Naive realism and the scientific narration of perception

Naive realism is a widely debated topic in the philosophy of the mind. In this article I will review the theses of naive realism through the works of one of the most influential philosophers who supported and developed them, Michael Martin. Once the reasons why naive realism should be supported are discussed, I will propose an empirical argument to show that naive realism and the most basic scientific knowledge of perceptive processes are contradictory

Chinese Americans and the Borderland Experience on Golden Mountain: The Development of a Chinese American Identity in the Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston tells the story of her immigrant family and their efforts to rise above their working-class status in America, which optimistic Chinese regard as the Golden Mountain. The Hongs\u27 experience is not unlike that of other immigrants who come to America to escape hardship in their homeland and hope to live the American Dream. The road to American success has numerous obstacles, and immigrants encounter many conflicts on their journey. One conflict relates to their cultural identities. Gloria Anzaldúa uses the word borderland to refer to the meeting of two cultures, and she defines the borderland as a place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape (n.p.). While Anzaldua\u27s discussion focuses on the borderland encountered by Mexican Americans, she believes that many share this painful experience

Small Asian Wonders

As curiosity grew in the Renaissance, so did the scope of collections of wonders. The Cricket Cage, Jade Screen, and Iron Dragon are three examples of rare collection items from the Far East. While these three east Asian small wonders may have been commonplace in their country of origin, they were considered marvelous to the collectors of Europe who had never seen objects such as these produced in their own countries. [excerpt

Product Market Competition, R&D Effort and Economic Growth

Empirical evidence has recently pointed to the lack of any relationship between R&D intensity (variously defined and measured) and economic growth in the post-war period in the United States and other OECD countries. Using a framework that integrates human capital accumulation and purposive (horizontal) innovation activity, this paper looks at product market competition as a possible solution to this puzzle. Indeed, we find that changes in product market competition may well have no influence on human capital investment (the growth engine), while affecting R&D effort.Endogenous Growth; R&D Investment; Human Capital Accumulation; Product Market Competition

Market Power, Human Capital and Growth

In this paper we study the economic determinants of the inter-sectoral distribution of skilled workers and the long-run consequences of imperfect competition on growth within an R&D-based growth model with human capital accumulation. We find that steady-state growth is driven only by incentives to accumulate human capital and is independent of scale effects. In the model imperfect competition has a positive growth effect, while influencing the allocation of human capital to the diferent economic activities. Contrary to general wisdom, high R&D investment is not always associated with high output growth.Endogenous Growth;Human Capital;R&D

Market Power and Growth in a Schumpeterian Framework of Innovation

Can market power really be considered as "the price" that a society as a whole is called to pay in order to have a more dynamically efficient economic system? The schumpeterian answer to this question would be certainly positive, the monopoly power being seen as the reward accruing to the successful innovator from his/her innovative activity. However, the idea to consider the existence of any possible positive linkage among market power, innovation and growth is not unambiguously present in the so-called deterministic, neo-schumpeterian, R&D-based growth models. On the basis of such very general considerations, in this paper we build two different models, sharing the same theoretical framework suggested by P. Romer (1990). What results from the analysis is that in the more familiar models of innovation and economic development, the relationship between some measure of market power and aggregate growth rate is not robust at all, depending on variables such as the kind of inputs each industry employs in order to obtain its own output and the way in which these inputs are combined. This is particularly relevant in terms of public policies towards the intermediate monopolies, suggesting the necessity for a growth-maximising regulator to assess case-by-case the type of his/her intervention.Monopoly Power; Technological Change; Economic Growth; Antitrust Policy

Taxes and Financial Reporting: Evidence from Discretionary Investment Write-Offs in Italy

This paper provides further empirical evidence on the relationship between taxes and financial reporting by focusing on accounting decisions to write-offs equity investments. The analysis is based on panel data for Italian companies. In the period 1998-2006 the Italian corporate income tax has been reformed several times. In particular the tax deductibility of write-offs of equity investment was repealed in 2004. The paper exploits the ensuing high cross-sectional and times series variation in the marginal tax rate to identify tax effects. The econometric analysis delivers strong evidence that taxes affect the probability of write-offs. In contrast there is no evidence that taxes affect the magnitude of the write-offs. The paper also tests for the existence of a trade-off between tax minimization and non tax costs such as financial reporting costs and agency costs. Surprisingly, the evidence of such trade-off is rather weak.corporate taxation, write-offs of equity investments, financial reporting, tax planning