cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
We Could Pass a Law...What Might Happen if Contingent Legal Fees Were Banned

In this article, Professor Gross considers the consequences of a most unlikely turn of events: The abolition of contingent fees in civil litigation in the United States. He anticipates three types of changes that might take place: (1) Finding other ways to shift the risks and costs of litigation away from individual plaintiffs. The most obvious response in this category is cheating -- disobedience to the new rules -- which no doubt would occur. In addition, the abolition of contingent fees would create strong pressures to permit plaintiffs to sell civil tort claims outright (a practice that is now generally prohibited); and might result in the development of a market for litigation insurance, a service now widely used in Germany. (2) Reducing the costs and risks of civil litigation. With civil plaintiffs directly responsible for lawyers' fees, there would be moves to cut those costs -- by limiting lawyers' compensation, simplifying the rules of procedure, and by shifting from ordinary lawyer-controlled civil litigation to self-representation, ADR, and public prosecution. (3) Pursuing fewer claims. The central argument of many opponents of contingent fees is that they stir up frivolous litigation. Eliminating such fees would reduce litigation, but not primarily by eliminating meritless claims. In fact, the sorting of claims by merit would probably get worse, and the number of uncompensated meritorious claims would certainly go up. One likely response would be an increase in first-party insurance, to cover losses that are now compensated through tort litigation. Overall, Professor Gross predicts that the system of compensation for those injuries that are now handled in tort litigation would become more bureaucratic; that regardless of its formal structure, the process would increasingly resemble first-party insurance; and that the role of the lawyers would be sharply reduced.
The Value of a Statistical Life and the Coefficient of Relative Risk Aversion

Individuals’ risk preferences are estimated and employed in a variety of settings, notably including choices in financial, labor, and product markets. Recent work, especially in financial economics, provides estimates of individuals’ coefficients of relative risk aversion (R’s) in excess of one, and often significantly higher. However, it can be shown that high R’s imply equally high values for the income elasticity of the value of a statistical life. Yet estimates of this elasticity, derived from labor and product markets, are in the range of 0.5 to 0.6. Furthermore, it turns out that even an R below one is difficult to reconcile with these elasticity estimates. Thus, there appears to be an important (additional) anomaly involving individuals’ risk-taking behavior in different market settings.
The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior

The popularity of New Year’s resolutions suggests that people are more likely to tackle their goals immediately following salient temporal landmarks. If true, this little-researched phenomenon has the potential to help people overcome important willpower problems that often limit goal attainment. Across three archival field studies, we provide evidence of a “fresh start effect.” We show that Google searches for the term “diet” (Study 1), gym visits (Study 2), and commitments to pursue goals (Study 3) all increase following temporal landmarks (e.g., the outset of a new week, month, year, or semester; a birthday; a holiday). We propose that these landmarks demarcate the passage of time, creating many new mental accounting periods each year, which relegate past imperfections to a previous period, induce people to take a big-picture view of their lives, and thus motivate aspirational behaviors. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901.
BiDil: Race Medicine Or Race Marketing?

Recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the first drug with a race-specific indication has fueled the controversy over the meaning of race and ethnicity and raised questions over whether this move should be seen as an advance or a setback in the struggle to address disparities in health status associated with race. The drug, BiDil, combines two generics long recognized as benefiting patients with heart failure, irrespective of race or ethnicity. The push to bring these drugs to market as a race-specific treatment was motivated by the peculiarities of U.S. patent law and a willingness to exploit race to gain commercial and regulatory advantage.
Towards a New Core International Copyright Norm: The Reverse Three-Step Test

Introduction 2 I. A Brief History of Copyright 4 II. The “Problem with Copyright” 11 III. Comparative and International Analysis of Exceptions to Copyright 14 A. The Berne Convention 14 B. Analysis of the three-step test 15 1. “Certain special cases” 15 2. Interference with normal commercial exploitation 17 3. Unreasonable prejudice to legitimate interests of rightsholder 19 C. European “InfoSoc” Directive 21 D. National Laws 22 1. Fair dealing 22 2. Civil law enumeration approach 23 3. Considerations Concerning Private Use 25 E. Application of copyright exceptions to the Internet 27 IV. The Way Forward 29 A. The Reverse Three-step test 29 B. Comparison with Other Proposals 32 C. Further Considerations on an Effects-Based test 35 Conclusion 36
A Brief History of Chicana/o School Segregation: One Rationale for Affirmative Action

