Internal doubts about Cohen's Rescue of Justice

G.A. Cohen's Rescuing Justice and Equality is the culmination of twenty years' work on Rawls's theory of justice. In this paper I distinguish three prongs of attack advanced by Cohen, and show how two of the prongs (the claim that egalitarianism includes productive demands and the claim that equality is best understood as 'luck egalitarianism') are incompatible.

Fetal testosterone influences sexually dimorphic gray matter in the human brain

In nonhuman species, testosterone is known to have permanent organizing effects early in life that predict later expression of sex differences in brain and behavior. However, in humans, it is still unknown whether such mechanisms have organizing effects on neural sexual dimorphism. In human males, we show that variation in fetal testosterone (FT) predicts later local gray matter volume of specific brain regions in a direction that is congruent with sexual dimorphism observed in a large independent sample of age-matched males and females from the NIH Pediatric MRI Data Repository. Right temporoparietal junction/posterior superior temporal sulcus (RTPJ/pSTS), planum temporale/parietal operculum (PT/PO), and posterior lateral orbitofrontal cortex (plOFC) had local gray matter volume that was both sexually dimorphic and predicted in a congruent direction by FT. That is, gray matter volume in RTPJ/pSTS was greater for males compared to females and was positively predicted by FT. Conversely, gray matter volume in PT/PO and plOFC was greater in females compared to males and was negatively predicted by FT. Subregions of both amygdala and hypothalamus were also sexually dimorphic in the direction of Male > Female, but were not predicted by FT. However, FT positively predicted gray matter volume of a non-sexually dimorphic subregion of the amygdala. These results bridge a long-standing gap between human and nonhuman species by showing that FT acts as an organizing mechanism for the development of regional sexual dimorphism in the human brain.

Fetal programming effects of testosterone on the reward system and behavioral approach tendencies in humans

BACKGROUND: Sex differences are present in many neuropsychiatric conditions that affect emotion and approach-avoidance behavior. One potential mechanism underlying such observations is testosterone in early development. Although much is known about the effects of testosterone in adolescence and adulthood, little is known in humans about how testosterone in fetal development influences later neural sensitivity to valenced facial cues and approach-avoidance behavioral tendencies. METHODS: With functional magnetic resonance imaging we scanned 25 8-11-year-old children while viewing happy, fear, neutral, or scrambled faces. Fetal testosterone (FT) was measured via amniotic fluid sampled between 13 and 20 weeks gestation. Behavioral approach-avoidance tendencies were measured via parental report on the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Rewards questionnaire. RESULTS: Increasing FT predicted enhanced selectivity for positive compared with negatively valenced facial cues in reward-related regions such as caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens but not the amygdala. Statistical mediation analyses showed that increasing FT predicts increased behavioral approach tendencies by biasing caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens but not amygdala to be more responsive to positive compared with negatively valenced cues. In contrast, FT was not predictive of behavioral avoidance tendencies, either through direct or neurally mediated paths. CONCLUSIONS: This work suggests that testosterone in humans acts as a fetal programming mechanism on the reward system and influences behavioral approach tendencies later in life. As a mechanism influencing atypical development, FT might be important across a range of neuropsychiatric conditions that asymmetrically affect the sexes, the reward system, emotion processing, and approach behavior.

A novel approach to national technological accumulation and absorptive capacity: aggregating Cohen and Levinthal

The paper develops a more precise specification and understanding of the process of national-level knowledge accumulation and absorptive capabilities by applying the reasoning and evidence from the firm-level analysis pioneered by Cohen and Levinthal (1989, 1990). In doing so, we acknowledge that significant cross-border effects due to the role of both inward and outward FDI exist and that assimilation of foreign knowledge is not only confined to catching-up economies but is also carried out by countries at the frontier-sharing phase. We postulate a non-linear relationship between national absorptive capacity and the technological gap, due to the effects of the cumulative nature of the learning process and the increase in complexity of external knowledge as the country approaches the technological frontier. We argue that national absorptive capacity and the accumulation of knowledge stock are simultaneously determined. This implies that different phases of technological development require different strategies. During the catching-up phase, knowledge accumulation occurs predominately through the absorption of trade and/or inward FDI-related R&D spillovers. At the pre-frontier-sharing phase onwards, increases in the knowledge base occur largely through independent knowledge creation and actively accessing foreign-located technological spillovers, inter alia through outward FDI-related R&D, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

The Operation of the Crichel Down Rules (Final Report to the DETR by The University of Reading and Gerald Eve)

Report for the DETR on the operation of the Crichel Down Rules (July 2000). The Crichel Down Rules are non-statutory rules relating to the offer back to the previous owners of surplus government land that was acquired from the previous owners by, or under the threat of, compulsory purchase.