The recent increase in inequality in the U.S. and other developed countries has stimulated debate among economists. This debate is best exemplified by Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the twenty-first century and his critics. Taking aside the predictions for the future and the role that capital gains play in this debate, a deeper question is: what is a “normal” level of inequality in historical term...

The recent increase in inequality in the U.S. and other developed countries has stimulated debate among economists. This debate is best exemplified by Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the twenty-first century and his critics. Taking aside the predictions for the future and the role that capital gains play in this debate, a deeper question is: what is a “normal” level of inequality in historical term...

In the field of natural and man-made disasters, fire has played a predominant role. A report is presented of fire disasters in the twentieth century, with a chronological analysis of different worldwide typologies.

This article is the product of a review of historical-critical literature that analyzes the global historical events during the 20th century that made the emergence and consolidation of the medical rehabilitation professions possible and an examination of the ways in which these professions approach childhood. The analysis of and reflections upon the reviewed documents are outlined below accord...

This paper weaves several sets of facts into an argument that: 1) today’s trade is radically more complex, involving a “trade-investment-service nexus”, 2) this 21 st century trade demanded deeper disciplines which were supplied by “21 st century regionalism” while the WTO was otherwise occupied, and 3) 21 st century regionalism has quite different implications for the world trading system than...

A global collection of high temporally resolved ice-core-derived dO records is examined to assess whether the proxy records are consistent with contemporaneous observed temperature variations in their respective regions. This is prerequisite to using the older parts of the proxy (dO) records to assess whether 20th-century temperatures remain within the range of longer-term natural variability. ...

Several studies have claimed that reduction in body size comprises a nearly universal response to global warming; however, doubts about the validity of this pattern for endothermic species have been raised recently. Accordingly, we assessed temporal changes in body mass for 27 bird and 17 mammal species, to evaluate if a reduction in body size during the 20th century is a widespread phenomenon ...

With amplified warming and record sea ice loss, the Arctic is the canary of global warming. The historical Arctic warming is poorly understood, limiting our confidence in model projections. Specifically, Arctic surface air temperature increased rapidly over the early 20th century, at rates comparable to those of recent decades despite much weaker greenhouse gas forcing. Here, we show that the c...

This investigation is based on a study of two paleoclimatic curves obtained in the Urals (51–59 N, 58–61 E): i) a ground surface temperature history (GSTH) reconstruction since 800 A.D. and ii) meteorological data for the last 170 years. Temperature anomalies measured in 49 boreholes were used for the GSTH reconstruction. It is shown that a traditional averaging of the histories leads to the lo...