cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Japan's Quasi-Jury and Grand Jury Systems as Deliberative Agents of Social Change: De-Colonial Strategies and Deliberative Participatory Democracy

Japan’s powerful politicians and economic elites have long been protected under the mantle of the government’s bureaucratic network. In the past, the controversial system of “shobun seikun” (special request for instructions on prosecutorial steps to be taken) has led to many prominent political cases being dismissed or ignored from further investigation by the prosecutor’s office. According to this prosecutorial mandate, prior to initiating any prosecutorial action against influential officers or individuals such as Diet members, local government leaders, and powerful economic elites, Japan’s individual prosecutors must complete preliminary reports for their supervisors all the way up to the Ministry of Justice and then wait for their consent and further instruction. The newly established system of civic oversight has now circumvented the government’s prosecutorial process and authorized the direct, enforced prosecution for illegal activities of those among the political elite by deliberative decisions made by a civic panel of randomly chosen citizens.The introduction of these two lay justice institutions — the quasi-jury and grand jury (or PRC) systems — thereby has established alternative prosecutorial venues to bring about both the indictment and lay adjudication of alleged crimes committed by those who have been formerly classified as political “untouchables.” The impact of the introduction of these twin systems has created deliberative space infusing widely held public sentiments and collective judgments in evaluating the prosecution and adjudication of individuals whose actions are considered detriment to the interest of the general citizenry.This paper presents the critical examination of the evolution of Japan’s twin systems of lay participation in legal decision-making and explores the potential utility of the twin systems to create and establish an effective deterrent and investigative mechanism against governmental abuse of power.
Structure of 1-RSB Asymptotic Gibbs Measures in the Diluted p-Spin Models

In this paper we study asymptotic Gibbs measures in the diluted \(p\)-spin models in the so called \(1\)-RSB case, when the overlap takes two values \(q_*, q^*\in [0,1].\) When the external field is not present and the overlap is not equal to zero, we prove that such asymptotic Gibbs measures are described by the Mezard–Parisi ansatz conjectured in Mezard and Parisi (Eur Phys J B 20(2):217–233 2001). When the external field is present, we prove that the overlap can not be equal to zero and all \(1\)-RSB asymptotic Gibbs measures are described by the Mezard–Parisi ansatz. Finally, we give a characterization of the exceptional case when there is no external field and the smallest overlap value \(q_*=0\), although it does not go as far as the Mezard–Parisi ansatz. Our approach is based on the cavity computations combined with the hierarchical exchangeability of pure states.
Law, War, and the History of Time

When President George W. Bush told the American people in September 2001 that the nation was at war, he drew upon an iconic American narrative. The onset of war, in American legal and political thought, is more than a cata lytic moment. It is the opening of an era: a wartime. Wartime is thought to be an era of altered governance. It is not simply a time period when troops are sent into battle. It is also a time when presidential power expands, when individual rights are often compromised. An altered rule of law in wartime is thought to be tolerable because wartimes come to an end, and with them a government's emergency powers. That, at least, is the way law and wartime are understood. War is thought to break time into pieces. War often marks the beginning of an era, the end of another, as in antebellum, postbellum, and simply "postwar" (meaning after World War II). War has its own time. During "wartime," regular, normal time is thought to be suspended. Wartime is when
The Market Premium for Audit Partners with Big 4 Experience

This study investigates how non-Big 4 firm audit partners’ Big 4 experience is valued by the audit market. The Big 4 audit firms have differentiated themselves as nationally recognized firms for whose services companies are willing to pay a premium. It is unclear, however, whether this reputation follows individual auditors when they move to a non-Big 4 audit firm. We find that audit fees are higher for non-Big 4 audit partners with Big 4 experience with the fee premium ranging from 17 to 26 percent depending on the extent of experience when they are employed by small audit firms but find no evidence of a fee premium for Big 4 experience at the second-tier audit firms. Furthermore, in additional analyses, we do not find strong, consistent evidence that audit quality is higher for clients of non-Big 4 audit partners with Big 4 experience than their counterparts without Big 4 experience.
Stress for Success: A Review of Timothy Geithner's Financial Crisis Memoir

Timothy Geithner's memoir of the financial crisis of 2007-08—Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises—is an important historical document offering details of how policies were formed and implemented during the crisis, showing the political constraints, and offering lessons for future crises. Walter Bagehot's classic rule for fighting crises—that the central bank should lend against good collateral at a high rate—is passive and incomplete. Geithner argues for the use of overwhelming force to reestablish confidence. Also, although the Federal Reserve's new crisis lending programs needed to be anonymous so as not to reveal weak banks' identities—"stigma"—the stress tests during the crisis did reveal information that may have been useful in reestablishing confidence.
The quality of growth

