cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A Note On the Public Choice Approach To the Growth in Government Expenditure

This article applies an empirical model, based on the economic theory of public choice, to the Group of Seven countries. It is discovered: (1) that deficit financing does appear to contribute to increased real government spending; (2) that the demand for government services as a whole does not appear to be income elastic; (3) that there is some evidence of a productivity lag in the government sectors of Canada, Japan, and the United States, but not in those of France, Italy, or the United Kingdom; and (4) that in most countries there is some evidence of economies of scale in the provision of government services.
Potential Diffusion of Expert Systems in Forecasting

Abstract We drew upon findings from the diffusion literature to assess the prospects for the diffusion of expert systems in forecasting. Forecasters judged potential adoption of expert systems in relation to two techniques that had been widely adopted in the past, Box-Jenkins and scenarios. They also rated each technique on seven innovation characteristics: relative advantage, compatibility, divisibility, communicability, complexity, product risks, and psychological risks. The respondents were classified by four forecaster roles: researcher, educator, practitioner, and decision maker. In general, the expected probabilities of adoption for expert systems were slightly higher than for the two other techniques. Additionally, the respondents rated expert systems nearly equivalent to Box-Jenkins and scenarios on relative advantage and communicability. In relating the probabilities of adoption to the characteristic ratings, the groups perceived significant negative psychological and product risks with expert systems. However the experts, especially practitioners and decision makers, rated expert systems positive on compatibility, divisibility, and communicability, so it may be desirable to ensure that these positive traits are stressed with potential adopters, especially researchers and educators.
Process Virtualization Theory and the Impact of Information Technology

In our increasingly virtual society, more and more processes that have traditionally been conducted via physical mechanisms are being conducted virtually. This phenomenon of “process virtualization” is happening in many contexts, including formal education (via distance learning), shopping (via electronic commerce), and friendship development (via social networking sites and virtual worlds). However, some processes are more amenable to virtualization than others. For example, distance learning seems to work better for some educational processes than others, and electronic commerce has worked well for some shopping processes but not for others. These observations motivate the central question posed in this paper: What factors affect the “virtualizability” of a process? This question is becoming increasingly important as advances in information technology create the potential for society to virtualize more and more processes. To provide a general theoretical basis for investigating this question, this paper proposes “process virtualization theory,” which includes four main constructs (sensory requirements, relationship requirements, synchronism requirements, and identification and control requirements) that affect whether a process is amenable or resistant to being conducted virtually. Recognizing that processes can be virtualized with or without the use of information technology, this paper makes explicit the theoretical significance of information technology in process virtualization by discussing the moderating effects of representation, reach, and monitoring capability. This helps explain how advances in information technology are enabling a new generation of virtual processes.
Intelligent TRIPs Implementation: A Strategy for Countries on the Cusp of Development

The TRIPS Agreement is an attempt to harmonize national standards for intellectual property protection into an international norm based primarily on the standards utilized by developed countries. In the area of patents, the Agreement generally provides that patents shall be available for any inventions . . . in all fields of technology, provided they are new, involve an inventive step, and are capable of an industrial application. This Article argues that by intelligently implementing the Agreement, that is, by administratively and judicially implementing the patent provisions with an eye to creating both strong patent protection and a robust body of subpatentable information, developing member nations may establish a comparative competitive advantage over developed nations in the Life Sciences industries. The Article explains particularly the factors a developing country should consider when implementing the Agreement in light of current U.S. patent law concerning Life Sciences subject matter. The article also introduces the notion that TRIPS presents a unique opportunity for developing countries to establish and exploit comparative differences between their patent law and U.S. patent law to wrest not only the moral high ground, but also R&D investment, infrastructure, and ultimately technological leadership in an industry previously dominated by developed countries' concerns.
Does the Market for CEO Talent Explain Controversial CEO Pay Practices

Benchmarking, pay for luck, and the large compensation packages given to CEOs in recent years are three major controversial compensation practices. We examine the extent to which variation in the market for CEO talent explains these practices. We find that CEO compensation is benchmarked against other firms only in industries where CEO talent is not firm-specific, and that pay for luck is more prevalent there also. These findings are consistent with theories based on the market for CEO talent. However, CEO compensation levels do not depend on whether CEO talent is firm-specific, which seems inconsistent with the talent competition argument.
Analysis of the Effects of Large Lot Zoning

This study extends a test for the presence of binding zoning, originally developed to be applied across many adjacent jurisdictions, so that it can be applied within a single jurisdiction. This stu...
A Cosmopolitan Legal Order: Constitutional Pluralism and Rights Adjudication in Europe

