cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pain as Fact and Heuristic: How Pain Neuroimaging Illuminates Moral Dimensions of Law

In legal domains ranging from tort to torture, pain and its degree do important definitional work by delimiting boundaries of lawfulness and of entitlements. Yet, for all the work done by pain as a term in legal texts and practice, it has a confounding lack of external verifiability. Now, neuroimaging is rendering pain and myriad other subjective states at least partly ascertainable. This emerging ability to ascertain and quantify subjective states is prompting a "hedonic" or a "subjectivist" turn in legal scholarship, which has sparked a vigorous debate as to whether the quantification of subjective states might affect legal theory and practice. Subjectivists contend that much values-talk in law has been a necessary but poor substitute for quantitative determinations of subjective states--determinations that will be possible in the law's "experiential future." This Article argues the converse: that pain discourse in law frequently is a heuristic for values. Drawing on interviews and laboratory visits with neuroimaging researchers, this Article shows current and in-principle limitations of pain quantification through neuroimaging. It then presents case studies on torture-murder, torture, the death penalty, and abortion to show the largely heuristic role of pain discourse in law. Introducing the theory of "embodied morality," the Article describes how moral conceptions of rights and duties are informed by human physicality and constrained by the limits of empathic identification. Pain neuroimaging helps reveal this dual factual and heuristic nature of pain in the law, and thus itself points to the translational work required for neuroimaging to influence, much less transform, legal practice and doctrine.
Are Related Party Transactions Red Flags

This study investigates whether or not related party transactions serve as “red flags” that warn of potential financial misstatement. We hand-collect related party transactions for S&P 1500 firms in 2001, 2004, and 2007 and find a positive correlation between these transactions and future restatements, suggesting restatements are more likely when a firm engages in related party transactions. The association is concentrated among transactions that appear to reflect “tone at the top” rather than arguably more necessary business transactions. We also find RPT firms pay lower audit fees. However, “tone RPT” firms that subsequently restate pay higher audit fees, providing evidence that auditors recognize the individual restatement risks of these firms. Our results suggest that tone-based RPTs serve as signals of higher risk of material misstatement.
"A Distinction Without a Difference"?: Bartlett Going Forward

This Note addresses the question of whether federal law preempts state design defect claims against generic drug manufacturers regardless of which test state law uses to determine whether a drug is defective. This issue, arising out of the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of preemption jurisprudence and fundamental tort law as stated in Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, is significant because it plays a large role in determining to what extent generic drug manufacturers are immune to civil liability arising out of injuries caused by their generic drugs. In an age of rising medical costs and jury awards, both plaintiff and defendant, and the political arena, are considerable stakeholders. First, this Note provides an overview of the battle over the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) regulatory authority, preemption jurisprudence (highlighting physical impossibility preemption), design defect law, and relevant Supreme Court jurisprudence. Second, this Note introduces the conflict among the lower courts as to whether the type of test a jurisdiction uses to determine a product’s defectiveness plays any role in an analysis of applicable FDA regulations’ preemptory effect on state design defect law. Finally, this Note concludes that after Bartlett, so long as state design defect law adheres to strict liability principles, federal law preempts state design defect causes of action against generic drug manufacturers.
Commodification in law: ideologies, intractabilities, and hyperboles

In this paper I first aim to identify, from a perspective mindful of both analytic and Continental traditions, the central normative issues at stake in the various debates concerning commodification in law. Although there now exists a wealth of thoughtful literature in this area, I often find myself disoriented within the webs of moral criteria used to analyze the increasingly ubiquitous practice of converting legal goods into monetary values. I therefore attempt to distinguish and organize these often conflated conceptual distinctions across several registers of moral analysis. Second, I formulate what I consider the most illuminating questions regarding the criteria used to evaluate commodification in law. Critiques of commodification in law face what I call problems of ideology, intractability, and hyperbole, and identifying these issues helps to explain the momentum of the law and economics movement.
The Cost of Commitment

INTRODUCTION 1 I. EXISTING WORK ON THE COST OF COMMITTING TO HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES 4 A. The Sovereignty View: The Cost of Commitment Is Uniform 6 B. The Rationalist View: The Cost of Commitment Depends on the Cost of Compliance 8 C. A Normative View: The Cost of Commitment Is Less Important than Norms.. 10 II. THE COST OF COMMITMENT 13 III. THE EVIDENCE: A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT 20 A. Aggregate Evidence 21 B. Commitment Patterns of Democratic and Nondemocratic Nations...... 26 1. Nondemocratic nations 29 2. Democratic nations. 30 CONCLUSION 32 APPENDIX A: LIST OF TREATIES 35 APPENDIX B: DATA SOURCES AND DESCRIPTIONS 36
Are Revisions to SFAS No. 5 Needed

