Estimation of Anisotropic,Time-Varying Spatial Spillovers of Fine Particulate Matter Due to Wind Direction

This paper investigates the effect of daily wind direction and speed on the spatio-temporal distribution of particulate matter, . Interdependencies between the values of different monitoring sites are characterized by incorporating time-varying anisotropic spatial weighting matrices. These weights are parameterized with respect to wind direction, speed and a range that marks the bandwidth of admissible deviations between wind direction and bearing. The empirical analysis is based on daily values recorded by monitoring sites located across the eastern United States in 2015 as well as several meteorological regressors. More precisely, we propose a space-time dynamic panel data model with different spatial autoregressive, temporal and exogenous dependencies. All model parameters are estimated by the quasi-maximum likelihood approach. The estimation procedure, including the identification of the range and spatial parameters, is verified by Monte Carlo simulations. We show that part of the spatial dependency of values is explained by wind direction.     

Urban experimentation and institutional arrangements

ABSTRACT

Currently little is known about how institutional arrangements co-evolve with urban experimentation. This paper mobilizes neo-institutional literature and recent urban experimentation literature as a framework to explore how and why institutional arrangements differ across urban contexts. Empirically the paper focusses on smart city initiatives in Amsterdam, Hamburg and Ningbo. These three cities are frontrunners in adopting a comprehensive smart city agenda, but they do so in different ways. The paper examines regulative, normative and cognitive elements of institutional arrangements, explores how they shape experimentation, and reflects on their place-based specificities. The comparative analysis suggests that the focus of, and approach to, experimentation can be understood as resting in a (possibly unique) combination of strategic agency and dynamics at multiple spatial scales.     

Between two cities: Jewish women and exogamous marriage in medieval Catalonia

In the marriage strategies of medieval Catalan Jews, the economic security of women came second to the economic goals of families. Exogamous marriages – marriages between the Jewish communities of two different cities – exacerbated the vulnerability of Jewish wives, widows and divorcées, due in large part to restrictions on women’s travel. Women who moved in order to marry experienced greater difficulty in managing financial resources and lost access to kinship networks. When women married men from other cities, at best they found themselves unable to take advantage of the connections created by their marriages. At worst, they risked financial loss if their husbands absconded to other cities with their dowries. Five case studies drawn from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Catalan notarial registers reveal some of the ways in which exogamous marriages disadvantaged Jewish women. The extreme case of exogamy delineates the boundaries of possibility for Jewish women in the medieval Western Mediterranean.