cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Conforming Loan Status on Mortgage Yield Spreads: A Loan Level Analysis

∗∗∗ ∗∗∗ The magnitude of the effect of government-sponsored enterprise purchases on primary mortgage market rates has been a difficult research question with differing data and competing methodologies producing varying results. Here we present a new approach using loan level data and controlling for credit risk differentials between conforming and nonconforming loans. Our method also addresses econometric problems of endogeneity and sample selection bias. We find that conforming loans have yield spreads about 5.5% lower compared to other loans on a risk-adjusted basis. This is lower than previous estimates appearing in the literature. Lenders in the primary mortgage market originate a range of contracts, many of which are then sold in the secondary market, either to the governmentsponsored enterprises (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, hereafter the GSEs 1 )o r pooled as collateral for private label mortgage-backed securities. Other loans are retained in portfolio or sold on a whole-loan basis. Loans vary in coupon, size, term, collateral and, of course, credit quality. Based on business strategy and risk preferences, together with information obtained during the underwriting process, and considering rules and price signals from the secondary market, lenders make a hold-versus-sell decision. What factors determine that decision, and what is the overall effect on rates in the primary market? These questions are among many that are crucial to evaluating the role of the GSEs, whose special status in the economy generates both costs and benefits (Sanders 2002). GSE purchases provide liquidity to primary lenders and perhaps ∗ ∗∗ ∗∗∗ � ∗∗∗
Does the exchange rate regime matter for real shocks? Evidence from windstorms and earthquakes

Abstract Does the choice of exchange rate regime affect an economy's adjustment to real shocks? Exploiting the unpredictability and economic exogeniety of windstorms–hurricanes and typhoons–and earthquakes this paper assesses the often contrasting answers found in the theoretical literature. There is robust evidence that exchange rate flexibility helps an economy better adjust to real shocks. And consistent with the channels emphasized in the classic literature on exchange rates and shocks, differences in the behavior of the export sector help explain the different reactions between the two regimes.
The Effects of Short-Selling Threats on Incentive Contracts: Evidence from an Experiment

This paper examines the effects of a shock to the stock-price formation process on the design of executive incentive contracts. We find that an exogenous removal of short-selling constraints causes firms to convexify compensation payoffs by granting relatively more stock options to their managers. We also find that treated firms adopt new antitakeover provisions. These results suggest that when firms face the threat of bear raids, they incentivize managers to take actions that mitigate the adverse effects of unrestrained short selling. Overall, this paper provides causal evidence that financial markets affect incentive contract design.
On information technology and the safety of police officers

Abstract Police officers perform their duties every day under the constant threat of violence, and each year, more than 50,000 police officers in the United States suffer assaults. In this paper, we examine the relationship between IT use by the police and the number of police officers killed or assaulted in the line of duty. To do so, we theorize how IT use helps organizations identify, predict, and avoid risks to its personnel and put forth that IT use for crime intelligence, prediction, and investigation reduces violence against police officers. We also conducted an interview with a police captain, who provided first-accounts of how IT use helps police officers on the ground. Our empirical analysis of a panel dataset from 4325 U.S. local police departments shows that IT use by the police is associated with a significant decrease in the number of police officers killed or assaulted in the line of duty. We seek to expand the scope of the IS literature by theorizing and empirically demonstrating the role of IT in the occupational safety of personnel in organizations that operate in unpredictable, risky, and life-threatening environments.
Law and, Law in, Law as: The Definition, Rejection and Recuperation of the Socio-Legal Enterprise

The critical moment in socio-legal studies that flowered in the United States and elsewhere between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s coincided with the maturation of the Legal Studies Department at Melbourne's La Trobe University. During its two-decade span (1972-1994) La Trobe Legal Studies developed multidisciplinary critical and theoretical perspectives on law - as substance, as professional practice, as field of academic inquiry - to an extent and depth unrivalled in Australia or, with just a few exceptions, internationally. This essay charts the particular trajectory followed by one of those perspectives, legal history, both at La Trobe and in the wider world. Simultaneously, it offers a short history of the Department itself: of its growth during the 1970s and 1980s; of its transformation into a law school during the 1990s; and of the struggles to maintain a place for the social in the legal that occurred during that transformation. Perceptions of socio-legal scholarship have evolved over time into what may be described today as a 'broad church' of ideas - with a critical element ... They refute the notion that law is a self-contained, coherent and neutral discipline and adopt a critical and questioning stance. It is hoped that the new generation will draw what lessons they can from the La Trobe experience and be inspired by a sense of continuity and connection. Most significantly, justice demands that they do not give up on legal education in favour of the sway of market orthodoxy.
Client‐Acceptance Decisions: Simultaneous Effects of Client Business Risk, Audit Risk, Auditor Business Risk, and Risk Adaptation

