cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Determining Public Policy and Resource Allocation Priorities for Mitigating Natural Hazards: A Capabilities-based Approach

This paper proposes a Capabilities-based Approach to guide hazard mitigation efforts. First, a discussion is provided of the criteria that should be met by an adequate framework for formulating public policy and allocating resources. This paper shows why a common decision-aiding tool, Cost-benefit Analysis, fails to fulfill such criteria. A Capabilities-based Approach to hazard mitigation is then presented, drawing on the framework originally developed in the context of development economics and policy. The focus of a Capabilities-based Approach is protecting and promoting the well-being of individuals. Capabilities are dimensions of well-being and specified in terms of functionings. Functionings capture the various things of value an individual does or becomes in his or her life, including being alive, being healthy, and being sheltered. Capabilities refer to the real achievability of specific functionings. In the context of hazard mitigation, from a Capabilities-based Approach, decision- and policy-makers should consider the acceptability and tolerability of risks along with the affectability of hazards when determining policy formulation and resource allocation. Finally, the paper shows how the proposed approach satisfies the required criteria, and overcomes the limitations of Cost-benefit Analysis, while maintaining its strengths.
The Problem with Unpaid Work

This article examines the problems with a social norm that assumes women should shoulder a disproportionate amount of unpaid family work. It evaluates the most recent empirical data which suggests that women continue to do substantially more unpaid work than men, and men continue to do substantially more paid work than women. It then briefly reviews two standard explanations for where this gendered division of work may come from, biological inclination and/or systems of male dominance. It suggests that neither of these traditional explanations have given adequate consideration to the normative question begged by the extant division of labor. Is there something wrong with the fact that women seem to choose to do more unpaid work than men do? This article answers that question both for women who forego paid work entirely and for (the much larger class of) women who combine paid and unpaid work but still perform the lion's share of their household's home work. The article suggests that the problem with the unpaid work norm is not so much that women do not get paid for as much of their work as men do, because many women do end up getting paid - by their husbands - for the work they do in the home. Instead, the problem with the unpaid work norm is the messages that it sends with regard to the need for and ability to combine paid and unpaid work. The analysis presented suggests that women opting out of paid work entirely is problematic because it puts insufficient pressure on the workplace to afford flexibility for the many workers who need it. More important, the article suggests that the extant division of unpaid labor, even in households in which both spouses perform paid work, is putting many of the equality gains that women have made in jeopardy. If so many women continue to subordinate their own paid work so that their spouses do not have to, the workplace is likely to take notice and start assuming precisely that. Employers may well start resisting equality legislation that prevents firms from making accurate predications about women's likelihood of working less hard (at paid work) than do men.
Measuring Abnormal Bond Performance

We analyze the empirical power and specification of test statistics designed to detect abnormal bond returns in corporate event studies, using monthly and daily data. We find that test statistics based on frequently used methods of calculating abnormal monthly bond returns are biased. Most methods implemented in monthly data also lack power to detect abnormal returns. We also consider unique issues arising when using the newly available daily bond data, and formulate and test methods to calculate daily abnormal bond returns. Using daily bond data significantly increases the power of the tests, relative to the monthly data. Weighting individual trades by size while eliminating noninstitutional trades from the TRACE data also increases the power of the tests to detect abnormal performance, relative to using all trades or the last price of the day. Further, value-weighted portfolio-matching approaches are better specified and more powerful than equal-weighted approaches. Finally, we examine abnormal bond returns to acquirers around mergers and acquisitions to demonstrate how the abnormal return model and use of daily versus monthly data can affect inferences. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.
ESTIMATION OF THE LONG-RUN AVERAGE RELATIONSHIP IN NONSTATIONARY PANEL TIME SERIES

Author(s): Sun, Yixiao | Abstract: This paper proposes a new class of estimators of the long-run average relationship when there is no individual time series cointegration. Using panel data with large cross section (n) and time series dimensions (T), the estimators are based on the long-run average variance estimate using bandwidth equal to T. The new estimators include the panel pooled least squares estimators and the limiting cross sectional least squares estimator as special cases. It is shown that the new estimators are consistent and asymptotically normal under both the sequential limit, wherein T goes to infinity followed by n going to infinity, and the joint limit where T and n go to infinite simultaneously. The rate condition for the joint limit to hold is relaxed to the condition that sqrt(n)/T goes to infinity, which is less restrictive than the rate condition that n/T goes to infinity, as imposed by Phillips and Moon (1999). By taking powers of the Bartlett and Parzen kernels, this paper introduces two new classes of kernels, the sharp kernels and steep kernels, and shows that these new kernels deliver new estimators of the long-run average relationship that are more efficient than the existing ones. A simulation study supports the asymptotic results.
The Perceived Intrusiveness of Searching Electronic Devices at the Border: An Empirical Study

