Essay about The Early Life of Machiavelli

Essay about The Early Life of Machiavelli Essay about The Early Life of Machiavelli Slide 2: The early life of Machiavelli Machiavelli was born on May 3rd 1469 in Florence, Italy, the first son and third child of attorney Bernardo di Niccolà ² Machiavelli and his wife Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. He was born to an established though not affluent middle-class family whose members had traditionally filled positions in local government. Machiavelli was born in a tumultuous era- popes waged acquisitive wars against Italian city-states, and people and cities might fall from power at any time. Married Marietta Corsini, 1501; children: five. Slide 3: About his life He was born as aristocrat†¦.This is a member of a aristocracy government. His father was an aristocrat. The most powerful class in Greek history While little of the author's early life has been documented, it is known that as a boy he learned Latin and that he quickly became an assiduous reader of the ancient classics. His main political experience in his youth was watching Savanarola from afar. Soon after Savanarola was executed, Machiavelli entered the Florentine government as a secretary. His position quickly rose, however, and was soon engaging in diplomatic missions. He met many of the important politicians of the day, such as the Pope and the King of France, but none had more impact on him than a prince of the Papal States, Cesare Borgia. Unfortunately, for Machiavelli, he was dismissed from office when the Medici came to rule Florence and the Republic was overthrown. The lack of a job forced him to switch to writing about politics instead of being active. His diplomatic missions were his last official government positions. Slide 4: Fields of work During the renaissance, he was an Italian diplomat, political philosopher, musician, poet, and playwright. He was a founder of modern political science, and more specifically political ethics. Machiavelli is regarded by some as the founder of value-free political science. He describes politics as it is, not as it might be, and shows how this knowledge can be exploited to bring greater order into human affairs. But Machiavelli's science is anything but value-free: He prefers glory to security, and admires innovators more than conservatives. Though he writes both for republics and tyrants, many have argued that he favors one over the other. In fact, he clearly has a preference for republics, but believes that the founding father of every republic needs to possess unrestrained power. Machiavelli engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity on behalf of Florence, travelling to the major centers of Italy as well as to the royal court of France and to the imperial curia of Maximilian. We have letters, dispatches, and occasional writings that testify to his political assignments as well as to his acute talent for the analysis of personalities and institutions. During his lifetime, Machiavelli was best known as a playwright, and the Mandragola is his most original play. In this comedy Machiavelli applies his views to ordinary, seemingly nonpolitical life: Callimaco, a young man, is attracted to young Lucrezia, who is unfortunately married to Nicia, an older man. Thus Callimaco agrees to a plan devised by the Machiavellian figure Ligurio to gain access to Lucrezia. As this is a work of fiction, and not a long one to read, I will not reveal the whole plot here so as not to spoil anyone’s fun. The Mandragola is regarded as a classic of Italian literature, illustrating Machiavelli’s versatility as an author. It touches on many of the themes common to his political works: people’s ambition to get what they want, the gray areas in moral life, criticism of the church and so forth. But here his irreverent attitude is more visible than in his more â€Å"serious† works. Slide 5: Impacts Scholars have argued that Machiavelli was a major indirect and direct influence upon the political thinking of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson followed

Exclusion Restrictions in Instrumental Variables

Exclusion Restrictions in Instrumental Variables In many fields of study, including statistics and economics, researchers rely on valid exclusion restrictions when they are estimating outcomes using either instrumental variables (IV) or exogenous variables. Such calculations are often used to analyze the causal effect of a binary treatment. Variables and Exclusion Restrictions Loosely defined, an exclusion restriction is considered valid so long as the independent variables do not directly affect the dependent variables in an equation. For example, researchers rely on randomization of the sample population in order to ensure comparability across the treatment and control groups. At times, however, randomization is not possible. This may for any number of reasons, such as lack of access to suitable populations or budgetary restrictions. In such cases, the best practice or strategy is to rely on an instrumental variable. Simply put, the method of using instrumental variables is utilized to estimate causal relationships when a controlled experiment or study is simply not feasible. Thats where valid exclusion restrictions come into play.   When researchers employ instrumental variables, they rely on two primary assumptions. The first is that the excluded instruments are distributed independently of the error process. The other is that the excluded instruments are sufficiently correlated with the included endogenous regressors. As such, the specification of an IV model states that the excluded instruments affect the independent variable only indirectly.   As a result, exclusion restrictions are considered observed variables that impact treatment assignment, but not the outcome of interest conditional on treatment assignment. If, on the other hand, an excluded instrument is shown to exert both direct and indirect influences on the dependent variable, the exclusion restriction should be rejected. The Importance of Exclusion Restrictions In simultaneous equation systems or a system of equations, exclusion restrictions are critical. The simultaneous equation system is a finite set of equations in which certain assumptions are made. Despite its importance to the solution of the system of equations, the validity of an exclusion restriction cannot be tested as the condition involves an unobservable residual. Exclusion restrictions are often imposed intuitively by the researcher who must then convince of the plausibility of those assumptions, meaning that the audience must believe the researcher’s theoretical arguments that support the exclusion restriction. The concept of exclusion restrictions denotes that some of the exogenous variables are not in some of the equations. Often this idea is expressed by saying the coefficient next to that exogenous variable is zero. This explanation may make this restriction (​hypothesis) testable and may make a simultaneous equation system identified. Sources Schmidheiny, Kurt. Short Guides to Microeconometrics: Instrumental Variables.  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Schmidheiny.name. Fall 2016.University of Manitoba Rady Faculty of Health Sciences staff. Introduction to Instrumental Variables. UManitoba.ca.