Little is known about how audit partners make the client‐acceptance decision. In this paper, a model is developed and tested that characterizes the client‐acceptance decision as a process of risk evaluation and risk adaptation. The model proposes that auditors will evaluate client‐related risks (e.g., financial viability, and internal control) and use that evaluation to determine if the audit firm will suffer a loss on the engagement via a lack of engagement profitability or future litigation. The model proposes that auditors will adapt to the client‐acceptance risks by using three strategies: (1) screening clients based on their risk characteristics; (2) screening clients based on the audit firm's risk of loss on the engagement; and (3) more proactively adapting using strategies including adjusting the audit fee, making plans about necessary audit evidence, making plans about personnel assignment, and/or adjusting the amount of data collected during the client‐acceptance process. To test the model, an ex...
The Eligibility Paradox

This article examines the fundamental concept of uniform academic eligibility standards for college athletes. It argues that the NCAA is an organization governed by the principle of athletics primacy rather than the educational primacy of its members. The unintended result has been the creation of an eligibility paradox. Uniform rules intended to enhance academic goals inherently suppress the value of the educational opportunity paid to student-athletes in exchange for their athletic participation. The article further argues that separating the concept of academic eligibility from athletic eligibility and transforming the former into one of compensation through academic achievement will best maximize the value of an educational opportunity. Such a reform may lead to the development of modifications to amateur eligibility including the permissibility of payments to student-athletes for the use of their names and images by universities, and perhaps, the signing of contracts with professional sports teams without losing athletic eligibility for intercollegiate athletics. It is time to adapt the dinosaur of NCAA intercollegiate athletics to modern realities.
Good Conduct Time for Prisoners: Why (and How) Wisconsin Should Provide Credits Toward Early Release

Wisconsin is one of about twenty states not offering good conduct time (GCT) to prisoners. In most states, prisoners are able to earn GCT credits toward accelerated release through good behavior. Wisconsin itself had GCT for more than a century, but eliminated it as part of a set of reforms in the 1980s and 1990s that left the state with what may be the nation’s most inflexible system for the release of prisoners. Although some of these reforms helpfully brought greater certainty to punishment, they went too far in eliminating nearly all meaningful recognition and encouragement of good behavior and rehabilitative progress. This article explains why and how Wisconsin should reinstitute GCT, drawing on social scientific research on the effects of GCT, public opinion surveys in Wisconsin and across the United States regarding sentencing policy, and an analysis of the GCT laws in place in other jurisdictions. Although the article focuses particularly on Wisconsin’s circumstances, the basic argument for GCT is more generally applicable, and much of the analysis should be of interest to policymakers in other states, too.
Rhetorical legitimation: global scripts as strategic devices of international organizations †

This paper focuses on a largely neglected aspect of legitimation in international organizations (IOs)—the rhetorical work done by IO scripts as a legitimation strategy of IOs. Based on extensive research within regional and global IOs, we demonstrate four aspects of rhetorical legitimation. First, IO texts draw upon a finite repertoire of rhetorical devices (a) to propagate legitimation strengths of an IO, (b) to amplify or compensate for legitimation weaknesses and (c) to express rhetorical repertoires which convey their own intrinsic merits. Second, configurations of rhetorical devices in IO texts are affected by temporal contexts, such as exogenous shocks and the historical sequencing of IO norm production. Third, the negotiation of relations of IO interdependency, including competition and cooperation, are partly signaled and managed through the rhetorical repertoires of IO products. Fourth, texts have their own properties, formal and substantive, that are crafted to persuade domestic law-makers.
Short-term and long-term expectations of the yen/dollar exchange rate: Evidence from survey data

Abstract Three surveys of exchange rate expectations allow us to measure directly the expected rates of return on the yen versus the dollar. Expectations of yen appreciation against the dollar have been (1) consistently large, (2) variable, and (3) greater than the forward premium, implying that investors were willing to accept a lower expected return on dollar assets. At short-term horizons expectations exhibit bandwagon effects, while at longer-term horizons they show the reverse. A l0% yen appreciation generates the expectation of a further appreciation of 2.4% over the following week, for example, but a depreciation of 3.4% over the following year. At any horizon, investors would do better to reduce the absolute magnitude of expected depreciation. The true spot rate process behaves more like a random walk. J. Japan. Int. Econ. , September 1987, 1 (3), pp. 249–274. Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; and Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
An Examination of the Perceived Impact of Flexible Work Arrangements on Professional Opportunities in Public Accounting

