cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Boom–bust cycle, asymmetrical fiscal response and the Dutch disease

This paper investigates the changes in expenditure policy in oil-exporting countries during boom–bust in commodity price cycles, and their implications for real exchange rate movements. To do so, we introduce a Dutch disease model with downward rigidities in government spending to revenue shocks. This model leads to a decoupling between real exchange rate and commodity export price movement during busts. We test our model's theoretical predictions and underlying assumptions using panel data for 32 oil-exporting countries over the period 1992 to 2009. Results are threefold. First, we find that changes in current spending have a stronger impact on real exchange rate compared to capital spending. Second, we find that current spending is downwardly sticky, but increases in boom time, and conversely for capital spending. Third, we find limited evidence that fiscal rules have helped reduce the degree of responsiveness of current spending during booms. In contrast, we find evidence that fiscal rules are associated with a significant reduction in capital expenditure during busts while responsiveness to booms is more muted. This raises concerns on potential adverse consequences of this asymmetry on economic performance in oil-exporting countries.
Free Exercise in the Free State: Maryland's Role in Religious Liberty and the First Amendment

Maryland arguably holds the distinction of being the state whose early history most directly ensured, and whose citizenry was most directly affected by, the First Amendment's protection of religious freedom. Because of its relatively diverse religious population, Maryland stood out as both a champion of tolerance and a hotbed of discrimination for most of its colonial experience. Similarities have been pointed out between the first provincial government in St. Mary's, Maryland, and the American plan under the Constitution, particularly with respect to religious liberty.This article offers a brief overview of the religious history of Maryland, focuses on important state cases that have contributed to the jurisprudence of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in the First Amendment and examines several unresolved issues engendered by recent litigation and legislation.
Information Technology, Workplace Organization, and the Demand for Skilled Labor: Firm-Level Evidence

We investigate the hypothesis that the combination of three related innovations—1) information technology (IT), 2) complementary workplace reorganization, and 3) new products and services—constitute a significant skill-biased technical change affecting labor demand in the United States. Using detailed firm-level data, we find evidence of complementarities among all three of these innovations in factor demand and productivity regressions. In addition, firms that adopt these innovations tend to use more skilled labor. The effects of IT on labor demand are greater when IT is combined with the particular organizational investments we identify, highlighting the importance of IT-enabled organizational change.
THE HEALTH CARE CHOICE ACT: THE INDIVIDUAL INSURANCE MARKET AND THE POLITICS OF "CHOICE"

Traditionally, employer-sponsored group insurance plans have been the backbone of health insurance coverage in the United States. While it is still true that most Americans get their health insurance through their employment, the erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance has increased the ranks of the uninsured and pushed more workers, retirees and their families into the individual insurance market. In 2005, for example, nine percent of the population, or nearly 27 million people, turned to individual policies for health insurance coverage. The Health Care Choice Act of 2005 (the "Act") currently before Congress aims to reform perceived problems in the individual market, and is touted as part of the solution to the problem of the uninsured. It purports to allow individuals who are not eligible for or cannot afford group coverage to purchase an individual policy in and from any state. If passed, the Act would allow health insurers to offer individual policies of insurance from any state without being required to comply with the laws of the insured's state. Its proponents claim that it would lower the cost of individual health insurance by bypassing state laws such as those mandating benefits, and offer consumers more choice.It does not appear that the Act would lower costs for most purchasers, increase meaningful choices, or reduce the overall number of uninsured. Moreover, the Act would permit health insurers to sell policies from the states with the fewest consumer protections, and to market and sell those policies to consumers in all other states. This would erode important consumer protections under state law and undercut the role of the states in regulating health insurance products and protecting their citizens. Worse, the Act could increase the existing problem of fragmentation in the individual and broader insurance markets and divert attention away from systemic issues such as the increasingly high cost of health care, and the growing crisis of un- and under-insurance. Indeed, the Act can be seen as an example of the larger political approach to health care policy, one focused on individual, market-based solutions that undermine the concept of health insurance as an expression of social solidarity and collective responsibility.
I am, ergo I shop: does store image congruity explain shopping behaviour of Chinese consumers?

