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Kalunga Crossings: Waterscapes Of Terror And "Teachment" In The African Atlantic World, Dianne M. Stewart, Tracey E. Hucks, Solimar Otero Dec 2025

Kalunga Crossings: Waterscapes Of Terror And "Teachment" In The African Atlantic World, Dianne M. Stewart, Tracey E. Hucks, Solimar Otero

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In this article, we think alongside historian of religions Charles H. Long to analyze the relationship between water and empire, explore theoretical approaches to water and modernity, and probe the significance of water in Africana ecologies and spiritual cultures, highlighting its suggestive contributions to restorative epistemologies of ecological co-habitation. Our investigation advances an Africana religious framework of “waterscapes of terror and ‘teachment’” that centers diaspora bodies of water as loci for analyzing history, materiality, and ecological regard. Teachment is an anti-colonial linguistic irruption, an all-encompassing term for Africana pedagogies and epistemologies that defy antiblack and anti-African colonial instruction. Examining how …

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Byzantine Theories Of Scale And Arab-Byzantine Chant Practices: A Comparative Analysis Proposing A New Resolution To The Theoretical System Of Chrysanthos Of Madytos, Rosy Azar Dec 2025

Byzantine Theories Of Scale And Arab-Byzantine Chant Practices: A Comparative Analysis Proposing A New Resolution To The Theoretical System Of Chrysanthos Of Madytos, Rosy Azar

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In 2015, Amine Beyhom published a book on Byzantine chant, in which he summarised all the existing theories, paying particular attention to the problematic reform of the Byzantine chant theory in 1881, and guiding the reader through the steps that led to that reform. Driven by the first ever comparison between Byzantine and Arabic modes that he had found in Mīkhāʾīl Mashāqa’s epistle, Beyhom first studied Chrysanthos of Madytos’ insight. He documented this research in detail and followed it with a practical comparison to demonstrate if theory is indeed applied or it acts only as prescriptive guide. He recorded and …

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Olivier Messiaen’S "Première Communion De La Vierge" And The Translation Of Religious Meaning, Robert Sholl, Jean-Rodolphe Kars Dec 2025

Olivier Messiaen’S "Première Communion De La Vierge" And The Translation Of Religious Meaning, Robert Sholl, Jean-Rodolphe Kars

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This study creates a rich exegesis of “Première Communion de la Vierge” from Olivier Messiaen’s (1908–1992) piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (1944) to show how Messiaen attempted to translate musical symbolism into religious meaning. The first two sections provide background and context on the work, revise previous scholarship, and show how this piece (no XI) functions as a theological hinge in the cycle. The genesis and sources of the Vingt Regards, using previously unavailable archival material, are examined to provide new insight into both the cycle and the “Première Communion.” The aesthetic scaffolding of this piece is then …

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Replacement And Reputation, Navin Kartik, Elliot Lipnowski, Harry Pei Dec 2025

Replacement And Reputation, Navin Kartik, Elliot Lipnowski, Harry Pei

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Does electoral replacement ensure that officeholders eventually act in voters’ interests? We study a reputational model of accountability. Voters observe incumbents’ performance and decide whether to replace them. Politicians may be “good” types who always exert effort or opportunists who may shirk. We find that good long-run outcomes are always attainable, though the mechanism and its robustness depend on economic conditions. In environments conducive to incentive provision, some equilibria feature sustained effort, yet others exhibit some long-run shirking. In the complementary case, opportunists are never fully disciplined, but selection dominates: every equilibrium eventually settles on a good politician, yielding permanent …

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Gender Gaps And Economic Growth: Why Haven't Women Won Globally (Yet)?, Patrick Agte, Orazio Attanasio, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Charles Gottlieb, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, Rohini Pande, Michael Peters, Charity Troyer Moore, Fabrizio Zilibotti Dec 2025

Gender Gaps And Economic Growth: Why Haven't Women Won Globally (Yet)?, Patrick Agte, Orazio Attanasio, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Charles Gottlieb, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, Rohini Pande, Michael Peters, Charity Troyer Moore, Fabrizio Zilibotti

