cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The large-N partition function for non-parity-invariant Chern-Simons-matter theories

We extend the Fermi gas approach to a class of ABJM-like necklace quiver theories without parity invariance. The resulting partition function on S3 retains the form of an Airy function, but now includes a phase that scales as Nk in the large-N limit where k is an overall Chern-Simons level. We demonstrate the presence of this phase both analytically and numerically in the case of a three node quiver.
Waiting But Not Aging: Optimizing Information Freshness Under the Pull Model

The Age-of-Information is an important metric for investigating the timeliness performance in information-update systems. In this paper, we study the AoI minimization problem under a new Pull model with replication schemes, where a user proactively sends a replicated request to multiple servers to “pull” the information of interest. Interestingly, we find that under this new Pull model, replication schemes capture a novel tradeoff between different values of the AoI across the servers (due to the random updating processes) and different response times across the servers, which can be exploited to minimize the expected AoI at the user’s side. Specifically, assuming Poisson updating process for the servers and exponentially distributed response time, we derive a closed-form formula for computing the expected AoI and obtain the optimal number of responses to wait for to minimize the expected AoI. Then, we extend our analysis to the setting where the user aims to maximize the AoI-based utility, which represents the user’s satisfaction level with respect to freshness of the received information. Furthermore, we consider a more realistic scenario where the user has no prior knowledge of the system. In this case, we reformulate the utility maximization problem as a stochastic Multi-Armed Bandit problem with side observations and leverage a special linear structure of side observations to design learning algorithms with improved performance guarantees. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations to elucidate our theoretical results and compare the performance of different algorithms. Our findings reveal that under the Pull model, waiting does not necessarily lead to aging; waiting for more than one response can often significantly reduce the AoI and improve the AoI-based utility in most scenarios.
Matrix models and deformations of JT gravity.

Recently, it has been found that Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity, which is a two-dimensional theory with bulk action −1/2∫d2xgϕ(R+2), is dual to a matrix model, that is, a random ensemble of quantum...
Strong Invariance Using Control Barrier Functions: A Clarke Tangent Cone Approach *

Many control applications require that a system be constrained to a particular set of states, often termed as safe set. A practical and flexible method for rendering safe sets forward-invariant involves computing control input using Control Barrier Functions and Quadratic Programming methods. Many prior results however require the resulting control input to be continuous, which requires strong assumptions or can be difficult to demonstrate theoretically. In this paper we use differential inclusion methods to show that simultaneously rendering multiple sets invariant can be accomplished using a discontinuous control input. We present an optimization formulation which computes such control inputs and which can be posed in multiple forms, including a feasibility problem, a linear program, or a quadratic program. In addition, we discuss conditions under which the optimization problem is feasible and show that any feasible solution of the considered optimization problem which is measurable renders the multiple safe sets forward invariant.
Strategic Delegation By Unobservable Incentive Contracts

Many strategic interactions in the real world take place among delegates empowered to act on behalf of others. Managers make strategic decisions that affect profits; sales persons have power over setting prices; and lawyers and sports agents represent their clients in bargaining processes. One of the central messages of game theory is that this could be, at least partly, due to the strategic advantage delegation may provide to the delegating party. The idea that signing binding and publicly observable contracts with a third party may serve as a beneficial commitment device goes back at least to Schelling (1960), and has been put into use in many areas of economics.1 However, the observability of contracts appears to be a precondition for them to play a commitment role, and for this reason, almost all applications of strategic delegation theory are couched in terms of observable contracts. The formalization of this intuition is given by Katz (1991) who showed that if contracts are unobservable, then the Nash equilibrium outcomes of a game with and without delegation coincide. In particular, delegation through unobservable contracts does not change the predicted outcome of games with a unique Nash equilibrium. These observations, in turn, call the empirical relevance of the applied delegation studies into serious question since, in most real-world transactions, the signed contracts are unobservable to the outside parties. However, there are important strategic environments that fall outside the confines of Katz's analysis. First, Katz's model does not include the scenarios in which the outcome of the decision of delegating or not delegating is observable to the outside party. In contrast, in some models it is natural that the outside party observes the outcome of this decision simply because (s)he
The future of crowd work

