cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Path Forward for Using Substantive Analytical Procedures in Auditing Large P&L Accounts: Commentary and Analysis

SUMMARY: Substantive analytical procedures can be an important and effective audit tool to gather evidence and highlight areas of potential misstatement, and for decades have been one of the common substantive procedures applied to income statement accounts. Recently, however, there is a growing trend for public company auditors to forego substantive analytical procedures on large income statement accounts, such as revenue, due to criticisms from regulatory inspectors that such procedures are not capable of providing useful substantive evidence. In this commentary, we address the concern that discouraging the application of appropriately rigorous substantive analytical procedures may diminish overall audit quality. We consider whether rigorous substantive analytical procedures can be designed to provide useful evidence at moderate and low levels of assurance for large income statement accounts, such as revenue, even when the significant-difference threshold exceeds overall materiality. Such procedures ca...
Financial Architecture and Economic Performance: International Evidence

Abstract The paper examines the relation between the architecture of an economy's financial system—its degree of market orientation—and economic performance in the real sector. I find that while market-based systems outperform bank-based systems among countries with developed financial sectors, bank-based systems fare better among countries with underdeveloped financial sectors. Countries dominated by small firms grow faster in bank-based systems and those dominated by larger firms in market-based systems. The findings suggest that recent trends in financial development policies that indiscriminately prescribe market-oriented financial-system architecture to emerging and transition economies might be misguided because suitable financial architecture, in and of itself, could be a source of value. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G1, G21, O1, 04.
The Quality of Accounting Information in Politically Connected Firms

Recent studies have documented systematic exchanges of favors between politicians and firms, and that connected firms, on average gain from political ties. Since these ties are often to a top manager or large shareholder, agency problems are likely more severe for politically connected firms. Moreover, in the case of political ties, the costs of lower quality disclosures may be mitigated. Empirically, we find that the quality of earnings reported by politically connected firms is significantly poorer than that of similar non-connected companies. Additionally, among connected firms, those that have stronger political ties have the poorest accruals quality. This evidence suggests that managers of connected firms appear to be less sensitive to market pressures to increase the quality of information. This choice seems to be justified in that lower quality reported earnings is associated with higher cost of debt only for the non-politically connected firms in the sample.
The relationship among firm size, E/P, and share price anomalies: NASDAQ stocks versus NYSE and AMEX stocks

Numerous studies document stock return anomalies as they relate to firm size, earnings-price ratios, and share price. The causes of these anomalies have not been adequately explained. This study provides additional information in this area by examining the relationships among the anomalies for NASDAQ traded stocks and those for NYSE and AMEX stocks. The results suggest that the relationships among the anomalies are not constant across the two groups of stocks. The anomalies are different for NASDAQ stocks than for NYSE and AMEX stocks.
The impact of the potential duration of unemployment benefits on the duration of unemployment

Abstract This paper examines the impact of the potential duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on unemployment in the United States. First, we use a large sample of household heads to examine differences in the unemployment spell distributions of UI recipients and nonrecipients. Sharp increases in the escape rate from unemployment both through recalls and new job acceptances are apparent for UI recipients around the time of benefits exhaustion. Such increases are not apparent at similar points of spell duration for nonrecipients. Second, our analysis of accurate administrative data from 12 states indicates that a one week increase in potential benefit duration increases the average duration of the unemployment spells of UI recipients by 0.16 to 0.20 weeks.
Forecast selection when all forecasts are not equally recent

Abstract Little is known about which forecasts to select when all forecasts are not equally recent. This paper uses security analysts' annual earnings forecasts to examine this issue. The comparative predictive accuracy of the mean and three timely composites is examined, where the three timely composites are the most recent forecast, the average of the three most recent forecasts, and the 30-day average. The mean is shown to be less accurate than all three timely composites, and the 30-day average is shown to be the most accurate timely composite. The findings suggest that tradeoffs exist between recency and aggregation, and that these tradeoffs are related to firm size.
The Right Way to Teach Transactional Lawyers: Commercial Leasing and the Forgotten 'Dirt Lawyer'

