cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Resveratrol Reduces COMPopathy in Mice Through Activation of Autophagy.

Misfolding mutations in cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) cause it to be retained within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of chondrocytes, stimulating a multitude of damaging cellular responses including ER stress, inflammation, and oxidative stress, which ultimately culminates in the death of growth plate chondrocytes and pseudoachondroplasia (PSACH). Previously, we demonstrated that an antioxidant, resveratrol, substantially reduces the intracellular accumulation of mutant-COMP, dampens cellular stress, and lowers the level of growth plate chondrocyte death. In addition, we showed that resveratrol reduces mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling, suggesting a potential mechanism. In this work, we investigate the role of autophagy in treatment of COMPopathies. In cultured chondrocytes expressing wild-type COMP or mutant-COMP, resveratrol significantly increased the number of Microtubule-associated protein 1A/1B-light chain 3 (LC3) vesicles, directly demonstrating that resveratrol-stimulated autophagy is an important component of the resveratrol-driven mechanism responsible for the degradation of mutant-COMP. Moreover, pharmacological inhibitors of autophagy suppressed degradation of mutant-COMP in our established mouse model of PSACH. In contrast, blockage of the proteasome did not substantially alter resveratrol clearance of mutant-COMP from growth plate chondrocytes. Mechanistically, resveratrol increased SIRT1 and PP2A expression and reduced MID1 expression and activation of phosphorylated protein kinase B (pAKT) and mTORC1 signaling in growth plate chondrocytes, allowing clearance of mutant-COMP by autophagy. Importantly, we show that optimal reduction in growth plate pathology, including decreased mutant-COMP retention, decreased mTORC1 signaling, and restoration of chondrocyte proliferation was attained when treatment was initiated between birth to 1 week of age in MT-COMP mice, translating to birth to approximately 2 years of age in children with PSACH. These results clearly demonstrate that resveratrol stimulates clearance of mutant-COMP by an autophagy-centric mechanism. © 2020 The Authors. JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Perimeter-defense Game between Aerial Defender and Ground Intruder

We study a variant of pursuit-evasion game in the context of perimeter defense. In this problem, the intruder aims to reach the base plane of a hemisphere without being captured by the defender, while the defender tries to capture the intruder. The perimeter-defense game was previously studied under the assumption that the defender moves on a circle. We extend the problem to the case where the defender moves on a hemisphere. To solve this problem, we analyze the strategies based on the breaching point at which the intruder tries to reach the target and predict the goal position, defined as optimal breaching point, that is achieved by the optimal strategies on both players. We provide the barrier that divides the state space into defender-winning and intruder-winning regions and prove that the optimal strategies for both players are to move towards the optimal breaching point. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate that the optimality of the game is given as a Nash equilibrium.
Global exponential stability of primal-dual gradient flow dynamics based on the proximal augmented Lagrangian: A Lyapunov-based approach

For a class of nonsmooth composite optimization problems with linear equality constraints, we utilize a Lyapunov-based approach to establish the global exponential stability of the primal-dual gradient flow dynamics based on the proximal augmented Lagrangian. The result holds when the differentiable part of the objective function is strongly convex with a Lipschitz continuous gradient; the non-differentiable part is proper, lower semi-continuous, and convex; and the matrix in the linear constraint is full row rank. Our quadratic Lyapunov function generalizes recent result from strongly convex problems with either affine equality or inequality constraints to a broader class of composite optimization problems with nonsmooth regularizers and it provides a worst-case lower bound of the exponential decay rate. Finally, we use computational experiments to demonstrate that our convergence rate estimate is less conservative than the existing alternatives.
Are Attempts Like Treason

If the state can legitimately criminalize only wrongs that cause or risk harm, and if it respects the fact that an actor who sets out to commit a crime can always change his mind until he takes the last step, we are apt to end up with a law of attempts in which an attempt is a crime only when the actor has taken the last step, or comes very close to taking it. What are perhaps the most familiar theories of attempt —objectivism and subjectivism—do in fact gravitate toward such a restrictive law of attempts. In contrast to these theories, I suggest that an actor who intends to cause or risk harm is akin to a traitor. The wrong of treason consists in the formation of a treasonous intent in violation of one9s duty of loyalty to the state or nation. The wrong of attempt consists in the formation of an intent to cause or risk harm to one9s fellow citizens in violation of one9s duty of loyalty to them. The traitor and the attempter are each guilty of defying the law that legitimately prohibits the formation of such intentions.
Currency of Search: How Spending Time on Search is Not the Same as Spending Money