We use latent class analysis to categorize development experiences. This technique allows us to consider a broad range of country characteristics including per capita income growth, health, inequality, environmental performance, and life satisfaction. We show that each of these indicators is important in explaining the classifications based on the quality of growth. We then predict membership in growth quality classes using many of the standard determinants of growth. We find that they are related to growth quality in a non-linear way and that population growth is more consistently related to our broader measure of growth quality than is typically found in standard growth regressions.
Categorization and correlation in a random-matching game☆

Abstract We consider a random-matching model in which every agent has a categorization (partition) of his potential opponents. In equilibrium, the strategy of each player i is a best response to the distribution of strategies of his opponents (when they face i) in each category of his categorization. We provide equivalence theorems between distributions generated by equilibrium profiles and correlated equilibria of the underlying game.
Pricing derivatives with counterparty risk and collateralization: A fixed point approach

Abstract This paper studies a valuation framework for financial contracts subject to reference and counterparty default risks with collateralization requirement. We propose a fixed point approach to analyze the mark-to-market contract value with counterparty risk provision, and show that it is a unique bounded and continuous fixed point via contraction mapping. This leads us to develop an accurate iterative numerical scheme for valuation. Specifically, we solve a sequence of linear inhomogeneous PDEs, whose solutions converge to the fixed point price function. We apply our methodology to compute the bid and ask prices for both defaultable equity and fixed-income derivatives, and illustrate the non-trivial effects of counterparty risk, collateralization ratio and liquidation convention on the bid-ask spreads.
Design principles for renewable energy programs in developing countries

The United Nations has announced 2012 as the ‘‘International Year for Sustainable Energy for All.’’ This proposal attempts to persuade countries, corporations, and other groups to realize three goals by 2030: ‘‘universal access to modern energy services, reducing global energy intensity by 40 percent, and increasing renewable energy use globally to 30 percent of total primary energy supply’’. Two of these targets—universal access and the dissemination of renewable energy systems— occupy bilateral and multilateral development institutions, and are orientated towards eradicating ‘‘energy poverty.’’ ‘‘Energy poverty’’—traditionally defined as lack of access to electricity and dependence on solid biomass fuels for cooking and heating—remains a persistent global challenge. In 2009 approximately 1.4 billion people lived without access to electricity grids, and 2.7 billion people depended entirely on solid fuels
Systemic risk on the interbank market

We simulate interbank lending. Each bank faces fluctuations in liquid assets and stochastic investment opportunities that mature with delay, creating the risk of liquidity shortages. An interbank market lets participants pool this risk but also creates the potential for one bank’s crisis to propagate through the system. We study banking systems with homogeneous banks, as well as systems in which banks are heterogeneous. With homogeneous banks, an interbank market unambiguously stabilizes the system. With heterogeneity, knock-on effects become possible, but the stabilizing role of interbank lending remains so that the interbank market can play an ambiguous role.
Master or Servant? Common Agency and the Political Economy of IMF Lending

What explains the substantial variation in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) lending policies over time and across cases? Some scholars argue that the IMF is the servant of the United States and other powerful member-states, while others contend that the Fund’s professional staff acts independently in pursuit of its own bureaucratic interests. I argue that neither of these perspectives, on its own, fully and accurately explains IMF lending behavior. Rather, I propose a ‘‘common agency’’ theory of IMF policymaking, in which the Fund’s largest shareholders—the G5 countries that exercise de facto control over the Executive Board (EB)—act collectively as its political principal. Using this framework, I argue that preference heterogeneity among G5 governments is a key determinant of variation in IMF loan size and conditionality. Under certain conditions, preference heterogeneity leads to either conflict or ‘‘logrolling’’ within the EB among the Fund’s largest shareholders, while in others it creates scope for the IMF staff to exploit ‘‘agency slack’’ and increase its autonomy. Statistical analysis of an original data set of 197 nonconcessional IMF loans to 47 countries from 1984 to 2003 yields strong support for this framework and its empirical predictions. In clarifying the politics of IMF lending, the article sheds light on the merits of recent policy proposals to reform the Fund and its decision-making rules. More broadly, it furthers our understanding of delegation, agency, and the dynamics of policymaking within international organizations.
R&D Spillover and Predictable Returns

We show that firms’ R&D activities can predict the stock returns of their industry peers. When an industry experiences substantial R&D growth driven by the activities of a small group of firms, industry peers experience positive abnormal returns and abnormal operating performance despite having no aggressive R&D growth. Exogenous industry shocks to demand or productivity do not explain these results. Further, abnormal returns are concentrated in peer firms that receive low investor attention.
Foreword: The State of the Republican Form of Government in Montana

