cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pricing Theater Seats: The Value of Price Commitment and Monotone Discounting

We examine the value of price commitment in a non-profit organization using individual-level purchases over a series of concert performances. To decide on a pricing policy, the performing arts organization must be able to accurately measure when each ticket will be sold and what type of audience will purchase the tickets for each performance. We use a competing hazards framework to model the timing of ticket purchases when customer segments differ in their valuations and arrival times. We show that the customer purchase likelihoods change based on the prices observed earlier in the season. Hence, price commitment can aid in improving sales, revenues, and customer visits. In particular, we show that price commitment to a decreasing monotone discount policy can improve the revenues in the range 2.1%–6.7% per concert.
Open access, library and publisher competition, and the evolution of general commerce.

Discussions of the economics of scholarly communication are usually devoted to Open Access, rising journal prices, publisher profits, and boycotts. That ignores what seems a much more important development in this market. Publishers, through the oft-reviled Big Deal packages, are providing much greater and more egalitarian access to the journal literature, an approximation to true Open Access. In the process, they are also marginalizing libraries and obtaining a greater share of the resources going into scholarly communication. This is enabling a continuation of publisher profits as well as of what for decades has been called “unsustainable journal price escalation.” It is also inhibiting the spread of Open Access and potentially leading to an oligopoly of publishers controlling distribution through large-scale licensing. The Big Deal practices are worth studying for several general reasons. The degree to which publishers succeed in diminishing the role of libraries may be an indicator of the degree and s...
Characteristics of institutional investors and discretionary accruals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential effects of institutional non‐blockholders (NONB) and active institutional blockholders (ACTB) on earnings management behavior, as measured by discretionary accruals.Design/methodology/approach – This paper also proposes that the hypothesized influence of NONB and ACTB on earnings management behavior is affected by earnings pressure (EP) (i.e. the gap between target earnings and pre‐managed earnings). In particular, it believes that the stimulating effect of NONB on earnings management may not manifest when the stimulating effect of EPs is already strong and the mitigating effect of ACTB may manifest only when the stimulating effect of EP is there. The sample into three EP conditions: pressure to increase earnings, neutral pressure and pressure to decrease earnings is grouped. Consistent with the expectations, the paper finds that NONB stimulates earnings management, but only when EP is not strong and that ACTB mitigates earnings management...
The endogenous nature of the measurement of social preferences

We present evidence against the standard assumptions that social preferences are stable and can be measured in a reliable, nonintrusive manner. We find evidence that measures of social preferences can affect subsequent behavior. Researchers often measure social preferences by posing dictator type allocation decisions. The social value orientation (SVO) is a particular sequence of dictator decisions. We vary the order in which the SVO and a larger stakes dictator game are presented. We also vary the form of the dictator game. In one study, we employ the standard dictator game, and in the other, we employ a nonstandard dictator game. With the standard dictator game, we find that prosocial subjects act even more prosocially when the SVO is administered first, whereas selfish subjects are unaffected by the order. With the nonstandard dictator game, we find evidence across all subjects that those who first receive the SVO are more generous in the dictator game but we do not find the effect among only the generous subjects. Across both dictator game forms, we find evidence that the subjects who are first given the SVO were more generous than subjects who are given the SVO last. We also find that this effect is stronger among the subjects with a perfectly consistent SVO measure. Although we cannot determine whether the order affects preferences or the measure of preferences, our results are incompatible with the assumptions that social preferences are stable and can be measured in a reliable, nonintrusive manner.
Why Has House Price Dispersion Gone Up

We calibrate a dynamic general-equilibrium island model to investigate the 30 year increase in the level of house prices and their dispersion across U.S. metropolitan areas. The model is based on two main assumptions: households o w in and out metropolitan areas in response to local productivity shocks, and the housing supply cannot adjust instantly because of technological and regulatory constraints. The calibration reveals that the observed tightening of housing supply regulation cannot quantitatively account for the rise in the level and dispersion of house prices: in equilibrium, workers o w out of tightly regulated towards less regulated metropolitan areas, undoing most of the price impact of local supply restrictions. In contrast, the observed increase in wage dispersion across metropolitan areas does create the observed increase in the level and dispersion of house prices. Workers o w towards exceptionally productive metropolitan areas and drive house prices up. The calibration also suggests that the welfare eects of housing supply regulation are large when wages become more dispersed.
Comment: Emerging EPA Regulation of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment

The May 25, 2012, report — entitled EPA Inaction in Identifying Hazardous Waste Pharmaceuticals May Result in Unsafe Disposal — disapproved of EPA’s lack of progress in determining whether certain pharmaceuticals found in surface, ground, and drinking water qualify as hazardous waste, as well as in establishing an evaluation and regulatory process for pharmaceutical wastes. As a result of the report, EPA is now considering mechanisms for assessing and regulating the presence of certain pharmaceutical products in the environment as hazardous wastes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Ownership rights and incentives in franchising

Abstract I focus on the incentive effects of asset ownership in franchising. Franchise contracts give a manager ownership of some local assets; the franchisor owns other assets, notably the trademark. Under double moral hazard, the allocation of ownership effects the incentives of both the franchisor and the franchisee. I compare franchising with company-ownership of all assets. Franchising the local unit gives the manager strong incentives, but gives the central firm weak incentives. Franchising may be the preferred organizational form when the local manager's effort has a relatively small effect on the unit's current profit, but a large effect on the unit's future profit.
The Myth of "Privatization"

The very large body of recent scholarship on the phenomenon of American 'privatization', which means roughly the performance of some seemingly public function through a non-state instrumentality, and which is purportedly very new and very important, suffers from certain problems. Not least of these is that 'privatization' appears not to exist. Or, more accurately, this phenomenon, which is said both to be important in itself and the chief symptom of the changing new order of governance under which we now live, is in fact a thin sliver of relevant reality, at best. Indeed, privatizing talk takes as a given a model of the world that does not bear scrutiny, in that it assumes all of the following: (1) some significant and meaningful difference between 'public' and 'private' institutions, (2) a hierarchy of governance institutions that puts traditional government at the top, and accordingly assumes for 'law' a place of special prominence, and (3) a world of 'markets' that are substantially 'free', and that govern most or all of the organization of society that is not directly and effectively regulated by traditional institutions of government. In effect, the literature takes all of this scenery as a given, holding it constant, and then asserts that one, slender segment of the action is dynamic and that it is what really matters. To the extent that 'privatization' is this literature's evidence of 'change', in any event, one must wonder: Does 'privatization' really prove that the world is changing, or just its decor? The purpose of this paper is to model qualitatively that world of governance institutions behind 'privatizing' transactions that the current literature normally leaves unexamined. A case will be made that an alternative model requires revision of two commonly held articles of faith: First, there is no important or even meaningful distinction between the 'public' and the 'private.' Second, to the extent there ever was such a thing as a 'free market', it is increasingly the case that no markets are really 'free', or, perhaps, that there really aren't even markets at all. From these two claims a larger picture of the world of governance institutions can be developed. In short, it will be argued that the basic choice in the organization of society is not between bureaucracy, on the one hand, and markets, on the other, as is commonly assumed. Rather, it is between one kind of bureaucracy and another kind of bureaucracy.
Temporary Contract Adjustment to a Retailer with a Private Demand Forecast

This paper analyzes a setting in which a manufacturer (he) and a retailer (she) face uncertain demand, but the retailer has an information advantage in the form of a private demand forecast. Such information asymmetry causes the manufacturer to incur a hidden information cost. The results show that a manufacturer can leverage his timing advantage to strategically implement a temporary contract adjustment (TCA) mechanism, which allows him to counter his informational disadvantage and either eliminate or reduce the hidden information cost. The manufacturer implements the TCA mechanism by designing the supply contract with two sets of terms: presignal and postsignal. Presignal terms engage the retailer before observing the forecast signal and induce her to decide under high uncertainty. As a result, she overinvests when the forecast signal is low. Postsignal terms engage her after the signal, allowing her to make use of the information and purchase additional stock efficiently based on the forecast signal. T...
Digital Access, Political Networks and the Diffusion of Democracy

Abstract We examine the effects of digital access on the prevalence of democracy and its diffusion via trade, geographical and migration networks across 189 countries between 2000 and 2010. We find that different digital technologies may have varying impacts on freedom while affecting its diffusion via different political networks, and that related changes in civil liberties can be affected by both media freedom and internal political institutions. Our analysis suggests three key mechanisms linking information technology with democratic change and highlights the importance of a country's “susceptibility” to political influence that is triggered by greater digitally induced visibility.
The Changing Face of Legal Education: Its Impact on What It Means to Be a Lawyer

