Deadline approaching for the 2008 World Congress of RSAI in Brazil
Submit your paper at www.aber.fea.usp.br/rsai2008
The 8th World Congress of RSAI will be organized by the Brazilian Regional Science Association (ABER – Associação Brasileira de Estudos Regionais) and will be hosted by the Faculty of Economics, Administration and Accounting of the University of São Paulo, Brazil (www.fea.usp.br), on March 17-19, 2008.
It will have the same format as the regular RSA meetings, with regular sessions, R-sessions, panels, etc.
Papers from all fields in regional science are welcome.
Submit your paper at www.aber.fea.usp.br/rsai2008.
RSAI World Congress 2008 Local Organizing Committee
"In a community lacking pure-water supplies, the closest thing to "pure" fluid" was alcohol. Whatever the risks were posed by beer (and later wine) in the early days of agrarian settlements were more than offset by alcohol's antibacterial properties. Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties... To digest large quantities of (alcohol), you need to be able to boost production of enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases, a trait regulated by a set of genes on chromosome four in human DNA. Many early agrarians lacked that trait, and thus were genetically incapable of "holding their liquor". Consequently, many of them died childless at an early age, either from alcohol abuse or from waterborne diseases... Most of the world's population is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance to alcohol."A propósito, eu recomendo fortemente o livro. É um sensacional relato do papel dos preconceitos científicos e conta a historia do mapa que iniciou a análise espacial. Desmancha prazer: é um mito que John Snow descobriu a fonte do surto de cólera depois de desenhar o mapa. Na verdade, ele o desenhou para convencer os outros que a água, e não o miasma, era responsável pela disseminação da doença.
"Leo,
a história é ótima e está relacionada com a disseminação do café na Europa.
Quando o café foi introduzido na Europa Oriental, no final do século XV e início do século XVI, foi logo saudado como uma bebida saudável, o "vinho do Islã", como diziam.
Entre as virtudes da bebida estavam: (a) o fato de ser tomada com água fervida (o que mata o vibrião do cólera); (b) o fato de ser estimulante e aumentar a produtividade do trabalho (nesse ponto o vinho e a cerveja perdem feio); (c) não ser uma bebida alcóolica e (d) ser um tanto exótica, o que facilitou a aceitação da bebida pela nobreza européia.
Foi neste período que Bach a "Cantata do Café".
O curioso é que na Inglaterra e na Alemanha houve reação dos cervejeiros alemães e ingleses contra o café.
Na Alemanha a disseminação do café foi bem mais lenta.
O curioso é que as mulheres inglesas foram influenciadas pelos cervejeiros e diziam que o café tirava a virilidade que os seus maridos que, depois de umas cervejinhas, cumpriam suas obrigações maritais.
A mulherada dizia que o café os tornavam "áridos como as areias da Arábia", numa crítica ao hábito dos persas de beberem café."
"the tannic acid released in the steeping process kills off those bacteria that haven't already perished during the boiling of the water. The explosion of tea drinking in the late 1700s was, from the bacteria's point of view, a microbial holocaust."
"Mais um golpe no liberalismo econômico ortodoxo foi dado ontem pela Real Academia Sueca de Ciências"A frase é perfeita para o Prêmio Eço. Começa com um "mais um golpe" como se os suecos tivessem dado o sopapo final na ortodoxia. "Liberalismo econômico ortodoxo" também é uma jóia lapidada por Emir Sader e cia. E, por fim, um erro factual: o Banco Central Sueco, e não a Academia de Ciências, confere o Nobel de Economia.
International Seminar on Development:
updating concepts, assessing practices
Local
: Auditório da Faculdade de Economia da Universidade Federal Fluminense - Rua Tiradentes, 17, Ingá, Niterói. Telefones: 2629-9735, 2629-9698.
Data: 5 de novembro de 2007
Countries with high levels of inequality and relatively low levels of economic development face the challenge of imagining a development model which is not only socially inclusive but also environmentally responsible.
In fact, available evidence points to a non harmonic relationship between economic growth, social development and responsible environmental practices. As far as the first relationship is concerned, part of the problem seems to derive from the inequality in the distribution of income and wealth, while another part stems from political economic factors that are detrimental to a plainly re-distributive public provision of goods and services. When it comes to the second relationship, between growth and the environment, a number of tensions emerge mainly due to environmental practices often strained by the demands of growth and, ultimately, increasing consumption patterns.