This article decries the failure of many law schools to adequately train future lawyers for transactional practice. The article argues that a successful law course devoted to transactional practice should teach and integrate substantive law and skills. To this end, the article describes an advanced transactional elective course developed by the author and devoted to commercial leasing. Leasing is the ideal vehicle for teaching basic lessons in transactions, because the lease transaction typically revolves around a single negotiated document - the lease. This reduces the amount of substantive law that students must master, and limits the parties to the transaction to Landlord, Tenant and Lender. The article begins with an explanation of the importance of leases to commercial real estate transactions and of lease work in the professional lives of real property lawyers. The real property bar is huge, and leasing is bread and butter work for many if not most of these lawyers. The article next describes the course. There is no exam. Instead, students are divided into teams to draft provisions, review lease forms and write lease review letters, negotiate against other teams, and finally, do a focused research project. This approach reinforces the idea that law student work is not simply 'school work,' but 'work product.' All work product is graded. In addition, all student work product is posted on the web for discussion in class. The author has created 'chapters' that are distributed electronically to students. These begin with an example of a lease provision, definition of the terms of art in the provision, an explanation of motivations of the parties, and finally, a discussion of the substantive law. The last section of the article is devoted specifically to the topic of teaching negotiations in the transactional context. The article provides a history of negotiations courses in American law schools, and explains that, as valuable as these course are, they slight the needs of students entering into transactional practice.
Drug Advertising Claims: Preemption's New Frontier

To date, the U.S. Supreme Court's focus has been on preemption of traditional tort claims impugning the safety of medical devices and drugs either through design defect or failure-to-warn claims. Even if the Court forecloses such tort claims, in whole or in part, most likely the nascent, but ever-expanding, realm of related consumer fraud claims arising from prescription drug advertising will emerge unscathed. The historical model for an end run around preemption of failure-to-warn claims is provided by the watershed case Cipollone v. Liggett Group, which forged a distinction between health and safety specific failure-to-warn claims - which were expressly preempted under the federal cigarette labeling statute - and general fraudulent misrepresentation claims - which were not preempted. Altria Group, Inc. v. Good, decided this Term breathes new life into efforts to structure state law fraud claims around federal preemption. The crux of the preemption debate centers on whether the decision-maker adjudges the FDA's regulation a floor (or minimal) or ceiling (or optimal) standard-the former permitting complementary state actions; the latter foreclosing them as meddlesome substitutes. The FDA's advertisement review process appears to provide a (rather weak) floor rather than an optimal regulatory standard. On the whole, the FDA does not appear to be engaged in an exercise of optimization, weighing the costs and benefits of the DTCA. For this reason, it would be rare for pursuit of the state law tort action to be characterized as a "redo" of what the FDA has already determined. And thus, consumer fraud claims arising from drug advertisements should withstand preemption challenges.
Ideational Origins of Progressive Judicial Activism: The Colombian Constitutional Court and the Right to Health

Why do some constitutional transitions trigger the emergence of progressive judicial activism? This article addresses this question through an analysis of the creation of the Colombian Constitutional Court and its subsequent activism toward rights in general and the right to health in particular. This research suggests that ideational variables are crucial to explain this outcome. On the one hand, the Constitutional Court's behavior reflects the dominance of the institutional conception that it is the judiciary's role to help fulfill the promises of the constitutional text. On the other, programmatic beliefs about the relationship between the rule of law and market-driven economic growth led powerholders to create the court and appoint judges with this orientation. The emergence of progressive judicial activism in Colombia, this analysis suggests, was the unexpected outcome of purposeful political choices made by proponents of neoliberal economics.
Reducing Discrimination with Reviews in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from Field Experiments on Airbnb

Recent research has found widespread discrimination by hosts against guests of certain races in online marketplaces. In this paper, we explore ways to reduce such discrimination using online reputa...
The Uses and Abuses of Finite Risk Reinsurance

Finite risk reinsurance has become the subject of investigations, litigation, and possibly new regulation. This article provides an overview of finite risk solutions and products, describing their main features and their legitimate role in helping (mainly) industrial companies manage timing, funding, and insurance risks. Finite risk solutions generally take the form of structured insurance products designed to help companies manage risks often regarded as exotic or “tail” risks, such as environmental or asbestos liability. Although such products are underwritten by insurance or reinsurance companies, they typically involve limited risk transfer (hence the name “finite risk”) while providing the insured companies with a means of pre-funding their expected losses, or what is often called “pre-loss financing.” Of course, companies could choose to self-insure such risks by establishing a reserve for future losses. But finite risk provides a more credible and transparent alternative—one that reassures investors both by capping the liability and eliminating the possibility for manipulation of reserves. Abuses of finite risk products usually concern the degree to which transactions are accounted for, disclosed, and represented to investors as achieving “significant risk transfer” when there is little or no such transfer. In the authors' words, “Users of finite should ask themselves whether the transaction helps the financial statements clearly represent the true economic income and risks of the business and, if not, then consider not doing the deal.”
Analyst information production and the timing of annual earnings forecasts

