cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Wages and Firm Performance: Evidence from the 2008 Financial Crisis

We use the 2008 crisis to examine the causal effect of higher wages on firm performance. Our sample includes UK firms which signed long-term agreements with their employees prior to September 2008, thereby giving workers pay raises. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we exploit heterogeneity in the timing of signing these contractual agreements. We show that firms that had signed binding long-term wage agreements which extend deep in the crisis paid higher wages but also realized greater ex-post performance gains, in terms of sales, profits and market shares, as compared to a set of control firms with agreements with no or modest overlap with the crisis. Sales are higher for these firms by 18%-23% during the 2010-2012 post-crisis years, relative to their unconstrained peers. Our results survive a battery of robustness tests, including a placebo test which suggests that our findings are not driven by other confounding factors associated with the timing of the long-term wage agreement. JEL classification: J41, J30, J24, G01
A Call for Change: Improving Judicial Selection Methods

Empirical data show that, despite the significant electoral success of state court judges, elections still impact judicial decision making. Using the State of Wisconsin as an example, this Essay suggests that Wisconsin and other state legislatures, with the support of bar associations and academics, should revisit the historical underpinnings of judicial elections and consider both whether electing judges conforms with the historical goals of having an elected judiciary and whether the available empirical data support the belief that elected judges can be systematically consistent and independent in the decision making process. In evaluating state judicial selection methods, scholars, judges, legislators, and lawyers must consider empirical evidence, normative arguments, and democratic concerns. However, we must also consider the historical context of state judicial selection methods. In other words, why did a state choose an elective system, and does recent empirical data support that historical choice? The State of Wisconsin serves as an excellent example. In 2005, nearly forty Wisconsin judges stood for reelection, over eighty percent unopposed,1 but do these non-partisan elections promote judicial independence? Historically, two reasons for electing judges in Wisconsin were that elected judges would be less politically motivated than appointed judges and that such elections would help further participatory democracy. However, the data suggest that these 150-year-old empirical assumptions have proven incorrect, and perhaps Wisconsin, and other states, should open up a dialogue to * Assistant Professor of Law, Marquette University Law School; A.B., J.D. University of Chicago. I wish to thank Dan Blinka, William Ford, and Andrea Voyer for their helpful comments, as well as Jennifer Birkholz for her research assistance. 1. WISCONSIN STATE ELECTIONS BOARD, CANDIDATES REGISTERED BY OFFICE, SPRING GENERAL ELECTION 04/05/2005, http://elections.state.wi.us/docview.asp?docid=13-
Aspects of the accumulation of creative capital in a regional economy

Abstract We first construct a theoretical model of a regional economy that produces a final consumption good such as a knowledge good with two factors of production, namely, physical and creative capital. Next, we analyze the creative capital accumulation decision faced by individuals in this regional economy who aspire to membership in the so called creative class. Specifically, we compute the optimal level of education accumulated by the aforementioned individuals in this creative region. Finally, we delineate how this optimal level of education is affected by changes in the lifespan of individuals and by a parameter describing the growth rate of workers.
The Economic Agenda: a View from the US

The paper surveys the agenda needed to restore noninflationary growth in industrial countries. The role of fiscal policy as short-run stimulus both on the spending side and on the tax side is discussed. The author comments on trade, specifically the new trade round, and international finance. Long-run fiscal imbalances due to aging are analyzed. The role of fiscal institutions such as the European Growth and Stability Pact, the Japanese bad-loan problem, and structural problems are put into the perspective that advanced economies should nurture their reforms globally so as to provide successful examples of reforms and prove helpful trading partners.
What’s the contingency? A proposal for bank contingent capital triggered by systemic risk

Abstract Contingent capital (coco) automatically recapitalizes the banking system during financial crises if the trigger mechanism is properly designed. We propose a dual trigger mechanism based on: (1) aggregate systemic risk in the banking system, measured using CATFIN , and (2) the individual bank’s contribution to overall systemic risk, measured using delta CoVaR . The dual trigger is highly correlated with system-wide insolvency risk and prices systemic risk. We set different triggers for banks, insurance companies and broker-dealers. Using the 99% cut-off, systemic coco issued by Lehman and Bear Stearns would have been triggered in November 2007, months prior to their actual demise.
Spectral gaps, additive energy, and a fractal uncertainty principle