These facts raise questions related to the conceptualization of development. Can we think of a concept of development which incorporates in its very core and not only as a peripheral and derivative theme, the social and the environmental dimensions? Can we think of a concept of development in which quality of life as assessed and reported by individuals themselves is expressed, both objectively and subjectively? And as far as the specific context of developing countries is concerned, what is the appropriate notion of development in the context of less developed economies facing a high level of integration in an increasingly asymmetric and unregulated global economy? Questions of agency are also important: who should be the agents of a re-conceptualized development? Last but not least, questions of operationalization of new concepts are paramount: how to assess development and then promote it?
The purpose of the seminar is to stimulate reflection on these problems, benefiting from the expertise and insights of invited Brazilian and international scholars.
Preliminary program
9:00h - Opening session
9:30 - 12:45
Peter Evans (University of California, Berkeley):
"The capability approach as an orientation for development"
Alessandro Vercelli (University of Siena):
"Happiness, health and sustainable development"
Antonio de Barros Castro (UFRJ-BNDES):
"Development and the state"
Lunch break: 12:45 – 14:00
14:00 – 17:00
Lionello Punzo (University of Siena):
TBA
Leonardo Burlamaqui (Ford Foundation)
:
"Development and financial regulation"
Gary Dymski (University of California, Sacramento)
:
"Development as social inclusion"
Organizing committee:
Coordinator
: Celia Lessa Kerstenetzky (coordinator of the Inequality and Development Center) – email: celiakersten@gmail.com
Vice- coordinators
: Carmem Feijó – email: cfeijo@terra.com.br, and Claude Cohen (vicecoordinator of the Inequality and Development Center) – email: claudecohen@economia.uff.br
Secretary:
Bianca Imbiriba (Ph.D. Student) – email: biancaimbiriba@gmail.com ; Carolina Cavalcante (Ph.D student) - email: cmcavalcante@gmail.com, Paula Nabuco (graduate student) - email: pnabuco@bol.com.br
We are very grateful to CAPES/MEC, PROPP/UFF, FAPERJ and MINDS for financial support.
"http://www.unicamp.br/unicamp/canal_aberto/clipping/abril2004/clipping040415.folha.html
O elevado desemprego enfrentado pelo país pode ser minimizado com um aumento real de 11% no salário mínimo -hoje de R$ 240 por mês-, o que significaria a injeção de cerca de R$ 50 bilhões na massa de rendimento do trabalho no biênio 2004 e 2005.
Claudio Dedecca, professor do Cesit (Centro de Estudos Sindicais e de Economia do Trabalho), da Unicamp, que fez os cálculos, entende que, no curto prazo, a elevação do salário mínimo é a forma mais rápida de o país aumentar os postos de trabalho.
"Com aumento real de 11% no salário mínimo, a população vai consumir mais e, conseqüentemente, isso vai estimular a economia. Essa seria uma política factível de geração de emprego num prazo mais curto", diz Dedecca.
"Em um momento em que se discutem possibilidades de políticas a favor do crescimento, a do salário mínimo é, sem dúvida, uma das mais valiosas, pois favorece diretamente a elevação da demanda corrente, isto é, do nível de atividade", cita Dedecca num estudo sobre o impacto do salário mínimo na economia brasileira.
O aumento do salário mínimo, diz, teria impacto nas negociações salariais de várias categorias profissionais, já que é o "farol das remunerações do mercado de trabalho, independentemente do tipo de relação do trabalho".
Uma política de salário mínimo, diz, teria dois efeitos no país: um movimento generalizado de aumento de renda dos mais pobres e a elevação da participação dos mais pobres na renda nacional. "Esses efeitos poderiam ser ainda potencializados, em uma trajetória de crescimento econômico, pela geração de empregos", afirma Dedecca."
"Replete of prices and profits, acres and hand, economic science is the most measurable of all social sciences”.
"I studied economics in college. One thing I’ve noticed is that other people who have studied economics tend to think a similar way. Some of the similarity is probably because it takes a certain kind of person to be interested in economics in the first place. But I’m convinced that the study of economics changes brains in a way I can identify after about five minutes of conversation. In particular, I think the study of economics makes you relatively immune to cognitive dissonance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
The primary skill of an economist is identifying all of the explanations for various phenomena. Cognitive dissonance is, at its core, the inability to recognize and accept other explanations. I’m oversimplifying, but you get the point. The more your brain is trained for economics, the less it is susceptible to cognitive dissonance, or so it seems.
The joke about economists is that they are always using the phrase “On the other hand.” Economists are trained to recognize all sides of an argument. That seems like an easy and obvious skill, but in my experience, the general population lacks that skill. Once people take a side, they interpret any argument on the other side as absurd. In other words, they are relatively susceptible to cognitive dissonance."