The Fourth Amendment protects the right of individuals to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."3 The recurring question in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, then, is the reasonableness of a given search in a given context. This Comment analyzes the reasonableness of searches of electronic devices—smartphones, laptops, and tablets—in the context of a border crossing. When a traveler enters the country, whether at an airport or a land bor der, how much protection should the contents of his or her elec tronic gadgets be given? Historically, all of a traveler's posses sions could be thoroughly searched, even without cause, because Fourth Amendment protections are substantially relaxed at the border.4 But, given the sheer amount of personal information that can be recovered from a smartphone's text message log or a computer's e-mail archive, is it "reasonable" to give government
The Stock of External Sovereign Debt: Can We Take the Data At 'Face Value'?

Abstract The stock of sovereign debt is typically measured at face value. Defined as the undiscounted sum of future principal repayments, face values are misleading when debts are issued with different contractual forms or maturities. In this paper, we construct alternative measures of the stock of external sovereign debt for 100 developing countries from 1979 through 2006 that correct for differences in contractual form and maturity. We show that our alternative measures: (1) paint a very different quantitative, and in some cases also qualitative, picture of the stock of developing country external sovereign debt; (2) often invert rankings of indebtedness across countries, which historically defined eligibility for debt forgiveness; (3) indicate that the empirical performance of the benchmark quantitative model of sovereign debt deteriorates by roughly 50% once model-consistent measures of debt are used; (4) show how the spread of aggregation clauses in debt contracts that award creditors voting power in proportion to the contractual face value may introduce inefficiencies into the process of restructuring sovereign debts; and (5) illustrate how countries have manipulated their debt issuance to meet fiscal targets written in terms of face values.
R&D price indexes and real R&D expenditures in the United States☆

Abstract The rate of inflation in R&D is very difficult to measure. The official government statistics in the United States use the GNP deflator to deflate R&D expenditures. Little is known about the extent to which price indexes for R and D inputs, if they were constructed in various industries, would differ from the GNP deflator. This paper reports the findings of a study that attempts to fill this important gap. Laspeyres price indexes are presented both for R and D inputs and for inputs used in other stages of the innovation process. Also, price indexes for R and D inputs are constructed, assuming that the relevant production function is Cobb-Douglas. On the basis of the results, we estimate the extent and direction of the errors in the official R&D statistics due to the use of the GNP deflator. Our findings, based on detailed data obtained from firms accounting for about one-ninth of all company-financed R&D in the U.S., indicate that the GNP deflator underestimated the rate of price increase for R&D inputs during 1969–1979 in practically every industry we studied. The bulk of the apparent increase in real R&D in these industries (which was relatively modest in any event) seems to have been due to the inadequacies of the GNP deflator. One important moral seems to be that more attention and resources should be devoted to the construction of better price indexes for R&D.
Inside the Crystal Ball: New Approaches to Predicting the Gasoline Price at the Pump

SUMMARY Appropriate real-time forecasting models for the US retail price of gasoline yield substantial reductions in the mean-squared prediction error (MSPE) at horizons up to 2 years as well as substantial increases in directional accuracy. Even greater MSPE reductions are possible by constructing a pooled forecast that assigns equal weight to five of the most successful forecasting models. Pooled forecasts have lower MSPE than the US Energy Information Administration gasoline price forecasts and the gasoline price expectations in the Michigan Survey of Consumers. We also show that as much as 39% of the decline in gas prices between June and December 2014 was predictable. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
JIT Adoption: The Effects of LIFO Reserves and Financial Reporting and Tax Incentives*

Using matched samples of JIT adopters and nonadopters, we examine the association of JIT adoption with firms' financial reporting and tax incentives, earnings-management histories, and LIFO reserve levels. We find evidence that adoption decisions are influenced by the interaction of firms' LIFO reserves with their income smoothing, debt covenant, and tax incentives. We also find that adoption is less likely for firms historically engaging in high degrees of earnings management, particularly when such firms have no substantial LIFO reserves. Our study extends earlier research demonstrating a relation between inventory valuation method and year-end inventory transactions, and documents a relation between earnings-management incentives and a fundamental supply-chain design choice.
Government policy towards entrepreneurial finance: Innovation investment funds