We obtain an essential spectral gap for n-dimensional convex co-compact hyperbolic manifolds with the dimension $${\delta}$$ of the limit set close to $${{n-1\over 2}}$$ . The size of the gap is expressed using the additive energy of stereographic projections of the limit set. This additive energy can in turn be estimated in terms of the constants in Ahlfors–David regularity of the limit set. Our proofs use new microlocal methods, in particular a notion of a fractal uncertainty principle.
Constrained Discretion and Central Bank Transparency

We develop and estimate a general equilibrium model to quantitatively assess the eects and welfare implications of central bank transparency. Monetary policy can deviate from active in‡ation stabilization and agents conduct Bayesian learning about the nature of these deviations. Under constrained discretion, only short deviations occur, agents'uncertainty about the macroeconomy remains contained, and welfare is high. However, if a deviation persists, uncertainty accelerates and welfare declines. Announcing the future policy course raises uncertainty in the short run by reveal- ing that active in‡ation stabilization will be temporarily abandoned. However, this announcement reduces policy uncertainty and anchors in‡ationary beliefs at the end of the policy. For the U.S. enhancing transparency is found to increase welfare.
A Free Lunch in the Commons

We derive conditions under which raising costs through a regulatory constraint or a fully expropriated tax can increase the profits arising from a common-pool resource. The basic model assumes a fixed number of identical agents with linear costs selling in a single period at an exogenous price. A necessary and sufficient condition for a cost increase to be profitable is that aggregate output from the resource be locally convex in aggregate effort. We also show that cost increases can be profitable even if price is endogenous, agents are heterogeneous, entry is costless, or agents are playing a Markov-perfect equilibrium of a dynamic game. We also discuss more general welfare implications of the result along with its relation to existing results for a Cournot oligopoly.
Impact of higher-order uncertainty

Abstract In some games, the impact of higher-order uncertainty is very large, implying that present economic theories may rely critically on the strong common knowledge assumptions they make. Focusing on normal-form games in which the players' action spaces are compact metric spaces, we show that our key condition, called “global stability under uncertainty,” implies that the maximum change in equilibrium actions due to changes in players' beliefs at orders higher than k is exponentially decreasing in k. Therefore, given any need for precision, we can approximate equilibrium actions by specifying only finitely many orders of beliefs.
Nonrigid Registration Using Gaussian Processes and Local Likelihood Estimation

Surface registration, the task of aligning several multidimensional point sets, is a necessary task in many scientific fields. In this work, a novel statistical approach is developed to solve the problem of nonrigid registration. While the application of an affine transformation results in rigid registration, using a general nonlinear function to achieve nonrigid registration is necessary when the point sets require deformations that change over space. The use of a local likelihood-based approach using windowed Gaussian processes provides a flexible way to accurately estimate the nonrigid deformation. This strategy also makes registration of massive data sets feasible by splitting the data into many subsets. The estimation results yield spatially-varying local rigid registration parameters. Gaussian process surface models are then fit to the parameter fields, allowing prediction of the transformation parameters at unestimated locations, specifically at observation locations in the unregistered data set. Applying these transformations results in a global, nonrigid registration. A penalty on the transformation parameters is included in the likelihood objective function. Combined with smoothing of the local estimates from the surface models, the nonrigid registration model can prevent the problem of overfitting. The efficacy of the nonrigid registration method is tested in two simulation studies, varying the number of windows and number of points, as well as the type of deformation. The nonrigid method is applied to a pair of massive remote sensing elevation data sets exhibiting complex geological terrain, with improved accuracy and uncertainty quantification in a cross validation study versus two rigid registration methods.
A Note on QR-Based Model Reduction: Algorithm, Software, and Gravitational Wave Applications

While the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is optimal under certain norms, its also expensive to compute. For large matrix sizes, the QR decomposition provides a tractable alternative. Under the assumption that it is a rank-revealing QR (RRQR), the approximation error incurred is similar to the POD error; furthermore, the authors show the existence of an RRQR with exactly the same error estimate as POD. To numerically realize an RRQR decomposition, they discuss the (iterative) modified Gram Schmidt with pivoting and reduced basis methods. They show that these two seemingly different approaches are equivalent. They then describe an MPI/OpenMP parallel code that implements one of the QR-based model reduction algorithms analyzed, and document the codes scalability for large problems, such as gravitational waves, and demonstrate excellent scalability up to 32,768 cores and, for complex dense matrices, as large as 10,000x3,276,800.
The Google Book Search Settlement: A New Orphan-Works Monopoly