Paid crowd work offers remarkable opportunities for improving productivity, social mobility, and the global economy by engaging a geographically distributed workforce to complete complex tasks on demand and at scale. But it is also possible that crowd work will fail to achieve its potential, focusing on assembly-line piecework. Can we foresee a future crowd workplace in which we would want our children to participate? This paper frames the major challenges that stand in the way of this goal. Drawing on theory from organizational behavior and distributed computing, as well as direct feedback from workers, we outline a framework that will enable crowd work that is complex, collaborative, and sustainable. The framework lays out research challenges in twelve major areas: workflow, task assignment, hierarchy, real-time response, synchronous collaboration, quality control, crowds guiding AIs, AIs guiding crowds, platforms, job design, reputation, and motivation.
Detecting Operons in Bacterial Genomes via Visual Representation Learning

Contiguous genes in prokaryotes are often arranged into operons. Detecting operons plays a critical role in inferring gene functionality and regulatory networks. Human experts annotate operons by visually inspecting gene neighborhoods across pileups of related genomes. These visual representations capture the inter-genic distance, strand direction, gene size, functional relatedness, and gene neighborhood conservation, which are the most prominent operon features mentioned in the literature. By studying these features, an expert can then decide whether a genomic region is part of an operon. We propose a deep learning based method named Operon Hunter that uses visual representations of genomic fragments to make operon predictions. Using transfer learning and data augmentation techniques facilitates leveraging the powerful neural networks trained on image datasets by re-training them on a more limited dataset of extensively validated operons. Our method outperforms the previously reported state-of-the-art tools, especially when it comes to predicting full operons and their boundaries accurately. Furthermore, our approach makes it possible to visually identify the features influencing the network’s decisions to be subsequently cross-checked by human experts.
Risk preferences, risk perceptions, and risky food

This paper presents the results of a study that tests the hypothesis that the effect of risk preference on choice is a function of the specific risk-preference measure utilized. In addition, this study tests the hypothesis that the effect of risk preference on choice depends upon its interaction with risk perceptions. I elicit three distinct measures of risk preference: a standard real-money Holt and Laury measure, a hypothetical health-variant of the Holt and Laury measure, and a non-context-specific self-assessment measure. I also elicit information regarding risk perceptions (specifically, food safety). These data are combined with choice data focused on consumer preferences for raw oysters. Results indicate that, after controlling for key oyster attributes, perceived risk perception is highly significant. Additionally, the effect of risk preference is significant, and the effect depends on whether respondents held informative or non-informative risk perceptions. In a treatment that includes only named oyster varieties, I find that although respondents generally prefer named Atlantic coast oysters to named Gulf and Pacific coast oysters, those who hold non-informative risk perceptions are even less likely to choose Gulf and Pacific coast oysters as the magnitude of risk aversion increases. In another treatment that includes a generic “commodity” Gulf coast oyster, I find that although named Gulf coast oysters are generally preferred to the commodity Gulf coast oyster, respondents with non-informative risk perceptions are significantly less likely to choose named Gulf coast oysters as the magnitude of risk aversion increases.
Beyond the Polemics: Realistic Options to Help Divorcing Families Manage Domestic Violence

For many divorcing families where there is domestic violence continues long after the divorce decree. A painful reality is that domestic violence is like a chronic disease: no cures, some remissions, every present. Rather, divorce provides ample, ongoing opportunities for the violence to continue. To our horror, children of divorce are often used as conduits of abuse. Although domestic violence activists have skillfully politicized this issue, some of the societal gains they have achieved do little to ameliorate the burden shouldered by survivors and their families dealing with the day-to-day management of domestic violence. This article raises how such interventions as parallel parenting, mediation, parenting coordination and parent education as viable options to consider for some survivors and their families.
Estimation of Structural Nonlinear Errors-in-Varibles Models by Simulated Least-Squares Method

This article proposes a simulation approach to obtain least-squares or generalized least-squares estimators of structural nonlinear errors-in-variables models. The proposed estimators are computationally attractive because they do not need numerical integration nor huge numbers of simulations per observable. In addition, the asymptotic covariance matrix of the estimator has a simple decomposition that may be used to guide selection of appropriate simulation sizes. The method is also useful for models with missing data or imperfect surrogate covariates, where application of conventional least-squares and maximum-likelihood methods is restricted by numerical multidimensional integrations.
PERSONALITY, INFORMATION ACQUISITION, AND CHOICE UNDER UNCERTAINTY: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

This article studies the role of personality in choice under risk and uncertainty. We explore the hypothesis that personality plays a role in decision making in situations of uncertainty but not in situations of risk. In addition to offering support for this main hypothesis, we explore the various pathways through which personality exerts its influence. What we find is that in uncertain environments, where decision makers are able to acquire information about the unknown probability distributions they face, personality variables influence the type of information people acquire, which then influences their choice. Our experimental design brings in two novel aspects of choice under uncertainty: information acquisition and advice. The findings indicate that indeed, under uncertainty, personality matters for choice in a way it does not under risk. Furthermore, the results suggest that personality can play a role at multiple levels, such as people's preferences for certain types of information and the likelihood of following advice. (JEL C90, D03, D81)
Defeat or Mixed Blessing - Tribal Sovereignty and the State of Sequoyah