Abstract This paper analyses 280 Australian venture capital and private equity funds and their investments in 845 entrepreneurial firms over the period 1982–2005. I focus the analysis on the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) governmental program, first introduced in 1997. In order to highlight the unique aspects of the IIF, I compare the properties of the Australian IIF program with government venture capital programs in Canada, the UK and the US. The IIF program is unique with a focus on partnering between government–private sector partnerships, as described herein. I analyse the performance of the IIF funds along several dimensions: the propensity to take on risk by investing in early stage and high-tech investments; the propensity to monitor and add value to investees through staging, syndication, and portfolio size per fund manager; and the exit success. For each of these evaluation criteria, I assess the performance of the IIF funds relative to other types of private equity and venture capital funds in Australia. The data analysed show – in both a statistically and economically significant way – that the IIF program has facilitated investment in start-up, early stage and high tech firms as well as the provision of monitoring and value-added advice to investees. Overall, therefore, the data are strongly consistent with the view that the IIF program is fostering the development of the Australian venture capital industry. However, the vast majority of investments have not yet been exited, and the exit performance of IIFs to date has not been statistically different than that of other private funds. Further evaluation of IIF performance and outcomes is warranted when subsequent years of data become available.
Duty, Consequences, & Intellectual Property

Drawing on Amartya Sen's discussion of The Bhagavad Gita and Hindu concepts of justice (niti and nyaya), this paper examines ethical issues related to the construction of intellectual property policy. The author analyzes deontic, or duty based, and consequentialist theories of law within the context of the debate between Arjuna and Krishna in The Gita. With respect to intellectual property, the author proposes a consequentialist theory of intellectual property based on the duties owed by an owner to other persons. This ethical theory is illustrated through the legal treatment of patents on medical diagnostics (Prometheus v Mayo) as well as on through the doctrines of fair use and first sale. This paper was prepared for a symposium on IP & Religious Thought at University of St Thomas Law School (Minnesota), held April 5, 2013.
The Impact of the Shale Oil Revolution on U.S. Oil and Gasoline Prices

This article examines how the shale oil revolution has shaped the evolution of U.S. crude oil and gasoline prices. It puts the evolution of shale oil production into historical perspective, highlights uncertainties about future shale oil production, and cautions against the view that the U.S. may become the next Saudi Arabia. It then reviews the effects of the ban on U.S. crude oil exports, of capacity constraints in refining and transporting crude oil, of differences in the quality of conventional and unconventional crude oil, and of the recent regional fragmentation of the global market for crude oil on the determination of U.S. oil and gasoline prices. It discusses the reasons for the persistent wedge between U.S. crude oil prices and global crude oil prices in recent years and for the fact that domestic oil prices below global levels have not translated to lower U.S. gasoline prices. It also examines the role of shale oil in causing the 2014 oil price decline. Finally, it explains why the shale oil revolution unlike the shale gas revolution is unlikely to stimulate a U.S. boom in oil-intensive manufacturing industries, and it explores more generally the implications of the shale oil revolution for the U.S. economy.
Financing Social Security, 1939-1949: a reexamination of the financing policies of this period.

�Summary This article examines the financing history of the U.S. Social Security system during the period starting with the amendments of 1939 and concluding with the amendments of 1950. It reviews the program’s financing policies during this period, and in particular, a series of tax-rate “freezes” enacted during this time. The tax-rate schedule codified in the Social Security Act of 1935 was prevented from taking full effect during these years and the rates were “frozen” at their 1935 level for 15 years. This article seeks to explain the policy context of these rate freezes and their impact on the program’s long-range financial solvency. Two major findings emerge from this research:
Where's the kink? Disappointment events in consumption growth and equilibrium asset prices

I propose a consumption-based asset pricing model with disappointment aversion to investigate the link between downside consumption risk and expected returns across asset markets. I find that the disappointment model can explain 95% of the cross-sectional variation in size/book-to-market portfolios and more than 80% of the variation in the joint sample of stocks, bonds, and commodity futures. I also show that the performance of the disappointment model is comparable to that of the Fama-French three-factor specification, regardless of the sample frequency (annual, quarterly). Overall, my results indicate that disappointment aversion considerably improves the fit of consumption-based asset pricing models.Received November 27, 2014; editorial decision September 18, 2016 by Editor Stefan Nagel.
Starting Small and Renegotiation

Abstract This paper develops a model of a long-term partnership with two-sided incomplete information. The partners jointly determine the stakes of their relationship and individually decide whether to cooperate with or betray each other over time. An equilibrium in which the partners “start small” is studied and shown to be uniquely selected by a strong renegotiation condition. The characterization offers new insights into how relationships change as parties learn about each other and qualitative differences between situations of one- and two-sided incomplete information. In particular, stakes rise and types separate faster in the two-sided case. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, C73, D74.
One of These Interns Is Not like the Others: How the Eleventh Circuit Misapplied the “Tweaked Primary Beneficiary” Test to Required Clinical Internships

