Showing papers by "School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences published in 2003"
TL;DR: The authors showed that the large shocks that capital owners experienced during the Great Depression and World War II have had a permanent effect on top capital incomes and argued that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have prevented large fortunes from fully recovering from these shocks.
Abstract: This paper presents new homogeneous series on top shares of income and wages from 1913 to 1998 in the United States using individual tax returns data. Top income and wages shares display a U-shaped pattern over the century. Our series suggest that the large shocks that capital owners experienced during the Great Depression and World War II have had a permanent effect on top capital incomes. We argue that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have prevented large fortunes from fully recovering from these shocks. Top wage shares were flat before World War II, dropped precipitously during the war, and did not start to recover before the late 1960s but are now higher than before World War II. As a result, the working rich have replaced the rentiers at the top of the income distribution.
3,263 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that sensory and motor impairments play only a limited role in a causal explanation of specific reading disability, and that dyslexia can be explained by either sensory and/or motor deficits.
769 citations
TL;DR: This article used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor cortical activations while the Korean adoptees and native French listeners to sentences spoken in Korean, French and other, unknown, foreign languages.
Abstract: Do the neural circuits that subserve language acquisition lose plasticity as they become tuned to the maternal language? We tested adult subjects born in Korea and adopted by French families in childhood; they have become fluent in their second language and report no conscious recollection of their native language. In behavioral tests assessing their memory for Korean, we found that they do not perform better than a control group of native French subjects who have never been exposed to Korean. We also used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor cortical activations while the Korean adoptees and native French listened to sentences spoken in Korean, French and other, unknown, foreign languages. The adopted subjects did not show any specific activations to Korean stimuli relative to unknown languages. The areas activated more by French stimuli than by foreign stimuli were similar in the Korean adoptees and in the French native subjects, but with relatively larger extents of activation in the latter group. We discuss these data in light of the critical period hypothesis for language acquisition.
289 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, an alternative definition of value and growth that deliberately separates the structural component from the time effects in price-to-book (PB) ratios in six major markets is presented.
Abstract: The common practice of classifying stocks as either value or growth on the basis of low or high price-to-book (PB) ratios—or, in general, any classification based on a criterion that includes current stock price—is equivocal. The practice is prone to confuse certain structural characteristics of stocks or firms with what are purely time influences. The PB of a firm may be structurally high (high on average over a long period of time), or high only momentarily (as a result of an exceptional price jump), so it would be a growth stock in the first case but not in the second. It would not be clear whether it is the structural characteristics of a stock or the time influences that are responsible for its performance. An experiment using an alternative definition of value and growth that deliberately separates the structural component from the time effects in PB ratios in six major markets demonstrates that, as soon as the time effects are eliminated in the classification process, value no longer outperforms.
244 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a ranking of economics departments in Europe and the methods used to obtain it are discussed. But the JEL CD-ROM serves as a database for a period covering 10 years.
Abstract: We provide a ranking of economics departments in Europe and we discuss the methods used to obtain it. The JEL CD-ROM serves as a database for a period covering 10 years. Journals are ranked using a combination of expert opinions and citation data to produce a scale from 1 to 10. The publication output and habits of fifteen European countries plus California are then compared. Individuals with a contribution greater than a predetermined minimum level are regrouped into departments which are ranked according to their total scores. A standard deviation is provided to underline the uncertainty of this ranking.
157 citations
TL;DR: This paper showed that infants learn about the relative order of heads and complements in their language before they know many words, on the basis of prosodic information (relative prominence within phonological phrases).
Abstract: We propose that infants may learn about the relative order of heads and complements in their language before they know many words, on the basis of prosodic information (relative prominence within phonological phrases). We present experimental evidence that 6‐12-week-old infants can discriminate two languages that differ in their head direction and its prosodic correlate, but have otherwise similar phonological properties (i.e. French and Turkish). This result supports the hypothesis that infants may use this kind of prosodic information to bootstrap their acquisition of word order.
124 citations
TL;DR: Results suggest that both French adults and 13-month-old American infants perceive phonological phrase boundaries as natural word boundaries, and that they do not attempt lexical access on pairs of syllables which span such a boundary.
116 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors constructed a model to analyze the interactions between land-use change and atmospheric CO2 during the recent past and for the future, and they showed that when croplands replace forests, the turnover time of excess carbon in the biosphere decreases, and hence the sink capacity of terrestrial ecosystems decreases.
