From Depreciation to Exhaustible Resources

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-135
Author(s):  
Antoine Missemer ◽  
Marion Gaspard ◽  
Roberto P. Ferreira da Cunha

Harold Hotelling’s 1931 article on the economics of exhaustible resources is considered groundbreaking in the history of nonrenewable resource analysis. Hotelling’s innovation has been characterized by comparing his work with other contributions dealing with conservation issues. It has also been connected to his earlier work on depreciation, published in 1925, for using the same kind of mathematical formalism. This article further explores this second research direction on the basis of new archival materials, showing that Hotelling conceived his contributions on resources and depreciation as closely and substantially intertwined. It also suggests that Hotelling’s interest in exhaustible resources came from his earlier readings in accounting. These results shed new light on Hotelling’s early economic research, on our common understanding of his 1931 contribution, and on the origins of the connection between nature and capital in the history of environmental economics.

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 139-174
Author(s):  
Laetitia Lenel

The article investigates the methods and conceptions of statistical inference used in business forecasting in the United States and in Europe in the 1920s. After presenting the methods and arguments used by the members of the Harvard Committee on Economic Research in the first years after its establishment in 1919, the article explores the far-reaching changes in method and conviction from 1922 on. The members’ realization that the future evolved differently than predicted prompted them to give up their hope for mechanical means of forecasting and to revoke their calls for the employment of the mathematical theory of probability in economics. Instead, they established an extensive correspondence with economic and political decision-makers that allowed them to base their forecasts on “inside information.” Subsequently, the article traces European attempts to adopt the Harvard Index of General Business Conditions in the early 1920s. Impressed by the seemingly mechanical working of the Harvard index, European economists and statisticians sought to establish similar indices for their countries. However, numerous revisions of the Harvard index in the mid-1920s cast doubt on the universality of the index and the existence of stable patterns and led European researchers to pursue different paths of investigation. The article complicates the larger history of statistical inference in economics in two meaningful ways. First, it argues that statistical inference with probability was not the long-sought solution for the problem of objectivity but a long-contested, and repeatedly discarded, approach. Second, it shows that these contestations were often triggered by deviations between forecasts and the conditions actually observed and by this means argues for the importance of the historical context in the history of economics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6-2020) ◽  
pp. 44-54
Author(s):  
Galina B. Kunshina ◽  
◽  
Vladimir. P. Kovalevsky ◽  

There are described the start-up and development at the I.V. Tananaev Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Rare Elements and Mineral Raw Materials of the FederalResearch Centre “Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences”(ICTREMRM KSC RAS) studies on the synthesis of low-temperature solid electrolytes with high conductivity for Ag+, Cu+, Li+ions. The most significant results achieved by a scientific group under the leadership of PhD O.G. Gromov for almost half a century are presented. The research direction of solid electrolytes is extremely promising and in demand, and the possible fields of application of such electrolytes are constantly expanding.


Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Barrett

The standard von Neumann-Dirac formulation of quantum mechanics is presented as a set of five basic rules. We discuss each rule is discussed in turn paying particular attention to the conceptual history of the theory. Of central importance is the standard interpretation of states (the eigenvalue-eigenstate link) and the dynamical laws of the theory (the random collapse dynamics and the deterministic linear dynamics) and how the interpretation and dynamics work together to predict and explain the results of basic quantum experiments. While the focus is on the behavior of electrons, we also briefly consider how the theory uses the same mathematical formalism to treat other phenomena like the behavior of neutral K mesons and qbits in a quantum computer.


1982 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 41-48
Author(s):  
Joan Skinner

The architectural history of factories is not yet a popular field of research. Nor, in design history terms, is there investigation into how efficiently their design is related to functions or how it affects the well-being of the occupants. Such investigations must cross the boundaries of, and interrelate the fields of architectural, social, political and economic research. An integrated methodology has yet to be achieved. This article describes how a section of the Dunlop Archive Project is finding its way in this field.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamima Parvin Lasker

The aim of clinical research is to congregate useful knowledge about the human biology. Benefits to the participants are not the purpose of research, although it does secondarily. Therefore, exploitation of human subjects occurred in clinical research. Many people were harmed and basic human rights were violated as a result of their unwillingness participation in research. There have been many tragedies throughout the history of research involving human subjects. Every period of research scandals have been followed by attempt to initiate some ethical codes to protect the human from clinical research. First of such codes is the Nuremberg Code. Thereafter, Helsinky Declaration, Belmont Report and lastly Obama Commission on Guatemala syphilis study. To remember history is essential so that it's not repeated again. Knowledge of the history will provide a better understanding to handle the research fairly. Researchers and the healthcare providers have no awareness of the history of ethical requirements for clinical research. Therefore, repetition of scandal is being seen. In addition, there are few sporadic studies on this issue. Formulation of UNIVERSAL rules and regulations is required which will not be limited to a specific tragedy or scandal or the practice of researcher in one country. It will provide common understanding and unique values of the research all over the world, although their application will require adaptation to particular culture, health condition and economic setting. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v4i1.14265 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2013; 4(1):20-29


1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 149-208
Author(s):  
Redactie KITLV