This foreword situates Montana’s experience in broader themes of federal intervention in state republicanism. The foreword has two parts. Part I considers the recent federal constitutional challenges that dismantled elements of the republican form of government that prevailed in Montana for the past century. The Supreme Court’s curt decision in American Tradition Partnership represents a nationalizing approach toward state campaign finance, both because it does not distinguish between state and federal regulation of politics, and because it facilitates the increased influence of national political forces that can overwhelm state campaigns. That trend is evident in subsequent litigation in Lair v. Murry and similar cases that continued the federal judicial deregulation of Montana politics with an unusually disruptive effect on the 2012 election. Not until these federal challenges abated, temporarily, did the state courts have the opportunity to consider the concrete interests of Montanans, and the voters have their say.Part II considers Montana’s response to the federal constitutional challenges. That response began even before the final resolution of American Tradition Partnership with the proposal of I-166, an initiative rebuking Citizens United and proposing “a level playing field in campaign spending” that included prohibitions on corporate campaign expenditures. Montana voters enacted that initiative by the same 3-to-1 margin that supported the Corrupt Practices Act a century before, but by the election the Supreme Court’s decision had mooted the initiative’s policy against corporate campaign spending. What remains is the voters’ overwhelming support for the principle of a “level playing field.” While the Supreme Court ruled out the most direct means of ensuring equality in campaign finance by “leveling down” corporate and other expenditures, there are several policy reforms Montana lawmakers can consider to fulfill the principle of greater political equality within the constraints imposed by the current federal constitutional regime. These include ensuring all campaign actors play by the same rules of accountability, strengthening the enforcement of those rules, and “leveling up” citizen participation in campaign finance. Although the anti-corporate policy of I-166 is a lost legislative opportunity to implement more practical reforms, its pro-equality democratic principle presents a new political opportunity for the people to reclaim their role in reforming republicanism in Montana.
Weighted Median Inflation: Is This Core Inflation?

This paper investigates core inflation defined as the best predictor of inflation. I compare forecasts obtained using the mean, weighted median, trimmed mean, and less food and energy inflation rates for the consumer price index and the personal consumption expenditure deflator for the current U.S. monetary policy regime. Another issue addressed is that of the systematic bias that exists due to the differences in means of these measures. I test whether correcting for this bias can lead to better inflation forecasts. This paper finds that adjusting for bias improves forecasting and that the weighted median is a better forecaster than the alternative measures and thus is a good measure of core inflation.
Migration, Spillovers,and Trade Diversion: The Impact of Internationalization on Stock Market Liquidity

What is the impact of firms that cross-list, issue depositary receipts, or raise capital in international stock markets on the liquidity of remaining firms in domestic markets? Using a panel of over 3,200 firms from 55 countries during 1989-2000, Levine and Schmukler find that internationalization reduces the liquidity of domestic firms through two channels. First, the trading of international firms migrates from domestic to international markets and the reduction in domestic liquidity of international firms has negative spillover effects on domestic firm liquidity. Second, there is trade diversion within domestic markets as liquidity shifts out of domestic firms and into international firms.
Liability Issues in Pharmacogenomics

Liability concers involving toxicogenomics inevitably raise broad issues of ethics and policy. The first of these issues, often called "genetic exceptionalism" deals with wether genetic is so unique that is should be considered seperately from other medical information. In other words, is there something different about pharmacogenomics as opposed to any other pharmaceutical research discipline? Is there something unique about drug development strategies and drug regulation involving pharmacogenomics compared with traditional drug development strategies and regulation? Is there something different about liabilty issues for manufacturers and health care providers involved with this technology? These question will inform our analysis of pharmacogenomics.
Solving the Everyday Problem of Client Identity in the Context of Closely Held Businesses

Lawyers often overlook or trivialize the subtle distinction between representing a closely held business and its owners. But because the duties owed by a lawyer generally extend only to individuals and entities that are classified as clients, this distinction is of great importance. This article rejects the two predominant theories of client identity in this context. The entity theory, which provides that the lawyer represents only the entity, fails to guide the lawyer on matters involving the entity's owners. The aggregate theory, which provides that the lawyer represents the entity and all of its owners, often creates irreconcilable conflicts of interest between the owners. The alternative solution proposed by this article divides the lawyer's world into internal and external matters. Internal matters involve the inner workings of the entity and the relationships among its owners; external matters involve the entity's dealings with third parties. The lawyer has both an internal client - an owner - and an external client - the entity. The gap left by the entity theory is filled, and the conflicts of interest among owners produced by the aggregate theory are eliminated.
Firm size wage differentials in Switzerland: evidence from Job changers