This paper considers the proposed settlement agreement between Google and the Authors Guild relating to Google Book Search (GBS). I focus on three issues that raise antitrust and competition policy concerns. First, the agreement calls for Google to act as agent for rightsholders in setting the price of online access to consumers. Google is tasked with developing a pricing algorithm that will maximize revenues for each of those works. Direct competition among rightsholders would push prices towards some measure of costs and would not be designed to maximize revenues. The consumer access pricing provision might very well fail a challenge under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Second, and much more centrally to the settlement agreement, the opt-out class action will make it possible for Google to include orphan works in its book search service. Orphan works are works as to which the rightsholder cannot be identified or found. The opt-out class action is the vehicle for large-scale collective action by active rightsholders. Active rightsholders have little incentive to compete with themselves by granting multiple licenses of their works or of the orphan works. Plus under the terms of the settlement agreement, active rightsholders benefit directly from the revenues attributable to orphan works used in GBS. We can mitigate the market power that will otherwise arise through the settlement by expanding the number of rights licenses available under the settlement agreement. To do that, we should take the step of unbundling the orphan works deal from the overall settlement agreement and create a separate license to use those works. All of that will undoubtedly add more complexity to what is already a large piece of work, and it may make sense to push out the new licenses to the future. That would mean ensuring now that the court retains jurisdiction to do that and/or giving the new registry created in the settlement the power to do this sort of licensing. Third, there is a risk that approval by the court of the settlement could cause antitrust immunities to attach to the arrangements created by the settlement agreement. As it is highly unlikely that the fairness hearing will undertake a meaningful antitrust analysis of those arrangements, if the district court approves the settlement, the court should include a clause—call this a no Noerr clause—in the order approving the settlement providing that no antitrust immunities attach from the court's approval.
Limit Horizons & Critique: Seductions and Perils of the Nation

This essay introduces four contributions on nation and nationalism that form a cluster in the 2005 Annual Symposium of Latina/o Critical Legal Theory (LatCrit). It puts forward the concept of "limit horizons": the hegemonic ontological categories that so imprint the imaginary of an age the even critique remains imprisoned in the normalcy of these categories - an imprisonment that curtails the transformatory potential of critique. It is argued that the modern concept of the nation is such a limit horizon. Consequently, any critical engagement with the concept of the nation must concurrently be an exercise in self-critique to ensure that tools of critique are not blunted by the weight of this primary limit horizon of our age.
The Bayesian New Statistics: Hypothesis testing, estimation, meta-analysis, and power analysis from a Bayesian perspective

In the practice of data analysis, there is a conceptual distinction between hypothesis testing, on the one hand, and estimation with quantified uncertainty on the other. Among frequentists in psychology, a shift of emphasis from hypothesis testing to estimation has been dubbed "the New Statistics" (Cumming 2014). A second conceptual distinction is between frequentist methods and Bayesian methods. Our main goal in this article is to explain how Bayesian methods achieve the goals of the New Statistics better than frequentist methods. The article reviews frequentist and Bayesian approaches to hypothesis testing and to estimation with confidence or credible intervals. The article also describes Bayesian approaches to meta-analysis, randomized controlled trials, and power analysis.
Role-Based Policing: Restraining Police Conduct Outside the Legitimate Investigative Sphere

The last quarter of a century has produced a growing legitimacy crisis in the criminal justice system arising from profound and familiar differences in race and class. The same tactics used to win the War on Crime also harassed and intimidated the very people policing was supposed to protect, sending disproportionate numbers of young minority men and women to prison as part of War On Drugs. In this article, I take up challenge of social norms theorists who advocate empowering police and local communities through a variety of traditional and newly minted public order offenses. My claim is that the sort of preventative policing they advocate, singling out quality of life issues, can and should be separated from reactive investigative policing directed at apprehending criminals. The police, as currently constituted, are simply the wrong people to engage in preventative policing. My proposal is to radically restructure the manner in which we think about the legitimacy of various policing practices and the type of authority wielded by the police. The rule-based attempt to limit police authority through prospective constitutional (and other) norms limiting their ability to search, seize, and interrogate suspects does not work to constrain their ability to police public order and engage in crime prevention. Instead, I propose a series of role-based constraints of the scope of police authority. Much like the separation-of-powers limitation upon the various branches of government, role-based constraints suggest that municipalities should match the authority conferred upon particular government officials to the specific problems to be addressed through public order policing. The appropriate local authorities include bus drivers and crossing guards: municipal officials with no power to engage in investigation but who have the authority to enforce norms of public order. Such officials possess limited institutional legitimacy outside of their various spheres of operation and no role-based authority to engage in the invasive, investigative policing practices currently utilized in predominantly urban areas.
Incrementalism: Eroding the Impediments to a Global Public Procurement Market

