American Journal of Economics and Sociology最新文献

The origins of contemporary supra-national power go back to the second British Empire, which, unlike the first, faced organized labor as a potential revolutionary force. The formation of the Rhodes–Milner Group was meant to better manage the formation of the public mood, and the Boer War in South Africa demanded close integration of imperial affairs. A central figure in the Rhodes–Milner Group, Lord Esher, was also the architect of the Committee of Imperial Defense, created to take up the latter task. Esher's idea of a secretariat confidentially preparing solutions to issues of the day before they emerged in the public domain was introduced into the structure of international organizations after World War I and the Russian Revolution. Escher also laid the foundations of today's model of transnational politics in which groups such as Bilderberg or the Trilateral Commission and many others, shape certain areas of consensus before the public is allowed to make its voice heard. In this process, the circumvention of democracy has assumed the nature of an outright assault on it. In the process the World Economic Forum, formally joining forces with the United Nations, has become the most visible supranational body applying direct rule.

Unionization efforts have only recently begun to address the exploitative conditions of working in video games. Despite such conditions dating back to the industry's origins, scholarship has tended to focus on contemporary labor issues over those of the past. To illustrate early forms of video game exploitation, I examine the history of industry pioneer Atari under the ownership of media conglomerate Warner Communications, Inc. (WCI) from 1976 to 1984. Soon after acquiring Atari, WCI installed a new CEO and pursued convergence initiatives. As a corporate ideal, convergence implies two cultures cooperating as they move toward becoming a single culture. I argue, however, that bringing together multiple media often creates conflict between different work cultures. Using the case studies of Superman (1979), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and the original Swordquest trilogy (1982–1983), I explain how WCI's convergence with Atari led to culture clashes, an exodus of talent, the rise of rival software companies, product saturation, and the transformation of the global video game market by the end of the 1980s. I conclude by considering how the conflict between WCI and Atari provides lessons for labor problems that continue to characterize the industry—both in isolation and in relation to older media industries.

Hollowing out is a term that refers to the decline in the share of middle-pay and middle-skilled jobs relative to low-pay and high-pay jobs. This study employs county-level occupational data at the place of employment to document hollowing out of middle-pay jobs across regions in Ohio. The county-level data with occupational information allow us to study how regions' economic heterogeneity contributes to the decline of middle-paying jobs in Ohio over the 2001–2019 period. Of 88 counties in Ohio, 77 counties experienced declines in the shares of middle-paying jobs. On average, Appalachian Ohio counties experienced higher hollowing out rates than other counties. We found that the hollowing out of middle-paying jobs in Ohio is associated with the declines in the shares of manufacturing and mining jobs.

The study discovers that mixed ownership reform aimed at enhancing the performance and resource allocation efficiency of state-owned enterprises may have unintended consequences in China. When the nature of state-owned control remains unchanged, there is a risk of increased overinvestment due to misaligned interests between state-owned equity representatives and companies. This incentive can be mitigated by introducing nonstate shareholders with political connections. The study employs a double machine learning method to analyze data from state-owned listed companies that introduced nonstate shareholders through stock issuance between 2008 and 2019. The research underscores that modern corporate governance mechanisms are crucial for successful mixed ownership reform.

The optimized development of service industry in the value chain can inject strong impetus into economic growth. The “Belt and Road” initiative provides a new path for China's service industry. This article combines value-added accounting method and social network analysis method to study the network environment of service trade in the “Belt and Road” region and the individual characteristics of China's service trade. At the same time, the article deeply analyzes the factors that affect the optimized development of China's service industry in the “Belt and Road” regional value chain from the perspective of trade relations and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions accordingly. The study found that the “Belt and Road” regional service trade network has high density and shows a trend of blockization. As a core node in the regional service trade network, China has strong subjective initiative, connecting link, and independence in trade relations. Moreover, the optimization of China's service trade relations can further enhance its position in the “Belt and Road” regional value chain. At the same time, it can also enhance political and cultural identity, enhance China's discourse power, and promote the process of regional economic integration. Therefore, China's service industry can use the “Belt and Road” initiative to innovate the trade relationship model and realize the optimal development.

The New York legislature granted charters to 28 new banks in 1829. Over $5 million in capital was subscribed by 1745 individuals or entities. The average distance between investor and bank is less than 40 miles, and the average number of investors is 75 per bank, with ownership and control closely aligned. A gravity model fixed effects regression is estimated. Insiders, such as public officials and bank officers account for over one quarter of the invested capital. After accounting for information asymmetry, a strong home bias exists which suggests a high degree of capital immobility. The failure of Northern capital to invest in Southern manufacturing is readily explained by the picture of a thin and localized market dominated by political elite and specialized traders.

Human rights have been weaponized and transformed into geopolitical tools to target certain states and not others. The rhetoric of human rights has been distorted by politicians, media, think tanks and the emerging “human rights industry” that serves hegemonic powers and not humanity. This constitutes an affront against human dignity.

This paper presents a speculative framework suggesting that prediction markets (or its epistemic cousins such as artificial intelligence or forecasting tournaments) may constitute a break in the expansion of human knowledge in a manner similar to the impact of the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. Just as the scientific understanding of the natural world facilitated the development of useful technologies to move far faster than what is allowed by blind evolution and tinkering, tools such as prediction markets allow for scientific knowledge to move faster than its current evolutionary process. The intellectual bases for these tools, such as the interpretation of probabilities as bets, are relatively recent additions to human knowledge, which may have significant implications for how we evaluate past thinkers, versus what is now possible or may be possible in the future.

In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed Western civilization in dramatic ways. Simultaneously, the market economy converted human labor into “merchandise”. Also in the 19th century, the reality of workers forced Pope Leo XIII to publish Rerum Novarum, the first encyclical of the Catholic Church's social doctrine. In 1981, Pope John Paul II, in Laborem Exercens, will affirm that the conversion of human labor into “merchandise” was generated by an anthropological inversion in the order of concepts: the priority of capital over labor. The value of labor cannot be fixed solely by the market law of supply and demand. The value of labor is measured, mainly, by the standard of dignity conferred on those who perform it. The great challenge is to rescue human labor as an activity of humanization and social fraternity. Human life and the common good are more valuable than capital.