SYNOPSIS: In the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) project, “Disclosure of Certain Loss Contingencies,” a central issue underlying the debate is whether existing implementation of FASB Accounting Standards Codification Topic 450-20 (previously Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 5) provides sufficient and timely information to financial statement users. The Exposure Draft explains that constituents’ assertions of inadequate disclosures are the primary motive underlying the FASB’s re-examination of this issue (see, for example, page v of the Exposure Draft). However, little actual data are available to indicate the extent of the alleged problem. This manuscript presents the results of a study undertaken to provide such data. For a sample of litigation-related losses, we find a surprisingly large incidence of non-disclosure of contingent losses that cannot be readily explained. Moreover, even where there is disclosure, we find many cases where firms do not provide estimates of expect...
Investigating the Rise (and Fall) of Young Black Male Suicide in the United States, 1982–2001

Scholars and public health officials alike have expressed significant concern over the dramatic growth in suicide among young Black males. Work in this area has focused primarily on the 1980s and early 1990s as key evidence of this concern. In the current study, we use a longer time series from 1982 to 2001 to examine exactly what these suicide trends look like as well as how and why they vary across US cities. The findings show that trends are more complex than originally perceived, that despite an average national trend there is significant variation in suicide trajectories across cities, that the general rise in rates into the early 1990s was followed by a substantial decline by the turn of the century, and that concentrated disadvantage and gun availability emerge as important predictors of differences in trends across cities.
WHY LAW, ECONOMICS, AND ORGANIZATION?

▪ Abstract This review shows that a combined law, economics, and organization theory approach leads to different and deeper understandings of the purposes served by complex contract and economic organization. The business firm for these purposes is described not in technological terms (as a production function) but in organizational terms (as an alternative mode of governance). Firm and market are thus examined comparatively with respect to their capacities to organize transactions, which differ in their complexity, so as to economize on transaction costs. The predictive theory of economic organization that results has numerous ramifications for public policy toward business and for teaching and research in the law schools.
Red and blue investing: Values and finance

Using data on the political contributions and stock holdings of U.S. investment managers, we find that mutual fund managers who make campaign donations to Democrats hold less of their portfolios (relative to non-donors or Republican donors) in companies that are deemed socially irresponsible (e.g., tobacco, guns, or defense firms or companies with bad employee relations or diversity records). Although explicit socially responsible investing (SRI) funds are more likely to be managed by Democratic managers, this result holds for non-SRI funds and after controlling for other fund and manager characteristics. The effect is more than one-half of the underweighting observed for SRI funds.
The second wave of hedge fund activism: The importance of reputation, clout, and expertise

Abstract Using a large dataset of hand-collected information on activist interventions from 2008 to 2014, we examine why certain hedge funds succeed in the face of competition. We document that the top hedge funds succeed, not merely because of how they select targets, but because they acquire a reputation for what we label “clout and expertise.” These hedge funds do not intervene more frequently; to the contrary, activists with more interventions are associated with lower returns. Instead, top activists have a demonstrated ability to succeed in difficult interventions by targeting large firms, launching successful proxy fights, filing and winning lawsuits, pressuring target boards through the media, overcoming anti-takeover defenses, and replacing board members. These activists' successes appear to result more from board representation, improved performance, and monitoring management than from capital structure or dividend policy changes.
Responding to requests for non-beneficial treatment.

Is a physician required to provide medical care to a patient when the treatment is considered to be non-beneficial and even inhumane? Does patient autonomy trump sound medical practice at the end of life? Ethically, the answer to these questions is probably 'no.' Physicians generally try to avoid providing treatments that offer no benefit to their patients. 'Non-beneficial treatment' policies encourage physicians to attempt to resolve conflicts internally through communication and mediation. However, this is not always possible or successful. The American Medical Association policy cautions against withholding interventions: 'The legal ramifications of this course of action are uncertain.' This article addresses the implications of New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division's opinion in Betancourt v. Trinitas Hospital.
How soy labeling influences preference and taste

