This book presents Ariel Rubinstein's lecture notes for the first part of his well-known graduate course in microeconomics.

In the article referred to in the title of this note, Winthrop quotes a paragraph from a recent article by me with italics inserted by him, and then proceeds to “translate” it into the language of an economic theory. Winthrop thoughtfully adds in a following paragraph the phrase, “… if I have not mistranslated him [Hull] into marginal terms.” The purpose of the present note is to correct what appears to have been a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of (...) the passage, rather than an error of translation; at all events, it is only with the original meaning of the passage that this note is concerned. The paragraph as it originally appeared is as follows :“Economic value in one of its more obvious and primitive aspects involves the exchange of an amount of commodity X possessed by person No. 1 for an amount of commodity Y possessed by person No. 2. This type of behavior can come about voluntarily and continuously only on the condition that person No. 1 has a striving potential for Y which is greater than would be his striving potential for X when he no longer has X; and when person No. 2 has a striving potential for X which is greater than would be that for Y when he no longer has Y. Thus the total striving potential of both persons is reduced by the transaction.”. (shrink)

This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

L’impérialisme économique, entendu comme une certaine relation entre disciplines scientifiques, est défendu par certains et rejeté par d’autres. Ces réactions sont toutefois rarement fondées sur des valeurs et des normes de recherche scientifique explicites. Or, lorsque l’on s’efforce de les rendre explicites, ces normes se révèlent plus complexes et plus floues qu’il n’y paraît. Certains considèrent qu’elles font partie intégrante de la définition du concept d’impérialisme économique ; d’autres, dont je fais partie, considèrent qu’elles sont extérieures à ce concept. Dans (...) les deux cas, l’application des normes est sélective et ambiguë. Elles peuvent être mobilisées, selon la sélection et l’interprétation à laquelle on procède, pour soutenir ou pour critiquer l’impérialisme économique. L’article recense différentes normes méthodologiques et sociales de recherche scientifique – par exemple le souhait d’une portée large, l’unification, l’originalité, l’exactitude empirique, l’universalisme, l’humilité épistémique, la réceptivité à la critique, la diversité, la justice épistémique, la disposition à jouer ( playfulness ) – et il montre comment elles peuvent être invoquées dans les controverses. Ces notes critiquent certaines analyses normatives de l’impérialisme économique. Elles résument et développent également ma propre analyse. Elles ne livrent toutefois pas de conclusion définitive. (shrink)

L’impérialisme économique, entendu comme une certaine relation entre disciplines scientifiques, est défendu par certains et rejeté par d’autres. Ces réactions sont toutefois rarement fondées sur des valeurs et des normes de recherche scientifique explicites. Or, lorsque l’on s’efforce de les rendre explicites, ces normes se révèlent plus complexes et plus floues qu’il n’y paraît. Certains considèrent qu’elles font partie intégrante de la définition du concept d’impérialisme économique ; d’autres, dont je fais partie, considèrent qu’elles sont extérieures à ce concept. Dans (...) les deux cas, l’application des normes est sélective et ambiguë. Elles peuvent être mobilisées, selon la sélection et l’interprétation à laquelle on procède, pour soutenir ou pour critiquer l’impérialisme économique. L’article recense différentes normes méthodologiques et sociales de recherche scientifique – par exemple le souhait d’une portée large, l’unification, l’originalité, l’exactitude empirique, l’universalisme, l’humilité épistémique, la réceptivité à la critique, la diversité, la justice épistémique, la disposition à jouer ( playfulness ) – et il montre comment elles peuvent être invoquées dans les controverses. Ces notes critiquent certaines analyses normatives de l’impérialisme économique. Elles résument et développent également ma propre analyse. Elles ne livrent toutefois pas de conclusion définitive. (shrink)

To-day economics is considered the most highly developed discipline among the social sciences. Yet, its explanatory and predictive powers are admitted by all hands to be weak compared to those possessed by the physical sciences. This weakness is still frequently explained by apologetic references to the relatively tender age of economic science. This apparently implies that in the normal course of time economics will grow up and achieve the stature and powers of say, physics. The trouble with this argument (...) is that economics is certainly as old as physics. If it lags behind other disciplines in predictive and explanatory powers, lack of time cannot be the cause. (shrink)