This Note is intended to introduce a new perspective to the unpaid internship debate and highlight the need for courts to focus on the specific type of internship at issue before formulating an approach to best assess whether the intern should be classified as an employee entitled to wages. Part I of the Article will discuss the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the development of the “trainee” exception formulated by Walling v. Portland Terminal Co. The key question in any unpaid internship scenario is whether the intern should be deemed an employee under the FLSA and thus entitled to wages and overtime.Part II explores the varying and inconsistent tests put forth by the Department of Labor (“DOL”) and/or used by courts to determine whether a person should be deemed an employee under the FLSA and therefore entitled to wages. Part III then addresses the most recent test formulated by the Second Circuit and adopted by the Eleventh Circuit and suggests that neither court considered key differences between internship scenarios in deciding upon the proper test. Part IV expands on this suggestion by identifying several reasons why the test adopted by the Eleventh Circuit is not appropriate to address the narrow, but prevalent clinical internship scenario in which the internship is both a required component of the academic program and mandated for professional certification and licensure. Part V ultimately concludes that the clinical intern is a student engaged in required experiential learning as a component of an overall academic curriculum and professional certification. Because a student is not a worker, the courts should find that the clinical intern does not qualify as an employee under the FLSA and is not entitled to wages.
A Temporal Analysis of Earnings Surprises: Profits versus Losses

I show that median earnings surprise has shifted rightward from small negative (miss analyst estimates by a small amount) to zero (meet analyst estimates exactly) to small positive (beat analyst estimates by a small amount) during the 16 years, 1984 to 1999. I show that a rightward temporal shift in median surprise from negative to positive describes earnings, but neither profits nor losses. Median profit surprise shifts within the positive quadrant, from zero to one cent per share. Median loss surprise shifts within the negative quadrant from extreme negative (about -33 cents per share) to zero. I show that the median surprise for profits exceeds that for losses in every year. I document significant positive temporal trends in both meet and beat analyst estimates for both profits and losses, but I find a greater frequency of profits that either meet or beat analyst estimates in every year. I find a significant positive temporal trend in positive profits that are “a little bit of good news,” and a significant negative temporal trend in managers who report losses that are an “extreme amount of bad news.” My results are robust to the four internal validity threats I consider—namely temporal changes in: (1) analyst forecast accuracy, (2) the mix of earnings of one sign preceded by earnings of another sign four quarters ago, (3) the timeliness of the most recent analyst forecast, and (4) the I/B/E/S definition of actual earnings. I find that managers of growth firms are relatively more likely than managers of value firms to report good news profits. I show that when they do report positive profit surprises, managers of growth firms are more likely to report “a little bit of good news” in every year.
Ill Telecommunications: How Internet Infrastructure Providers Lose First Amendment Protection

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed an Internet nondiscrimination rule: “Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications, and services in a nondiscriminatory manner.” Among other requests, the FCC sought comment on whether the proposed nondiscrimination rule would “promote free speech, civic participation, and democratic engagement,” and whether it would “impose any burdens on access providers’ speech that would be cognizable for purposes of the First Amendment.” The purpose of this Article is to suggest that a wide range of responses to these First Amendment questions, offered by telecommunications providers and civil society groups alike, have glossed over a fundamental question: whether the activities of broadband Internet providers are sufficiently imbued with speech or expressive conduct to warrant protection under the First Amendment in the first place. Yet if this question is not resolved, any subsequent analysis of those who facilitate Internet-based telecommunications will necessarily rest on an incoherent and insufficiently considered definition of the “speech” that is at the heart of First Amendment concerns. The FCC’s proposed nondiscrimination rule is an attempt to ensure that when access providers route “lawful content, applications, and services” to users on behalf of some third-party information providers, they are also obligated to route lawful content, applications, and services to users from all other information providers. Based on this understanding of the FCC’s nondiscrimination rule as a form of the equal access rule upheld in Rumsfeld, the Article concludes that the nondiscrimination rule does not affect the speech and association rights of access providers. Internet access providers do not accrue the speech rights associated with the third-party content, applications, and other communications that they transport to users through their networks.
Can Voter ID Laws Be Administered in a Race-Neutral Manner? Evidence from the City of Boston in 2008

Can Voter ID Laws Be Administered in a Race-Neutral Manner? Evidence from the City of Boston in 2008
The Two Faces of the Single Tax Principle