Abstract Using a “Phantom Ingredient” taste test, this article demonstrates how the use of soy labels and health claims on a package negatively biased taste perceptions and attitudes toward a food erroneously thought to contain soy. Consumers who ate products which mentioned soy on the package described the taste more grainy, less flavorful, and as having a strong aftertaste compared to those who ate the product but saw no soy label. Yet, while putting “soy” on a package negatively influenced taste-conscious consumers, when combined with a health claim, it improved attitudes among consumers who are health-conscious, natural food lovers, or dieters. Our results and discussion provide better direction for researchers who work with ingredient labeling as well as for marketers who work with soybean products.
The effect of race, partisanship, and income on perceptions of the economy before and after the election of Barack Obama

Abstract Scholars and practitioners have debated and analyzed the effect of President Obama's election and presidency on the society. This article looks at the impact of the presidency of Barack Obama had on people's perceptions of the economy. We examined this phenomenon using three survey questions about the economy and respondents’ own financial situation. These questions, within 53 separate surveys, were asked before the start of the Great Recession in 2008 and through the end of President Obama's first term in 2012. We compare Whites and Blacks, while examining within each race the effects of party identification, income, and whether the respondent came from a high unemployment state. During the last term of President George W. Bush, Whites were more likely than Blacks to have a positive assessment of the economy and their own economic condition compared to the previous year. Our results reveal that, while a reversal took place in the 2008 election with Blacks having a more favorable assessment of the economy than Whites, a stronger difference occurred between White Republicans and White Democrats. First, our analysis demonstrates that partisanship is the most salient variable impacting the economic assessments of persons across the political, social, and economic spectrums despite the actual fiscal environment within the country. Second, our research confirms an Obama effect further validating Michael Dawson's utility heuristic that Blacks prioritize perceived group interest over individual interest. Lastly, we found that this Obama effect extends to low-income Whites, suggesting that class is also an important determinant of citizen perceptions of the economy.
When Can a State Sue the United States

State suits against the federal government are on the rise. From Massachusetts’ challenge to federal environmental policy, to Oregon’s confrontation over physician-assisted suicide, to Texas’s suit over the Obama administration’s immigration program, States increasingly go to court to express their disagreement with federal policy. This Article offers a new theory of state standing that seeks to explain when a State may sue the United States. I argue that States have broad standing to sue the federal government to protect state law. Accordingly, a State may challenge federal statutes or regulations that preempt, or otherwise undermine the continued enforceability of, state law. But, contrary to many scholars and jurists, I contend that States do not have a special interest in overseeing the manner in which federal agencies implement federal law. The Supreme Court was therefore wrong to suggest that States deserve “special solicitude” in the standing analysis, when they seek to ensure that the federal executive abides by congressional mandates. States have special standing to protect federalism principles, not the constitutional separation of powers.
Tax Havens: Renegade States in the International Tax Regime?*

Taxing multinational enterprises (MNEs) is inherently conflictual because national tax systems are not well designed to handle their international activities. The OECD has been instrumental in developing an international tax regime to govern the conflicts and interdependencies induced by national taxation of MNEs. The strength of this regime depends on the extent to which states adhere to the regime’s norms and practices. We examine the OECD’s Harmful Tax Competition initiative, arguing that tax havens have been as renegade states in the international tax regime. We explore how the OECD initiative developed and evaluate its impact on regime effectiveness.
Modern portfolio management with conditioning information

Abstract This paper studies models in which active portfolio managers utilize conditioning information unavailable to their clients to optimize performance relative to a benchmark. We derive explicit solutions for the optimal strategies with multiple risky assets, with or without a risk-free asset, and consider various constraints on portfolio risks or weights. The optimal strategies feature a mean–variance efficient component (to minimize portfolio variance), and a hedging demand for the benchmark portfolio (to maximize correlation with the benchmark). A currency portfolio example shows that the optimal strategies improve the measured performance by 53% out of sample, compared with portfolios ignoring conditioning information.
Optimal long-run inflation with occasionally binding financial constraints

Abstract This paper studies the optimal long-run inflation rate in a simple New Keynesian model with occasionally binding collateral constraints that intermediate-good firms face on hiring labor. The paper finds that the optimal long-run annual inflation rate is around 1.5% if the economy is hit by a total factor productivity (TFP) shock and nearly 2.5% if the economy is subject to a markup shock. The shadow value of the collateral constraint is akin to an endogenous cost-push shock. Differently from usual cost-push shocks, however, this shock is asymmetric as it takes non-negative values only. Since the mean of this asymmetric endogenous cost-push shock is positive, inflation is also positive on average. In addition, a binding collateral constraint resembles a time-varying tax on labor, which the monetary authority can smooth by setting a positive inflation rate. More generally, the basic result is related to standard Ramsey theory in that optimal policy smoothes distortions over time.
Combining Networks, Ambidexterity and Absorptive Capacity to Explain Commercialization of Innovations: A Theoretical Model from Review and Extension