Abstract: We constructed a model to analyze the interactions between land-use change and atmospheric CO2 during the recent past and for the future. The primary impact of the conversion of forested lands to cultivated lands is to increase atmospheric CO2, via losses of biomass and soil carbon to the atmosphere. This increase is likely to continue in the next decades, but its magnitude can vary according to each land-use scenario. We show that this first-order effect is further amplified by the correlated diminution of terrestrial sinks, because when croplands replace forests, the turnover time of excess carbon in the biosphere decreases, and hence the sink capacity of terrestrial ecosystems decreases. This effect acts to further increase by up to 100 ppm the CO2 level reached by 2100, and it is of the same order of magnitude, although smaller, than climate-carbon feedbacks. Uncertainties on the magnitude of this land-use induced effect are large, because of uncertainties in the sink role of terrestrial ecosystems in the future and because of uncertainties inherent to the modeling of land-use induced carbon emissions. Such an extra rise in atmospheric CO2 is however partially offset by the ocean reservoir and by sinks operating over undisturbed, pristine ecosystems, suggesting that conserving pristine forests with long turnover times might be efficient in mitigating the greenhouse effect
102 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors constructed a model to analyze the interactions between land-use change and atmospheric CO2 during the recent past and for the future, and they showed that when croplands replace forests, the turnover time of excess carbon in the biosphere decreases, and hence the sink capacity of terrestrial ecosystems decreases.
Abstract: We constructed a model to analyze the interactions between land-use change and atmospheric CO2 during the recent past and for the future. The primary impact of the conversion of forested lands to cultivated lands is to increase atmospheric CO2, via losses of biomass and soil carbon to the atmosphere. This increase is likely to continue in the next decades, but its magnitude can vary according to each land-use scenario. We show that this first-order effect is further amplified by the correlated diminution of terrestrial sinks, because when croplands replace forests, the turnover time of excess carbon in the biosphere decreases, and hence the sink capacity of terrestrial ecosystems decreases. This effect acts to further increase by up to 100 ppm the CO2 level reached by 2100, and it is ofthe same order of magnitude, although smaller, than climate-carbon feedbacks. Uncertainties on the magnitude of this land-use induced effect are large, because of uncertainties in the sink role of terrestrial ecosystems in the future and because of uncertainties inherent to the modeling of land-use induced carbon emissions. Such an extra rise in atmospheric CO2 is however partially offset by the ocean reservoir and by sinks operating over undisturbed, pristine ecosystems, suggesting that conserving pristine forests with long turnover times might be efficient in mitigating the greenhouse effect
98 citations
TL;DR: This paper focuses on the process of authoring with the IDtension system, an interactive drama system designed by one of the authors, and reports an experiment of realizing a real-size scenario and thinks about nonlinear narratives and the possibilities and limits of theIDtension writing tool.
Abstract: Authoring non linear narratives is a difficult and challenging issue. In this paper we focus on the process of authoring with the IDtension system, an interactive drama system designed by one of the authors. We report an experiment of realizing a real-size scenario and start from this point to think about nonlinear narratives and the possibilities and limits of the IDtension writing tool.
49 citations
TL;DR: An attempt is made to bridge the gap between phonological theory and experimental psychology, and some recent experimental work is considered in the light of phonological theories and new research avenues are sketched.
Abstract: Infants' phonological acquisition during the first 18 months of life has been some 30 years. Current research themes include statistical learning mechanisms, early lexical development, and models of phonetic category perception. So far, linguistic theories have hardly been taken into account. These theories are based upon the assumption that there is a common core of innate phonological knowledge across speakers of all human languages, and they contain detailed proposals concerning phonological representations and the derivations by which abstract underlying forms are mapped onto concrete surface forms. It remains to be investigated experimentally if there is innate phonological knowledge and how the language-specific phonological grammar is acquired. In the present article, the contributions to this special issue are introduced, and an attempt is made to bridge the gap between phonological theory and experimental psychology. In particular, some recent experimental work is considered in the light of phonological theories and new research avenues are sketched. What might be innate, what needs to be acquired, and how this acquisition might take place are questions that are addressed with respect to several aspects of phonological knowledge, specifically segmental representations, phonotactics, phonological processes, and the architecture of the phonological grammar.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse les processus de production des inegalites entre hommes and femmes dans le domaine musical and propose two modeles de division sexuelle du travail coexistent, which s'articulent avec the differenciation selon the styles musicaux (musique savante versus musiques populaires).
Abstract: Resume A partir des donnees issues d’une enquete sur les musiciens francais menee pour le compte du ministere de la Culture, l’article analyse les processus de production des inegalites entre hommes et femmes dans le domaine musical. Deux modeles de division sexuelle du travail coexistent qui s’articulent avec la differenciation selon les styles musicaux (musique savante versus musiques populaires). Ces deux modeles, qui articulent etroitement les conditions de travail, le deroulement des carrieres et l’organisation de la vie domestique, conditionnent la construction des identites de musiciens et de musiciennes. Dans l’univers des musiques populaires, les stereotypes corporels de la feminite (jeunesse, seduction) et de la masculinite (esthetisation de la deviance, vie de boheme) dominent ; dans l’univers de la musique savante, un modele hierarchique d’autorite masculine prevaut, qui culmine avec la figure du chef d’orchestre.
