cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
INVESTOR ATTENTION, OVERCONFIDENCE AND CATEGORY LEARNING

Abstract Motivated by psychological evidence that attention is a scarce cognitive resource, we model investors’ attention allocation in learning and study the effects of this on asset-price dynamics. We show that limited investor attention leads to category-learning behavior, i.e., investors tend to process more market and sector-wide information than firm-specific information. This endogenous structure of information, when combined with investor overconfidence, generates important features observed in return comovement that are otherwise difficult to explain with standard rational expectations models. Our model also demonstrates new cross-sectional implications for return predictability.
Group Violence and Group Vengeance: Toward a Retributivist Theory of International Criminal Law

Introduction 274 I. A Relational Theory of Retributive Justice 277 A. The Relational Structure of Retributive Justice 279 B. Retributivism and Consequentialism 283 C. Relational and Non-Relational Retributivisms..287 II. The Social Embodiment of Retributive Justice.......290 A. From Group Conflict to State Sovereignty .......291 B. From State Failure to International Intervention 294 III. A Retributivist Theory of Crimes against Humanity 297 A. Crimes against Humanity: Analysis 299 B. Chander, Luban, and May on Group Violence...304 IV. An Expressivist Theory of Discriminatory Intent...308 A. The Concept of Expressive Harm 311 B. The Expressive Harm of Group Subordination 315 C. Amann’s “Expressivist” Account 318 V. A Political Theory of Jurisdiction 320 A. Universal Jurisdiction 321 B. Passive and Active Jurisdiction 323 C. Complementary Jurisdiction 324 Conclusion 326
The evolving investment climate in Vietnam and subsequent challenges to foreign investors

Executive Summary Vietnam's evolving reform process is gaining momentum. Vietnam's Communist Party, however, continues to maintain strong control over economic affairs. Foreign companies with commercial expectations typically are forced into partnership with State instruments responsible for implementation of economic policy. Conflict is inevitable and many difficulties between the partners can be traced to fundamental differences in motivation between foreign investors and Vietnamese authorities. The authors analyze official policy statements and historical trends, examine some Joint Ventures to provide insights into the nature and source of these conflicts, and conclude with a discussion and implications for managers and foreign investors. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Evaluative behavioral judgments and instrumental antisocial behaviors in children and adolescents

There is a growing body of scientific research that has drawn a distinction between instrumental (or proactive) and reactive forms of aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Whereas neurocognitive, psychophysiological, and other psychological factors have been shown to distinguish these aggressive subtypes, social cognitive research on alternative types of instrumental antisocial behavior (e.g., stealing, cheating, and illicit substance use) in youth is limited. Research on social information processing and aggression has shown that evaluative behavioral judgments may be of particular importance to understanding instrumental antisocial tendencies. Herein presented is a review of research on social cognition and discernible forms of instrumental antisocial behavior. It is demonstrated that, consistent with social cognitive research on proactive aggression, the relevance of a specific set of evaluative behavioral judgments appears to be common to alternative patterns of instrumental antisocial conduct. Conclusions may have particular importance for (a) research on the development of discernible instrumental antisocial trajectories, (b) clinical intervention, and (c) the formulation of a conceptual model of instrumental antisocial decision-making.
Is Making Divorce Easier Bad for Children? The Long‐Run Implications of Unilateral Divorce

I assess the long‐run implications for children of growing up in a unilateral divorce environment, which increases the ease of divorce by not requiring the explicit consent of both partners. Using 40 years of census data to exploit the variation across states and over time in changes in divorce regulation, I confirm that unilateral divorce regulations do significantly increase the incidence of divorce. Adults who were exposed to unilateral divorce regulations as children are less well educated, have lower family incomes, marry earlier but separate more often, and have higher odds of adult suicide.
SHADOW WORKS AND SHADOW MARKETS: HOW PRIVATIZATION OF WELFARE SERVICES PRODUCES AN ALTERNATIVE MARKET

The Author explores Ivan Illich’s misplaced ideas of gender roles and examines how privatization of welfare services has legitimized a shadow economy and work through mandated community service jobs. The Article provides a historical perspective of how social services were handled, leading to the current cost/benefit legacy of welfare privatization utilized by the Wisconsin Works program (W-2). Wisconsin’s program requires women recipients to engage in volunteer work, creating a subsidized labor force for private agencies based on the presumption that work, even meaningless and menial tasks, establishes job-readiness for women on welfare. The Author suggests that we need to begin thinking about how to recreate the framework for providing public services. The community service component of W2 and its actual function powerfully demonstrates how W-2 mothers have become a reserve labor force. But at the same time the contours of W-2 make reserve labor status profitable, not for the mothers, but for the sub-contracted agencies. The relationship between W-2 mothers, the status of community service, and the position of sub-contracted agencies have generated a shadow market as a consequence of welfare privatization. The ways in which these women are held captive to a world without work, a world without skill building, and limited ways out become the grounds upon which sub-contracting agencies generate profit. Under the shroud of “cost effectiveness,” private agencies are reaping the financial windfall of “pimping” the state based on their ability to market their skills at converting welfare mothers into low-wage workers.
Informed trading around acquisitions: Evidence from corporate bonds ☆