From a thorough review of literature we investigate the key antecedents and mediators to commercialization of innovations. We posit that a firm’s network, absorptive capacity and ambidexterity (ability to explore and exploit) each affect commercialization of Innovations. Further, we showed that networks are antecedents to absorptive capacity and ambidexterity, and absorptive capacity is an antecedent to ambidexterity. We integrate these concepts together and present an integrated theoretical model for further research.
Are professional forecasters Bayesian

Abstract I investigate how professional forecasters update their uncertainty forecasts of output and inflation in response to macroeconomic news. I obtain a measure of individual uncertainty from the density forecasts of the Survey of Professional Forecasters for the United States (US-SPF) and the Euro area (ECB-SPF) and use it to test the prediction of Bayesian learning that uncertainty should decline as the forecast date nears the target date. Empirically, I find that the prediction is occasionally violated, in particular when forecasters experience unexpected news in the most recent data release, and following quarters in which they produce narrow density forecasts. The evidence indicates also significant heterogeneity in the updating behavior of forecasters in response to changes in these variables. In addition, I propose a method to solve the problem of the truncation of the density forecasts that occurs when a significant amount of probability is assigned to the open intervals.
The Lessons of People V. Moscat: Confronting Judicial Bias in Domestic Violence Cases Interpreting Crawford V. Washington

Crawford v. Washington was a groundbreaking decision that radically redefined the scope of the Confrontation Clause. Nowhere has the impact of Crawford and the debate over its meaning been stronger than in the context of domestic violence prosecutions. The particular circumstances that surround domestic violence cases 911 calls that record cries for help and accusations, excited utterances made to responding police officers, and the persistent reluctance of complaining witnesses to cooperate with prosecutors -- combine to make the introduction of "out-of-comment statements" a critical component of many domestic violence prosecutions. Because domestic violence cases are subject to a unique set of political and institutional forces, it is necessary to appreciate those influences to fully understand trial courts' interpretation of the scope and import of the Crawford decision.As a public defender in the Bronx, I witnessed, first hand, the excitement and confusion that followed the Crawford decision at the trial level. In the immediate aftermath of Crawford, e-mails flew about our office proclaiming the death knell of "evidence based prosecutions," the practice of prosecuting domestic violence cases without the cooperation of the complaining witness. In court, defense attorneys eagerly pushed broad interpretations of the new decision, arguing that the district attorney could no longer rely solely on 911 tapes and police testimony to prosecute defendants in domestic violence cases. In this context, a seemingly typical domestic assault case, People v. Moscat, was winding its way through the court system.Through the lens of Moscat, this Essay seeks to identify how trial courts' narrow readings of Crawford have been influenced by the forces that shape the way domestic violence cases are prosecuted. By recognizing how the dynamics of domestic-violence prosecutions mold judicial reasoning, one can better understand and evaluate trial courts' post-Crawford Sixth Amendment decisions. In turn, post-Crawford jurisprudence reveals a great deal about the environment in which domestic violence cases are tried, the presumptions that shape judicial opinions in the domestic violence context, and the obstacles many defendants face when they are accused of committing such crimes.
Tracking the new economy: Using growth theory to detect changes in trend productivity

Abstract The acceleration of productivity after 1995 prompted a debate over whether the economy's underlying growth rate would remain high. In this paper, we draw on growth theory to identify variables other than productivity—namely consumption and labor compensation—to help estimate trend productivity growth. We treat that trend as a common factor with two “regimes,” high- and low-growth. Our analysis picks up striking evidence of a return in 1997 to the high-growth regime, nearly 25 years after a switch from high- to low-growth. We find that both the common factor and regime-switching aspects of the model are important for identifying changes in trend productivity, and also show that the trend breaks are more difficult to detect with per capita (as opposed to per hour) based data because of persistent labor supply shifts. Finally, we argue that our methodology is effective in detecting changes in trend in real time: In the case of the 1990s, the methodology would have signaled the regime switch by 1999, or within roughly six quarters of when it occurred according to the full sample.
The Parent Trap: The Unconstitutional Practice of Severing Parental Rights without Due Process of Law

