DO LOCATION‐BASED TAX INCENTIVES IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE AND QUALITY OF BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT?

We examine how location‐based tax incentives affect quality of life and business environment through changes in property values and equilibrium wages. Using the federal Empowerment Zone program, we determine whether offering tax incentives to firms improves the welfare of the citizens and attractiveness to firms. We demonstrate that quality of life methodologies can be applied using small geographically aggregated data, such as census block groups. We find that the tax incentives offered by the program notably enhances the quality of business environment for firms in the area while modestly improving the quality of life for the individuals living in the area.     

THE SUPERB CRAFTSMANSHIP OF TIBETAN SILVER AND GOLDSMITHS——ON THE GOLD AND SILVERWARE OF TUBO

Inhis groundbreaking work The Golden Peaches of Samarkand of Tang Exotics,American scholar Edward H.Schafer extolled Tibetan silver and goldsmiths;it appears that Tibet must also be given an important place among the nations whose craftsmen contributed     

ARROWS,FRIENDSHIP,AND RITES OF PASSAGE

Bows and arrows have existedand been used by widely separated groups of people for thousands of years. Their uses varyfrom hunting and warfare to anOlympic sport.There is divergent opinion about howarchery became popular in Jantsa, located inthe north of Huangnan Tibetan AutonomousPrefecture, Qinghai Province, China. In oneaccount the Tibetan king Langdarma (d 842)helped B?n followers make a resurgence at theexpense of Buddhism. To this end he had manyBuddhists killed and destroyed score…     

THE GREAT TANGKA OF TIBETAN ART AND CULTURE OF CHINA SHOWN IN BEJING

WhentheGreatTangkaofTibetanArtandCultureofChinaisshowninBeijingbetweenApril18andJune4,itcreatesahitinthecapitalcityThetangkapaintingscrollmeasures618meterslongand2.5meterswide.The1,500squarematerscroll,thelongestofitskindintheworIdtodayweighssome1,000kg-ThetangAnpaintingscrollcoversthehiStoryCulture,folkIoreandartoftheTibetanrace.IttelIsofthecreationoftheworId,thesourceoftheTib6tanrace,livesofvariousTUbokings,lifeofSakyamuni(founderofBuddhism),sto-riesofTibetanBuddhiStseCts,peoplefa…     

WHAT TYPE OF HISTORIAN? CONCEPTUAL HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF CONCEPTS: A COMPLEX LEGACY AND A RECENT CONTRIBUTION

Javier Fernández Sebastián's edited collections of essays, Political Concepts and Time, is both a critical homage to the monumental work of Reinhart Koselleck (1923–2006) and an important contribution to the methodology of history‐writing. Centered on the polysemic nature of concepts, which are read as “‘vehicles for thought’” studied in their pragmatic and communicative applications in society, Political Concepts and Time provides a stimulating analysis of the role, weight, and future of conceptual history. Its thirteen essays offer an account of problems, questions, and debates on the interplay of words and concepts, meaning and historical change, context and discourse. They endeavor to clarify the complicated and perennially unresolved relationship between theory and practice. In order to do so, Fernández Sebastián has assembled a scholarly composite and broadly international group of specialists from a variety of disciplines and research fields. With the intellectual legacy of Koselleck's Begriffsgeschichte looming large, this book rethinks the ways in which not just historians but also social scientists and philosophers study the past as the expression of contingent, ever‐changing, and revocable semantic units shaping the culturally plural worlds we inhabit. Informed by the idea that history is porous, Political Concepts and Time also deals with the perhaps obvious but no less challenging issue of our approach to time as everyday experience and through its representation(s). Together with exploring the volume's specific historical topics, this essay will highlight some of its limitations and, above all, will respond to its criticism of intellectual history. The following pages will thus argue the case for the latter methodological perspective by reflecting on the type of historian it delineates. Claiming that in their investigation of past meanings intellectual historians make use of creative imagination, the essay will suggest that this model of history‐writing leads to a better understanding of multiple sources and that it might ultimately help overcome some of the inconsistencies and often simplistic divisions between various branches of the historiographical tree. In particular, a small proposal to reconcile conceptual and intellectual history will be advanced.     

PARETO OR LOG‐NORMAL? BEST FIT AND TRUNCATION IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF ALL CITIES*

In the literature, the distribution of city size is a controversial issue with two common contenders: the Pareto and the log‐normal. While the first is most accredited when the distribution is truncated above a certain threshold, the latter is usually considered a better representation for the untruncated distribution of all cities. In this paper, we reassess the empirical evidence on the best‐fitting distribution in relation to the truncation point issue. Specifically, we provide a comparison among four recently proposed approaches and alternative definitions of U.S. cities. Our results highlight the importance to look at issue of the best‐fitting distribution together with the truncation issue and provide guidance with respect to the existing tests of the truncation point.     

DONKEY FODDERS OF THE HOUSE OF THE LADY AND DECLINE OF URUKAGINA＇S REGIME FROM HIS FIFTH YEAR

In JAC16, I have discussed the development of the House of the Lady in Girsu from the rule of Enentarzi to Lugalanda according to the ration lists of the House,which include the fodder lists, and concluded that Urukagina was the legal successor of Lugalanda and there might not be the so-called “reforms of Urukagina” in Lagash and Girsu. In this article, I would like to continue to investigate the kinds, number and fodders of the donkeys from the rule of Enentarzi to the end years of Urukagina and tried to find the clues for the decline of Lagash under Uruka~ina.     

GOD＇S PEOPLE AND BUDDHISTS OF NAXI IN TIBET

Today is Sunday. Anyi, a Tibetan woman, gets up early and gets dressed. She combs her hair and tries to make herself to look smart. She takes her daughter Nyina, together with some fellow villagers, to walk toward the ehureh situated at the entrance to the village. To most of these villagers in Tsakhalho Village, this is a normal Sunday activity.