We investigate whether the reputation-herding theory or the tradeoff theory explains variation in the timing of individual analysts’ forecasts. Using forecast accuracy improvements, forecast boldness, and the price impact of forecasts as measures of forecast quality, we find that in the information discovery phase that precedes an earnings announcement, earlier forecasts have higher quality than later forecasts. We also find a similar pattern in the information analysis phase that begins with the earnings announcement date. Our findings suggest that consistent with the herding theory, analysts who are more capable participate early in discovering and analyzing information, and therefore earlier forecasts in the information discovery and analysis phases are of higher quality than later forecasts in that phase.
The Constitution as Family Arbiter: A Moral in the Mess?

Two interconnected social upheavals that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century underlie an intensifying legal debate about the conception of family. First, Western culture openly challenged a set of assumptions that supported a vision of family as hierarchical, holistic, and almost completely separate from the marketplace. Second, a group of social institutions (including schools, churches, and voluntary communal groups) that once anchored moral debate began to recede in significance. To these upheavals, American law has increasingly responded by eliding traditional legal responses to family issues and by seeking moral direction from constitutional principles. The second of these responses has been problematic, since constitutional jurisprudence, committed to autonomous individuality, is not well suited to resolving an important question central to the debate about family: the extent to which family relationships that involve children should value autonomous individuality. In attempting to answer this question, constitutional jurisprudence has produced significant social and legal confusion, as this Article shows through analysis of Troxel v. Granville, a 2000 Supreme Court decision that involved a challenge to a state nonparental visitation statute.
Financing Major Investments: Information about Capital Structure Decisions

We study how 1,455 firms paid for 2,027 very large investments during the period 1989-2005. Compustat Flow of Funds data indicate that major investments are mostly externally financed. An initial reliance on heavy debt financing is reversed following the event year, as firms adjust toward target leverage ratios. Small firms issue a surprisingly large amount of equity in this process. Pecking order and market timing effects appear during the event year, but weaken in the course of completing the financing process.
Student Portfolios and the College Admissions Problem

We develop a decentralized Bayesian model of college admissions with two ranked colleges, heterogeneous students, and two realistic match frictions: students find it costly to apply to college, and college evaluations of their applications are uncertain. Students thus face a portfolio choice problem in their application decision, while colleges choose admissions standards that act like market-clearing prices. Enrollment at each college is affected by the standards at the other college through student portfolio reallocation. In equilibrium, student-college sorting may fail: weaker students sometimes apply more aggressively, and the weaker college might impose higher standards. Applying our framework, we analyse affirmative action, showing how it induces minority applicants to construct their application portfolios as if they were majority students of higher caliber.
Delegated asset management, investment mandates, and capital immobility

This paper develops a model to explain the widely used investment mandates in the institutional asset management industry based on two insights: first, giving a manager more investment flexibility weakens the link between fund performance and his effort in the designated market, and thus increases agency cost. Second, the presence of outside assets with negatively skewed returns can further increase the agency cost if the manager is incentivized to pursue outside opportunities. These effects motivate narrow mandates and tight tracking error constraints to most fund managers except those with exceptional talents. Our model sheds light on capital immobility and market segmentation that are widely observed in financial markets, and highlights important effects of negatively skewed risk on institutional incentive structures.
Private value perturbations and informational advantage in common value auctions

Abstract We analyze the value of being better informed than one's rival in a two bidder, second price common value auction. Standard models of these auctions do not pin down relative bidding postures, but we show that by adding small amounts of private value information, a unique equilibrium can be restored. Additional common value information affects a bidder's payoff both directly, by increasing his information rent, and indirectly, by shifting the relative bidding posture of his opponent. Although the latter effect need not be positive, we establish broad conditions under which bidders with more information do better than their rivals. We turn to information acquisition and release and show that the desire to influence relative bidding postures can lead sellers to create new information rents (by releasing information privately to only one bidder) and bidders to forego information rents (instead choosing to gather information that a rival already has).
The Impact of Shareholder Activism on Financial Reporting and Compensation: The Case of Employee Stock Options Expensing