In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) to stem what it perceived to be an overreliance by states on foster care to provide a safe place for children whose parents had been accused of abuse or neglect. Prior to ASFA, many children were placed in foster care for extended periods of time while their parents were evaluated for their fitness and rehabilitative efforts were made to reunify families. Congress considered the time children spent in foster care as damaging to them because it left them uncertain about where they would live in the future. Congress, in an attempt to reduce the amount of time children spend in foster care, included provisions in ASFA that require states to expedite termination of parental rights to such a speed that states have been engaging in, for many years, systematic deprivation of the parents’ procedural and substantive due process rights. Child abuse and neglect have always been a problem in every society, but many cultures, including American culture, have a poor track record of successfully addressing the problem. Early American history shows a lack of appreciation or understanding of the problem, and the evolution of policies to combat child abuse and neglect has been slow and somewhat ineffectual. At the same time, courts have not had a spectacular record of effectively addressing the problem of child abuse and neglect. The Supreme Court was slow to consider problems related to families, and did not decide a case regarding the rights of parents to the care, control, and custody of their children until the late 1920s. And it was not until the 1980s that the Court finally declared that parents have a substantive due process right to the custody of
Joint optimization of masks and deep recurrent neural networks for monaural source separation

Monaural source separation is important for many real world applications. It is challenging because, with only a single channel of information available, without any constraints, an infinite number of solutions are possible. In this paper, we explore joint optimization of masking functions and deep recurrent neural networks for monaural source separation tasks, including speech separation, singing voice separation, and speech denoising. The joint optimization of the deep recurrent neural networks with an extra masking layer enforces a reconstruction constraint. Moreover, we explore a discriminative criterion for training neural networks to further enhance the separation performance. We evaluate the proposed system on the TSP, MIR-1K, and TIMIT datasets for speech separation, singing voice separation, and speech denoising tasks, respectively. Our approaches achieve 2.30-4.98 dB SDR gain compared to NMF models in the speech separation task, 2.30-2.48 dB GNSDR gain and 4.32-5.42 dB GSIR gain compared to existing models in the singing voice separation task, and outperform NMF and DNN baselines in the speech denoising task.
Earnings Management Using Discontinued Operations

ABSTRACT: This study investigates whether managers use classification shifting to manage earnings when reporting discontinued operations. Using a methodology similar to McVay (2006), we find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that firms shift operating expenses to income-decreasing discontinued operations to increase core earnings. Our findings also indicate that managers use classification shifting to meet or beat analysts’ forecasts. Finally, we find that, since the introduction of SFAS No. 144, the reporting frequency of discontinued operations has increased; however, the magnitude of classification shifting has decreased. We provide potential explanations for this finding.
Understanding Pleading Doctrine

Where does pleading doctrine, at the federal level, stand today? The Supreme Court's revision of general pleading standards in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly has not left courts and litigants with a clear or precise understanding of what it takes to state a claim that can survive a motion to dismiss. Claimants are required to show "plausible entitlement to relief" by offering enough facts "to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Translating those admonitions into predictable and consistent guidelines has been illusory. This Article proposes a descriptive theory that explains the fundaments of contemporary pleading doctrine in a way that gives it some of the clarity and precision it otherwise lacks. The major descriptive thesis posited here is that the central animating principle of contemporary pleading doctrine is the requirement that a complaint - through the use of objective facts and supported implications - describe events about which there is a presumption of impropriety. Getting to that presumption requires different degrees of factual specificity depending upon the factual and legal context of the claim. A secondary descriptive claim is that the doctrine in its current iteration privileges efficiency interests over the justice-related concerns of accuracy and procedural fairness. Unfortunately, this preference unduly harms the right of access to courts for those plaintiffs having claims that require the pleading of information they do not or cannot know. Further, it may be that certain types of claims, such as civil rights and antitrust claims, are more disadvantaged by this preference than others, suggesting that the doctrine needs to be recalibrated to better serve the interests of justice more evenly across different types of cases.
The Private Value of Software Patents

Abstract We investigate the value creation or destruction associated with the introduction of software patents in the United States in two ways. The first looks at the cumulative abnormal returns to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms around the time of important court decisions that impacted software patents, and the second analyzes the relationship between firms’ stock market value, the sector in which they operate, and their holdings of software patents. We conclude that the market evaluated software patents as a negative development ex ante . Ex post , a greater number of firms in all ICT sectors invested in these patents, and these firms had slightly higher market values than those with no software patents. However, while we obtain clear evidence that the technological importance or quality of patented innovation mattered for the market value of hardware firms both before and after the legal changes, it is less clear that the marginal patent right per se was associated with increases in market value, and there are no significant valuation effects associated with patents for pure software firms after the change.
The Anti-Injunction Act, Congressional Inactivity, and Pre-Enforcement Challenges to Section 5000A of the Tax Code