This article uses Critical Race Theory methodologies, such as autobiographical narratives, and analytical approaches, such as revising the history of the civil rights struggle, especially as it applies to the Chicano-Latino communities. This paper represents a student-faculty collaboration in that the students organized the conference at which some of this analysis was first proposed. This was the conference at which now Justice Sonia Sotomayor made her now iconic comments about being a "wise Latina."People can't get to be judges without first going to law school, and Latinas/as can't get to law school, at least in significant numbers, without affirmative action. With very few exceptions, the roomful of judges, law professors, lawyers and law students we saw over the past two days did not get to be where they are without affirmative action. When we fight for affirmative action, we fight for access to the legal profession; we fight to be public policymakers. Thus, fighting for affirmative action is a righteous struggle. It is about the well-being of our communities. It is about having a place at the table. It is about self-determination. It is about justice -- social justice, distributive justice and substantive justice. Affirmative action is the vortex of the civil rights struggle for this generation. I applaud your efforts and your struggles. I applaud you for organizing this conference on affirmative action. I would like to review and reclaim some of the struggles and the victories the Chicano/a communities have experienced in challenging segregated schools in the Southwest. I want to put to rest the idea that we Chicanas/os have no claim upon desegregation as a public policy to remove the vestiges of the de jure and de facto discriminatory policies and practices of the past. Finally, I want to excavate the legal history that demonstrates that the Chicana/o communities played a central role in dismantling the legal architecture that supported the separate and unequal school systems throughout the Southwest.
The Appropriate Roles for Equity and Efficiency in a Progressive Individual Income Tax

Increased focus on economic efficiency in formulating tax policy, at the expense of achieving equity, has resulted in decreased rate progressivity in our individual income tax. This decrease has exacerbated inequality. There are several explanations for the intense focus on efficiency and reduced emphasis on equity. Predictions of efficiency gains from low individual income tax rates appear more certain than equity gains from progressive tax rates. Efficiency gains seem measurable, while equity gains appear intangible and unquantifiable. In addition, distributive justice, which underlies and shapes tax equity, exists in many abstract forms, some of which may not require progressive tax rates. This Article argues, however, that the emphasis on efficiency is misplaced. Inequality imposes measurable costs on the health, social well-being, and intergenerational mobility of our citizens, as well as on our democratic process. This is corroborated by significant empirical analysis. In contrast, empirical analysis shows that anticipated efficiency gains from low individual tax rates are speculative. A consensus exists among economists that taxes within the historical range of rates in the United States have little or no impact on labor supply. Moreover, economists cannot agree whether the myriad empirical studies on savings indicate that progressive tax rates decrease, increase, or have no impact on savings in the United States. The clear harms arising from inequality and the uncertain harms arising from progressive tax rates, strongly support always giving equity at least equal weight with efficiency in formulating tax policy. But given the high level of inequality in the United States and the currently low and flat tax rate structure, equity should be given more weight than efficiency at this time. Emphasizing equity in a progressive individual income tax will contribute to the health and economic mobility of our citizens, as well as the stability of our democracy.
Discounting and Underpricing of REIT Seasoned Equity Offers

For seasoned equity offerings, the discounting of the offer price from the closing price on the previous day is influenced by the level of asymmetric information surrounding the firm and the offeri...
"Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1": An Overview with Reflections for Urban Schools.

In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, a highly contentious and divided Supreme Court invalidated race-conscious admissions plans in two urban school systems, Seattle and Louisville. As such, Parents Involved was the latest chapter in the Court's almost 40-year history of reaching mixed results in such far-reaching areas involving race-conscious remedies as admissions to higher education, employment in the general workforce and in education, minority set aside programs, and voting rights. In light of the impact that Supreme Court cases on race-conscious remedies have in education, particularly in urban settings, this article first reviews the opinions of the Supreme Court's justices in Parents Involved because of its potentially far-reaching effect. The second part of the article reflects on the meaning of Parents Involved.
Opinions Actionable as Securities Fraud