The United States government’s rejection of the State of Sequoyah proved to be an unexpected boon to tribal sovereignty, rather than a further diminution of tribal autonomy. When Congress rejected the bill to grant statehood to the the proposed State of Sequoyah, the opportunity for continued Tribal sovereignty and Tribal autonomy was prolonged. Shortly after the rejection of the State of Sequoyah, Congress passed a bill creating the State of Oklahoma, which encompassed all the lands that would have been included in the State of Sequoyah. The Oklahoma Constitution preserved the rights of individual Indians and tribal nations.Tribal leaders have exerted greater influence on the affairs of society because of the preservation of tribal sovereignty. In the State of Sequoyah, American Indians would have been greatly outnumbered, and in a very weak political position.Tribal members were granted dual citizenship with the creation of the State of Oklahoma, which allowed them to participate in state and federal elections, in addition to tribal participation. The continued influence of tribal leaders has allowed the Five Federally recognized Tribes in Oklahoma to exert more influence than a typical minority voting block. The termination of the State of Sequoyah movement has proved to be a victory for the members of the Five Tribes, instead of a defeat.
What Happens When Manufacturers Perform The Retailing Functions

This study examines the effects of a relatively new channel structure on prices and sales in a large department store, which in recent years has switched the management of many of its product categories from a traditional retailer-managed system to a manufacturer-managed system. We find that the change caused overall retail prices to decrease. However, there was significant heterogeneity in the response across brands. In the cell phone category, brands with high market shares and inelastic demand did not change prices. In the watch category, the retail prices of relatively low-end brands decreased while the prices of premium brands increased substantially after the switch. In addition to sales increases due to lower prices, we find that the channel structure change further caused sales to increase by 9–10% in the cell phone category and by 11–17% in the watch category. These results are consistent with previous theoretical predictions. We believe that our results provide important academic and managerial implications due to the increasing prevalence of manufacturer-managed systems in the retail industry.
An exploration of the competitive value of an accurate accounting system

The value of an accurate accounting system is compared to one that introduces a cross-subsidy. In a two-product experimental market the accurate system is shown to provide value when a competitor has a system that introduces a cross-subsidy. The value appears to arise from better product-mix decisions. But it is likely that this value is transitory, explaining in part why observational studies of practice have found it difficult to document sustained value from improved information systems.
Financial innovation and endogenous growth

Abstract Is financial innovation necessary for sustaining economic growth? To address this question, we build a Schumpeterian model in which entrepreneurs earn profits by inventing better goods and profit-maximizing financiers arise to screen entrepreneurs. The model has two novel features. First, financiers engage in the costly but potentially profitable process of innovation: they can invent better methods for screening entrepreneurs. Second, every screening process becomes less effective as technology advances. The model predicts that technological innovation and economic growth eventually stop unless financiers innovate. Empirical evidence is consistent with this dynamic, synergistic model of financial and technological innovation.
Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage: Old Idea, New Evidence

When asked to name one proposition in the social sciences that is both true and non-trivial, Paul Samuelson famously replied: 'Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage'. Truth, however, in Samuelson's reply refers to the fact that Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage is mathematically correct, not that it is empirically valid. In this paper we develop and implement an empirical test of Ricardo's ideas. We use novel agricultural data that describe the productivity in 17 crops of 1.6 million parcels of land in 55 countries around the world. We find that a regression of log observed output on log predicted output has a (precisely estimated) slope of 0.84 and an R-squared of 0.93. In our view, these findings offer considerable support for Ricardo's ideas.
The potential role of carbon labeling in a green economy

Abstract Over the past several years, labeling schemes that focus on a wide range of environmental and social metrics have proliferated. Although little empirical evidence has been generated yet with respect to carbon footprint labels, much can be learned from our experience with similar product labels. We first review the theory and evidence on the role of product labeling in affecting consumer and firm behavior. Next, we consider the role of governments and nongovernmental organizations, concluding that international, multistakeholder organizations have a critical part to play in setting protocols and standards. We argue that it is important to consider the entire life cycle of a product being labeled and develop an international standard for measurement and reporting. Finally, we examine the potential impact of carbon product labeling, discussing methodological and trade challenges and proposing a framework for choosing products best suited for labeling.
The Performance of Investment Bank-Affiliated Mutual Funds: Conflicts of Interest or Informational Advantage?