There is a puzzle surrounding the Supreme Court’s consideration in March 2012 of a pre-enforcement challenge to the “individual mandate,” the provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act codified at § 5000A of the federal tax code. Republicans and Democrats alike claim to want a prompt, definitive ruling from the Supreme Court about the constitutionality of § 5000A. But the federal tax Anti-Injunction Act (“AIA”) presents a serious potential obstacle to the Supreme Court’s ability to reach the merits of the present pre-enforcement challenges. The AIA is a rule that Congress made. And it is not too late for Congress to make an exception to that rule. The puzzle, then, is this: If there is a congressionally created obstacle to getting a ruling that everyone in Congress seems to want, and Congress can remove that obstacle, then why has it not done so? This contribution to the “Everything but the Merits” symposium held on November 11, 2011 at the University of Richmond School of Law examines various aspects of this puzzle. A combination of inertia, ignorance, and uncertainty about how the Supreme Court will rule if it reaches the merits may explain Congress’s failure to act in the face of the serious jurisdictional problem that the AIA may present. Partisans on both sides of the constitutional debate obviously want to win, but only one side can, and both sides prefer a jurisdictional loss to a loss on the merits. It could be, also, that there really is no AIA problem. One seeking an exhaustive analysis of the arguments can look to the briefs filed in the litigation. This symposium contribution presents one simple argument for the applicability of the AIA from the text of § 5000A itself that should be enough to demonstrate why those who want a prompt ruling should have cause for concern. The costs to delayed review of the AIA’s constitutionality are, at this point, sufficient to justify Congress in acting to avoid it. But if Congress and the Obama Administration do not act, then neither should the Supreme Court strain one way or the other in deciding whether the AIA bars the present pre-enforcement challenges.
Going to War and Going to College: Did World War II and the G.I. Bill Increase Educational Attainment for Returning Veterans?

The flood of veterans enrolling in college at the end of World War II contributed to widespread rhetoric that the G.I. Bill brought about the “democratization” of American higher education. Whether military service, combined with educational benefits, led World War II veterans to increase their investments in college has received little research attention. Our estimation strategy focuses on between‐cohort differences in military service, and we use census data to compare the collegiate attainment of veterans and nonveterans. The net effect of military service and G.I. benefits was substantial gains in the collegiate attainment of World War II veterans.
The analysis of union behavior

Publisher Summary There is a substantial body of economic research, largely theoretical but with a recent empirical component, on the analysis of union behavior. This chapter reviews this literature selectively to place it in perspective so that analysts may begin to answer questions raised by the descriptive research on labor unions and to understand the role that unions play in the economy. It focuses on fitting the existing work into a coherent conceptual framework and on suggesting some directions for further research. The chapter presents a working definition of a labor union and describes the economic modus operandi of labor unions in the American economy. A number of examples of unions in various industries within the United States are presented in the chapter to highlight the role that market and legal/political constraints play in determining the environment within which unions operate.
Two dimensional Nearly de Sitter gravity

We study some aspects of the de Sitter version of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. Though we do not have propagating gravitons, we have a boundary mode when we compute observables with a fixed dilaton and metric at the boundary. We compute the no-boundary wavefunctions and probability measures to all orders in perturbation theory. We also discuss contributions from different topologies, borrowing recent results by Saad, Shenker and Stanford. We discuss how the boundary mode leads to gravitational corrections to cosmological observables when we add matter. Finally, starting from a four dimensional gravity theory with a positive cosmological constant, we consider a nearly extremal black hole and argue that some observables are dominated by the two dimensional nearly de Sitter gravity dynamics.
Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights: A Reply

Human dignity and human rights are not lived as abstract concepts. They have tangible meaning and weight in the context and crucible of concrete human experience – history, freedom, reason, and community. This gap between universal and particular is the heart of the problem with which Christopher McCrudden’s ‘ Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights ’ 2 wrestles, as well as the fulcrum of the earlier article of mine to which, in part, his work responds. 3
Operational governance and firm value

Most governance research has focused on high-level mechanisms operating at the interface of owners and top managers. Yet there is evidence that operational governance mechanisms function within the firm and can be used to prevent value loss. In this study, we supplement the existing evidence of the importance of operational governance mechanisms and examine these mechanisms to assess their association with value creation. We find those operational governance mechanisms such as clarity of policies and procedures, opportunities for communication, a compensation system that rewards more employees for performance and strong accounting systems discriminate among high-, median- and low-value firms, while high-level mechanisms do not.
The Perverse Effect of Campaign Contribution Limits: Reducing the Allowable Amounts Increases the Likelihood of Corruption in the Federal Legislature