Since 1990, the multinational public accounting firms have all adopted flexible work arrangement policies. In part, the firms are doing this to fulfill an ethical obligation in creating an appropriate professional environment for their employees. This study examines the effect of participation in a flexible work arrangement program on an individual's professional success and anticipated turnover as perceived by the participant's peers and superiors. Subjects from one Big Five accounting firm read a description of a manager and answered a series of questions about the likelihood of the manager's promotion to partner, voluntary and involuntary turnover, and desirability on a job. Gender and participation in a flexible work arrangement were manipulated in a 2×2 design. The results indicate that participation in a flexible work arrangement evoked significantly more pessimistic predictions on all of the dimensions. Gender did not have an effect on the likelihood ratings. Follow-up questions about the factors that enhance and hinder individuals’ career success in each work scenario indicated that the perceived ability to "juggle" and the ability to "pull one's weight" potentially affects evaluations of what it takes to be a successful professional in the financial services environment. Implications for professional and ethics practice and research are also presented.
Oil and Freshwater Don't Mix: Transnational Regulation of Drilling in the Great Lakes

In the wake of the Gulf oil blowout disaster, there is renewed interest in protecting the freshwater of the Great Lakes from the risks of oil drilling. The region has significant oil resources that would be economically and technologically accessible through drilling in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes bottomlands and shorelines are subject to the regulatory jurisdiction of two countries—the United States and Canada—and eight American states. While the existing legal regime lacks uniformity, and is characterized by jurisdictional inconsistency and potential for transboundary pollution externalities, oil drilling is mostly prohibited. With strong public support for protecting the Great Lakes, there is an opportunity to further strengthen oil drilling regulation in the Great Lakes through international and domestic law. Introduction: Great Lakes Freshwater and Oil Resources The Great Lakes are the world’s largest surface freshwater system.1 With 5440 cubic miles of fresh surface water, the five Great Lakes— Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario, along with the St. Lawrence River and connecting channels— comprise ninety-five percent of the fresh surface water in the United States and twenty percent of the world’s supply. The Great Lakes provide drinking water to tens of millions of Americans and Canadians * © 2011, Noah D. Hall, Associate Professor, Wayne State University Law School; J.D., University of Michigan Law School, 1998; B.S., University of Michigan School of Natural Resources & Environment, 1995. Thanks to Benjamin Houston ( J.D., University of Michigan Law School, expected 2011) for his research assistance, and to Alana Van der Mude and the staff of the Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review for their superb editorial work. 1 Noah D. Hall, Toward a New Horizontal Federalism: Interstate Water Management in the Great Lakes Region, 77 U. Colo. L. Rev. 405, 414 (2006). 2 Id. (citing N.G. Grannemann et al., U.S. Geological Survey, The Importance of Ground Water in the Great Lakes Region 1 (2000)). 3 Id. at 414--15 (citing Int’l Joint Comm’n, Protection of the Waters of the Great Lakes: Final Report to the Governments of Canada and the United States 6 (2000), available at http://www.ijc.org/php/publications/html/finalreport.html.
The impact of China's WTO accession on East Asia

China's World Trade Organization (WTO) accession will have major implications for China and present both opportunities and challenges for East Asia. Ianchovichina and Walmsley assess the possible channels through which China's accession to the WTO could affect East Asia and quantify these effects using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model. China will be the biggest beneficiary of accession, followed by the industrial and newly industrializing economies (NIEs) in East Asia. But their benefits are small relative to the size of their economies and to the vigorous growth projected to occur in the region over the next 10 years. By contrast, developing countries in East Asia are expected to incur small declines in real GDP and welfare as a result of China's accession, mainly because with the elimination of quotas on Chinese textile and apparel exports to industrial countries China will become a formidable competitor in areas in which these countries have comparative advantage. With WTO accession China will increase its demand for petrochemicals, electronics, machinery, and equipment from Japan and the NIEs, and farm, timber, energy products, and other manufactures from the developing countries in East Asia. New foreign investment is likely to flow into these expanding sectors. The overall impact on foreign investment is likely to be positive in the NIEs, but negative for the less developed East Asian countries as a result of the contraction of these economies' textile and apparel sector. As China becomes a more efficient supplier of services or a more efficient producer of high-end manufactures, its comparative advantage will shift into higher-end products. This is good news for the poor developing economies in East Asia, but it implies that the impact of China's WTO accession on the NIEs may change to include heightened competition in global markets.
The Questionable Case for Using Auctions to Select Lead Counsel