Discussion Papers

Globally women’s labor force participation lags that of men and women, on average, have lower labor market earnings than men. Does economic growth reduce gender disparities in labor market outcomes between women and men? Conversely, do gender inequalities in the labor market impede growth? To inform these questions, we conduct two analyses. First, we estimate regressions using harmonized data on gender gaps in a range of labor market outcomes from 153 countries spanning two decades (1998-2018). Second, we conduct a systematic review of the recent economics literature on gender gaps in labor markets, examining 16 journals over 21 years. Our …

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Procurement Without Priors: A Simple Mechanism And Its Notable Performance, Dirk Bergemann, Tibor Heumann, Stephen Morris Dec 2025

Procurement Without Priors: A Simple Mechanism And Its Notable Performance, Dirk Bergemann, Tibor Heumann, Stephen Morris

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

How should a buyer design procurement mechanisms when suppliers’ costs are unknown, and the buyer does not have a prior belief? We demonstrate that notably simple mechanisms—those that share a constant fraction of the buyer utility with the seller—allow the buyer to realize a guaranteed positive fraction of the efficient social surplus across all possible costs. Moreover, a judicious choice of the share based on the known demand maximizes the surplus ratio guarantee that can be attained across all possible (arbitrarily complex and nonlinear) mechanisms and cost functions. Results apply to related nonlinear pricing and optimal regulation problems.

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Enrolled Deeds As Records And Archives In Jamaica, Andrew Williams Dec 2025

Enrolled Deeds As Records And Archives In Jamaica, Andrew Williams

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper examines the history of the enrolled deeds record series in Jamaica, from its creation in the mid-seventeenth century through to the present day. It is a critical examination of a single record series through colonialism and independence. It examines the purpose of deeds and the context in which deeds registries were created before examining the history of the series through the periods of slavery and emancipation. It examines in close detail the late nineteenth century, when the Island Record Office—which has custody of the enrolled deeds—was created and several other important changes happened. It situates the enrolled deeds …

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Enhancing Archives And Records Management In Low-Resourced Organizations Through Experiential Learning, Jinfang Niu Dec 2025

Enhancing Archives And Records Management In Low-Resourced Organizations Through Experiential Learning, Jinfang Niu

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Master’s students in Archives and Records Management could help low-resourced organizations address their Archives and Records Management needs while gaining practical experience. Archives and Records Management education programs could facilitate this mutually beneficial relationship by offering internships and service-learning courses. This paper analyzes the strengths and limitations of these two experiential learning mechanisms and discusses solutions to overcome the limitations. It argues that service-learning is especially suitable for addressing the Archives and Records Management needs of low-resourced organizations and proposes a service-learning model for that purpose.

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Student-Designed Archival Pedagogy: A Workshop-As-Research Approach To Pluralizing Community Archives Education, Magdalena Wiśniewska-Drewniak Dec 2025

Student-Designed Archival Pedagogy: A Workshop-As-Research Approach To Pluralizing Community Archives Education, Magdalena Wiśniewska-Drewniak

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Community archives are becoming an increasingly important component of the heritage landscape, as well as an observable part of university archival education. This article is part of a research project titled “Teaching about Community Archives in the US and Poland--A Comparative Study” conducted by the author between March and May 2024. Using the student-centered learning approach, the article analyzes a workshop conducted with US-based students on the design of university courses on community archives. The designs included course audience, learning outcomes, course content, grading methods, and possible challenges. The article identifies four groups of learning outcomes (directions of community archives …

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Archival Notations Of The Norwegian Charter Material, Juliane Tiemann Dec 2025

Archival Notations Of The Norwegian Charter Material, Juliane Tiemann

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper explores archival notations, primarily from the early modern and modern periods, found on the dorse of Norwegian charters dating from the 13th to the 17th century. By examining the notation practices of two prominent Norwegian archivists and collectors, the study further highlights individual efforts in documenting and preserving these materials across various collections. The archival efforts are contextualized historically, noting a transition to systematic archival management. The findings reveal the significance of this largely unexplored component of Norwegian charters as additional historical sources, emphasizing the role of dorsal annotations in provenance research. The textual and visual analysis of …

