Earthquakes,grants, and public expenditure: How municipalities respond to natural disasters

We analyze the response of municipalities to the occurrence of natural disasters in terms of spending behavior, use of upper-tier transfers and recovery, using balance sheet data of about 8,000 Italian municipalities for the period 2000–2015, and the universe of earthquakes events. We find evidence of increasing expenditure for about 12 years after the shocks, with asymmetric responses between earthquake-related and unconditional grants, and heterogeneous flypaper effects across the country. While in northern municipalities expenditure tends to regress to pre-earthquake levels, southern municipalities stick to higher expenditure levels when grants drop. This evidence is coupled with a faster recovery of private income and housing prices in northern municipalities.     

Inter-Country Trade Patterns in Europe and the Asia-Pacific: Regional Structure and Extra-Regional Trends

This paper examines the regional structure and extraregional trends of Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The formation of the European Community and the latter's potential enlargement to Eastern Europe contrasts with the Asia-Pacific which has resisted economic and political integration and pursued economic linkages with countries outside of the region. The difference in regionalization tendencies have resulted in more geographically defined subregions in Europe, and greater territorial fragmentation in the Asia-Pacific. Even though European countries exhibit tighter interlinkages with one another, the evidence indicates that their extra-regional links compare favorably with the Asia-Pacific for much of the period from 1965 to 1994.     

Now and Then1

Abstract: Antipode was launched into the firmament of the 1970s. We might reflect upon how well the journal and its contributors fully appreciated the historical gravity and weight of what was surrounding the project to create “a radical journal of geography”. What sort of radicalism was on offer? The language was “social relevance” from “a radical (Left) political viewpoint”. In writing to celebrate Antipode's birthday, this time in another, and similar, firmament there is still the need to confront the challenge of radicalism and its meanings. Whether we agree with Perry Anderson that the last vestiges of the 1960s have been finally swept away, that the “fluent vision” of the Right has no equivalent on the Left and that embedded liberalism is now as remote as “Arian bishops”, where do radical alternatives stand in relation to the fractured hegemony of neoliberalism? At the very least the need for alternatives is more pressing than ever. David Harvey has proposed rethinking the idea of “the right to the city”. But what other rights might we rethink? I reflect upon this question by returning to the 1960s and 1970s and Marxist debates over the law, and by thinking about the possibilities offered by this Polanyian moment.     

Faith in war: the religious experience of Scottish soldiery, c.1100–c.1500

This paper examines the comparatively patchy evidence for the pastoral provision and personal faith of late medieval Scottish combatants below the rank of knight. By examining such sources as papal supplications, royal financial accounts, parliamentary rolls, chronicles, poetry and the cartularies of Scottish monastic houses and burgh collegiate churches, it is possible to identify elite and parish provision of churchmen serving the needs of Scottish troops as they mustered, trained and prepared for battle. In addition, this evidence also highlights a number of cults and relics popular with the social ranks of the ordinary Scottish soldiery, including those of SS Ninian, Leonard, Thomas Becket, Columba, the Blessed Virgin Mary and — often cast as the nemesis of Scottish troops — Cuthbert. However, this survey also points to some tensions between the spiritual interests of Scottish servicemen and their ruling elites.     

Neutron activation analysis of fine grey pottery from Conimbriga,Santa Olaia and Tavarede,Portugal

The concentrations of two major elements and thirteen trace elements in 73 selected sherds of fine grey ware from the Iron Age and Roman period, excavated at Conimbriga, Santa Olaia and Tavarede, Portugal, were determined by instrumental neutron activation analysis. These concentrations were used to calculate distance matrices which were then subjected to cluster analysis employing SAHN and k-means methods, as well as to principal components analysis, to group the sherds according to the overall similarity of their compositional characteristics. The results showed that equivalent groupings appeared regardless of the taxonomic method used. Two major clusters were recognized corresponding to two different sites, namely Conimbriga and Santa Olaia, suggesting that the ceramics from these sites were made locally. No significant differences in compositional patterns were observed between iron age and roman sherds from Conimbriga.     

Geographical structure in nineteenth-century urban retailing: Milwaukee, 1836–1890

This study explores the spatial structure of retailing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the era before the introduction of the electric streetcar in 1890. It uses city directory listings to chart changes in the numbers and types of retail outlets, their degree of nucleation and the functional complexity of such nucleations. The evidence suggests the early appearance of non-central retailing, the rapid dispersal of high as well as low order goods to non-central sites and the early emergence initially of a three-level and then, by 1870, a four-level hierarchy of shopping clusters. The pattern of retail clustering varied with the class and ethnic character of neighbourhoods, and clusters gravitated toward major arterial routes even in the pre-mass transit ear. Urban retailing in the second half of the nineteenth century was neither randomly dispersed nor over-whelmingly concentrated in a single central retail district, but developed a spatial hierarchy that clearly anticipated modern patterns.