Extant research on the relationship between consumer image congruence and retail store choice suggests that there exist four types of self congruity (actual self-congruity, social self-congruity, ideal self-congruity, and ideal social self-congruity) based on the identification of four types of selfconcept (actual self-image, social self-image, ideal self-image, and ideal social self-image). Mixed results have been produced by research undertaken in the western context particularly in terms of which type(s) of self-congruity is(are) significantly related to consumer attitudes and behaviour. To assess further the predictive power of different types of image-congruity, we conducted an empirical study among Chinese consumers on the relationship between self-congruity, satisfaction, perceived value and store loyalty. China was chosen for this study because recent entry of European and American retailers in China exerts strong need for better understanding of retail consumer behaviour. Moreover both anecdotal and literature evidences suggest that Chinese consumers could differ significantly from the western counterparts in terms of how their self-congruity influences their shopping behaviour. The results of structural equation modelling on our sample (n=320) indicate that consumer attitude and store loyalty are mainly driven by self consistence and social confirmation (i. e., actual self-congruity and social self-congruity) rather than by self-enhancement or esteem (i. e., ideal selfcongruity and ideal social self-congruity). Our finding offers strong managerial implications for western retailers' marketing strategies in the Chinese market.
Cracking the American Climate Negotiators' Hidden Code: United States Law and the Paris Agreement

The United States’ position in, and conduct of, the negotiations leading to the Paris Agreement, as with almost all international diplomacy leading to reciprocal international undertakings conducted by that country, reflected not only internal politics, but also the constraints of domestic law. The United States is not unique in this respect, but it is unusual in the extent to and manner in which its municipal law constrains the creation of international commitments. This article disaggregates US international and domestic climate policy as it developed prior to the Paris negotiations and analyses how those dynamics played out on the multilateral stage, influencing the shape of the Paris Outcome, even to the name of the instrument. Among the subjects analysed are (1) the extent of the Executive’s powers in foreign relations on climate and related issues; (2) the strengths and limitations of existing federal legislation as domestic legal authority for an international agreement on limiting emissions of climate-disrupting gases; (3) domestic implementation of the US INDC ; (4) executive agreements as vehicles for undertaking internationally legally binding commitments on climate; and (5) the role of the courts. 1
Genetics, Homeownership, and Home Location Choice

We find that a significant proportion of the cross-sectional variation in the choice to own or rent is attributable to a genetic factor, while parental influence is not found to affect this choice. We also find evidence of gene-environment interactions: The environment moderates genetic effects on homeownership in that growing up in a wealthier family results in a stronger expression of genetic predispositions, while idiosyncratic life experiences appear to explain a larger portion of the variation in homeownership among those who grew up in a less wealthy family environment. Furthermore, we find that home location choices, for example, a familiar home location close to one’s birthplace and an urban versus a rural home location, are explained by both genetic factors and parental influence. Because we control for an extensive set of individual characteristics analyzed in existing research, an interpretation of our evidence is that an individual’s preferences with respect to homeownership and home location are partly genetic. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors that explain individual behavior with respect to the housing market, and add to an expanding literature on the biological and genetic factors that influence individuals’ economic and financial decisions.
Legal Indeterminacy and Institutional Design

For over a generation, constitutional theory and academic jurisprudence have attempted to reconcile, on the one hand, the rule of law and the Constitution's fundamentality with, on the other hand, the fact that legal and constitutional rules frequently do not produce determinate answers to concrete controversies. The approach of radical democrats who would abandon judicial review is unacceptable to all those who believe that some judicially enforceable limits on politics are needed to prevent majoritarian tyranny. At the same time, however, constitutional theories that attempt to justify judicial review have limited utility; at best they strike a compromise between the tyranny of the majority and the counter-majoritarian difficulty. Academic jurisprudence faces a parallel dilemma. Under close scrutiny, both positivism and its principal alternative-Dworkin's "law as integrity"-turn out to adopt the same strategy for coping with legal indeterminacy: Each claims that the law's areas of ambiguity are small; yet neither theory nor any of the leading approaches to constitutionalism proposes concrete measures to minimize the impact of legal indeterminacy.Drawing inspiration from the Legal Process approach of Hart and Sacks, this Article proposes that instead of devising justifications for judicial review or explanations of the task of judges, theorists would do better to design institutions that reduce the domain of legal indeterminacy. Where Hart and Sacks proposed deference to politically accountable actors, however, this Article advocates deep collaboration with the other institutions of government. Departing from the Legal Process assumption that courts must defer to one of a fixed menu of institutions, this Article develops a model of "experimentalist" courts and agencies that are always in transition. This model is based in part on the explosive emergence of "problem-solving courts," nominally judicial bodies that are more akin to decentralized administrative agencies than to conventional adjudicators. The model is also based on some hints in Supreme Court doctrine that suggest a role for appellate courts in using the opportunity of legal indeterminacy to create the preconditions for local deliberation about the content of legal norms.
Urban labour markets in the 21st century: Dualism, regulation and the role(s) of the State