This Article proposes a new analytical framework to apply to statements of opinion in securities fraud cases. Although statements of opinion form the basis of some of the most cuttingedge securities fraud claims—such as those asserted against securities analysts and credit rating agencies—statements of opinion do not fit squarely within the elements of securities fraud. In particular, three issues arise: (1) When is a statement of opinion false so as to qualify as a misrepresentation? (2) When is a statement of opinion material? (3) And, for that matter, what is the distinction between a statement of fact and a statement of opinion? Courts confronting these issues apply various analytically unsound and inconsistent tests. In response, this Article proposes a novel approach, drawing on the policy rationales underlying securities fraud claims, case law and scholarly commentary addressing how to apply the elements of securities fraud to statements of opinion, and comparable analyses in the contexts of common law fraud and defamation. First, this Article argues that statements of opinion are only false if both objectively unreasonable and subjectively disbelieved. Second, this Article proposes the following new evaluation–inference test to differentiate statements of opinion from statements of fact: Does the statement express the speaker’s evaluation or inference of facts? Finally, this Article proposes the following new reasonable implication test to distinguish opinions that are immaterial as a matter of law from those that are potentially material: Does the opinion reasonably imply an allegedly false, material fact? Copyright 2013, by WENDY GERWICK COUTURE. * Wendy Gerwick Couture is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Idaho, where she teaches securities regulation and white collar crime. She earned her J.D., summa cum laude, from Southern Methodist University and her B.A., summa cum laude, from Duke University. The author thanks the following for their valuable comments and conversations: Mark Anderson, Barbara Black, Joan Heminway, Christian Johnson, Donald Langevoort, Monique Lillard, Margaret Sachs, and the editors of the Louisiana Law Review. 382 LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 73
Municipal Bond Sales in Foreign Markets: Experience and Results

This article reviews the issue of state economic development financial incentives and the more development specific issue of engaging foreign capital markets as a source of funds for state industrial incentive in the post-TRA86 environment. An ex post empirical analysis of such a transaction is provided by revisiting the KDFA yen bond transaction. Observations and policy conclusions are also discussed.
Hypermedia, information systems and organizations: a research agenda

There are few hypermedia applications within business and industrial organizations. It is argued that this phenomenon is rooted in the concept of hypermedia applications as stand-alone programs. Larger acceptance of hypermedia within organizations will occur once this technology is better integrated with other organizational systems and applied to carefully selected tasks. Three areas for research in this context are identified: the tasks perspective, which deals with selecting tasks to develop hypermedia applications; the knowledge perspective, which deals with representing and managing the knowledge processed by organizations; and the integration perspective, which deals with technical issues in software integration. It is suggested that solutions to the problems presented will prompt the acceptance of hypermedia technology within organizations. >
Legacies in Black and White: The Racial Composition of the Legacy Pool

Selective universities regularly employ policies that favor children of alumni (known as “legacies”) in undergraduate admissions. Since alumni from selective colleges and universities historically have been disproportionately white, admissions policies that favor legacies have disproportionately benefited white students. For this reason, legacy policies lead to additional costs in terms of reductions in racial diversity. As larger numbers of minority students graduate from colleges and universities and have children, however, the potential pool of legacy applicants will change markedly in racial composition. This analysis begins with a review of the history and objectives of the preference for children of alumni in undergraduate admissions. We then consider the specific case of the University of Virginia and employ demographic techniques to predict the racial composition of the pool of potential legacy applicants to the university. Significant changes in the racial composition of classes that graduated from the University of Virginia from the late 1960s through the 1970s foreshadow similar changes in the characteristics of alumni children maturing through the next two decades.
Using Stock Returns to Identify Government Spending Shocks

This article explores a new approach to identifying government spending shocks which avoids many of the shortcomings of existing approaches. The new approach is to identify government spending shocks with statistical innovations to the accumulated excess returns of large US military contractors. This strategy is used to estimate the dynamic responses of output, hours, consumption and real wages to a government spending shock. We find that positive government spending shocks are associated with increases in output, hours and consumption. Real wages initially decline after a government spending shock and then rise after a year. We estimate the government spending multiplier associated with increases in military spending to be about 1.5 over a horizon of 5 years.
Multitask Learning for Instrument Activation Aware Music Source Separation

Music source separation is a core task in music information retrieval which has seen a dramatic improvement in the past years. Nevertheless, most of the existing systems focus exclusively on the problem of source separation itself and ignore the utilization of other~---possibly related---~MIR tasks which could lead to additional quality gains. In this work, we propose a novel multitask structure to investigate using instrument activation information to improve source separation performance. Furthermore, we investigate our system on six independent instruments, a more realistic scenario than the three instruments included in the widely-used MUSDB dataset, by leveraging a combination of the MedleyDB and Mixing Secrets datasets. The results show that our proposed multitask model outperforms the baseline Open-Unmix model on the mixture of Mixing Secrets and MedleyDB dataset while maintaining comparable performance on the MUSDB dataset.
Juror First Votes in Criminal Trials