The European Convention on Human Rights is rapidly evolving into a cosmopolitan legal order: a transnational legal system in which all public officials bear the obligation to fulfill the fundamental rights of every person within their jurisdiction. The emergence of the system depended on certain deep, structural transformations of law and politics in Europe, including the consolidation of a zone of peace and economic interdependence, of constitutional pluralism at the national level, and of rights cosmopolitanism at the transnational level. Framed by Kantian ideas, the paper develops a theoretical account of a cosmopolitan legal system, provides an overview of how the ECHR system operates, and establishes criteria for its normative assessment.
The Institution of Marriage and Other Domestic Relations

The global movement to provide domestic relationship status and benefits to same-sex couples has resulted in five different kinds of legal responses: (1) redefining marriage to include same-sex couples; (2) creation of marriage-equivalent civil union domestic relationships, with most or all of the legal incidents of marriage; (3) creation of a carefully customized domestic partner relationship providing access to some particular relational benefits; (4) allowing the private creation of legitimate same-sex relationships with private ordering of the relationships by the parties themselves (by contract, wills, etc.); and (5) total rejection of any legal recognition of same-sex relationships, usually by criminal prohibition. The polar extreme responses are inappropriate. This paper focuses on the flaws of legalizing same-sex marriage. Gender-integrating marriage is a very important pre-legal social institution, and positivist attempts to redefine marriage to include same-sex relations are conceptually flawed, like calling a tail a leg. Most nations today provide constitutional protection for marriage because it is widely considered to be a core, foundational social institution; and substantial protection of the dual-gender quality of marriage is manifest in many national constitutions. Efforts to “capture” the legal institution of marriage to promote the agenda of particular social movements have occurred before, but they have produced significant problems for marriage and for society. Legalization of same-sex marriage will transform the social understanding of what marriage is, what it means, and what is expected of married persons in ways that devalue and weaken the social institution of marriage.
Social norms and money

Abstract In an economy where there is no double coincidence of wants and without public record-keeping of past transactions, money is usually seen as the only mechanism that can support exchange. In this paper we show that, as long as the population is finite and agents are sufficiently patient, a social norm establishing gift-exchange can substitute for money. However, for a given discount factor, population growth eventually leads to the breakdown of the social norm. Additionally, increases in the degree of specialization in the economy can also undermine the social norm. By contrast, monetary equilibrium exists independent of the population size. We conclude that money is essential as a medium of exchange when the population is large.
Media substitution in advertising: A spirited case study

Abstract This paper uses an unusually rich sample of liquor brands in the U.S. over the period 1994 to 2004 to test the substitutability of advertising media. The liquor industry in the U.S. has experienced a substantial increase in case sales and advertising expenditures since the mid-1990s, raising numerous public policy concerns. Moreover, the mix of advertising media used by liquor brands has also changed substantially following the industry's decision in 1996 to begin using radio and television media. We find that many of the advertising media used by liquor firms are highly substitutable, meaning that partial media bans, such as a ban on television advertising, would prove ineffective in reducing liquor case sales.
Industry-Average Earnings Management and IPO Pricing

We examine the effects of signed industry-average earnings management on the pricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). We posit that the variation in an IPOs earnings management is related to ind...
Death by a Thousand Cuts: How the Supreme Court Has Effectively Killed Campaign Finance Regulation by Its Limited Recognition of Compelling State Interests

This Article examines the current campaign finance jurisprudence in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the Court’s recognition of compelling state interests. Given the limited recognition of compelling state interests, this Article seeks to question the seemingly arbitrary rationale behind recognition and explore the implications of minimal acceptance of compelling state interests. Because the evolution of compelling state interest recognition has varied greatly, the Court’s recent insistence — that the state has merely one compelling interest — is troublesome. This Article provides a comprehensive review of the campaign finance jurisprudence, then reviews the decisions that created or argued for additional compelling state interests. Interests that were considered compelling prior to Citizens United, such as the
Local Religious Beliefs and Mutual Fund Risk-Taking Behaviors

We study the effects of local religious beliefs on mutual fund risk-taking behaviors. Funds located in low-Protestant or high-Catholic areas exhibit significantly higher fund return volatilities. Similar differences persist when we use the religiosity ratios at fund managers' college locations. Risk-taking associated with local religious beliefs manifests in higher portfolio concentrations, higher portfolio turnover, more aggressive interim trading, and more “tournament” risk-shifting behaviors, but not over-weighting risky individual stocks. Overall, our results suggest that local religious beliefs have significant influences on mutual fund behaviors. This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, finance.
North-South trade and the dynamics of renewable resources

