cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Network Structure and the Speed of Learning Measuring Homophily Based on its Consequences

Homophily is the tendency of people to associate relatively more with those who are similar to them than with those who are not. In Golub and Jackson (2010a), we introduced degree-weighted homophily (DWH), a new measure of this phenomenon, and showed that it gives a lower bound on the time it takes for a certain natural best-reply or learning process operating in a social network to converge. Here we show that, in important settings, the DWH convergence bound does substantially better than previous bounds based on the Cheeger inequality. We also develop a new complementary upper bound on convergence time, tightening the relationship between DWH and updating processes on networks. In doing so, we suggest that DWH is a natural homophily measure because it tightly tracks a key consequence of homophily ‐ namely, slowdowns in updating processes.
Initial coin offerings, asymmetric information, and loyal CEOs

A defining feature of initial coin offerings (ICOs) is that entrepreneurs bear the full marginal investment cost but profit only partially from the marginal investment payoff. This design may exacerbate agency conflicts inherent in corporate finance. As a consequence, signals of entrepreneurial quality such as CEO loyalty, which is an established concept in social psychology and can easily be linked to potential agency conflicts in corporate settings, might be a first-order determinant of economic outcomes in the ICO market. Consistent with this, I find that loyal CEOs have to offer lower financial incentives to attract investors and are still able to raise more proceeds, conduct ICOs more thoroughly, and are less likely to fail. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that asymmetric information between entrepreneurs and investors entail agency costs that are decreasing in CEO loyalty.
Board Interlocks and the Propensity to be Targeted in Private Equity Transactions

Abstract We examine how board networks affect change-of-control transactions by investigating whether directors’ deal exposure acquired through board service at different companies affect their current firms’ likelihood of being targeted in a private equity-backed, take-private transaction. In our sample of all US publicly traded firms in 2000–2007, we find that companies which have directors with private equity deal exposure gained from interlocking directorships are approximately 42% more likely to receive private equity offers. The magnitude of this effect varies with the influence of directors on their current boards and the quality of these directors’ previous take-private experience, and it is robust to the most likely classes of alternative explanations—endogenous matching between directors and firms and proactive stacking of board composition by management. The analysis shows that board members and their social networks influence which companies become targets in change-of-control transactions.
The changing nature of the bioethics movement.

Commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the field of bioethics, this article analyzes the future of bioethics by identifying its role in intellectual history and classifying stages of its development. Part I considers the formative role of Quinlan, where the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the withdrawal of medical treatment is legally permissible under some circumstances. Quinlan and its progeny established a legal framework for life-sustaining treatment decisionmaking, affirming the use of substituted judgment or best interests standards. In Part II the article documents the framework shift brought by Cruzan, a high-profile case challenging a family’s authority to make medical decisions for an incompetent family member absent specific legal recognition. Reviewed by the Missouri Supreme Court and United States Supreme Court, Cruzan is significant for its turn away from Quinlan and for the legislation that it spawned regarding proxy representation. Part III highlights three signs of change post-Cruzan. First, it notes a bioethics paradigm shift away from “principlism” and toward a communitarian paradigm. Second, political action has expanded the forum for bioethics. Third, health care allocation issues will expand bioethics beyond the context of individual medical treatment decisions, bringing the challenge to move beyond the bedside without losing the patient-centered moral aspect of treatment decisions. The article concludes with a directive for future legal scholarship in bioethics. Critique of legislation and case law contributes to the development of law in bioethics, but bioethics must analyze the entire legal environment, including the administrative regulations that most directly affect provider behavior.
The Executive Power of Process in Immigration Law

This article, part of an AALS symposium on executive power during the Obama Administration, focuses on the role of procedure in the president’s implementation of immigration law. The president undeniably has power over immigration law, but the exact contours of that power are not clear. At times, the president acts via delegation from Congress. The president also may have inherent power over immigration law that is not dependent on a delegation. Such inherent power would be subject to the president’s discretion. Even when acting pursuant to delegated immigration power, the president operates within a wide ring of discretion granted by the delegation. While we debate the exact boundaries of executive power over immigration law and the extent of the president’s discretion, we must not forget that executive implementation of immigration law includes procedural power and that procedural mechanisms affect fairness: Does the executive implementation of immigration law function with just procedural mechanisms? This article explores the nature and variety of executive procedural power over immigration law by looking at examples from executive agencies that contribute to executive action in immigration law. This article identifies themes across the procedures that these agencies use to carry out immigration decision-making. These themes are: (1) the structure of executive branch implementation of immigration law is complex; (2) the use of agency guidance documents is a popular procedural choice; and (3) minimal process is a prominent feature. This article explores the implications of these themes and raises some questions for future inquiry. The procedural mechanisms that accompany the implementation of immigration law deserve sustained attention. Executive branch procedures are an essential element of the president’s power over immigration law.
Trainee perceptions of factors that influence learning transfer