Abstract This paper examines the prevalence of informed trading in corporate bonds prior to takeover announcements. We find significant pre-announcement trading activities and price movements in target bonds, in directions consistent with the nature of pending information. Improved transparency in the bond markets achieved by the implementation of the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) system reduces the incidence of informed trading. Further, there is some weak evidence that dealers affiliated with merger and acquisition advisors sell in anticipation of negative news, pointing to a possible channel of information leakage. Such negative news seems to be incorporated into bond prices no slower than into the target stocks.
How do auditors view managers’ voluntary disclosure strategy? The effect of earnings guidance on audit fees☆

Abstract The objective of this study is to examine the relation between attributes of earnings forecasts issued by managers and audit fees. Although there is an extensive literature on managers’ disclosure of earnings forecasts, there is a paucity of research on how auditors incorporate information from these voluntary disclosures. We find that the issuance of an annual or quarterly management earnings forecast in the prior period is positively associated with the current period audit fees. Our results indicate that on average, audit fees are higher by about 7% for firm-years associated with an annual forecast. Among the firms that issue earnings forecasts, we find no association between audit fees and likelihood of updating a previously issued earnings forecast, indicating that auditors do not view such behavior negatively. Further, we find audit fees to be positively associated with the error and the bias (or optimism) in the forecasts for annual forecasts but not for quarterly forecasts. Overall, these results suggest that management’s forecast behavior captures higher business risk for the auditor via greater risk of earnings management or litigation risk.
Codes of Ethics and State Fiduciary Duties: Where is the Line?

The important function of disclosure under federal securities laws and regulations, and the role of management in running the affairs of the corporation consistent with state fiduciary principles have a history of discord. The recent mandates of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX Act” or “SOX”), and the Security and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) implementing regulations continue to increase the disclosure obligations of public companies. This article examines the implementation of code of ethics requirements under SOX. It examines the SEC’s regulations, which implement SOX requirements on the disclosure of codes of ethics, and self-regulatory agency (“SRO” or “listing agency”) rules on codes of ethics for public companies. This article argues that code of ethics rules encroach into state law in defining the fiduciary obligations of officers and directors. Specifically, this article argues that the SEC’s approval of New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) and National Association of Securities Dealers (“NASD” or “Nasdaq”) rules allow the SEC to do indirectly what it could not do directly. This article, therefore, calls for an amendment to the SEC’s code of ethics implementing regulation to provide a safe-harbor for senior financial officers and principal executive officers.
Standard Auctions with Identity-Dependent Externalities

I analyze equilibrium bidding behavior in the open ascending-bid auction with identity-dependent externalities. With reciprocal externalities, the allocation is determined by bidders' consumption values alone. With large nonreciprocal externalities, the open auction generates higher expected revenue compared to standard sealed-bid auctions. The progress of the open auction reveals more information about the identity of the potential winner, allowing active bidders greater opportunity to avoid incurring payoff-reducing externalities. The associated option value to staying active up until a relatively high price translates into higher expected revenue. Multiple bidders may sequentially quit at the same price, and relative to sealed-bid auctions, bidders experience less ex post regret.
The Case for a Global Treaty on Soil Conservation, Sustainable Farming, and the Preservation of Agrarian Culture

Soil is the foundation of life, yet the international community has all but ignored it in conservation efforts and legal reforms. Right under our feet we are losing topsoil at rates that far outpace nature’s ability to keep up. Erosion, salinization, desertification, nutrient depletion, contamination — these and other threats have conspired to take away the land that feeds us. But they have done so largely at our own command. Like most environmental crises, human decisions have played a critical role in the degradation of Earth’s soils.To remedy this situation — or at least generate change that moves us in the right direction — I argue that we need a new global treaty specifically designed to address the soil crisis. After explaining the nature of the threat and its causes, I canvass the social and legal responses that have been launched to address the problem. Through this discussion, we see that the international community has failed to meet the soil crisis with the construction of an adequate legal regime.As an extension of this failure, the international community has also failed to recognize the other problem that comes along with land degradation: cultural erosion. As we convert valuable farmland to urban sprawl and lose fertile spaces to expanding deserts, we also witness the loss of small-scale farming and the communities it supports. I reveal the link between these two crises by emphasizing a common cause: the rise of industrial agriculture. With its emphasis on short-term profit margins, mechanization, product specialization, division of labor and capital, and economies of scale, industrial agriculture profits at the expense of ecology and rural communities. To save our soils and the communities that work them, I argue that a global treaty addressing soils should also address agrarian culture and — in the way of responding to both issues — should implement reforms in support of sustainable farming.
The Patented Design