Modern economics, with its use of advanced mathematical methods, is often looked upon as the physics of the social sciences. It is here argued that deductive analyses are more important in economics than in physics, because the economists more seldom can confirm phenomenological laws directly. The economist has to use assumptions from fundamental theory when trying to bridge the gap between observations and phenomenological laws. Partly as a result of the difficulties of establishing phenomenological laws, analyses of idealized 'model-economies' play (...) a more important, but mainly heuristic role, in economics. (shrink)

Opponents of mainstream economics have not yet called attention to the lack of in-depth examination of the general scientific conception of modern economics. However, economic science cannot consistently fulfil the epistemological and ontological requirements of the scientific standards underlying this conception. What can be scientifically recognized as true cannot be answered, neither through the actual ontological structure of the object of observation nor through a methodological demarcation. These limitations necessarily lead to the claim for both a pragmatic and a (...) radical methodological pluralism. (shrink)

Two disciplines claim to provide justification of action. Ethics gives you moral reasons to act upon, whereas economics exploits the concept of rationality. The paper discusses two theories of interdisciplinarity of ethics and economics in order to clarify the relationship. The traditional view of a hierarchical ordering of ethics and economics is rejected, and it is claimed that there are substantial economic contributions to ethical justification.

This study sheds a light on economic roots of optimal foraging/mating theory. Two examples show graphical optimisation models of behavioural ecology that are identical to much older ones of economics. The knowledge transfer has been conscious and explicit in some cases, but also less visible in others. This does no imply plagiarism or misconduct but merely shows how knowledge can diffuse along obscure, sometimes unconscious, routes of non-public and private communication.

A recurring theme in discussions about the uncertainties of belief is their connection with the uncertainties of chance. Economists, broadly speaking, fall into two groups on this issue. One holds that beliefs can only be taken to correspond to point probabilities in situations that approximate games of chance. The other holds that beliefs should be treated as point probabilities, entering economics via decision theory and emerging as the parameters of consistent choice. I shall call these the traditional view and the (...) Bayesian view respectively. (shrink)

This article discusses some recent attempts to develop an economic case that can justify proposals for curricular and institutional reform in education of a radical kind. It investigates the claim, which underpins current debates around a Labour Party alternative to Conservative education policy, that a new phase of development, often referred to as 'post-Fordism', of the dominant economies of the western world provides the basis, and the necessity, for a new system of education which would realise a programme of (...) egalitarian and democratic reform. (shrink)

This article discusses some recent attempts to develop an economic case that can justify proposals for curricular and institutional reform in education of a radical kind. It investigates the claim, which underpins current debates around a Labour Party alternative to Conservative education policy, that a new phase of development, often referred to as 'post-Fordism', of the dominant economies of the western world provides the basis, and the necessity, for a new system of education which would realise a programme of (...) egalitarian and democratic reform. (shrink)

Hausman and McPherson defend welfare economics by claiming that even if welfare does not consist in preference satisfaction, preferences still provide good, if fallible, evidence of welfare. I argue that this strategy does not yet fully solve the problems for welfare economics stemming from the preference satisfaction theory of welfare. More work is needed to show that our self-interested preferences are sufficiently reliable, or in some other sense our best, evidence of well-being. Thus, my aim is to identify the challenges (...) that remain and clarify what additional work is needed before Hausman and McPherson's defence of welfare economics succeeds. (shrink)

An economic crisis is an unexpected phenomenon with strong consequences for nations, institutions and people's wealth, habits, and behaviors. It departs from the ‘normal’ evolution of the affairs foreseen by economic theory. It makes the claim for new theoretical explanations. It surprises the economic agents that try to ascertain what kind of phenomenon they are facing in order to decide the appropriate actions to undertake. It calls for revisions of theory, plans and expectations. Overall, a crisis calls (...) for an explanation which clarifies its causes. (shrink)

Economics and biology have long been overlapping and mutually enriching fields. We contribute to this cross-fertilization by spelling out the implications for economic theory of some recent insights from evolutionary neurobiology. We note that dynamic homeostasis, a core feature of life processes, has shaped social interactions at varied stages of evolution – from the patterns of competition and cooperation among early life forms to the complex process of human cultures. The resulting homeostatic perspective is not compatible with several leading (...) economic theories but does provide a biological footing for promising concepts such as ecological rationality, heuristics, heterogeneity of economic agents, and complex, self-organizing dynamics. (shrink)