The regulation of campaign finance brings together a number of vexing issues. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and the cases that have followed have brought a great deal of attention to constitutional issues surrounding campaign finance rules. Virtually no attention, however, has been given to the viability of limits on campaign contributions as a means of controlling corruption. This article does so. The article recognizes the importance of institutions but does not anchor itself in an institutional approach but instead assigns a degree of rationality to legislators in the United States. If legislators are to some degree rational, it is possible to roughly account for the factors that a legislator will consider when deciding whether or not to act corruptly. Understanding how those factors might interact leads to the conclusion that limiting campaign contributions might actually lead to more corruption among legislators. Limiting the amount that may be contributed does not reduce the amount that a legislator needs to be reelected, but it does make it hard to raise money and thus increases the value of contributions. Lobbyists who bundle small contributions to make large ones, thus have even greater leverage over legislators. Understanding why legislators might choose to act corruptly does not excuse the legislators’ conduct; the article ends with a discussion of how this approach to understanding corruption in the United States could contribute to more meaningful reform.
Preserving Home Rule: The Text, Purpose, and Political Theory of California’s Municipal Affairs Clause

In California, any city may become a charter city by framing a charter and ratifying it by popular vote. Under the state’s constitution, the ordinances of a charter city supersede conflicting state law concerning "municipal affairs." In State Building and Construction Trades Council v. City of Vista (2012), the California Supreme Court held that "the wage levels of contract workers constructing locally funded public works are . . . 'municipal affair[s]'" and thus that the state prevailing wage law could not apply to those contracts. While the legal impact of the decision remains uncertain, the California legislature has taken legislative action to render the holding of Trades Council irrelevant by fiscally coercing charter cities into abiding by the prevailing wage law. This legislation is now being challenged by a consortium of California charter cities on the grounds that it violates the Municipal Affairs Clause. This Comment argues that the court in Trades Council reached the right result, but the rationale of the decision was unpersuasive. The court’s current Municipal Affairs Clause doctrine, which embraces a case-by-case analysis, is unworkable as a matter of judicial review and is at odds with the text, history, and political theory of the clause itself. The court has a constitutional duty to enforce the state’s constitution as the supreme law of the state, and that duty cannot be faithfully discharged as long as the court’s analysis is governed only by broad generalities that purport to "bring a measure of certainty" to a process characterized nonetheless by "mercurial discretion." If the court adopts an interpretation faithful to the state constitution, the result in Trades Council must be considered correct and the recent legislation designed to circumvent the state constitution must be found unconstitutional as well.
Putting cost-benefit analysis in its place: rethinking regulatory review

Putting Cost-Benefit Analysis in Its Place: Rethinking Regulatory Review SUSAN ROSE-ACKERMAN Policymakers need to reassess the role of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in regulatory review. Although it remains a valuable tool, a number of pressing current problems do not fit well into the CBA paradigm. In particular, climate change, nuclear accident risks, and the preservation of biodiversity can have very long-run impacts that may produce catastrophic and irreversible effects. This article seeks to put cost-benefit analysis in its place by demonstrating both its strengths and its limitations. The Obama Administration should rethink the use of CBA as a way to evaluate regulatory policies and develop procedures to restrict its use to policy areas where its underlying assumptions fit the nature of the problem. CBA is suitable for many conventional policy issues that have limited but significant effects on society in the short to medium run. The best analogy is to the decisions made by large corporations when they decide how to invest to maximize profits. In such cases, both public agencies and firms seek to maximize net gains, holding conditions in the rest of the world constant. However, that is not an appropriate analogy for policies with a significant global impact.
Collateral Children: Consequence and Illegality at the Intersection of Foster Care and Child Support

This Article is the third in a series addressing the conflict between state revenue maximization strategies and the missions of state agencies serving low-income children. The Article examines the policy of foster care cost recovery through child support enforcement. When children are removed from poor families and placed in foster care, federal law requires child welfare agencies to initiate child support obligations against the parents. Resulting payments do not benefit the children but are converted into a government funding stream to reimburse the costs of foster care. This cost recovery effort often subordinates the child welfare system s primary goals of protecting the interests of children and simultaneously strengthening and preserving families to the bureaucratic focus on replenishing government revenue. No such federal cost recovery requirement exists when children are removed from well off families. The policy targets parents whose children were often removed due to the circumstances of poverty, and the neglect that results. Already impoverished parents are further burdened by government owed child support obligations, hampering their struggle to reunify with their children. Federally required case plans intended to aid reunification are illegally converted into debt collection tools. And as the reunification efforts falter, an unconstitutional practice emerges: terminating parental rights for a government-owed debt. This Article reveals the framework and policy implications, and uncovers the illegality, when the core missions of child welfare agencies are diverted towards a self-interested fiscal pursuit.
Privacy Costs and Personal Data Protection: Economic and Legal Perspectives