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Data-Driven Mechanism Design: Jointly Eliciting Preferences And Information, Dirk Bergemann, Marek Bojko, Paul Dutting, Renato Paes Leme, Haifeng Xu, Song Zuo Dec 2025

Data-Driven Mechanism Design: Jointly Eliciting Preferences And Information, Dirk Bergemann, Marek Bojko, Paul Dutting, Renato Paes Leme, Haifeng Xu, Song Zuo

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study mechanism design in environments where agents have private preferences and private information about a common payoff-relevant state. In such settings with multi-dimensional types, standard mechanisms fail to implement efficient allocations. We address this limitation by proposing data-driven mechanisms that condition transfers on additional post-allocation information, modeled as an estimator of the payoff-relevant state. Our mechanisms extend the classic Vickrey–Clarke–Groves framework. We show they achieve exact implementation in posterior equilibrium when the state is fully revealed or utilities are affine in an unbiased estimator. With a consistent estimator, they achieve approximate implementation that converges to exact implementation as the …

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Multidimensional Sorting: Comparative Statics, Joe Boerma, Andrea Ottolini, Aleh Tsyvinski Dec 2025

Multidimensional Sorting: Comparative Statics, Joe Boerma, Andrea Ottolini, Aleh Tsyvinski

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

In sorting literature, comparative statics for multidimensional assignment models with general output functions and input distributions is an important open question. We provide a complete theory of comparative statics for technological change in general multidimensional assignment models. Our main result is that any technological change is uniquely decomposed into two distinct components. The first component (gradient) gives a characterization of changes in marginal earnings through a Poisson equation. The second component (divergence-free) gives a characterization of labor reallocation. For U.S. data, we quantify equilibrium responses in sorting and earnings with respect to cognitive skill-biased technological change.

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Drivers Of Racial Differences In C-Sections, Adriana Corredor-Waldron, Janet Currie, Molly Schnell Dec 2025

Drivers Of Racial Differences In C-Sections, Adriana Corredor-Waldron, Janet Currie, Molly Schnell

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Black mothers with a trial of labor are 25 percent more likely to deliver by C-section than non-Hispanic White mothers. The gap is largest among mothers with the lowest risk and is reduced by only one-fifth when controlling for observed medical risk factors, sociodemographic characteristics, hospital, and physician or medical practice group. Remarkably, the gap disappears when performing a C-section is more costly due to a concurrent pre-labor C-section limiting surgical resources. This finding is consistent with provider discretion—rather than differences in unobserved medical risk—accounting for persistent racial disparities in delivery method. The additional intrapartum C-sections that occur among low-risk …

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Information Without Rents: Mechanism Design Without Expected Utility, Ernesto Rivera Mora, Philipp Strack Dec 2025

Information Without Rents: Mechanism Design Without Expected Utility, Ernesto Rivera Mora, Philipp Strack

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study mechanism design for a sophisticated agent with non-expected utility (EU) preferences. We show that the revelation principle holds if and only if all types are EU maximizers: if at least one type is a non-EU maximizer, randomizing over dynamic mechanisms generates a strictly larger set of implementable allocations than using static mechanisms. Moreover, dynamic stochastic mechanisms can fully extract the private information of any type who doesn’t have uniformly quasi-concave preferences without providing that type any rent. Full-surplus extraction is possible in a broad variety of non-EU environments, but impossible for types with concave preferences.

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Regulating Privacy Policies On Digital Platforms, Michele Bisceglia, Alessandro Bonatti, Fiona Scott Morton Nov 2025

Regulating Privacy Policies On Digital Platforms, Michele Bisceglia, Alessandro Bonatti, Fiona Scott Morton

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study how privacy regulation affects menu pricing by a monopolist platform that collects and monetizes personal data. Consumers differ in privacy valuation and sophistication: naive users ignore privacy losses, while sophisticated users internalize them. The platform designs prices and data collection options to screen users. Without regulation, privacy allocations are distorted and naive users are exploited. Regulation through privacy-protecting defaults can create a market for information by inducing payments for data; hard caps on data collection protect naive users but may restrict efficient data trade.