S | 18 The Patented Design Sarah Burstein Associate Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma College of Law Norman, OK Although the design patent system is over 170 years old, the law of design patents is woefully underdeveloped and undertheorized. One particularly important open question has to do with the very nature of the protected subject matter what, exactly, is "the patented design"? Because this is an open question, it is not clear, for example, whether the use of a claimed shape on a different type of product constitutes infringement. It's also not clear whether visual representations of a product can infringe a design patent. This Article argues that neither of these types of uses should be deemed to be infringing because "the patented design" should be conceptualized as the design as applied to a specific type of product not as something akin to a copyrighted "work" (a concept this Article will refer to as a "design per se"). Accordingly, designs even those that are patented should remain free to be adapted to different types of products. This conclusion is supported by the nature of product design and policy goals including the promotion of the decorative arts and protection of free expression. This analysis is not, however, limited to the precise nature or principles of the U.S. patent system; therefore, this analysis may have important implications for the larger policy debate over how designs should be protected, if at all, using intellectual property laws. Email: sarah.burstein@ou.edu
RISK SENSITIVITIES OF BERMUDA SWAPTIONS

A new approach to the problem of computing risk sensitivities of Bermuda swaptions in a lattice, or PDE, framework is presented. The algorithms developed perform the task much faster and more accurately that the traditional approach in which the Greeks are computed numerically by shocking the appropriate inputs and revaluing the instrument. The time needed to execute the tradition scheme grows linearly with the number of Greeks required, whereas our approach computes any number of Greeks for a Bermuda swaption in nearly constant time. The new method explores symmetries in the structure of Bermuda swaptions to derive recursive relations between different Greeks, and is essentially model-independent. These recursive relations allow us to represent risk sensitivities in a number of ways, in particular as integrals over the "survival" density. The survival density is obtained as a solution to a forward Kolmogorov equation. This representation is the basis for practical applications of our approach.
The Effects of Uncertainty on Market Prices: Evidence from Coaching Changes in the NBA

: This study examines the effects of uncertainty on market prices. Specifically, we use the National Basketball Association betting market to examine whether uncertainty resulting from midseason coaching changes affects the ability of bettors to accurately set betting lines. We find that uncertainty amid midseason coaching changes results in less accurate pricing, as evidenced by higher volatility and greater overall inaccuracy in betting lines. We also find that uncertainty regarding the ability of the replacement coach and/or his strategies results in less accurate pricing, again evidenced by higher volatility and greater overall inaccuracy in betting lines.
The ethnographic (g)ambit: women and the negotiation of masculinity in Mexico City

How should we conceive, in a nontrivial manner, the cultural relation that women have to the construction of masculinities? Ethnographic fieldwork on how male identities are developed and transformed by men and women in a colonia popular of Mexico City is contrasted to other conceptual and methodological approaches employed by anthropologists to study manhood. Examining men as engendered and engendering is presented, not as a complement to the study of women, but rather as integral to understanding the ambiguities of gender differences.
The pain was greater if it will happen again: the effect of anticipated continuation on retrospective discomfort.

Across 7 laboratory studies and 1 field study, we demonstrated that people remembered an unpleasant experience as more aversive when they expected this experience to return than when they had no such expectation. Our results indicate that this effect results from people’s tendency to brace for unpleasant experiences. Specifically, when faced with the anticipated return of the experience, people prepare for the worst, leading them to remember the initial experience as more aversive. This bracing can be reduced either by limiting people’s self-regulatory resources or by denying them the time to brace. These results indicate that people’s tendency to remember aversive experiences as less unpleasant than they actually were (as demonstrated in prior research) does not necessarily imply that people are willing to re-engage in these experiences—because the anticipation of repeating the experience may counteract the initial memory bias.
Determinants of the Choice between Roth and Deductible IRAs

This study examines tax and nontax determinants of the choice between Roth and deductible Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). I find evidence that higher current tax rates relative to average tax rates are positively, but modestly, related to the probability that a taxpayer will contribute to a deductible IRA rather than a Roth IRA. I also find that taxpayers with greater liquidity are more likely to choose a Roth IRA, which is the option with a higher effective contribution limit. The results relate to the question of whether taxpayers behave in a tax‐efficient manner and the behavioral response to statutory tax rate changes.
Teacher quality differences between teacher preparation programs: How big? How reliable? Which programs are different?