Abstract This paper studies a general equilibrium North-South economy consisting of two countries which produce and trade two goods using two inputs of production. It extends the North-South trade model of Chichilnisky (1981, 1986) by assuming that one input of production is a renewable resource which follows its own physical dynamics. From these dynamics and from optimal extraction behavior we derive explicitly the supply of environmental inputs as a function of their market prices. Therefore this paper fully derives the price dependence of inputs which is postulated exogenously in the original North-South model. All markets for goods and for inputs are free and competitive throughout. We establish that different property regimes lead to different supply functions for environmental resources. When property rights are well defined (as in the North) the supply of environmental inputs is less price responsive than it is when property rights are ill defined (as in the South). Ill defined property rights lead to an apparent ‘abundance’ of environmental resources in the south. We establish that the difference in property rights in two otherwise identical regions (the same technologies, preferences, and endowments) is itself sufficient to explain why the two regions trade. The region with ill defined property rights exports the environmentally intensive good. This leads to overuse of the environment worldwide and to lower market prices of environmentally intensive goods. The difference in property rights of the two regions determines an apparent ‘comparative advantage’ in the export of environmentally intensive goods in the South, even when the two countries are identical and therefore there is no real comparative advantages. The difference in property rights also gives rise to ‘apparent’ gains from trade, even when there are no real gains from trade.
Shifting Burdens: Discrimination Law Through the Lens of Jury Instructions

This Term, in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held the Price Waterhouse burden-shifting framework inapplicable to Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) claims. This Article finds the Gross Court’s rationales for repudiating Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins unpersuasive. Although the crux of the Court’s argument is that it is too confusing to instruct a jury on the burden-shifting framework, in actuality, there is no evidence that burden-shifting instructions are unduly confusing. In fact, Gross will exacerbate a different sort of confusion: that which arises when a jury must resolve two claims under different burden frameworks. At best, then, the Gross Court’s concerns over judicial administration are a wash. They fail to justify the Court’s departure from the 20-year-old Price Waterhouse precedent. The Article therefore considers the possibility that the Court’s decision in Gross was driven by policy views about the nature and merit of ADEA claims, or of employment discrimination claims more generally. By shifting the balance in ADEA and perhaps other employment discrimination cases without articulating a persuasive reason for doing so, the Court may have laid the groundwork for Congress to revisit the question—thus opening the way for a more explicitly policy-based overhaul of the burden frameworks.
Liquidity policies and systemic risk

Abstract Bank liquidity shortages associated with the growth of wholesale-funded credit intermediation has motivated the implementation of liquidity regulations. We analyze a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which liquidity and capital regulations interact with the supply of risk-free assets. In the model, the endogenously time varying tightness of liquidity and capital constraints generates intermediaries’ leverage cycle, influencing the pricing of risk and the level of risk in the economy. Our analysis focuses on liquidity policies’ implications for households’ welfare. Within the context of our model, liquidity requirements are preferable to capital requirements, as tightening liquidity requirements lowers the likelihood of systemic distress without impairing consumption growth. In addition, we find that intermediate ranges of risk-free asset supply achieve higher welfare.
Illiquidity, transaction cost, and optimal holding period for real estate: Theory and application

Abstract Choosing the optimal holding period is an important part of real estate investment decisions, because “when to sell” affects “whether to buy”. This paper presents a theoretical model for such decision making. Our model indicates that the optimal holding period is affected by both systematic and non-systematic factors—market conditions (illiquidity and transaction cost) and property performance (return and return volatility). Other things being equal, higher illiquidity and transaction costs lead to longer holding periods, while higher return volatility implies shorter holding periods. Our empirical application suggests that the optimal holding period based on our model is quite consistent with previous empirical findings. In addition, we find that when illiquidity risk is incorporated the true real estate risk is significantly higher than the conventional risk estimate. Therefore, the current practice of real estate valuation, which is naively borrowed from finance theory, substantially underestimates real estate risk.
Of Rankings and Regulation: Are the U.S. News & World Report Rankings Really a Subversive Force in Legal Education?