This short paper, prepared for a symposium, “Reconsidering the Tax Treaty,” to be held at Brooklyn Law School on October 23, 2015, examines the “single tax principle,” arguably underlying bilateral tax treaties, in connection with evaluating the treaties’ future role in the development of international tax law and policy. It distinguishes between “upside” departures from the single tax principle, which occur when the same dollar of income is taxed more than once, and “downside” departures, which occur when it is not taxed at all.The paper argues that a focus on barring upside departures from the single tax principle can be quite misguided. While over-taxing cross-border activity, relative to that occurring in one country, may be undesirable, this should not stand in the way of letting residence countries tax foreign source income at a reduced rate, in lieu of wholly offsetting source country taxes via foreign tax credits. As for barring downside departures from the single tax principle, such as by addressing stateless income, while this often is desirable from a given country’s unilateral national welfare standpoint (and is even more clearly worth pursuing multilaterally), the issues raised are more complicated than adherence to the single tax principle might appear to suggest.
Correcting the past: Failures to replicate psi.

Across 7 experiments (N = 3,289), we replicate the procedure of Experiments 8 and 9 from Bem (2011), which had originally demonstrated retroactive facilitation of recall. We failed to replicate that finding. We further conduct a meta-analysis of all replication attempts of these experiments and find that the average effect size (d = 0.04) is no different from 0. We discuss some reasons for differences between the results in this article and those presented in Bem (2011).
Penny Wise, Dollar Foolish: Buy--Sell Imbalances On and Around Round Numbers

This paper provides evidence that stock traders focus on round numbers as cognitive reference points for value. Using a random sample of more than 100 million stock transactions, we find excess buying (selling) by liquidity demanders at all price points one penny below (above) round numbers. Further, the size of the buy--sell imbalance is monotonic in the roundness of the adjacent round number (i.e., largest adjacent to integers, second-largest adjacent to half-dollars, etc.). Conditioning on the price path, we find much stronger excess buying (selling) by liquidity demanders when the ask falls (bid rises) to reach the integer than when it crosses the integer. We discuss and test three explanations for these results. Finally, 24-hour returns also vary by price point, and buy--sell imbalances are a major determinant of that variation across price points. Buying (selling) by liquidity demanders below (above) round numbers yield losses approaching $1 billion per year. This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, Teck Ho, and Terrance Odean, special issue editors.
Whatever Happened to Law and Economics

This contribution to the Maryland symposium honoring Guido Calabresi and 'The Cost of Accidents' takes a semi-friendly outsider's look at how one extraordinarily successful jurisprudential movement developed over the last generation. During the last thirty-five years, law and economics has been simultaneously deteriorating and thriving: Most of its core neoclassical particulars - among them rational choice, wealth maximization, faith in markets, and a claim to science - have been shaken profoundly, but at the same time its attention to a Kaldor-Hicks style bottom line ("welfare") and its inclination to give forward-looking advice to the government have won over almost everyone in legal-academic and policy communities, to the point that it is now hard to say where this field ends and others begin. Against this backdrop of failure and success, Guido Calabresi's 1970 classic can be reread for guidance about the future of law and economics.
The politics of Europe 2001: adversity and persistence

In its annual report to the European Parliament ‘on the progress achieved by the European Union in 2001,’ the European Council (2002a: 2) was not unjustified in asserting that ‘the year 2001 was a year in which the Union again demonstrated its ability to rise to new challenges while consolidating and building on past achievements’. Nevertheless, too much emphasis on the persistence of European integration in the face of adversity is misleading. What it implies is a sense of momentum: The EU can survive by muddling through if nothing else. Hence Europe’s leaders can refer to the historic commitment to enlargement as though ‘history’ and ‘commitment’ are themselves sufficient to ensure enlargement will come about. What the persistence of European integration leaves open is the stability of the mechanism behind it: could the act of muddling through undermine Europe’s ability to resist the influence of external factors? This question lies at the heart of the European Council declaration made at Laeken in December 2001. The concern is not that the process of European integration is somehow out of touch with the people and therefore unable to function. Rather it is that continuing to function while remaining out of touch with the people is likely to undermine the future viability of the European project. Such concern cannot be justified solely with reference to the record of events. In order to assess whether the concern expressed at Laeken is warranted, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms that allow European integration to resist the influence of external shocks. This argument about the politics of Europe in 2001 is made in four sections. The first outlines the shocks witnessed during the course of the year: the Irish veto of the Nice Treaty and the riots surrounding the Gothenburg summit; September 11; and the collapse of business confidence in Europe and elsewhere. The second examines the resilience of European projects in the face of those shocks: enlargement; security; and economic and monetary union. The third suggests three plausible explanations for this resilience: multilevel governance; path dependence; and distributive equilibrium. The fourth section questions whether persistence can guarantee stability in the future.
Fiscal Decentralization and Government Size in Latin America