Using a comprehensive sample of U.S. mutual funds from 1992 to 2004, we find strong evidence that investment bank-affiliated funds underperform unaffiliated funds. Consistent with the conflict of interest hypothesis, we find that affiliated funds hold disproportionately large amounts of stocks of their initial public offering and seasoned equity offering clients. Moreover, worse-performing clients are more likely to be held by affiliated funds. Our results are robust to alternative risk adjustments, portfolio weighting schemes, and regression methodologies. Overall, our findings are consistent with the idea that investment banks use affiliated funds to support underwriting business at the expense of fund shareholders.
Monetary policy, the tax code, and the real effects of energy shocks ✩

Abstract This paper develops a monetary model with taxes to account for the time-varying effects of energy shocks on output and hours worked in post-World War II U.S. data. In our model, the real effects of an energy shock are amplified when the monetary authority responds to that shock by changing its inflation objective. Specifically, higher inflation raises households' nominal capital gains taxes since those taxes are not indexed to inflation. The increase in taxes behaves as a negative wealth effect and generates an immediate decline in output, investment, and hours worked. The large drop in investment then causes a gradual but very persistent decline in the capital stock. That protracted decline in the capital stock is associated with an extended period of low labor productivity and high inflation. The real effects from the increase in nominal capital gains taxes are magnified by the tax on nominal interest income, which is also not indexed to inflation. A prolonged period of higher inflation and lower labor productivity following a negative energy shock is consistent with the stagflation of the 1970s. The negative effects, however, subsided greatly after 1980 due to the Volcker disinflation policy which prevented the Fed from accommodating negative energy shocks with higher inflation.
Unclaimed Financial Assets and the Promotion of Microfinance

U.S. State governments can effectively promote domestic entrepreneurship in low-income communities and simultaneously fulfill their duties as conservators of unclaimed property, by lending unclaimed financial assets-in-trust at preferential interest rates to in-state microfinance providers. Such a scheme could be a significant funding source for many microfinance operations in the United States today. Even a small portion of the yearly intake of unclaimed assets would be substantial enough to support fully most microfinance loan portfolios. Also, reinvestment of unclaimed financial assets into the consumer financial system, rather than fiscal redeployment or traditional public fund investment, correctly counterbalances the contraction in consumer credit supply that occurs when these assets leave the balance sheets of financial institutions. Implementation of such a scheme may be accomplished by minor changes to current unclaimed property law.
Are Independent Audit Committee Members Objective? Experimental Evidence

ABSTRACT: We use experimental markets to examine stock‐based compensation's impact on the objectivity of participants serving as audit committee members.We compare audit committee member reporting objectivity under three regimes: no stock‐based compensation, stock‐based compensation linked to current shareholders, and stock‐based compensation linked to future shareholders. Our experiments show that student participants serving as audit committee members prefer biased reporting when compensated with stock‐based compensation. Audit committee members compensated with current stock‐based compensation prefer aggressive reporting, and audit committee members compensated with future stock‐based compensation prefer overly conservative reporting. We find that audit committee members who do not receive stock‐based compensation are the most objective. Our study suggests that stock‐based compensation impacts audit committee member preferences for biased reporting, suggesting the need for additional research in this area.
The Little Agency That Could (Act with Indifference to Constitutional and Statutory Strictures)

Over the course of a century of struggling to protect the public health with its limited statutory powers and often inadequate resources, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has institutionalized a practice of cavalierly ignoring legal constraints. This essay explains that the FDA has disregarded legislative directives in at least three different senses: failing to adhere to procedures specified by Congress; deploying expressly delegated powers in order to achieve ends beyond those envisioned in the legislation; and branching out to reach matters that arguably exceed its jurisdiction. At times, the agency's creativity has received belated endorsement from Congress or the courts, though, on other occasions, members of these branches have condemned it for showing excessive initiative. Separately, the FDA also has shown a marked indifference to constitutional limits on its range of actions.
Congressional Party Defection in American History

In this paper, we analyze the roll-call voting behavior of House and Senate members who changed party affiliation during the course of their political careers. We analyze members who switched during the stable periods of the three major two-party systems in American history: the Federalist-Jeffersonian Republican system (3d to 12th Congresses), the Democratic-Whig System (20th to 30th Congresses), and the Democratic-Republican System (46th to 106th Congresses). Our primary findings are that the biggest changes in the roll-call voting behavior of party defectors can be observed during periods of high ideological polarization and that party defections during the past 30 years are distinct from switches in other eras because of high polarization and the disappearance of a second dimension of ideological conflict.
Trades outside the quotes: Reporting delay, trading option, or trade size?