Abstract Sixteen US states have begun to hold teacher preparation programs (TPPs) accountable for teacher quality, where quality is estimated by teacher value-added to student test scores. Yet it is not easy to identify TPPs whose teachers are substantially better or worse than average. True teacher quality differences between TPPs are small; estimated differences are not very reliable; and when many TPPs are compared, multiple comparisons increase the danger of misclassifying ordinary TPPs as good or bad. Using a large and diverse dataset from Texas, we evaluate statistical methods for estimating teacher quality differences between TPPs. The most convincing estimates come from a value-added model where confidence intervals are widened by the inclusion of teacher random effects (or teacher clustering in large TPPs) and further widened by the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Using these confidence intervals, it is rarely possible to tell which TPPs, if any, are better or worse than average. The potential benefits of TPP accountability may be too small to balance the risk that a proliferation of noisy TPP estimates will encourage arbitrary and ineffective policy actions.
Do staggered boards harm shareholders

Abstract We examine the Cohen and Wang (2013) conclusion that a staggered board lowers firm value based on the stock price reaction to two 2010 Delaware court rulings in the Airgas, Inc. case. The first ruling weakened the potency of a staggered board and the second restored it. We find that the Cohen and Wang results, for their sample, become insignificant after excluding a few penny stocks, stocks with value below $10 million, or over-the-counter (non-exchange) stocks. The effects of the rulings are also insignificant for an alternative sample.
The Braiding Cases, Cultural Deference, and the Inadequate Protection of Black Women Consumers

This Comment argues that the national trend of abolishing and modifying state certification standards for natural hairstylists warrants hesitation and policy innovation by courts and policymakers. Specifically, the piece suggests that states should require comprehensive education for natural hairstylists in braiding schools or their equivalent instead of doing away with skills-based training. Raising standards for black hair care, not lowering them, is the best way to adequately protect black female salon customers.This Comment also contends that the outcomes of the braiding cases indicate the potential harms of cultural deference by courts and policymakers. While much legal scholarship has focused on institutional disregard for black women, the offenders in these cases have been well-meaning allies who have not differentiated between the interests of African-American business owners and African-American consumers. This paper ultimately suggests that courts and policymakers should not so easily yield to charges of cultural imperialism. In order for societal groups to be equally protected in the marketplace, decisionmakers must critically engage in claims about the harmlessness of cultural practices.
Cooperation and competition among employees: Experimental evidence on the role of management control systems

Abstract This article reviews experimental studies that investigate the influence of management control systems on competitive and cooperative interactions among employees. It begins by describing the role of experiments in improving theory specification, by improving construct definitions, documenting the causal processes that link management controls and performance, and identifying contextual factors that influence these processes. The article then analyzes experimental research on the role of management control systems in the social comparisons and tournament incentives that generate competition in organizations, and in the teamwork and reciprocity processes that support cooperation. A number of open questions and directions for future research, both experimental and non-experimental, are identified.
The Information Content of Share Repurchase Programs

Contrary to the implications of many payout theories, we find that announcements of open-market share repurchase programs are not followed by an increase in operating performance. However, we find that repurchasing firms experience a significant reduction in systematic risk and cost of capital relative to non-repurchasing firms. Further, consistent with the free cash-flow hypothesis, we find that the market reaction to share repurchase announcements is more positive among those firms that are more likely to overinvest. Finally, we find evidence to indicate that investors underreact to repurchase announcements because they initially underestimate the decline in cost of capital. IN RECENT YEARS OPEN-MARKET share repurchase programs have become an important payout method for many U.S. firms. According to data from COMPUSTAT, between 1984 and 2000 corporations spent approximately 26 percent of their total annual earnings on repurchases. Over 90 percent of these repurchases were open-market repurchase programs. Also, in 1999 and 2000, for the first time in history, industrial corporations spent more money on share repurchases than they did on dividends. Our objective in this paper is to better understand the economic motivations behind the decision to repurchase shares. Two major reasons for repurchasing shares are analyzed in the theoretical literature. The first is that management uses open-market share repurchases to signal better prospects (Bhattacharya (1979), Miller and Rock (1985), and Vermaelen (1984)). 1 These papers suggest that repurchases can be used as a costly signal about future cash flows when markets are incomplete. As demonstrated by these papers, the repurchase decision can reveal information about
Reviving the Federal Crime of Gratuities