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Probability Pricing, Eduardo Dávila, Cecilia Parlatore, Ansgar Walther Nov 2025

Probability Pricing, Eduardo Dávila, Cecilia Parlatore, Ansgar Walther

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper develops probability pricing, extending cash flow pricing to quantify the willingnessto-pay for changes in probabilities. We show that the value of any marginal change in probabilities can be expressed as a standard asset-pricing formula with hypothetical cash flows derived from changes in the survival function. This equivalence between probability and cash flow valuation allows us to construct hedging strategies and systematically decompose individual and aggregate willingness-to-pay. Four applications examine the valuation of changes in the distribution of aggregate consumption, the efficiency effects of varying performance precision in principal-agent problems, and the welfare implications of public and private information.

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Marriage, Labor Supply And The Dynamics Of The Social Safety Net, Hamish Low, Costas Meghir, Luigi Pistaferri, Alessandra Voena Nov 2025

Marriage, Labor Supply And The Dynamics Of The Social Safety Net, Hamish Low, Costas Meghir, Luigi Pistaferri, Alessandra Voena

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The 1996 US welfare reform introduced time limits on welfare receipt. We use quasi-experimental evidence and a rich life-cycle model to understand the impact of time limits on different margins of behavior and well-being. We stress the impact of marital status and marital transitions on mitigating the cost and impact of time limits. Time limits cause women to defer claiming in anticipation of future needs and to work more, effects that depend on the probabilities of marriage and divorce. They also cause an increase in employment among single mothers and reduce divorce, but their introduction costs women 0.7% of lifetime …

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Relu-Based And Dnn-Based Generalized Maximum Score Estimators, Xiaohong Chen, Wayne Yuan Gao, Likand Wen Nov 2025

Relu-Based And Dnn-Based Generalized Maximum Score Estimators, Xiaohong Chen, Wayne Yuan Gao, Likand Wen

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We propose a new formulation of the maximum score estimator that uses compositions of rectified linear unit (ReLU) functions, instead of indicator functions as in Manski (1975, 1985), to encode the sign alignment restrictions. Since the ReLU function is Lipschitz, our new ReLU-based maximum score criterion function is substantially easier to optimize using standard gradient-based optimization pacakges. We also show that our ReLU-based maximum score (RMS) estimator can be generalized to an umbrella framework defined by multi-index single-crossing (MISC) conditions, while the original maximum score estimator cannot be applied. We establish the n −s/(2s+1) convergence rate and asymptotic normality for …

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New Measures For Richer Theories: Some Thoughts And An Example, Orazio Attanasio, Victor Sancibrian, Federica Ambrosio Nov 2025

New Measures For Richer Theories: Some Thoughts And An Example, Orazio Attanasio, Victor Sancibrian, Federica Ambrosio

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

For a long time, the majority of economists doing empirical work relied on choice data, while data based on answers to hypothetical questions, stated preferences or measures of subjective beliefs were met with some skepticism. Although this has changed recently, much work needs to be done. In this paper, we emphasize the identifying content of new economic measures. In the first part of the paper, we discuss where the literature on measures in economics stands at the moment. We first consider how the design and use of new measures can help identify causal links and structural parameters under weaker assumptions …

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Optimization Via Strategic Law Of Large Numbers, Xiaohong Chen, Zengjing Chen, Wayne Yuan Gao, Xiaodong Yan, Guodong Zhang Oct 2025

Optimization Via Strategic Law Of Large Numbers, Xiaohong Chen, Zengjing Chen, Wayne Yuan Gao, Xiaodong Yan, Guodong Zhang

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper proposes a novel framework for the global optimization of a continuous function in a bounded rectangular domain. Specifically, we show that: (1) global optimization is equivalent to optimal strategy formation in a two-armed decision problem with known distributions, based on the Strategic Law of Large Numbers we establish; and (2) a sign-based strategy based on the solution of a parabolic PDE is asymptotically optimal. Motivated by this result, we propose a class of Strategic Monte Carlo Optimization (SMCO) algorithms, which uses a simple strategy that makes coordinate-wise two-armed decisions based on the signs of …

