The criteria for design and construction of a single family dwelling in a tropical oceanside environment will be investigated. Tropical vernacular architecture will be studied. Concepts established will be integrated in a modern architectural language, preserving the time tested truths of the local architecture. The position of tropical vernacular architecture and contraposition of modern architecture will then be synthesized into a single family tropical dwelling based on established criteria. / Master of Architecture

We propose a new evolutionary approach to model technological change based on an extension of replicator dynamics with recombination and mutation. It gives rise to interactive innovation-selection dynamics. The model allows studying the combined effects of selection and variety generation on evolutionary-economic change. The developed framework describes a population of boundedly rational entrepreneurs who decide each period on the allocation of investments in different production technologies. They tend to invest in belowaverage cost technologies, just as under replicator dynamics. In addition, they spend a constant fraction of investments, captured by mutation and recombination rates, on alternative technologies and research on recombinant innovation. As opposed to most previous studies, mutation and recombination are here conceptual variables with a concrete behavioral interpretation, namely describing the decision rules (heuristics) of investors. We compare the dynamics of shares of investments in various technologies for three cases: with constant costs of capital, with costs decreasing steadily and exogenously over time, and with costs depending on the level of cumulative investments. For each model version, we examine under which conditions the coexistence of technological options is feasible and optimal in terms of minimising the average cost of investments.(authors' abstract)

The subjunctive mood in the poems of Emily Dickinson was from the outset a source of confusion to editors and readers. The first editors thought that these forms, in particular the third person singular verbs which omit the s inflection, were incorrect usages. These editors often ''corrected" them by adding the missing inflection. Later, more scholarly critics recognized and labelled them as forms of the subjunctive mood. Since 1955 Thomas Johnson and some other contemporary critics have suggested that they are not true subjunctives but forms of a "universal present indicative." It is now known that the chief influences on Emily Dickinson's poetic style were from Elizabethan literature, written in a language rich in subjunctives and the other archaisms which characterize her poetry. There is little or no correspondence in the appearance of subjunctive forms in the letters and in the poems. The subjunctives were almost entirely poetic devices. The subjunctive forms in poems appear in many different syntactic and semantic contexts. Therefore, one explanation of these forms is not satisfactory, although the Johnson interpretation may apply to a few poems. In 1863 Emily Dickinson used them in an average of one in every three poems, a frequency twice as high as the average. Furthermore, that frequency built up to the year 1863 and gradually declined thereafter. She apparently chose the subjunctives deliberately and they became a characteristic of her finest work. / Master of Arts

Based on Ian Steedman's seminal contribution "Consumption Takes Time", we propose a formal activity-based model for consumer behaviour. The model simultaneously incorporates choices over consumption time, as well as quantities and qualities of products consumed. We identify and examine preconditions for satiation with products and draw implications for economic policy. Satiation with products explains the limited effects of price or income changes on demand and questions the pertinence of economic growth for development. It further highlights the relevance of working time reductions for well-being. (authors' abstract)

This article contributes to the field of evolutionary macroeconomics by highlighting the dynamic interlinkages between micro-meso-macro with a Veblenian meso foundation in an agent-based macroeconomic model. Consumption is dependent on endogenously changing social class and signaling, such as bandwagon, Veblen and snob effects. In particular, we test the macroeconomic effects of this meso foundation in a generic agent-based model of a closed artificial economy. The model is stock-flow consistent and builds upon local decision heuristics of heterogeneous agents characterized by bounded rationality and satisficing behavior. These agents include a multitude of households (workers and capitalists), firms, banks as well as a capital goods firm, a government and a central bank. Simulation experiments indicate coevolutionary dynamics between signaling-by-consuming and firm specialization that eventually effect employment and consumer prices, as well as other macroeconomic aggregates.