The federal crime of gratuities prohibits people from giving gifts to federal public officials if the gift is tied to an official act. Both the donor and the donee are liable. The gratuities crime is dysfunctional in two main ways. It is overinclusive in that it covers conduct indistinguishable from bribery. It is underinclusive in that it does not cover conduct that is clearly dangerous: gifts to public officials because of their positions that are not tied to a particular official act. This Article argues that Congress should extend the crime of gratuities to cover gifts because of an official’s position rather than leaving the crime to cover only gifts because of particular official acts. The danger to bias-free government because of gifting based on official positions is demonstrated in recent research on influence and reciprocity. The rule for reciprocity is powerful and hard to fight because participants are generally unaware it is operating on them. Gifting officials based on their positions is not adequately controlled by mandated disclosure or ethics prohibitions. This Article urges Congress to amend the gratuities crime to expand it and avoid the dangers of overcriminalization by inserting mens rea terms into the crime. The appropriate mens rea terms are knowledge of the facts for donees and knowledge of the facts and law for donors. Congress should also address the overbreadth of the crime by taking one situation, when donors transfer value to donees because of future official acts, out of the gratuities crime because it is indistinguishable from the crime of bribery. This Article proposes amendments to implement these changes in terms familiar to the federal criminal law.
Bankruptcy Without Borders

ethno-liriguistic groups. At the same time, fear and vigilance on the part of the larger society bring the minority community to cen ter stage. Recognition, whether positive or negative, is the crucial raw material for culti vation of citizenship. Only those who exist can become members of society. That is why the full citizenship envisaged by liberal polit ical culture is "active" citizenship. Silence and invisibility are luxuries that can be afforded only by members of the majority culture, whose existence is collectively regis tered and institutionalized. But for minority groups, silence and invisibility amount to nonexistence, even political death. Therefore, any kind of noise that forces mainstream institutions (whether of government or pub lic opinion) to register the existence of a par ticular group aids in its incorporation. So long as it does not strip them of legal cit izenship outright, crisis can only strengthen individuals' cultural citizenship. Crises are bad for aliens, but good for citizens.
A theory of bargaining deadlock

Abstract I study a dynamic one-sided-offer bargaining model between a seller and a buyer under incomplete information. The seller knows the quality of his product, while the buyer does not. During bargaining, the seller may receive an outside option, the value of which depends on the quality of the product. If the outside option is sufficiently important, there is an equilibrium in which the buyer's belief about the product's quality stays constant and she continues to make the same randomized offer throughout the bargaining process. As a result, the equilibrium behavior produces an outcome path that resembles a bargaining deadlock and its resolution. The equilibrium outcome exhibits bargaining delay that does not vanish even with frequent offers, and the limiting delay may exist even without a static adverse selection problem. Under stronger parametric assumptions, the equilibrium with deadlock is the only one in which behavior is monotonic in the buyer's belief.
A Generalized Dynamic Factor Model for Panel Data: Estimation with a Two-Cycle Conditional Expectation-Maximization Algorithm*

We develop a generalized dynamic factor model for panel data with the goal of estimating an unobserved index. While similar models have been developed in the literature of dynamic factor analysis, our contribution is threefold. First, contrary to simple dynamic factor analysis where multiple attributes of the same subject are measured at each time period, our model also accounts for multiple subjects. It is therefore suitable to a panel data framework. Second, our model estimates a unique unobserved index for every subject for every time period, as opposed to previous work where a temporal index common to all subjects was used. Third, we develop a novel iterative estimation process which we call the Two-Cycle Conditional ExpectationMaximization (2CCEM) algorithm and is flexible enough to handle a variety of different types of datasets. The model is applied on a panel measuring attributes related to the operation of water and sanitation utilities.
Antitrust Developments in Food and Pharma

Closing the loopholes of downstream application of the Capper-Volstead exemption in the food system and pay for delay in pharmaceuticals is an important advance in US and EU antitrust norms. First, pay-for-delay conduct has been harmful for pharmaceuticals customers. After ten years of litigation that divided circuit courts, the Supreme Court decreed that payments to generic drug sellers by the patent holders of the brand equivalent that are aimed at delaying entry are illegal, but did so under a structured rule-of-reason approach. EU competition authorities treat such payments as per se civil infractions. Second, until court decisions made in 2011–2014, the reach of the Capper-Volstead Act and the legality of pay-for-delay conduct in the drug industry were in doubt. In 2015, most federal circuits now clearly agree that, at a minimum, acreage restrictions by marketing cooperatives are per se illegal. Moreover, any manipulation by farmers’ cooperatives of upstream supply is also likely to be illegal.
The Global Economics of Water: Is Water a Source of Comparative Advantage?