The focus of the study was to assess learning transfer made by HRD professionals from a Korean organization for a training program on performance improvement technologies. Results revealed multiple reasons for high or low transfer and provide insights into the design of highly transferable training programs.
Mocking George: Political Satire as "true Threat" in the Age of Global Terrorism

This Article examines the First Amendment implications of recent investigations undertaken by the federal government against persons engaged in satirical speech. It explores the democratizing and corrective function that political satire and parody historically have played in American politics. Governmental abuse of power under federal threat statutes is then explored, including 18 U.S.C. §§ 871, 876, and 879, which stifle satirical speech that takes the form of attacks on the President. This Article looks at various incidents in the context of the erosion of the “true threat” doctrine by lower federal courts, and then examines the implications of the Court's recent decision in Virginia v. Black, [FN8] which appears to have restored the speech-protective aspects of that doctrine. The Article concludes that while lower courts improperly have instructed juries to apply an objective, “reasonable person” standard in determining whether certain speech constitutes a “true threat,” appropriately instructed juries have an essential role to play in serving as a popular check on abusive government practices that seek to chill speech critical of government officials and their policies. The Article calls for a standard of conditional relevancy derived from Rule 104 of the Federal *845 Rules of Evidence that would allow such questions to go to the jury once the judge makes the initial determination that there is sufficient evidence of a subjective intent to threaten. Such a standard would balance the role of the judge and jury in such cases consistent with the First Amendment, and ensure that jurors continue to play a meaningful role in serving as an essential check on unaccountable government officials.
A structural model of competing sellers: Auctions and posted prices

In an original data set of goods listed for sale online, I observe that both auctions and posted prices are popular with buyers and sellers in the compact-disc market. To explain why these two mechanisms coexist, I estimate a structural model of competing sellers who differ in the value of their outside options. Buyers are allowed to value auctioned and posted-price goods differently but the estimated value distributions suggest that differences across buyers do not explain the mechanism coexistence that I observe. In contrast, differences across sellers' outside options are important: the value of the outside option segments the market with high outside-option sellers choosing to post a fixed price. There are two key forces at work that drive this empirical result. First, competition between sellers favors coexistence over an auction-only or a posted-price-only marketplace because sellers prefer to be in a market with fewer rivals. Second, sellers with more valuable outside options prefer the posted-price mechanism because posted-price goods sell less often than auctioned goods but at a higher price. As a result, a larger outside option reduces the loss from not selling and favors the posted-price mechanism.
When Should Firms Invest in Old Capital

The present paper analyzes optimal investment policies when the production function depends on capital of various vintages. In such an environment it is natural to ask whether the firm will invest in old-vintage capital at all. Other studies do not tell us when investment in old capital will take place. In the present paper I derive such a condition. Predictably, investment in old capital takes place if the elasticity of substitution between old and new capital is low, and when the depreciation of capital is high. However, other parameters such as the rates of technological progress and depreciation matter as well.
The role of channel quality in customer equity management

Abstract Maximization of customer equity is a core objective of customer–company relationship management. We present an extended model of customer equity for determining the optimal allocation of marketing resources across acquisition and retention activities. Focusing on the negative relationship between acquisition and retention, we motivate channel quality as a relevant decision variable, explicate its role in the model, and demonstrate the existence of an optimal value. In addition, rather than making concavity assumptions about acquisition and retention rate response curves, we use the flexible ADBUDG model (Little, JDC, Models and Managers: the Concept of a Decision Calculus. Manag Sci 1970; 16(8): 466–484.), which allows for both S-shaped and strictly-concave relationships, and parameterize it using decision calculus. We show how to estimate and apply the model and then provide sensitivity analyses with respect to changes in the true values of model parameters as well as inaccuracy in managerial inputs. We conclude by comparing our model with extant models and discussing the implications of our research.
Moving from data-constrained to data-enabled research: Experiences and challenges in collecting, validating and analyzing large-scale e-commerce data