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Worker Rights In Collective Bargaining, Benjamin W. Arold, Elliott Ash, W. Bentley Macleod, Suresh Naidu Oct 2025

Worker Rights In Collective Bargaining, Benjamin W. Arold, Elliott Ash, W. Bentley Macleod, Suresh Naidu

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) specify the contractual rights of unionized workers, but their full legal content has not yet been analyzed by economists. This paper develops novel natural language methods to analyze the empirical determinants and economic value of these rights using a new collection of 30,000 CBAs from Canada in the period 1986-2015. We parse legally binding rights (e.g., “workers shall receive. . . ”) and obligations (e.g., “the employer shall provide. . . ”) from contract text, and validate our measures through evaluation of clause pairs and comparison to firm surveys on HR practices. Using timevarying province-level variation …

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Slim: Stochastic Learning And Inference In Overidentified Models, Xiaohong Chen, Min Seong Kim, Sokbae Lee, Myung Hwan Seo, Myunghyun Song Oct 2025

Slim: Stochastic Learning And Inference In Overidentified Models, Xiaohong Chen, Min Seong Kim, Sokbae Lee, Myung Hwan Seo, Myunghyun Song

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We propose SLIM (Stochastic Learning and Inference in overidentified Models), a scalable stochastic approximation framework for nonlinear GMM. SLIM forms iterative updates from independent mini-batches of moments and their derivatives, producing unbiased directions that ensure almost-sure convergence. It requires neither a consistent initial estimator nor global convexity and accommodates both fixed-sample and random-sampling asymptotics. We further develop an optional second-order refinement and inference procedures based on random scaling and plug-in methods, including plug-in, debiased plug-in, and online versions of the Sargan–Hansen J-test tailored to stochastic learning. In Monte Carlo experiments based on a nonlinear EASI demand system with 576 moment …

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Local Overidentification And Efficiency Gains In Modern Causal Inference And Data Combination, Xiaohong Chen, Haitian Xie Oct 2025

Local Overidentification And Efficiency Gains In Modern Causal Inference And Data Combination, Xiaohong Chen, Haitian Xie

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

This paper studies nonparametric local (over-)identification, in the sense of Chen and Santos (2018), and the associated semiparametric efficiency in modern causal frameworks. We develop a unified approach that begins by translating structural models with latent variables into their induced statistical models of observables and then analyzes local overidentification through conditional moment restrictions. We apply this approach to three leading models: (i) the general treatment model under unconfoundedness, (ii) the negative control model, and (iii) the long-term causal inference model under unobserved confounding. The first design yields a locally just-identified statistical model, implying that all regular asymptotically linear estimators of …

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Climate Shocks And State Formation: The 1970 Bhola Cyclone And The Birth Of Bangladesh, Sultan Mehmood, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak Oct 2025

Climate Shocks And State Formation: The 1970 Bhola Cyclone And The Birth Of Bangladesh, Sultan Mehmood, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak

Discussion Papers

State formation through secession often requires two critical steps: building mass support for independence, and engaging in violent conflict against a state resisting territorial loss. Combining satellite data with archival sources, we statistically document how exposure to the 1970 Bhola cyclone in East Pakistan which killed 350,000 people led to a rise in separatist sentiments expressed in voting booths, and later induced citizens to take up arms against the government and engage in guerrilla warfare. We identify the cyclone as a focal point that helped galvanize dispersed separatist sentiments into an organized political movement and war, in part by revealing …

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Between Sound And Theology: Timbral Performativity In Brazilian Religious Musicking, Marcell Silva Steuernagel Oct 2025

Between Sound And Theology: Timbral Performativity In Brazilian Religious Musicking, Marcell Silva Steuernagel