Abstract This paper is concerned with two questions: When and how does society at large (through State, intermediary organisations, labour unions, etc.) institute a set of supports to minimise schisms in the labour market?; How exactly do these schisms evolve in response to changing technical standards in industrial production and services many of which are increasingly globally regulated? This paper attempts to sketch some phenomenological features of urban employment in India to address these questions. First, it discusses dualism of the labour market to understand how the division of labour institutionalises certain rules for economy-wide use. Second, it contends that the State is torn between multiple goals and cannot be treated monolithically. Third, it explores how dualism within the labour market is affected by changing global technical standards and the newer forms of industrial relations that emerge. The argument is that for institutions to embrace both efficiency and equity a shared understanding of goals and procedural language is required between actors and a close attention to the everyday work process of organisations and individuals. Technical regulations and standards permeate industry in diverse ways and exacerbate existing tensions between varied State priorities and make more unclear the costs and context for distributing uncertainty and ensuring cooperation around issues such as training and insurance. The paper lists some salient features of the construction sector in Bangalore, India. Finally, it briefly discusses the relevance of this approach of dualism and institutionalisation in the face of technical standards for the Millennium Development Goals and Decent Work agendas.
The effect of poloidal velocity shear on the local development of current-driven instabilities

We perform a local (short-wavelength) linear stability analysis of an axisymmetric column of magnetized plasma with a nearly toroidal magnetic field and a smooth poloidal velocity shear by perturbing the equations of relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. We identify two types of unstable modes, which we call ‘exponential’ and ‘overstable’, respectively. The exponential modes are present in the static equilibria and their growth rates decrease with increasing velocity shear. The overstable modes are driven by the effects of velocity shear and dominate the exponential modes for sufficiently high shear values. We argue that these local instabilities can provide an important energy dissipation mechanism in astrophysical relativistic jets. Strong comoving velocity shear arises naturally in the magnetic acceleration mechanism, therefore it may play a crucial role in converting Poynting-flux-dominated jets into matter-dominated jets, regulating the global acceleration and collimation processes, and producing the observed emission of blazars and gamma-ray bursts.
Population thinking and tree thinking in systematics

Two new modes of thinking have spread through systematics in the twentieth century. Both have deep historical roots, but they have been widely accepted only during this century. Population thinking overtook the field in the early part of the century, culminating in the full development of population systematics in the 1930s and 1940s, and the subsequent growth of the entire field of population biology. Population thinking rejects the idea that each species has a natural type (as the earlier essentialist view had assumed), and instead sees every species as a varying population of interbreeding individuals. Tree thinking has spread through the field since the 1960s with the development of phylogenetic systematics. Tree thinking recognizes that species are not independent replicates within a class (as earlier group thinkers had tended to see them), but are instead inter-connected parts of an evolutionary tree. It lays emphasis on the explanation of evolutionary events in the context of a tree, rather than on the states exhibited by collections of species, and it sees evolutionary history as a story of divergence rather than a story of development. Just as population thinking gave rise to the new field of population biology, so tree thinking is giving rise to the new field of phylogenetic biology.
A Primer for the First-Time Law Dean Candidate

This article identifies fourteen principles of which the first-time dean candidate should be mindful. The prescriptions are aspirational in nature, and the article suggests the reader engage in some introspection about which of the fourteen items are most applicable on a personal level.
Opening up the Marketplace to Free Trade in Ideas

This is a review essay on Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, The Supreme Court, and Free Speech by Richard Polenberg (New York: Viking Press, 1987). In a culture of consesus, the dissenting voice rarely finds an eduring place in history. An exception occurs when the dissent ultimately becomes the majority voice or when it wisely directs future generations to a new course. Polenberg's book title implies that the main focus of the book is on the Supreme Court's free speech theories and the Holmes dissent. Instead the focus is more on the story of the Abrams defendants. He describes the defendants beliefs and action in great detail, at the same time as he gives an insightful view of the evolution of the famous Holmes dissent.
Geoengineering the Climate: An Overview of Solar Radiation Management Options

Until recently, climate change geoengineering, broadly defined as “the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change,” 1 was viewed as outside the mainstream, or as David G. Victor has put it less charitably, “a freak show in otherwise serious discussions of climate science and policy.” 2 However, events on the ground have dramatically changed the landscape in the past few years. The parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 3 (UNFCCC) acknowledged at the 15th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) that increases in global temperatures should be held below 2o Celsius above preindustrial levels to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, 4
Measuring Inconsistency, Indeterminacy, and Error in Adjudication

