The Effects of Occupational Licensing on Complaints Against Real Estate Agents

Does licensing increase the quality of services? This is a major unresolved question in the economic analysis of occupational licensing. This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the simultaneous relationship between anticompetitive effects and minimal quality standards. Using data on real estate agents, we find that restrictions on entry improve the quality of services (by lowering complaints), but, at the same time, there appear to be significant anticompetitive side-effects.

Natural Office Vacancy Rates: Some Additional Estimates

[Excerpt] In our recent paper (Shilling et al. [2]), we examined the rent adjustment process for 17 U.S. office markets and provided the first estimates of the natural vacancy rates. In his comment, Voith [3] argues that our specification of the rent-vacancy relationship is biased since we introduced an interaction term to capture the effect of risks associated with higher vacancy levels. He suggests that an alternative specification would be to enter a vacancy squared term to capture this risk effect

Price Adjustment Process for Rental Office Space

This paper analyzes the price adjustment process for rental office space in 17 cities across the United States over the time period 1960 to 1975. The results confirm much of what economic theory suggests. Landlords react to fluctuations in demand by building up or drawing down inventories of unlet or vacant office space. Other things equal, higher levels of vacant office space mean that landlords lower their rents and reduce the difference between desired and actual vacancies. Empirical evidence is also presented on the normal vacancy rate across different cities

Who the hell was that? Stories, bodies and actions in the world

This article explores a two-way relationship between stories and the experiential actions of bodies in the world. Through an autoethnographic approach, the article presents a series of interlinked story fragments in an effort to show and evoke a feel for the ways in which stories, bodies, and actions influence and shape each other over time. It offers some reflections on the experiences the stories portray from the perspective of a social constructionist conception of narrative theory and suggest that while stories exert a powerful influence on the actions of our bodies, our bodies intrude on or ‘talk back’ to this process because bodies have an existence beyond stories

Modeling kinetic partitioning of secondary organic aerosol and size distribution dynamics: representing effects of volatility, phase state, and particle-phase reaction

This paper describes and evaluates a new framework for modeling kinetic gas-particle partitioning of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) that takes into account diffusion and chemical reaction within the particle phase. The framework uses a combination of (a) an analytical quasi-steady-state treatment for the diffusion–reaction process within the particle phase for fast-reacting organic solutes, and (b) a two-film theory approach for slow- and nonreacting solutes. The framework is amenable for use in regional and global atmospheric models, although it currently awaits specification of the various gas- and particle-phase chemistries and the related physicochemical properties that are important for SOA formation. Here, the new framework is implemented in the computationally efficient Model for Simulating Aerosol Interactions and Chemistry (MOSAIC) to investigate the competitive growth dynamics of the Aitken and accumulation mode particles. Results show that the timescale of SOA partitioning and the associated size distribution dynamics depend on the complex interplay between organic solute volatility, particle-phase bulk diffusivity, and particle-phase reactivity (as exemplified by a pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant), each of which can vary over several orders of magnitude. In general, the timescale of SOA partitioning increases with increase in volatility and decrease in bulk diffusivity and rate constant. At the same time, the shape of the aerosol size distribution displays appreciable narrowing with decrease in volatility and bulk diffusivity and increase in rate constant. A proper representation of these physicochemical processes and parameters is needed in the next generation models to reliably predict not only the total SOA mass, but also its composition- and number-diameter distributions, all of which together determine the overall optical and cloud-nucleating properties

An Ethnographer Lured into Darkness

No matter the combination of methods ethnographers bring to their research design and to participant observation, our pursuit to log, interpret, analyse and present the lives of those we meet is never an entirely intellectual or objective one. Ethnographic fieldwork is intimately sensory (Pink, Doing sensory ethnography, Sage, London, 2015), invokes our imagination (Sparkes, Qualitative research in sport and exercise, 1:21–35, 2009) and requires us to actively navigate social landscapes (Hammersley and Atkinson, Field relations. Ethnography: Principles in practice, Routledge, Stoodleigh, 2007). There is a tendency for these elements to fade in terms of visibility and immediacy within the research process. For those in accord with (Davies, Reflexive ethnography: A guide to researching selves and others, Routledge, New York, 2008), continuous reflexive labour becomes a core praxis to monitor the ways we observe and participate in this textured environment. Without this, we are left in the dark and are less able to see how we can (or should) respond to the nitty–gritty qualitative nature of ethnography. In this Chapter, two of methodological vignettes will act as entry points to unpack a set of tensions that commanded my attention during an eighteen months ethnography in Higher Education. ‘You Look Like an Ivory Tower Student’, for example, begins to troubleshoot ethnographic participation within educational environments. ‘Going Dark’, on the other hand, problematises the prioritisation of visual observations that are implicit in ethnographic tradition. Throughout these discussions a metaphor of being lured into darkness is offered as a productive orientation for ethnography