Widespread e-commerce activity on the Internet has led to new opportunities to collect vast amounts of micro-level market and nonmarket data. In this paper we share our experiences in collecting, validating, storing and analyzing large Internet-based data sets in the area of online auctions, music file sharing and online retailer pricing. We demonstrate how such data can advance knowledge by facilitating sharper and more extensive tests of existing theories and by offering observational underpinnings for the development of new theories. Just as experimental economics pushed the frontiers of economic thought by enabling the testing of numerous theories of economic behavior in the environment of a controlled laboratory, we believe that observing, often over extended periods of time, real-world agents participating in market and nonmarket activity on the Internet can lead us to develop and test a variety of new theories. Internet data gathering is not controlled experimentation. We cannot randomly assign participants to treatments or determine event orderings. Internet data gathering does offer potentially large data sets with repeated observation of individual choices and action. In addition, the automated data collection holds promise for greatly reduced cost per observation. Our methods rely on technological advances in automated data collection agents. Significant challenges remain in developing appropriate sampling techniques integrating data from heterogeneous sources in a variety of formats, constructing generalizable processes and understanding legal constraints. Despite these challenges, the early evidence from those who have harvested and analyzed large amounts of e-commerce data points toward a significant leap in our ability to understand the functioning of electronic commerce.
Originalism in Practice

Originalism is in ascendance. Both in judicial opinions and in the legal academy, arguments for the interpretation of the Constitution based on its original meaning are increasingly prominent. The scholarly literature to date, however, has focused on theory. Supporters and opponents debate the theoretical merits of originalism, but rarely test their views on the merits of originalism by reference to the realities of constitutional adjudication. In science, a theory gains acceptance if it makes testable predictions that are later borne out. Whatever its theoretical merit, originalism deserves recognition as genuinely distinctive and useful approach to constitutional adjudication only if, in practice, it provides a genuinely originalist vehicle for deciding real cases – that is, deciding cases by reference to the meaning of constitutional text as historically fixed at the time of framing and ratification when nonoriginalists would decide them otherwise. Yet, the scholarly literature to date makes no effort to address that question. This article aims to fill this gap by assessing how originalist interpretations of the Constitution fare in practice. In light of the ascendency of originalism, this article offers what may seem a surprising claim – when originalist arguments are actually deployed in real-world litigation, they rarely prove able to provide an approach to constitutional adjudication meaningfully different from nonoriginalism.Nonoriginalists, no less than originalists, regard constitutional text as binding. The nonoriginalist claim is that the broad, open-ended provisions of the Constitution are properly construed to have evolving content. Originalists, for their part, grant that the Constitution contains much vague or ambiguous text, even when assessed in light of its original semantic meaning. Some originalists rely on framing-era practice or understandings to reduce the scope of textual vagueness or ambiguity subject to nonoriginalist construction, but in practice, this approach is deeply problematic. There is no authentically originalist methodology for evaluating claims that changed circumstances render reliance on framing-era practice or understandings – that is, the original expected applications of constitutional text – obsolete or irrelevant. Other originalists embrace a semantic form of originalism that treats the original meaning of text as binding only at the level of generality found in the text itself. In practice, however, this approach is indistinguishable from nonoriginalism.The paper concludes with a survey of recent, ostensibly originalist decisions of the United States Supreme Court confirming that in reality, these decisions consistently turn on nonoriginalist considerations. Originalist adjudication is rather like the Loch Ness Monster – much discussed, but rarely encountered.
The WTO and the poorest countries: the stark reality

Small and poor countries pose a challenge for the World Trade Organization (WTO). These countries have acquired a significant say in WTO decision-making. However, they have limited ability to engage in the reciprocity game that is at the heart of the WTO, and have limited interests in the broader liberalization agenda because of their preferential access to industrial country markets. Accommodating the interests of the small and poor countries is desirable in itself, but would also facilitate expeditious progress in the Doha Round. The stark reality facing the system is that the desirable ways of addressing their concerns – providing them additional financial assistance and nonpreferential market access – is proving infeasible. As a result, the system is gravitating toward the less desirable option of relieving these countries of obligations, including those that might be welfare-enhancing for them.
Market Structure, Strike Activity, and Union Wage Settlements

We attempt a synthesis of the industrial relations market structure hypothesis with the modern asymmetric information theory of wage and strike outcomes. The industrial relations literature contains arguments indicating that wage settlements should be positively related to the degree of product market sales concentration and the degree of product market coverage by the union. In our empirical analysis of the periods 1970–1980 (strikes) and 1976–1980 (wages), we find that the relation between trade-adjusted sales concentration and wage settlements is positive at low and intermediate levels of concentration but negative at the highest levels of concentration. The relation is always negative for strike probabilities. We also find that the trade-adjusted per cent of the product market covered by the same union and the percentage covered by other unions are positively related to both wage settlements and strike probabilities.
Apologies as Signals: With Evidence from a Trust Game