Although the region remains highly centralized, the tendency toward decentralization is quite strong. Not only is a larger portion of the general government budget executed from the subnational government level, the autonomy that these governments have in deciding how much to spend and what to spend on is increasing as well. In this context, it is important to analyze the possible effects of the move toward decentralization on fiscal performance.
The Performance of Long-run Stock Returns Following Issues of Public and Private Debt

This study uses a balance sheet-based method to identify both public and private debt issues. This feature is important because there have been no studies of the information content of private debt issues, while private debt is substantially more prevalent than public debt. We find no abnormal returns following straight debt issues. However, convertible debt issuers under-perform the market on the order of 50 to 70 percent in the following five years. In pursuit of explanations, we find that convertible debt issues signal a deterioration of future profitability, which accounts for at least part of the stock price underperformance.
A characterization of strategic complementarities

I characterize games for which there is an order on strategies such that the game has strategic complementarities. I prove that, with some qualifications, games with a unique equilibrium have complementarities if and only if Cournot best-response dynamics has no cycles; and that all games with multiple equilibria have complementarities. As applications of my results, I show that: (1) generic 2×2 games either have no pure-strategy equilibria, or have complementarities; (2) generic two-player finite ordinal potential games have complementarities.
Core Values: False and True

Oscar Wilde, one of history's great wits, defined a cynic as one who "knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."' The remark works well as a quip ridiculing those people who devote their lives to market values and providing rhetorical support for those who choose artistic paths. As a factual statement, however, Wilde's definition of a cynic is exactly backwards. Cynicism was a movement in Greek philosophy that arose in the fifth century, B.C. Its adherents rejected established social conventions, including wealth, property, family and religion. Viewing money with disdain, they lived as ascetics. Because they wore tattered clothes and adopted the tactic of howling in public at practices they considered to be flawed, they were often referred to as the "dog philosophers." Contrary to the impression given by Wilde's quip, the Cynics believed that true happiness could only be achieved by living a virtuous life, not by worldly pleasures. To illustrate this point, the story is told that Diogenes, the most famous of the Cynics, would carry a lit oil lantern during the daytime, holding it up to people he encountered, to dramatize his search for a virtuous person. 2 Fast forward from Victorian England and ancient Greece to debates about attorneys' ethics at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. We hear much talk these days about the "core values" of the legal profession. Bar leaders emphasize core values of the profession in their speeches) In a bruising debate over whether the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct should be amended to allow lawyers to participate in
The Maximum Principle for Global Solutions of Stochastic Stackelberg Differential Games

National Science Foundation (DMS 1303775); Research Grant Council of the HKSAR, (CityU 500113)
NAFTA's and CUSFTA's Impact on International Trade

Abstract This paper identifies NAFTA's effects on trade volumes and prices using detailed trade and tariff data. It identifies demand elasticities from the additional wedges driven between consumption patterns in NAFTA versus non-NAFTA countries caused by tariff reductions. Supply elasticities are identified using tariffs as instruments for observed quantities. Analysis of worldwide trade data for 5,000 commodities shows that NAFTA had a substantial impact on international trade volumes, but a modest effect on prices and welfare. NAFTA increased North American output and prices in many highly protected sectors by driving out imports from nonmember countries.
Contagion, Monsoons, and Domestic Turmoil in Indonesia’s Currency Crisis

The paper investigates whether Indonesia’s recent currency crisis was due to domestic fundamentals, common external shocks (“monsoons”), or contagion from neighboring countries. Markov switching models attribute speculative pressure on Indonesia’s currency to domestic political and financial factors and contagion from speculative pressures in Thailand and Korea. In particular, the results from a time-varying transition probability Markov switching model (which overcomes some drawbacks of previous methods) show that inclusion of exchange rate pressures from Thailand and Korea in the transition probabilities improves the conditional probabilities of crisis in Indonesia. The paper also finds evidence of contagion in the stock market.
Profitably Bundling Information Goods: Evidence From the Evolving Video Library of Netflix

Using a unique dataset of the Netflix video on demand library, this article measures the characteristics of information goods important when employing a strategic bundling strategy. By matching the...
Evidence and Ethics: Litigating in the Shadows of the Rules