Abstract In the period 1993 through 2002 examined in this study, quoted and effective spreads declined substantially on Nasdaq and to a lesser degree on the NYSE. At the same time, however, trades outside the quotes increased dramatically on Nasdaq. Because investors would prefer to trade at the quotes rather than outside the quotes, we examine why trades outside the quotes are observed. We focus on how the continuous market mechanism itself influences the outcome of orders and the reporting of trades, and we conclude that slippage exists in the market mechanism. Outside-trades occur on Nasdaq, first, because of delays in reporting trades, second, because the ability of dealers to delay execution of trades creates a look-back option, which when exercised results in outside-trades, and third, because large trades can take place at prices outside the quotes. Outside-trades are rarely observed on the NYSE because the market is more centralized. While the pattern of trading on the NYSE is not inconsistent with the presence of a look-back option, our tests provide no direct evidence that specialists are exercising such an option.
From Milan to Mumbai, Changing in Tel Aviv: Reflections on Progressive Taxation and “Progressive” Politics in a Globalized but Still Local World

This article considers the future of progressive income taxation emphasizing the experience of three countries, Italy, Israel, and India, together with the U.S. After briefly describing the income tax system in each country, the article considers the debate on progressivity and its relationship to the broader discussion of economic equality and social justice in the countries at issue. The article concludes that - while the relationship above is often an uneasy one - essentially local factors including tax administration and the "tax culture" of the country at issue frequently play an equal or greater role in the progressivity debate. While noting the pressure applied by globalization for reduced tax rates, the article is thus skeptical about a unitary movement for or against progressivity in different countries.
Grieving Criminal Defense Lawyers

In this essay, our interest is the regulation of criminal defense lawyers. Our goal is also more general - to bring attention to the relationship between client markets and the regulation of attorneys. While many have addressed how the availability of lawyers varies with clients' capacity to pay, few have looked at how remedies for incompetent or inadequate legal services also vary directly with the financial wherewithal to pay lawyers. The many sources of regulation of lawyers at the top of the legal hierarchy stands in sharp contrast to those mechanisms that exist for lawyers who serve indigent criminal defendants. Given the bleak landscape of criminal defense, we are in no way starry-eyed. But it is the very bleak and grievously impoverished landscape that prompts us to look for alternatives, and thus to believe that state-based grievance processes are worth exploring. The disciplinary system offers not only another option in a world that seems to have too few but also something else: it provides concrete examples to the bar of specific instances of unsatisfactory practice by a diverse set of lawyers at the less profitable end of legal practices. From such sources could come new insights into the problems that would in turn prompt refinement of rules and norms. Poor provision of criminal defense services is a grievous injury not only for clients but for the legal profession and the public. Public grievance processes are one way to mark the fact of such injury and to begin to piece together responses.
Components of optimal price under logit demand

Demand for durables can be modeled using a logit framework in which a customer chooses one brand from several alternatives, or buys nothing at all. In this framework, optimal prices for competing brands can be expressed as a system of non-linear equations, which, however, do not have closed form solutions. Although the optimal price can be determined by numerical search, the solution offers limited understanding of its components. In this article, we develop a linear approximation of the Nash equilibrium optimal price of a brand as its marginal cost plus a weighted sum of: (1) the inverse of the price sensitivity of the market, (2) the average value added by all brands in the market, and (3) the value advantage (or disadvantage) of the brand. The weights depend primarily upon the number of competing brands, with price insensitivity having the strongest impact, followed by value advantage of the brand, and average value added by all brands. This approximation for optimal price is found to be robust under a wide range of conditions. Additionally, we demonstrate that using the approximation results in only marginal deviation of profits from the theoretical Nash optimal.
Why Precedent in Law (and Elsewhere) Is Not Totally (or Even Substantially) About Analogy

Cognitive scientists and others who conduct research on analogical reasoning often claim that the use of precedent in law and elsewhere is an application of reasoning by analogy. In fact, however, law’s principle of precedent, as well as the way in which precedent is used in ordinary argument, is quite different. The typical use of analogy in legal argument, including the use of analogies to earlier decisions, involves the retrieval of a source analog (or exemplar) from multiple candidates in order to help make the best decision now. But the legal principle of precedent requires that a prior decision be treated as binding, even if the current decision maker disagrees with that decision. When the identity between a prior decision and the current question is obvious and inescapable, precedent thus imposes a constraint quite different from the effect of a typical argument by analogy. The importance of drawing this distinction between analogy and precedent is not so much in showing that a common claim in the psychological and cognitive science literature is mistaken, but that making decisions under the constraints of binding precedent is itself an important form of decision deserving to be researched in its own right, but which has been ignored because of the erroneous conflation of constraint by precedent with reasoning by analogy.
Issues in assessing trade execution costs