Apologies are part of a social institution designed to restore frayed relationships not only in daily life but also in the domains of corporate governance, medical malpractice litigation, political reputation, organizational culture, etc. The theory shows that in a general class of moral hazard games with imperfect information about agents with two-dimensional type, apologies exhibit regular properties---e.g., apologies are more frequent in long relationships, early in relationships, and between better-matched partners. A variant of the trust game demonstrates that communication matters in a manner consistent with economic theory; specifically, the words “I am sorry” appear to select equilibrium behavior consistent with the theory's main predictions. This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, Teck Ho, and Terrance Odean, special issue editors.
Learning by Doing in the Newsvendor Problem: A Laboratory Investigation of the Role of Experience and Feedback

We investigate learning by doing in the newsvendor inventory problem. An earlier study observed that decision makers tend to anchor their orders around average demand and fail to adjust sufficiently toward the expected profit-maximizing order. Principles of behavioral theory suggest some relatively simple interventions into the decision maker's experience and feedback that might improve performance, and these guide our investigation. The results imply that the institutional organization of experience and feedback may have a significant influence on whether inventory is stocked optimally.
Beyond GDP? Welfare across Countries and Time

We propose a simple summary statistic for a nation’s flow of welfare, measured as a consumption equivalent, and compute its level and growth rate for a broad set of countries. This welfare metric combines data on consumption, leisure, inequality, andmortality. Althoughitishighly correlatedwithpercapita GDP, deviations are often economically significant: Western Europe looks considerably closer to U.S. living standards, emerging Asia has not caught up as much, and many African and Latin American countries appear farther behind. Each of the four components we introduce plays an important role in accounting for these differences.
The Shadow Powers of Article I

This essay argues that the interpretive struggle over the meaning of American federalism has recently shifted from the Commerce Clause to two textually marginal but substantively important battlegrounds: the Necessary and Proper Clause and, to a lesser extent, the General Welfare Clause. For nearly a decade, these quieter, more structurally ambiguous federal powers—the “shadow powers,” as I term them—have steadily increased in prominence. Beginning with Gonzales v. Raich (2005) and continuing through and beyond National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), the Supreme Court’s federalism jurisprudence has shifted from its once-typical form of inquiry into the scope of Congress’s commerce power, refracted through the Tenth Amendment, to become an inquiry into the transsubstantive reasons for allowing Congress to regulate at all. Paradoxically, the growth of shadow powers analysis has tended to narrow the permissible scope of congressional regulatory power. The novelty of shadow powers analysis lies in the sharp line the Court appears increasingly willing to draw between solid, if controversial, Article I powers such as the commerce power, and auxiliary Article I powers such the necessary and proper power. The invocation of the shadow powers has helped the Court find room to maneuver within its federalism analysis, while also appearing to maintain its commitment to an apparently unmoving baseline of a narrow commerce power. The growth of shadow powers analysis has obscured the outlines of federalism’s map—to shroud genuine (and perhaps salutary) doctrinal changes within a fog of constitutional text, insufficiently overruled precedents, and acontextual readings of foundational cases. author. Professor of Law and Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Teaching Scholar, University of Chicago Law School; Associate Member, Department of History, University of Chicago. I am grateful to my fellow contributors to this Feature, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Heather Gerken, Abbe Gluck, and Cristina Rodriguez, and to William Birdthistle, Aziz Huq, Genevieve Lakier, Charles Morse, H. Jefferson Powell, Judith Resnik, David Strauss, and the participants in the 2013 University of Wisconsin Discussion Group on Constitutionalism and DePaul University College of Law Faculty Seminar for helpful discussion and comments. I thank Abigail Molitor for excellent research assistance. I am pleased to acknowledge the support of the Mayer Brown Faculty Research Fund. the shadow powers of article i
Suppressing liberty, censoring information, wasting resources, and calling it good for the environment