TL;DR: In this article, a stochastic analytical model is used to demonstrate that relative quotas are dominated either by absolute quotas or by price instruments as regards expected social cost, and that price instruments entail a lower expected compliance cost than relative quotas.
Abstract: There is a tendency among policy-makers and industry lobbyists toward "specific", "relative" or "output-based" quotas, i.e., freely distributed to firms proportionally to their output. With a stochastic analytical model, we demonstrate that relative quotas are dominated either by absolute quotas or by price instruments as regards expected social cost. Furthermore, price instruments entail a lower expected compliance cost than relative quotas. Why, then, do industry lobbyists favour quantity instruments over price instruments? A possible explanation is that if the industry anticipates that the State will underestimate output and overestimate the MAC curve slope, it has an interest in defending relative quotas. The problem is that in such a case, both the environmental damage and the social cost are higher with relative quotas than with absolute ones. The choice of relative quotas over price instruments or absolute quotas may thus be a case of regulatory capture, to use Stigler's vocabulary.
01 Jul 2003
TL;DR: An author, an experimenter and a reviewer of the computer programs, Marlowe and Prospero, contribute in this article, respectively, an extensive and detailed presentation of Marquez, a report on what it is like to interact with Marquez and a review of the recently-published work, describing the development of Prospero.
Abstract: Marlowe, Prospero and Literary Technology: An author, an experimenter and a reviewer of the computer programs, Marlowe and Prospero, contribute in this article, respectively and successively, an extensive and detailed presentation of Marlowe, a report on what it is like to interact with Marlowe and a review of the recently-published work, by the first author, describing the development of Prospero for the Analyse of complex dossiers of texts conceming a social controversy, and Prospero's extension and adaptation with Marlowe to direct natural language dialog with researchers concerning specific complex dossiers.
TL;DR: O artigo procura circunscrever historicamente uma serie de reflexoes que a experiencia da temporalidade situa for o historiador contemporâneo a partir da proposicao da nocao de regime de historicidade, especialmente contrapondo sua formulacao moderna, estruturada pela ideia de Progresso, a antiga, polarizada pelo topos da historia magistra vitae.
Abstract: O artigo procura circunscrever historicamente uma serie de reflexoes que a experiencia da temporalidade situa para o historiador contemporâneo a partir da proposicao da nocao de regime de historicidade, especialmente contrapondo sua formulacao moderna, estruturada pela ideia de Progresso, a antiga, polarizada pelo topos da historia magistra vitae.
TL;DR: In this paper, a French economist offers a reassessment of Russia's economic situation since the financial crisis of 1998 in light of developments in 2001-2002, using official Russian data and departing from the commonly used real ruble-US dollar exchange rate.
Abstract: A French economist offers a reassessment of Russia's economic situation since the financial crisis of 1998 in light of developments in 2001-2002. Using official Russian data and departing from the commonly used real ruble-US dollar exchange rate, the author analyzes the origins of recent economic trends and possible scenarios for the future. The implications of short- and medium-term future trends are also examined, especially in the context of Russia's possible inclusion in the World Trade Organization or integration with the European Union.
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TL;DR: In this paper, Nagel's books over the decades leave the impression of an extraordinarily perceptive and deep thought, straightforwardly revealing the essentials of the topic, yet remaining at a high level of abstraction and generality.
Abstract: A RATHER dim recollection of Thomas Nagel's books over the decades leaves the impression of an extraordinarily perceptive and deep thought, straightforwardly revealing the essentials of the topic, yet remaining at a high level of abstraction and generality. We now have, on this latter aspect, exactly the opposite, since the topic is the taxes you pay, while keeping the former virtue in focussing on the basic divide of normative politics. Here, indeed, two outstanding philosophical minds stoop over one of the most mundane of issues, the rightfulness of taxation. Economists, politicians, lawyers and laymen will all be delighted about this new dimension of the debate. This issue—let us recall—is of some importance since the public sector commonly consumes about half of national products.
TL;DR: In this article, the main impact of conversion of forests to agricultural areas is the increase of atmospheric CO2 because of the losses of biomass and soil carbon in favour of the atmosphere, which will probably increase in the next years, correlated with the proportion of cultivated areas.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the position of the dead in the Celestial Church of Christ, an African prophetic church where they conducted fieldwork, and analyze the interplay of Christian and traditional influences and the work of syncretization that shapes those original religious productions.
Abstract: The author challenges the classical approach of mourning in Sub-Saharan Africa which is too exclusively ethnic-oriented. It describes the position of the dead in the Celestial Church of Christ, an African prophetic church where he conducted fieldwork. Through the exploration of rituals for the deceased, the author analyses the interplay of Christian and “traditional” influences and the work of syncretization that shapes those original religious productions.
