Bruce Cater

The telegraph, co-ordination of tramp shipping, and growth in world trade, 1870–1910

The growth of trade after 1860 has been attributed to declining tariffs, to falling transport costs, and, recently, to monetary arrangements. However, coincident with the rise of trade the second half of the nineteenth century saw the development of the first electric communication network: the telegraph. The first successful trans-oceanic cable was operating in 1865. The telegraph remained the only direct trans-oceanic communication link until into the twentieth century. Little research has been conducted explicitly linking the impact of telegraphs on international shipping and international trade. A panel is used to show that there is a correlation between the diffusion of the telegraph, co-ordination of shipping, and the growth of world trade even controlling for the impact of other well-studied effects. The telegraph reduced the time ships spent in port and allowed ships to travel farther among ports to collect more valuable cargo.

Are there country size and middle‐income biases in the provision of EC multilateral foreign aid?

This article investigates whether the European Community (EC) multilateral aid allocation process is characterised by certain biases. Using EC multilateral aid to 87 developing countries over the ten-year period 1986–95, we find evidence that EC aid favours smaller countries as well as those covered under the Lome Convention. In addition, we find some support for the notion that EC aid discriminates in favour of richer developing countries. The study concludes, therefore, that the ECs multilateral aid distribution is highly politicised.

A theory of tenure-track contracts

This paper offers an explanation of the use of tenure‐track contracts in academia. It argues that, because the results of academic research cannot be sold, a professor’s profitability depends on the market value of the instruction he or she provides. But because that value depends directly on the extent of his or her observable research accomplishments, a profit‐maximizing university will dismiss a professor who fails to initially establish a strong research record, but will tolerate a professor who fails to augment a record that is already strong.

Employment, Wage, and Accommodation Patterns of Permanently Impaired Workers

This article offers an explanation of the postinjury employment, wage, and accommodation patterns of permanently impaired workers. In particular, it argues that the observed tendency of time‐ofaccident employers to rehire at the preinjury wage, accommodate, and then, perhaps, quickly terminate the impaired worker, is a manifestation of the workers preferred contract. That contract is characterized by wage inflexibility. By removing the opportunity for the postinjury employer to underreport productivity, this contract creates an incentive for the worker to attempt to functionally adapt to the impairment, thereby increasing expected lifetime utility.

A Tablet-Compatible Web-Interface for Mathematical Collaboration

Mathematical novices – including students in introductory mathematics and statistics service courses – increasingly need to engage in online mathematical collaboration. Using currently-available interfaces for their mobile and touch-enabled devices, however, this group faces difficulties, for those interfaces are text-based and not directly suitable for mathematical communication and collaboration.

Modeling Drought Option Contracts

We introduce a new financial weather derivative—a drought option contract—designed to protect agricultural producers from potential income loss due to agricultural drought. The contract is based on an index that reflects the severity of drought over a long period. By modeling temperature and precipitation, we price a hypothetical drought contract based on data from the Jinan climate station located in a dry region of China.

Mathematics Classroom Collaborator (MC2): Technology for Democratizing the Classroom

In any classroom, different groups of students may have unequal voices. This “lack of democracy” may be particularly problematic in STEM fields. To promote a more inclusive classroom, we developed and tested an online, real-time communication tool: the Mathematics Classroom Collaborator (\(MC^2\)). \(MC^2\) makes the entry of mathematics easy and intuitive, it includes an option for anonymity, and it works on a variety of platforms, including smart phones, tablets, and notebook computers. In this paper, we share our experience with employing \(MC^2\) in a statistics service course and an introductory probability course. We describe how this tool creates new communication models for the technologically-enhanced class — models that may help overcome social barriers to create a more inclusive environment, and that may lead to further democratization of learning, including increased participation by women and/or English-language learners. The results of an experiment to measure the effectiveness of \(MC^2\) compared to Microsoft Word Equation for novice users are also presented.

The impact of climate on the law of one price: A test using North American food prices from the 1920s

Using grocery price data for over 100 urban locations across the US and Canada from the 1920s, we show that deviations from the law of one price (LOP) were strongly related to climate differences. The effect of climate has a large impact on the elasticity of deviations from LOP with respect to distance, while having no impact on the border effect. We then test a counterfactual to show that the relationship between deviations from LOP and temperature does not hold when historical temperature data are replaced with contemporary. This is evidence that climate impacts production.

Manipulation of Mathematical Expressions in Collaborative Environments

Recent decades have seen phenomenal growth in the use of communication and collaborative technologies in many academic disciplines. There has, however, been little adoption of tools for online collaboration in post-secondary mathematics education. In this paper, we argue both that this may be due to limitations of mathematical interfaces and that the adoption of collaborative tools may provide significant pedagogical benefits. To date, mathematical user-interface research has focused primarily on mathematical expression input, and mostly from a perceptive of document creation or computer algebra system use by expert users. Little work has been done on the specific needs of novice users, including students, and even less work has considered the manipulation of mathematical expressions. In this paper, we outline some user-interface challenges of current input systems with respect to entry and manipulation of mathematical expressions by novice users, and we introduce a model that makes entry and manipulation easier for those users.

The Evidentiary Value of Big Data Analysis

Big data is transforming the way governments provide security to, and justice for, their citizens. But it also has the potential to increase surveillance and government power. Indeed, information gathered from license plate recognition, mobile phone usage, biometric matches of DNA, facial recognition, financial transactions, and internet search history is increasingly allowing government agencies to search and cross-reference. The opportunity for big data searches then raises the question: what is the probative value of the information that results? The scientific method begins with the development of a hypothesis that is then tested against data that will either support or refute the hypothesis. That method is essentially followed in a conventional criminal investigation in which, after a suspect is first identified, evidence is gathered to either build a case against, or rule out, that suspect. The analysis of big data, by contrast, may at times be more akin to trawling for data first, only to subsequently define a hypothesis. In this paper, we investigate the conditions in which this approach may lead to problematic outcomes, including higher rates of false positives. We then sketch a big data analysis legal/policy framework that may address these problems.