Abstract Search theories suggest that a decline in search costs increases search behavior. This relationship has been well supported by prior experimental research but not by studies conducted in retail settings. Our review of the literature suggests that this discrepancy might be driven by the fact that prior experiments typically involve money-based search whereas actual search in retail settings is usually time-based. We argue that the currency of search plays a moderating role. We find that when participants spend money on search, a decrease in search costs has a significant effect on search decisions but, when they spend time on search, a decrease in search costs either has a relatively weak effect (Experiment 1) or no effect at all (Experiment 2). Furthermore, this insensitivity in time also emerges for search payoffs (Experiment 3). We also offer evidence for the processes underlying these effects. Our results provide a new lens to examine inconsistencies in the search literature, and present a view of search that is more applicable to the retail context.
At Last? Ratification of the Economic Covenant as a Congressional-Executive Agreement

The Economic Covenant, along with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“Civil Covenant”) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, comprise the International Bill of Rights. This Article examines the legal, historical, and practical reasons for the Obama Administration's reluctance to “seek action” on the Covenant and explains why, despite these reasons, it should. Indeed, the United States has never needed the Economic Covenant more.The Covenant is a straightforward exposition of Franklin D. Roosevelt's “freedom from want,” an international instrument setting out what he referred to as the “Second Bill of Rights.” It requires nation-states to recognize the rights of their people to the basic necessities of life, including work, an adequate standard of living, education, health, and social security. Every industrialized democracy except the United States has ratified it. Domestically, the Covenant resonates with the ground-breaking initiatives of the Obama Administration for universal healthcare, job creation, educational reform, and expanded benefits for the most vulnerable. Abroad, the Covenant's ratification would contribute to the “restoration” of America's reputation as a champion of human rights.The two major obstacles to ratification are the Tea Party and Goldman Sachs. The angry group of “patriots” and the financial services superstar are stand-ins, of course, for right-wing ideologues and the ultra-rich, who have not only grown fatter during the current famine, but now have the additional security of being “too big to fail.” This Article uses stand-ins to give them a human face and bring them down to human scale. The Covenant faces difficult, but not insurmountable, obstacles. Ratification is no more improbable than the election of a black president.
Anatomy of a meltdown: The risk neutral density for the S&P 500 in the fall of 2008

We examine the risk neutral probability density (RND) for the S&P 500 extracted from real-time bid and ask quotes for index options, under extreme market stress during the fall of 2008. The RND provides exceptional detail about investors' expectations as intraday volatility increased to a level five times higher than it had been two years earlier. Arbitrage keeps the mean of the RND closely tied to the market index, but its autocorrelation is very different. We also find a strong pattern in the RND's response to stock index movements: The middle portion amplifies the index change by more than 50% in some cases. This overshooting increased during the crisis and, surprisingly, was stronger in up moves than down moves.
The Characteristics that Provide Independent Information about Average U.S. Monthly Stock Returns

We take up Cochrane’s (2011) challenge to identify the firm characteristics that provide independent information about average U.S. monthly stock returns by simultaneously including 94 characteristics in Fama-MacBeth regressions that avoid overweighting microcaps and adjust for data-snooping bias. We find that while 12 characteristics are reliably independent determinants in non-microcap stocks from 1980 to 2014 as a whole, return predictability sharply fell in 2003 such that just two characteristics have been independent determinants since then. Outside of microcaps, the hedge returns to exploiting characteristics-based predictability also have been insignificantly different from zero since 2003. Received January 28, 2015; editorial decision November 28, 2016 by Editor Andrew Karolyi.
Robust Predictions in Games with Incomplete Information

We analyze games of incomplete information and oer equilibrium predictions which are valid for, and in this sense robust to, all possible private information structures that the agents may have. The set of outcomes that can arise in equilibrium for some information structure is equal to the set of Bayes correlated equilibria. We completely characterize the set of Bayes correlated equilibria in a class of games with quadratic payos and normally distributed uncertainty in terms of restrictions on the …rst and second moments of the equilibrium action-state distribution. We derive exact bounds on how prior knowledge about the private information re…nes the set of equilibrium predictions. We consider information sharing among …rms under demand uncertainty and …nd new optimal in- formation policies via the Bayes correlated equilibria. We also reverse the perspective and investigate the identi…cation problem under concerns for robustness to private information. The presence of private information leads to set rather than point identi…cation of the structural parameters of the game.
The Legal Profession’s Monopoly: Failing to Protect Consumers