This study assesses the sensitivity of trading cost estimates derived from publicly-available trade and quote data to two methodological issues: the time adjustment made before comparing trades to quotes, and the procedure used to designate trades as buyer or seller-initiated. The results indicate that making no allowance for trade reporting lags is optimal when assessing whether trades are buyer or seller initiated, for both Nasdaq and NYSE stocks. However, trade prices are best compared to earlier quotations when assessing trade execution costs, in order to capture the effect of systematic quotation revisions in the seconds before trades are reported. A technique for inferring trade direction recommended by Ellis et al. (J. Financial Quant. Anal. 35 (2000) 529) leads to significantly smaller estimates of trading costs than the well-known Lee and Ready (J. Finance 46 (1991) 733) algorithm. Despite the sensitivity of trading cost measures to these methodological issues, inference as to whether the Nasdaq dealer market or the NYSE auction market provides lower trade execution costs is not sensitive.
Signaling with Audits: Mimicry, Wasteful Expenditures, and Non-compliance in a Model of Tax Enforcement

The audit policy of a tax authority can signal its audit effectiveness. We model this process and show that in limited circumstances an ineffective authority can masquerade as being effective. We show that high maximal penalties imply underreporting of income.
(Re)Conceptualizing Insider Trading: United States v. Newman and the Intent to Defraud

Insider trading law is a mens rea morass. The confusion concerning the mental element of this crime risks both the deprivation of fair notice to potential defendants and the abuse of prosecutorial discretion. In the wake of aggressive and high-profile insider trading prosecutions, these concerns are particularly salient. The Second Circuit’s decision in United States v. Newman takes an important first step in articulating the mens rea component of insider trading. Taking Newman as a starting point, this article seeks to re-conceptualize and systematize insider trading law. When articulating the mens rea of insider trading, courts should focus on the underlying concept of insider trading law: the harm caused by the breach of trust attendant to the theft of inside information. When a court clearly focuses on the core purpose of insider trading law, the second level of reform is possible. That is, we can assess the culpability of alleged inside traders by the harm that they intended to cause and assign levels of mens rea accordingly. Applying common law fraud principles, and using Model Penal Code terminology and methodology, this article identifies the elements of insider trading and attaches appropriate levels of mens rea to each element. The article concludes with a set of jury instructions that reflect these underlying principles.
Civil Liberties Outside the Courts

This article recovers the institutional alternatives to judicial enforcement of civil liberties during the New Deal. Based on archival research, it demonstrates that the court-based strategy was deeply contested and remained controversial well after the foundational First Amendment victories. Today, theories of civil liberties are premised on state neutrality in the domain of public debate; in the 1930s, the most prominent accounts demanded affirmative government intervention to correct distortions in the marketplace of ideas or to advance substantive rights. In examining these forgotten traditions, the article highlights the close and unexplored connection between civil liberties and organized labor during the New Deal. Surprisingly, early proponents of civil liberties understood the term to encompass, above all, the rights to organize, picket, and strike. Reconstructing the competing visions of civil liberties and their optimal enforcement before and after the “Constitutional Revolution” reveals the anticipated trade-offs of the judicial strategy, with important implications for theoretical accounts of constitutional change.
Taking Supremacy Seriously: The Contrariety of Official Immunities

Immunities from suit, whether for governments or government officials, occupy a semi-sacred place in our jurisprudence. Trumpeting sovereign immunity,1 state and federal governments have long asserted that they are not subject to suit unless they have consented, and the courts have supported them. The U.S. Supreme Court has also created common law immunities for government officials and municipalities. Both kinds of immunity rest on a pervasive misunderstanding of English legal history and a convenient disinclination to consider the distinctive history and political philosophy that underlies the federal government. This Article does not examine the nuances of the official and municipal immunity doctrines, but rather questions their legitimacy in light of constitutional supremacy.2
The logic of uncertainty in law and life