A level playing ‘field’? A Bourdieusian analysis of the career aspirations of further education students on sports courses

There is currently a distinct dearth of research into how sports students’ career aspirations are formed during their post-compulsory education. This article, based on an ethnographic study of sport students in tertiary education, draws on data collected from two first-year cohorts (n = 34) on two different courses at a further education college in England. The study draws on ethnographic observations, and semi-structured group interviews, to examine in-depth the contrasting occupational perspectives emergent within these two groups of mainly working-class students, and how specific cultural practices affect students’ career aspirations. Utilising a Bourdieusian framework, the paper analyses the internalised, often latent cultural practices that impact upon these students’ diverse career aspirations. The hitherto under-researched dimension of inter-habitus interaction and also the application of doxa are outlined. The article reveals how the two student cohorts are situated within a complex field of relations, where struggles for legitimisation, academic accomplishment and numerous forms of lucrative capital become habituated. The study offers salient Bourdieusian-inspired insights into the career aspirations of these predominantly working-class students and the ways in which certain educational practices contribute to the production and reproduction of class inequalities

Call Me Caitlyn: Making and making over the 'authentic' transgender body in Anglo-American popular culture

A conception of transgender identity as an ‘authentic’ gendered core ‘trapped’ within a mismatched corporeality, and made tangible through corporeal transformations, has attained unprecedented legibility in contemporary Anglo-American media. Whilst pop-cultural articulations of this discourse have received some scholarly attention, the question of why this 'wrong body' paradigm has solidified as the normative explanation for gender transition within the popular media remains underexplored. This paper argues that this discourse has attained cultural pre-eminence through its convergence with a broader media and commercial zeitgeist, in which corporeal alteration and maintenance are perceived as means of accessing one’s ‘authentic’ self. I analyse the media representations of two transgender celebrities: Caitlyn Jenner and Nadia Almada, alongside the reality TV show TRANSform Me, exploring how these women’s gender transitions have been discursively aligned with a cultural imperative for all women, cisgender or trans, to display their authentic femininity through bodily work. This demonstrates how established tropes of authenticity-via-bodily transformation, have enabled transgender to become culturally legible through the wrong body trope. Problematically, I argue, this process has worked to demarcate ideals of ‘acceptable’ transgender subjectivity: self-sufficient, normatively feminine, and eager to embrace the possibilities for happiness and social integration provided by the commercial domain

Tomboys and girly-girls: embodied femininities in primary schools

This paper is about how nine to eleven year old children, particularly girls, co-construct tomboy and girly-girl identities as oppositional positions. The paper sits within a theoretical framework in which I understand individual and collective masculinities and femininities as ways of ‘doing man/woman’ or ‘doing boy/girl’ that are constructed within local communities of masculinity and femininity practice. Empirical data come from a one-year study of tomboy identities within two London primary schools. The paper explores the contrasting identities of tomboy and girly-girl, how they are constructed by the children, and how this changes as they approach puberty. The findings suggest that the oppositional construction of these identities makes it harder for girls to take up more flexible femininities, though it is possible to switch between tomboy and girly-girl identities at different times and places

Participant recruitment to FiCTION, a primary dental care trial – survey of facilitators and barriers

Objective To identify reasons behind a lower than expected participant recruitment rate within the FiCTION trial, a multi-centre paediatric primary dental care randomised controlled trial (RCT). Subjects (materials) and methods An online survey, based on a previously published tool, consisting of both quantitative and qualitative responses, completed by staff in dental practices recruiting to FiCTION. Ratings from quantitative responses were aggregated to give overall scores for factors related to participant recruitment. Qualitative responses were independently grouped into themes. Results Thirty-nine anonymous responses were received. Main facilitators related to the support received from the central research team and importance of the research question. The main barriers related to low child eligibility rates and the integration of trial processes within routine workloads. Conclusions These findings have directed strategies for enhancing participant recruitment at existing practices and informed recruitment of further practices. The results help provide a profile of the features required of practices to successfully screen and recruit participants. Future trials in this setting should consider the level of interest in the research question within practices, and ensure trial processes are as streamlined as possible. Research teams should actively support practices with participant recruitment and maintain enthusiasm among the entire practice team