Scholars have long debated whether, and to what extent, law constrains judicial decisions. Because law cannot be objectively measured, it is commonly believed that judicial decisions cannot be empirically evaluated on grounds internal to the practice of law. This article demonstrates that empirical analysis of judicial decisions can nevertheless provide objective, albeit limited, conclusions about subjective criteria for evaluating a system of adjudication. It operationalizes three criteria—inter-judge inconsistency, legal indeterminacy, and judicial error—and clarifies what can be inferred about them from observational data on single-judge adjudication. The precise level of inconsistency cannot be identified, but it is possible to estimate a range of feasible values. Similarly, rates of indeterminacy and error cannot be estimated in isolation, but it is possible to estimate a set of feasible combinations of these rates. The methodologies developed in this article are illustrated using data on immigration adjudication.
Examining the role of economic opportunity and amenities in explaining population redistribution.

Abstract This paper develops a model of migration integrating equilibrium and disequilibrium components in which individuals and firms form rational expectations about future opportunities. Levels of migration are derived as functions of variations in factors influencing migrant labor demand ("economic opportunity") and migrant labor supply ("residential amenities"). The model is used to estimate the extent to which migration in the United States over the period 1950-1980 is determined by these two classes of exogenous factors.
The Folly of Uniformity? Lessons from the Restatement Movement

I. THE RESTATEMENTS IN THE VIRGIN ISLANDS: MODELING THE PROBLEM 424 II. THE RESTATEMENT MOVEMENT, ITS VISION AND PHILOSOPHY 432 A. Changing Goals of the Restatement 437 B. Political Influence on the Restaters 440 III. WHY COURTS FOLLOW THE RESTATEMENTS 443 IV. THE NATURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMON LAW 445 V. THE EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY ANALOGY 451 VI. FIT AND AUTHORITY: JUDICIAL ATTEMPTS AT FINDING SOLUTIONS 462 VII. CONCLUSION 472
Medium- and Long-Term Educational Consequences of Alternative Conditional Cash Transfer Designs: Experimental Evidence from Colombia

We show that three Colombian conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs for secondary schools improve educational outcomes eight and 12 years after random assignment relative to a control group. Forcing families to save a portion of the transfers until they make enrollment decisions for the next academic year increases on-time enrollment in secondary school, reduces dropout rates, and promotes tertiary enrollment and completion in the long-term. Traditionally structured bimonthly transfers improve on-time enrollment and high school exit exam completion rates in the medium term, but do not affect long-term tertiary outcomes. A delayed transfer that directly incentivizes tertiary enrollment promotes secondary school on-time enrollment and enrollment—only in lower-quality tertiary institutions—in the medium term but not the long term.
The Monitoring Effectiveness of Co-opted Audit Committees

We investigate the relation between audit committee co‐option and financial reporting quality, where audit committee co‐option is measured as the proportion of audit committee members who joined the board after the appointment of the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Because CEOs are often actively involved in the director nomination and selection process, we expect that higher levels of audit committee co‐option will be associated with less effective monitoring, as evidenced by more financial statement misstatements and greater absolute discretionary accruals. Consistent with our expectations, we find a positive relation between audit committee co‐option and misstatements as well as between audit committee co‐option and absolute discretionary accruals. Our findings should be of interest to regulators, investors, and other stakeholders because we provide new evidence about how potential CEO influence on director nominations and audit committee appointments impacts the effectiveness of monitoring by the audit committee. L'efficacite du controle exerce par les comites d'audit cooptes Les auteurs se penchent sur la relation entre la cooptation des membres du comite d'audit et la qualite de l'information financiere, cette cooptation etant mesuree selon la proportion des membres du comite d'audit qui se sont joints au conseil d'administration apres la nomination du chef de la direction en poste. Puisque les chefs de la direction prennent souvent une part active au processus de selection et de nomination des administrateurs, les auteurs s'attendent a ce que des niveaux superieurs de cooptation des membres du comite d'audit soient associes a une moins grande efficacite du controle, ce dont temoigneraient davantage d'anomalies dans les etats financiers et des regularisations discretionnaires plus importantes en valeur absolue. Conformement a leurs previsions, les auteurs relevent l'existence d'une relation positive entre la cooptation des membres du comite d'audit et les anomalies, de meme qu'entre la cooptation des membres du comite d'audit et la valeur absolue des regularisations discretionnaires. Ces observations devraient interesser les autorites de reglementation, les investisseurs et autres parties prenantes, compte tenu que l'etude apporte de nouvelles donnees quant a l'incidence que peut avoir sur l'efficacite du controle exerce par le comite d'audit l'influence potentielle des chefs de la direction sur la nomination des administrateurs et des membres du comite d'audit.
Recovery and Preemption: The Collision of the Medicare Secondary Payer Act and the Medical Device Amendments