In recent years, it has become less clear what it means to be a lawyer. Current efforts by the ABA to change accreditation standards for U.S. law schools make it important to think about the ways in which lawyers have common qualities. This paper considers both the changes in law practice and what they are likely to mean for U.S. law schools as they try to equip lawyers for the new reality. Introduction I have written a book called AThe Vanishing American Lawyer.@ My premise is not that too few people have a legal education. I say instead that what people now do with legal training is changing rapidly and likely will continue to become more diverse. That leaves me suggesting that there is little left to the general concept of being a lawyer. Yet people still talk about lawyers, and the question of what it means to be a lawyer is especially timely in light of current American Bar Association efforts to revise the standards by which American law schools are accredited. That ABA project, in turn, must necessarily begin B at least implicitly B with the question of what kind of people law schools are charged with producing. That, in turn, is the question I hope to address in this article, and my answer will be This was the Miller-Becker Center Distinguished Lecture, given at the University of Akron Law School, October 28, 2011. It will be published in the Akron Law Review in 2012. Oppenheim Professor of Antitrust & Trade Regulation Law, The George Washington University Law School. Professor Morgan has been chair of an Association of American Law Schools (AALS) committee that helped prepare a critique of some of the accreditation changes proposed by the ABA. This essay goes far beyond that committee=s work, however, and does not necessarily represent the views of the AALS, its officers or its executive committee. THOMAS D. MORGAN, THE VANISHING AMERICAN LAWYER (2010).
Takings Formalism and Regulatory Formulas: Exactions and the Consequences of Clarity

A vocal minority of the U.S. Supreme Court recently announced its suspicion that lower courts and state and local administrative agencies are systematically ignoring constitutional rules intended to limit, through heightened judicial review, exactions as a land use regulatory tool. Exactions are the concessions local governments require of property owners as conditions for the issuance of the entitlements that enable the intensified use of real property. In two cases decided over the past two decades, Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987) and Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994), the Court has established under the Takings Clause a logic and metrics for constitutionally permissible exactions that requires concessions to have an essential nexus and be roughly proportional to the harms a proposed development is expected to cause. This Article argues that the Court's suspicions are well-founded, but that blame for judicial and administrative non-compliance lies with the Court's bifurcated approach to the Takings Clause. This approach, which the Court recently reaffirmed in Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, requires certain types of regulatory acts, including exactions, to be reviewed under a rule-formalist heightened scrutiny, while the majority of regulatory acts enjoy deferential treatment in an ad hoc balancing test. The Supreme Court's formalist efforts in Nollan and Dolan have failed to establish doctrinal clarity in, or regulatory control of, the dealmaking processes of local land use regulation. What the Article describes as the Court's takings formalism fails to constrain regulatory practices in its intended way, and results in constraints on the variable, locally situated, and intensely political context of local governance. These constraints, which include incentives for local governments to develop preconstituted regulatory formulas and disincentives against individualized, negotiated concessions, often promote neither the Court's preferred normative vision of strong property rights protection nor the Court's stated secondary concern for better, more efficient land use regulation. Most perniciously, the Court's limited doctrinal, normative, and utilitarian visions of takings law may block or even damage the essential political and social processes necessary to legitimate and functional local governance. At stake, ultimately, in Nollan and Dolan's failures is not only their unfortunate consequences for local land use regulation, but also the integrity and legitimacy of takings formalism and the wisdom of the Court's bifurcated approach to the Takings Clause.
Law Within Congress

Procedure has long shaped how Congress operates. Procedural battles have been central to legislative contestation about civil rights, the welfare state, tax policy, and presidential impeachments. In these instances and many others, procedural disputes often turn not on written rules but on parliamentary precedents. These precedents constitute a hidden system of law that has received little scholarly attention, despite being critical to shaping what goes on in Congress. This Article explores parliamentary precedent in Congress. Parliamentary precedent mostly resembles judicial precedent: both are common-law systems that rely on the arguments of adversarial parties. But the two systems differ in key respects. Parliamentary decision-making employs an especially strong form of stare decisis, is minimalist in the extreme, and relies freely on legislative purpose and legislative history as tools of interpretation. These seemingly legal dynamics play out in the shadow of congressional politics. Understanding parliamentary precedent requires understanding the institutional positions of the parliamentarians, the nonpartisan officials who resolve procedural disputes. The parliamentarians’ distinctive jurisprudence reflects their tenuous positions — namely, that they can be removed, overruled, or circumvented by the majority party. Drawing on novel interviews with parliamentarians and the legislative staffers who work closely with them, this Article illuminates the intersection of law and politics in the making of parliamentary precedent. A better understanding of parliamentary precedent contributes to our understanding of how Congress operates and the fault lines that emerge in an age of polarization and hardball. These dynamics also hold lessons for public law more broadly. First, the parliamentarians’ efforts to protect themselves from the political fray shed light on efforts by other governmental decision-makers (in all three branches) to do the same. Second, the development of parliamentary precedent provides insight into the relationships between positive law and common law and between law and politics. Third, understanding parliamentary precedent, like understanding other elements of Congress’s internal workings, can inform statutory interpretation.
The relative price of fairness: gender differences in a punishment game'