This Article analyzes the shortcomings of using auctions for selecting lead counsel in class action cases. In contrast to what proponents of auctions suggest, the outcome of an auction is likely to diverge considerably from what an informed principal would have chosen. In particular, auctions push the percentage of recovery paid to counsel to the lowest level at which law firms would be willing to take the case. Because of the need to provide counsel with incentives to invest effort and resources, however, the class might well be better served by a higher percentage than this minimum level, and auctions might push fees to levels that are too low. The analyzed problems are ones that arise also in those types of cases for which the use of auctions should be considered according to the recent recommendations of a Task Force report.
A Post-Formation Right of Withdrawal from Customary International Law? Some Cautionary Notes

I Duke law professors Curtis Bradley and Mitu Gulati ("BG there is normally little point in acting unreasonably with respect to other states if you will need those states to recognize your similar claims on other occasions. After a settled practice has emerged, publicists or the International Law Commission then may attempt a formal recitation of the practice. It is this strong dimension of reciprocity that explains the development of, say, diplomatic immunity law and customary rules on the recognition of foreign judgments in domestic tribunals. For other matters, either the prospect of reciprocity may be less important or changes in relative power or stage of development among states may provoke change in customary practices. For such disputes, CIL provides a currency, linguistic and otherwise, for negotiating differences that avoids the language of self-interest, does not require use or overt threat of force or other countermeasures and need not practically bind anyone, unless states have agreed ex ante or ex post to refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice ("ICJ") or other arbitral mechanism for resolution under CIL. (5) For weak states--i.e., those that lack the means to use self-help measures to enforce their expectations of appropriate behavior by other states, such as seizing of fishing boats nearing waters to which they lay claim--CIL provides a means of saving face and registering objections short of force. For strong states--i.e., those that can use self-help with relative impunity--CIL provides a means of signaling the intensity of their claim initially without actually declaring resort to self-help or other force. …
The effects of prospective mate quality on investments in healthy body weight among single women

Abstract This paper examines how a single female's investment in healthy body weight is affected by the quality of single males in her marriage market. A principle concern in estimation is the presence of market-level unobserved heterogeneity that may be correlated with changes in single male quality, measured as earning potential. To address this concern, we employ a differencing strategy that normalizes the exercise behaviors of single women to those of their married counterparts. Our main results suggest that when potential mate quality in a marriage market decreases, single black women invest less in healthy body weight. For example, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of low quality single black males leads to a 5–10% decrease in vigorous exercise taken by single black females. Results for single white women are qualitatively similar, but not consistent across specifications. These results highlight the relationship between male and female human capital acquisition that is driven by participation in the marriage market. Our results suggest that programs designed to improve the economic prospects of single males may yield positive externalities in the form of improved health behaviors, such as more exercise, particularly for single black females.
What’s in a Name? On Language, Concept Formation, and the Definition Disputes in the Entrepreneurship Literature

When it comes to entrepreneurship, the conceptual framework of economics is disjointed: On the one hand almost everyone agrees that entrepreneurial initiative and creativity are critical for economic progress. On the other hand neither initiative, nor creativity, plays any role in formal models of choice and economic behavior. This creates a blind spot on the behavioral aspects of entrepreneurship. It has also spawned a dichotomy between the functional and behavioral aspects of entrepreneurial actions in the economics literature. Most importantly, it prevents economists from developing a coherent unifying theoretical framework for making sense of entrepreneurs. The problem is reinforced by the language and semiotics of economics and is reflected by the lack of behavioral research on entrepreneurs in the literature. As suggested by Baumol (1968 and 2010) initiative and creativity are the obvious defining traits of entrepreneurship. Even so, the literature has spawned a variety of different and occasionally nonsensical definitions of entrepreneurship that obscure and divert our attention away from these defining characteristics. The divergent definitions in the literature are further exacerbated by discordant conceptual structures and ideas that cannot easily be translated from one field to another. In the absence of a unifying framework, different fields have focused narrowly on entrepreneurship from dissimilar angles. The bottom line is that researchers in different fields sometimes rely on such incompatible definitions of what constitutes entrepreneurship that interdisciplinary dialogue is impossible. The end result is akin to the problem of radical translation between different languages. The paper concludes that the definition debates will not be resolved without a unifying structure that focuses on initiative and creativity as the defining attributes of entrepreneurship. This calls for some new tools and behavioral models that can explicitly account for initiative and creativity as integral aspects of human choices and actions.
Exploring the Nature of “Trader Intuition”