The description for this symposium on The Next Generation of Law School Rankings begins with the following statement: "The U.S. News & World Report annual law school rankings are the 800-pound gorilla of legal education . . . affect[ing] virtually all aspects of law school operations." The image is one of vigorous, even ruthless, competition among law schools to be number one. Although the symposium participants disagree about whether this competition is healthy or destructive, they all largely accept that it is a robust phenomenon. There is an occasional reference to the highly regulated nature of legal education, but these are mere asides, not the heart of the argument. By accepting competition as the dominant motif, a number of puzzles arise: Why are the rankings relatively stable over long periods of time despite vigorous competition? Why has a plethora of alternative rankings systems not emerged? Why do schools limit their strategies to gaming the U.S. News & World Report ("U.S. News") rankings, even when there are perverse consequences, rather than undertake bold reforms to gain prestige and value in the marketplace? These puzzles become far less vexing when the dominant paradigm is one of cooperation rather than competition. In fact, norms of uniformity and standardization have dominated the world of legal education, substantially limiting law schools' ability to compete against one another. To advance law's professional stature, the accreditation process has regulated legal training so that students receive a quality education and clients get competent lawyers. Given this framework of comprehensive rules and regulations, no law school has been able to pursue radical innovations without jeopardizing its accreditation, its reputation, and its future. In a world of highly constrained competition, schools have few ways to improve their standing through strategies that upset the prevailing wisdom about how best to deliver legal education. As a result, law school rankings largely remain stable over time, and different methods of ranking overall quality yield similar results. With full-bodied competition curbed by the accreditation process, schools rely on gaming to influence the U.S. News rankings rather than strike out in novel directions to gain prominence.
Up from Marriage: Freedom, Solitude, and Individual Autonomy in the Shadow of Marriage Equality

Obergefell v. Hodges2 represents a tremendous victory for those of us who believe that each individual has the right to love, form bonds, and create families with whomever one so desires. Through Obergefell and the line of cases from Griswold v. Connecticut3 and Loving v. Virginia4 onward, the Court has now repeatedly affirmed the freedoms to plan, to choose, and to create one’s own family as fundamental. The problem with Obergefell, however, is that in the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy’s adulation for the dignity of marriage5 risks undermining
North American Economic Integration and Industry Location

Does regional economic integration affect the location of economic activity inside countries? Discussed in this paper is recent academic literature on whether the movement towards free trade in North America has influenced the spatial organization of production in Canada, Mexico, or the United States. In Mexico, closer economic ties with the United States appear to have contributed to a contraction of employment in the Mexico City manufacturing belt, a rapid expansion of manufacturing employment in northern Mexico, and an increase in the wage premiums paid to skilled workers. The effects of economic integration on industry location in Canada and the United States seem to have been much weaker. One exception to this finding is US cities on the Mexican border, whose employment growth is strongly positively correlated with export production in neighbouring Mexican regions. The implication of a possible hemispheric free-trade agreement are also discussed. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.
Fiscal Slack and Counter‐Cyclical Expenditure Stabilization: A First Look at the Local Level

There is a rich literature on how state governments use slack fiscal resources—most often in the form of rainy day funds and budget stabilization funds—to minimize the effect of economic downturns. This paper presents the first known examination of whether slack resources have the same counter-cyclical effects at the local level. It uses a panel data set to determine whether one particular form of local fiscal slack, general fund balance, stabilizes current annual expenditures among a sample of 103 Minnesota cities from 1990 to 2000. The findings suggest different fund balance portions have marginal but nonetheless important effects on expenditures.
Energy and sustainability: an undergraduate course

In a world where few people know much about global climate change and the notion of sustainability, it is important to reach undergraduates. The article describes a course that examines the science of energy, the impact that these have on global climate change, and sustainability.
Brown Abroad: An Empirical Analysis of Foreign Judicial Citation and the Metaphor of Cosmopolitan Conversation

This Article generates a data set (twelve courts and thirty-two decisions) of foreign judicial citations to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The purpose of this Article is to learn what happens when a case is deterritorialized and reconstituted in a different national scenario, and to conceptualize how courts around the world use foreign authority. Analysis reveals that few foreign courts used Brown in decisions involving education or race and ethnicity. Foreign courts used the case as a form of factual evidence, as a guide in understanding the proper role of a court with respect to decision making, and as a source of substantive law in discussions on equal protection. Specifically, the article illustrates the ways in which justices on both the New Zealand Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court of South Africa used Brown in discussions of same-sex marriage. Although central to comparative law, the legal transplant metaphor does not adequately explain the transnational use of Brown. By incorporating sociological theories of diffusion and innovation, the article attempts to reconcile some of the flaws of the transplant metaphor and argue that conceptualizing judiciaries’ use of foreign law as a cosmopolitan conversation is more appropriate. Cosmopolitan conversation has led to forms of legal learning and innovation when courts have cited, interpreted, and infused their own meaning into the Brown decision.
Disagreement after News: Gradual Information Diffusion or Differences of Opinion?