The regulation of the legal profession is failing in its consumer protection role because the manner in which the quality of legal services is currently regulated causes insurmountable problems with access to legal services. Current regulations restrict activities that constitute the practice of law to licensed attorneys. This restriction is justified, in large part, based on the assumption that the public cannot make informed decisions about who is qualified to provide legal advice and, therefore, the government must make that determination.2 Even if this assumption is correct, restricting the practice of law to those who have completed a juris doctor has constrained the market options so that many consumers have no access to legal services at all.3 This also has consumer protection implications. The practical effect is that a large number of consumers—who are presumed incapable of assessing the quality of legal services when making purchasing decisions—are for all practical purposes presumed capable of becoming educated and informed enough about the law to handle their legal matters pro se.4 These two presumptions are irreconcilable. The first presumption justifies limiting the practice of law to licensed attorneys if we,
The Case of the Zia: Looking Beyond Trademark Law to Protect Sacred Symbols

This Article tells the story of a tribe’s fight, over the past two decades, to reclaim its sacred symbol. Members of the Zia tribe, a Native American group located near Albuquerque, New Mexico, have been using their sacred sun symbol in religious ceremonies since 1200 C.E. Today, the symbol appears on the New Mexico state flag, letterhead, and license plate, and on numerous commercial products, including motorcycles and portable toilets. The tribe claims that the state appropriated the symbol without permission in 1925, and that the continued use of the symbol by various parties dilutes its sacred meaning and disparages the Zia people. This Article considers the harms the tribe faces when outsiders appropriate its symbol and the possible solutions within current trademark law. Ultimately, this Article illustrates that, for the Zia, non-legal measures have been more effective than legal ones. The case of the Zia thus suggests that indigenous groups should look beyond trademark law in the fight to protect their sacred symbols. * Yale Law School, J.D. expected 2012; Barnard College, Columbia University, B.A. 2009. Thank you to Professor Carol Rose for supervising this project; to the editors of the Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property for their feedback throughout the editorial process; and to Patrick Moroney and my family for their enduring support.
Justice Unconceived: How Posterity Has Rights

This paper advances a rights-based approach to our relations with future generations. It first explains why an account of intergenerational relations is necessary and why a rights-centered approach represents the correct approach. While not denying that there can be more to our shared moral and political life than rights, I argue that this situation is one in which rights are the appropriate idiom. The paper then addresses the central question of how it is possible for future people to hold rights against us. How can we violate the rights of someone who does not yet exist and whose existence may indeed depend on which choices we make? The discussion includes an attempt to deal with the non-identity problem posed in the work of Derek Parfit. Although the main focus is broader themes of intergenerational justice, there are implications for wrongful life torts and the reparations debate. Last, the paper tentatively sketches the content of the rights held by future people.
Protest, Proportionality, and the Politics of Privacy

This Article is an exercise in comparative constitutional law and politics. It is both descriptive and analytical. It explores how - and explains why - Canada and the United States have mediated the tension between the right of access to abortion clinics and the freedom of religious expression. It also illuminates why both nations have privileged the right of access to abortion clinics over the right to free religious expression.
The supply of skills in the labor force and aggregate output volatility

Abstract The cyclical volatility of US gross domestic product suddenly declined during the early 1980s and remained low for over 20 years. I develop a labor search model with worker heterogeneity and match-specific costs to show how an increase in the supply of high-skill workers can contribute to a decrease in aggregate output volatility. In the model, firms react to changes in the distribution of skills by creating jobs designed specifically for high-skill workers. The new worker–firm matches are more profitable and less likely to break apart due to productivity shocks. Aggregate output volatility falls because the labor market stabilizes on the extensive margin. In a simple calibration exercise, the labor market based mechanism generates a substantial portion of the observed changes in output volatility.
Innovation Blindness: Culture, Frames, and Cross-Boundary Problem Construction in the Development of New Technology Concepts

This paper has three goals. The first is to understand why members of one organizational department are blind to the reasons why members of another department do not share their ideas for a new technology---what I call a “technology concept.” The second is to understand what consequences this “innovation blindness” has for the development of technology concepts across organizational and occupational boundaries. The third is to uncover strategies organizations might use to successfully develop a new technological artifact from the technology concept even if innovators never understand the nature of their own blindness. To achieve these goals, I draw on research on organizational cultural toolkits to construct a framework suggesting that technology concepts frame cultural resources, which are then used to construct the very problems the technological artifact will be built to solve. From this perspective, culture does not directly shape technological artifacts. Rather, a technology concept activates culture as it draws frames around resources that will guide people's problem construction practices. By acting as a frame through which problems can be constructed, technology concepts play a key role in selecting the set of cultural resources that will be used to develop technological artifacts. I explore this framework through a qualitative study of computer simulation software in a major automotive engineering firm.
The Taylor principles