Experimental evidence has consistently confirmed the ability of uninformed traders, even novices, to infer information from the trading process. After contrasting brain activation in subjects watching markets with and without insiders, we hypothesize that Theory of Mind (ToM) helps explain this pattern, where ToM refers to the human capacity to discern malicious or benevolent intent. We find that skill in predicting price changes in markets with insiders correlates with scores on two ToM tests. We document GARCH-like persistence in transaction price changes that may help investors read markets when there are insiders.
Intangible Captivity: The Potential for a New Canadian Criminal Defense of Brainwashing and Its Implications for the Battered Woman

This Paper explores the potential for a Canadian defense of brainwashing in the context of battered spouses who commit crimes against third parties. Part I briefly discusses a working definition of “brainwashing” and the historical basis for this potential defense. Part II discusses the juridical basis for a new defense of brainwashing by examining the theory behind the proposed defense. This leads to an examination of the established defenses of necessity, duress, automatism, and diminished capacity, which in turn moves the discussion toward the feasibility of an affirmative defense of brainwashing through the concept of superimposed intent. Part III will explore the evolution of Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) as a model for a new defense and will examine brainwashing and the battered spouse. The paper is limited to a subset of abused women termed victims of the “sexual sadist.” Part IV concludes by analyzing the case of Karla Homolka and the future of a brainwashing defense. INTRODUCTION 31 PART I: SETTING THE FOUNDATION 34 A. Definition of the Term Brainwashing 34 PART II: THE JURIDICAL BASIS FOR A NEW DEFENSE OF BRAINWASHING 35 A. Free Will and Choice Theory 36 B. The Established Defenses 39 C. Superimposed Intent 43 PART III: BRAINWASHING AND THE BATTERED SPOUSE 46 A. Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) 46 B. The Battered Spouse and Prisoners of War 50 C. Sexual Sadism 54 † Frances E. Chapman, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies, St. Jerome’s University, University of Waterloo, Waterloo Ontario Canada. I thank St. Jerome’s University for its generous research support. MAIN CHAPMAN (DO NOT DELETE) 1/30/2013 5:07 PM INTANGIBLE CAPTIVITY 31 D. The Sexually Sadistic Criminal 56 E. Compliant Victims of the Sexual Sadist 58 PART IV: THE USE OF THE BRAINWASHING DEFENSE IN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS—CASE STUDY 62 A. Homolka and Brainwashing 68 CONCLUSION 73
Jurors’ Emotions and Judgments of Legal Responsibility and Blame: What Does the Experimental Research Tell Us?

Jurors’ emotions, both integral and incidental, can affect their attributions of legal responsibility and blame in several, sometimes complexly interrelated ways. The article reviews the experimental research, outlining the multiple paths of emotional influence, and explains why identifying them is worthwhile. It then discusses why the modest to moderate effect sizes found in the research may understate emotions’ actual influence in some cases yet overstate it in others, and discounts moral intuitionism as a reason for believing that emotional influences in real cases are stronger than the experimental data indicates. The article concludes with recommendations for further research.
Teaching Legal History in the First Year Curriculum

Legal history has been a required first semester course at the University of New Mexico School of Law since 1987. The author and creator of this course -- virtually unique among American law schools -- describes its evolution, coverage and objectives.
Stochastic physics, complex systems and biology

In complex systems, the interplay between nonlinear and stochastic dynamics, e.g., J. Monod’s necessity and chance, gives rise to an evolutionary process in Darwinian sense, in terms of discrete jumps among attractors, with punctuated equilibria, spontaneous random “mutations” and “adaptations”. On an evolutionary time scale it produces sustainable diversity among individuals in a homogeneous population rather than convergence as usually predicted by a deterministic dynamics. The emergent discrete states in such a system, i.e., attractors, have natural robustness against both internal and external perturbations. Phenotypic states of a biological cell, a mesoscopic nonlinear stochastic open biochemical system, could be understood through such a perspective.
AMERICAN INCOMES BEFORE AND AFTER THE REVOLUTION

Building social tables in the tradition of Gregory King, we develop new estimates suggesting that between 1774 and 1800 American incomes fell in real per capita terms. The colonial South was richer than the North at the start, but was already beginning to lose its income lead by 1800. We also find that free American colonists had much more equal incomes than did households in England and Wales. The colonists had greater purchasing power than their English counterparts over all of the income ranks except in the top percent.
The "Americanization" of Legal Education in South Korea: Challenges and Opportunities