This paper considers prevailing environmental policy in the United States with the emphasis on liberty, markets, utilizing information, entrepreneurial discovery, and the economic analysis of political decisions (public choice). The general discussion is illustrated by the concern over global warming and policies for addressing this concern. The political incentives to confront environmental problems directly with mandates, restrictions, and subsidies ignore the power of liberty and market incentives to solve problems by fostering an impressive network of information transfer, increasing innovation, and expanding prosperity. Indeed, most environmental policies systematically suppress liberty, censor the communication of information, and retard innovation and prosperity, with the result that they provide less environmental quality at greater cost than is possible. While such flawed policies might be justified in cases where pollution problems pose clear, serious, and immediate threats, we argue this is not true of global warming, and the most effective response to concerns over carbon emissions may be limiting the discretionary power of government to take direct action and rely on the indirect effects of liberty and market incentives to move us beyond the petroleum age more quickly and efficiently than will result from the direct action of government.
DeepSleep: Fast and Accurate Delineation of Sleep Arousals at Millisecond Resolution by Deep Learning

Abstract Sleep arousals are transient periods of wakefulness punctuated into sleep. Excessive sleep arousals are associated with many negative effects including daytime sleepiness and sleep disorders. High-quality annotation of polysomnographic recordings is crucial for the diagnosis of sleep arousal disorders. Currently, sleep arousals are mainly annotated by human experts through looking at millions of data points manually, which requires considerable time and effort. Here we present a deep learning approach, DeepSleep, which ranked first in the 2018 PhysioNet Challenge for automatically segmenting sleep arousal regions based on polysomnographic recordings. DeepSleep features accurate (area under receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.93), high-resolution (5-millisecond resolution), and fast (10 seconds per sleep record) delineation of sleep arousals.
Return smoothing and its implications for performance analysis of hedge funds

Abstract Return smoothing and performance persistence are both sources of autocorrelation in hedge fund returns. The practice of pre-processing the data in order to remove smoothing before conducting performance analysis also affects the predictability of hedge fund returns. This paper develops a Bayesian framework for the performance evaluation of hedge funds that simultaneously accounts for smoothing, time-varying performance and factor loadings, and the short-lived nature of reported returns. Simulation evidence reveals that “unsmoothing” predictable, persistent hedge fund returns reduces the ability to detect performance persistence in the second step of the analysis. Empirically, smoothing generates severe biases in standard estimates of abnormal performance, factor loadings, and idiosyncratic volatility. In particular, for funds with high systematic risk, a standard deviation increase in smoothing implies an upward bias in α in excess of 2% annually and a downward bias in equity market beta of more than 20%. For funds with low systematic risk exposure, the smoothing bias is most apparent in estimates of idiosyncratic volatility.
The Dark Side of Trading

This study investigates the effect of high trading volume on observed stock volatility controlling for fundamental information. We investigate a number of settings, including two natural experiments (exchange-traded funds [ETFs] and dual-class shares), the aggregate time-series of U.S. stocks since 1926, and the cross-section of U.S. stocks during the last 20 years. Our main finding is that there is an economically substantial positive relation between trading volume and stock volatility, especially when trading volume is high. The conclusion is that stock trading can inject volatility above and beyond that based on fundamentals.
The term structure of interest rates in a pure exchange economy with heterogeneous investors

This paper presents an equilibrium model of the term structure of interest rates when investors have heterogeneous preferences. The basic model considers a pure exchange economy of two classes of investors with different (but constant) relative risk aversion and gives closed-form solutions to bond prices. I use the model to examine the effect of preference heterogeneity on the behavior of bond yields. The model is also extended to cases of more than two classes of investors.
Gluing Hilbert C⁎-modules over the primitive ideal space

Abstract We show that the gluing construction for Hilbert modules introduced by Raeburn in his computation of the Picard group of a continuous-trace C ⁎ -algebra (1981) [14] can be applied to arbitrary C ⁎ -algebras, via an algebraic argument with the Haagerup tensor product. We put this result into the context of descent theory by identifying categories of gluing data for Hilbert modules over C ⁎ -algebras with categories of comodules over C ⁎ -coalgebras, giving a Hilbert-module version of a standard construction from algebraic geometry. As a consequence we show that if two C ⁎ -algebras have the same primitive ideal space T, and are Morita equivalent up to a 2-cocycle on T, then their Picard groups relative to T are isomorphic.
The Effects of Product Line Breadth: Evidence from the Automotive Industry