Abstract With newly available data, I investigate to what extent countries' international trade exploits the very uneven water resources on a global scale. I find that water is a source of comparative advantage and that relatively water abundant countries export more water-intensive products. Additionally, water contributes significantly less to the pattern of exports than the traditional production factors labor and physical capital. This suggests relatively moderate disruptions to overall trade on a global scale due to changing precipitation in the wake of climate change. (JEL F14, O13, O19, Q15, Q25, Q54)
Brownian motion at short time scales

Brownian motion has played important roles in many different fields of science since its origin was first explained by Albert Einstein in 1905. Einstein's theory of Brownian motion, however, is only applicable at long time scales. At short time scales, Brownian motion of a suspended particle is not completely random, due to the inertia of the particle and the surrounding fluid. Moreover, the thermal force exerted on a particle suspended in a liquid is not a white noise, but is colored. Recent experimental developments in optical trapping and detection have made this new regime of Brownian motion accessible. This review summarizes related theories and recent experiments on Brownian motion at short time scales, with a focus on the measurement of the instantaneous velocity of a Brownian particle in a gas and the observation of the transition from ballistic to diffusive Brownian motion in a liquid.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND CHILD LABOR: CROSS-COUNTRY EVIDENCE

Abstract We explore the relationship between exposure to trade (as measured by openness) and child labor in a cross-country setting. Our methodology accounts for the fact that trade flows are endogenous to child labor (and labor standards more generally) by examining the relationship between child labor and variation in trade based on geography. We find that countries that trade more have less child labor. At the cross-country means, the data suggest an openness elasticity of child labor of − 0.7. For low-income countries, the elasticity of child labor with respect to trade with high-income countries is − 0.9. However, these relationships appear to be largely attributable to the positive association between trade and income. We consistently find a small and statistically insignificant association between openness and child labor when we control for cross-country income differences in the full sample, when we split the sample into different country groups, consider only trade between high- and low-income countries, or focus on exports of unskilled-labor intensive products from low-income countries. Thus, the cross-country data do not substantiate assertions that trade per se plays a significant role in perpetuating the high levels of child labor that pervade low-income countries.
Racial Differences in Transitions to Marriage for Unmarried Mothers

Unlike prior studies that have explained racial differences in the transitions to marriage among unmarried women, our study used the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine racial differences in the transitions to marriage among unmarried women following a non-marital birth. We found that Black mothers were 60–65% more likely to delay marriage after a non-marital birth compared to White mothers and these racial gaps were only partially explained by economic, demographic and attitudinal factors. Our paper further contributes to this literature by examining changes in cohabitation patterns, educational attainment, poverty status and attitudes of gender distrust that are able to partially explain and reduce these racial gaps in transitions to marriage. With the general decline in marriage and rise in cohabitation, our paper tried to assess whether cohabitation is a leading factor for marriage or a substitute for marriage for unmarried mothers. Racial disparities have important implications for child wellbeing and intergenerational transmission of inequalities.
Financial Management: An Organic Approach.

Although textbooks present corporate finance using a topical approach, good financial management requires an organic approach that integrates the various assignments financial managers confront every day. Breaking the tasks into meaningful subcategories, the current article offers one approach.
Theorists, Get Over Yourselves: A Response to Steven D. Smith

Steven D. Smith is one of our most powerful critics of contemporary liberal theory. He has an acute sense of the hidden flaws and gaps in contemporary conventional wisdom. Even those who disagree must, if they are honest, carefully consider his arguments.In his most recent work, he claims that, in our political culture, the case for the specific protection of religious liberty, as opposed to liberty under other descriptions, has been undermined. As a consequence, he fears that although some freedoms will survive, freedom of religion as such may cease to exist.Even if his argument is sound, his fears are misplaced.
B-spline techniques for volatility modeling

This paper is devoted to the application of B-splines to volatility modeling, specifically the calibration of the leverage function in stochastic local volatility models and the parameterization of an arbitrage-free implied volatility surface calibrated to sparse option data. We use an extension of classical B-splines obtained by including basis functions with infinite support. We first come back to the application of shape-constrained B-splines to the estimation of conditional expectations, not merely from a scatter plot but also from the given marginal distributions. An application is the Monte Carlo calibration of stochastic local volatility models by Markov projection. Then we present a new technique for the calibration of an implied volatility surface to sparse option data. We use a B-spline parameterization of the Radon-Nikodym derivative of the underlying's risk-neutral probability density with respect to a roughly calibrated base model. We show that this method provides smooth arbitrage-free implied volatility surfaces. Finally, we sketch a Galerkin method with B-spline finite elements to the solution of the partial differential equation satisfied by the Radon-Nikodym derivative.
An empirical study of statutory interpretation in tax law