INTRODUCTION In 2007, the South Korean government voted to adopt an American style three-year law school system and effected a radical change in the legal education process.1 The event marked the end of decades of debate about how best to transform a national bar exam system that averaged below a 5 percent passage rate, yielding too few practitioners to provide affordable legal services and failing to produce professionally skilled lawyers who could be competitive in the global market.2 For a country that currently vies for the title of “most wired” in the universe3 and figures prominently as a major player in the world economy, the legal education system established during the Japanese colonial period had fallen far behind these other economic and societal advances.4 Like other countries that have engaged in legal education reform in recent times, Korea5 recognized that the global legal market is headed toward standardization based on the U.S. model of legal education and training.6 Though ostensibly “American” in terms of style, the
Antitrust and International Regulatory Federalism

In this Essay, Andrew Guzman proposes internationalization of antitrust law to supplant current methods of antitrust regulation across national borders. Specifically, instead of relying on local regulation, bilateral agreements between states, or a choice-of-law rule for antitrust enforcement, countries should adopt universal substantive standards. Moreover, Guzman recommends the World Trade Organization (WTO), which already employs a dispute resolution mechanism, as the governing forum for international antitrust issues. There, states can negotiate transfer payments in one international transaction to achieve agreement in another. Upon evaluating Professor Eleanor Fox’s proposal of a stand-alone World Competition Forum that would specialize exclusively in international antitrust negotiations, Guzman concludes that the WTO is the preferred forum. Its dispute resolution system would facilitate substantive cooperation among countries by allowing for concessions exchanged in antitrust as well as in other areas of international relations.
The Effect of Gasoline Taxes and Public Transit Investments on Driving Patterns

This paper analyzes how driving patterns are affected by gasoline taxes and the availability of a substitute for driving—public transportation. We develop a measure of transportation substitutability based on the difference between individuals’ predicted commute times by private and public transit, conditional upon their demographic characteristics and geographic location. Improved substitutability decreases annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by inducing modal shifts to public transit, though gasoline taxes are found to have a much larger impact on VMT. Our results imply that a policy that raises gasoline taxes and recycles the revenues into public transit improvements can have even larger impacts on driving patterns than either policy alone.
Suppression of HD cooling in protogalactic gas clouds by Lyman–Werner radiation

It has been shown that HD molecules can form efficiently in metal-free gas collapsing into massive protogalactic haloes at high redshift. The resulting radiative cooling by HD can lower the gas temperature to that of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), TCMB= 2.7(1 +z) K, significantly below the temperature of a few ×100 K achievable via H2 cooling alone, and thus reduce the masses of the first generation of stars. Here we consider the suppression of HD cooling by ultraviolet (UV) irradiation in the Lyman–Werner (LW) bands. We include photodissociation of both H2 and HD, and explicitly compute the self-shielding and shielding of both molecules by neutral hydrogen, H i, as well as the shielding of HD by H2. We use a simplified dynamical collapse model, and follow the chemical and thermal evolution of the gas, in the presence of a UV background. We find that a LW flux of Jcrit,HD≈ 10−22 erg cm−2 sr−1 s−1 Hz−1 is able to suppress HD cooling and thus prevent collapsing primordial gas from reaching temperatures below ∼100 K. The main reason for the lack of HD cooling for J > Jcrit,HD is the partial photodissociation of H2, which prevents the gas from reaching sufficiently low temperatures (T < 150 K) for HD to become the dominant coolant; direct HD photodissociation is unimportant except for a narrow range of fluxes and column densities. Since the prevention of HD cooling requires only partial H2 photodissociation, the critical flux Jcrit,HD is modest, and is below the UV background required to re-ionize the Universe at z∼ 10–20. We conclude that HD cooling can reduce the masses of typical stars only in rare haloes forming well before the epoch of re-ionization.
SELECTION AND MARKET REALLOCATION: PRODUCTIVITY GAINS FROM MULTINATIONAL PRODUCTION

Abstract Assessing productivity gains from multinational production has been a vital topic of economic research and policy debate. Positive productivity gains are often attributed to productivity spillovers; however, an alternative, much less emphasized channel is selection and market reallocation, whereby competition leads to factor and revenue reallocation within and between domestic firms and exits of the least productive firms. We investigate the roles of these different mechanisms in determining aggregate-productivity gains using a unifying framework that explores the mechanisms' distinct predictions on the distributions of domestic firms: within-firm productivity improvement shifts rightward or reshapes the productivity distribution, while selection and market reallocation move the revenue and employment distributions leftward and raise left truncations. Using a rich cross-country firm-level panel dataset, we find significant evidence of both mechanisms and effects of competition in product, technol...
Exponential Series Estimator of multivariate densities

