THE OPTIMAL DISTANCE TO PORT FOR EXPORTING FIRMS*

ABSTRACT Success in international trade depends, among other things, on distance from markets. Most new economic geography models focus on the distance between countries. In contrast, much less theorizing and empirical analysis have focused on how distances within a country—for instance, due to the location behavior of exporting firms—matter to international trade. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on the latter by offering a theoretical model to explain the optimal distance that an export‐oriented firm would locate from a port. We present empirical evidence in support of the model.     

Detecting the medieval cod trade: a new method and first results

This paper explores the potential of stable isotope analysis to identify the approximate region of catch of cod by analysing bones from medieval settlements in northern and western Europe. It measures the δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values of cod bone collagen from medieval control samples collected from sites around Arctic Norway, the North Sea, the Kattegat and the Baltic Sea. These data were considered likely to differ by region due to, for example, variation in the length of the food chain, water temperature and salinity. We find that geographical structuring is indeed evident, making it possible to identify bones from cod caught in distant waters. These results provide a new methodology for studying the growth of long-range trade in dried cod and the related expansion of fishing effort—important aspects of the development of commercialisation in medieval Europe. As a first test of the method, we analyse three collections of cod bones tentatively interpreted as imported dried fish based on a priori zooarchaeological criteria. The results tentatively suggest that cod were being transported or traded over very long distances since the end of the first millennium AD.     

Private Benefits and Public Costs: Policies to Address Suburban Sprawl

The uneven development and disparities that exist in most metropolitan regions are the consequence of a combination of private decisions and public policies. Public policy can also redress some of these inequities and redirect the pattern of growth. The article discusses individual policies—ranging from congestion pricing to regional governance—in detail. Each policy is assessed in terms of its contribution to slowing metropolitan deconcentration, its feasibility of implementation, and its power to redress inequities. Four policies appear most promising: the utilization.of impact fees, especially on a supra-local level; reverse commuting programs; special taxing districts for regionwide amenities; and continued revitalization efforts in the central city     

New research on the Holocene settlement and environment of the Chad Basin in Nigeria

Recent investigations of three archaeological sites in the Nigerian part of the Chad Basin during the Holocene reveal key stages in the cultural development and environmental history of that region. At Dufuna, a dugout boat was dated to around 6000 BC, making it the oldest known boat in Africa and one of the oldest in the world. Boats may thus have contributed to the mobility of the population of the southern edge of the Sahara 8000 years ago and, thereby, to the cultural homogeneity of this period. The pottery site at Konduga is around a thousand years younger than Dufuna but still belongs to the time of Mega-Chad. The site is on the Bama Ridge, an old shoreline. Its pottery, decorated in the Saharan tradition, belongs to the earliest ceramic phase of the West African Later Stone Age, long before the beginnings of food production. Although this site was probably settled by pioneers advancing into a largely flooded landscape along the slightly raised shoreline, the human occupation of the area previously covered by Mega-Chad began along a broad front around 2000 BC. Archaeological and palaeoecological finds from two settlement mounds at Gajiganna are described as case studies for this phase, which predates the well-known site of Daima.

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Résumé Les résultats présentés proviennent de recherches récentes sur trois sites archéologiques, dont chacun représente un épisode clé du développement culturel et de l'histoire environnementale du Bassin nigérian du Tchad au cours de l'Holocène. A Dufuna, la découverte d'une pirogue monoxyle, datée d'environ 6000 ans BC, constitue le témoignage le plus ancien d'une embarcation en Afrique et l'un des plus ancien dans le monde. Ce moyen de transport indique la mobilité des populations de la marge sud du Sahara à l'Holocène inférieur et moyen; ce qui a dû contribuer à l'homogénéité culturelle de cette période. Le site à poterie de Konduga est le plus jeune d'un millénaire que Dufuna, mais appartient à l'époque du Méga-Tchad. Le site est installé sur une ancienne ligne de rivage, la Bama Ridge. Sa poterie, décorée selon la tradition saharienne, appartient à la plus ancienne phase à céramique du Later Stone Age ouest-africain, bien avant le début d'une production alimentaire. Vu que ce site ne devait étre occupé que par des pionniers aventurés dans un paysage largement amphibie à la faveur d'un mince cordon émergé, la colonisation de l'espace antérieurement couvert par le Méga-Tchad, débute le long d'un large front vers 2000 ans BC.Les trouvailles archéologiques et paléoécologiques de deux tertres anthropiques à Gajiganna sont décrites commes études de cas illustrant cette phase, qui précède celle du célèbre site de Daima.