Following decades of international negotiations and agreements, the world’s multi-trillion-dollar public procurement market appears to be maturing into a free, open international market. To reach that point, nations must lower a broad array of barriers to trade in procurement. As the U.S. experience demonstrates, purchasing agencies, laboring under the constraints of domestic preferences, may effectively seek to promote free trade. At the same time, a variety of international organizations, from the World Trade Organization to Transparency International, have developed tools and instruments—including model codes and explicit nondiscrimination agreements—that ease barriers to trade in procurement. To accelerate the erosion of these barriers, this Article suggests assessing progress in four potentially overlapping steps: nondiscrimination, a political decision; harmonization, an effort to coordinate the international instruments; rationalization, an effort to enhance the efficiency of regimes launched under the international instruments; and, institutionalization, an integration of the evolving international procurement norms into the legal fabric of the nations entering the international free market in procurement.
The Use of Target Prices to Justify Sell‐Side Analysts' Stock Recommendations

This study examines a sample of 103 sell‐side analysts' reports to document the frequency with which analysts disclose target prices as justifications for their stock recommendations. In addition, I investigate whether the degree of assessed overpricing or underpricing implied by target prices is related to the favorableness of stock recommendations. I find that analysts use target price justifications in over two‐thirds of the sample reports, and higher target prices are associated with more favorable stock recommendations. The most favorable recommendations (and target prices) are more likely to be justified by price‐earnings ratios and expected growth while the least favorable recommendations are more likely to be justified with other qualitative statements. Further evidence suggests that analysts actually compute target prices using price‐multiple heuristics such as “PEG.” However, in reports that do not disclose target prices, estimates of target prices based on these heuristics are unable to justify...
Open versus closed conference calls: the determinants and effects of broadening access to disclosure

Abstract Recent advances in information technology allow firms to provide broader access to their disclosures. We examine the determinants and effects of the decision to provide unlimited real-time access to conference calls (i.e., “open” conference calls). Our evidence suggests that the decision to provide open calls is associated with the composition of a firm's investor base and, to some degree, the complexity of its financial information. We also find that open calls are associated with a greater increase in small trades (consistent with individuals trading on information released during the call) and higher price volatility during the call period.
The Role of Contract Negotiation and Industry Structure in Production Outsourcing

Despite the spread of cost-driven outsourcing practices, academic research cautions that suppliers' cost advantage may weaken manufacturers' bargaining positions in negotiating outsourcing agreements, thereby hurting their profitability. In this study, we attempt to further understand the strategic impact of low-cost outsourcing on manufacturers' profitability by investigating the contractual form of outsourcing agreements and the industry structure of the upstream supply market. We consider a two-tier supply chain system, consisting of two competing manufacturers, who have the option to produce in-house or to outsource to an upstream supplier with lower cost. To reach an outsourcing agreement, each manufacturer engages in bilateral negotiation with her supplier, who may be an exclusive supplier or a common supplier serving both manufacturers. Our analysis shows that wholesale-price contracts always mitigate the competition between manufacturers regardless of whether they compete with price or quantity. In contrast, two-part tariffs intensify the competition when the manufacturers compete with quantity, but soften it when they compete with price. As a result, when outsourcing with two-part tariffs, the manufacturers may earn lower profits than they would from in-house production, although the suppliers are more cost efficient. This suggests that managers have to be wary about the downside of using coordinating contracts such as two-part tariffs when pursuing low-cost outsourcing strategies. Our analysis also sheds some light on the profitability of using an exclusive supplier for outsourcing. When outsourcing with wholesale-price contracts, the competing manufacturers are better off outsourcing to an exclusive supplier. However, when outsourcing with two-part tariffs, the manufacturers may earn higher profits by outsourcing to a common supplier than to an exclusive one when the manufacturers' bargaining power is sufficiently strong (weak) under quantity (price) competition.
Aortitis masquerading as intramural hematoma: When to observe, when to operate? A case report

Radiologic evidence of aortic disease is not always consistent with the diagnosis. With a lack of accompanying symptoms or with an atypical presentation, diagnosis, and management of aortic pathology rely greatly on imaging techniques. We report the case of a 58-year-old female who presented with incidental radiographic findings consistent with a type A aortic intramural hematoma and a vague left-sided chest discomfort. After follow-up, imaging was consistent with disease progression and hematoma expansion; the affected segment was resected and pathology reported lymphoplasmacytic aortitis as the underlying etiology of the imaging findings rather than an intramural hematoma. The patient lacked symptoms or serology consistent with the rheumatologic disease, and the postoperative course was uneventful. The management of a suspected ascending intramural hematoma is controversial, especially when the patient presents with atypical signs and symptoms. Features of disease progression may warrant urgent surgical intervention.
Notes on financial system development and political intervention