Congress often uses its power to preempt state laws when a uniform nationwide regulatory environment is desirable. Unfortunately, preemption may have unintended, far-reaching effects. When Congress enacted the Medical Device Amendments of 1976 (“MDA”), it included an express preemption clause to ensure that only the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) could establish ex ante, premarket requirements for medical devices, thus allowing the Agency to establish a uniform regulatory floor. Just four years later, Congress enacted the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (“MSP”), part of a series of amendments to the Medicare program designed to improve the program’s finances. The MSP included provisions that allow the United States to recover payments Medicare had made on behalf of its beneficiaries, by standing in the place of those beneficiaries in state tort actions against tortfeasors. These provisions gave Medicare broad authority to seek recovery from the manufacturers of defective medical devices when the program had paid for the devices. However, in many cases the express preemption clause of the MDA and the Supreme Court’s overly broad implied preemption jurisprudence preempt Medicare beneficiaries’ state law claims. Since Medicare’s ability to recover under the MSP is based on its beneficiaries’ rights, the MDA may also prevent Medicare from recovering under the MSP. This collision between two statutes drafted within four years of one another illustrates the unintended effects that a broad preemption doctrine may have. This Comment argues that both Congress and the Supreme Court need to review and narrow the reach of preemption under the MDA—without completely
Asset Pricing and Ambiguity: Empirical Evidence

Abstract We introduce ambiguity in conjunction with risk to study the relation between risk, ambiguity, and expected returns. Distinguishing between ambiguity and attitudes toward ambiguity, we develop an empirical methodology for measuring the degree of ambiguity and for assessing attitudes toward ambiguity from market data. The main findings indicate that ambiguity in the equity market is priced. Introducing ambiguity alongside risk provides stronger evidence on the role of risk in explaining expected returns in the equity markets. The findings also indicate that investors’ level of aversion to or love for ambiguity is contingent on the expected probability of favorable returns.
The Pros and Cons of Politically Reversible "Semisubstantive" Constitutional Rules

Most observers of constitutional adjudication believe that it works in an all-or-nothing way. On this view, the substance of challenged rules is of decisive importance, so that political decision makers may resuscitate invalidated laws only by way of constitutional amendment. This conception of constitutional law is incomplete. In fact, courts often use so-called “semisubstantive” doctrines that focus on the processes that nonjudicial officials have used in adopting constitutionally problematic rules. When a court strikes down a rule by using a motive-centered or legislative-findings doctrine, for example, political decision makers may revive that very rule without need for a constitutional amendment. For such an effort to succeed, however, those decision makers must comply with special, deliberation-enhancing procedural requirements crafted by courts to ensure that constitutional concerns receive fair attention in the lawmaking process.Is semisubstantive review legitimate and sensible? In this Article, the author disentangles — and then responds to — each of ten critiques that judges and scholars have directed at semisubstantive decision making. While acknowledging that most of these critiques have some merit, the author concludes that courts should continue to deploy semisubstantive doctrines as one, but not the only, tool of constitutional review. This approach, it is argued, serves a worthy aim. It protects constitutional values in a meaningful way, while taking due account of the salience of republican self-rule.
Taking State Property Rights Out of Federal Labor Law

The National Labor Relations Board's current analysis of union organizers' right to access employer property relies heavily on an employer's right to exclude under state property law. If the employer possesses this right, an attempt to exclude organizers is generally lawful; if the employer lacks this right, the attempt is unlawful. This scheme makes little sense doctrinally, as an employer's property interests are usually irrelevant to the issue that should be the Board's primary concern—whether the removal of union organizers interferes with employees' federal labor rights. I propose eliminating consideration of state property rights from right-to-access cases. Instead, the Board should focus on whether the manner in which an employer excludes organizers chills employee rights, while property issues—such as a trespass claim against organizers—should be determined by state courts. The proposal includes presumptions to guide employer conduct, providing clarity for all parties, better protecting employees' labor rights, and freeing the Board from its struggles with state property law.
Financial Frictions in Macroeconomic Fluctuations

The key ideas for adding nancial market frictions in general equilibrium models are not new in macroeconomics. However, it is only with the recent crisis that the profession has fully recognized the importance of nancial markets for business cycle uctuations. In this article I review some of the most popular ideas proposed in the literature and I show how the modeling of nancial frictions helps us understanding several dynamic features of the macro-economy.
Diversification and Focus: A Bayesian Application of the Resource-Based View