What explains the way in which jurors cast their first vote in a criminal trial, before the dynamics of the deliberation process take over? Analysis of 3,000 jurors in criminal trials in four major metropolitan areas indicates, consistent with prior research, that jurors pay great attention to the evidence. The stronger the evidence against the defendant, the more likely the juror is to vote guilty. We also find that jurors dislike police duplicity. Police officers who give unbelievable testimony will, all else being equal, push jurors toward a first vote of not guilty. Beyond that, our conclusions are specific and limited to a particular jurisdiction. A juror's beliefs about the fairness of the law or the harshness of the consequences of conviction make a difference in some jurisdictions under some circumstances, but not in other jurisdictions under different circumstances. We also find that African-American jurors in the District of Columbia sitting on cases involving minority defendants charged with drug offenses are, unlike jurors in other jurisdictions, less likely to vote for conviction on the first ballot (but not on the final one) compared to white jurors. Our results therefore highlight the importance of analyzing juror behavior at a more local level. Analyzing juror behavior at the aggregate level can conceal important local variation.
Information Privacy in Cyberspace Transactions

Cyberspace is the rapidly growing network of computing and communication technologies that have profoundly altered our lives. We already carry out myriad social, economic, and political transactions through cyberspace, and, as the technology improves, so will their quality and quantity. But the very technology that enables these transactions also makes detailed, cumulative, invisible observation of our selves possible. The potential for wide-ranging surveillance of all our cyber-activities presents a serious threat to information privacy. To help readers grasp the nature of this threat, Professor Jerry Kang starts with a general primer on cyberspace privacy. He provides a clarifying structure of philosophical and technological terms, descriptions, and concepts that will help analyze any problem at the nexus of privacy and computing-communication technologies. In the second half of the article, he focuses sharply on the specific problem of personal data generated in cyberspace transactions. The private sector seeks to exploit this data commercially, primarily for database marketing, but many individuals resist. The dominant approach to solving this problem is to view personal information as a commodity that interested parties should contract for in the course of negotiating a cyberspace transaction. But this approach has so far failed to address a critical question: Which default rules should govern the flow of personal information when parties do not explicitly contract about privacy? On economic efficiency and human dignity
Do Investors Perceive Marking-to-Model as Marking-to-Myth? Early Evidence from FAS 157 Disclosure

Capitalizing on the disclosure mandated by FAS 157, I examine the equity market’s perception of the reliability of internally generated fair value estimates. For the sample of S&P 1,500 financial i...
Is the political business cycle for real

Abstract This paper constructs and examines a macroeconomic model which combines features from both real and political business cycle models. We augment a standard real business cycle tax model by allowing for varying levels of government partisanship and competence in order to replicate two important empirical regularities: First, that on average the economy expands early under Democratic Presidents and contracts early under Republican Presidents. Second, that Presidents whose parties successfully retain the presidency have stronger than average growth in the second half of their terms. The model generates both of these features that conform to U.S. Post World War II data.
CREDIT RATIONING, GOVERNMENT CREDIT PROGRAMS AND CO-FINANCING

Costly monitoring may lead to credit rationing in equilibrium in an economy without any adverse selection or moral hazard problems. Given the widespread phenomenon of government intervention in credit markets in developing and developed countries, the natural question then is, How effective are these government programs? I incorporate government loan programs in a simple, closed, pure exchange economy with borrowing and lending. Intermediation of funds is facilitated in credit markets characterized by a costly state verification problem. I then show that government loan programs (financed with lump-sum taxes) with co-financing can increase credit rationing when the private lender is the prior claimant in the event of a default. Moreover such programs unambiguously decrease the expected utility of both borrowers and lenders. On the other hand, when the government is the prior claimant, such programs decrease credit rationing and increase the expected utility of borrowers. Finally, with proportional repayments there is no effect on credit rationing or expected utility of agents.
Supporting Children, Balancing Lives

This paper examines how U.S. child support policy validates traditional divisions of labor and thereby hinders individual attempts to achieve an acceptable work/family balance. It argues that by using the household as the relevant unit of measurement for child support purposes, family law doctrine legitimates the specialization contracts that arise within households. These specialization contracts, used most extensively in wealthy, elite households, undermine attempts to distribute caretaking and provider roles more equally between parents. The article suggest that by dispensing with the household as the relevant unit of measurement and treating all parents individually, each with a responsibility to caretake and provide, the law could transform parental arrangements at the elite level, which would likely have significant positive repercussions for non-elite parents as well.
Theoretical Advances in Critical Visual Analysis: Perception, Ideology, Mythologies, and Social Semiotics

