The Efficient Market Hypothesis supposes that prices in financial markets always exhibit the true value of a share. In this framework the occurrence of irrational bubbles is impossible. This paper examines the validity of the Efficient Market Hypothesis by analysing the behaviour of stock prices over a time period of over 140 years. It tests the significance of the determinants of stock prices under the Efficient Market Hypothesis, such as dividends, and analyses the phenomenon of price-to-price feedbacks in form of irrational bubbles.

We tested for the significance of the ‘usual determinants’ of stock prices, such as dividends, by running OLS, Newey-West and rolling regressions. Furthermore, by the implementation of Dickey-Fuller and GLS tests, we tested for price-to-price feedbacks and irrational price bubbles in form of unit roots in stock prices. Additionally, we ran rolling regressions on known bubbles, such as the 2008 financial crisis, in order to empirically back-up our analysis and investigate the mechanism of bubbles. All variables were inflation-corrected.

The results from this analysis show that stock prices do not seem to be driven by the ‘usual determinants’, such as dividends or long-run developments of key economic variables. Instead, stock prices exhibit positive unit roots giving rise to price-to-price feedbacks in form of explosive bubbles, which is not justified by any rational investor framework. The analysis of known bubbles, such as the 2008 financial crisis, provides further evidence for this finding. These results are robust against non-stationarity and serial correlation and broadly reject the Efficient Market Hypothesis.

This paper provides insight into New York City Real Estate, specifically in Chinatown and of the neighborhood’s faltering fate in a burgeoning global city. Ever since 9/11 and the financial crisis, skyrocketing rents and development prospects have been creating increasing pressure on the ethnic enclave of Chinatown. As a vital component of, as well as a key player, the Hotel Industry has arguably played its role of meeting demand for foreigners, businessman, tourists and the overall economic growth that the community needed after the fall of Chinatown’s garment industry. Further expectations give credit to modernizing the neighborhood and making it attractive as it encompasses an historically rooted immigrant culture that is subject to increasing tourist fervor. But even with such relatively low costs and benefits to the broader NYC area, the commercial and residential are being blown out from opposing real estate interests as vacant storefronts, underdeveloped sites and massive developmental and residential projects by private developers seize the area along East Broadway and beyond while pushing immigrants and mom-and-pop stores out of their homes and local businesses. If this continues, the spirit of a diverse and tightly-knit community will be devastated. Further research must be done to foresee possible itineraries and future recommendations to ease tensions amongst real estate interests that have evidently surpassed community interests in the past few years.

We revisit the original model of Evolutionary Dynamics on Graphs presented by Lieberman et al. 2005 (Nature 433:, 312-316). We assume individual live in a structured population and can interact with their neighbors. We introduce a more realistic model for pairwise interactions. Our new model provides more insight into how the individuals' payoffs are calculated. We are then able to use the payoffs to derive formulas for the probability of a new type of individual fixating in the population.

Private property rights constitute the foundation of capitalism. My research explores the philosophical status of these rights. Our first question is this: under what conditions, if any, is it justifiable to transform unowned worldly resources into private property? Such questions have contemporary relevance, as arguably one’s claim to property is only as good as the previous owner’s claim, and so on until the initial acquirer’s claim. Right-Libertarians including Jan Narveson (2002) think that the appropriation of resources is always just. If you merely use unowned resources, you own them. I argue that such theories all rely on an unacceptable principle. This motivates a defence of an egalitarian theory similar to Otsuka’s (2003), which states that to become the owner of unowned resources, one must observe a certain egalitarian condition. This condition seems to have far-reaching consequences. Such egalitarian theories are in tension with ‘liberal’ theories of private property rights. Liberal rights can be bequeathed, precluding all forms of equality in appropriation. I explore a second question to reconcile the tension: what should the content of private property rights be? I argue, against liberal theories, that the rights to bequeath, gift, destroy and gain an income from property cannot be defended as default rights of ownership. For they clash with the egalitarian conditions one must meet to justly acquire property. This leads to a more ‘social’ conception of private property. These justificatory problems thus challenge liberal capitalism.

In examining the Polish Secret Police’s (SB’s) development after Stalin’s death from a rational choice perspective, this paper questions the prevalent claim found in historical analyses that it changed its practices due to pressure stemming from the party. Instead, it will be argued that these changes were in the best interest of the SB leadership itself. This argument is based on evidence drawn from papers and original documents provided by the Polish Institute for National Remembrance, which stores and examines the SB’s original documents.