A substantial academic literature considers how agencies should interpret statutes. But few studies have considered how agencies actually do interpret statutes, and none has empirically compared the methodologies of agencies and courts in practice. This Article conducts such a comparison, using a newly created dataset of all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) publications ever released, along with an existing dataset of court decisions. It applies natural language processing, machine learning, and regression analysis to map methodological trends and to test whether particular authorities have developed unique cultures of statutory interpretation. It finds that, over time, the IRS has increasingly made rules on normative policy grounds (like fairness and efficiency) rather than merely producing rules based on the “best reading” of the relevant statute (under any interpretive theory, like purposivism or textualism). Moreover, when the IRS does focus on the statute, it has grown much more purposivist over time. In contrast, the Tax Court has not grown more normative and has followed the same trend toward textualism as most other courts. But although the Tax Court has become more broadly textualist, it prioritizes different interpretive tools than other courts, like Chevron deference and holistic-textual canons of interpretation. This suggests that each authority adopts its own flavor of textualism or purposivism. These findings complicate the literature on tax exceptionalism and the judicial nature of the Tax Court. They also inform ongoing debates about judicial deference and the future of doctrines like Chevron and Skidmore deference. Most broadly, they provide an empirical counterpoint to the existing theoretical literature on statutory interpretation by agencies.
Traditional Surrogacy Contracts, Partial Enforcement, and the Challenge for Family Law

Commercial surrogacy remains controversial, although courts over the past few decades seemed to have reached a compromise making gestational but not traditional (genetic) surrogacy agreements enforceable. Recently, a few courts have enforced traditional surrogacy agreements in part or in whole. This article traces the developing jurisprudence in this area, notes some of the counterintuitive implications of some of these latter decisions, and explains how some of these undesirable effects might be avoided.
An Open-Source Implementation of the Critical-Line Algorithm for Portfolio Optimization

Portfolio optimization is one of the problems most frequently encountered by financial practitioners. The main goal of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature by providing a well-documented, step-by-step open-source implementation of Critical Line Algorithm (CLA) in scientific language. The code is implemented as a Python class object, which allows it to be imported like any other Python module, and integrated seamlessly with pre-existing code. We discuss the logic behind CLA following the algorithm’s decision flow. In addition, we developed several utilities that support finding answers to recurrent practical problems. We believe this publication will offer a better alternative to financial practitioners, many of whom are currently relying on generic-purpose optimizers which often deliver suboptimal solutions. The source code discussed in this paper can be downloaded at the authors’ websites (see Appendix).
The Small-Sample Bias of the Gini Coefficient: Results and Implications for Empirical Research

The Gini coefficient is a downward-biased measure of inequality in small populations when income is generated by one of three common distributions. The paper discusses the sources of bias and argues that this property is far more general. This has implications for (i) the comparison of inequality among subsamples, some of which may be small, and (ii) the use of the Gini in measuring firm size inequality in markets with a small number of firms. The small-sample bias has often led to misperceptions about trends in industry concentration. A small-sample adjustment results in a reduced bias, which can no longer be signed. This remaining bias rises with the dispersion and falls with increasing skewness of the distribution. Finally, an empirical example illustrates the importance of using the adjusted Gini. In this example it is shown that, controlling for market characteristics, larger shipping cartels include a set of firms that is stochastically identical (in terms of relative size) to those of smaller shipp...
Oh, so that is what you meant! The interplay of data quality and data semantics

Data quality issues have taken on increasing importance in recent years. In our research, we have discovered that many “data quality” problems are actually “data misinterpretation” problems – that is, problems with data semantics. In this paper, we first illustrate some examples of these problems and then introduce a particular semantic problem that we call “corporate householding.” We stress the importance of “context” to get the appropriate answer for each task. Then we propose an approach to handle these tasks using extensions to the COntext INterchange (COIN) technology for knowledge storage and knowledge processing.
Prospect Theory and market quality

Abstract We study equilibrium trading strategies and market quality in an economy in which speculators display preferences consistent with Prospect Theory (Kahneman and Tversky, [39] ; Tversky and Kahneman, [63] ), i.e., loss aversion and mild risk seeking in losses. Loss aversion (risk seeking in losses) induces speculators to trade less (more), and less cautiously (more aggressively), with their private information – but also makes them less (more) inclined to purchase private information when it is costly – in order to mitigate (enhance) their perceived risk of a trading loss. We demonstrate that these forces have novel, nontrivial, state-dependent effects on equilibrium market liquidity, price volatility, trading volume, market efficiency, and information production.
Financial analysts’ forecast revisions and managers’ reporting behavior

Abstract This paper studies an analyst's forecasting strategy and a manager's earnings management policy. When reporting earnings, the manager trades off the disutility he obtains from falling short of the analyst's forecast against the costs of manipulating earnings. The model predicts that: (i) the analyst's forecast exceeds median reported earnings; (ii) the analyst is more likely to revise his forecast downward than upward; (iii) mean and median forecast errors are larger in magnitude when the analyst has less precise information; and (iv) the stock market is, on average, more sensitive to reported earnings than to the analyst's forecasts.
Are speculators informed