Using a detailed data set from the U.S. automotive industry, we enrich the existing literature on product line breadth with new results that highlight previously unexplored operational aspects of its benefits and costs. We find that expanding product line breadth has a significant effect on increasing mismatch costs arising from the increased demand uncertainty associated with product proliferation. These mismatch costs are manifested through additional discounts and inventories. The effect of product line breadth on mismatch costs is comparable in magnitude to the effect on production costs, suggesting that the operational benefits of inventory pooling achievable by rationalizing product lines can be very substantial. Furthermore, we quantify the benefit of using a platform strategy to mitigate the effects of a broad product line on production costs. Finally, we propose an additional, attribute-based measure of product line breadth and find that product line breadth can work as a hedge against changes in demand conditions. For example, automakers that offer a broader range of fuel economy levels increase their market share and reduce their average discounts as gas prices become more volatile.
Sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ determining $k$ taxicab distances

We address an analog of a problem introduced by Erdős and Fishburn, itself an inverse formulation of the famous Erdős distance problem, in which the usual Euclidean distance is replaced with the metric induced by the l1-norm, commonly referred to as the taxicab metric. Specifically, we investigate the following question: given d,k∈ℕ, what is the maximum size of a subset of ℝd that determines at most k distinct taxicab distances, and can all such optimal arrangements be classified? We completely resolve the question in dimension d=2, as well as the k=1 case in dimension d=3, and we also provide a full resolution in the general case under an additional hypothesis.
A new numerical method for inverse Laplace transforms used to obtain gluon distributions from the proton structure function

We recently derived a very accurate and fast new algorithm for numerically inverting the Laplace transforms needed to obtain gluon distributions from the proton structure function \(F_{2}^{\gamma p}(x,Q^{2})\). We numerically inverted the function g(s), s being the variable in Laplace space, to G(v), where v is the variable in ordinary space. We have since discovered that the algorithm does not work if g(s)→0 less rapidly than 1/s as s→∞, e.g., as 1/sβ for 0<β<1. In this note, we derive a new numerical algorithm for such cases, which holds for all positive and non-integer negative values of β. The new algorithm is exact if the original function G(v) is given by the product of a power vβ−1 and a polynomial in v. We test the algorithm numerically for very small positive β, β=10−6 obtaining numerical results that imitate the Dirac delta function δ(v). We also devolve the published MSTW2008LO gluon distribution at virtuality Q2=5 GeV2 down to the lower virtuality Q2=1.69 GeV2. For devolution, β is negative, giving rise to inverse Laplace transforms that are distributions and not proper functions. This requires us to introduce the concept of Hadamard Finite Part integrals, which we discuss in detail.
The Supreme Court and Federal Indian Policy

In this article, I identify a disconnect between the national policy relating to Indian affairs as established by Congress and the Executive branch and as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The Court recently decided a case called United States v. Lara, which involved an attempt by Congress to reign in the Court's common law jurisprudence relating to tribal criminal jurisdiction. What makes this case unusual was that some Members of the Court, as well as a large body of federal Indian law scholars, cannot find textual support for Congress's actions relating to tribal affairs and explicitly question whether Congress has any authority at all in this area. Though the Lara Court upheld the Act of Congress at issue, four Members of the Court (excluding Justice O'Connor) either dissented or ruled in favor of the United States solely because of a procedural technicality. In short, very little was decided in Lara. My article proposes a test whereby the Court follow a suggestion made by Justice Thomas (one of the four) to ignore Congress's legislation relating to tribal affairs, which may or may not be constitutionally authorized, but to focus instead on the explicit statements of federal Indian policy. This test avoids the constitutional questions while providing the Court a relatively simple means to decide its Indian cases. As Indian cases on tribal jurisdiction and taxation authority reach the Court in disproportionate numbers, this article should sharpen discussion on a frequently misunderstood area of constitutional law.
Products in a Category with Only One Object

We consider certain decision problems for the free model of the theory of Cartesian monoids. We introduce a model of computation based on the notion of a single stack one-way PDA due to Ginsburg, Greibach and Harrison. This model allows us to solve problems such as (1) Given a finite set B of elements and an element F, is F a product of members of B? (2) Is the submonoid generated by the finite set B infinite? for certain fragments of the free Cartesian monoid. These fragments include the submonoid of right invertible elements and so our results apply to the Thompson-Higman groups.
Export Crops and Civil Conflict

Many experts see a move toward high-value export crops, such as fruits and vegetables, as an important opportunity for economic growth and poverty reduction, but little is known about the effects of export crops in fragile and conflict-affected countries. We exploit movements in world market prices combined with geographic variation in crop production to show that increases in the value of bananas, the countryâ€™s biggest export crop, caused an increase in conflict violence and insurgent-controlled territory in the Philippines. This effect was concentrated in provinces where bananas are produced in large plantations with areas greater than 25 hectares. Our results are consistent with a mechanism in which insurgents fund their operations by extorting large agricultural export firms.
Strategic Vertical Differentiation and Durable Goods Monopoly