Many jurisdictions are blessed with modern, comprehensive rules of evidence drawn from centuries of common law principles. Likewise, most states also have contemporary rules of ethics compiled from a century of such rules.2 Yet attorneys on both sides of a case often possess and exercise considerable discretion during trials, and neither evidence law nor ethics rules satisfactorily limit that discretion, which might permit an attorney to violate the spirit of these rules. It almost goes without saying that in the course of a trial, litigating attorneys frequently make tactical decisions, such as whether to present particular evidence or oppose an opponent’s proffer of evidence. The rules of evidence may permit the use of the particular evidence, yet the attorney may choose to forego its use. The rules may bar the use of the evidence, yet the opposing attorney might not object to the proffer. Thus, the rules provide guidance, but not necessarily answers.
Nonparametric identification of behavioral responses to counterfactual policy interventions in dynamic discrete decision processes

Abstract This paper studies the identification of Markov discrete choice models when we observe individuals' decisions and some state variables. We show the nonparametric identification of the choice probabilities associated with a counterfactual change in the one-period utility function.
Layer construction of 3D topological states and string braiding statistics

Quantum qubits and quantum gates have some basis in topological phases. Researchers explain how to couple two-dimensional Abelian sheets to produce three-dimensional topological structures.
Introduction to the Special Issue on Approaches to Control Biological and Biologically Inspired Networks

The emerging field at the intersection of quantitative biology, network modeling, and control theory has enjoyed significant progress in recent years. This Special Issue brings together a selection of papers on complementary approaches to observe, identify, and control biological and biologically inspired networks. These approaches advance the state of the art in the field by addressing challenges common to many such networks, including high dimensionality, strong nonlinearity, uncertainty, and limited opportunities for observation and intervention. Because these challenges are not unique to biological systems, it is expected that many of the results presented in these contributions will also find applications in other domains, including physical, social, and technological networks.
Valuation of Individual Liberty Vs. Social Order among Democratic Supporters: A Cross-Validation

Many classical studies from Soviet and post-Soviet societies have found that, when given the choice between liberty and social order, those who support democratic principles tend to choose liberty in preference to order. Yet the results from our two sample surveys conducted in Beijing, China in 1995 and 1997 directly contradict their findings. We find that those who support democratic principles are more likely to choose order over liberty In this study, we present differences between their findings and ours. Then, we draw some important theoretical and political implications from such differences.
FULL COST OF AIR TRAVEL IN THE CALIFORNIA CORRIDOR

The theoretical and empirical literature on the cost structure of the provision of air transportation is reviewed, and cost functions for air travel in the California corridor are specified and estimated. A full cost model is developed; it identifies and measures key cost components—fuser, carrier, infrastructure, time and congestion, noise, accident, and pollution costs. Applying the models to data for domestic air travel in the California corridor, the total long-run average cost is estimated to be 11 cents per passenger km traveled. The single largest cost category is owning and operating a plane. In general, because of large fixed-cost components, the average cost of infrastructure exceeds the marginal cost.
Can China's gradualist reform strategy be applied in Eastern Europe?

Abstract This paper seeks to lay out the strategy of China's developmental approach to transition ‐ how the strategy was developed and why it has worked so well for China. It then goes on to answer the arguments of Sachs and Woo (1994, 1995, 1996) that China's approach to transition has no relevance to the nations of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (EEFSU). The paper begins with a review of China's agricultural reforms. The initial policy changes, as laid out by the Third Plenum in December 1978, were very timid, maintaining the commune and production team structure. But through a process of local experimentation and feedback to the center, the Household Responsibility System eventually became the national standard and free markets in everything but land were established. Neoclassical economists have always insisted that the reform process in the formerly socialist economies must begin with simultaneous stabilization, price and trade liberalization and currency convertibility. But China has mov...
$C_2$-equivariant stable homotopy from real motivic stable homotopy

We give a method for computing the C2-equivariant homotopy groups of the Betti realization of a p-complete cellular motivic spectrum over ℝ in terms of its motivic homotopy groups. More generally, we show that Betti realization presents the C2-equivariant p-complete stable homotopy category as a localization of the p-complete cellular real motivic stable homotopy category.
Fair value accounting and gains from asset securitizations: A convenient earnings management tool with compensation side-benefits

Abstract Accounting rules for valuing retained interest from securitizations require management to make assumptions concerning discount rates, default rates, and prepayment rates. These assumptions provide management with discretion to determine the “gain on sale” of the receivables. We investigate whether CEO compensation is less sensitive to securitization gains than to other earnings components in the presence of proxies for how independent (outsiders, females, fewer CEO-selected directors) and informed (financial expertise) directors are. Overall, our results do not suggest that better “monitoring” reduces earnings management or CEO pay-sensitivity to reported securitization gains. Our results suggest that CEOs are rewarded for the gains they report and boards do not intervene.
Stock Market Liquidity and Firm Dividend Policy