Introduction. Bert HAMMINGA and Neil DE MARCHI: Préface. Bert HAMMINGA and Neil DE MARCHI: Idealization and the Defence of Economics: Notes Toward a History. Part I: General Observations on Idealization in Economics. Kevin D. HOOVER: Six Queries about Idealization in an Empirical Context. Bernard WALLISER: Three Generalization Processes for Economic Models. Steven COOK and David HENDRY: The Theory of Reduction in Econometrics. Maarten C.W. JANSSEN: Economic Models and Their Applications. Adolfo GARCÍA DE LA SIENRA: Idealization and Empirical (...) Adequacy in Economic Theory. Izabella NOWAKOWA and Leszek NOWAK: On Correspondence between Economic Theories. Uskali MÄKI: Isolation, Idealization and Truth in Economics. Part II: Case Studies of Idealization in Economics. Nancy CARTWRIGHT: Mill and Menger: Ideal Elements and Stable Tendencies. Wolfgang BALZER: Exchange Versus Influence: A Case of Idealization. Kees COOLS, Bert HAMMINGA, Theo A.F. KUIPERS: Truth Approximation by Concretization in Capital Structure Theory. Daniel M. HAUSMAN: Paul Samuelson as Dr. Frankenstein: When an Idealization Runs Amuck. Hugo A. KEUZENKAMP: What if an Idealization is Problematic? The Case of the Homogeneity Condition in Consumer Demand. Werner DIEDERICH: Nowak on Explanation and Idealization in Marx's 'Capital'. Gérard JORLAND: Idealization and Transformation. Jack BIRNER: Idealizations and Theory Development in Economics. Some History and Logic of the Logic Discovery. Discussions. Leszek NOWAK: The Idealizational Methodology and Economics. Replies to Diederich, Hoover, Janssen, Jorland and Mäki. (shrink)

We start this Volume 13 with the usual Editorial Note reviewing the main features of Economics and Business Letters. EBL is an online letter-type journal, free both for authors and readers, covering all areas of economics and business and with theoretical and empirical letters.

Miyagawa (Games and Economics Behavior 41(2), 292–308 [2002]) provides a simple extensive game form that implements a large class of two-agent bargaining solutions in subgame-perfect equilibrium. This class includes all of the Nash, Kalai–Smorodinsky, and relative utilitarian solutions. This note extends Miyagawa’s result to multi-agent bargaining problems.

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction A Characterization of Economic Analysis of Law Normativity Preference and Obligation Concluding Remarks Note References.

An agent-centered, goal-directed, resource-bound logic of human reasoning would do well to note that individual cognitive agency is typified by the comparative scantness of available cognitive resources—information, time, and computational capacity, to name just three. This motivates individual agents to set their cognitive agendas proportionately, that is, in ways that carry some prospect of success with the resources on which they are able to draw. It also puts a premium on cognitive strategies which make economical use of those resources. These (...) latter I callscant-resource adjustment strategies,and they supply the context for an analysis of abduction. The analysis is Peircian in tone, especially in the emphasis it places on abduction’signorance-preservingcharacter. My principal purpose here is to tie abduction’s scarce-resource adjustment capacity to its ignorance preservation. (shrink)

We empirically test the hypothesis that a major in economics, management, business administration or accounting (for simplicity referred to as Business/economics) leads to more-conservative (right-wing) political views. We use a panel dataset of individuals (repeated observations for the same individuals over time) living in the Netherlands, drawing data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences from 2008 through 2013. Our results show that when using a simple fixed effects model, which fully controls for individuals’ time-invariant traits, any statistically (...) and quantitatively significant effect of a major in Business/economics on the Political Ideology of these individuals disappears. We posit that, at least in our sample, there is no evidence for a causal effect of a major in Business/economics on individuals’ Political Ideology. (shrink)