Abstract Ideas of fairness influence economic transactions. Men and women may differ systematically in the nature and extent of this influence. We investigate gender differences in the impact of fairness on the outcome of economic transactions. In our “punishment game” subjects may choose to split a larger pie with a “bad” partner, or a smaller pie with a “good” partner. We find that a higher relative price for fairness reduces its effect on the outcome of the transaction for women, but not for men. Our interpretation of this result is that men are more likely than women to make decisions on principle.
A mixture of Gaussians approach to mathematical portfolio oversight: the EF3M algorithm

An analogue can be made between: (a) the slow pace at which species adapt to an environment, which often results in the emergence of a new distinct species out of a once homogeneous genetic pool and (b) the slow changes that take place over time within a fund, mutating its investment style. A fund’s track record provides a sort of genetic marker, which we can use to identify mutations. This has motivated our use of a biometric procedure to detect the emergence of a new investment style within a fund’s track record. In doing so, we answer the question: What is the probability that a particular PM’s performance is departing from the reference distribution used to allocate her capital? The EF3M algorithm, inspired by evolutionary biology, may help detect early stages of an evolutionary divergence in an investment style and trigger a decision to review a fund’s capital allocation.
Promises and partnership

We examine experimentally the impact of communication on trust and cooperation. Our design admits observation of promises, lies, and beliefs. The evidence is consistent with people striving to live up to others' expectations so as to avoid guilt, as can be modeled using psychological game theory. When players exhibit such guilt aversion, communication may influence motivation and behavior by influencing beliefs about beliefs. Promises may enhance trustworthy behavior, which is what we observe. We argue that guilt aversion may be relevant for understanding strategic interaction in a variety of settings, and that it may shed light on the role of language, discussions, agreements, and social norms in these contexts.
How Do Analysts Use Their Earnings Forecasts in Generating Stock Recommendations

This paper examines whether valuation estimates based on analysts' earnings forecasts are consistent with their stock recommendations. Because earnings forecasts are linked to value and recommendations reflect analysts' opinions of value relative to current price, earnings forecasts and stock recommendations should be linked in a predictable manner. I consider four possible valuation models of how earnings forecasts and stock recommendations are linked. These models include two specifications of the residual income model, a price‐earnings‐to‐growth (PEG) model, and analysts' projections of long‐term earnings growth. The results provide little evidence that analysts' recommendations are explained by either residual income model specification. However, both the PEG model and analysts' projections of long‐term earnings growth explain analysts' stock recommendations. The relation between the valuation models and future returns is also examined. Analysts' projections of long‐term earnings growth have the great...
A stochastic frontier model with correction for sample selection

Heckman’s (Ann Econ Soc Meas 4(5), 475–492, 1976; Econometrica 47, 153–161, 1979) sample selection model has been employed in three decades of applications of linear regression studies. This paper builds on this framework to obtain a sample selection correction for the stochastic frontier model. We first show a surprisingly simple way to estimate the familiar normal-half normal stochastic frontier model using maximum simulated likelihood. We then extend the technique to a stochastic frontier model with sample selection. In an application that seems superficially obvious, the method is used to revisit the World Health Organization data (WHO in The World Health Report, WHO, Geneva 2000; Tandon et al. in Measuring the overall health system performance for 191 countries, World Health Organization, 2000) where the sample partitioning is based on OECD membership. The original study pooled all 191 countries. The OECD members appear to be discretely different from the rest of the sample. We examine the difference in a sample selection framework.
Evidence for Multiple Labor Market Segments: An Entropic Analysis of US Earned Income, 1996-2007

This paper revisits the fitting of parametric distributions to earned income data. In line with Camilo Dagum's dictum that candidate distribution should not only be chosen for fit, but that economic content should also play a role, a new candidate is proposed. The fit of a simple finite mixture performs as well or better than the recently widely used generalized beta of the second kind (GB2) and is argued to be easier to interpret economically. Specifically, the good fit is taken as evidence for a finite level of segmentation in the labor market, with a distinctly different generating mechanism underlying each segment. It is speculated that this could be reconciled with either modern labor market models in which agent or firm heterogeneity can lead to different equilibrium configurations, or an older theory of labor market segmentation. In fact, the use of the mixture model addresses one of the central weaknesses of testing that older theory empirically. The approach taken in this paper is also motivated by the work of E. T. Jaynes, the father of maximum entropy approaches to statistical inference and related to the recent work by physicists on the distribution of income.
Development and Validation of a 30-Day In-hospital Mortality Model Among Seriously Ill Transferred Patients: a Retrospective Cohort Study.