Using information on job changes and search behavior of workers and controlling for endogenousnmobility we study firm-size wage differentials in Switzerland. We find that the observed crosssectionalnfirm size premium cannot be explained exclusively by worker heterogeneity. Almost 50n% of the cross-section differential is a firm-size effect.
The risk premium and long-run global imbalances

This study proposes that heterogeneous household portfolio choices within a country and across countries offer an explanation for global imbalances. We construct a stochastic growth multi-country model in which heterogeneous agents face the following restrictions on asset trade. First, the degree of US equity market participation is higher than that of the rest of the world. Second, a fraction of households in each country maintains a fixed share of equity in its portfolios. In our calibrated model, which matches the US net foreign asset position and the equity premium, the average US household loads up more aggregate risk than the average foreign household by investing in risky assets abroad and issuing risk-free assets. As a result, the US is compensated by a high risk premium and runs trade deficits even as a debtor country. The long-run average trade deficit in our model accounts for 50% of the observed US trade deficit.
Marriage Rights and Parental Rights: Parents, the State, and Proposition 8

On November 4, 2008, 52% of Californians voted for Proposition 8, a ballot initiative amending the state constitution to eliminate same-sex marriage rights. In the weeks and months since the election, there have been many explanations for Proposition 8’s success, including the impact of Mormon money and minority homophobia. What has been neglected in the discussion is some analysis of the way in which the Yes on 8 campaign reframed the debate over same-sex marriage from an anti-discrimination/equal rights discourse to one that emphasized the threat of state imposition on individual rights, including parental rights. Revealing the way in which the campaign focused on the threat of state interference with parental rights offers a more nuanced account of Proposition 8’s success. It also says much about the legal and social construction of the family and our understanding of the relationship between parents and the state in ensuring the well-being of children. By tapping into embedded cultural and legal tropes about the family and about the relationship between parents and the state, the campaign also can be understood as a manifestation of family law’s characterizations of the family and the state.
Civility as Political Constraint

The everyday virtue of civility functions as a constraint upon informal social pressures. Can civility also be understood, as John Rawls has proposed, as a distinctively political constraint? I contrast Rawls's project of constraining the political with Mill's of constraining both the social and the political, and explore Rawls's account of the relation between the two. I argue that Rawls's political duty of civility rests on the assumption that the political is peculiarly coercive; ignores the social enforcement of morality; and implausibly has civility apply to motives in acting, rather than to actions.
Convicting the Innocent

Almost everything we know about false convictions is based on exonerations in rape and murder cases, which together account for only 2% of felony convictions. Within that important but limited sphere we have learned a lot in the past 30 years; outside it, our ignorance is nearly complete. This review describes what we now know about convicting the innocent: estimates of the rate of false convictions among death sentences; common causes of false conviction for rape or murder; demographic and procedural predictors of such errors. It also explores some of the types of false convictions that almost never come to light—innocent defendants who plead guilty rather than go to trial, who receive comparatively light sentences, who are convicted of crimes that did not occur (as opposed to crimes committed by other people), who are sentenced in juvenile court—in fact, almost all innocent defendants who are convicted of any crimes other than rape or murder. Judging from what we can piece together, the vast majority of...
Distributional Conflict Between Powerful States and International Treaty Ratification

Why do states ratify international treaties? While previous research has emphasized domestic political factors, we focus on power politics in situations in which powerful states disagree on the merits of a treaty. We argue that states supporting the status quo should discourage third parties from ratifying the treaty, whereas challenger states should entice them to do so. Based on this theory, we expect third parties’ ratification decisions to be influenced by their dependence on the conflicting states. To test the theory, we use data on the conflict between the United States and the European Union over the regulation of trade in genetically modified organisms. The European Union created a new treaty, the Cartagena Protocol, to enhance biosafety regulation and propagate the “precautionary principle” over the “sound science principle” defended by the United States. Our quantitative analysis shows that ratification decisions of third parties were influenced by relations to and dependence on the clashing giants.
Falling Between the Atkins and Heller Cracks: Intellectual Disabilities and Firearms

The oft-quoted argument asserts that guns don’t kill people; people do. It is essential, then, that only people with the ability to own their criminal culpability should be able to possess guns.Adults with intellectual disabilities not only have the same rights as other adults, but many state constitutions expressly assert that the rights are the same. However, we treat those same people differently, recognizing differences in cognitive capacity. The Supreme Court, reversing precedent that was only thirteen years old, did exactly that when it held that execution of persons with intellectual disabilities violated the Eight Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The Court acknowledged that such persons did not possess the same criminal culpability as others. This rationale similarly supported the Court’s determination that minors should not be subject to the death penalty.When it comes to firearm possession and purchase, however, a divide exists between treatment of persons with intellectual disabilities and minors. Although the Gun Control Act of 1968 appears, at initial glance, to protect this population by prohibiting possession by certain “special risk populations,” upon deeper inspection, the Act fails to adequately address the needs and fails to adequately prevent persons with intellectual disabilities from accessing firearms.This article argues that that we must work more effectively to prevent access to guns through an alternative avenue: criminalizing allowing a person with intellectual disabilities access to a firearm. Guns should not be possessed by persons with significantly limited cognitive and reasoning skills. Further, similar to child-access prevention laws, legislation should hold accountable those persons who improperly store their guns. By reviewing the Gun Control Act and its language and interpreting “mental defect” under the Act, this paper explores that term and how it has been used and applied. Comparing the justifications of Atkins and similar cases, this article advocates for adopting legislation similar to child-access prevention laws to protect persons with intellectual disabilities.
Empirical Analysis of Indirect Network Effects in the Market for Personal Digital Assistants