This paper explores the long-standing empirical fact of increased trading volume around news releases through the lens of canonical models of gradual information diffusion and differences of opinion. I use a unique dataset of clicks on news by key finance professionals to distinguish between trading among investors who see the news at different times and trading among investors who see the same news but disagree regarding its interpretation. Consistent with gradual information diffusion, dispersion in the timing of investors' attention is strongly predictive of daily volume around earnings announcements and volume within minutes of individual news articles. Furthermore, delayed attention is predictive of minute-level return continuation, daily-level post-earnings-announcement drift, and monthly-level return momentum. Differences of opinion, measured as heterogeneity in the investors clicking on the news, are generally weaker in explaining trading volume around news, but plays a larger role when the news is more textually ambiguous.
Behavioral Economics of Crime Rates and Punishment Levels

Empirical studies have shown, paradoxically, that increasing the probability of apprehension can correlate with an increase in the total number of criminal actions. To examine this phenomenon, we develop a dynamic model of "personal rules" in which forgetfulness and hyperbolic discounting together can cause a potential criminal to commit more crimes as the probability of apprehension increases. At the time of the future decision, he may commit a crime due to hyperbolic discounting, even if it is not profitable. Hence, he may choose not to commit a crime today as a commitment device to abstain from crime in the future. However, increased prosecution can limit the effectiveness of the commitment device.
The demand for social interaction

Abstract In this paper social interaction is modeled as a consumer good. A model of household production is employed to derive the demand for social interaction. The model shows that the demand for social interaction is a function of its price, the price of other goods and income. The theory is tested with data from the General Social Survey and the results show that social interaction can be explained as the consequence of utility maximizing behavior by individuals. These results are in contrast to social capital theorists who have attributed these changes to factors such as increased community heterogeneity.
A Personal Agenda for the Next Decade

The paper sets a broad agenda touching several areas of policy. It starts from the least likely policy at this point of time, the use of the tax system for redistribution. It discusses prudent macroeconomic coordination without the strings of the Maastricht Treaty in business troughs. Regulation of financial markets, agricultural policies, and health issues are coming up on a desirable agenda of the United States, but are probably important for all countries, as are social security policy and climate change.
A (Lack of) Progress Report on China's Exchange Rate Policies

This working paper assesses the progress made in improving China's exchange rate policies over the past five years (that is, since 2002). I first discuss four indicators of progress on China's external imbalance and its exchange rate policies—namely, the change in (and level of) China's global current account position, movements in the real effective exchange rate of the renminbi (RMB), the role of market forces in the determination of the RMB, and China's compliance with its obligations on exchange rate policy as a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I then discuss why the lack of progress in improving China's exchange rate policies matters for the economies of the China and the United States and for the international monetary and trading system. I also argue that several popular arguments and excuses for why more cannot be accomplished on removing the large undervaluation of the RMB are unpersuasive. Finally, I consider what can and should be done by China, the United States, and the IMF to accelerate progress over the next year or two.
In Self-Defense regarding Self-Defense: A Rejoinder to Professor Corrado

I very much appreciate Professor Corrado's thoughtful, insightful reply to my Article, 'An Attack on Self-Defense'. In this Rejoinder, I clarify and defend my thesis in light of Corrado's observations. I also recognize where Corrado's comments are helpful toward strengthening my thesis and sharpening my proposed framework of legitimate (justification) and mistaken (excuse) self-defense subtypes.
The optimal use of fines and imprisonment when wealth is unobservable

Abstract This article studies the optimal use of fines and imprisonment when an offender's level of wealth cannot be observed by the enforcement authority. I employ a model in which there are two types of offenders—a low-wealth type and a high-wealth type. The consequence of the unobservability of wealth depends on whether the enforcement authority would employ fines alone, or would also impose imprisonment sentences, if wealth were observable. In the former case, the inability to observe wealth lowers social welfare. But in the latter case, the unobservability of wealth does not lower social welfare. In both cases, offering offenders a choice of sanctions can induce high-wealth offenders to pay higher fines even though their wealth is unobservable. Specifically, a relatively high imprisonment sentence must accompany the payment of a low fine, so that high-wealth offenders will prefer to pay a higher fine and bear a lower (possibly no) imprisonment sentence.
Stock market liquidity and the decision to repurchase

