This book provides a methodological perspective on understanding the essential roles of econometric models in the theory and practice. Offering a comprehensive and comparative exposition of the accounts of models in both econometrics and philosophy of science, this work shows how econometrics and philosophy of science are interconnected while exploring the methodological insight of econometric modelling that can be added to modern philosophical thought. The notion of structure is thoroughly discussed throughout the book. The studies of the consumption function of Trygve Haavelmo, Richard Stone, Milton Friedman, David Hendry and Robert Lucas are taken as the case studies to investigate their methodological implications of model and structure. In addition to the semantic view of the scientific theories, various philosophical accounts concerning scientific models are used to shed light on the methodological nature of these consumption studies in economics. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of methodology of economics and econometrics as well as anyone interested in the philosophy of science in an economic context.

This book provides a methodological perspective on understanding the essential roles of econometric models in the theory and practice. Offering a comprehensive and comparative exposition of the accounts of models in both econometrics and philosophy of science, this work shows how econometrics and philosophy of science are interconnected while exploring the methodological insight of econometric modelling that can be added to modern philosophical thought. The notion of structure is thoroughly discussed throughout the book. The studies of the consumption function of Trygve Haavelmo, Richard Stone, Milton Friedman, David Hendry and Robert Lucas are taken as the case studies to investigate their methodological implications of model and structure. In addition to the semantic view of the scientific theories, various philosophical accounts concerning scientific models are used to shed light on the methodological nature of these consumption studies in economics. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of methodology of economics and econometrics as well as anyone interested in the philosophy of science in an economic context.

Cinema articulates the economic anxieties of each generation of filmmakers and audiences. It has an influence on people’s views on various economic issues and many orders of magnitude larger than that of economics as a discipline. This book offers a sweeping study of the representation of economics in cinema across a wide range of areas and genres, from the conflicts over resources in the lawless Old West to the post-scarcity societies of science fiction futures. This book studies how films have portrayed trade unions, scarcity, money, businesses, innovators, migrant workers, working women, globalization, the stock market, and the automation of work. It aims to be useful to those who are interested in cinema with economic themes and to those who want to learn about economics through cinema.

The Strain of Representation assesses and explains the extent to which political parties across Europe as a whole have succeeded in representing diverse voters. The authors note two important features of the European political landscape that complicate the task of assessing party representation and that require its reassessment: First, the emergence of new democracies in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe point to the possibility that representation is not only differentially achieved in West and East but may also be attained by different mechanisms. Second, parties in both West and East must now seek to represent voters that are increasingly diverse, specifically between partisan and independent supporters. The book refers to the challenges of representation of diverse voters as 'the strain of representation'. The evidential basis for the empirical analysis are expert surveys conducted in 24 European countries on party positions that have been merged with other available data on voters, party characteristics, and country conditions. The results point to both the representational capacities of parties in West and East and to the strain that parties face in representing diverse voters.

This book analyzes the link between economic and political inequalities and investigates the mechanisms that lead to economically rooted inequalities in the political representation of citizens’ policy preferences. Focusing on the case of Switzerland and evaluating data from the post-electoral survey, Selects 2007, the author demonstrates that the policy preferences of members of the Federal Assembly best reflect those of rich citizens. This pattern is explained by differential levels of political participation and knowledge across income groups, party finance, the fact that representatives tend to come from higher economic strata, and the failure of the party-system structure to reflect the complexity of policy preferences among citizens.

Collection of selected, peer reviewed papers from the 2013 2nd International Conference on Civil, Architectural and Hydraulic Engineering (ICCAHE 2013), July 27-28, 2013, Zhuhai, China. Volume is indexed by Thomson Reuters CPCI-S (WoS). The 324 papers are grouped as follows: Chapter 1: Sustainable City and Regional Development; Chapter 2: Environmental Engineering and Environmental Protection; Chapter 3: Architectural Design and Its Theory; Chapter 4: Renewable Energy, Low Carbon, Energy Saving in Building and Research of Urban Living Environment; Chapter 5: Landscape Planning and Design; Chapter 6: Urban Planning and Design; Chapter 7: Transportation Planning, Traffic Control and Logistics Engineering; Chapter 8: Transportation Machinery; Chapter 9: Engineering Management and Engineering Education; Chapter 10: Computer Applications and Information Technologies.

Chemistry seeks to provide qualitative and quantitative explanations for the observed behaviour of elements and their compounds. Doing so involves making use of three types of representation: the macro (the empirical properties of substances); the sub-micro (the natures of the entities giving rise to those properties); and the symbolic (the number of entities involved in any changes that take place). Although understanding this triplet relationship is a key aspect of chemical education, there is considerable evidence that students find great difficulty in achieving mastery of the ideas involved. In bringing together the work of leading chemistry educators who are researching the triplet relationship at the secondary and university levels, the book discusses the learning involved, the problems that students encounter, and successful approaches to teaching. Based on the reported research, the editors argue for a coherent model for understanding the triplet relationship in chemical education.