ELECTRON SPIN RESONANCE STUDY OF WHITE MARBLES FROM THARROS (SARDINIA): A REAPPRAISAL OF THE TECHNIQUE,POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS*

The characterization of various samples of white marble from the archaeological site of Tharros (Sardinia) is the starting point for the reexamination of the capabilities of electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy as a tool for identifying the quarries of origin of ancient marble artefacts. Existing methods and data bases are employed for the assignment of our samples, but also reviewed to see if a more extensive use of the technique is feasible. It turns out that ESR spectroscopy, coupled with other available methods, may readily provide valuable information, often yielding the final answer to the problem of marble provenance. However, it is also clear that much work has still to be done to standardize the data collection and analysis procedures and to expand the available data base.     

La forme est le fond la structuration des appareils statistiques nationaux (1800–1945)

The present paper surveys the discussions conducted by official statisticians regarding the ideal structure according to which a national data collection system should have been designed if it was to meet the challenges put up by the various transformation Western countries have undergone since the beginning of the 19th century. Arguments in favour of coordination, centralization, or decentralization have emerged for the first time in 1832 Britain, when the Statistical Bureau of the Board of Trade was created. Up to 1945, this debate went on, the industrial take-off, the economic crises, and the world wars all being occasions for its protagonists to put forward their preferred view. The perspective we take here is original in two respects: on the one hand, instead of confining ourselves to the major statistical systems (those of France, Britain, and the USA), we intend to evoke a large number of cases and, from this comparative standpoint, propose a general account of the drive towards centralization; on the other hand, instead of restraining our-selves to the 19th century, we cover the entire time-frame extending from 1800 to 1945.     

Chardin et sonPhilosophe

Did “the old character, so intelligent, so crazy”, evoked by Marcel Proust through Chardin’s self-portraits, depict himself in the projective mask of the wise man, in one of his most famous paintings, thePhilosopher of the Louvre? As the master of the still life wanted to rise in the hierarchy of the Academic ranks, he probably tried, in this early work, to make up for “this lack of training” in “the humanities”, through the representation of a character in keeping with current tastes, of a modern philosopher. A Philosopher, A Chemist in his laboratory, A Glass-Blower, or A Philosopher busy reading: is the painting of the Louvre (1734) an emblem? Our hypothesis, that this painting represents a chemist philosopher, not a quack or an alchemist, is constructed by comparing the painting with the lampoon entitledThe Philosopher, circulated, according to Voltaire, in the 1730s.     

Forecasting Structural Change With a Regional Econometric Input-Output Model

The sophistication of regional economic models has been demonstrated in numerous ways, most recently in the form of linking several modeling systems or in the expansion in the number of equations that can be manipulated successfully to produce impact analyses or forecasts. In this paper, an alternative perspective is employed. What do regional macro-level forecasts indicate about the process of structural change? A new methodology is illustrated that enables analysts to make forecasts of detailed structural change in the interindustry relations in an economy. Using a regional econometric input-output model developed for the Chicago metropolitan region, derived input-output tables are extracted for the period 1975–2016. These tables are then analyzed to determine the forecasted direction of structural changes for the region. The innovation illustrated here is based on a model that exploits the general equilibrium spirit of computable general equilibrium models through the adjustment of input coefficients to clear markets.     

A MIXED-FREQUENCY MODEL OF REGIONAL OUTPUT*

ABSTRACT. This paper proposes a new method for estimating a monthly regional production model. The technique involves treating the region's monthly industrial output as a latent variable, which is in turn a function of capital (prosed by energy usage) and labor inputs. Annual observations on regional value added correspond to the summation of the unobservable monthly series over the 12 months, while changes in the national Industrial Production index help infer the series' month-to-month fluctuations. The model is estimated using the Kalman filter and the method of maximum likelihood. The estimates are used to compute monthly indices of regional value added for 15 individual 2-digit industries, and for the aggregate manufacturing sector in the Seventh Federal Reserve District. In a comparison of out-of-sample forecasting accuracy, the mixed-frequency model outperforms both the traditional parametric Cobb-Douglas and nonparametric Atlanta methods over the 1988–89 forecasting horizon.