Abstract We present an Exponential Series Estimator (ESE) of multivariate densities, which has an appealing information-theoretic interpretation. For a d dimensional random variable x with density p 0 , the ESE takes the form p θ ( x ) = exp ( ∑ i 1 = 0 m 1 ⋯ ∑ i d = 0 m d θ i ϕ i ( x ) ) , where ϕ i are some real-valued, linearly independent functions defined on the support of p 0 . We derive the convergence rate of the ESE in terms of the Kullback–Leibler Information Criterion, the integrated squared error and some other metrics. We also derive its almost sure uniform convergence rate. We then establish the asymptotic normality of p θ ˆ . We undertake two sets of Monte Carlo experiments. The first experiment examines the ESE performance using mixtures of multivariate normal densities. The second estimates copula density functions. The results demonstrate the efficacy of the ESE. An empirical application on the joint distributions of stock returns is presented.
On the relationship between the structural and socioacademic communities of a coauthorship network

Abstract This article presents a study that compares detected structural communities in a coauthorship network to the socioacademic characteristics of the scholars that compose the network. The coauthorship network was created from the bibliographic record of a multi-institution, interdisciplinary research group focused on the study of sensor networks and wireless communication. Four different community detection algorithms were employed to assign a structural community to each scholar in the network: leading eigenvector, walktrap, edge betweenness and spinglass. Socioacademic characteristics were gathered from the scholars and include such information as their academic department, academic affiliation, country of origin, and academic position. A Pearson’s χ 2 test, with a simulated Monte Carlo, revealed that structural communities best represent groupings of individuals working in the same academic department and at the same institution. A generalization of this result suggests that, even in interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research groups, coauthorship is primarily driven by departmental and institutional affiliation.
A (New) Country Insurance Facility

To cope with the self-fulfilling liquidity runs that have triggered many recent financial crises, we propose the creation of a country insurance facility. The facility, which we envisage as complementary to the existing multilateral lending facilities, would provide eligible countries with automatic access to a credit line at a predetermined interest rate. Eligibility criteria should be easily verifiable, focus on debt sustainability, and take into account the currency and maturity composition of the debt. Other critical design issues considered here include the size of the facility, its duration and charges, and the exit costs for a country that loses eligibility.
Regulation and Bonding: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Flow of International Listings

In this paper, we examine the economic impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) by analyzing foreign listing behavior onto U.S. and U.K. stock exchanges before and after the enactment of SOX in 2002. Using a sample of all listing events onto U.S. and U.K. exchanges from 1995–2006, we develop an exchange choice model that captures firm-level, industry-level, exchange-level, and country-level listing incentives, and test whether these listing preferences changed following the enactment of SOX. After controlling for firm characteristics and other economic determinants of these firms' exchange choice, we find that the listing preferences of large foreign firms choosing between U.S. exchanges and the London Stock Exchange's (LSE) Main Market did not change following the enactment of SOX. In contrast, we find that the likelihood of a U.S. listing among small foreign firms choosing between the NASDAQ and LSE's Alternative Investment Market decreased following the enactment of SOX. The negative effect among small firms is consistent with these marginal companies being less able to absorb the incremental costs associated with SOX compliance. The screening of smaller firms with weaker governance attributes from U.S. exchanges is consistent with the heightened governance costs imposed by SOX increasing the bonding-related benefits of a U.S. listing.
It's Not Just About Miranda: Determining the Voluntariness of Confessions in Criminal Prosecutions

Although Miranda has had a major impact on the admissibility of interrogations, it may come as a surprise to many readers that Miranda has not completely eliminated the pre-1966 rules of voluntariness by any means. In fact, the voluntariness standard is still applicable in a large number of cases today that discuss police interrogations and which do not focus on Miranda warnings as the main issue. This Article evaluates the law on voluntariness by examining several major United States Supreme Court decisions on point and then summarizes the way in which state and federal judges continue to construe and apply the “totality of the circumstances” standard. Several factors arise across the trial court decisions, including acts of deception, threats, promises, duration of interrogation, and the individual defendant’s characteristics, such as age and intelligence. Due to the seemingly endless list of factors and differing weights accorded to each throughout the courts, this due process test offers almost no guidance for lawyers and judges. The messy and ineffective rules of voluntariness that pervaded the 1950s and 1960s are just as poorly and inconsistently applied today.
Mind Reading and the Art of Drafting Medical Opinions in Veterans Benefits Claims

