Innovation across cities

This paper examines the distribution of patenting activity across cities in the OECD, using a sample of 218 cities from 2000 to 2008. We obtain three main results. First, patenting activity is more concentrated than population and GDP. Second, patenting activity is less persistent than population and GDP, especially in the middle of the distribution. Third, in a parametric model, patenting does not exhibit mean‐reversion, and is positively associated with GDP and population density. Our results suggest that policymakers can influence the amount of innovative activity through the use of appropriate policies.     

Nabataean echoes in al-Ḥarrah: New evidence in light of recent field work†

ABSTRACT

During a survey conducted by the authors in the eastern part of al-?arrah in Jordan in 2017,¹1. The term al-?arrah is used to refer to the basalt steppe-desert located in northern Jordan and southern Syria. a number of new Safaitic and Nabataean texts were found. Some of them mention events dated during the reigns of ?r?t and rb?l, others refer to the revolt of dm?y. Other Safaitic texts contain references to the Nabataeans. Three Nabataean graffiti were also found and are presented here. These sixteen new texts constitute a remarkable addition to the corpus of Safaitic and Nabatean texts found in this region.     

The mental maps of Italian entrepreneurs: a quali-quantitative approach

ABSTRACT

Geographers interested in how entrepreneurs perceive locational environments have studied their mental maps in several European countries, within the theoretical framework provided by behavioral approach. Such studies have typically employed quantitative techniques, but qualitative studies are relatively new to this line of research. In this article, I examine the mental maps of entrepreneurs in Italy by using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. I present and discuss the qualitative outcomes of this research, focusing in particular on the explanatory location factors and the key influences on the mental maps of entrepreneurs. What emerges is the realization that entrepreneurs are far from being fully rational economic actors, who exploit optimally all information and who are driven only by objective considerations. Rather, their views are also affected by subjective factors, individual’s own insights, commonplaces, stereotypes, and prejudices, particularly with reference to the southern regions of Italy (Mezzogiorno), and of other peripheral areas.     

“But He Could Not Warm Himself”: Sexual Innuendo and the Place of 1 Kgs 1,1-4

Springing off recent articles by Richard Hess and Russell Meek, this essay argues for the collaboration of vv. 1b and 4 to suggest that 1 Kgs 1,1-4 is concerned with discussing David’s impotency. In light of this physiological development, David’s attendants embarked on a search for a virgin. The Sumerian folktale “The Old Man and the Young Girl” may provide illumination for such an endeavor as it testifies to a perception that young women could rejuvenate impotent men. As for Adonijah’s pursuit of the throne, one can interpret a causative, albeit it implicit, relationship between 1,1-4 and vv. 5ff. David’s impotence rendered him unable to fulfill certain diplomatic duties, which had been a hallmark of his reign and rise to power. Such a development cast a shadow over the future of the administration, and ultimately, these four verses establish a sense of irony that will be revisited periodically throughout the history.     

European Cohesion Policy impact on development and convergence: a local empirical analysis in Portugal between 2000 and 2014

Substantial European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) monies have been directed at regional economic and social development in Portugal in which Portuguese local government plays a vital role. Given the magnitude of funding, an important question turns on the effect of the ESIF on overall local authority performance. This paper focuses on the impact of the ESIF on Portuguese municipality performance and development. In particular, it investigates whether the ESIF improved the performance of Portuguese local government and which factors best explain its effect on municipality development. The analysis considers all 308 Portuguese local authorities for the period 2000–2014. Various policy implications flowing from the empirical results of this analysis are explored.     

Diasporic identifications: exile,nostalgia and the Famine past in Irish and Irish North-American popular fiction, 1871–1891

During the nineteenth century, “exile” became a key term to describe the Irish-diasporic community in North America. More recently, scholars in the fields of diaspora studies and Irish studies have described this community as a “victim diaspora” with connotations of forced expulsion, exile, and nostalgia for the homeland. Moreover, among scholars and within the Irish-American community, the notion exists that the Great Irish Famine (1845–1851) constitutes the Irish-American “charter myth”, that it was the starting point of an Irish-American identity. This article sheds a different light on these (self-)identifications by discussing the concepts of origin myth, exile and nostalgia and also considers the concept of diasporic belonging in the context of Irish and Irish North-American works of popular “Famine fiction” written between 1871 and 1891. Consequently, the impact of these late nineteenth-century literary considerations on present-day conceptualisations of the Irish-American community as a victim diaspora are discussed.     

阆中大像山石窟的形制、题材与时代

位于四川省阆中市的大像山石窟,主要开凿于中晚唐和宋代,明清时期也有少量开凿。现有37龛,以方形龛、外方内圆拱形龛及圆拱形龛为主,方形龛最为多见。龛楣大多无装饰,雕刻简单。题材主要有弥勒佛、七佛、千佛、观音、天王、力士、经幢及舍利塔等。造像组合较少,以单身造像为多。阆中独特的地理位置,使得大像山石窟兼具广元、巴中两地石窟的特点,其丰富的内容为巴蜀佛教石窟寺的深入研究提供了重要的实物资料。     

The Multiple Functions of Criollo,Gaucho and Indigenous Symbols in La Historieta Patoruzú, 1936–50: The Conflicts of Peronism,Nationalism and Migration

This article considers the comic book Patoruzú in light of the cultural expressions of Argentine criollismo between the 1930s and 50s. It begins by examining the political and class conflicts that informed the meanings of criollo symbols, and how Dante Quinterno’s creation interacts with them. Perón’s political organisation, for example, constantly resorted to discourses and images of a gaucho and rural nature in order to propagate the ideals of nationalist corporatism. From one perspective, the drawings, storylines and characters of Patoruzú articulate the arguments set forth by Perón in his battles with neo-colonial and oligarchic forces. However, as Anthony Cohen and Stuart Hall argue, mass-media products and popular national symbols are dialogic; they enter into a dialogue with different competing discourses. Thus the comic book is also analysed in respect of the different and conflictive uses and potential interpretations of criollo symbols. One such conflict, it is proposed, resides in the understudied effect of modernisation and urbanisation on the rural criollo migrants, who moved to the provinces of Buenos Aires in large numbers in the 1930s. The comic book, therefore, is not understood simply as an expression of Peronist ideals, but as a footprint of the complex political and identity conflicts of the period.