Abstract We use tests for structural change to identify periods of low, positive, and negative Taylor rule deviations, the difference between the federal funds rate and the rate prescribed by the original Taylor rule. The tests define four monetary policy eras: a negative deviations era during the Great Inflation, a positive deviations era during the Volcker disinflation, a low deviations era during the Great Moderation, and another negative deviations era from 2001 to 2015. We then estimate Taylor rules for the different eras. The most important violations of the Taylor principles, the four elements that comprise the Taylor rule, are that the coefficient on inflation was too low during the Great Inflation and that the coefficient on the output gap was too low during the Volcker disinflation. We then analyze deviations from several alterations of the original Taylor rule. Between 2000 and 2007, Fed policy cannot be explained by any variant of the Taylor rule while, between 2007 and 2015, Fed policy is consistent with a rule where the federal funds rate does not respond at all to inflation and either responds very strongly to the output gap or incorporates a time-varying equilibrium real interest rate.
Socio-Legal Backlash

Author(s): Krieger, Linda Hamilton | Abstract: Over the past three years, an increasing number of disability rights activists, practitioners, and scholarly commentators have claimed that a powerful judicial and media backlash against the Americans with Disabilities Act is underway. Even before issuance of three Supreme Court decisions in the Summer of 1999 narrowly construing the Act's coverage, there existed ample evidence supporting the backlash hypothesis. In two papers, a Foreword and an Afterword, Professor Krieger frames an interdisciplinary symposium on public, judicial, and media responses to the Americans with Disabilities Act soon to appear in the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law. In the first article, Backlash Against the Americans with Disabilities Act: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Implications for Social Justice Strategies, Professor Krieger situates the intellectual project undertaken by the Symposium and introduces the fourteen articles and three responsive commentaries that comprise it. In the second paper, Socio-Legal Backlash, Professor Krieger posits a theoretical model of socio-legal change and retrenchment, situates the concept of backlash within that model, and applies the model to investigate and explain patterns of public, judicial and media reactions to the ADA.
Stopping the resurgence of vaccine-preventable childhood diseases: Policy, politics, and law

Mandatory vaccination programs in the United States are generally successful, but their continued success is under threat. The ever-increasing number of parents who opt their children out of vaccination recommendations has caused severe outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Public health advocates have pushed for changes to state laws, but their efforts have generally been unsuccessful. We suggest that their lack of success is due to public health advocates’ failures to contend with the features of the political system that impede change and to propose reforms that are ethically defensible, efficacious, and politically feasible. Based on our earlier public health studies, ethical concerns, and our analysis of the political environment, we suggest that states consider “nudging” hesitant parents to vaccinate their children by marginally raising the costs of non-vaccination. We also offer a comprehensive model law that would implement these changes.
Do stocks outperform Treasury bills

Abstract The majority of common stocks that have appeared in the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) database since 1926 have lifetime buy-and-hold returns less than one-month Treasuries. When stated in terms of lifetime dollar wealth creation, the best-performing 4% of listed companies explain the net gain for the entire US stock market since 1926, as other stocks collectively matched Treasury bills. These results highlight the important role of positive skewness in the distribution of individual stock returns, attributable to skewness in monthly returns and to the effects of compounding. The results help to explain why poorly diversified active strategies most often underperform market averages.
Avoiding Another Step in a Series of Unfortunate Legal Events: A Consideration of Black Life Under American Law from 1619 to 1972 and a Challenge to Prevailing Notions of Legally Based Reparations

The growing body of literature on reparations consists primarily of articles showing that black reparations are consistent with various legal theories, promote racial justice, or further broader societal goals like eliminating poverty and promoting education. This article takes the distinct position of challenging reparations supporters to justify their conadence in the legal system to deliver meaningful reparations for slavery and segregation in light of the historic use of law as a means of instantiating white racial supremacy and the prospective individualistic approach to race adopted by contemporary judges and legislators. The article also challenges those who oppose reparations based on its supposed unfairness to contemporary citizens to explain how their position differs from that of past generations who opposed reparations and related legal efforts to redress racial injustices as unfair at that time. To support the challenge to reparations commentators, the article examines the historical framework of blacks’ relationship to the law through legislation and court rulings from 1619–1963. The article closes by presenting an alternative approach to reparations focused on building and strengthening black political, economic, and educational institutions. * © 2006, Carlton Waterhouse, Assistant Professor of Law, Florida International University, College of Law; B.A. Penn State University; J.D. Howard University; M.T.S. Emory University; A.B.D. Emory University. I am unable to express my gratitude to all of those who provided guidance and support during the preparation of this Article, but I would especially like to thank Charles Pouncy, Ediberto Roman, Heather Hughes, and Andre Smith for their comments. Rosta Telfort, Ronald Parkman, and Lina Busby provided important research assistance, for which I am grateful. I also extend special thanks to Derrick Bell, for taking the time to share his insights into the project. Finally, I wish to thank Roy Brooks and Al Brophy for their deliberate examination of early drafts of the article.
Compensating differentials in experimental labor markets