We propose a new application of the resource-based view (RBV) that is more consistent with Penrose’s (1959) original framework. We use that framework to study the relationship between diversification and refocusing strategies and economic performance. We propose that the RBV may be enhanced by the explicit recognition of Penrose’s two classes of resources, administrative and productive resources. This distinction suggests a focus on the administrative decisions of managers, including the multiple decisions associated with diversification and refocusing strategies, which lead to economic performance. Second, we argue that RBV theory is a theory about extraordinary performers or outliers, not averages. Therefore, the statistical methods used in applying the theory should account for the difference between individual firms, rather than relying on means across firms, which statistically neutralize firm differences. We introduce a novel Bayesian Hierarchical method to examine actions taken by new CEOs and the resulting effects on economic performance over time. The unique feature of this Bayesian method is it allows us to make meaningful probability statements about the diversification and refocusing strategies of individual firms.
When knowledge is power: Evidence from the municipal bond market

Abstract I investigate whether access to fundamental information enhances retail investors’ bargaining power, reducing the premium that small municipal bond investors pay over large investors. I find a reduction in this small trade premium after the introduction of an online disclosure repository that lowers retail investors’ information acquisition costs. This finding is limited to issuers whose disclosures are disseminated through the repository. The finding is pronounced for issuers that impose high information acquisition costs on investors ex-ante and those that exhibit high disclosure quality ex-post. These results suggest that as investors’ information sets align, so does their bargaining power with dealers.
A Longitudinal Analysis of Entries and Exits of the Low-Income Elderly to and from the Supplemental Security Income Program

This paper is the first to analyze eligibility and participation spells and estimate dynamic models of SSI participation by the aged. We first describe eligibility and participation spells and estimate competing-risk models of the determinants of transitions. Next, we present evidence of extensive measurement error in the expected SSI benefit and the associated imputed eligibility status of sample members. We compare and contrast two approaches to ameliorating this error. A cross-section approach exploits self-reports of participants’ benefits, and a longitudinal approach makes inferences from time variation in the computed benefit. We find that the hazard model estimates vary little with regard to whether or which particular measurement error correction is employed. Finally, the longitudinal patterns of eligibility and participation suggest that take-up rates among the persistently eligible are nearly 80 percent.
Moral Death: A Kantian Essay on Psychopathy

This paper is concerned with an examination of the rights and responsibilities of those individuals having what psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and psychologists call psychopathic, sociopathic, or antisocial personalities.3 But it is also what Wilfrid Sellars has called a set of “variations on a Kantian theme.” For in coming to terms with the concept of psychopathy, one is also forced to come to terms with the question of what it is to be a person — an individual having the value which Kant calls “dignity” (Wurde) and thereby meriting that special kind of respect which in entailed by a moral commitment to justice rather than mere utility. I developed some thoughts on this in my book Kant: The Philosophy of Right, and this paper represents further thinking on the issue and a substantial rejection of much that I said in the book. In the book I argued (against H. J. Paton, primarily) that it is Willkur (capacity to choose) and not Wille (moral autonomy) which confers dignity or worth upon persons. In thinking about the psychopath, however, and in trying to develop a rational defense for my intuition that any such individuals would lack dignity or worth as persons, I have come to think that Paton was right after all — that it is Wille or moral autonomy, and not merely the capacity to choose, which makes the moral difference. Paton, however, had never been successful in articulating a theoretical defense for his correct intuition; and filling this theoretical gap will be one of my primary tasks in what follows.4
The Determinants and Consequences of Search Cost Heterogeneity: Evidence from Local Gasoline Markets

AbstractInformation frictions play a key role in an array of economic activities and are frequently incorporated into formal models as search costs. However, little is known about the underlying source of consumer search costs and how heterogeneous they are across markets. This study analyzes the sources and magnitude of heterogeneity in consumer search costs in retail gasoline markets. In doing so, the authors also investigate the extent to which retail gasoline stations employ mixed pricing strategies. They identify hundreds of geographically isolated markets and are the first to estimate the distribution of consumer search costs for many geographic markets. They directly recover the distribution of consumer search costs, market by market, using price data for retail gasoline in the United States. They find that the distribution of consumer search costs varies significantly across geographic markets and that distribution of household income is closely associated with search cost distribution.
The New Journal: A Supplement Not Undertaken Hitherto