Climate policy has been mainly studied with economic models that assume representative, rational agents. However, it aims at changing behavior associated with carbon-intensive goods that are often subject to bounded rationality and social preferences, such as status and imitation. Here we use a macroeconomic multi-agent model with such features to test the effect of various policies on both environmental and economic performance. The model is particularly suitable to address distributional impacts of climate policies, not only because populations of many agents are included, but also as these are composed of different classes of households driven by specific motivations. We simulate various policy scenarios, combining in different ways a carbon tax, a reduction of labor taxes, subsidies for green innovation, a price subsidy to consumers for less carbon-intensive products, and green government procurement. The results show pronounced differences with those obtained by rational-agent model studies. It turns out that demand-oriented subsidies lead to lower unemployment and higher output, but perform less well in terms of carbon emissions. The supply-oriented subsidy for green innovation results in a significant reduction of carbon emissions with a slight reduction of unemployment. / Series: WWWforEurope

Boom and bust cycles are widely documented in the literature on industry dynamics. Rigidities and delays in capacity adjustment in combination with bounded rational behavior have been identified as central driving forces. We construct a model that features only these two elements and we show that this is indeed sufficient to reproduce some stylized facts of a boom and bust cycle. The bifurcation diagrams summarizing the dynamic behavior reveal complex cycles and in particular also abrupt changes in the nature of these cycles. We apply new insights from the mathematical theory of piecewise smooth dynamic systems - in particular, results from the theory of border collision bifurcations - and show that the very existence of borders such as capacity constraints or nonnegativity constraints may lie behind abrupt changes in the dynamic behavior of economic variables. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The complexity of credit-money is conceived as the central issue in the banking-macro nexus, which the author considers as a structural as well as process component of the evolving economy. This nexus is significant for the stability as well as the fragility of the economic system, because it connects the monetary with the real domain of economic production and consumption. The evolution of credit rules shapes economic networks between households, firms, banks, governments and central banks in space and time. The properties and characteristics of this evolutionary process are discussed in three sections. First, the author looks into the origins of the theory of money and its role for contemporary monetary economics. Second, he briefly discusses current theoretical foundations of top-down as well as bottom-up approaches to the banking-macro nexus, such as dynamic stochastic general equilibrium and agent-based models. In the third part he suggests an evolutionary framework, building on a generic rule-based approach, to arrive at standards for bottom-up foundations in agent-based macroeconomic models with a banking sector. (author's abstract)

Esta dissertação de mestrado consiste de uma resenha crítica da teoria econômica da educação no que se refere à análise de sistemas educativos, e de um estudo empírico do desempenho do sistema educativo brasileiro, com ênfase em indicadores de iniqüidade. Procura-se apresentar a evolução e o estado atual do debate relacionados aos seguintes assuntos: demanda por educação, oferta de educação (insumos monetários e não-monetários), arranjo institucional do sistema educativo, arranjo institucional sócio-econômico (em que se insere o sistema educativo), e os produtos do sistema educativo. Por fim, por meio da análise estatística de uma base de dados internacional (PISA 2000), apresenta-se um estudo empírico que visa a avaliar o desempenho do sistema educativo brasileiro, especialmente seu grau de iniqüidade. / This MA dissertation thesis consists of a critical survey of the economics of education literature concerning educational system analysis, and of a study of the performance of the Brazilian educational system, with an emphasis in equity measurement. I discuss the evolution and the current state of the debate on the following subjects: demand for education, supply of education (monetary and non-monetary inputs), educational system institutional framework, socio-economic institutional framework (in which the educational system is imbedded), and the output of the educational system. Finally, by means of a statistical analysis of an international database (PISA 2000), I present an empirical study aiming at assessing the Brazilian educational system performance, especially its degree of inequity.

Esta dissertação de mestrado consiste de uma resenha crítica da teoria econômica da educação no que se refere à análise de sistemas educativos, e de um estudo empírico do desempenho do sistema educativo brasileiro, com ênfase em indicadores de iniqüidade. Procura-se apresentar a evolução e o estado atual do debate relacionados aos seguintes assuntos: demanda por educação, oferta de educação (insumos monetários e não-monetários), arranjo institucional do sistema educativo, arranjo institucional sócio-econômico (em que se insere o sistema educativo), e os produtos do sistema educativo. Por fim, por meio da análise estatística de uma base de dados internacional (PISA 2000), apresenta-se um estudo empírico que visa a avaliar o desempenho do sistema educativo brasileiro, especialmente seu grau de iniqüidade. / This MA dissertation thesis consists of a critical survey of the economics of education literature concerning educational system analysis, and of a study of the performance of the Brazilian educational system, with an emphasis in equity measurement. I discuss the evolution and the current state of the debate on the following subjects: demand for education, supply of education (monetary and non-monetary inputs), educational system institutional framework, socio-economic institutional framework (in which the educational system is imbedded), and the output of the educational system. Finally, by means of a statistical analysis of an international database (PISA 2000), I present an empirical study aiming at assessing the Brazilian educational system performance, especially its degree of inequity.