We analyze personal data protection laws in the United States through the lenses of the economic theories of ex ante safety regulation, ex post liability and information disclosure. Specifically, we consider and contrast how legal and economic theories interpret privacy costs and the remedies to those costs. First, we introduce the general economic theories of ex ante regulation, ex post liability and information disclosure. Then, we present their causal relationships and show how they attempt to reduce possible privacy harms caused by a firm’s activity. We then scrutinize their impact by contrasting legal and economic doctrines. Finally, we provide deeper economic analysis of the three legal mechanisms and highlight conditions under which they may become socially inefficient.
Law as Haiku.

Haiku, the short, often nature-oriented poetry form, is generally intended to engage the reader in a single aesthetic moment. Every word, every syllable counts, resulting in the reader being drawn quickly and intensely into the poet’s unique experience. While legal analysis surely differs from haiku in both its form and its substance, students and instructors of business law would do well to consider the haiku when striving towards good legal writing. Like other poetic verse, the haiku’s bounded form serves to dramatize the poem’s content. Similarly, the use of a restrictive format can supply a tool for beginning legal writers to tighten their writing, and to make it more overtly logical and persuasive. This article advocates and illustrates the use of a standard form of essay answer to aid in the process.
Development and Validation of a Situational Judgment Test of Employee Integrity

Based on Becker's theory (1998) and pilot work (2000), I developed a situational judgment test of employee integrity. In this study, I examine whether scores on this test predict integrity-relevant outcomes. The analysis of data from fast service employees, engineers, and production workers revealed that employees' integrity scores were correlated with managerial ratings of career potential, leadership activities, and job performance. Integrity was not related to the quality of interpersonal relationships.
Stochastic Regime Switching and Stabilizing Policies within Regimes

This paper describes a class of stochastic stabilizing policies within asset price regimes; that can be easily incorporated into the framework of regime switching recently proposed by K. A. Froot and M. Obstfeld. In contrast to previous treatments of market-driven fundamentals within the regime, authorities stochastically counteract movements in these fundamentals before asset prices reach boundary points. This paper describes how the stabilizing intra-regime intervention policies can be used to characterize the behaviour of monetary authorities before fixing an exchange rate, as in the cases studied by R. P. Flood and P. Garber. An intervention policy within target zone bands consistent with empirical evidence is also a member of this class of policies. Furthermore, the stylized features of these intervention policies may be matched to actual data in a natural way. Copyright @ 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. All rights reserved.
Party Autonomy and Access to Justice in the UNCITRAL Online Dispute Resolution Project

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has directed its Working Group III to prepare instruments that would provide the framework for a global system of online dispute resolution (ODR). Negotiations began in December 2010 and have produced an as-yet-incomplete set of procedural rules for ODR. It is anticipated that three other documents will be prepared, addressing substantive principles to be applied in ODR, guidelines and minimum requirements for ODR providers and neutrals, and a cross-border mechanism for enforcement of the resulting ODR decisions on a global basis.The most difficult issues in the ODR negotiations are centered on the coordination of the ODR process with national rules of private international law (conflict of laws), national rules of consumer protection, and the international arbitration law framework. If any global system of ODR is to be successful, it must avoid difficult questions about the application of national mandatory rules of law, it must be considered to provide fair procedures and results for consumers, and the results obtained must be enforceable across borders. This will only happen if the system respects the ability of individual parties (regardless of category) to enter into binding ODR agreements at the time they form the basic contract for an online transaction. This article reviews international efforts at constructing an acceptable system of ODR for low-value high-volume online transactions, and addresses the role of party autonomy in the success of any resulting ODR system. The ODR project will fail if parties are denied the autonomy to opt into the resulting system of dispute resolution. Party autonomy is key to the difficult issues of consumer protection, applicable law, and enforcement within the existing international litigation and arbitration regimes. It makes no sense to design a system states agree is fair to all and then, through rules that require reference to national or regional laws, prevent the use of that system.