We present a framework to measure empirically the size of indirect network effects in high-technology markets with competing incompatible technology standards. These indirect network effects arise due to inter-dependence in demand for hardware and compatible software. By modeling the joint determination of hardware sales and software availability in the market, we are able to describe the nature of demand inter-dependence and to measure the size of the indirect network effects. We apply the model to price and sales data from the industry for personal digital assistants (PDAs) along with the availability of software titles compatible with each PDA hardware standard. Our empirical results indicate significant indirect network effects. By July 2002, the network effect explains roughly 22% of the log-odds ratio of the sales of all Palm O/S compatible PDA-s to Microsoft O/S compatible PDA-s, where the remaining 78% reflects price and model features. We also use our model estimates to study the growth of the installed bases of Palm and Microsoft PDA hardware, with and without the availability of compatible third party software. We find that lack of third party software negatively impacts the evolution of the installed hardware bases of both formats. These results suggest PDA hardware firms would benefit from investing resources in increasing the provision of software for their products. We then compare the benefits of investments in software with investments in the quality of hardware technology. This exercise helps disentangle the potential for incremental hardware sales due to hardware quality improvement from that of positive feedback due to market software provision.
The Enlargement of the European Union and the Redistribution of Seigniorage Wealth

In the course of the EU enlargement process, the participation of accession countries in the European Monetary Union might lead to a significant redistribution of seigniorage wealth if current regulations prevail. In general, accession countries will be winners from this redistribution, for example Poland with 12.9 billion euros, Romania with 9.9 billion euros or Hungary with 3.3 billion euros. Correspondingly, the current member countries of the European Union face costs of 35.3 billion euros in total, the biggest part of which has to be borne by Germany.
Speech, Silence, and Ethical Lives in the Law

As his many appreciative readers know, James Boyd White brought his learning to bear on the relation between ethical living and ethical speaking, and particularly as it pertains to how we live and speak in law. His prodigious writing, teaching, and speaking career, as far as I can tell, was motivated by a singular, passionate belief: that the human capacity for language can and should serve as a bridge from mind to mind and spirit to spirit, so that we might cohabit the earth not only peaceably, but with the pleasures and grace of each other's company. Language, White taught, can both facilitate friendship across the space that divides us as individuals, and create a just and lively cooperation across the oceans that divide our nations, our beliefs, and our communal codes for living. Ethical speech in law, White argued across the span of four decades, can address injustice, forge bonds of shared struggle, unearth a shared human essence across difference, ease suffering, create a human community, and articulate both our promises to each other and our hopes that we can live up to them.
Estimating Operational Risk for Hedge Funds: The ω-Score

Using a complete set of U.S. SEC filing information on hedge funds (Form ADV) and data from the Lipper TASS Hedge Fund Database, the study reported here developed a quantitative model called the ω-score to measure hedge fund operational risk. The ω-score is related to conflict-of-interest issues, concentrated ownership, and reduced leverage in the Form ADV data. With a statistical methodology, the study further related the ω-score to such readily available information as fund performance, volatility, size, age, and fee structures. Finally, the study demonstrated that although operational risk is more significant than financial risk in explaining fund failure, a significant and positive interaction exists between operational risk and financial risk.
Improving the Odds of Government Accountability in the Disaster-Prone Era: Using the 9/11 Fund Factors to Remedy the Problem of Toxic Katrina Trailers

This article analyzes the dangers surrounding the toxicity levels in the trailers issued to Katrina survivors by FEMA, and identifies serious medical complications stemming from the temporary homes. Lack of government oversight in the process led to the distribution of formaldehyde-laced trailers that cost the government more than $2 billion and continue to poison residents years after the storm. Furthermore, the failures connected to disaster relief are even more disturbing in this disaster-prone era.More importantly, this paper also proposes the creation of a Toxic Trailer Fund to compensate residents of toxic FEMA trailers. Using the factors implicitly established by the 9/11 Fund – the national perspective, the uniqueness of the circumstances, the need for physical and psychological closure and the prompt and predictable alternative to litigation – this article makes an argument for providing relief to toxic trailer residents. First, this fund is demanded to redress compounded government harms. Further, this fund will serve the important principle of good government by strengthening government accountability.
Mercury's gravity, tides, and spin from MESSENGER radio science data