AbstractThis article discusses how social semiotics is contributing to advancing the field of critical visual analysis. First, the article introduces social semiotics as a discipline, by outlining its theoretical foundations, methodological principles, and scholarly agenda. Second, it discusses how established paradigms such as semiotics, iconography, and cultural studies have approached notions such as meaning and ideology in relation to visual signification. Third, it discusses the distinctive nature of the social semiotic approach to ideology in visual analysis. The article finally argues that the critical ends of social semiotics can benefit greatly from a closer - critical and political - reading of Barthes' Mythologies (1970/1990) as well as an increased concern with the role of perception in visual signification.
The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita

This study utilizes regression discontinuity to examine the long-run impacts of the mita, an extensive forced mining labor system in effect in Peru and Bolivia between 1573 and 1812. Results indicate that a mita effect lowers household consumption by around 25% and increases the prevalence of stunted growth in children by around 6 percentage points in subjected districts today. Using data from the Spanish Empire and Peruvian Republic to trace channels of institutional persistence, I show that the mita's influence has persisted through its impacts on land tenure and public goods provision. Mita districts historically had fewer large landowners and lower educational attainment. Today, they are less integrated into road networks and their residents are substantially more likely to be subsistence farmers.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTREPRENEUR PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND WELL-BEING

The current study investigated the relationship between the psychological capital and work tension of entrepreneurs on their level of job satisfaction using a national (United States) random sample of 144 founders who were the top management team leaders of their new ventures. As expected, the findings demonstrate a positive relationship between psychological capital and job satisfaction and a negative relationship between work tension and job satisfaction. Also in alignment with our predictions, psychological capital was found to reduce the negative effects of work tension on job satisfaction. As such, it appears that the development of psychological capital within entrepreneurs may help them to build resistance against the wide range of psychological stressors that they inherently face while leading their new ventures.
Strategic Voting over Strategic Proposals

Prior research on “strategic voting” has reached the conclusion that unanimity rule is uniquely bad: it results in destruction of information, and hence makes voters worse off. We show that this conclusion depends critically on the assumption that the issue being voted on is exogenous, that is, independent of the voting rule used. We depart from the existing literature by endogenizing the proposal that is put to a vote, and establish that under many circumstances unanimity rule makes voters better off. Moreover, in some cases unanimity rule also makes the proposer better off, even when he has diametrically opposing preferences. In this case, unanimity is the Pareto dominant voting rule. Voters prefer unanimity rule because it induces the proposing individual to make a more attractive proposal. The proposing individual prefers unanimity rule because the acceptance probabilities for moderate proposals are higher. We apply our results to jury trials and debt restructuring.
Lost Boys and Forgotten Girls: Intercountry Adoption, Human Rights, and African Children

Everyone knows the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan, thousands of children who lost their families and villages to brutal civil war, fleeing across East Africa to Kenya, where they survived in a desolate refugee camp. Their story spread, and several thousand of the Lost Boys were resettled in the United States. There, they asked their suburban foster families whether there were lions in the bush, learned how to use can openers and televisions, and saw snow.While the Boys were lost -- and then found -- the Girls were forgotten. As a recent editorial in Refugees, a publication of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHRC”), notes: “[t]he story of the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan neatly underlines the often differing problems and fortunes of refugee women and refugee men.” The civil wars which have ravaged Africa for the past ten years led to floods of refugee children. Guidelines promulgated by the UNHCR and the ICRC, in conjunction with domestic adoption law, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (“African Charter”), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”), and the asylum policies of the United States can lead to a complicated and problematic resettlement process for such children. The system works, like too many child welfare regimes, in a patched-together, haphazard way. But it did work -- at least for the Boys. For the Girls, however, the results have been disastrous.
Investor abilities and financial contracting: Evidence from venture capital

Using a large, new database of contractual provisions governing the allocation of cash flow rights in venture capital (VC) financings, we investigate how contract design is related to VC abilities to monitor and provide value-added services to the entrepreneur. We find that more experienced VCs, who have superior abilities and more frequently join the boards of their portfolio companies, obtain weaker downside-protecting contractual cash flow rights than less experienced VCs. Several pieces of evidence suggest that this relation is unlikely to be driven by selection effects. The results suggest that VCs with better governance abilities focus less on obtaining downside protections, which entail risk-sharing costs, and more on other aspects of the contract (such as obtaining board representation) during negotiations with entrepreneurs. The results also imply that previous estimates of the amount entrepreneurs pay for affiliation with high-quality VCs are overstated.
Spatial Metrics of the Technological Transfer: Analysis and Strategic Management

The Triple Helix thesis states that research laboratories and universities can play an enhanced role in innovation in increasingly knowledge-based societies. In fact the locus of industrial innovat...
Health Inequality over the Life-Cycle