ABSTRACT: We examine the economic consequences of more than 150 shareholder proposals to expense employee stock options (ESO) submitted during the proxy seasons of 2003 and 2004, the first case in which the SEC allowed a shareholder vote on an accounting matter. Our results indicate that these proposals affected accounting and compensation choices. Specifically, (1) targeted firms were more likely to adopt ESO expensing relative to a control sample of S&P 500 firms, (2) among targeted firms, the likelihood of adoption increased in the degree of voting support for the proposal, and (3) non‐targeted firms were more likely to adopt ESO expensing when a peer firm was targeted. Additionally, (1) CEO pay decreased in firms in which the proposal was approved relative to a control sample of S&P 500 firms, and (2) among targeted firms, approval of the proposal was associated with decreases in CEO compensation and the use of ESO in CEO pay. Our findings reveal an increasing influence of shareholder proposals on gov...
Household behavior and boom/bust cycles☆

Abstract I describe household behavior in boom and bust economic cycles with a particular focus on the recent financial crisis. The behaviors are motivated by cognitive limitations and psychological bias. In boom times, households’ extrapolation bias and groupthink lead to chasing and extending asset bubbles (like tech stocks and real estate). Increasing use of debt spurs the economy and eventually overburdens households. In bust times, the biases and fear lead to selling previously popular assets at low prices. Households generally respond to bust times by spending less, repaying debt and saving more, which drags on an already slow economy. In addition, households influence businesses and governments into actions during the cycle. In the recent boom, predatory lenders preyed on cognitive limitations and biases of subprime borrowers to sell them high cost mortgages that they would not be able to repay. Another contributing factor is that during boom times, household attention is not focused on financial regulation. This is when business influences the political process and laws are enacted to loosen market regulation. These changes may extend the boom period into bubble territory. During bust times, public outcry influences politicians to tighten business regulation, likely inhibiting the economic rebound. Thus, household behavior plays an important role in economic boom/bust cycles.
The Relevance of Religion to a Lawyer's Work: Legal Ethics

In this essay, my focus is on the interdisciplinary question of whether religious studies and theology contribute anything to legal ethics. I argue that both theological and religious ethics are important contributors to legal ethics, but that law requires theology's role to be different from that of the related discipline of religious studies. We do not want a theological legal ethics; theology is best debated and resolved among members of the same tradition. Instead, we depend on lawyers to employ the language of public reason. Theology motivates individual lawyers and may inspire them to conscientiously object to the norms of the profession. Religious studies assists them in translating their theological convictions into norms of public reason. Religion and theology also have a place in the daily life of the profession. Religious as well as philosophical comprehensive doctrines that encourage people to be good lawyers are an important part of legal ethics. Such comprehensive doctrines need not be privatized.
LEARNING THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

We study the evolution of market-oriented policies over time and across countries. We consider a model in which own and neighbors' past experiences influence policy choices through their effect on policymakers' beliefs. We estimate the model using a large panel of countries and find that it fits a large fraction of the policy choices observed in the postwar data, including the slow adoption of liberal policies. Our model also predicts that there would be reversals to state intervention if nowadays the world was hit by a shock of the size of the Great Depression.
A Model for Federal Public Land Surface Rights Management

The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) control large tracts of federal public lands. Management goals for these tracts are described as "multiple-use." Some of the lands are forested, mountainous, contain wildlife or possess other scenic and recreational attributes and warrant the multiple-use designation; however, a significant portion, especially that under BLM control, contains little scenic, recreation or wildlife value, thus offering little multiple-use potential and non-pecuniary value. Inherent in the management of all federal lands is a defacto fiduciary responsibility to prudently and efficiently manage these assets. We develop a framework that measures present values of both quantitative and qualitative economic benefits and costs of federal public lands to assist managers and policy makers in determining future management policy. By applying this framework, federal public land policymakers may be aided in fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities.
Insurance and the utilization of medical services.

Abstract Most data sets indicate a positive correlation between having health insurance and utilizing health care services. Yet the direction of causality is not at all clear. If we observe a positive correlation between the utilization of health care services and insurance status, we do not know if this is because people who anticipate poor health buy more insurance (or take jobs with generous medical coverage), or because insurance lowers the cost of health care, increasing the quantity demanded. While a few attempts have been made to implement an instrumental variables (IV) strategy to deal with endogeneity, the instruments chosen have not been entirely convincing. In this paper we revisit the IV estimation of the reduced form relationships between insurance and health care utilization taking advantage of what we argue is a good instrument—the individual's self-employment status. Our main finding is that a positive and statistically significant effect of insurance continues to obtain even after instrumenting. Indeed, instrumental variables estimates of the impact of insurance on utilization of a variety of health care services are larger than their non-instrumented counterparts. The validity of this exercise depends on the extent to which self-employment status is a suitable instrument. To argue this case, we analyze panel data on transitions from wage-earning into self-employment and show that individuals who select into self-employment do not differ systematically from those who remain wage-earners with respect to either the utilization of health care or health status. While this finding does not prove that self-employment status is an appropriate instrument, it is encouraging that there appear to be no underlying differences that might lead to self-employment per se affecting health services utilization.
Regulatory management of distressed financial markets using simulation