Predicting the risk of in-hospital mortality on admission is challenging but essential for risk stratification of patient outcomes and designing an appropriate plan-of-care, especially among transferred patients. Develop a model that uses administrative and clinical data within 24 h of transfer to predict 30-day in-hospital mortality at an Academic Health Center (AHC). Retrospective cohort study. We used 30 putative variables in a multiple logistic regression model in the full data set (n = 10,389) to identify 20 candidate variables obtained from the electronic medical record (EMR) within 24 h of admission that were associated with 30-day in-hospital mortality (p < 0.05). These 20 variables were tested using multiple logistic regression and area under the curve (AUC)–receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis to identify an optimal risk threshold score in a randomly split derivation sample (n = 5194) which was then examined in the validation sample (n = 5195). Ten thousand three hundred eighty-nine patients greater than 18 years transferred to the Indiana University (IU)–Adult Academic Health Center (AHC) between 1/1/2016 and 12/31/2017. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, C-statistic, and risk threshold score of the model. The final model was strongly discriminative (C-statistic = 0.90) and had a good fit (Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test [X2 (8) =6.26, p = 0.62]). The positive predictive value for 30-day in-hospital death was 68%; AUC-ROC was 0.90 (95% confidence interval 0.89–0.92, p < 0.0001). We identified a risk threshold score of −2.19 that had a maximum sensitivity (79.87%) and specificity (85.24%) in the derivation and validation sample (sensitivity: 75.00%, specificity: 85.71%). In the validation sample, 34.40% (354/1029) of the patients above this threshold died compared to only 2.83% (118/4166) deaths below this threshold. This model can use EMR and administrative data within 24 h of transfer to predict the risk of 30-day in-hospital mortality with reasonable accuracy among seriously ill transferred patients.
Investment opportunity sets, accounting‐based regulatory contracts, and accounting discretion

Refers to previous research to suggest that US commercial bank managers use discretion to “manage” regulatory capital and that accounting discretion can influence a bank’s investment opportunity set (IOS) and therefore its share price. Challenges the assumption that using accounting discretion to manipulate contracting variables will only result in a redistribution of wealth. Develops a mathematical model based on Feltham and Ohlson (1995) and uses it to explore the bank manager’s optimal investment in risky assets, the constraint on investment choice produced by minimum regulatory capital requirements and how accounting discretion can reduce this. Shows that regulatory requirements do constrain a bank’s IOS but that discretion (e.g. over loan loss provisions) can only mitigate this if dividend and financing policies depend on the discretionary components.
The Structure and Pricing of Corporate Debt Covenants

We provide evidence on the covenant structure of corporate loan agreements. Building on the work of Jensen and Meckling [1976, Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs, and Captial Str...
Responsiveness of Compound Feed Prices in the European Community to Changes in Feed Input Prices

This paper investigates the effects of feed input prices on manufactured compound feed costs and prices in the European Community (EC). The analysis is based on a simulation of the cost-minimizing behavior of "typical" feed compounders in the individual EC member countries. The procedure adopted involves three steps. First, country-specific linear programming (LP) feedmix models for various types of livestock are solved repeatedly for different sets of relative feed input prices. Second, summary functions are fitted to the LP solutions. Third, compound feed cost elasticities with respect to feed input prices are computed. Estimation results are presented at the national and community (EC-9) level.
International Political Actors and State-Building Process in Bosnia-Herzegovina

This article analyzes the post-war period in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the role which international actors, mainly represented through the Office of High Representative (OHR), and local political actors played. The primary aim and significance of this article is to present to what extent OHR and local political actors contributed to the establishment of rule of law, security, stability, self-sustainability and creation of modern-functioning state. Therefore, the research questions of this paper address the role of international and local actors in state-building process and their contributions in the creation of a democratic state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Furthermore, this article examines the roots, causes and results of the political crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The international community, on one hand, never brought their objectives to the state of completion and full implementation, on the other hand, due to the excessive involvement of international community local political actors never held themselves accountable for current political predicaments. Therefore, both, the international community and local political actors must find a way and means to transform DPA Bosnia and Herzegovina towards possible EU member state Bosnia and Herzegovina by using bottom-up step by step state-building strategy.
An extended Heath–Jarrow–Morton risk-neutral drift

Abstract Using a finite dimensional Hilbert space framework, this work proposes a new derivation of the HJM [D. Heath, R. Jarrow, A. Morton, Bond pricing and the term structure of interest rates: A new methodology for contingent claims valuation, Econometrica 60 (1992) 77–105] risk-neutral drift that takes into account nonzero instantaneous correlations between factors. The results obtained generalize the original HJM risk-neutral drift and provide an approach by which interest rate derivatives can be priced using functions of directly observable factors.
Trading around macroeconomic announcements: Are all traders created equal?