Abstract We examine the impact of stock market liquidity on managerial payout decisions. We argue that stock market liquidity influences payout policy through a first-order effect on the share repurchase decision, and a second-order or residual effect on the dividend decision. Managers compare the tax and flexibility advantages of a repurchase against its liquidity cost disadvantage. All else equal, higher market liquidity encourages the use of repurchases over dividends. Our empirical results confirm that stock market liquidity plays a significant role in repurchase and dividend initiations, as well as in recurring payout decisions. Unlike previous studies that measure liquidity changes following the repurchase decision, we examine liquidity levels prior to the payout decision. We show that managers condition their repurchase decision on a sufficient level of market liquidity, consistent with Barclay and Smith's [Barclay, M.J., Smith, C.W. Jr., 1988. Corporate payout policy: cash dividends versus open-market repurchases. Journal of Financial Economics 22, 61–82.] theoretical analysis and Brav et al.'s [Brav, A., Graham, J.R., Campbell, R.H., Michaely, R., 2005. Payout policy in the 21st century. Journal of Financial Economics 77, 483–528.] CFO survey results. Repurchases have recently become the payout decision of choice in part because of rising stock market liquidity.
Europe united? The impact of the EU’s eastern enlargement, five years on

The ‘eastern enlargement’ of the European Union in 2004 and 2007 marked the unification of Western and Eastern Europe, yet many scholars feared negative consequences of enlargement—both for the institutions of the EU, which were expected to encounter gridlock in a Union of 27, and possibly for the new members themselves as the end of ‘conditionality’ might lead to backsliding on political or economic reforms. Despite these concerns, a growing body of EU scholarship has begun to explore both questions, and the results give substantial grounds for optimism. EU institutions have proven remarkably adaptable in the face of enlargement, while the new member states show little or no signs of backsliding, remaining committed to democracy, the rule of law and free markets.
Who Really Matters? Revenue Implications of Stakeholder Satisfaction in a Health Insurance Company

ABSTRACT: This study examines the revenue implications of satisfaction measures in a setting with multiple stakeholders. I obtain a proprietary database from a leading health insurance company that measures satisfaction levels of multiple stakeholders, including: (1) clients that purchase insurance plans for their employees, (2) patients who use the insurance plans, and (3) doctors who provide medical services. Using multi‐stakeholder satisfaction data over a 20‐quarter period, I find that satisfaction measures are multi‐dimensional, and that future revenues are positively associated with certain, but not all, dimensions of client, patient, and doctor satisfaction. Drawing on stakeholder theory, I predict that the revenue implications of stakeholder satisfaction vary with the power of different stakeholder groups. Specifically, I examine the moderating effects of the percentage of voluntary patients, business unit age, and market penetration on the relation between stakeholder satisfaction and future reve...
Convergence in the Law of Software Copyright

ion than the claim that they copied the icons themselves. Rather than individual program elements, Apple is now claiming that the overall structure of the GUI has been copied. Because the alleged infringement occurs at a higher level of abstraction, the court held that it is not enough to show that the two interfaces were arranged in similar ways: "[w]hen the range of protectable and unauthorized expression is narrow, the appropriate standard for illicit copying is virtual identity."15 6 Other courts have similarly acknowledged that copyright protection for computer programs must be judged on a sliding scale, with the degree of similarity required for infringement varying according to the level of abstraction at which copying is alleged to have occurred.'7 The filtration of unprotectable elements out of a computer program is only part of the analysis in a copyright infringement case. Comparison of the two programs necessarily requires a detailed inquiry into how much copying occurred, and at what level of abstraction. Where the alleged similarities occurred at a high level of abstraction, at which the copyright owner is entitled to little protection, she must be able to show more striking similarities between the works than if the copying had occurred at a lower level of abstraction. 153. See, e.g., Sid & Marty Krofft Television Prods., Inc., v. McDonald's Corp., 562 F.2d 1157, 1167 (9th Cir. 1977). 154. 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994).
Solution to the index conjecture in zero-sum theory

Abstract The index conjecture in zero-sum theory states that if gcd ⁡ ( n , 6 ) = 1 then every minimal zero-sum sequence of length 4 modulo n has index 1. In this paper, we prove a version of this conjecture for all n > N for some absolute constant N.
Financial Retrenchment and Institutional Entrenchment: Will Legal Education Respond, Explode, or Just Wait it Out? A Clinician's View

Both markets and ideas have turned against the American legal profession. Legal hiring has contracted, and law school enrollments are decreasing. The business models of big law and legal education are under pressure, current levels of student indebtedness seem unsustainable, and a hero has yet to emerge from our fragmented regulatory structures. In the realm of ideas, the information revolution has sparked deep critiques of structured knowledge and expertise, opening the roles of the law and the university in society to reexamination. We are less enamored of the scholar-lawyer and gaze with longing at technocrats. I hope that clinical law faculty can lead and ease the transition to programs of legal education responsive to the new legal environment. Clinicians have supervised in a lot of different settings, and we know what works and how to return real value to law students. A well structured clinical program integrates simulation, field placement, and in-house clinics to offer effective programs with reasonable efficiency. Clinicians have been experimenting with legal education for years and can help legal education meet the challenges of the new legal environment. I fear, however, that in a time of shrinking resources, some faculties and schools may become bogged down in contentious and ultimately counterproductive battles over how to allocate shrinking resources. Programs responsive to the expressed current needs of the bar and students could be sacrificed to programs controlled by better-entrenched faculty.
Top Executives, Turnover, and Firm Performance in Germany