This paper considers a novel and strategic use of quality as a means for solving the durable-goods time inconsistency problem. It demonstrates how durable-goods producers can exploit the cannibalization of high-quality markets by low-quality goods. Relative to the static product line solution, this strategic dimension of quality choice implies higher quality levels of low-end goods and the production of some low-end products that would not otherwise be produced. In some cases, low-end goods may rationally be sold below cost. The paper, therefore, offers a purely Coasian explanation for vertical product differentiation.
Tort Negligence, Cost-Benefit Analysis and Tradeoffs: A Closer Look at the Controversy

What is the proper role of cost-benefit analysis in understanding the tort concept of negligence or reasonable care? A straightforward question, you might think. But it is a question that manages to elicit groans of exasperation from those on both sides of the controversy. For most utilitarians and adherents to law and economics, the answer is obvious: to say that people should not be negligent is to say that they should minimize the sum of the costs of accidents and the costs of preventing accidents. Under the economic formulation of the famous Learned Hand test, they should take a precaution if but only if the marginal costs (or burden, B) of that precaution are less than its marginal benefits (in the form of reduced risks of injury, measured by multiplying the probability (P) of the injury times the magnitude (L) of the injury if it occurs). If B>PxL, it would be absurd to require the greater expenditure, B. For many advocates of a fairness, corrective justice, rights-based, or contractualist perspective, the opposite answer is equally obvious. Permitting a person to impose risks of harm on others merely because he would thereby obtain a benefit (or would otherwise incur a burden) greater than the discounted value of the harm he might inflict, amounts to authorizing him to dump the costs of his risky activities on innocent victims. To permit this type of sacrifice of individuals on the altar of aggregate social welfare is morally abhorrent. Both sets of criticism have important elements of truth. Neither an unqualified cost-benefit analysis nor an unqualified rights-based rejection of tradeoffs is defensible - either as a description of tort doctrine and practice or as a normative prescription. However, a qualified (sensitive) consequentialist approach can accommodate legitimate criticisms of cost-benefit analysis: the consequentialist can launder preferences, and can consider the distribution of risk both in the social welfare calculus and in determining whether to compensate. At the same time, a qualified (tough-minded) deontological approach can accommodate the legitimate need to recognize tradeoffs: the deontologist can permit intrapersonal but not interpersonal aggregation of risks and benefits, can apply the concept of threshold deontology to risky activity, and can consider individual rather than population risk. I conclude that the formulation of the Learned Hand test found in the Restatement Third of Torts is broad enough to encompass each of these qualified approaches.
The effect of firm-level productivity on exchange rate pass-through ✩

Abstract A heterogeneous-firm trade model can explain the recent decrease in exchange rate pass-through to aggregate US import prices as a result of decreased trade costs. This paper finds support for this explanation by testing another implication of this type of heterogeneous firm model: lower exchange rate pass-through for goods that are traded for short periods of time.
On using artificial intelligence to integrate the design of organizational and process change in US manufacturing

The poor success rates that US manufacturing companies have experienced with computerized process and information technologies are reviewed. Reasons for this lack of success are also reviewed, indicating that inadequate pre-planning for the social as well as technology changes concommitant with modernization efforts account for most of the failures. Tools to facilitate sociotechnical integration planning are reviewed with regards to a list of acceptability criteria that tools should meet. This review indicates the need for an AI-based software program that allows modernization practitioners and academic management-of-technology scholars to simulate alternative supportive organizational-technological plans for different business and technical objectives. Such a tool called HITOP-A (Highly Integrated Technology, Organization, and People-Automated) is described here.
Protecting Trade Secrets in China: Update on Employee Disclosures and the Limitations of the Law

Associate Professor of Legal Studies, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, Athens, GA. I gratefully acknowledge funding from a Terry-Sanford research grant and a Coca Cola Center for International Business Programs award from the University of Georgia for this project. I also appreciate the assistance of: Peter Thorp and Mile Zhao, Allen & Overy LLP, Beijing; and Andreas W. Lauffs, Baker & McKenzie, Hong Kong.
The political economy of project preparation: An empirical analysis of World Bank projects