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ disability compensation program is distinctly different from other benefits systems and legal claims of disability. A medical professional seeking to provide evidence to be used in deciding such a claim must understand how that evidence fits into the process so that he or she may present a complete and useful opinion. This article assists those providing expert opinions in veterans benefits claims by describing: (a) the kinds of adjudicators who will evaluate the opinions, (b) the legal requirements defining the types and amount of detail required, and (c) the basic substance of veterans law with which a medical examiner should be familiar so as to produce a complete and relevant opinion.
Robin Hood Under the Hood: Wealth-Based Discrimination in Illicit Customer Help

This paper investigates whether an employee's perception of customer wealth affects his likelihood of engaging in illegal behavior. We propose that envy and empathy lead employees to discriminate in illicitly helping customers based on customer wealth. We test for this hypothesis in the vehicle emissions testing market, where employees have the opportunity to illegally help customers by passing vehicles that would otherwise fail emissions tests. We find that for a significant number of inspectors, leniency is much higher for those customers with standard vehicles than for those with luxury cars, although a smaller group appears to favor wealthy drivers. We also investigate the psychological mechanisms explaining this wealth-based discriminatory behavior using a laboratory study. Our experiment shows that individuals are more willing to illegally help peers when those peers drive standard rather than luxury cars, and that envy and empathy mediate this effect. Collectively, our results suggest the presence of wealth-based discrimination in employee--customer relations and that envy toward wealthy customers and empathy toward those of similar economic status drive much of this illegal behavior. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.
Earnings-based and accrual-based market anomalies: one effect or two?

Abstract This paper investigates whether the accrual pricing anomaly documented by Sloan (1996. The Accounting Review 71(3), 289–316) for annual data holds for quarterly data and whether this form of market mispricing is distinct from the post-earnings announcement drift anomaly. We find that the market appears to overestimate the persistence of the accrual component of quarterly earnings and, therefore, tends to overprice accruals. Moreover, the accrual mispricing appears to be distinct from post-earnings announcement drift. A hedge portfolio trading strategy that exploits both forms of market mispricing generates abnormal returns in excess of those based on either unexpected earnings or accruals information alone.
The Dispensable Lives of Soldiers

Why are all soldiers fair game in war? This paper challenges the status-based distinction of the laws of war, calling instead for revised targeting doctrines that would place further limits on the killing of enemy soldiers. I argue that the changing nature of wars and militaries casts doubts on the necessity of killing all enemy combatants indiscriminately. I offer two amendments: The fi rst is a reinterpretation of the principle of distinction, suggesting that the status-based classifi cation be complemented by a test of threat. Consequently, combatants who pose no real threat would be spared from direct attack. The second is a reinterpretation of the principle of military necessity, introducing a least-harmful-means test, under which an alternative of capture or disabling of the enemy would be preferred to killing whenever feasible. I discuss the practical and normative implications of adopting these amendments, suggesting possible legal strategies of bringing them about.
Discovering One's Talent: Learning from Academic Specialization:

The author examines an exogenous difference in the timing of academic specialization within the British system of higher education to test whether education yields information about one's match quality in different fields of study. In distinguishing between systems requiring early and late specialization, he predicts the likelihood of an individual switching to an occupation unrelated to one's field of study. If higher education serves mainly to provide specific skills, the model predicts more switching in a system requiring late specialization since the cost of switching is lower in terms of foregone skills. Using the Universities Statistical Record from 1972 to 1993 and the 1980 National Survey of Graduates and Diplomates, he finds that individuals who specialize early, as in the case of England, are more likely to switch to an unrelated occupation, implying that the benefits to increased match quality are sufficiently large to outweigh the greater loss in skills from specializing early.
On the plausibility and scope of expert systems in management

Over the last decade there have been several efforts at building knowl- edge-based "expert systems," mostly in the scientific and medical arenas. Despite the fact that almost all such systems are in their experimental stages, designers are optimistic about their eventual success. In the last few years, there have been many references to the possibility of expert systems in the management literature. Howev- er, what is lacking is a clear theoretical perspective on how various management problems differ in nature from problems in other domains and the implications of these differences for knowledge-based decision support systems for management. In this paper, I examine some of these differences, what they suggest in terms of the functionality that a computer-based system must have in order to support organiza- tional decision making, and the scope of such a system as a decision aid. The discussion is grounded in the context of a computer-based system called planet that exhibits some of the desired functionality.
The Model of War

During the past half-century, the United States has declared war on (among else) poverty, cancer, crime, drugs, and terrorism. This essay examines, in the context of these, war as a model for responding to domestic political problems and focuses on the role that that model has played in representing the state and its relation to those evils identified as the enemy.