This article examines executive turnover-for both management and supervisory boards-and its relation to firm performance in the largest companies in Germany in the 1980s. Turnover of the management board increases significantly with poor stock performance and particularly poor (i.e., negative) earnings, but is unrelated to sales growth and earnings growth. These turnoverperformance relations do not vary with measures of stock ownership and bank voting power. Supervisory board appointments and turnover also increase with poor stock performance, but are unrelated to other measures of performance. Corporate governance systems have received an increasing amount of attention from academics, the government, and the popular press. Most of this attention has focused on differences between the U.S. system and those of its strongest industrial competitors-Germany and Japan. The U.S. corporate govvernance system is generally characterized as market oriented or "short-term" shareholder oriented. Managers are monitored by an external market for corporate control and by boards of directors usually dominated by outsiders. The German and Japanese systems, in contrast, are characterized as relationshiporiented systems. Managers there are supposedly monitored by a combination of banks, large corporate shareholders, and other intercorporate relationships. These relationships are maintained for long periods of time. The external market for corporate control is small, if not absent, in those two countries. These differences in governance systems, in turn, are usually associated with differences in managerial behavior and firm objectives. One view, perhaps the majority view, argues that the close financial ties and relationships in Germany and Japan "reduce agency costs and allow investors to monitor
A Deep Chandra View of the NGC 404 Central Engine

We present the results of a 100 ks Chandra observation of the NGC 404 nuclear region. The long exposure and excellent spatial resolution of Chandra have enabled us to critically examine the nuclear environment of NGC 404, which is known to host a nuclear star cluster and potentially an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH; on the order of a few times 105 M ☉). We find two distinct X-ray sources: a hard, central point source coincident with the optical and radio centers of the galaxy, and a soft extended region that is coincident with areas of high Hα emission and likely recent star formation. When we fit the 0.3-8 keV spectra of each region separately, we find the hard nuclear point source to be dominated by a power law (Γ = 1.88), while the soft off-nuclear region is best fit by a thermal plasma model (kT = 0.67 keV). We therefore find evidence for both a power-law component and hot gas in the nuclear region of NGC 404. We estimate the 2-10 keV luminosity to be 1.3+0.8 –0.5 × 1037 erg s–1. A low level of diffuse X-ray emission was detected out to ~15'' (~0.2 kpc) from the nucleus. We compare our results to the observed relationships between power-law photon index and Eddington ratio for both X-ray binaries and low-luminosity active galaxies and find NGC 404 to be consistent with other low-luminosity active galaxies. We therefore favor the conclusion that NGC 404 harbors an IMBH accreting at a very low level.
HETEROGENEITY, CORRELATIONS AND FINANCIAL CONTAGION

We consider a model of contagion in financial networks recently introduced in Gai, P. and Kapadia, S. [Contagion in financial networks, Proc. R. Soc. A466(2120) (2010) 2401–2423], and we characterize the effect of a few features empirically observed in real networks on the stability of the system. Notably, we consider the effect of heterogeneous degree distributions, heterogeneous balance sheet size and degree correlations between banks. We study the probability of contagion conditional on the failure of a random bank, the most connected bank and the biggest bank, and we consider the effect of targeted policies aimed at increasing the capital requirements of a few banks with high connectivity or big balance sheets. Networks with heterogeneous degree distributions are shown to be more resilient to contagion triggered by the failure of a random bank, but more fragile with respect to contagion triggered by the failure of highly connected nodes. A power law distribution of balance sheet size is shown to induce an inefficient diversification that makes the system more prone to contagion events. A targeted policy aimed at reinforcing the stability of the biggest banks is shown to improve the stability of the system in the regime of high average degree. Finally, disassortative mixing, such as that observed in real banking networks, is shown to enhance the stability of the system.
Income redistribution in open economies

I propose a model of income redistribution in an open-economy environment. The world consists of a finite number of countries whose governments seek to maximize the welfare of their low-skilled populations by taxing skilled workers' labor income. While tax competition limits the extent to which redistribution is possible—as compared to the closed-economy outcome—when skilled people are internationally mobile, I argue that race to the bottom does not necessarily occur, even if the number of countries becomes arbitrarily large. The asymptotic sustainability of the welfare state crucially depends on the statistical properties of the probability distribution of skilled people's location preferences.
Realism: Austrian vs. Neoclassical Economics, Reply to Caplan