Abstract Using a novel application of stochastic frontier analysis to overcome data limitations, this paper finds substantially shorter project preparation periods for World Bank loans to countries that are geopolitically important (especially to the U.S.). Accelerated preparation is one explanation for how the World Bank might increase the number of loans to a recipient member country within a fixed time frame, for example in response to that country siding with powerful donor countries on important UN votes or while that country occupies an elected seat on the UN Security Council or the World Bank Executive Board. This channel of donor influence has important implications for institutional reform and provides a new angle to examine the cost of favoritism and the impact of project preparation.
Takeover risk and the correlation between stocks and bonds

Abstract Existing research suggests that, for a given firm, stock returns and bond prices are positively related, and this implies a negative relation between stock returns and bond spreads. In this paper, we show how takeover risk influences this relation. Bondholders of high-rated firms can suffer losses in a takeover, particularly if the takeover is largely funded with debt, resulting in a more positive (or less negative) correlation between stock returns and bond spread changes. Consistent with this notion and based on a large sample of data covering the period from 1980 to 2000, we find that high-rated firms which are likely to be taken over have a more positive correlation between stock returns and bond spread changes, while target firms with a poison put or an indebtedness covenant have a more negative correlation. Overall, our findings have implications for the pricing and hedging of bonds and default risk based financial products such as credit default swaps.
Book-Tax Differences and Future Earnings Changes

ABSTRACT: Prior studies suggest that large book-tax differences (BTDs) are associated with future earnings changes or earnings persistence. The literature has explored a number of potential explana...
Wage against the machine: A generalized deep-learning market test of dataset value

Abstract How can you tell whether a particular sports dataset really adds value, particularly with regard to betting effectiveness? The method introduced in this paper provides a way for any analyst in almost any sport to attempt to determine the additional value of almost any dataset. It relies on the use of deep learning, comprehensive historical box score statistics, and the existence of betting markets. When the method is applied as an illustration to a novel dataset for the NBA, it is shown to provide more information than regular box score statistics alone, and appears to generate above-breakeven wagering profits.
AN EXAMINATION OF PREDICTION MARKET EFFICIENCY: NBA CONTRACTS ON TRADESPORTS

In this paper I examine the absolute and relative price efficiency of NBA options listed on Tradesports.com. I find that contracts within specific price bands are misvalued, but also demonstrate that this market is more efficient than is the market for NFL options. Specifically, I show that contracts priced around $25 win (expire at $100) at a rate less than expected, while those priced around $75 win at a rate greater than expected. The magnitudes of these deviations between prices and fundamental values are less than those in the NFL market. Also, while prior theoretical work predicts that low-priced contracts should be overpriced, I instead find that NBA contracts priced near $2.50 win more frequently than expected. I thank Rob Dougherty and Brijesh Patel for assistance with the NBA event data, and Leighton Vaughan Williams for meaningful suggestions throughout. Any errors are strictly my own.
State regulation of medical necessity: the case of weight-reduction surgery.

As Professor Sage so ably explains,' medical necessity is the ground on which health care's cost/quality tradeoff battles are most visibly fought. The primary mechanism an insurer has for exercising case-by-case control over excessive medical costs is reviewing whether treatment meets the insurer's definition of medical necessity. Therefore, regulatory controls over medical necessity determinations are of immense importance for how medical spending decisions are made.
Commitment Vs. Flexibility

We study the optimal tradeoff between commitment and flexibility in a consumption-savings model. Individuals expect to receive relevant information regarding tastes, and thus value the flexibility provided by larger choice sets. On the other hand, they also expect to suffer from temptation, with or without self-control, and thus value the commitment afforded by smaller choice sets. The optimal commitment problem we study is to find the best subset of the individual’s budget set. This problem leads to a principal-agent formulation. We find that imposing a minimum level of savings is always a feature of the solution. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for minimum-savings policies to completely characterize the solution. We also discuss other applications, such as the design of fiscal constitutions, the problem faced by a paternalist, and externalities.
Prioritizing Multiple Uses on Public Lands After Bear Lodge

This Article analyzes the courts’ application of First Amendment jurisprudence to Native American cultural activities on federal land. The author concludes that the courts’ use of existing First Amendment law has been strained, especially with respect to Native American cultural practices on federal land. The Article analyzes Bear Lodge Multiple Use Association v. Babbitt within this context to conclude that First Amendment jurisprudence may not be the most appropriate legal construct for determining whether to allow or protect Native American cultural activities on federal land. Instead, the Article suggests that Native American practices are often best considered cultural, rather than religious, and as such, a First Amendment analysis, which has not been particularly favorable to Native American interests, would not apply. Applying a cultural lens to Native American practices, the Article concludes that federal land managers act well within their prescribed authority when they protect such activities.