“Members of the bar of Indiana will notice that some things are attempted in the January issue of their journal which have not been undertaken hitherto. . . . [I]t is hoped [the Journal] will be increasingly interesting and useful to the legal profession with succeeding issues.” With his announcement entitled The New Journal, Professor Paul Sayre, the Journal’s first editor, introduced the new Indiana Law Journal in 1926. More than eight decades later, I call our readers’ attention to some things attempted in this volume that have not been undertaken hitherto. Volume 83 includes an online companion—The Indiana Law Journal Supplement—and a newly expanded, integrated Web site to house both the print edition and Supplement. We intend the addition of the Supplement to serve a need not fully met by the print edition.
Are US-Dollar-Hedged-ETF investors aggressive on exchange rates? A panel VAR approach

Abstract Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a multi-trillion dollar market that epitomizes financialization due to its recent growth. This study examines the behavior of U.S. listed currency hedged ETF investors towards changes in the underlying benchmark and foreign exchange rate from July 2011 to November 2015 using a panel VAR approach. We find that investors are able to anticipate changes in future exchange rates and invest in currency hedged ETFs prior to changes. Granger-causality tests confirm that these investors proactively trade before large real exchange rate movements. These results suggest that the use of financial instruments such as ETFs to hedge against exchange rate volatility may have itself become a source of volatility, which have implications for the further financialization of the ETF industry.
Estimating the effect of a gasoline tax on carbon emissions

Recently the proposal has been made to raise gasoline taxes in the United States to curb carbon emissions. The existing literature on the sensitivity of gasoline consumption to changes in price may not be appropriate for evaluating the effectiveness of such a tax. First, most of these studies fail to address the endogeneity of gasoline prices. Second, the responsiveness of gasoline consumption to a change in tax may differ from the responsiveness of consumption to an average change in price. We address these challenges using a variety of methods including traditional single-equation regression models, estimated by least squares or instrumental variables methods, and structural vector autoregressions. Our preferred approach exploits the historical variation in US federal and state gasoline taxes. Our most credible estimates imply that a 10-cent per gallon increase in the gasoline tax would reduce carbon emissions from vehicles in the United States by about 1.5%. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Who Supports Suicide Terrorism in Bangladesh? What the Data Say

Bangladesh, one of the world's largest Muslim countries, is generally viewed as a success story with a strong tradition of secular democracy. Unfortunately, this assertion rests on a weak empirical foundation. Since becoming independent from Pakistan in 1971, democracy and secularism have been consistently undermined. Moreover, since 2000 Bangladesh has experienced more than 100 incidents of Islamist terrorism. More recently, the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent have assaulted religious and ethnic minorities as well as secular and liberal activists. While these turns of events are alarming, Islamist militancy in Bangladesh remains understudied. In this article, we address this lacuna by undertaking regression analysis of recent Pew Research Center survey data to exposit the determinants of popular support of Islamist terrorism. With this study, we hope other scholars will be motivated to turn their attention to this increasingly important state.
Retroactivity Analysis After Brand X

Under Brand X, federal courts must reverse their own prior precedent in deference to an intervening agency decision if that agency decision is based on a reasonable interpretation of the statute. Thus, if the first-in-time court sets the law at A, and if a second-in-time agency later finds that B is a superior interpretation of the statute, then the third-in-time court must defer to the agency and move the law from A to B. But can law B be retroactively applied to a litigant who reasonably relied on the first-in-time court’s opinion that the law was A? The answer to that question depends on which retroactivity standard applies to the Brand X problem, which in turn depends on the answers to two threshold legal questions. First, does the decision to move the law from A to B “change” the law, or does it merely “clarify” what the law has always been? Second, if the law has been changed, should that change be attributed to the second-in-time agency, which offered the “authoritative” interpretation of the statute, or to the third-in-time court, which decided whether to ratify that interpretation? Recent decisions have created circuit splits on both questions, and the Supreme Court has offered little in the way of guidance. I argue that a move from A to B does “change” the law, and that the third-in-time court, rather than the agency, is responsible for that change. In hopes of protecting reasonable litigants from the specter of retroactivity, I then propose and defend a default rule for federal courts faced with the Brand X problem. Under this rule, third-in-time courts reversing their own prior precedent in deference to an intervening agency opinion should presume that their decision applies purely prospectively. In effect, this proposal requires that a small subset of administrative rules –– all those which overrule court precedents predating the rule's promulgation –– must be ratified by third-in-time federal courts before they become operational.
Quarterly Earnings Patterns and Earnings Management