This Reply is part IV of an ongoing debate that first began with Caplan (1999) as part I. Part II can be found in Block (1999), and part III in Caplan (2002?).Overall, the debate concerns the issue of whether the Austrian or the Neo-Classical vision more closely approaches the truth in economics, with regard to such issues as methodology, indifference, envy, verschtehen, continuity, demonstrated preference, welfare economics, public goods and cardinality. The present article is limited to replying to section II. Probability, of Caplan (2002).
Fragility, stress, and market returns☆☆☆

Abstract We propose a novel risk measure that relates to subsequent negative conditional stock market returns. Our risk measure considers both the fragility and stress of the market. Fragility is measured by the Fragility Index developed by Berger and Pukthuanthong (2012) and market stress is based on several economic variables. Results show that incorporating both market stress and fragility improves the information content of a risk measure. Our risk measure relates to poor subsequent monthly market returns. We show the risk measure contains predictive information in a purely ex-ante specification.
Happiness Research and Cost‐Benefit Analysis

Abstract A growing body of research on happiness or subjective well‐being (SWB) shows, among other things, that people adapt to many injuries more rapidly than is commonly thought, fail to predict the degree of adaptation and hence overestimate the impact of those injuries on their SWB, and, similarly, enjoy small or moderate rather than significant changes in SWB in response to significant changes in income. Some researchers believe that these findings pose a challenge to cost‐benefit analysis and argue that project evaluation decision procedures based on economic premises should be replaced with procedures that directly maximize SWB. This view turns out to be wrong or, at best, premature. Cost‐benefit analysis remains a viable decision procedure. However, some of the findings in the happiness literature can be used to generate valuations for cost‐benefit analysis where current approaches have proved inadequate.
TOWARDS DESIGNING AN IDEAL PATENT SYSTEM

An ideal patent system balances the returns to inventors and the dissemination of new technologies. This article examines legal policy instruments - encompassing duration, scope and strength of patent protection, as well as invention disclosure and novelty requirements - and R&D subsidies that help sustain growth in GDP. The paper studies the issues associated with designing an effective patent system, surveys the industrial property literature and delineates the focal points of debate among researchers and policy-makers.
Converting Brownfield Environmental Negatives into Energy Positives

There is a new paradigm for evaluating landfills. While landfills are contaminated repositories of hazardous wastes, they also are brownfields that can be redeveloped for renewable energy development. It is possible to view landfills through a new lens: As endowed areas of renewable energy potential that can be magnets for a host of renewable development incentives. Landfills also are critical resource areas for the control of greenhouse gases. Landfill materials decompose into methane, a greenhouse gas that is more than twenty times more potent—molecule for molecule—than carbon dioxide. This Article traces the molecular composition of waste in landfills, analyzing the chemical stew that brews in these repositories. Without doubt, landfills in America are brownfields. And many of these landfills leak and cause public health risks. This Article also analyzes the potential to utilize landfill gas for electricity production or as a thermal resource. It evaluates the energy potential at municipal sewage treatment plants and the ability to utilize the land at landfills to host wind turbines. The environmental regulatory envelope that surrounds landfill operation is explored. Also analyzed are the various incentives that foster renewable energy development and are applicable to landfill brownfields development. These include tax credits, tax-preferenced financing, renewable energy credits under state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) systems in twenty-two states, and direct renewable trust fund subsidies in sixteen states, as well as net metering available in forty states. Finally, creative techniques to mitigate derivative environmental liability under Superfund, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and similar state laws that can accompany energy operations at a landfill, are suggested. Introduction: From Environmental Negatives to Energy
Gender differences in trust dynamics: Women trust more than men following a trust violation

Despite the importance of trust for efficient social and organizational functioning, transgressions that betray trust are common. We know little about the personal characteristics that affect the extent to which transgressions actually harm trust. In this research, we examine how gender moderates responses to trust violations. Across three studies, we demonstrate that following a violation, women are both less likely to lose trust and more likely to restore trust in a transgressor than men. Women care more about maintaining relationships than men, and this greater relational investment mediates the relationship between gender and trust dynamics.
Incentives and Government Relief for Risk

Government relief is offered for a wide range of risks-natural disaster, economic dislocation, sickness, and injury. This article explores the effect of such relief on incentives and the allocation of risk in a model with private insurance. It is shown that government relief is inefficient, even when its level is less than the private insurance coverage that individuals would otherwise have purchased and even when private insurance coverage is incomplete due to problems of moral hazard.