This paper examines the effects of macroeconomic announcements on equity index markets using high frequency transactions data for the regular and E-mini S&P 500 index futures contracts. For ten types of announcements that significantly affect prices, we analyze the price adjustment process and the trading patterns of exchange locals and off-exchange customers around the announcements. We find a large increase in trading activity immediately after the announcement. The results also show that during this initial surge in trading activity, locals are able to time their trades better than off-exchange traders even when locals do not have the advantage of access to the order flow. The trading strategy followed by exchange locals in the first 20 seconds after the announcement tends to be profitable, while off-exchange traders tend to make losing trades over the same time period. These results lend evidence that local traders tend to react to the macroeconomic information faster than off-exchange traders.
Formation of plasma around a small meteoroid: 2. Implications for radar head echo

This paper calculates the spatial distribution of the plasma responsible for radar head echoes by applying the kinetic theory developed in the companion paper (Dimant and Oppenheim, arXiv:1608.08524). This results in a set of analytic expressions for the plasma density as a function of distance from the meteoroid. It shows that, at distances less than a collisional mean-free-path from the meteoroid surface, the plasma density drops in proportion to $1/R$ where $R$ is the distance from the meteoroid center; and, at distances much longer than the mean-free-path behind the meteoroid, the density diminishes at a rate proportional to $1/R^{2}$. The results of this paper should be used for modeling and analysis of radar head echoes.
Demand-side stabilization policies : what is the evidence of their potential?

Abstract Using disaggregated data for the United States, this paper explores the effects of the variability of fiscal and monetary policy shocks. Higher variability of government spending shocks around a steady-state growth trend results in, on average, a decline in aggregate demand growth and inflation, with limited effects on output growth. On the other hand, higher variability of monetary shocks results in, on average, an increase in inflation and a decline in output growth. These results indicate the desirability of avoiding large fluctuations over time in either government spending or the money supply.
I'm Asking for Your Support: The Effects of Personally Delivered Campaign Messages on Voting Decisions and Opinion Formation

I'm Asking for Your Support: The Effects of Personally Delivered Campaign Messages on Voting Decisions and Opinion Formation
Algebraic ranks of CAT.0/ groups

In [26], Prasad and Raghunathan introduced the notion of the algebraic rank, rank.G/, of a group G . (See Section 2 for the definition.) Ballmann and Eberlein proved that if  is the fundamental group of a complete Riemannian manifold M of bounded nonpositive sectional curvature and of finite volume, then rank./ is equal to the geometric rank of M (see Ballmann and Eberlein [2]). By combining this with the rank-rigidity theorem, we have that, for a complete Riemannian manifold M of bounded nonpositive sectional curvature and of finite volume, if  M does not have an Euclidean factor and  D 1.M / has higher algebraic rank, either (1)  is a lattice in a semi-simple Lie group of higher rank, (2) it has a finite-index subgroup which splits as a direct product, ie,  is a virtually product, or (3) it acts on a product without being a virtual product.
The Legal Genealogy of the Duty to Accommodate American and Canadian Workers with Disabilities: A Comparative Perspective

This paper provides insight into the debates about judicial interpretation of Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) through a comparison with Canadian human rights law. Most interpretations about the failure of Title I and resistance to it in the United States have focused on either the judicial backlash thesis or Professor Samuel Bagenstos’ persuasive argument that disability rights advocates in part framed the ADA as a welfare reform bill. I argue that the origins of the Canadian duty to accommodate in the accommodation of religious minorities sensitized decision makers such as judges, human rights adjudicators and labour arbitrators in the relatively large unionized sector to the legal concept of accommodation. In contrast, the American religious accommodation doctrine was stymied by the complex jurisprudence surrounding the interplay between the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment that precluded its growth. Consequently, American decision makers were less familiar with the concept of accommodation when the ADA was enacted.
Delays and partial agreements in multi-issue bargaining

Abstract We model a situation in which two players bargain over two pies, one of which can only be consumed starting at a future date. Suppose the players value the pies asymmetrically: one player values the existing pie more than the future one, while the other player has the opposite valuation. We show that players may consume only a fraction of the existing pie in the first period, and then consume the remainder of it, along with the second pie, at the date at which the second pie becomes available. Thus, our model features a special form of bargaining delay, in which agreements take place in multiple stages. Such partial agreements arise when players are patient enough, when they expect the second pie to become available soon, and when the asymmetry in their valuations is large enough.
Does q-theory with investment frictions explain anomalies in the cross section of returns?