In tort law, including Lithuanian tort law, damage usually is divided into two types: pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. The concept of non-pecuniary damage has recently become a focus of attention of Lithuanian legal researchers. However, it has to be noted that the issues related to the concept of pecuniary damage remain scarcely analysed. As a result, the unique type of pecuniary damage, i.e. the damage of purely economic character, has received no attention whatsoever in Lithuanian tort law. It is (...) usually believed that the defence of the values of purely material character fall into the sphere of contractual law, while tort law is not concerned with the protection of these values. However, in the course of the development of social relations it has become apparent that in the present-day society personal financial losses have become equally important to the cases of actual damage to a person or a property. On the other hand, the fear to overextend the limits of tort law and, thus, limit the persons’ freedom to act, coupled with the different nature of the values protected by tort law provide grounds for the position that relatively abstract financial interests and absolute values or relative personal values should be protected in different ways. Referring to the doctrine and practice of foreign countries as well as the results of the analysis of Lithuanian positive law and court practices, in this article we aim at giving an answer to the question of where and how the ambit of protection under the tort law in the cases of damage of purely economic character should be defined. (shrink)

Over the last forty-five years, there have been three monumental stories on the national American crime scene: a run up in crime in the 1960s, a move towards a more punitive American justice system starting in the 1970s, and a strong decline in US crime rates beginning in the 1990s. At the center of understanding these three stories lies Gary Becker's pioneering work on the economics of crime . Becker offered a price theoretical model in which criminals are viewed as (...) rational actors seeking to maximize their benefits in choosing certain criminal actions while minimizing their costs. Becker's model has not only shaped academic debate on the topic of criminal behavior since the 70s, but it has also had a powerful impact on governmental policies regarding crime and justice. Most significantly, Becker's work_—with some of its nuance overlooked_—ended up providing intellectual backing to the increasingly punitive and harsh nature of the American justice system, as reflected in the massive increases in incarceration levels and the revival of the use of the death penalty.While Becker correctly predicted that massive increases in incarceration would have a dampening effect on crime, the supporters of this policy have not been attentive to the need to weigh costs as well as benefits in assessing the major prison build-up. Evidence that equal crime reductions could be achieved through targeted social spending merits consideration, since Becker noted that improving the legal opportunities available to potential criminals could be as potent a deterrent to crime as increasing the cost of criminal choices. Furthermore, I review current research in the death penalty debate and argue that—contrary to the positions defended by Becker and many ardent disciples of price-theory— the empirical evidence does not currently support the conclusion that the death penalty as administered in the United States has served as a deterrent to crime. (shrink)

This paper seeks to analyse the effects on Economics of Research Assessment Systems, such as the Research Assessment Exercise (or RAE) which was carried out in the UK between 1986 and 2008. The paper begins by pointing out that, in the 2008 RAE, economics turned out to be the research area which was accorded the highest valuation of any subject in the UK, even though economists were then under attack for failing to predict the global financial crash which had occurred (...) a few months earlier. One aim of the paper is to explain this economics anomaly in research assessment. The paper goes on to point out a key difference between economics and the natural sciences. Most areas of the natural sciences are dominated for most of the time by a single, generally accepted, paradigm, whereas there are always in economics different schools of thought which have different and highly conflicting paradigms. Given this situation, it is argued that the effect of research assessment systems in economics is to strengthen the majority school in the subject (whatever that is), and weaken the minority schools. This conclusion is supported by empirical data collected by Frederic Lee for the UK. It is then shown that the greater the dominance of the majority school, the higher the overall valuation of the subject is likely to be, and this is used to explain the anomaly noted earlier. It is argued that research in economics flourishes better in a situation in which there are a number of different schools treated equally, than in one in which a single school dominates. The conclusion is that research assessment systems have a negative effect on research in economics and give misleading results. Instead of such systems, an attempt should be made to encourage pluralism in the subject. (shrink)

In The Main Enterprise of the World, Philip Kitcher identifies an over-specialized and over-loaded curriculum as a particular affliction of education in our time. Kitcher criticizes a narrow view of education on which it is conceived as being no more than job training and proposes a more humane set of educational goals to be pursued in school. For Kitcher, the problem of the narrowness of the economic aims of education and the problem of the over-loaded curriculum are connected and, (...) in Chapter 2 of the book, he presents a thoroughgoing critique of educational specialization as a distinguishing feature of education today. He holds that the economic value of education cannot capture education's full value and that true education should build children and young people's capacities for meaningful life and work. In this paper, I discuss Kitcher's critique of educational specialization. I note that Kitcher draws most of his inspiration from considerations about what makes a human life go well and therefore situates his thinking about education in the realm of ethics, rather than in his home discipline of the philosophy of science. Defending educational specialization, I turn to some of Kitcher's earlier work in the philosophy of science to show that the epistemic division of labour calls for a considerable degree of specialization in educational curricula on epistemic, rather than on economic, grounds. (shrink)