The positions of hedgers and speculators are correlated with returns in a number of futures markets, but there is much debate as to the interpretation of such a relationship—whether it reflects private information, liquidity, or trend-chasing behavior. This paper studies the relationship between positioning of hedgers and speculators and returns in equity futures markets. I propose a novel test of the private information hypothesis: analyzing the effect of public announcements about futures positions on prices, using high-frequency data in short windows around the announcements. I find that the revelation of speculators' positions is informative to investors more broadly, supporting the private information view. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark
An Apple a Day Brings More Apples Your Way: Healthy Samples Prime Healthier Choices

Food samples can prime healthier or less healthy choices. We show this in both field (Study 1) and lab (Studies 2–3) settings. Healthy samples (Studies 1–2) or samples framed as healthy (Study 3) increase healthy purchases of both food products that are similar to the sample (Study 1) and those that are less closely related to it (Study 2–3). The studies advance our knowledge concerning the effects of samples, demonstrating that samples can serve as primes and encourage purchase of a greater number of products that are similar to the sample on dimensions such as healthiness. The findings can be used by retailers, policy bodies, and consumers to nudge consumers toward healthier options.
Parenthood Divided: A Legal History of the Bifurcated Law of Parental Relations.

The American law of parent and child is conventionally understood to be extremely deferential to parental prerogatives and highly reluctant to intervene. But this picture, endorsed by legal authorities and popular commentators from the nineteenth century to the present day, reflects only one tradition in the law’s regulation of parenthood. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there has also been massive legal intervention into the parental relation. This second legal tradition, moreover, has been guided by norms wholly different from those conventionally associated with family law, often evincing a radical suspicion of parental autonomy and an eager willingness to reshape family relations. This Article explores how the divide in the laws and norms governing the parental relation emerged and maintained itself, tracing an important chapter in the history of the law’s regulation of family life. It then uses this history to examine why the divide has survived the modern constitutional era. Parenthood Divided: A Legal History of the Bifurcated Law of Parental Relations Jill Elaine Hasday Introduction 1 I. THE BIFURCATION OF THE LEGAL TREATMENT OF PARENTHOOD 5 A. A Stark Divide in the Legal Regulation of Parenthood Emerges in Late Nineteenth-Century America 5 B. The First Half of the Divide: Common Law Principles and Family Law As It Was Officially Understood 10 C. Socioeconomics and the Ideal of Domesticity in the Nineteenth Century 18 1. Domesticity, and Failed Home Life, Defined 20 2. The Socioeconomics of Failed Fatherhood 24 II. DOMESTIC INTERVENTION 29 A. Philanthropic Intervention Between the Poor and Their Children 30 B. The Law of Child Cruelty 34 1. The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children 34 2. The Child Cruelty Movement 42 C. Mothers’ Pensions 47 III. THE MODERN DIVIDE IN THE LEGAL REGULATION OF PARENTHOOD 56 A. The Enduring Bifurcation 57 B. The Evasion of Critical Scrutiny 71 C. The Need for Normative Deliberation 84 * Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Law School. B.A. 1994, J.D. 1997, Yale University. I would like to thank Reva Siegel, Emily Buss, Mary Anne Case, Adrienne Davis, Allan Erbsen, Elizabeth Garrett, Jack Goldsmith, Ariela Gross, Philip Hamburger, Robert Hasday, R.H. Helmholz, Helen Hershkoff, Saul Levmore, Tracey Meares, Eric Posner, Anna Marie Smith, David Strauss, Cass Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule, and the participants in faculty workshops at the University of Chicago Law School and the fourth annual meeting of the Working Group on Law, Culture, and the Humanities. Rachel Bennett, Joan Britton, Susan Gihring, Danielle Kemp, and the University of Chicago Law Library all provided superb research assistance. The Arnold and Frieda Shure Research Fund and the Insurance Research Fund contributed generous financial support. 8 2001. Please do not cite, quote, or circulate without permission.
Capital Structure Decisions around the World: Which Factors Are Reliably Important?

This article examines the international determinants of capital structure using a large sample of firms from 37 countries. The reliable determinants for leverage are firm size, tangibility, industry leverage, profits, and inflation. The quality of the countries’ institutions affects leverage and the adjustment speed toward target leverage in significant ways. High-quality institutions lead to faster leverage adjustments, whereas laws and traditions that safeguard debt holders relative to stockholders (e.g., more effective bankruptcy procedures and stronger creditor protection) lead to higher leverage.