Multi‐level order,friction and contradiction: the evolution of Australian film industry policy

Cultural policy studies have previously highlighted the importance of multiple logics, friction and contradiction in cultural policy. Recent developments in institutional theory provide a framework for analysing change in cultural policy which explores movement between these multiple and sometimes contradictory logics. This paper analyses the role of friction in the evolution of Australian film industry policy and in particular the tension between competing logics regarding nationalism, commercialism and the state. The paper is suggestive of the relevance of institutional theory as a framework for understanding cultural policy evolution.     

Cognitive Value and Numerical Accuracy in Geocomputation: Choosing a Method to Compute the Log‐Jacobian Term

This article addresses the importance of cognitive value, numerical accuracy, and technical feasibility for geospatial models and methods. Researchers pursue large spatial data in an analysis to improve the statistical efficiency of parameter estimates and the cognitive value of the results. The critical requirement for this strategy is the availability of numerically accurate computational methods, without which parameter estimates lose their cognitive value. This article illustrates the relationship between cognitive value and numerical accuracy by establishing properties of popular polynomial schemes for approximating the log‐Jacobian term in spatial autoregressive models. It shows that numerical inaccuracies might be more misleading than is commonly assumed. En este artículo se aborda la importancia del valor cognitivo, la precisión numérica, y la viabilidad técnica de los modelos y métodos geoespaciales. Los investigadores interesados en análisis espacial tienden a preferir el uso de bases de datos de gran tamaño con el fin de mejorar la eficiencia estadística de sus estimaciones de parámetros y el valor cognitivo de los resultados. El requisito crítico para esta estrategia es la disponibilidad de métodos computacionales numéricamente precisos, sin los cuales las estimaciones de parámetros pierden su valor cognitivo. En este artículo se ilustra la relación entre el valor cognitivo y precisión numérica mediante la determinante jacobiano tipo log en modelos espaciales autorregresivos (spatial autorregresive models‐SAR). El estudio demuestra que las imprecisiones numéricas pueden ser más engañosas de lo que se asume comúnmente. 本文描述了地理空间模型和方法中认知价值、数值精度、技术可行性的重要性。研究者一般倾向于通过追求大规模空间数据,来提升参数估计的统计有效性和结果的认知价值。这一策略的关键是有实用的精确数值计算方法,否则参数估计将失去其认知价值。本文通过建立普遍使用的多项式方案来逼近空间自回归（SAR）模型中的Log‐Jacobian,从而说明认知价值和数值精度间的关系。结果表明数值不确定性可能比通常假设的误导性更大。     

WORKINGS OF THE MELTING POT: SOCIAL NETWORKS AND THE EVOLUTION OF POPULATION ATTRIBUTES*

ABSTRACT This paper links the two nascent economic literatures on social networks and cultural assimilation by investigating the evolution of population attributes in a simple model where agents are influenced by their acquaintances. The main conclusion of the analysis is that attributes converge to a melting‐pot equilibrium, where everyone is identical, provided the social network exhibits a sufficient degree of interconnectedness. When the model is extended to allow an expanding acquaintance set, convergence is guaranteed provided a weaker interconnectedness condition is satisfied, and convergence is rapid. If the intensity of interactions with acquaintances becomes endogenous, convergence (when it occurs) is slowed when agents prefer to interact with people like themselves and hastened when interaction with dissimilar agents is preferred.     

Does inequality migrate? The development of income inequality across German states

This study analyzes the evolution of educational and occupational patterns among migrants and natives, as well as income inequality in Germany from 1985 to 2015. We show that despite migrants catching up in education, employment, and income with their native counterparts, unfavorable societal attitudes toward them have remained virtually unchanged, which can be attributed to Bourdieu's conceptualization of cultural inheritance. We find that while income inequality has increased significantly over the 30-year period, this trend varied considerably by the federal state and that migration did nothing to add to inequality. Since both the German economy and society rely on migrants, there is a strong need for the narratives toward migrants to be based on empirical evidence. The findings of this study hold migrant-related policy implications not only for Germany but also for other developed nations that rely on migrants as a labor force.     

EFFICIENT ALGORITHMS FOR CONSTRUCTING PROPER HIGHER ORDER SPATIAL LAG OPERATORS*

ABSTRACT. This paper extends the work of Blommestein and Koper (1992)–BK–on the construction of higher-order spatial lag operators without redundant and circular paths. For the case most relevant in spatial econometrics and spatial statistics, i.e., when contiguity between two observations (locations) is defined in a simple binary fashion, some deficiencies of the BK algorithms are outlined, corrected and an improvement suggested. In addition, three new algorithms are introduced and compared in terms of performance for a number of empirical contiguity structures. Particular attention is paid to a graph theoretic perspective on spatial lag operators and to the most efficient data structures for the storage and manipulation of spatial lags. The new forward iterative algorithm which uses a list form rather than a matrix to store the spatial lag information is shown to be several orders of magnitude faster than the BK solution. This allows the computation of proper higher-order spatial lags “on the fly” for even moderately large data sets such as 3,111 contiguous U. S. counties, which is not practical with the other algorithms.     

What Is the State? The Russian Concept of Gosudarstvo in the European Context

What allows us to talk about the state as an active agent when we understand that only individuals act? This article draws comparisons between Quentin Skinner's exposition of the history of the concept of the state in major European languages and the history of its equivalent Russian term gosudarstvo in order to provide some general hypotheses on the development of the phenomenon of the state, and on the origins of this baffling usage. First, summing up a vast number of historical and lexicographical works, it attempts a detailed reconstruction of the conceptual development of the term in the Russian language. Second, a peculiarity of the Russian case is discussed, in whichabsolutist thinkers (and not republicans, as in western Europe) stressed the difference between the person of the ruler and the state. Third, political interests in introducing such novel usage are discussed, together with the role of this usage in the formation of the state. This allows us to see better the origins of current faith in the existence of the state as a more or less clearly designated and independent actor, predicated on the mechanism of what Pierre Bourdieu described as “mysterious delegation.”