Q-theory predicts that investment frictions steepen the relation between expected returns and firm investment. Using financing constraints to proxy for investment frictions, we show only weak evidence that the investment-to-assets and asset growth effects in the cross section of returns are stronger in financially more constrained firms than in financially less constrained firms. There is no evidence that q-theory with investment frictions explains the investment growth, net stock issues, abnormal corporate investment, or net operating assets anomalies. Limits-to-arbitrage proxies dominate q-theory with investment frictions in explaining the magnitude of the investment-to-assets and asset growth anomalies in direct comparisons. & 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Is the Coach Paid too Much?: Coaching Salaries and the NCAA Cartel

Recently, a great deal of controversy has been generated from the salaries earned by head coaches in the NCAA. Although many figures in the world of sports earn high salaries, one important difference in the case of the NCAA is that the players do not get paid. We develop a model that shows that a cartel agreement to not pay the players raises the coach's salary if some players choose where to play based on the identity of the coach. The agreement not to pay the players improves competitive balance in the baseline model, but this result does not generalize.
Reconceiving Citizenship: Noncitizen Voting in New York City Municipal Elections as a Case Study in Immigrant Integration and Local Governance

This paper uses New York City's consideration of an amendment to its charter that would extend voting rights to noncitizens in municipal elections as a case study in immigrant integration and local...
Negotiating wisely : Considerations based on MCDM/MAUT

Negotiation, both an art and a science, is important in business and in personal life. To negotiate intelligently, we need a strategy to help identify when, for what, and how we should negotiate. We consider a one-to-many negotiation problem such as a house-purchase process in which there is one buyer and many sellers. The alternatives are evaluated using multiple criteria, but only one criterion (such as price) is to be settled by negotiation. We use the Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) as a dynamic measure of negotiating strength, and develop a systematic quantitative iterative approach to assist in the negotiation process. We explore using simulation the efficacy of negotiating for more than one alternative at the same time. The objective of our approach is to help a negotiator achieve a good, hopefully an optimal, result effectively.
Executive Directors, Pay Disclosures, and Incentive Compensation in Large European Companies

Using a proprietary database for the largest 158 European companies during 1999-2004, I find that transparency of executive pay disclosures and sensitivity of executive pay to performance increase with the proportion of top executives serving as company directors and with dual chief executive officer (CEO) and board chairs. These relations strengthen in countries with more protection for outside shareholders. The positive marginal effects of executive directors (i.e., insiders) on transparency of pay disclosures and sensitivity of pay to performance are not significant when (1) insiders already have the numerical majority on boards, (2) CEOs are board chairs, and (3) pay levels and company ownership of executives are relatively high. Overall, the evidence supports the optimal-contracting argument over the rent-seeking argument. Specifically, companies mitigate agency costs associated with the existence of company executives on boards through transparent pay disclosures and incentive compensation. However,...
A Tournament of Party Decision Rules

Following Axelrod’s tournaments for strategies in the repeat-play prisoner’s dilemma, we ran a ‘‘tournament of party decision rules’’ in a dynamic agent-based model of party competition. We asked researchers to submit rules for selecting party positions in a two-dimensional policy space, pitting each rule against all others in a suite of long-running simulations. The most successful rule combined a number of striking features: satisficing rather than maximizing in the short run, being ‘‘parasitic’’ on choices made by successful rules, and being hardwired not to attack other agents using the same rule. In a second suite of simulations in a more evolutionary setting in which the selection probability of a rule was a function of the previous success of agents using the same rule, the rule winning the original tournament pulled even further ahead of the competition.
The Differential Impact of Uncertainty on Investment in Small and Large Businesses

We study the impact of profit uncertainty on investment and whether or not this response is different in industries that are dominated by small firms versus those that are dominated by relatively larger firms. Our key findings are that the sign of the investment-uncertainty relationship is negative, and that the quantitative negative impact is substantially greater in industries dominated by small firms. These results are robust to accounting for potential endogeneity of the uncertainty measure, alternate procedures for measuring uncertainty, and alternate ways of segmenting industries into small- and large-firm groups.
Competition in Taxes and Performance Requirements for Foreign Direct Investment