The paper studies the impact of political intervention on a financial system that consists of banks and financial markets and develops over time. In this financial system, banks and markets exhibit three forms of interaction: they compete, they complement each other, and they co-evolve. Coevolution is generated by two new ingredients of financial system architecture relative to the existing theories: securitization and risk-sensitive bank capital. The authors show that securitization propagates banking advances to the financial market, permitting market evolution to be driven by bank evolution, and market advances are transmitted to banks through bank capital. Then they examine how politicians determine the nature of political intervention designed to expand credit availability. The authors find that political intervention in banking exhibits a U-shaped pattern, where it is most notable in the early stage of financial system development (through bank capital subsidy in exchange for state ownership of banks) and in the advanced stage (through direct lending regulation). Despite expanding credit access, political intervention results in an increase in financial system risk and does not contribute to financial system evolution. Numerous policy implications are drawn out.
Can Individual Investors Beat the Market

We document strong persistence in the performance of trades of individual investors. Investors classiÞed in the top 10 percent place other trades that on average earn excess returns of 15 basis points per day. A rolling-forward strategy of going long Þrms purchased by previously successful investors and shorting Þrms purchased by previously unsuccessful investors results in excess returns of 5 basis points per day. These returns are not conÞned to small stocks nor to stocks in which the investors are likely to have inside information. Our results suggest that skillful individual investors exploit market inefficiencies to earn abnormal proÞts, above and beyond any proÞts available from well-known strategies based upon size, value, or momentum.
When Two Anomalies Meet: The Post–Earnings Announcement Drift and the Value–Glamour Anomaly

This study of the post–earnings announcement drift and the value–glamour anomaly finds that value stocks have greater information uncertainty, exhibit more-muted initial market reactions to earnings surprises, and have better (more positive or less negative) post–earnings announcement drifts than do glamour stocks. A trading strategy based on these findings can generate an average annual abnormal return of 16.6–18.8 percent before transaction costs.
Regulatory dependence and Scientific Advisory Boards

Abstract The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses scientific procedures to evaluate regulated firms’ new product applications. Much of its basic intellectual resources, in the form of scientific advisory committee members, come from research institutions. Regulated firms may seek connections to the FDA advisory committee members to affect the regulatory approval process. However, individual linkages may fail. The use of Scientific Advisory Boards (SAB) with multiple members provides redundant ties to the regulator, which means that the failure of each tie becomes less material. This paper is principally concerned with the firm's motivation to rebalance power imbalances rather than any actual regulatory outcomes. Controlling for alternative explanations, I find that dependence on the regulator is positively associated with the probability of having a SAB. Selected network diagrams add credibility to the hypothesis.
Stock returns after major price shocks: The impact of information ☆

Abstract This paper focuses on stocks that experience major price changes. Using analyst reports as a proxy, I find that price events accompanied by information are followed by drift, while no-information ones result in reversals. One interpretation of these results is that investors underreact to news about fundamentals and overreact to other shocks that move stock prices. Consistent with this hypothesis, information-based price changes are more strongly correlated with future earnings surprises than no-information ones. Furthermore, drift exists only when the direction of the price move and of the change in analyst recommendations have the same sign. Finally, the ratio of no-information to information-based price shocks is strongly correlated with aggregate implied volatility and also forecasts momentum returns.
Internet Seals of Approval: Effects on Online Privacy Policies and Consumer Perceptions

The use of Internet seal of approval programs has been touted as an alternative to potential legislation concerning consumer-related online privacy practices. Questions have been raised, however, regarding the effectiveness of such programs with respect to maintaining privacy standards and aiding online consumers. The authors examine these issues in a series of three studies, the first of which is an exploratory application of Federal Trade Commission privacy standards to various online privacy policies in an effort to determine the ability of seal of approval program participation to act as a valid cue to a firm's stated privacy practices. The second and third studies are experiments designed to ascertain how online firm participation in Internet seal of approval programs affects consumers. Implications for consumer policy are discussed.
LATTICE OPTION PRICING BY MULTIDIMENSIONAL INTERPOLATION

This paper proposes a method for pricing high-dimensional American options based on modern methods of multidimensional interpolation. The method allows using sparse grids and thus mitigates the curse of dimensionality. A framework of the pricing algorithm and the corresponding interpolation methods are discussed, and a theorem is demonstrated, which suggests that the pricing method is less vulnerable to the curse of dimensionality. The method is illustrated by an application to rainbow options and compared to least squares Monte Carlo and other benchmarks.
Geographic factors and China's regional development under market reforms, 1978–1998

