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.     

明代武昌府城江岸修筑的初步研究

在明代,由于水患频发和长江主泓变动等原因,湖广武昌府城沿江江岸屡屡崩陷,当地政府遂启动江岸修筑工程。考诸史志,明代武昌府城的江岸修筑主要约有四次,分别是正统七年(1442)、成化三年(1467)、万历十七年(1589)和万历三十四年(1606)。最终修成的江岸,自武昌府城南门望山门外(今武昌解放路南端解放桥附近)起,向西折至江边,又沿江边中经黄鹤矶向下游延伸至坛角地区(今武昌和平大道武汉工人文化宫以西),长约5公里。这条堤岸确定了武昌城沿江江岸的基线,将武昌城的城市空间扩展到江边,并延续至今。     

20世纪七八十年代引滦工程决策历程

水资源短缺一直制约着京津唐地区经济和社会的发展。20世纪70年代,因缺水引发的经济、社会问题逐渐凸显,促使中央和地方政府开始考虑实施跨流域调水工程。引滦工程作为北方最大的跨流域调水工程,其决策经历了曲折的过程。1958年,北京和唐山曾分别提出引滦河水的设想,唐山还实施了引滦入还和引还入陡工程。1972年,海河流域大旱促使中央做出加快实施引滦工程的决定,但由于地质情况复杂等原因,引滦工程设计方案被反复修改。1981年,天津提出了单独引滦济津路线并得到了中央的支持。引滦工程对缓解京津唐用水紧张发挥了重要作用,天津是引滦工程受益最大的地区。     

明代苏州宗族形态探研

明人追求通过修谱与祠祭表达祖先崇拜和宗族共同体的意识。明人的祖先祭祀,依据祭祖地点,可以划分为墓祭、家祭、祠祭。娄坚《徐氏宗谱序》分析了明代江南故家大族与谱牒不盛的问题,认为吴人不能聚族在于习俗的鄙、奢所造成的,强调通过宗族建设移风易俗。明代族谱更加盛行,表现出强烈的以谱法接济宗法的观念。苏州士大夫发扬光大了宋代范仲淹设置义田、义庄的传统,以此赡族进行宗族建设,官府倡导并保护义田与义庄,形成了不同于其他地区宗族形态的特色。明代苏州处于宗族组织化的新阶段。     

The ripple effects of large-scale transport infrastructure investment

We analyze the general equilibrium effects of an asymmetric decrease in transport costs, combining a large-scale spatial dynamic general equilibrium model for 267 European NUTS-2 regions with a detailed transport model at the level of individual road segments. As a case study, we consider the impact of the road infrastructure investments in Central and Eastern Europe of the European Cohesion Policy. Our analysis suggests that the decrease in transportation costs benefits the targeted regions via substantial increases in gross domestic product (GDP) and welfare compared to the baseline, and a small increase in population. The geographic information embedded in the transport model leads to relatively large predicted benefits in peripheral countries such as Greece and Finland, which hardly receive funds, but whose trade links cross Central and Eastern Europe, generating profit from the investments there. The richer, Western European nontargeted regions also enjoy a higher GDP after the investment in the East, but these effects are smaller. Thus, the policy reduces interregional disparities. There are rippled patterns in the predicted policy spillovers. In nontargeted countries, regions trading more intensely with regions where the investment is taking place on average benefit more compared to other regions within the same country, but also compared to neighboring regions across an international border. We uncover that regions importing goods from Central and Eastern Europe enjoy the largest spillovers. These regions become more competitive and expand exports, to the detriment of other regions in the same country.     

Inter- and intraregional inequality in a spatial economy

In this paper, we develop a three-region economic geography model with workers of heterogeneous skills and mobility rates to consider how first-nature, regional differences impact both inter- and intraregional inequality. In our model, the skill premium within a region summarizes both the degree of intraregional inequality between mobile, skilled workers and immobile, unskilled workers and the interregional inequality through differences in the welfare of unskilled workers across regions. Regions with the highest skill premium have the greatest degree of intraregional inequality and provide the lowest level of welfare to unskilled workers, relative to other regions. We find that the skill premium will be higher in regions with a greater supply of unskilled labor, lower supply of housing, or are more remote. An increase in a region's housing supply or centrality will lower intraregional inequality and raise the welfare of the local, unskilled workforce. However, the magnitude of these changes are declining in the initial number of skilled workers in the region. The model is extended to consider imperfectly elastic housing supply. The larger the price elasticity of housing, the larger the range of values, such that more populated regions will host a disproportionate share of skilled workers, have lower levels of intraregional inequality, and provide higher levels of welfare for unskilled workers.     

Patterns of exchange and the social production of pigs in highland new guinea: Their relevance to questions about the origins and evolution of agriculture

In recent years, cultural anthropologists have made notable progress in understanding the bewildering variety of material exchange transactions found among the aboriginal populations of highland New Guinea. One of the major findings of this work is that competitive exchange behavior may bring in its wake alterations in agronomic practices involving an intensification of production. That intensification is primarily a product of social behavior, rather than an adaptation to climate change or population pressure, is a significant conclusion that should influence the thinking of archaeologists as they investigate past episodes of agronomic change, including the origins of agriculture.     

The Enisei River of Central Siberia in the Late Pleistocene

Recent Paleolithic work along the middle Enisei River of central Siberia has revealed a long history of occupation that almost certainly begins in the Middle Pleistocene. Although the evidence for the Lower Paleolithic is somewhat tentative, there is good reason to believe that hunter-gatherers had periodically occupied the middle Enisei before the last interglacial. The steppe environment of the region during the Upper Pleistocene was relatively bountiful; more than 200 Upper Paleolithic sites, both before and after the Last Glacial Maximum, have been located. The region appears to have been abandoned during the Last Glacial Maximum. Most of Soviet and Russian archaeological work has been guided by a cultural–historical orientation, but recently there has been increased interest in developing adaptationist and ecological research strategies. The middle Enisei and the wider central Siberian region are key to understanding early adaptations to the north and the dimensions of Paleolithic population movements.     

图们江“金三角”国际性城市体系发展构想

本文论述了图们江地区国际性城市体系建设的必要性,提出了城市体系等级结构、职能结构和空间结构的构建设想及管理原则,并初步估算了城市体系发展各项基础设施建设及投资规模。     

Captain Everill’s Error: Mapping the Upper Strickland River in Papua and New Guinea, 1885–1979

An error dating from 1885 in mapping the upper Strickland River, Papua New Guinea, was reinforced and extended by government officer Charles Karius in 1929 when reporting results from a lengthy exploratory patrol. Detailed maps produced by the US Army and the Royal Australian Survey Corps in, respectively, 1942 and 1966 perpetuated these errors. It was not until 1979, with release of a series of 1:100,000 topographic maps, that long-standing errors were finally put to rest. Throughout these years, the contributions of well-informed people tended to be ignored in favour of the opinions of those whose status implied authority.