We analyze radio tracking data obtained during 1311 orbits of the MESSENGER spacecraft in the period March 2011 to April 2014. A least-squares minimization of the residuals between observed and computed values of two-way range and Doppler allows us to solve for a model describing Mercury's gravity, tidal response, and spin state. We use a spherical harmonic representation of the gravity field to degree and order 40 and report error bars corresponding to 10 times the formal uncertainties of the fit. Our estimate of the product of Mercury's mass and the gravitational constant, $GM = (22031.87404 \pm 9 \times 10^{-4})$ km$^{3}$s$^{-2}$, is in excellent agreement with published results. Our solution for the geophysically important second-degree coefficients ($\bar{C}_{2,0} = -2.25100 \times 10^{-5} \pm 1.3 \times 10^{-9}$, $\bar{C}_{2,2} = 1.24973 \times 10^{-5} \pm 1.2 \times 10^{-9}$) confirms previous estimates to better than 0.4\% and, therefore, inferences about Mercury's moment of inertia and interior structure. Our estimate of the tidal Love number $k_2 = 0.464 \pm 0.023$ indicates that Mercury's mantle may be hotter and weaker than previously thought. Our spin state solution suggests that gravity-based estimates of Mercury's spin axis orientation are marginally consistent with previous measurements of the orientation of the crust.
The Punctuated Origins of Senate Polarization

This article uses a new dynamic ideal-point estimation method that incorporates smoothing techniques to construct a more detailed account of Senate polarization. The results reveal that the Senate polarized in two distinct phases. Member replacement accounts for nearly all of the increase from the early 1970s through the mid-1990s after which ideological adaptation emerges as the dominant force behind polarization. In addition, I find that a few brief periods of intensified partisanship account for most of the increase in polarization since the mid-1990s, suggesting that these episodes have had significant and lasting effects.
Limiting Political Contributions After McCutcheon , Citizens United , and SpeechNow

There was something unreal about the opinions in McCutcheon v. FEC. These opinions examined a series of strategies for circumventing the limits on contributions to candidates imposed by federal election law, but they failed to notice that the limits were no longer breathing. The D.C. Circuit’s decision in SpeechNow.org v. FEC had created a far easier way to evade the limits than any of those the Supreme Court discussed. SpeechNow held all limits on contributions to super PACs unconstitutional. This Article argues that the D.C. Circuit erred; Citizens United v. FEC did not require unleashing super PAC contributions. The Article also considers what can be said for and against a bumper sticker’s declarations that “MONEY IS NOT SPEECH!” and “CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE!” It proposes a framework for evaluating the constitutionality of campaign-finance regulations that differs from the one currently employed by the Supreme Court. And it proposes a legislative scheme of campaign-finance regulation that would effectively limit contributions while respecting the Supreme Court’s campaign-finance decisions. INTRODUCTION: THE ELEPHANT (OR SUPER PACHYDERM) IN THE ROOM 392 I. AN OVERVIEW OF THIS ARTICLE 407 II. CITIZENS UNITED, SPEECHNOW, AND HOW THESE DECISIONS CHANGED ELECTION LAW 409 III. HOW CITIZENS UNITED AND SPEECHNOW CHANGED ELECTION FINANCING 418 IV. REFLECTIONS ON A BUMPER STICKER 424 A. “Money Is Not Speech” 424 1. Why the Bumper Sticker Gets It Wrong (Mostly): The First Amendment Protects the Use of Money to Bring Speech to an Audience 424 * Julius Kreeger Professor, Emeritus, the University of Chicago Law School. I am grateful to James Phander, Michael Rocca, Sonja Starr, John Stinneford, and Laurence Tribe for
The Crescent and the Union: Islam Returns to Western Europe

Almost 1,300 years after Charles the Hammer turned back the Muslim incursion into Frankish territory,1 Islam has a foothold in Europe, though under more peaceful circumstances and a different international system. Today, because of Muslim migrants who began arriving in Europe from North Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East during the economic boom years of the 1960s, Islam is growing faster than any other religion in Europe.2 Although Europe has in recent years tightened its immigration policies,3 the European Union (EU) must rely on migrant labor to help support Europeans' generous pensions as the median age of Europeans increases:4
Reactions to Disagreement from an In-group Member: The Impact of Out-group Member Status