Abstract This study investigates the geographic effects on regional economic growth in China under market reforms. We develop a model for the regional growth pattern of the Chinese economy during the period, characterized by foreign direct investment (FDI) and mobilization of rural surplus labor. The FDI and labor migration are directed by the differentials in the expected returns from the capital investment and in the wage rate. The differentials are, to a large extent, explained by geographic factors. In the context of market reforms and the open-door policy, the spatial and topographic advantages of the coastal provinces are realized. As a result, the returns to the capital investment in the coastal provinces are higher than in the rest of the country, thus attracting more FDIs and migrant labor into the region and causing the growth disparity. Our empirical test supports this hypothesis. It finds that geographic factors are statistically significant in explaining the regional disparity in China. This disparity is mainly a coast versus noncoast gap.
World Trade and the Environment: Issues and Policies

This paper provides an overview of trade, environmental and related public issues and policies. It discusses the pollution problem, the recent global warming trend, the attempts of various institutions, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, regional, national and other organizations, to solve the global trade and environmental issues. The paper also discusses a number of basic theoretical issues and empirical findings, such as the free-rider problem, the tragedy of the commons, the theory of second best, the relative efficacy of price and quantity control, carbon leakage, border carbon adjustments, the cap-and-trade system, the pollution haven hypothesis, the optimal social discount rate and the environmental Kuznets curve. Some computable general equilibrium models are reviewed and several notable World Trade Organization environmental and health-related trade dispute cases are analysed, including the tuna–dolphin, shrimp–turtle, eco-labelling, beef-hormone and genetically modified organism cases.
The game academics play: Editors versus authors

This article studies a game between authors and editors. Editors play as leaders while authors are the followers. Authors maximize the number of publications seeking to increase the impact of their work in the literature, captured by citations. Editors maximize the quality of papers they publish in order to increase the reputation of their journals. The main results are: (i) rules aimed at increasing scholars productivity, such as requirements to obtain tenure, increase author's citations and journal's quality; (ii) editors willingness to build journal's reputation hurt journal's quality and increase author's publications; (iii) journal's reputation increases citations and journal's quality.
Building an entrepreneurial knowledge culture in a national research laboratory

The paper examines some recent trends in the strategic evolution of the corporate performance and culture within the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), where a substantive shift in context and strategic management over the past decade has enabled the NRC to move from being a largely internally driven R&D culture toward a more entrepreneurial and externally guided knowledge management culture.
Epistemic Risk and Community Policing

In his paper “The Social Diffusion of Warrant and Rationality,” Sanford Goldberg argues that relying on testimony makes the warrant for our beliefs “socially diffuse” and that this diminishes our capacity to rationally police our beliefs. Thus, according to Goldberg, rationality itself is socially diffuse. I argue that while testimonial warrant may be socially diffuse (because it depends on the warrants of other epistemic agents) this feature has no special link to our capacity to rationally police our beliefs. Nevertheless, I endorse Goldberg's claim about rationality and I propose that a Foley-style account of rationality might help to better articulate Goldberg's proposal.
Security and Technology: Rethinking National Security

The expansive scope of national security makes it a topic of utmost importance to all Americans. National security law and policy affect nearly every aspect of our lives, our health, our safety, and our dignity. In fact, the topic is so far-reaching that the term “national security” is often exploited for ulterior commercial or political purposes to increase profits, obtain more government funding, and expand government authorities in areas that historically were not related to national security. Indeed, one could reasonably make the claim that we are now in the midst of a national security industrial complex that has become self-perpetuating.Due to various competing interests — political, military, and commercial — it is incumbent on us as citizens and lawyers to be attentive and critical of new laws, amendments to old laws, and new technologies employed by the government in purported furtherance of keeping us safer as a nation. Similarly, we cannot neglect the exponential growth of mass data collection in the private sector facially used for “mere commercial” purposes. And as more government work is outsourced to private companies, the line between the private and public sector is blurred. Thus, privacy can no longer be preserved by focusing solely on government action.
Why the Common Rule Is Hard to Amend