This paper investigates whether the pattern of quarterly earnings changes provides a signal of earnings management. We identify firms for which the sign of (seasonal) earnings changes observed in interim quarters reverses in the fourth quarter. We hypothesize that a firm performing poorly in interim quarters may attempt to increase earnings of the fourth quarter to achieve a desired annual earnings target, while a firm performing well in interim quarters may attempt to decrease earnings of the fourth quarter to build reserves for the future. Our results show that reversal of earnings changes in the fourth quarter is a common phenomenon and its occurrence is greater than would be expected by chance. Other indicators of earnings management, such as the size and direction of discretionary accruals, reversals in subsequent accruals, the use of special items in the income statement, and adjustment of R&D spending, suggest that firms with earnings reversals are more likely to have managed earnings than industry and performance matched control firms. The capital market appears to attach lower credibility to earnings reported by the reversal samples. Our collective evidence leads us to suspect that fourth-quarter reversals on average reflect earnings management behavior. We recommend that analysts use earnings reversals as a heuristic to detect potential cases of earnings management in conjunction with other indicators, such as the magnitude of discretionary accruals. We further find that firms in the reversal samples significantly overlap with the sample of firms reporting small profits and small EPS increases. These results provide an interesting insight - that at least one-fourth of the sample of firms that meet or just beat earnings targets are attempting to smooth annual earnings by managing earnings downward in the fourth quarter.
The Adverse Effects of Sunshine: A Field Experiment on Legislative Transparency in an Authoritarian Assembly

An influential literature has demonstrated that legislative transparency can improve the performance of parliamentarians in democracies. In a democracy, the incentive for improved performance is created by voters’ responses to newly available information. Building on this work, donor projects have begun to export transparency interventions to authoritarian regimes under the assumption that nongovernmental organizations and the media can substitute for the incentives created by voters. Such interventions, however, are at odds with an emerging literature that argues that authoritarian parliaments primarily serve the role of co-optation and limited power sharing, where complaints can be raised in a manner that does not threaten regime stability. We argue that under these conditions, transparency may have perverse effects, and we test this theory with a randomized experiment on delegate behavior in query sessions in Vietnam, a single-party authoritarian regime. We find no evidence of a direct effect of the transparency treatment on delegate performance; however, further analysis reveals that delegates subjected to high treatment intensity demonstrate robust evidence of curtailed participation and damaged reelection prospects. These results make us cautious about the export of transparency without electoral sanctioning.
An empirical examination of the role of the CEO and the compensation committee in structuring executive pay

Abstract Motivated by the potential for opportunistic behavior in pay decisions, recent SEC and IRS regulations essentially preclude inside directors from serving on a firm’s compensation committee (CC). We examine whether greater CC independence promotes shareholder interests and whether the CEO’s presence on the CC leads to opportunistic pay structure. We find little evidence that greater committee independence affects executive pay. Moreover, committees consisting of insiders or the CEO do not award excessive pay or lower overall incentives. For example, we find no evidence that pay decreases or total incentives increase when CEOs come off the CC. Our results suggest that regulations governing committee structure may not reduce levels of pay or achieve efficiencies in incentive contracts.
Rethinking the Regulation of Securities Intermediaries

This Article argues that existing regulation of mutual funds has serious shortcomings. In particular, the Investment Company Act, which is based primarily on principles of corporate governance and fiduciary duties, fails to support and, in some cases impedes, market forces. Existing evidence suggests that retail investing behavior and the dominance of sales agents with competing financial incentives further weakens market discipline. As a solution, the Article proposes that funds should be treated primarily as financial products rather than corporations and, correspondingly, investors should be treated primarily as consumers rather than corporate shareholders. To implement this approach, the Article proposes the creation of a new federal agency that would develop standardized financial products coupled with corresponding disclosure principles. Sellers of retail products would be required either to conform their products to these standards or to explain material differences. The goal is to enhance market discipline while making retail funds less complicated and more understandable for individual investors.
Drug Firms' Payments and Physicians' Prescribing Behavior in Medicare Part D

Abstract In a pervasive but controversial practice, drug firms frequently make monetary or in-kind payments to physicians in the course of promoting prescription drugs. We use a federal database on the universe of such payments between 2013 and 2015 linked to prescribing behavior in Medicare Part D. We account for the targeting of payments with fixed effects for each physician-drug combination. In an event study, we show that physicians increase prescribing of drugs for which they receive payments in the months just after payment receipt, with no evidence of differential trends between paid and unpaid physicians prior to the payment. Next, we examine five case studies of major drugs going off patent. Physicians receiving payments from the firms experiencing the patent expiry transition their patients just as quickly to generics as physicians who do not receive such payments. In addition, using hand-collected efficacy data on three major therapeutic classes, we show that drug quality is largely unaffected by the receipt of payments.
The long-run consumption effects of earnings shocks

Although prior studies of job displacement and disability have measured the impact of these shocks in terms of lost earnings, no previous research has linked these permanent earnings shocks to the ...