     

Globalization and Virtuality: Analytical Problems Posed by the Contemporary Transformation of African Societies

In response to the need for further conceptual development in the field of anthropological globalization studies, this article concentrates on the concept of virtuality, arguing that this constitutes one of the key concepts for a characterization and understanding of the forms of globalization in Africa. The article first defines virtuality and globalization and provisionally indicates their theoretical relationship. The problematic heritage of a locality-obsessed anthropological tradition (as explored in the article) then provides the analytical framework within which virtuality makes an inspiring topic. The transition from theory to empirical case studies is made by examining the problem of meaning in the African urban environment. Finally, an ethnographic situation is invoked (urban puberty rites in present day Zambia) which illustrates particular forms of virtuality as part of the globalization process.     

Heating the house. An archaeological and archaeometrical investigation into the tile-stoves of late-medieval Flanders,Belgium (14–17th centuries)

SUMMARY: Tile stoves arise in the Low Countries from the 14th century onwards. Although they have been well documented in northern and central Europe, they have remained an almost forgotten aspect of the material culture of the historic county of Flanders (Belgium). In recent years the amount of stove tiles found in archaeological excavations has increased considerably, raising questions concerning their production and origin. Micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy was used to determine the elemental composition of these tiles to see if they could be divided into groups and what these groups could tell us about the distribution of workshops, resources and finished products.     

Evidence for early cat taming in Egypt

The remains are described of a young small felid found in a Predynastic burial at Hierakonpolis, Upper Egypt. Osteometric and zoogeographical arguments indicate that the specimen, dated to around 3700 B.C. on the basis of the associated pottery, belongs to Felis silvestris. In the same cemetery several other animal species, both wild and domestic, have been found. The left humerus and right femur of the cat show healed fractures indicating that the animal had been held in captivity for at least 4–6 weeks prior to its burial. We believe that this pathology suggests early cat taming more convincingly than a buried cat recently reported from Neolithic Cyprus (7500 B.C.). Such taming events were probably part of the processes that eventually led to the domestication of Felis silvestris. However, the absence of the cat in Predynastic and Early Dynastic depictions and its rare attestation in the archaeozoological record indicates that domestic status had not yet been attained during those early periods. Other species that were also held in captivity by Ancient Egyptians probably never became domesticated because they had one or more characteristics that prevented it.     

“Fixing” Climate Change by Mortgaging the Future: Negative Emissions,Spatiotemporal Fixes,and the Political Economy of Delay

Models suggest that climate change mitigation now depends on negative emissions, i.e. the large‐scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This assumption has been criticised in the climate policy literature for being unfeasible and unjust. This article asks how critical scholars can make sense of, and contribute to these debates. It suggests that negative emissions can be conceived of as a spatiotemporal fix that promises to defer the devaluation of fixed capital. But the negative emissions example also challenges us to broaden our conception of how the socioecological contradictions of capitalism can be “fixed”. I outline three ways in which it does this by highlighting the significance of a predominantly temporal fix, the role of hegemonic, sociopolitical interventions involving multiple actors, and the possibility of safeguarding existing production processes. I conclude that spatiotemporal fixes to climate change should be seen as part of a wider political economy of delay in devaluing carbon‐intensive accumulation processes.     

Evidence of sun‐dried fish at Mleiha (S.‐E. Arabia) in antiquity

A concentration of fish remains found in a single room of a fortified building at Mleiha (United Arab Emirates) is presented here. Part of it was probably the filling of a bag or an organic container that fell from a bench onto the floor of the room. The various species recovered from these contexts, dating to the second to mid‐third centuries AD, are briefly described. Particular attention is paid to the skeletal elements by which the fish are represented and to the corresponding lengths of the animals, as these allow the proposition that the fish had been dried on the seashore before being carried to the site inland. The data from building H will be compared to those from previously studied contexts at Mleiha (Gautier & Van Neer 1999 ; Mashkour & Van Neer 1999 ). In addition the ichthyofauna from ed‐Dur (Van Neer & Gautier 1993 ), a coastal site that is partially contemporaneous with the contexts from building H, will be considered.