Information-based studies that use people’s health data and biospecimens are set to play an important role in 21st-century biomedical discovery, public health, and healthcare system improvement. There is wide agreement that the Common Rule needs to be modernized to provide better protection for people whose data and biospecimens are used in such studies. Unfortunately, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) is in the position of trying to keep the Common Rule up-to-date using authorities granted by an outdated statute. This article explores statutory constraints that appear to limit the Secretary’s authority to make some of the changes proposed in the July 2011 ANRPM. Some of the proposed revisions to the Common Rule seemingly would require legislative action to alter the Secretary’s rulemaking authority. This does not, however, mean that it will be impossible to modernize the Common Rule in the absence of legislative action. As noted at the end of this article, the Secretary of HHS has significant discretion to make the Common Rule function better without amending the regulatory text itself. The Common Rule is hard to amend, but there are promising pathways for implementing improved policies within the framework of the existing regulation. Skillful use of these other approaches may avoid the need for hasty regulatory amendments that may, in the end, prove unlawful.
Free Shoes for Primary and Secondary Schools: Playing by the Rules of Title IX

Many credit Title IX with providing opportunities for girls to participate in athletics in greater numbers. The National Federation of State High School Associations show that the number of girls participating increased from 294,015 in 1971-1972 to 2,908,390 in 2004-2005, almost a tenfold increase. In the same time period the number of boys participating increased by 443,000. Girls participation has dramatically increased so the big picture is focused. Now attention is being drawn to some of the smaller aspects of Title IX compliance. Shoe deals sidestep rules on equality in schools. Thus ran the headline in the Oregonian. The journalist went on say that, Nike, Adidas and Reebok sponsor about 300 high school basketball teams nationwide... about 75 per cent of the high school teams sponsored by Nike... are boys teams... That figure is driven by a market in which boys buy far more basketball merchandise than girls do. A follow-up story appeared the following Sunday telling readers that When private donors give shoes or other perks to boys teams... the school 'shall ensure that teams of the other sex receive equivalent benefits or services.' Another story appeared in the Indianapolis Star on July 6, 2006. It became known that one of the prep basketball stars who was in Indianapolis for the Nike basketball camp because he is a future pro has shoes and gear provided by Nike for his Medford Oregon high school team. However, the girls' teams at the same school have to pay for their own shoes which sell for as much as $150. The mother of one of the girls has complained, was rebuffed by the school officials so she took her story to the media to bring attention to the situation. When a company offers to give a school's basketball team free shoes or any other kind of equipment or gear, it may seem like a welcome gift. First, the gift would save the players or the school money because neither has to buy the shoes, uniforms or other equipment that has been donated. Second, the gift may be in recognition that the school's athletic program is successful and has star players that are of interest to the donor company. The athlete may provide an endorsement in the future, but in the course of their high school or college career, they would be wearing or using the company's specific brand. But what happens when the company gives the gift only to the girls' team or only to the boys' team and not the other gender in either case? The statutes and regulations of Title IX step in and give guidance to primary and secondary schools. This article will consider the applicable statutory and regulatory language concerning gifts of shoes and other equipment; the administrative policies and judicial interpretations that have been applied to the statutory and regulatory language; and the efforts that have been made to educate the administrators of school districts, booster organizations and parents about gifts of free gear and equipment.
Identity Politics and the Second Amendment

Two questions dominate judicial and academic consideration of the degree, if any, to which the Second Amendment should be construed to limit government efforts to restrict private ownership and possession of firearms. First, what was the original understanding of those who framed and ratified the Amendment? And second, how, if at all, do changed circumstances since 1791 bear on the application of the original understanding to contemporary circumstances?
Binomial options pricing has no closed-form solution

We set a lower bound on the complexity of options pricing formulae in the lattice metric by proving that no general explicit or closed form (hypergeometric) expression for pricing vanilla European call and put options exists when employing the binomial lattice approach. Our proof follows from Gosper’s algorithm
Comparative Constitutional Epics

AbstractThis essay takes up Robert Cover’s account, in “ Nomos and Narrative” of Constitutional Epics. Ranging across legal and literary texts including Toni Morrison’s Beloved, David Malouf ’s An Imaginary Life, the Canadian Arar Commission Report, and Bringing Them Home, the Report of the Australian Human Rights and Opportunity Commission’s National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, it concludes that what comparative study of Constitutions and their Epics might yield are brutal truths and the judgments of history, but also insights into how we might make of that unpromising material a nomos and a narrative of redemptive Constitutionalism.
The Reality of Moral Imperatives in Liberal Religion

God has made man with the instinctive love of justice in him, which gradually gets developed in the world …. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. Theodore Parker (1853) A strange mystery it is that Nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her … hurryings through the abysses of space, has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power, but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking mother. [Gradually, as morality grows bolder, the claim of the ideal world begins to be felt, [giving rise to the claim] that, in some hidden manner, the world of fact is really harmonious with the world of ideals. Thus man creates God, all-powerful and all-good, the mystic unity of what is and what should be.
Soil and Citizenship