Abstract The theory of compensating differentials has proven difficult to test with observational data: the consequences of selection, unobserved firm and worker characteristics, and the broader macroeconomic environment complicate most analyses. Instead, we construct experimental, real-effort labor markets and offer an evaluation of the theory in a controlled setting. We study both the wage differentials that evolve between firms with varying degrees of disamenity and how these differentials are affected by worker mobility and therefore selection. Consistent with the theory, we find that riskier firms must pay significantly higher wages to attract workers. Further, when workers are mobile, they sort into firms according to their attitudes towards risk and, as a result, the compensating differential shrinks. Last, we are also able to mimic the biases associated with observational studies.
Do Compustat Financial Statement Data Articulate

ABSTRACT: Using the Financial Statement Balancing Model (FSBM) from Compustat, we examine whether financial statement data articulate for 10,681 U.S. nonfinancial firms for 24 years, a total of 92,...
Robust Generalized Empirical Likelihood for heavy tailed autoregressions with conditionally heteroscedastic errors

Abstract We present a robust Generalized Empirical Likelihood estimator and confidence region for the parameters of an autoregression that may have a heavy tailed heteroscedastic error. The estimator exploits two transformations for heavy tail robustness: a redescending transformation of the error that robustifies against innovation outliers, and weighted least squares instruments that ensure robustness against heavy tailed regressors. Our estimator is consistent for the true parameter and asymptotically normally distributed irrespective of heavy tails.
The Scope and Jurisprudence of the Investment Management Regulation

This Essay reviews three periods of investment company regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It focuses on the period of 1975 to 2000 in which the Commission granted exemptions on conditions, thus deregulating and reregulating, case by case and finally codifying the exemptions in an exemptive rule. The Essay analyses this form of rule-making and compares it to prosecution, settlements, and initial rule-making that typifies the recent years. The Essay concludes that the common law method of legislation, especially when it involves a "bargain" between the regulators and law-abiding regulated institutions who wish to innovate, is likely to lead to optimal rules, provided the conditions (re-regulation) are rigorously enforced.
A Jump-Diffusion Model for Option Pricing

Brownian motion and normal distribution have been widely used in the Black--Scholes option-pricing framework to model the return of assets. However, two puzzles emerge from many empirical investigations: the leptokurtic feature that the return distribution of assets may have a higher peak and two (asymmetric) heavier tails than those of the normal distribution, and an empirical phenomenon called "volatility smile" in option markets. To incorporate both of them and to strike a balance between reality and tractability, this paper proposes, for the purpose of option pricing, a double exponential jump-diffusion model. In particular, the model is simple enough to produce analytical solutions for a variety of option-pricing problems, including call and put options, interest rate derivatives, and path-dependent options. Equilibrium analysis and a psychological interpretation of the model are also presented.
Drone Delivery and the Takings Clause

Amazon, Inc.’s fledgling drone shipping service, “Prime Air,” and similar services, may pose a new threat to private property rights. Companies that ship by drone would likely have to fly the drones over private land. But who owns the low-altitude airspace above private land? That issue is unsettled, but the common law supports the view that low-altitude airspace belongs to the landowners beneath. If that is correct, companies like Amazon have two main options to get drone shipping off the ground: (1) pay the landowners on the intended routes for an easement through their low-altitude airspace, or (2) count on the government to compel easements through these spaces. The second option presents a Takings Clause problem. Because forced easements of flight intrude on landowner rights, landowners burdened by drone easements could potentially prove a per se taking. But even if drone easements are not per se takings, case law and the “character of the government action” factor in the Penn Central analysis give landowners a fighting chance to prove a regulatory taking. Overall, the Takings Clause could be a valuable tool for both economic efficiency and equity, requiring beneficiaries of drone easements to compensate those burdened by the easements. If drone shipping takes off in the U.S., current law may ensure that the negative externalities will not fall solely on the surface landowners.
Customer-Base Concentration: Implications for Firm Performance and Capital Markets