One core strand in the revival of free market doctrines in the second half of the twentieth century has been economic libertarianism, noted for the priority it gives to the economy and to economic reasoning about politics and public affairs. This chapter traces the evolution of economic libertarianism, from the Ordo-Liberal critique of collectivism and totalitarianism, to the neoliberal critique of social democracy and the welfare state. It explores the diversity of the ideas and policies associated with (...) economic libertarianism, and its relationship with Conservatism. This is traced through discourses on the state, democracy, knowledge, and culture, which reveal the strengths as well as some of the dilemmas and weaknesses of this influential form of political economy. (shrink)

These notes consist of reflections on the course to be pursued to attain the best possible interaction between theoretical research on morality and our present economic and social tasks and on the practice of communist moral training. Much has been done in this regard in the recent past. On the occasion of the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU scholars prepared successful treatments of timely problems in ethics, the theory of morality, and moral training. However, the level of the (...) studies already conducted inevitably poses new and more complex questions calling for research by specialists in the field. Most of these questions are a natural consequence of the very process of more rapid rates of increase in ethical knowledge. But today, as we compare an evaluation of what has already been accomplished with, particularly, the prospects envisaged by the historical purview of the Twenty-sixth Party Congress, we are compelled to give thought also to factors that continue to hamper theoretical study, along a broad front, of morality and current questions in the moral practices of our society. (shrink)

Today, economic theory is a mathematical theory, but that was not always the case. Major changes in the ways economists presented their arguments to one another occurred between the late 1930s and the early 1950s; over that period the discipline became mathematized. Professor Weintraub, a noted scholar of the modern history of economic thought, argues that those changes were not merely cosmetic: The mathematical forms of the arguments significantly altered the substance of the arguments. Stabilizing Dynamics is particularly (...) concerned with the ways in which the rich and confusing talk of the 1930s evolved, over a fifteen-year period, into technical analysis of some mathematical structures. The author describes the context for the history of that change, locating it in the broader intellectual currents, and shows how the history of modern economics can be seen as a confluence of several disparate traditions. Historiographically, this book offers one of the first constructivist accounts of modern economic analysis. (shrink)

One of the main results in topological social choice states the non-existence of a continuous, anonymous, and unanimous aggregation rule on spheres. This note provides a proof based upon simple methods such as integration.

Economic analysis is being applied by scholars to an increasing range of legal problems. This collection brings together some of the main contributions to an important area of this work, the economics of contract law. The essays and illuminating notes, questions, and introductions provided by the editor outline the Law and Economics framework for analyzing contractual relationships. The first two parts of the book present a number of useful concepts - adverse selection, moral hazard, and rent seeking - (...) and a general way of thinking about the economics of contracting and contract law. The remainder of the book considers a wide range of topics and issues. The recurring theme is that contracting parties want to assign the responsibility for adjusting to particular contingencies to the party best able to control the costs of adjustment. The adjustment problem is exacerbated by the fact that the parties might engage in various types of strategic behavior, such as opportunism, moral hazard, and rent-seeking. Many contract law doctrines can best be understood as attempts to replicate how reasonable parties might resolve this adjustment problem. (shrink)

This chapter explores the idea of one variable making a causal contribution to another variable, and how this idea applies to economics. It also explores the related concept of what-if questions in economics. In particular, it contrasts the modular theory of causal contributions and what-if questions (advocated by interventionists) with the ceteris paribus theory (advocated by Jim Heckman and others). It notes a problem with the modular theory raised by Nancy Cartwright. And it notes how, according to the (...) ceteris paribus theory, causal contributions and what-if questions are often indeterminate in economics. (shrink)