We investigate the evolution of health inequality over the life-course. Health is modeled as a latent variable that is determined by three factors: endowments, and permanent and transitory shocks. We employ Simulated Minimum Distance and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate the model. We estimate that permanent shocks account for under 10% of the total variation in health for the college educated, but between 35% and 70% of total health ∗ Address: 2424 Maile Way; Saunders Hall 533; Honolulu, HI 96822. E-Mail: halli
The Federal Government in the Fringe Economy

When most Americans need to borrow money, they turn to their local bank or credit union. For a substantial minority, around thirty million people, however, banks and credit unions never enter the picture.1 Instead, people who are unbanked or underbanked turn to payday lenders, pawnshops, rent-to-own stores, or auto-title lenders for loans.2 These businesses, commonly referred to as fringe banking companies, offer shortterm loans to people who have been excluded from mainstream financial services because of poor or nonexistent credit histories or sporadic incomes.3 The term “fringe banking” almost conveys the erroneous notion that these lenders are a trivial part of the economy. In fact, quite the opposite is true; payday lenders and check cashers outnumber McDonald’s restaurants and Wal-Mart stores in the United States.4 Some estimates indicate that one in every ten Americans borrows money from a pawnshop every year.5 For many Americans, alternative financial services providers represent their only access to financial services.6 Despite the important role fringe creditors play in the lives of millions of Americans, the federal agencies that regulate consumer credit have paid little attention to these lenders.
Government Decentralization and the Size of the Nonprofit Sector: Revisiting the Government Failure Theory

This article revisits government failure theory by examining the relationship between government decentralization and the size of the nonprofit sector (NPS). Government failure theory posits that nonprofits are most active in regions where the largest gap exists between the homogeneous supply of public service and heterogeneous citizen demands. Following this theory, government decentralization should decrease the size of the NPS, as it increases the efficiency and heterogeneity of government services. This article tests this hypothesis using a sample of U.S. counties. Decentralization is measured in two dimensions: vertical decentralization and horizontal fragmentation. After using instrumental regressions to eliminate the endogeneity bias, we find that counties with a more horizontally fragmented governmental system are associated with a larger NPS. Vertical centralization leads to a denser NPS but has no impact on the NPS revenue or assets. The impacts of resident heterogeneity are also mixed. As such,...
Herschel Spectroscopy of Early-type Galaxies

We present Herschel spectroscopy of atomic lines arising in photodissociation regions as well as ionization regions of nearby early-type galaxies (ETGs), focusing on the volume-limited Atlas3D sample. Our data include the [CII], [OI], and [NII] 122 and 205 micron lines, along with ancillary data including CO and HI maps. We find ETGs have [CII]/FIR ratios slightly lower than spiral galaxies in the KINGFISH sample, and several ETGs have unusually large [NII] 122/[CII] ratios. The [NII] 122/[CII] ratio is correlated with UV colors and there is a strong anti-correlation of [CII]/FIR with NUV-K seen in both spirals and ETGs, likely due to a softer radiation field with fewer photons available to ionize carbon and heat the gas. The correlation thus makes a [CII] deficit in galaxies with redder stellar populations. The high [NII] 122/[CII] (and low [CII]/FIR) line ratios could also be affected by the removal of much of the diffuse, low density gas, which is consistent with the low HI/H2 ratios. [CII] is now being used as a star formation indicator, and we find it is just as good for ETGs as in spirals. The [CII]/CO ratios found are also similar to those found in spiral galaxies. Through use of the [NII] 205 micron line, estimates of the percentage of [CII] emission arising from ionized gas indicate a significant portion could arise in ionized regions.
Privatization, Free Riding, and Industry-Expanding Lobbying

Abstract Critics of privatization argue that privatization encourages providers to lobby for industry expansion. I argue that this is not generally true when public-sector actors also lobby. Where the effectiveness of advocacy depends on total expenditures, some initial amount of privatization always decreases industry-expanding advocacy. The extent of privatization for which this no longer holds depends on the total benefits of provision to the public and private-sector actors, as well as the extent of collusion. Under relaxed assumptions, the effect of privatization on industry-expanding advocacy is ambiguous. The charge that privatization will increase advocacy is unfounded without further empirical development.
Reaping What you Sow: An Empirical Analysis of International Patent Harmonization

Abstract This paper extends analysis of the GATT Uruguay Round by quantifying the impact of international patent harmonization as implied by the TRIPs agreement. Patent harmonization has the capacity to generate large transfers of income between countries, the US being the major beneficiary. Developing countries are major contributors to these transfers, but Canada, the UK, and Japan also make sizable contributions.
Legal Positivism: Still Descriptive and Morally Neutral

