Properties of Tests for Spatial Dependence in Linear Regression Models

Based on a large number of Monte Carlo simulation experiments on a regular lattice, we compare the properties of Moran's I and Lagrange multiplier tests for spatial dependence, that is, for both spatial error autocorrelation and for a spatially lagged dependent variable. We consider both bias and power of the tests for six sample sizes, ranging from twenty-five to 225 observations, for different structures of the spatial weights matrix, for several underlying error distributions, for misspecified weights matrices, and for the situation where boundary effects are present. The results provide an indication of the sample sizes for which the asymptotic properties of the tests can be considered to hold. They also illustrate the power of the Lagrange multiplier tests to distinguish between substantive spatial dependence (spatial lag) and spatial dependence as a nuisance (error autocorrelation).     

SKILLS,EDUCATION, AND CANADIAN PROVINCIAL DISPARITY*

ABSTRACT We derive synthetic time series over the 1951–2001 period of the skills of labor market entrants for the 10 Canadian provinces from the 2003 ALL survey. The effect of the skills variable on regional income is significant and substantial. Skills acquired by one extra year of schooling result in an increase in per capita income of around 5 percent, which is close to microeconomic Mincerian estimates. Our literacy indicator does not outperform human capital indicators based on education. This contrasts sharply with recent cross‐country evidence and suggests substantial measurement error in cross‐country schooling data.     

Theory and Fiction: Rorty's View of Philosophy as Literature

Richard Rorty was one of the most committed and respected critics of the distinction between philosophy and literature. He urged philosophers to adapt an ironist stance, characterized by a double commitment to historicism and nominalism, thereby simultaneously abandoning their inveterate representationalism as well as their predilection for hypostasizing abstract concepts. The ensuing return to the individual and contingent was also supposed to facilitate the absorption of philosophy into the realm of literature proper. This brief essay focuses on some aspects of the relationship between philosophy, literature, and history, highlighting thereby the role that theorizing of an abstract kind plays in the construction of fictional worlds—marking out a territory within the crafting of literature itself that draws on the non-nominalist mode of discourse usually favored by philosophers.     

Economic integration and the diversification of regional exports: evidence from the Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement

We investigate the impact of Canada–U.S. trade integrationon the degree of export diversification of the Canadian regions.Trade integration is captured through the decrease of trade-weightedtariffs that were boosted by implementation of the Canadian–U.S.Free Trade Agreement. We found strong evidence to support integration'slong-run impact on the patterns of absolute exports diversification.Significantly, this new finding remains robust to the exclusionof the primary sectors and to the potential presence of unitroot in the data. Our results lead us to support a positivelong-run relationship between trade integration and export diversification.     

Aroche (Huelva,Andalucía): a new Neolithic axehead of Alpine jade in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula

The discovery of a Neolithic Alpine jade axehead in Aroche, in the southwest of Spain, revives the question of long-distance exchange between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe. This polished blade belongs to a typological model quite characteristic of Alpine production during the second half of the 5th millennium B.C. Different mineralogical approaches (macroscopic features examination, specific gravity, direct XRD, non-destructive μXRF spectroscopy, optical stereomicroscopy, magnetic susceptibility determination and microprobe analysis) have identified the rock as an omphacitic jadeitite (mixed jade) with some tiny garnets and a weak retromorphosis. This analysis and the comparison of the rock structure with the referential JADE of Alpine natural jade samples, as well as the extraction modalities and shaping of the axe, provide strong arguments to assign the Aroche axe to a production of Mont Viso: the origin of thousands of axes that circulated in Europe between Ireland and Sicily. The Aroche axe, discovered not far from the variscite mines of Encinasola, could be considered as part of a possible exchange system between the Iberian Peninsula and the Gulf of Morbihan, in Brittany.     

Regional Perspectives on Dollarization in Canada

Abstract In this paper we investigate whether it is preferable for Canadian regions to individually adopt the U.S. dollar or to remain with the current currency arrangement. The empirical analysis focuses on the cross–correlations of various business cycle measures of Canadian regions, of Canada, and of the United States. The business cycle investigation is completed by the analysis of two other important criteria for optimum currency areas, industrial specialization and trade interdependence. Our results highlight a significant heterogeneity across Canadian provinces. In particular, it transpires that it could be economically advantageous for the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec and to a lesser extent British Columbia to adopt the U.S. dollar. In contrast, it is not as clear what the other regions should do, the final answer depending on the path the larger three provinces take.     

Les noms de l'expiation dans le vidēvdāt

Summary L'analyse philologique du Vidvdt laisse apparaître une conception particulière de l'expiation. Celle-ci est envisagée comme une sorte de transaction: il s'agit de remettre en ordre la situation désorganisée par la transgression. Le responsable fournit une réparation (ci-), qui va à l'encontre de (paititay-) la faute. Ce paitita- rétablit l'ordre (par-), de manière à neutraliser (uzuuarz-) le mal accompli: le fidèle restera ainsi en ordre vis-à-vis de sa religion. En outre, cette démarche remet le pêcheur, que sa mauvaise action a souillé, en état de participer au culte (yaozd-).     

Origins of the Creutzfeldt and Jakob Concept

A review of the publications of Hans Creutzfeldt and Alfons Jakob pertaining to the concept which bears their name (CJD) reveals that they described a neuropathological syndrome and were opposed to its classi- fication as a neurological disease. The evidence on which Creutzfeldt and Jakob based their view is reevaluated, and studies by other workers are cited in which a range of environmental and genetic factors generated the CJ syndrome, challenging the proposition that CJD is a disease with a single cause..