ABSTRACT: This study investigates whether and how customer-base concentration affects supplier firm fundamentals and stock market valuation. I compile a comprehensive sample of supply chain relationships and develop a measure (CC) to capture the extent to which a supplier's customer base is concentrated. In contrast to the conventional view of customer-base concentration as an impediment to supplier firm performance, I document a positive contemporaneous association between CC and accounting rates of return, suggesting that efficiencies accrue to suppliers with concentrated customer bases. Consistent with a cause-and-effect link between customer-base concentration and supplier firm performance, analysis of intertemporal changes demonstrates that CC increases predict efficiency gains in the form of reduced operating expenses per dollar of sales and enhanced asset utilization. Using stock returns tests, I find that investors underreact to the implications of changes in customer-base concentration for future...
Don’t eat the brown acid: Induced ‘malnovation’ in drug markets

Title II, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (CDAPCA) created the present system of drug scheduling and regulation. This paper illustrates how the CSA created the incentives for induced ‘malnovation’ (innovation intended to circumvent legislation, and thus foil policymakers’ intended ends) into drug markets, namely “designer drugs.” As a result of this induced malnovation, drug markets have not only increased in the variance of products available that are often sold under similar street names, but there is also a tendency towards creating more dangerous drugs in an attempt to stay outside of the regulation.
The prospect of human cloning: improving nature or dooming the species?

INTRODUCTION 512 I. GAGING THE RESPONSE TO HUMAN CLONING 517 A. Initial Reactions and Actions 517 B. Recent Attitudes Toward Human Cloning 519 II. CAN A BAN ON HUMAN REPRODUCTIVE CLONING BE JUSTIFIED? ...524 A. Is a Ban on Human Cloning Moral? 525 1. Banning Human Cloning: A View From Utilitarianism ...526 a. Possible Benefits of Reproductive Cloning 527 b. Possible Harms of Reproductive Cloning 530 c. Criticism of Utilitarianism as a Moral Theory 535 2. Banning Human Cloning: A View From Deontology.......537 B. Is a Ban on Human Cloning Legal? 541 1. Does a Cloning Ban Violate Protected Procreational Liberty? 543 2. Is a Total Ban on Human Cloning Unconstitutionally Vague? 551 C. Is a Ban on Human Cloning Practical? 558 1. Successes and Failures in Animal Cloning 559 2. Inroads in Human Cloning 564 3. The Effects of Banning Conduct 568 III. CONCLUSION 572
The baby boom, the baby bust, and the housing market

This paper examines the impact of major demographic changes on the housing market in the United States. The entry of the Baby Boom generation into its house-buying years is found to be the major cause of the increase in real housing prices in the 1970s. Since the Baby Bust generation is now entering its house-buying years, housing demand will grow more slowly in the 1990s than in any time in the past forty years. If the historical relation between housing demand and housing prices continues into the future, real housing prices will fall substantially over the next two decades.
Catalyzing Mass Production of Solar Photovoltaic Cells Using University Driven Green Purchasing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of the purchase power of the higher education system to catalyze the economy of scale necessary to ensure market competitiveness for solar photovoltaic electricity.Design/methodology/approach – The approach used here was to first determine the demand necessary to construct “Solar City factories”, factories that possess equipment and processes sized, dedicated and optimized to produce only solar photovoltaic systems. Inexpensive solar cells from these factories could produce solar electricity at rates comparable to conventional fossil‐fuel derived electricity. Then it was determined if sufficient demand could be guaranteed by green purchasing from the international university system.Findings – A focused effort from the university community to purchase on‐sight produced electricity would make it possible to construct truly large‐scale dedicated solar photovoltaic factories rather than follow the piecemeal production increases currently observed in th...
Price Adjustment Delays and Arbitrage Costs: Evidence from the Behavior of Convertible Preferred Prices

Price adjustment delays occur between in-the-money convertible preferred stock prices and common stock prices. Convertible preferred prices systematically deviate from the prices predicted from their conversion relations with common stocks. The price predictability stems from price changes in the underlying common stocks leading the price changes in the convertible preferred stocks by up to nine hours. Cross-sectionally, about 70 percent of the variation in the unsigned size of the price deviations is explained by proxies for costs of arbitrage.
The A.L.I.'s Proposed Distributive Principle of 'Limiting Retributivism': Does It Mean In Practice Anything Other Than Pure Desert?