Researchers have often focused on how to ensure that individuals within diverse settings share deep-level perspectives across their various surface-level divides. In this paper we focus on understanding how members of the same social group (i.e., in-group members) manage their differences in opinion (i.e. task conflict). In particular we examine how the status of an ostensible third party outgroup member affects the willingness of the in-group members to discuss, and reconcile their differing opinions when that third party agrees with one of the in-group members and disagrees with the other. Our preliminary results suggest that in-group members engage in more discussion with each other when the third party group member is high versus low status. There is suggestive evidence that this reflects more interest in the other party’s perspective rather than their own perspective, and we posit that this may be due to greater perceived threat to the in-group members’ relationship when faced with an opinion from a high status third party. We discuss the implications for decision-making in diverse groups and future directions for exploration.
State Sovereign Immunity and Stare Decisis: Solving the Prisoners' Dilemma within the Court

This Comment argues that the liberal and conservative blocs on the U.S. Supreme Court are embroiled in a Prisoners' Dilemma with respect to whether they should follow precedent on the question of congressional abrogation of state sovereign immunity. The analytical consequence of this strategic situation within the Court is that, over the long run, all of the Justices would more fully realize their views of the merits of Eleventh Amendment cases by demonstrating more--not less--respect for the independent value of stare decisis. This Comment uses game theory to substantiate this claim, after which it offers a potential, contingent solution to the collective action problem that the Justices face. Most importanly, however, by focusing on the strategic dimension of stare decisis and identifying the long-term effects of the Court's tendency to overrule decisions when, and only because, a change in its composition empowers a new majority that thinks the precedent was wrongly decided, this inquiry brings into focus a significant hiatus in the current legal debate over the constitutional status of state sovereign immunity.
The Unconstitutionality of Eliminating Estate and Gift Taxes

Aristotle defined a "constitution" as a society’s distribution of wealth and power. Because the American constitution focuses on public power, most Americans tend not to see their political economy as a constitutional issue. In other words, there is an "economic constitution" as well as a legal one. The Framers were particularly concerned about problems caused by excessive wealth disparity. The anti-republican "hereditary principle" can gain too much power if wealth is concentrated and consolidated in too few hands and families. Thus, various proposals to eliminate or radically reduce estate and gift taxes are "unconstitutional" even if they are legal.
Picture Perfect: The First Amendment Trumps Congress in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition

In this article, Professor Finkelman discusses the Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. As written, the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 would have made illegal images and suggestions of child pornography, even if there were no actual graphic image. The Court in Ashcroft struck down many of the provisions of the Act. Professor Finkelman provides analysis of the Act as well as a context of laws governing pornography, obscenity, and child pornography before 1996.
Reviving the Civil Jury Trial: Implementing Short, Summary, and Expedited Trial Programs

Civil jury trials are disappearing. In all courts, both state and federal, there is a decline in both the percentage of cases that go to trial and the absolute number of trials — all while the number of claims is greater than ever before. The civil jury trial is losing its place in America’s justice system, with unfortunate consequences: “The decline in jury trials has meant fewer cases that have the benefit of citizen input, fewer case precedents, fewer jurors who understand the system, fewer judges and lawyers who can try jury cases — and overall, a smudge on the Constitutional promise of access to civil . . . jury trials.” However, despite the many factors contributing to the decline, there may be a way to invigorate the civil jury trial and restore its vital place in America’s justice system. This Comment proposes the adoption of short, summary, and expedited (SSE) civil jury trial programs in response to the decline of the civil jury trial. These trial programs are a faster and cheaper alternative to the traditional jury trial that still retains many of a traditional trial’s key attributes and benefits. An SSE trial program encourages the use of a jury, shortens the time between initiating the lawsuit and a trial, reduces the overall cost of litigation to all parties, and allows attorneys and judges to gain needed experience — without burdening the already existing civil justice system or violating the constitutional promise of jury trials. Unfortunately, few jurisdictions have implemented these programs, and fewer still have done so in a way that supports the traditional jury trial instead of adding yet another way of avoiding it. Scholarship to date on the topic has yet to provide a complete model of an SSE trial program that has the possibility of reviving the jury trial. This Comment remedies this by proposing a model SSE trial program that incorporates the attributes necessary to help revive the civil jury trial.
The Potential Contribution of ADR to an Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students for Real World Lawyering