TL;DR: In this article, the conditions under which the Southern countries should act together, or separately, while negotiating with the North about climate change policy and about the conditions for future Southern engagement are determined.
Abstract: This article determines the conditions under which the Southern countries should act together, or separately, while negotiating with the North about climate change policy and about the conditions for future Southern engagement. The paper models the international negotiations with complete and with asymmetric information in a dynamic framework. Results show that, depending on their characteristics, the different players can obtain benefits delaying the moment of the agreement.
TL;DR: Data collected between May and July, 2000, among a group of general practitioners (GPs), while national consumption of beef was back to pre-BSE levels, paradoxically showed high latent risk perception, suggesting a new crisis was possible or likely.
Abstract: In October of 2000, a second BSE crisis caught French public authorities unprepared and caused a collapse in beef consumption as well as considerable political turmoil. Data collected between May and July, 2000, among a group of general practitioners (GPs), while national consumption of beef was back to pre-BSE levels, paradoxically showed high latent risk perception, suggesting a new crisis was possible or likely.
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: I make a remark about the availability of indications about size in perceptual content and the geometry of the situation is often not determinate.
Abstract: Size-from-shadow arguments requires tinkering in many a case as the geometry of the situation is often not determinate. I then make a remark about the availability of indications about size in perceptual content.
01 Jan 2003
07 Jul 2003
TL;DR: This paper elucidate how Korean temporal markers, OE and DONGAN contribute to specifying the event time and formalize it in terms of typed lambda calculus and presents a computational method for constructing temporal representation of Korean sentences on the basis of G grammar.
Abstract: In this paper, we elucidate how Korean temporal markers, OE and DONGAN contribute to specifying the event time and formalize it in terms of typed lambda calculus. We also present a computational method for constructing temporal representation of Korean sentences on the basis of G grammar proposed by [Renaud, 1992;1996].
TL;DR: In this article, the authors pointed out that Schimper had a noticeable place in the history of bryological studies in France, forming a link between the first studies by Jean-Baptiste Mougeot and the French moss flora by Pierre Tranquille Husnot.
Abstract: thorships of new taxa and the effective dates of publication of each fascicule (Barnhart 1944; Margadant & Wijk 1958; Sayre 1982; Stafleu 1972; summarized in Stafleu & Cowan 1976, 1985). The other papers that did not deal not directly with Bryologia Europaea, pointed out that Schimper had a noticeable place in the history of bryological studies in France (Lamy 1989, 1999, 2001) forming a link between the first studies by Jean-Baptiste Mougeot and the French moss flora by Pierre Tranquille Husnot. The thesis research of the second author deals
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the concept of going concern by Commons, the spontaneous and organized order in Hayek's works, and North's distinction of formal and informal institutions.
Abstract: The notion of rules is common to the economics of organization and the economics of institutions. The author analyses the concept of going concern by Commons, the spontaneous and organized order in Hayek's works, and North's distinction of formal and informal institutions. Comparing these three theories he proposes a synthetic and critical approach in trying to articulate individual and collective actions in a systemic framework where organizations are defined as collective and hierarchised ensembles of specific rules, and institutions as general and social rules with higher durability, directly or indirectly sanctioned by the state.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose un recit qui a pour origine la tragedie de Tchernobyl, a situation postaccidentelle a mis en lumiere une situation complexe and incertaine quant a lirreversibilite des effets sociaux, ecologique, epidemiologiques, alimentaires, permettant de deceler les difficultes a eriger des strategies d'action en territoires contamines.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The authors reflete sobre o periodo de trinta anos em que trabalhou no Centro de Sociologia Europeia e, depois, no CCSEC ao lado de Bourdieu, sobre as pesquisas entao realizadas nesse centro and sobre a experiencia de trabalho com o celebre sociologo frances.
Abstract: Neste ensaio, a autora reflete sobre o periodo de trinta anos em que trabalhou no Centro de Sociologia Europeia e, depois, no Centro de Sociologia da Educacao e da Cultura (CSEC) ao lado de Bourdieu, sobre as pesquisas entao realizadas nesse centro e sobre a experiencia de trabalho com o celebre sociologo frances. Ela lembra o importante papel exercido pelo Centro no estimulo a pesquisa em Ciencias Sociais e o momento em que se desligou da instituicao, nos anos 90, em razao de um certo controle exercido pelo diretor sobre as ideias dos pesquisadores e doutorandos. O texto focaliza, em particular, uma das mais importantes pesquisas coletivas realizadas pelo centro sobre as Grandes Ecoles na Franca, apontando para suas contribuicoes mas tambem para os limites dos resultados. Ao faze-lo, a autora se remete a propria concepcao do funcionamento social e da instituicao escolar que celebrizou mundialmente a obra de Pierre Bourdieu.