Big City Labor Markets and Immigrant Economic Performance

Franklin J. James spent much of his career working to understand and improve our metropolitan communities. His interests were varied, ranging from impacts of fiscal and economic distress on urban areas to understanding socioeconomic forces reviving our central cities. During the last several years, Professor James had turned his attention to examining the positive economic impacts immigrants and ethnic communities have for reinvigorating our central cities-and beginning to investigate how non-native American's will impact America's suburbs in metropolitan settings
This preliminary exploration examines destination choices of immigrants, the characteristics of immigrant labor markets, and the determinants of immigrant earnings. The article begins to explore indirect evidence on the economic efficiency with which immigrants and native workers distribute themselves within and among labor markets as well as the assimilation process facing new immigrants. Evidence is presented to explain how the earnings of recent immigrants are affected by their human capital characteristics, their race, and ethnicity, and other factors. We reject the hypothesis that immigrants participate in a tertiary sector of urban labor markets and conclude that the determinants of immigrant earnings are similar enough to those of U.S. natives that it makes sense to assume that they work in the same primary labor market in which most native White Americans work. We find that urban labor markets for immigrants are surprisingly efficient, thus enabling immigrants to take advantage of economic opportunities. A major exception concerns what appears to be a powerful effect of discrimination on the economic progress of Black immigrants.     

Applying the H/V Method to Dense Cities. A Case Study of Valencia City

The aim of this study was to apply Nakamura's technique to Valencia city center, after some preliminary tests in Barcelona. Previous studies of Barcelona had measured periods in restrictive conditions and in various types of material ranging from very soft soil (with a predominant period of approximately 2 s) to rock (0.3 s), and under different measurement conditions. The Valencia city center measurements were taken by using the distance from buildings and car and pedestrian traffic to construct a measurement grid that was as regular as possible. We also estimated possible soil-structure interaction to detect potential vulnerability.     

Chance and structure

The 1770s witnessed an attempt by Parliament to control how it was represented in the press: questions of parliamentary reporting and parliamentary privilege quickly became a national political crisis. Key political figures such as Edmund Burke, John Wilkes, George Onslow and the Marquis of Rockingham were involved with printers and booksellers such as John Almon, Robert Wheble and Henry Woodfall. The British Enlightenment was effectively interrupted, and its fault lines highlighted, as politicians clashed with the book trade—and with newspaper and periodical proprietors in particular.     

The empire of chance: How probability changed science and everyday life

Commerce changes the production of wealth in a society as well as its ethics. What is appropriate in a non-commercial society is not necessarily appropriate in a commercial one. Adam Smith criticizes Stoic self-command in commercial societies, rather than embracing it, as is often suggested. He argues that Stoicism, with its promotion of indifference to passions, is an ethic appropriate for savages. Savages live in hard conditions where expressing emotions is detrimental and reprehensible. In contrast, the ease of life brought about by commerce fosters the appropriate expressions and sharing of emotions. Imposing Stoicism on a commercial society is therefore imposing an ethic for savages onto a refined society – something to abhor. Smith’s rejection of Stoicism in commercial societies can thus be seen as a defence of commerce.