During Stalinism, the SB leadership justified its sweeping power on its ability to deter enemies by (a) employing brutal officers and (b) spreading distrust through a massive network of civilian collaborators. The quality of the information provided by these collaborators was mediocre since they were forced into collaboration. However, this was of limited importance since the SB merely needed to uphold an image of omnipotence to seem crucial to the regime’s stability, no matter whether it actually possessed insightful information.

Repeated exposure to a neutral stimulus paired with an aversive event, such as an electric shock, causes formation of a fear memory. When the fearful stimulus is later repeatedly presented without the aversive event, extinction of the fear memory will occur in a context-dependent manner (Maren, et al., 2013)._x000D_

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients have been found to have heightened fear response following extinction when extinction occurs in a different context than acquisition (Garfinkel,, et al., 2014; Milad, et al., 2005). This disruption in context-dependent extinction is likely attributed to abnormal hippocampal (responsible for context and spatial processing) volume and functioning (Pitman, et al., 2012). A glucocorticoid antagonist (metyrapone) inhibits cortisol synthesis at mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) and glucocorticoid receptors (GR). MRs are known to be highly concentrated in the hippocampus (De Kloet, et al, 2000), and thus, metyrapone may disrupt normal hippocampal functioning. It is hypothesized that metyrapone administration will lead to diminished context-dependent extinction learning, mirroring results found in PTSD patients. _x000D_

The current study evaluates the effects of fear modulation by cortisol suppression in a context-dependent manner. Healthy adult males undergo fear conditioning and subsequent extinction using the Garfinkel, et al. (2014) paradigm. We replicated the results of this paradigm in healthy control subjects in a pilot study, to ensure the efficacy of the paradigm. Following cortisol suppression prior to consolidation of extinction learning, fear memory is evaluated by skin conductance (SCR) and pupil dilation. Results to be presented are pilot and preliminary SCR and eye tracking data.

In Book II of The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides uses the speeches of Archidamos and Pericles to indirectly show the character of the Athenians and Spartans and the clash of these two supreme Greek polities. He uses the laconic, mission-oriented speech of Archidamos to characterize the Spartans as a more ascetic people whose cultural focus is on their military exploits and accomplishments. Conversely, Thucydides reveals the Athenians to be somewhat arrogant, fickle in their political affiliations, and fond of using grandiloquent vocabulary and rhetoric. Thucydides demonstrates this by his vocabulary selections for Archidamos and Pericles, as well as by the length and frequency of their speeches. He also does this by the content of their particular speeches, in which Archidamos focuses on the present battle, while Pericles speaks about the glory of Athens. In doing so, Thucydides also serves to highlight the prevailing inclinations of both the Spartans and Athenians with regard to their military tactics. The Athenians are presented as a dominant naval power, while the Spartans are a terrestrial military power._x000D_

Thucydides uses these two men as the archetypes for their peoples’ characters because these are the leaders of their respective city states. Furthermore, by using these two he creates a comparison between Athenian democracy and Sparta’s king. This comparison actually seems to favor the Spartan form of government, even though Thucydides was an Athenian commander during the war.

The Algerian War (1954-1962) was among the first to be properly televised and broadcast to the world, as news ‘bulletins’ about the conflict began to be featured on French television from the mid-1950s. These televised news reports grew in sophistication and ultimately replaced cinematic newsreels, foreshadowing the dramatic ‘televisation’ of Vietnam during the 1960s. Through an examination of these televised news bulletins – which I consulted freely at the website of France’s National Audiovisual Institute – my research sought to understand the extent to which – if at all – televised news was able to challenge the dominant, state narrative of France’s ‘civilising’ role in Algeria.

Pervasive state censorship, however, made this practically impossible. Indeed, the government monitored televised news reports as intensely as newsreels, particularly regarding Algeria. Consequently, unsavoury aspects of the War, including the widespread use of torture by the French army, were almost entirely absent from French television screens during the 1950s and early 1960s, contributing to a general silence surrounding the more difficult elements of the conflict.

Along with state-approved newsreels and posters, therefore, televised news reports about Algeria became another form of state propaganda, albeit a more advanced and subtle one (and thus arguably more insidious too). France’s presence in the country was consistently justified as part of a wider ‘civilising mission’, conforming to more than half a century of French colonial imagery and rhetoric.