Abstract Tax incentives offered to attract firms engaged in foreign direct investment are often tied to performance requirements such as domestic content restrictions or adherence to environmental standards. The tax competition literature has repeatedly shown that competition between municipalities for mobile firms tends to drive taxes to low levels. One would expect a comparable result for burdensome performance requirements. Despite this, the evidence suggests that while taxes have indeed been driven down, performance requirements are as popular as ever. We explain this seeming conundrum by showing that in the presence of spillovers, binding performance requirements can act as a coordination device for firms. In equilibrium, municipalities choose performance requirements, which maximize joint surplus from investment. Competition between municipalities then transfers this surplus to firms via tax subsidies.
The Impact of the Civil Jury on American Tort Law

This article, a contribution to a symposium on the what American tort law can contribute to the rest of the world expresses skepticism that a considerable swath of U.S. tort law would be of interest to the rest of the world. The thesis is that American tort law has been shaped by the existence of the civil jury, unique to the U.S, and areas of domestic tort law so influenced have no utility internationally. The article catalogues many such areas and discusses several of them.
Perceptions about the Financial Planning Profession

Focusing on highly educated individuals, we explore survey respondents’ attitudes toward the financial planning profession and the reasons that may preclude such individuals from using financial planning services. We find that significant confusion exists on how financial planners differ from other financial professionals and that the reasons for bypassing financial planning services are both tangible (lack of investment funds, high costs/fees) and intangible (lack of trust in the financial planner).
A Life‐cycle Model of Locational Choice in a Two‐region Economy*

The ability to use the amenities or other characteristics of a location may be a function of the length of time a household has resided in the location. We explore the implications of the hypothesis that the enjoyment of regional amenities depends on the accumulation of amenity-specific human capital. We establish that the interaction of this human capital with regional wage rates determines life-cycle locational trajectories. The model explains the timing of moves in the working and retirement periods of life as well as observed heterogeneity in household behavior. Small differences between households may result in dramatically different life-cycle behavior.
Macroeconomics After Two Decades of Rational Expectations

Real business cycle analysis, growth theory and its empirical application, issues involving unit roots in macroeconomic time series, and sticky-price models of aggregate supply are discussed in the context of the rational expectations revolution in macroeconomics that began in roughly 1972. Here attention is given to post-1982 research, which tended to focus more on topics than the technical details that characterized the earlier research.
Capital Structure Along the Supply Chain: How Does Customer Leverage Affect Supplier Leverage Decisions?

The bargaining theory of capital structure implies that when firms raise their leverage, their suppliers will raise their own leverage in response, so as to maintain strength in negotiations with important customers. In contrast, the theory of firm-specific investments implies that when a customer raises its leverage, a firm will respond by lowering its own leverage to minimize the risk of bankruptcy. We test these theories by examining the relationship between the leverage decisions of suppliers and customers. We find that a firm’s leverage is positively associated with its customer’s leverage. Moreover, consistent with the bargaining theory, we find that the positive leverage relationship is stronger if the customer has a higher ex-ante bargaining power. We also find some support for the relation-specific investment theory of capital structure in that the positive leverage relationship is weaker if the supplier–customer relationship requires more relation-specific investments.
Endorsement Retires: From Religious Symbols to Anti-Sorting Principles

As last Term's Ten Commandments cases illustrated, the Supreme Court sometimes polices government use of religious symbols. This is partly attributable to the preferences of Justice O'Connor; she authored the "endorsement test" for establishment clause violations. With her departure from the Court, there is a good chance that the test will retire along with her. In this article, I explain two overlapping principles that could underwrite continuing judicial concern about government-backed religious messages: anti-proselytism and anti-sorting. The first principle was inspired by the school prayer cases and it is the conventional grounding for the endorsement test. But it is often a weak basis for attacking public religious displays, as other commentators have noted. The second option - an anti-sorting principle - has not yet been explored. It is inspired by the Tiebout model of inter-local competition for citizen-voters. As applied to religious symbols, the principle would be attuned to their strategic use as signals to outsiders (and as reminders to insiders) regarding religion and political power within the community. More generally, the principle would target any state action that encourages citizens to sort themselves into religiously homogenous political jurisdictions. That principle obviously reaches beyond official use of religious messages. It can reorient thinking on an enormous range of questions. For example, attention to religious sorting deepens our understanding of founding era establishments, it might slant free exercise doctrine toward liberty norms and away from equality norms, and it even suggests a constitutional definition for religion. On the other hand, there are significant uncertainties in this field - normative, empirical, and sociological. Only a modest form of the anti-sorting principle should be enforced for now. In any event, religious sorting is a live social dynamic in America that deserves far more attention from the academy.