Let me first note how pleased I am that the A.L.I. has undertaken the new Sentencing Project Report. Sentencing has been a central focus of national debate for several decades. It is just the kind of difficult and contentious issue on which the A.L.I., with its expertise and credibility, can make a unique and important contribution. The new sentencing project raises a host of wonderful issues on which I could say something. I have written a good deal about structuring sentencing decision making, for example. But because there are no specific proposals on these matters I thought I would use this space to comment on that aspect of project that has resulted in at least a sample proposed black letter text: the official statement of the “purposes” that are to guide decision makers in sentencing. The proposed principle for distributing criminal sanctions is an important step forward from the existing Model Penal Code section 1.02, which offers only a facade of guidance. By listing a host of purposes without defining their interrelation, the current provision offers no real guidance; different purposes will suggest different sentences and the provision gives no guidance in selecting among the possibilities. Worse, it is subject to conscious or subconscious abuse. It lets a judge first settle on a result,
Educational attainment: analysis by immigrant generation

Abstract This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the largely ignored issue of the determinants of the educational attainment of adults by immigrant generation. Using current population survey (CPS) data, differences in educational attainment are analyzed by immigrant generation (first, second, and higher order generations), and among the foreign born by country of birth and age at immigration. Second-generation American adults have the highest level of schooling, exceeding that of the foreign born and of the native born with native-born parents. Teenage immigration is associated with fewer years of schooling compared to those who immigrated at pre-teen or post-teen ages. The gender difference in educational attainment is greatest among the foreign born. Hispanics and Blacks lag behind the non-Hispanic Whites in their educational attainment, with the gap narrowing for higher order immigrant generations among Hispanics, but rising among blacks.
WHAT ARE CONSTITUTIONS, AND WHAT SHOULD (AND CAN) THEY DO?

A constitution is, as Article VI of the United States Constitution declares, the fundamental law of the land, supreme as a legal matter over any other nonconstitutional law. But that almost banal statement raises a number of theoretically vexed issues. What is law? How is constitutional law to be distinguished from nonconstitutional law? How do morality and moral rights fit into the picture? And what are the implications of the answers to these questions for such questions as how and by whom should constitutions be interpreted? These are the issues that I shall address.Alexander proceeds as follows: In section I he takes up law's principal function of settling controversies over what we are morally obligated to do. In section II he then relate law's settlement function to the role of constitutional law. In particular, he discusses how constitutional law is distinguished from ordinary law, and he also discusses the role of constitutions in establishing basic governmental structures and enforcing certain moral rights. In section III he addresses the topic of constitutional interpretation, and in section IV the topic of judicial review. Finally, in section V, he discusses constitutional change, both change that occurs through a constitution's own rules for amendments and change that is the product of constitutional misinterpretations and revolutions.
Arrests as Regulation

For some arrested individuals, the most important consequences of their arrest arise outside the criminal justice system. Arrests alone — regardless of whether they result in conviction — can lead to a range of consequences, including deportation, eviction, license suspension, custody disruption, or adverse employment actions. But even as courts, scholars, and others have drawn needed attention to the civil consequences of criminal convictions, they have paid relatively little attention to the consequences of arrests in their own right. This Article aims to fill that gap by providing an account of how arrests are systemically used outside the criminal justice system. Noncriminal justice actors who rely on arrests — such as immigration enforcement officials, public housing authorities, employers and licensing authorities, child protective service providers, among others — routinely receive and use arrest information for their own objectives. They do so not because arrests are the best regulatory tools, but because they regard arrests as proxies for information they value, and because arrests are often easy and inexpensive to access. But when noncriminal justice actors rely on arrests, they set off a complicated and poorly understood web of interactions with the criminal justice system. Regulatory bodies and others that make decisions based on arrests can coordinate and pool resources with prosecutors and police officers, achieving a level of enforcement that neither could achieve alone, or they can make decisions that undermine important aspects of the criminal justice process. This Article maps different regulatory interactions based on arrests, and illustrates the need for greater oversight over how arrests are used and disseminated outside the criminal justice system.
The Devil in the Details: How Specific Should Catholic Social Thought Teaching Be?

The article explores Catholic social teaching’s tradition of generality, and assesses the wisdom of, and potential for, change to a more specific orientation. The article enlightens the reader as to reasons for the traditional approach to Catholic social teaching, what might be gained by the articulation of a more concrete social teaching, the assertion that a more specific social teaching will require greater lay input, a suggestion for a possible mechanism for accomplishing this, and the benefits of greater lay input, particularly via the aforementioned mechanism. The article also makes some recommendations as to when, how, and to what degree the Church should aspire to a more detailed formation of its social teaching. The Devil in the Details: How Specific Should Catholic Social Thought Teaching Be?
Getting Back to the Sandbox: Designing a legal policy clinic