Government economic policy regarding the financial markets in the United States has been focused on promoting self-regulation based on a belief in natural equilibrium. This has led to decreased regulation and permitted an increase in the complexity of financial assets that has to some degree exceeded the capability of the market to understand the fundamentals of what is being traded. This lack of understanding or information about these assets' values created liquidity problems, and contributed to the crises seen in both US and world markets. Through the use of an agent-based simulation model of an economic market, this paper looks at the effect of information on keeping the markets liquid and at potential strategies to protect markets from illiquidity failure. It considers how the three main government controlled market influences: interest rate targeting, `information' regulation, and market making can affect market stability.
Not Dead Yet: How New York's Finnerty Decision Salvaged the Stock Exchange Specialist

In recent years, regulators of financial centers have attempted to criminalize practices traditionally and begrudgingly accepted by the market. In 2007, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York effectively halted the government's attempts at prohibiting interpositioning, a questionable strategy that challenges the ability of the stock exchange Specialist to concurrently serve both his own accounts and those of the public. To wit, the publicized judgment notwithstanding the verdict of Judge Denny Chin in the Finnerty case raised many questions about prosecutors' application of S.E.C. Rule 10b-5 to trading behavior that had been noted for decades; in turn, the Judge's written decision revitalized the debate over the utility of market players (like Specialists) who have enjoyed the best seats on American exchange trading floors for almost 150 years. Within the framework of a famed Broadway show, this article examines the case of U.S. v. Finnerty (while providing a history of the stock exchange Specialist) and a comparison to other cases faulting self-dealing by such professionals. In addition to highlighting the judicial questioning of the criminalization of practices normally incurring reprimands and fines, the article presents a framework for discussion of the primary roles of stock exchanges themselves - specifically, when do market centers owe a duty to their public customers, and when are its intermediaries free to fend for themselves?
The Effects of Critical Audit Matter Paragraphs and Accounting Standard Precision on Auditor Liability

ABSTRACT: The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board recently proposed amendments to the standard audit report that would require the disclosure of critical audit matters (CAMs), and the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to evaluate the use of principles-based (imprecise) accounting standards within U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. We assert that jurors perceive precise accounting standards to constrain auditors' control over financial reporting outcomes, resulting in a lower propensity for negligence verdicts when the accounting treatment conforms to the precise standard. However, we hypothesize that the use of either imprecise standards or CAMs reduces the extent to which jurors perceive this constraint to exist, leading to increased auditor liability. We present experimental evidence supporting this argument. Our results highlight the similarities between the effects of imprecise accounting standards and CAMs on negligence assessments. These results provide insight for regul...
Do colleges and universities increase their region's human capital?

We investigate whether the degree production and research and development (R&D) activities of colleges and universities are related to the amount and types of human capital present in the metropolitan areas where the institutions are located. We find that degree production has only a small positive relationship with local stocks of human capital, suggesting that migration plays an important role in the geographic distribution of human capital. Moreover, we show that spillovers from academic R&D activities tilt the structure of local labor markets toward occupations requiring innovation and technical training. These findings demonstrate that colleges and universities raise local human capital levels by increasing both the supply of and demand for skill.
Tobacco Industry Use of Corporate Social Responsibility Tactics as a Sword and a Shield on Secondhand Smoke Issues

The tobacco industry has used corporate social responsibility tactics to improve its corporate image with the public, press, and regulators who increasingly have grown to view it as a merchant of death. There is, however, an intractable problem that corporate social responsibility efforts can mask but not resolve: the tobacco industry's products are lethal when used as directed, and no amount of corporate social responsibility activity can reconcile that fundamental contradiction with ethical corporate citizenship. This study's focus is to better understand the tobacco industry's corporate social responsibility efforts and to assess whether there has been any substantive change in the way it does business with regard to the issue of exposure to secondhand smoke. The results show that the industry has made no substantial changes and in fact has continued with business as usual. Although many of the tobacco companies' tactics traditionally had been defensive, they strove for a way to change to a more offensive strategy. Almost without exception, however, their desire to appear to be good corporate citizens clashed with their aversion to further regulation and jeopardizing their legal position, perhaps an irreconcilable conflict. Despite the switch to offense, in 2006 a federal judge found the companies guilty of racketeering.
Insider trading and response to earnings announcements: the impact of accelerated disclosure requirements

