Law, Politics and Financial Development: The Great Reversal of the U.K. Corporate Debt Market

This article examines the role of creditor protection in the development of the U.K. corporate bond market. This market grew rapidly in the late nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century it experienced a reversal, albeit with a short-lived post-1945 renaissance. Such was the extent of the reversal that the market from the 1970s onwards was smaller than it had been in 1870. We find that law does not explain the variation in the size of this market over time. Alternatively, our evidence suggests that inflation and taxation policies were major drivers of this market in the post-1945 era. Copyright © The Economic History Association 2013

Marie Sallé and the development of the ballet en action

Sallé's ballets en action are evaluated in terms of Enlightenment dramaturgical principles, and her role in shaping this aesthetic is mooted.

Marie Sallé, Handel, Rameau and the development of narrative dance music:Bericht vom Internationalen Symposium an der Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Leipzig

Paradigmatic analysis reveals that these two composers developed distinct responses to creating narrative in dance music

A Social–Ecological, Process-Oriented Perspective on Political Violence and Child Development

Youth's risk for adjustment problems amid political violence is well documented, but outcomes vary widely, with many children functioning well. Accordingly, researchers are seeking to identify the mechanisms and conditions that contribute to children's adjustment, with an interest in understanding effects on children in terms of changes in the social contexts in which they live and the psychological processes engaged by these social ecologies. In this article, we look at the importance of studying many levels of the social ecology and of differentiating the effects of exposure to contexts of political versus nonpolitical violence, and we address theories about explanatory processes. We review research pertinent to these themes, including a six-wave longitudinal study on political violence and children in Northern Ireland.

Causal knowledge and the development of inductive reasoning

We explored the development of sensitivity to causal relations in children’s inductive reasoning. Children (5-, 8-, and 12-year-olds) and adults were given trials in which they decided whether a property known to be possessed by members of one category was also possessed by members of (a) a taxonomically related category or (b) a causally related category. The direction of the causal link was either predictive (prey → predator) or diagnostic (predator → prey), and the property that participants reasoned about established either a taxonomic or causal context. There was a causal asymmetry effect across all age groups, with more causal choices when the causal link was predictive than when it was diagnostic. Furthermore, context-sensitive causal reasoning showed a curvilinear development, with causal choices being most frequent for 8-year-olds regardless of context. Causal inductions decreased thereafter because 12-year-olds and adults made more taxonomic choices when reasoning in the taxonomic context. These findings suggest that simple causal relations may often be the default knowledge structure in young children’s inductive reasoning, that sensitivity to causal direction is present early on, and that children over-generalize their causal knowledge when reasoning.

Slavery, Education, and Inequality

We investigate the effect of slavery on the current level of income inequality across US counties. We find that a larger proportion of slaves over population in 1860 persistently increases inequality, and in particular inequality across races. We also show that a crucial
channel of transmission from slavery to racial inequality is human capital accumulation, i.e., current inequality is primarily influenced by slavery through the unequal educational attainment of blacks and whites. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that the underlying links run through the political exclusion of former slaves and the resulting negative influence on the local provision of education.