-Mohammed F. Khayum, Michael B. Connolly ,The economics of the Caribbean Basin. New York: Praeger, 1985. xxiii + 355 pp., John McDermott (eds)-Susan F. Hirsch, Herome Wendell Lurry-Wright, Custom and conflict on a Bahamian out-island. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1987. xxii + 188 pp.-Evelyne Trouillot-Ménard, Agence de Cooperation Culturelle et Technique, 1,000 proverbes créoles de la Caraïbe francophone. Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1987. 114 pp.-Sue N. Greene, Amon Saba Saakana, The colonial legacy in Caribbean literature. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press, Inc. 1987. 128 pp.-Andrew Sanders, Cees Koelewijn, Oral literature of the Trio Indians of Surinam. In collaboration with Peter Riviére. Dordrecht and Providence: Foris Publications, 1987. (Caribbean Series 6, KITLV/Royal Institute of Linguistics anbd Anthropology). xiv + 312 pp.-Janette Forte, Nancie L. Gonzalez, Sojouners of the Caribbean: ethnogenesis and ethnohistory of the Garifuna. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988. xi + 253 pp.-Nancie L. Gonzalez, Neil L. Whitehead, Lords of the Tiger Spirit: a history of the Caribs in colonial Venezuela and Guyana 1498-1820. Dordrecht and Providence: Foris Publications, 1988. (Caribbean Series 10, KITLV/Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology.) x + 250 pp.-N.L. Whitehead, Andrew Sanders, The powerless people. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1987. iv + 220 pp.-Russell Parry Scott, Kenneth F. Kiple, The African exchange: toward a biological history of black people. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987. vi + 280 pp.-Colin Clarke, David Dabydeen ,India in the Caribbean. London: Hansib Publishing Ltd., 1987. 326 pp., Brinsley Samaroo (eds)-Juris Silenieks, Edouard Glissant, Caribbean discourse: selected essays. Translated and with an introduction by J. Michael Dash. Charlottesville, Virginia: The University Press of Virginia, 1989. xlvii + 272 pp.-Brenda Gayle Plummer, J. Michael Dash, Haiti and the United States: national stereotypes and the literary imagination. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988. xv + 152 pp.-Evelyne Huber, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Haiti: state against nation: the origins and legacy of Duvalierism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990. 282 pp.-Leon-Francois Hoffman, Alfred N. Hunt, Hiati's influence on Antebellum America: slumbering volcano of the Caribbean. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. xvi + 196 pp.-Brenda Gayle Plummer, David Healy, Drive to hegemony: the United States in the Caribbean, 1898-1917. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. xi + 370 pp.-Anthony J. Payne, Jorge Heine ,The Caribbean and world politics: cross currents and cleavages. New York and London: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc., 1988. ix + 385 pp., Leslie Manigat (eds)-Anthony P. Maingot, Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, The Caribbean in world affairs: the foreign policies of the English-speaking states. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1989. vii + 244 pp.-Edward M. Dew, H.F. Munneke, De Surinaamse constitutionele orde. Nijmegen, The Netherlands: Ars Aequi Libri, 1990. v + 120 pp.-Charles Rutheiser, O. Nigel Bolland, Colonialism and resistance in Belize: essays in historical sociology. Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize: Cubola Productions / Institute of Social and Economic Research / Society for the Promotion of Education and Research, 1989. ix + 218 pp.-Ken I. Boodhoo, Selwyn Ryan, Trinidad and Tobago: the independence experience, 1962-1987. St. Augustine, Trinidad: ISER, 1988. xxiii + 599 pp.-Alan M. Klein, Jay Mandle ,Grass roots commitment: basketball and society in Trinidad and Tobago. Parkersburg, Iowa: Caribbean Books, 1988. ix + 75 pp., Joan Mandle (eds)-Maureen Warner-Lewis, Reinhard Sander, The Trinidad Awakening: West Indian literature of the nineteen-thirties. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988. 168 pp.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 268-271
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Vladimirovich Gorshenin

This paper provides a brief analysis of works that consider the main stages of the scientific biography of the famous Soviet scientist-microbiologist, academician of medicine Zinaida Vissarionovna Yermolyeva (18981974). Among the most famous achievements of the scientist are the receipt of the first Soviet penicillin and the prevention of the cholera epidemic in Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War. Her scientific interests had a fairly wide range: from cholera and antibiotics to lysozyme, interferon and other biologically active substances. Speaking about Z.V. Yermolyeva, the famous Soviet microbiologist and epidemiologist, academician N.F. Gamaleya noted that she as a researcher is characterized by a desire to work in the area that is currently the most urgent for socialist health care. Indeed, getting acquainted with the biography of this amazing woman scientist, it becomes clear why she switched from one research direction into another this was her ability to quickly respond to the needs of the country and the challenges of the time. Given a great importance to the figure of Z.V. Yermolyeva in the history of Russian science, it seems relevant to establish a degree of study of this problem. The author of this paper has already carried out a brief analysis of the historiography of the works in the Soviet period on the history of Zinaida Yermolyevas scientific activities; therefore this paper is its logical continuation.


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