This paper contributes to the debate on the consequences of increased disclosure regulation by investigating the effects of expedited reporting requirements of Form 4 filings, mandated by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), on the market response to earnings announcements. We first confirm that SOX reduces opportunistic insider trading without deterring insider trading due to diversification needs, and that post-SOX, opportunistic insider trades more strongly reveal upcoming earnings surprises. We then document that, at the earnings announcement date, earnings response coefficients (ERCs) are lower when earnings are preceded by opportunistic insider trades. We conclude that accelerated disclosures of insider transactions mandated by SOX lend to more informationally efficient prices prior to earnings announcements. Our findings stand as one piece of evidence suggesting positive externalities from recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure regulation and add to the scarce evidence on the consequences of changes in Form 4 filing requirements.
Board Characteristics and Audit Fees

This paper examines the relations between three board characteristics (independence, diligence, and expertise) and Big 6 audit fees for Fortune 1000 companies. To protect its reputation capital, avoid legal liability, and promote shareholder interests, a more independent, diligent, and expert board may demand differentially higher audit quality (greater assurance, which requires more audit work) than the Big 6 audit firms normally provide. The audit fee increases as the auditor's additional costs are passed on to the client, such that we expect positive relations between audit fees and the board characteristics examined. We find significant positive relations between audit fees and board independence, diligence, and expertise. The results persist when similar measures of audit committee “quality” are included in the model. The results add to the growing body of literature documenting relations between corporate governance mechanisms and various facets of the financial reporting and audit processes, as well as to our understanding of the determinants of audit fees.
Costs, Profits, and Equal Employment Opportunity

Professor Brodin explores the clash between the antidiscrimination principle embodied in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and employer self-interest in minimizing costs and maximizing profits. While precedent explicitly rejects a cost defense to an action brought under the statute, some courts have subtly adopted the equivalent under the guise of the business necessity defense to a disparate impact action. Permitting employers to utilize selection devices that disproportionately exclude minorities or women merely because they are less expensive than more sophisticated personnel procedures without discriminatory impact violates Title VII’s mandate, which imposes the costs of equal opportunity on employers in much the same way that environmental regulations do on polluters.
The Effect of Community Traumatic Events on Student Achievement: Evidence from the Beltway Sniper Attacks

Community traumatic events such as mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters have the potential to disrupt student learning. For example, these events can reduce instructional time b...
The Boundaries of Belonging: Allegiance, Purpose and the Definition of Marriage

This article addresses an important concept theme in family law scholarship: that of belonging. This paper will address the boundaries of belonging, the need to preserve boundaries to preserve communities, particularly the community of marriage, and to protect and maintain the opportunity and value of belonging to such communities. One of the paradoxes of belonging is that the need to belong also creates a need to exclude; in order for belonging to occur, there must be boundaries, standards defining the relationship, and criteria separating members of the group from nonmembers. The boundaries of marriage must reflect the key purposes of the community. This article explains why allowing same-sex couples to marry would seriously undermine the basic legal and social institution of marriage. This article seeks to establish five basic points about the boundaries of marriage. First, boundaries and exclusion are necessary for all communities, including the community of marriage. Second, boundaries must reflect, protect, and reinforce the core principles of the community. Third, gender integration is a critical, core purpose of marriage. Fourth, legalizing same-sex denies and undermines the core gender-integrative purposes of marriage. Finally, in setting the boundaries of basic social institutions such as marriage, it is especially important to follow the legitimate process of democratic self-government, and not abuse or circumvent, evade or cut off those important political processes which help society learn, grow, unite and heal.
Introducing PHAEDRA: a new spectral code for simulations of relativistic magnetospheres

We describe a new scheme for evolving the equations of force-free electrodynamics, the vanishing-inertia limit of magnetohydrodynamics. This pseudospectral code uses global orthogonal basis function expansions to take accurate spatial derivatives, allowing the use of an unstaggered mesh and the complete force-free current density. The method has low numerical dissipation and diusion outside of singular current sheets. We present a range of one- and two-dimensional tests, and demonstrate convergence to both smooth and discontinuous analytic solutions. As a rst application, we revisit the aligned rotator problem, obtaining a steady solution with resistivity localised in the equatorial current sheet outside the light cylinder.
The Virtual Design Team: Designing Project Organizations as Engineers Design Bridges