My central interest is decisionmaking in the presence of epistemic uncertainty. A method appropriate for both specialized inquiries and everyday reasoning is based on credal logic, which employs multivalent degrees of belief rather than traditional probability theory. It accounts for epistemic uncertainty as unallocated belief. It holds that, when facing real uncertainty, if a person believes a and believes b, then the person believes a and b together. This brand of multivalent logic underlies and justifies how legal decisionmakers and the rest of us find facts in a world infused with epistemic uncertainty. Indeed, this Article closes by showing the equivalence of multivalent logic and inference to the best explanation. By demonstrating this similarity in reasoning, I aim to shore up our faith in the logic of traditional legal reasoning.
Bull in a china shop: Alternate reality games and transgressive fan play in social media franchises

In this article I examine the role of fan ARGs in Lonelygirl15 (LG15), a video blog that became one of the first social media franchises of YouTube. Eager to explore the narrative possibilities of Internet technologies, its creators set out to provide community-based storytelling that embodied the general spirit of coauthorship. To ensure viral distribution, the videos were shot to evoke the maximum amount of curiosity, teasing their viewers with a seemingly simple plot laden with clues that promised a deeper mystery. While fan creativity was encouraged, the concerns over creating a commercially viable story led to careful management of fan activities and strict definition of the boundaries of the LG15 canon. Intrigued by the mysterious beginnings of the show, some fans created ARG spin-offs to deliver a more engaging experience than the show initially offered. I argue that early fan ARGs became tactics through which fans engaged in transgressive play and negotiated a more meaningful role within the franchise.
Single mothers in Russia - household strategies for coping with poverty

The authors describe trends in single parenthood in Russia, examining factors that affect living arrangements in single-mother families. Before economic reform, single mothers and their children were somewhat protected form poverty by government assistance (income support, subsidized child care, and full employment guarantees). Economic reform in Russia has reduced government transfers, eliminated publicly subsidized pre-school care programs, and worsened women's opportunities in the labor market. The loss of government support has eroded family stability, and left single mothers at increased risk of poverty. Over the last decade, the proportion of households headed by women has increased rapidly, raising the risk of poverty. Single-parent families now represent nearly a quarter of all Russian households. Using seven rounds of data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, the authors investigate how household living arrangements, and other factors, affect income in single-mother families. They find that a single parent with more earning power, and child benefits is more likely not to live with relatives. But single mothers are increasingly choosing to live with other adults, or relatives, to survive, and to raise their children in times of economic stress, and uncertainty. Half of all single mothers in Russia live with their parents, their adult siblings, or other adult relatives. Help from relatives is important to single-mother families, and that help - including the sharing of domestic and childcare duties - is more efficient, and productive when the single parent lives with the family. The other half live in independent residences, and face increased risk of poverty.
Current Status of Technology Adoption: Micro, Small and Medium Manufacturing Firms in Boston

Current Status of Technology Adoption:Micro, Small and Medium Manufacturing Firms in BostonAuthors:Pratyush Bharati Management Science and Information SystemsCollege of ManagementUniversity of Massachusetts, BostonBoston, MA 02125-3393Phone: 617 287 7880Fax: 617 287 7877 E-mail: Pratyush.Bharati@umb.eduAbhijit ChaudhuryBryant University1150 Douglas PikeSmithfield, RI 02917E-mail: achaudhu@bryant.edu
Kiobel and the Surprising Death of Universal Jurisdiction Under the Alien Tort Statute

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. has not ended future debate about the scope and impact of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). But the Kiobel Court did resolve at least one issue with surprising unanimity: both the opinion for the Court by Chief Justice John Roberts and the main concurring opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer refused to interpret the ATS as authorizing universal jurisdiction. All nine justices rejected decades of lower-court precedent and widespread scholarly opinion when they held that the ATS excluded cases involving purely extraterritorial conduct, even if the alleged conduct constituted acts that are universally proscribed under international law.
Do Termination Provisions Truncate the Takeover Bidding Process

We provide new evidence on termination provisions and the takeover bidding process. Our central contribution is a novel database from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents that accurately measures the incidence of termination provisions and the depth of competition in takeover deals. We show that biased data in prior research produced incorrect conclusions on the relation between termination provisions and judicial decisions, bidder toeholds, and deal size. Our comprehensive data also show that termination provisions are positively related to takeover competition. Our evidence is consistent with the information/commitment hypothesis in which termination provisions do not truncate bidding but instead culminate the takeover process.
The Association between Nonprofessional Investors' Information Choices and Their Portfolio Returns: The Importance of Investing Experience*