The issue of targeted government killing of U.S. citizens within the national territory garnered an intense burst of attention earlier this year when Senator Rand Paul staged a memorable thirteen-hour filibuster during the John Brennan confirmation hearings.1 After the al-Awlaki assassinations in Yemen, Rand Paul demanded to know if the government claimed authority to kill citizens here at home as well, and initially received an evasive answer.2 In response, Paul promised to
Sticky inflation and the real effects of exchange rate-based stabilization

Abstract This paper tests the empirical validity of the forward-looking pricing hypothesis using data from four exchange rate based stabilization (ERBS) episodes. It finds that backward-looking components of inflation play an important role in inflation dynamics, in some cases exceeding the importance of forward-looking components. The paper then shows that the presence of empirically relevant degrees of inflation stickiness increases the size of the real exchange rate appreciation predicted by an imperfect credibility model of ERBS. The 12% real appreciation predicted by the sticky inflation model is a 70% improvement over the predictions of the fully forward looking pricing setup, but as in other ERBS models, still falls short of matching the real appreciations observed in practice.
The Economic Structure of the Law of International Organizations

Table of ContentsI. Introduction 164A. Defining International Organizations 164B. Dissecting International Organizations 165C. International Organizations and International Law 169D. Public Interest and Public Choice in International Organizations 171II. Delegation in International Organizations 172A. Transaction Costs Theory 175B. Principal-Agent Theory 177C. Game Theory 178D. Scope and Linkage 180III. Legislation 182IV. Adjudication 185V. Enforcement and Surveillance 187VI. Membership 190VII. Synergies 191VIII. Conclusion: Variation in Delegation, Legislation, Adjudication, Enforcement, and Membership 193I. IntroductionThe essence of an international organization is the delegation of decisionmaking authority from individual states to the organization, representing the collectivity of member states. The focus of this Article is on the distinct structure and function of international organizations, as distinct from international law per se. It would be simple to say that international organizations are to international law as firms are to contracts: that states form international organizations in order to reduce the transaction costs associated with cooperation, as compared to the entry into international legal rules without organizations. And it is true that the core questions are the same: why are these institutions formed, what powers do they have, and how are they exercised?While this analogy has some power and allows us to refer to the literature of the theory of the firm,1 it is too simple for several reasons. First, international organizations are more heterogeneous than firms (although firms, too, are heterogeneous). So, this Article will dissect international organizations before seeking to provide an economic analysis of each component. The sum of the components may differ from the parts, and so this Article will also discuss synergies and conflicts among different components.Second, and for similar reasons, international organizations and international legal rules are not as dichotomous as they may at first seem. Indeed, a similar observation may be made also about firms and long-term contracts. Furthermore, international legal rules generally take advantage of a default set of "organizational" features of international society, even if they are not themselves housed within an international organization.A. Defining International OrganizationsDoctrinal definitions of international organizations are descriptively useful, but do not generally refer to features that are analytically interesting from a social scientific perspective. For example, a standard doctrinal definition of an "international organization" can be found in the Draft Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations (DARIO): "'[International organization' means an organization established by a treaty or other instrument governed by international law and possessing its own international legal personality. …
General sources of general purpose technologies in complex societies: Theory of global leadership-driven innovation, warfare and human development

Abstract A fundamental problem in the field of the economics of innovation is how to explain the sources of path-breaking innovations that support the human development and socio-economic progress in complex societies. The study here confronts this problem by developing the theoretical framework of global leadership-driven innovation, which endeavors to explain the general sources of General-Purpose Technologies (GPTs). Evidence, based on an inductive study of some leading societies, shows that the sources of strategic GPTs are, de facto, associated to the goal of global leadership of a purposeful system in the presence of effective and/or potential environmental threats. In particular, a purposeful system (e.g. a complex society), with high economic potential and purposeful institutions having the purpose of achieving/sustaining a global leadership, tends to engender GPTs that are spread in the long run. The conceptual framework is applied to analyze the current determinant of a vital case study: the U.S. Navy's Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), a possible next GPT. Over the centuries, the General Purpose Technologies – that support technological, social and economic change – have significantly changed, but their driving force, based on the goal of global leadership, is an invariant feature of the human development. The vital linkages between observed facts provide a general framework to explain the sources of General Purpose Technologies, which induce human development and progress in society.