It has become increasingly popular to argue that legal positivism is actually a normative theory, and that it cannot be purely descriptive and morally neutral as H.L.A. Hart has suggested. This essay purports to disprove this line of thought. It argues that legal positivism is best understood as a descriptive, morally neutral, theory about the nature of law. The article distinguishes between five possible views about the relations between normative claims and legal positivism, arguing that some of them are not at odds with Hart's thesis about the nature of jurisprudence, while the others are wrong, both as expositions of legal positivism or as critiques of it. Legal positivism does not necessarily purport to justify any aspect of its subject matter, not is it committed to any particular moral or political evaluations.
Stability and Sensitivity of an EWMA Controller

The performance of a process control algorithm based on EWMA statistic is analyzed. A simple condition relating the EWMA weight and the estimated process gain is shown to ensure that the control strategy is stable for a first-order multiple-input, singl..
Growth in financial derivatives: The public policy and accounting incentives

Abstract During the period 1995–2012, U.S. financial institutions had contributed significantly to the growth in financial derivatives. The notional amount of total derivatives held by the 25 largest U.S. bank holding companies grew eighteen times from $16.6 trillion in 1995 to $308 trillion in 2012, while the U.S. GDP merely doubled from $7.7 trillion to $16.2 trillion over the same period. In this paper, we examine three possible drivers of this growth: (a) the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, (b) the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, and (c) FAS 133 (now ASC 815), Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities, which became effective in 2000. Using a sample of U.S. bank holding companies, we find a temporal association between the passage of the two Congressional Acts and the abnormal growth in trading/over-the-counter derivatives. We also predict and find that the use of cash flow hedge accounting treatment helps reduce earnings volatility/equity risk, and that firms increase their use of non-trading derivatives when facing high level of earnings volatility/equity risk.
Multistep forecasting of long memory series using fractional exponential models

Abstract We develop forecasting methodology for the fractional exponential (FEXP) model. First, we devise algorithms for fast exact computation of the coefficients in the infinite order autoregressive and moving average representations of a FEXP process. We also describe an algorithm to accurately approximate the autocovariances and to simulate realizations of the process. Next, we present a fast frequency-domain cross validation method for selecting the order of the model. This model selection method is designed to yield the model which provides the best multistep forecast for the given lead time, without assuming that the process actually obeys a FEXP model. Finally, we use the infinite order autoregressive coefficients of a fitted FEXP model to construct multistep forecasts of inflation in the United Kingdom. These forecasts are substantially different than those from a fitted ARFIMA model.
Rights at Risk in Privatized Public Housing

Traditional public housing is dwindling. Federal policy has increasingly encouraged privatization, shifting stewardship of public housing out of the hands of government and into the hands of private, for-profit companies. Privatization in this context has both benefits and risks. A particularly compelling area of study is the attempt by lawmakers to conscript private contractors into serving public policy goals. Private landlords are obligated not merely to provide housing, but to conduct themselves in ways that promote the interests of vulnerable people. The case of public housing suggests that legislative mandates and contractual obligations are not enough to assure this outcome, and must be accompanied by a commitment to vigorous monitoring and enforcement.
Individual investor trading and stock liquidity

Recent studies suggest that individual investors may have private information and their trading can be informative. Consistent with this observation, we find that stocks that are more heavily traded by individual investors have higher liquidity, after controlling for other determinants of liquidity. The result is robust to various model specifications, the inclusion of firm, industry, and year fixed-effects, controls for endogeneity, and alternative measures of liquidity. The positive effect of individual investor trading on stock liquidity is stronger for firms with greater information asymmetry, consistent with individual investor trading reducing information asymmetry. These results suggest that individual investor trading improves stock liquidity through reducing information asymmetry.
Setting Standards: Strategic Advantages in International Trade

Among the most important technical barriers to trade are the different standards, testing and certification measures for products and services. Efforts to co-ordinate these within Europe - including the EU’s increasing reliance on private sector standards bodies - are now underway. The EU’s single market has not only integrated national markets, but has also shaped trading principles at the international level. The EU has exported its trade principles to third country markets and European companies have gained strategic advantages in influencing standards both internally within Europe and externally at the international and transatlantic level. Firms should invest resources and actively participate in setting standards to protect and increase their competitive advantage.
The Incidence of Tobacco Taxation: Evidence from Geographic Micro-Level Data

This paper uses a recent increase in Wisconsin's tobacco tax as a natural experiment to measure the economic incidence of tobacco taxation, using micro-level data on cigarette prices from retail lo...
Should Legal Empiricists Go Bayesian