In this paper we use a unique dataset to investigate the relationship between nonprofessional investors' information choices and their portfolio returns. We also investigate the role investing experience plays in this relationship. We find that nonprofessional investors earn lower returns as their use of unfiltered information (e.g., SEC filings) increases relative to their use of filtered information (e.g., Value Line analysts reports), and that investment experience not only moderates but actually reverses this negative relationship. Specifically, less (more) experienced nonprofessional investors earn lower (higher) returns as their use of unfiltered information increases. Our results suggest that this effect is driven by investors' ability to understand and use unfiltered information as they gain investing experience, not by a shift in their information choices. These findings are particularly relevant in the current reporting environment where greater numbers of inexperienced investors are entering the markets and recent legislation (e.g., Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002) requires firms to disclose more detailed financial information.
Self-Organizing Maps Algorithm for Parton Distribution Functions Extraction

We describe a new method to extract parton distribution functions from hard scattering processes based on Self-Organizing Maps. The extension to a larger, and more complex class of soft matrix elements, including generalized parton distributions is also discussed.
Staggered boards, corporate opacity and firm value.

Abstract We explore the effect of corporate opacity on the relation between staggered boards and firm value. We find that through mitigating takeover pressure, staggered boards become increasingly beneficial to firm value as opacity increases. In addition, we document that staggered boards reduce value only in transparent firms. Additional tests indicate that, as opacity increases, staggered boards bear an increasingly positive relation to research and development and CEO pay-performance sensitivity. Taken together, these results suggest that corporate opacity affects the value impact of takeover protection.
Are Arbitrators Above the Law? The 'Manifest Disregard of the Law' Standard

Arbitration is supposed to be final and binding, but federal and state laws, and judicial doctrines, allow courts to vacate arbitrator awards. This study contemplates the role of courts when they review awards that “manifestly disregard the law” —a term that means the arbitrator knew the law but chose to ignore it. In 2008 in Hall Street Associates v. Mattel, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that courts cannot review awards beyond the Federal Arbitration Act’s (FAA) express terms and stated: “Maybe the term ‘manifest disregard’ [in the Court’s 1953 decision in Wilko v. Swan] was meant to name a new ground for review, but maybe it merely referred to the [FAA’s] § 10 grounds collectively, rather than adding to them.” This Article analyzes “manifest disregard” through historical and empirical methods and contends that Congress inadvertently omitted “manifest disregard” from the FAA. Unfortunately, the Court’s muddled analysis in Hall Street as to “manifest disregard” has split federal circuits. The Court should affirm this standard as it does not erode finality, and judicial review must be allowed to correct an arbitrator’s intentional flouting of the law. If “manifest disregard” is eliminated, arbitral finality will rise above the crowning principle of the American constitutional system: “No man in this country is so high that he is above the law.”
The political economy of urban transport-system choice

This paper analyzes the political economy of transport-system choice, with the goal of gaining an understanding of the forces involved in this important urban public policy decision. Transport systems pose a continuous trade-off between time and money cost, so that a city can choose a fast system with a high money cost per mile or a slower, cheaper system. The paper compares the socially optimal transport system to the one chosen under the voting process, focusing on both homogeneous and heterogeneous cities, while considering different landownership arrangements. The analysis identifies a bias toward underinvestment in transport quality in heterogeneous cities.
What Causes Workers to Retire before They Plan

This article explores the extent to which health, employment, family, or finances are associated with earlier-than-planned retirement using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The importance of any shock that drives early retirement depends both on its effect on those experiencing it and its prevalence in the population; therefore, the analysis proceeds in two steps. First, a probit regression is used to determine the strength of the relationship between the shocks and earlier-than-planned retirement, controlling for individual characteristics. Second, to incorporate the prevalence of the shock, counterfactual experiments are run to determine how much early retirement would be reduced in the population if these shocks did not occur. Our results indicate that health—both health “shocks” and initial poor health—is the most important factor in earlier-than-planned retirement, followed by involuntary job loss, and then changes within the family, especially a spouse’s retirement and having a parent move into the house. Changes in financial wealth do not have a significant impact on early retirement, but other, idiosyncratic factors may have some influence.
Making Cyberspace Safe for Democracy: The Challenge Posed by Denial-of-Service Attacks

Denial-of-service attacks are technical assaults designed to block traffic to internet servers by flooding them with more information than they can process at once. These attacks can cause significant economic damage, interruption of public services, and the suppression of speech online. Federal and state cybercrime statutes are broad enough to criminalize these attacks, but some activists argue that attacks are benign and more like “sit-ins” in cyberspace. This Note argues to the contrary that cyberspace cannot replicate the conditions that enable civil disobedience and the development of democratic community in physical space.