This paper reports on a 20-year program of research intended to advance the theory and practice of organization design for projects from its current status as an art practiced by a handful of consultants worldwide, based on their intuition and tacit knowledge, to: (1) an “organizational engineering” craft, practiced by a new generation of organizational designers; and (2) an attractive and complementary platform for new modes of “virtual synthetic organization theory research.” The paper begins with a real-life scenario that provided the motivation for developing the Virtual Design Team (VDT), an agent-based project organizational simulation tool to help managers design the work processes and organization of project teams engaged in large, semi-routine but complex and fast-paced projects. The paper sets out the underlying philosophy, representation, reasoning, and validation of VDT, and it concludes with suggestions for future research on computational modeling for organization design to extend the frontiers of organizational micro-contingency theory and expand the range of applicability and usefulness of design tools for project organizations and supply-chain networks based on this theory.
Pricing European Options by Numerical Replication: Quadratic Programming with Constraints

The paper considers a regression approach to pricing European options in an incomplete market. The algorithm replicates an option by a portfolio consisting of the underlying security and a risk-free bond. We apply linear regression framework and quadratic programming with linear constraints (input = sample paths of underlying security; output = table of option prices as a function of time and price of the underlying security). We populate the model with historical prices of the underlying security (possibly massaged to the present volatility) or with Monte Carlo simulated prices. Risk neutral processes or probabilities are not needed in this framework.
Leader-focused search: The impact of an emerging preference on information search

Abstract This article examines the influence an emerging preference (i.e., a leader) has on predecisional information search. We explore two possibilities. First, decision makers may seek information they expect will support their leader ( leader-supporting search ). Second, decision makers may seek information about their leader, irrespective of the expected valence of the information ( leader-focused search ). Across various studies, product domains and experimental designs, we consistently find that decision makers engage in leader-focused search, not leader-supporting search. We also find that leader-focused search can steer decision makers towards information sources that are less important, less credible, and objectively suboptimal.
Do Investors Benefit from Selective Access to Management

ABSTRACT: This paper examines whether selective access to corporate managers allows investors to revise their beliefs and execute profitable trades. We examine whether investors benefit from two po...
Nominal Wage Stickiness and Aggregate Supply in the Great Depression

Building on earlier work by Eichengreen and Sachs, we use data for 22 countries to study the role of wage stickiness in propagating the Great Depression. Recent research suggests that monetary shocks, transmitted internationally by the gold standard, were a major cause of the Depression. Accordingly, we use money supplies and other aggregate demand shifters as instruments to identify aggregate supply relationships. We find that nominal wages adjusted quite slowly to falling prices, and that the resulting increases in real wages depressed output. These findings leave open the question of why wages were so inertial in the face of extreme labor market conditions.
Shopping During Extended Store Hours: From No Shops to Go-Shops: The Development, Effectiveness, and Implications of Go-Shop Provisions in Change of Control Transactions

This is the first scholarly article to explore the recent prevalence of go-shop provisions in merger agreements. Unlike no shop provisions which prevent target companies from actively soliciting proposals post-signing, go-shops allow the active solicitation of superior proposals. In effect, go-shops move the pre-signing auction process to post-signing, when deal protection devices act to prevent third parties from bidding. This Article examines the development and effectiveness of go-shops and contends that since the Delaware Supreme Court's landmark holding in Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. that directors have a duty to obtain the highest price for stockholders, Delaware courts have consistently failed to take affirmative steps to promote the maximization of stockholder value. Despite the seminal ruling in Revlon, the courts have sidestepped the question as to whether the sale methods utilized, including an exclusive reliance on no shops and go-shops, adequately maximizes stockholder value. In essence, this Article argues that the rise of the go-shop signals the death of the movement toward a more pure bidding process signaled by Revlon.
COSKEWNESS, DIVIDEND YIELD AND CAPITAL ASSET PRICING