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article explores the performativity of timbre, summarizing key perspectives from the English-language scholarship on the topic and setting them in conversation with Latin American perspectives on timbre. In addition, it examines a performance of “500 Graus” (500 degrees), a song performed by Brazilian Pentecostal artists Cassiane and Shirley Carvalhaes, to demonstrate how the performativity of timbre unfolds within a particular expression of Latin American religious musicking. In doing so, it investigates the phenomenon of timbre between music and sound studies, and theology and church music studies, providing insights relevant to the study of timbre and the study of religious …

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Timbre — A Transcendent Paradox?, Eugenia Siegel Conte Oct 2025

Timbre — A Transcendent Paradox?, Eugenia Siegel Conte

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Timbre, as ethnomusicologist Cornelia Fales writes, is “paradoxical” precisely because it is one of the most exacting processes in which the human body may sense and comprehend the source of a sound even as that comprehended sound is impossible to describe outside of metaphor or comparison. As one of the more recognizable qualities of sound but the most difficult to describe, timbre allows us to consider physical/emotional (affective) experiences of sound as a key aspect of faith and meditation. In this article, I examine physical-affective intersections of faith and meditation that often are key to praxes of worship, and show …

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Singing A Wide Heart: Timbre And Sung Prayer In Senegal’S Layène Community, Margaret L. Rowley Oct 2025

Singing A Wide Heart: Timbre And Sung Prayer In Senegal’S Layène Community, Margaret L. Rowley

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Layène sung prayer (called sikkar) is embedded within the religious practices of the Layène community, a minority Sufi order in Dakar, Senegal. This article explores the functions of Layène sung prayer, focusing especially on its loud, vibrational timbre. Both men and women vocalists in call-and-response sing loudly, using wide vibrato and electronic amplification to ensure that the sikkar reaches the inhabitants—both human and non-human—in the surrounding community. This article demonstrates that the distinctive timbre of Layène sung prayer serves the spiritual functions of binding the community together in spiritual and social cohesion, increasing individual and collective generosity, and demarcating …

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Live Wires: The Angelus Temple And The Timbre Of Power, Catherine Provenzano Oct 2025

Live Wires: The Angelus Temple And The Timbre Of Power, Catherine Provenzano

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article is a media history and contemporary case study of The Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923. My analysis of the Angelus insists upon the centrality of a hyperaudible paradigm of worship that uses media to maximize the legibility of a Christian message, and, more than this, imagines that media itself as a living soul in need of redemption. Many contemporary megachurches employ savvy applications of sound and sound transmission as instruments of belonging as well as action, and these rely on high-budget investments in church infrastructure, software and personnel. I argue that …

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Performing "Manly" Worship Music: Gender And Timbre At Mars Hill Church, Maren Haynes Marchesini Oct 2025

Performing "Manly" Worship Music: Gender And Timbre At Mars Hill Church, Maren Haynes Marchesini

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Ten years ago, Mars Hill boasted fifteen campuses and 15,000 members. Amid mounting allegations of abuse and mismanagement leveled against founding pastor Mark Driscoll, the church famously collapsed, closing its doors at the end of 2014. Driscoll had built Mars Hill’s core brand around his opposition to the perceived feminization of the Christian mainstream, and appointing himself the “leader of a heterosexual male backlash” in the church and broader culture. While Driscoll’s muscular Christianity stands in a wide historical stream, Mars Hill long led the charge in establishing a youth-oriented, hipster brand of hypermasculine Calvinism. And while rhetoric and theology …

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A Sunlit Ambience: How Reverb Pedals Influence The Contemporary Worship Music Imagination, Dylan Crosson Oct 2025

A Sunlit Ambience: How Reverb Pedals Influence The Contemporary Worship Music Imagination, Dylan Crosson

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

With the recent proliferation of scholarship on the musical elements of Contemporary Worship Music (CWM) in addition to ethnographies exploring the tradition’s inner machinations, readers now enjoy unprecedented levels of insight into the actions of human actors and their music. But what of CWM’s non-human actors? Could the instruments and musical equipment used by CWM practitioners, for example, impact evangelical piety? In this article, I entertain this question by arguing that the materiality of reverb pedals—devices used by guitarists to add artificial reverberation to their sound—influences how evangelicals conceptualize elements of their faith by introducing new imagery or enriching pre-existing …

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