Bayesian empirical approaches appear frequently in fields such as egineering, computer science, political science and medicine, but almost never in law. This article illustrates how such approaches might be very useful in empirical legal studies. In particular, Bayesian approaches enable a much more natural connection between the normative or positive issues that typically motivate such studies and the empirical results.
Voice versus Exit in Health Care Policy

This essay uses the recent controversy over President Obama's mandate that insurance companies provide generous birth control cover- age to explore larger issues about the optimal locus of health care deci- sion making. Mandates may be justified in some instances, but they sacrifice choice and local variation and perhaps lead to worse social out- comes. The key question for policy makers is whether market processes or rule by expert is more likely to strike the right balance of choice and mandate.
The Long-Run Growth in Obesity as a Function of Technological Change

This paper analyzes the forces contributing to the worldwide long- run rise in obesity and the role of public interventions in affecting its continued growth. A growth in obesity in a population must result from the growth of calorie consumption outpacing the growth of physical activity. Yet historically in developed countries, obesity has grown with modest rises in calorie consumption and with a sub- stantial increase in both exercise and dieting.We consider the economic incentives that give rise to the long-run growth in obesity by stimulating intake of calories at the same time as discouraging the expending of calories on physical activity, whether in work or leisure. We argue that technological change provides a natural interpretation of the long-run growth in obesity, that it predicts that the effect of income on obesity changes from positive to negative with economic development, and that it implies that techno- logical change may not continue to raise weight.We discuss the positive and normative impacts of direct and indirect public interventions to reduce obesity.
Current Problems and Trends in the Administration of Transnational Insolvencies Involving Enterprise Groups: the Mixed Record of Protocols, the UNCITRAL Model Insolvency Law, and the EU Insolvency Regulation

Abstract That commerce has become international in scope is a fact known to all in the legal community. Many large companies now have operating subsidiaries in a large number of countries, and those countries have radically different legal regimes. The law of insolvency is no different; indeed, the differences in legal regimes are of particular import as insolvency law is largely driven by jurisdictions' policy preferences on the relationship between debtors and creditors. But when international enterprise groups go bust, domestic bankruptcy law is incapable of handling the private international law issues that are implicated. While there have been efforts in recent years to bring harmony to the chaos, it is increasingly clear that the current framework cannot adequately address the problems encountered by transnational enterprise groups. This Comment explores the current framework and proposes sensible first steps to address the framework's shortcomings. Table of Contents I. Introduction to Issues in Transnational Insolvency. 812 II. Explanation of the Current Toolkit: Protocols, the EU Insolvency Regulations, and the Model Law .....817 A. Overview 817 B. Protocols 817 1. Sources of protocol provisions and the standard scope of protocol provisions. 818 a) The Cross-Border Insolvency Concordat. 818 b) The ALI Guidelines for court-to-court communication...... 820 c) The European Communication and Cooperation Guidelines 821 2. Expanding the scope of Protocols to address transnational enterprise groups 821 3. Protocol shortcomings: recalcitrant principals and territorialist concerns 823 a) Hold-out principals 823 b) Territoriality concerns 823 C. The Model Law 825 1. The Model Law's operating framework. 826 2. The application of the COMI standard as it relates to transnational enterprise groups 829 3. The "public policy" exception. .....829 4. Working Group Vs recommendations on transnational enterprise insolvencies. 830 5. Concluding remarks on the Model Law 831 D. The EU Insolvency Regulations 831 E. Concluding Observations about the Existing Framework 833 III. The Consequences of Failure: The Lehman/Dante Case Study .....833 A. Lehman and the Dante CDO 834 1. Basic Lehman structure and shortcomings of the Lehman Protocol. ...834 2. Dante and the failure of the Model Law/EU Regulations framework. 835 3. …
Irreversibility in dynamical phases and transitions

Living and non-living active matter consumes energy at the microscopic scale to drive emergent, macroscopic behavior including traveling waves and coherent oscillations. Recent work has characterized non-equilibrium systems by their total energy dissipation, but little has been said about how dissipation manifests in distinct spatiotemporal patterns. We introduce a measure of irreversibility we term the entropy production factor to quantify how time reversal symmetry is broken in field theories across scales. We use this scalar, dimensionless function to characterize a dynamical phase transition in simulations of the Brusselator, a prototypical biochemically motivated non-linear oscillator. We measure the total energetic cost of establishing synchronized biochemical oscillations while simultaneously quantifying the distribution of irreversibility across spatiotemporal frequencies.