We provide evidence of a link between firm dividend policy and stock market liquidity. In the cross section, owners of less (more) liquid common stock are more (less) likely to receive cash dividends. Predictions of the proportion of dividend payers based on 1963–1977 cross-sectional estimates account for most of the declining propensity of firms to pay dividends as documented by Fama and French (2001). Furthermore, historic liquidity is an important determinant of dividend initiations and omissions. Finally, we show that sensitivity of firm value to aggregate liquidity declines after dividend initiations, suggesting that investors view stock market liquidity and dividends as substitutes.
Cy Pres and the Optimal Class Action

This Article examines the problem of cy pres relief in class actions through the lens of optimal claim structure and class membership. It finds that the present cy pres doctrine does little to advance the creation of optimal class actions, and that it may do some harm to achieving that goal. The Article then proposes an alternative “nudge” to induce putative class counsel to structure class actions in an optimal way: setting attorneys’ fees so that counsel is compensated through a combination of an hourly market rate and a percentage of the net recovery to the class itself. The Article demonstrates that this approach to attorneys’ fees aligns the interests of the class in maximizing its recovery, class counsel in obtaining a profitable and reasonable fee, and society in certifying the class action with the greatest expected net benefit. This approach also eliminates many of the agency-cost problems associated with class counsel failing to attend to the interests of the class. Finally, this approach eliminates most of the incentive for class counsel to seek cy pres relief, although in some cases cy pres relief may yet be appropriate.
Does Intent Modify Risk-Based Auditing?

ABSTRACT: Risk-based auditing implies that auditors invest more (fewer) resources as reporting risks increase (decrease). We find from an interactive experiment that participants in an audit-like r...
The Domestic Relations Exception, Domestic Violence, and Equal Access to Federal Courts

This Article examines the classic issue of the allocation of jurisdiction between the state and federal courts, with an untraditional focus on family law, domestic violence, and women’s access to federal courts. The piece first explores the domestic relations exception to federal jurisdiction, a longstanding judge-created doctrine under which the federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear divorce, custody, and other family matters traditionally reserved to the states. In the recent case of Marshall v. Marshall, 126 S. Ct. 1735 (2006), the Supreme Court had the opportunity to abandon the domestic relations exception (as well as its relative, the probate exception) but refused to do so, despite acknowledging the weak rationale for maintaining it. This Article critiques the traditional explanations for the exception’s existence, and argues that its roots may be traced to the principles of coverture. The “exception” may in fact not be an exception to jurisdiction at all, but rather a recognition that divorce and related cases could not meet federal diversity requirements because married women could not establish citizenship separate from that of their husbands. This explanation reveals both one of the primary causes for the exception’s creation and the consequences of maintaining it—the belief that family law is a “women’s issue” that is not deserving of the attention of the federal courts. The Article goes on to suggest that the legacy of the exception can be seen in the Court’s treatment of domestic violence cases. It focuses primarily on Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), which held that a domestic violence victim had no constitutionally protected property interest in the enforcement of a protection order, and therefore no claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In so doing, the Court has again restricted federal court review of issues that centrally concern women. The Article ∗ Associate Professor of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law. B.A., Swarthmore College; J.D., New York University School of Law. I am grateful to my colleagues at Roger Williams, as well as my co-panelists at the 2006 Law and Society conference for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this Article. I also would like to thank my research assistants, Craig Raysor, Margreta Vellucci, and Anna Wislocki, for their excellent work on this project. Washington University Open Scholarship p 1441 Sack book pages.doc10/2/2007 1442 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [VOL. 84:1441 concludes that the domestic relations exception should be abolished as a significant first step. However, the Supreme Court must also recognize that in its denial of federal rights to victims of domestic violence, it is continuing to deny all women full participation and citizenship.
Competing Visions of Empowerment: Oneida Progressive-Era Politics and Writing Tribal Histories

During the first decades of the twentieth century, a new generation of Native American intellectuals and activists established national organizations such as the Society of American Indians (SAI) and grappled with issues such as private property, reservation industrialization, traditional governance, Euro-American education, and individuality versus tribalism. Dennison Wheelock and Laura Cornelius Kellogg, two citizens of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, shed light on the broader Progressive Era debates that swept through Indian Country as they engaged in vigorous local and national conversations about the meaning of Indigenous empowerment in modern America and the ideal form that it should take.