This Article briefly reviews the long history of critiques of legal education that highlight the failure to adequately prepare students for what they will and should do as attorneys. It takes a sober look at the hurdles reformers face when trying to make significant curricular changes and proposes a modest menu of reforms that interested faculty and law schools can largely achieve without investing substantial additional resources. This Article emphasizes the special contributions that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) can provide to legal education more generally. ADR instruction is an important corrective to a curriculum that routinely conveys the erroneous implication that litigation is virtually the only dispute resolution process that lawyers use. In addition to using litigation skills, lawyers must be able to understand parties’ interests, communicate effectively, and develop solutions acceptable to all the parties in a case. ADR instruction can help law schools teach students such insights as: facts are often contested, some disputes are not best resolved through litigation, not all disputes boil down to money, emotions should not necessarily be ignored, and other disciplines can be very helpful to attorneys. The legal curriculum should not only teach these lessons in a few elective skills courses but it is even more important to include them as an integral part of core doctrinal courses throughout the curriculum. To achieve this goal, there should be improved coordination between doctrinal, litigation-skills, transactional-skills, and ADR faculty. Resources and technical assistance should be developed to help faculty better coordinate with each other. Accreditation standards should increase the requirement for ADR instruction. Legal education reformers should focus not only on the curriculum, but also on including law school admission criteria relevant to lawyering skills and increasing coverage of lawyering issues in bar examinations.
When active fund managers deviate from their peers: Implications for fund performance.

Abstract This paper proposes that the extent to which mutual fund managers’ beliefs deviate from the ex ante unobservable representative beliefs of their peers contains information about their skill. A new measure based on portfolio allocations, peer deviation , is used to capture a fund manager’s divergence from the contemporaneously unobservable beliefs of her peers. The portfolio based on representative beliefs of a group of managers investing in similar assets outperforms passive benchmarks, indicating that they reflect informed beliefs. Fund managers who simultaneously arrive at portfolio selections which, in hindsight, are close to those implied by representative beliefs possess ex ante more skill and exhibit future outperformance. Copycat strategies replicating lagged portfolio holdings implied by representative beliefs outperform the actual portfolio holdings of funds that deviate most, but the outperformance dissipates after two quarters.
Disaster and Sociolegal Studies

Disasters are treated as independent events external to law. However, social processes define the beginning, end and extent of those events for mitigation, adaptation and response and recovery; those processes include the mobilization of law by people and organizations. Within the sociology of disaster, it is tempting to treat law as a problem-solving tool. Sociolegal analysis approaches law more skeptically: legal actors face problems and defer to the decisions others have made, or discount future problems as much as other institutions do and thereby contribute to problems, or offer compensation that does not ameliorate the inequality within and among countries that disaster can exacerbate. Law can signal that it is doing something about problems via national or supranational rights; for it actually to help requires legal actors to mobilize. Finally, the site of law has been displaced: from law being within public authority enacted through institutions to law as a matter of individual, self-governance set in expectation of disaster, and humanitarian assistance done through non-governmental organizations. This collection contributes analyses of individuals and organizations' action in disaster through legal processes. Los desastres se tratan como hechos independientes externos al derecho. Sin embargo, los procesos sociales definen el principio, el final y el alcance de esos acontecimientos en lo que respecta a su mitigacion, adaptacion, respuesta y recuperacion; esos procesos incluyen la movilizacion del derecho por personas y organizaciones. En el ambito de la sociologia de los desastres, es tentador tratar el derecho como una herramienta para la resolucion de problemas. Sin embargo, los analisis sociojuridicos se aproximan al derecho de forma mas esceptica: los actores legales se enfrentan a problemas y se adhieren a decisiones que otros han tomado, o descartan problemas futuros de la misma forma que otras instituciones, aumentando asi los problemas, u ofrecen una compensacion que no mejora la desigualdad dentro de y entre los paises, que en parte se ve agravada por los desastres. El derecho puede defender que esta tratando los problemas a traves del derecho nacional o supranacional; pero lo que realmente hace falta para ayudar requiere que los actores legales se movilicen. Por ultimo, ha cambiado el lugar que ocupa el derecho: ha pasado de ser una autoridad publica, que actua a traves de instituciones, a tener caracter individual, con la prevencion de desastres basada en el autogobierno, y siendo organizaciones no gubernamentales las que ofrecen la ayuda humanitaria. Este numero ofrece un analisis de las acciones de individuos y organizaciones en caso de desastres, a traves de los procesos legales. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2221275
Directional monotone comparative statics

Many questions of interest in economics can be stated in terms of monotone comparative statics: If a parameter of a constrained optimization problem increases, when does its solution increase as well. We characterize monotone comparative statics in different directions in finite-dimensional Euclidean space by extending the monotonicity theorem of Milgrom and Shannon (Econometrica 62(1):157–180, 1994) to constraint sets ordered in Quah (Econometrica 75(2):401–431, 2007)’s set order. Our characterizations are ordinal and retain the same flavor as their counterparts in the standard theory, showing new connections to the standard theory and presenting new results. The results are highlighted with several applications (in consumer theory, producer theory, and game theory) which were previously outside the scope of the standard theory of monotone comparative statics.