This article will analyze contemporary educational psychology in an attempt to: (1) determine whether a sandbox can and/or should be added to the law school curriculum; (2) describe a constructivist learning environment with the goal of providing law students self-selected pro bono publico projects that may help internalize a life-long goal of public service; and, provide an interdisciplinary model that is feasible both in the large university law schools and in small and/or free-standing law schools. The second half of the article will describe my attempts to build a sandbox model into my Legal Policy Clinic.
Dashing Consumer Hopes: Strict Products Liability and the Demise of the Consumer Expectations Test

The threshold issue in American products liability litigation is whether the product was defective at the time it left the manufacturer's control. Traditionally, courts and scholars define “defect” in three functional categories: manufacturing defects, design defects and marketing defects. American products liability doctrine employs two major tests to determine whether a "defect” exists: the seller-oriented risk-utility test and the buyer-oriented consumer expectations test. The Draft of the Restatement Third of Torts: Products Liability, like some American jurisdictions, rejects the “consumer expectations” test as an independent standard in defective warning and design cases. Ironically, this limitation of the use of the consumer expectations test in American products liability doctrine coincides with the European Community's adoption of the consumer-oriented test for European strict products liability cases.This article analyzes these contemporary developments. First, it considers the implications of the European Union's (EU) Council Directive No. 85/374 (European Directive) for American products liability law. It then analyzes the consumer expectations test in light of the purpose of products liability law. Reconsideration of the consumer expectations test suggests that, properly constructed and applied, the consumer-oriented test promotes considerations of safety, equity, and efficiency.
The Principle of Discrimination in 21st Century Warfare

Examines the impact of changes in the nature of warfare, including technological advancements, on the international humanitarian law principle of discrimination.
A Brief History of Distinctions in Criminal Culpability

This article considers the transition from the early Anglo-Saxon scheme, which distinguished only willful and accidental conduct, to the current five-tiered system. To appreciate the historical evidence, the specific nature of the culpability distinctions set out in the Model Penal Code will be examined.
Sports League Expansion and Economic Efficiency: Monopoly Can Enhance Consumer Welfare

This paper studies optimal sport league size. League expansion lowers average player quality, reducing fans’ utility in inframarginal locations, while fan utility in new locations rises. Welfare analyses of such expansions must compare these two effects. Using a model where fan demand depends on average player quality and locality-specific factors, I find that under various pricing schemes, optimal league size is smaller than under free entry: the marginal team ignores its effects on inframarginal fans’ utility. In some cases, the monopoly outcome is optimal, while in others the optimum league size is between the competitive and monopoly solutions.
Sentencing Guidelines, Judicial Discretion, and Plea Bargaining

The United States Sentencing Commission was created to develop federal sentencing guidelines, which restrict judicial discretion and were to found to increase the average sentence length while leaving unchanged the likelihood of resolution through plea bargaining. A game-theoretic model is developed in which a sentencing commission may impose guidelines or defer to judicial discretion; then a defendant and a prosecutor engage in plea bargaining; finally, those cases that fail to settle go to trial, where a sentence is determined according to the guidelines, if imposed or, if not, according to judicial discretion. Equilibrium behavior is consistent with the aforementioned findings.
Why judges always vote

Abstract This paper provides the first account of the practice of universal voting on the Supreme Court – that is, why justices never abstain, unlike voters in other committee contexts. Full participation among justices is explained using models of spatial competition, showing that two features particular to the Court encourage full participation. First, the doctrine of stare decisis makes the resolution of future cases in part dependent on the resolution of present ones. This raises the cost of abstention, particularly to risk-averse justices. Second, the so-called narrowest grounds or Marks doctrine enforces the logic of the median voter theorem in cases presenting more than two options. This makes voting by otherwise indifferent or alienated justices rational, where it otherwise would not be. Although these explanations may not exhaust the multi-causal factors behind the robust phenomenon of zero abstention, they are the first attempt to rigorously analyze how two unique institutional judicial rules mitigate the incentive to abstain.
Returns to IT excellence: Evidence from financial performance around information technology excellence awards

Abstract The resource-based view has been used in IT business value research to theorize and investigate the impact of unique IT capabilities on sustainable competitive advantages. Prior research has empirically documented a positive association between superior IT capabilities and firm performance. However, such analyses have focused on IT capabilities of firms in the early 1990s. In this study, we examine the impact of superior IT capabilities on firm performance over the 1988–2007 period, which allows us to consider the structural shifts in the return of IT capability over time. Our results suggest that firms with superior IT capabilities are able to attain higher firm performance levels until 1999. However, such performance advantage disappears in the post-1999 time period. We also find that a subset of firms that sustain high levels of IT capabilities during the period 1988 to 2007 continue to perform better than their peers. We conclude that managers are able to achieve superior firm performance if they are able to maintain high levels of IT capability over time.