The coskewness and dividend yield effects on capital asset prices have been established in two separate literatures. Neither literature controls for the variable in the other, nor for other potentially confounding factors such as size of the firm and the January effect on returns. Using stock return data for 1969–1978, this study provides evidence of coskewness, size, yield and January effects on stock returns. Coskewness appears to be a surrogate variable for dividend yield. When yield is controlled for, the coskewness effect cannot be detected. Hence, the significance of coskewness seems to result from the presence of the uncontrolled factor, dividend yield.
Governing the Ungovernable: Integrating the Multimodal Approach to Keeping Agricultural Land Use from Swallowing Ecosystems

II. EXISTING EFFORTS TO LESSEN THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE 69 A. Payment for Ecosystem Services 70 B. Conservation Easements 71 C. Regional Habitat Conservation Plans via the Endangered Species Act 73 D. Federal Subsidies for Best Practices 74
Does high-frequency trading increase systemic risk?☆

Abstract In 2010, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the largest stock exchange headquartered outside of the United States, introduced a new trading platform, Arrowhead. This platform reduced latency and increased co-located, high-frequency quoting and trading (HFQ) from zero to 36% of trading volume. During tail events representing extreme market conditions, low-latency correlated HFQ may lead to systemic risks such as flash crashes, which has not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. In this paper, our study provides a framework to assess whether HFQ increases systemic risks and points to the need for incorporating correlations and CoVaR methods in regulating these risks through circuit breakers and other regulations.
Functional Parenting and Dysfunctional Abortion Policy: Reforming Parental Involvement Legislation

Abortion-related parental involvement mandates raise important family law issues about the scope of parents' power over their children's intimate decisions. While there has been extensive scholarly attention paid to the problems with parental involvement laws, relatively little has been said about strategies for reforming these laws. This article suggests using insights from family law relating to functional parenthood and third party caregiving as a basis for crafting more capacious methods of ensuring adult guidance for teenage girls facing an unplanned pregnancy. Recent developments in family law bolster the case for reforming parental involvement legislation to allow teenagers to consult with designated adults other than parents or judges. Enlisting other trusted members of the community to assist pregnant teenagers should assuage those who want to guarantee that adolescents consult with an adult in a time of crisis, while also protecting teenagers who reasonably fear discussing pregnancy with their parents. Key Points for the Family Court Community: • Many scholars have noted that abortion-related parental involvement mandates are in need of reform, but relatively little has been said about strategies for reforming these laws. • Insights from family law relating to functional parenthood and third party caregiving provide a sound basis for reform, particularly by bolstering the case for rewriting parental involvement legislation to allow teenagers to consult with designated adults other than parents or judges. • Enlisting other trusted members of the community to assist pregnant teenagers serves the dual goals of (i) assuaging those who want to guarantee that adolescents consult with an adult in a time of crisis, and (ii) protecting teenagers who reasonably fear discussing pregnancy with their parents.
The Burden of Deciding For Yourself: The Disutility Caused by Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Spending

As part of a larger "consumer-directed healthcare movement," cost-sharing mechanisms, such as copays and deductibles, cause patients to pay out of pocket for a portion of the costs of the healthcare they consume. Cost sharing is intended to reduce costs by changing consumption behavior, and it has been shown to be an effective though incomplete solution to the problem of unsustainable cost growth. It is controversial nonetheless. This Essay distinguishes three different normative problems with cost sharing (including underinsurance, deterrence of high-value care, and a tax on sickness), which can all be fixed through more precision in the design of cost-sharing mechanisms. This Essay provides the first sustained investigation of a fourth problem, "the decisional burden." By setting aside the three foregoing problems and then carefully specifying two alternative counterfactual situations in which cost-sharing obligations are removed, the analyst can precisely identify the remaining causal impacts of cost sharing, namely: a subjective disutility experienced by patients when navigating a difficult, and potentially unwanted, choice amongst a complex set of options, requiring tradeoffs between health and wealth. Several concepts from the behavioral sciences -- cognitive capacity, choice overload, sunk costs, and regret -- shed light on this problem. This Essay reviews select portions of that literature and concludes that the decisional burden is a real disadvantage of using patient cost sharing as a mechanism for rationing healthcare. Advocates of cost sharing must bite this bullet.
Heed Not the Umpire (Justice Ginsburg Called NFIB)

A bad reading of the facts in NFIB v. Sebelius has led to new limitations on Congress’s Commerce, Necessary and Proper, and Spending Clause powers. The decision appeared to use healthcare as a vehicle for constitutional change, leading to interpretive gymnastics that invite further litigation. This essay highlights the factual errors in Chief Justice Roberts’s and the joint dissent’s opinions and explains why Justice Ginsburg’s more fact-attuned opinion was the correct analysis of the case.