income distribution. While a number of studies examine the endogenous response of firm productivity to trade liberalization, modelling internal firm organization and the origins of firm heterogeneity remain interesting areas of ongoing research.Heterogeneous firms, international trade, within-industry reallocation, selection into exporting

Specialization dynamics.

This paper proposes a new empirical framework for analyzing specialization dynamics. A country’s pattern of specialization is viewed as a distribution across sectors, and statistical techniques for analyzing the evolution of this entire distribution are employed. The empirical framework is implemented using data on 20 industries in 7 OECD countries since 1970. We find substantial mobility in patterns of specialization. Over time horizons of 5 years, this is largely explained by forces common across countries including world prices and common changes in technical efficiency. Over longer time horizons, country-specific changes in factor endowments become more important. There is no evidence of an increase in countries’ overall degree of specialization.

The Empirics of New Economic Geography

Although a rich and extensive body of theoretical research on new economic geography has emerged, empirical research remains comparatively less well developed. This paper reviews the existing empirical literature on the predictions of new economic geography models for the distribution of income and production across space. The discussion highlights connections with other research in regional and urban economics, identification issues, potential alternative explanations and possible areas for further research.New economic geography, market access, industrial location, multiple equilibria