Hayek's epistemic arguments against planning were aimed not just against socialism but also the tradition of ecological economics. The concern with the physical preconditions of economic activity and defence of non-monetary measures in economic choice were expressions of the same rationalist illusion about the scope of human knowledge that underpinned the socialist project. Neurath's commitment to physicalism, in natura calculation and planning typified these errors. Neurath responded to these criticisms in unpublished notes and correspondence with Hayek. These (...) highlighted the epistemological premises his work shared with Hayek's, representing a response to Hayek from Hayek's own assumptions. This paper examines the cogency and continuing relevance of the arguments in this debate. (shrink)

The problem of the concept of Ukraine’s state economic policy of regulation of human resources international movement in the context of global intellectualization remains topical throughout the existence of Ukraine as an independent state. It should be noted that the favorable geopolitical position of Ukraine provides potential opportunities for the development of both regions and the state as a whole, creates conditions that are associated with the involvement in international migration, tourism and transit and professional processes. Their number increases (...) in modern conditions of globalization development. The analysis of features of Ukraine's participation in the processes of intellectualization of the human resources international movement demonstrates the necessity of developing the state economic policy of the human resources international movement, which would become part of the global space and have certain benefits. (shrink)

The first set in Routledge's new _Critical Reviews_ series focuses on the period from the founding of the _Edinburgh Review_ to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Exhibiting all the richness that characterises economic writing of the period, the 95 articles collected here include pieces by Brougham, Horner, Southey and James Mill. The subjects addressed include: * international trade * banking and currency questions * the poor laws * the national debt * population Unlike many other recently published collections (...) of economic articles this work includes appropriate explanatory notes and a long introduction placing the anthology within the context of the times. (shrink)

This set focuses on the aftermath of the Napoleonic War, when the United Kingdom was rocked by a succession of economic crises. It includes articles by J.R. McCulloch, Sydney Smith and Robert Southey. Themes addressed include: * the response to Ricardo and the development of Ricardian economics * the conduct of colonial policy with special reference to the East India Company * the poor laws * banking and currency questions * continuing discussion of Malthus on population. The articles are (...) supplemented by extensive explanatory notes, and an introduction placing the articles in their historical context. (shrink)

This article aims to contextualize and problematize Alexandre Kojève’s Note on Hegel and Heidegger, written in 1936 and unpublished during his lifetime, which is being introduced into Russian-language scholarship. A translation of the Note is published in the same issue with the permission of the copyright holders. This paper provides a general introduction to Kojève’s philosophy, illustrates possible reading strategies for Kojève and the place of the translated Note in his corpus of the philosopher’s texts, and describes the philosophical and (...) historical circumstances of the text, namely that it was composed as an extension of a review on Tragische Existenz. Zur Philosophie Martin Heidegger by Alfred Delp written and published by Kojève that same year in Recherches philosophique. The article reconstructs the lines of reference that are essential to understanding Alexandre Kojève and provides a critique of certain statements. Finally, on the basis of an analysis of Kojève’s language, it offers a broader thesis on the epistemological problems of Kojève’s philosophy, the discovery of which led him to make a series of debatable statements in the philosophy of history (on the necessity for the philosopher to participate in the realization of the end of history), in anthropology (on the difference between people in their capacity to be philosophers or sages depending on a philosophical and religious attitude that is not entirely dependent on them), and in his decision to leave academia and turn to the ideological and diplomatic provision of economic integration of European states during the Cold War. (shrink)

Drawing on Marxist and psychoanalytic frameworks, I collect notes and reflections about the experience of contingent work in the Writing Center at Amherst College, a private liberal arts college in the United States. Taking the tradition of workers' inquiry as a source of inspiration and point of departure, I chart the material relations of the job alongside its social and affective dimensions. Connecting the form that writing takes (in classrooms and scholarly publishing) to the political economic relations of (...) higher education, I reframe writing as a means to make sense of experience rather than as a mode of professionalized conversation. (shrink)

With the exception of what they seized or inherited from eastern kings, the Roman emperors gathered and administered their estates like private individuals. Imperial estates differed only in being bigger. For just this reason, however, more is known of them, and it is the purpose of these notes to shed light on large private holdings, and on the range of their economic potential, by looking at three unusual kinds of activity on crown lands: the raising of herds, the (...) exploitation of forests, and the making of bricks. (shrink)