Wittgenstein's Contributions to Philosophy

Any discussion of Wittgenstein's philosophical thought would be incomplete without taking notice of the method he employs. Often criticized for his style and organization, many feel that they are indicative of his state of mind; that such a lack of rigid argumentation betrays an inadequacy within the arguments themselves. However, criticism of Wittgenstein along these lines only serves to demonstrate a superficial reading of his texts. Not simply content (or even able) to just present us with the results of his investigations, Wittgenstein coaxes the reader into taking up an investigation of his own by means of an open dialogue. As a dialogue, we are not confronted with a traditional argumentative structure, i.e. the stating of theses and their subsequent defense. Rather, Wittgenstein attempts to draw the reader away from the obvious by means of an indirect method of discourse

Rising Student Debt and the 2020 Election

In this perspectives brief, authors James Kvaal and Jessica Thompson explore the challenge of college affordability and summarize the campaign proposals to address it. Driven by steadily rising college costs and student debt, the 2020 presidential campaign has put the issues of college costs and student debt on the agenda as never before. Many candidates are promising to transform the federal investment in college affordability, but there is great variety in how they would structure their initiatives. The debate on the strengths and weaknesses of these plans on the campaign trail is likely to have a substantial influence on future higher education policy

Counterparty Risk in Insurance Contracts: Should the Insured Worry about the Insurer?

We analyze the effect of counterparty risk on insurance contracts using the case of credit risk transfer in banking. In addition to the familiar moral hazard problem caused by the insuree's ability to influence the probability of a claim, this paper uncovers a new moral hazard problem on the other side of the market. We show that the insurer's investment strategy may not be in the best interests of the insuree. The reason for this is that if the insurer believes it is unlikely that a claim will be made, it is advantageous for them to invest in assets which earn higher returns, but may not be readily available if needed. This paper models both of these moral hazard problems in a unified framework. We find that instability in the insurer can create an incentive for the insuree to reveal superior information about the risk of their "investment". In particular, a unique separating equilibrium may exist even in the absence of any signalling device. We extend the model and show that increasing the number of insurers with which the insuree contracts can exacerbate the moral hazard problem and may not decrease counterparty risk. Our research suggests that regulators should be wary of risk being offloaded to other, possibly unstable parties, especially in newer financial markets such as that of credit derivatives.Counterparty Risk, Moral Hazard, Insurance, Banking, Credit Derivatives

Computer Use and Internet Use by Members of Rural Households

The share of rural and small town individuals with a computer at home increased from 14 percent in 1989 to 23 percent in 1994. The largest increase was for individuals with at least high school graduation and for individuals in households with total income above $40,000. In 1989, 12 percent of rural and small town residents used a computer at work. This increased to 17 percent in 1994. However, 40 percent of rural and small town individuals were impacted by the introduction of computers at work. Two-thirds noted that computers caused an increase in skill level needed to do their job. In 1997, at least one individual in 29 percent of rural households had used computer communications at least once (from any location). In 10 percent of rural households, one person uses computer communication in a typical month from home. General browsing and e-mail were the most common uses with electronic banking and shopping being much less common. Only 3 percent of rural households report using computer communications in a typical month for a self-employed business.Farm Management, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

First Order Feynman-Kac Formula

We study the parabolic integral kernel associated with the weighted Laplacian and the Feynman-Kac kernels. For manifold with a pole we deduce formulas and estimates for them and for their derivatives, given in terms of a Gaussian term and the semi-classical bridge. Assumptions are on the Riemannian data.Comment: 31 pages, to appear in `Stochastic Processes and their Applications

CDS as Insurance: Leaky Lifeboats in Stormy Seas

In this paper we update the traditional insurance economics framework to incorporate key features of the credit default swap (CDS) market. First, we allow for insurer insolvency, with asymmetric information as to its probability. We find that stable insurers become less stable because they are forced to compete on price. When insurer type is known, increased competition among insurers can create instability for the same reason. Second, we allow the insured party to have heterogeneous motivations for purchasing CDS. For example, some may own the underlying asset and purchase CDS for risk management, while others buy these contracts purely for speculation. We show that speculators will choose to contract with less stable insurers, resulting in higher counterparty risk in this market relative to that of traditional insurance; however, a regulatory policy that disallows speculative trading can, perversely, cause market counterparty risk to increase. Third, we relax the standard assumption of contract exclusivity, which does not apply to the CDS market, by allowing the insured to purchase contracts from many insurers. In contrast to the traditional insurance model, we show that separation of risk type among insured parties can be achieved through insurer choice. We use our model to shed light on the debate over Central Counterparties (CCP). We show that requiring CDS contracts to be negotiated through CCPs can push stable insurers out of the market, mitigating the benefi t of risk pooling.credit default swaps; insurance; counterparty risk; banking; regulation

Uptake of BIM and IPD within the UK AEC Industry: the evolving role of the architectural technologist

Building Information Modelling is not only a tool, but also the process of creation, maintenance, distribution and co-ordination of an integrated database that collaboratively stores 2D and 3D information, with embedded physical and functional data within a project-building model. The uptake of BIM within the UK Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry has been slow since the 1980’s, but over recent years, adoptions have increased. The increased collaborative nature of BIM, external data sharing techniques and progressively complex building design, promotes requirements for design teams to coordinate and communicate more effectively to achieve project goals. To manage this collaboration, new or evolved job roles may emerge. This research examined the current use of BIM, Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and collaborative working in the UK AEC industry and job roles that have evolved or been created to cater for them. Using semi-structured interviews the interviewees indicated while several of the key enablers of IPD were being used, IPD itself had not been fully adopted. BIM was being used with some success but improvements could be made. New job roles such as the BIM Engineer and BIM Coordinator had been seen in the industry and evidence that the Architectural Technologist (AT) role is evolving into a more multidisciplinary role; this reflects similar findings of recent research

A Cold-Strontium Laser in the Superradiant Crossover Regime

Recent proposals suggest that lasers based on narrow dipole-forbidden transitions in cold alkaline earth atoms could achieve linewidths that are orders of magnitude smaller than linewidths of any existing lasers. Here, we demonstrate a laser based on the 7.5 kHz linewidth dipole forbidden $^3$P$_1$ to $^1$S$_0$ transition in laser-cooled and tightly confined $^{88}$Sr. We can operate this laser in the bad-cavity regime, where coherence is primarily stored in the atoms, or continuously tune to the more conventional good-cavity regime, where coherence is primarily stored in the light field. We show that the cold-atom gain medium can be repumped to achieve quasi steady-state lasing, and demonstrate up to an order of magnitude suppression in the sensitivity of laser frequency to changes in cavity length, the primary limitation for the most frequency stable lasers today.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure