cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Who benefits more from international diversification

Abstract This paper investigates the relative magnitude of the international diversification benefits for the domestic investors in various countries. The constraints of short-sales, over-weighting investments, and investing region are considered. The empirical results suggest that local investors in the less developed countries, particularly in East Asia and Latin America, comparatively benefit more from both regional and global diversification. This finding holds even though the international market has become more integrated so that the diversification benefits have decreased over the past two decades. The results are useful for asset management professionals to determine target markets to promote the business of national/international funds.
On duality theory in intertemporal choice with uncertainty

Abstract We discuss here the implications that arise for the fundamental duality relationships given by Roy's Identity (1943) and Shephard's Lemma (1953) when the underlying consumer choice problem is dynamic and involves uncertainty.
Efficient estimation of average treatment effects using the estimated propensity score

We are interested in estimating the average effect of a binary treatment on a scalar outcome. If assignment to the treatment is exogenous or unconfounded, that is, independent of the potential outcomes given covariates, biases associated with simple treatmentcontrol average comparisons can be removed by adjusting for differences in the covariates. Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983) show that adjusting solely for differences between treated and control units in the propensity score removes all biases associated with differences in covariates. Although adjusting for differences in the propensity score removes all the bias, this can come at the expense of efficiency, as shown by Hahn (1998), Heckman, Ichimura, and Todd (1998), and Robins, Mark, and Newey (1992). We show that weighting by the inverse of a nonparametric estimate of the propensity score, rather than the true propensity score, leads to an efficient estimate of the average treatment effect. We provide intuition for this result by showing that this estimator can be interpreted as an empirical likelihood estimator that efficiently incorporates the information about the propensity score.
The changing nature and scope of public health emergencies in response to annual flu.

The rapid spread of influenza during the 2012-13 season brought a series of public health challenges and corresponding response efforts. For decades, responses to annual flu have been undertaken routinely without extensive legal intervention. With the recent declaration of states of public health emergencies in Boston (January 9, 2013) and New York State (January 12, 2013), however, the legal baseline is changing. Propelled by a slate of state and local emergency declarations during the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic, public officials are beginning to show cause for the issuance of formal emergency declarations in support of flu response efforts. The legal effects of these types of declarations are profound. Public and private actors are given significant, expedited public health powers. Scarce resources like vaccines can be more efficiently allocated. Laws relating to licensure, scope of practice, and liability can be effectively waived. Though originally conceptualized and once reserved for catastrophic, long-te...
Not all negative emotions lead to concrete construal

Abstract Labroo and Patrick (2009) show that positively- (negatively-) valenced emotions are associated with a relatively more (less) abstract construal. However, similarly valenced emotions may differ on other dimensions, impacting construal level. Replicating Labroo and Patrick (2009), happiness is associated with a relatively more abstract construal than sadness. Extending their findings, disgust is associated with a relatively more abstract construal than sadness. This difference in construal level results in disgust and sadness impacting brand-extension judgments differently.
Occupation as Liberation: International Humanitarian Law and Regime Change

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been the subject of much discussion for its impact on the use of force outside of UN Security Council authorization. Less commented upon is the fact that the so-called “Operation Iraqi Freedom” resurrected a body of international law that had been dormant through the second half of the twentieth century: the law of military occupation. Developed at a time when war itself was not illegal, this doctrine became something of an embarrassment after the UN Charter established a broad prohibition on the use of force. Nevertheless, through the 1990s the United Nations itself had become involved in operations in Kosovo that looked distinctly like military occupation. Even the most liberal reading of the instruments governing occupation law, however, finds it hard to reconcile this law with military intervention and post-conflict occupation premised on regime change. This article first surveys the law of military occupation before briefly examining the role of the UN Security Council in post-conflict administration. It then turns to the ambiguous responsibilities accorded to the United States and Britain as occupying powers in Iraq in 2003–2004.
Tax Treaties, Renegotiations, and Foreign Direct Investment

Abstract Bilateral tax treaties are an important method of international tax cooperation. I survey the existing literature on these agreements, highlighting the differences between the standard view that treaties increase foreign direct investment and the empirical evidence that finds no such effect. I also provide new empirical results on the impact of renegotiations on foreign direct investment. I find that, comparable to other empirical studies on tax treaties, renegotiations have no robust positive impact on FDI.
Follow the Money: Quantifying Domestic Effects of Foreign Bank Shocks in the Great Recession

The financial crises have focused consider able academic and policy attention on the roles of foreign banks in transmitting shocks and creating vulnerability for host or parent countries. Adverse consequences are presumed and a premise of their destabilizing behavior, in particular surrounding the branches of foreign banks, has taken hold. Global banks actively allocate funds across their banking organizations, in normal times and in stress periods ( Cetorelli and Goldberg, forthcoming). During the Great Recession, some for eign locations of US banks were “core investment markets” that continued as destinations for funding, while other foreign locations served as “core funding markets” that would send even larger net flows to their parent banks following parent balance-sheet disturbances (Cetorelli and Goldberg 2011b). In this paper we provide complementary evidence focusing on the perspective of a host country. We analyze the activity of foreign banks
Christian Witness, Moral Anthropology, and the Death Penalty

In this essay, I consider - in the context of our ongoing debates about capital punishment - the question, "what role ought religious beliefs play in a pluralistic democratic society that often presumes strict boundaries between matters of private faith and political life?" I suggest, first, that we should resist the imposition of such "strict" boundaries between "matters of private faith and political life" and, second, that in the context of our public arguments about the death penalty, engaged Christians should not merely to baptize the policy analyses and preferences of abolitionist or other interest groups, but should instead propose clearly what Pope John Paul II called the "moral truth about the human person." I contend that moral problems - and the death penalty poses, inescapably, such a problem - are anthropological problems, because moral arguments are built, for the most part, on anthropological presuppositions. In other words, as one scholar put it, our attempts at moral judgment tend to reflect our foundational assumptions about what it means to be human. Accordingly, what the public square needs from engaged Christians is a counter-cultural argument about the dignity and destiny of the human person. Such an argument could help our fellow citizens reach the right conclusion about what to do with convicted murderers not so much by dusting the usual arguments with God-talk as by challenging our culture to understand who and what these condemned persons are, and why it should make a difference.
The Cross-Section and Time-Series of Stock and Bond Returns

Abstract Bond factors which predict future U.S. economic activity at business cycle horizons are priced in the cross-section of U.S. stock returns. High book-to-market stocks have larger exposures to these bond factors than low book-to-market stocks, because their cash flows are more sensitive to the business cycle. Because of this new nexus between stock and bond markets, a parsimonious three-factor dynamic no-arbitrage model can be used to jointly price book-to-market-sorted portfolios of stocks and maturity-sorted bond portfolios, while reproducing the time-series variation in expected bond returns. The business cycle itself is a priced state variable in stock and bond markets.
From Austria to the United States and from Evaluating Therapists to Developing Cognitive Resources Theory: An Interview with Fred Fiedler

Abstract The following interview represents the start of a series of interviews with researchers who have had a major impact on the field of leadership. Through these interviews we want to obtain a sense of the person behind the researcher, a few comments on the person's research ideas, and some insights on the state of the field. In addition, we have asked some of the people who worked with Dr. Fiedler to comment on what it was like to work with and for him. We will try to do this for other interviewees as well. We believe this interview is timely as Dr. Fiedler is this year's recipient of the James McKeen Cattell Award of the American Psychological Society.
News-driven return reversals: Liquidity provision ahead of earnings announcements☆

Abstract This study documents a six-fold increase in short-term return reversals during earnings announcements relative to non-announcement periods. Following prior research, we use reversals as a proxy for expected returns market makers demand for providing liquidity. Our findings highlight significant time-series variation in the magnitude of short-term return reversals and suggest that market makers demand higher expected returns prior to earnings announcements because of increased inventory risks that stem from holding net positions through the release of anticipated earnings news. Collectively, our findings suggest that uncertainty regarding anticipated information events elicits predictable increases in the compensation demanded for providing liquidity and that these increases significantly affect the dynamics and information content of market prices.
The gains from fiscal cooperation in the two-commodity real trade model

Abstract This paper analyzes the gains from fiscal cooperation within the context of the standard two commodity real trade model. It shows how the adjustment in the terms of trade is the critical factor in determining the effects of moving from a noncooperative equilibrium. In general, a noncooperative equilibrium leads to an overexpansion of government expenditure on the import good, relative to a cooperative equilibrium. The specific example of a logarithmic economy is also considered. The paper discusses further the welfare effects resulting from the formation of a coalition of two countries among three.
Technology, Transactions Costs, and Investor Welfare: Is a Motley Fool Born Every Minute?

Computer network technology promises to revolutionize the secondary securities market and particularly to reduce dramatically the marginal costs associated with trading corporate equities. Lowering transactions costs usually is presumed to increase trader welfare. Certain unique characteristics of the secondary securities market suggest, however, that reducing the marginal costs associated with trading stocks may have the perverse and counterintuitive effect of decreasing investor welfare. Policymakers should consider this possibility as they respond to the market's rapid evolution.
Treaties, Human Rights, and Conditional Consent

The U.S. treaty-makers have consistently attached conditions to their consent to modern human rights treaties, in the form of reservations, understandings, and declarations ("RUDs"). Through these RUDs, the treatymakers have sought to limit their consent to international obligations that the United States is constitutionally and politically able to comply with, and to ensure that these obligations are implemented in a manner consistent with principles of separation of powers and federalism. The conventional wisdom among scholars is that the RUDs are invalid under international law and U.S. domestic law, and are harmful to the international human rights movement. This Article challenges the conventional wisdom about RUDs. It argues that the RUDs serve as a useful bridge between isolationists who want to preserve the United States' sovereign prerogatives, and internationalists who want the United States to increase its involvement in international institutions -- a political divide that has had a debilitating effect on U.S. participation in international human rights regimes since World War II. In addition, RUDs help reconcile fundamental changes in international law with the requirements of the U.S. constitutional system. The RUDs achieve these ends in ways that are valid under both international and domestic law.
The yield spread puzzle and the information content of SPF forecasts

While the yield spread has long been recognized as a good predictor of recessions, it seems to have been largely overlooked by professional forecasters. We examine this puzzle, established by Rudebusch and Williams (2009), in a data-rich environment including not just the yield spread but many other predictors as well. We confirm the puzzle in this context by examining the contributions of both the SPF forecasts and the yield spread in predicting recessions, and by examining the information content of SPF forecasts directly. Furthermore, we take the first step towards a possible resolution of this puzzle by recognizing the heterogeneity across professional forecasters.
A New Dynamism in the Public Domain

Author(s): Merges, Robert P | Abstract: Many believe intellectual property has overreached, and that policymakers must respond. In this essay, I argue that the critique may have merit, but private parties are in some cases taking matters into their own hands. Firms and individuals are increasingly injecting information into the public domain with the explict goal of preempting or undermining the potential property rights of economic adversaries. Biotechnology firms invest millions of dollars in public domain gene sequence databases, to prevent hold-ups by firms with patents on short gene sequences. Major software firms fight entrenched rivals by investing millions of dollars contributing to open source operating systems. In both cases, property-preempting investments (PPI's) are made to offset the effects of competitors' property rights. Individuals and nonprofits are joining in too, with initiatives such as the Creative Commons project. All of these major private investments in the public domain reveal a self-correcting feature of the intellectual property system that has been overlooked until now, and signal that public lawmaking is not the only arena in which the excesses of intellectual property may be addressed.
Tick Size Tolls: Can a Trading Slowdown Improve Earnings News Discovery?

This study examines how an increase in tick size affects algorithmic trading (AT), fundamental information acquisition (FIA), and the price discovery process around earnings announcements (EAs). Leveraging the SECs randomized Tick Size Pilot experiment, we show a tick size increase results in a decline in AT and a sharp drop in absolute cumulative abnormal returns and volume around EAs. More importantly, we find increased FIA in the preannouncement period. Specifically, we show: (a) treatment firms pre-announcement returns better anticipate next quarters standardized unexpected earnings; (b) these firms experience an increase in EDGAR web traffic prior to EAs; and (c) they exhibit a drop in price synchronicity with index returns. Taken together, our evidence suggests that while an increase in tick size reduces AT and abnormal market reaction after EAs, it also increases FIA activities prior to EAs.
School Accountability and ‘High Stakes’ Testing

Introduction to a symposium addressing from philosophical perspectives the increased emphasis in public education on standardized testing, providing legal and political background explanation of this phenomenon.
American Indians at Wounded Knee in Current U.S. History High School Textbooks: Discourse Analysis Using the APPRAISAL JUDGMENT System

American Indians and allies have provided checklists and guidelines for the evaluation of textbooks for a long time. Henry (1970) called for accurate descriptions of American Indians peoples and the causes of conflicts. Others have asked that we look for stereotypes, loaded words, and distortion of history (Slapin, Searle, & Gonzalez , 1992). The Council on Interracial Books for Children examined high school history texts in 1977 and reported on key points missed and continuing problems with inclusions regarding American Indians. These and other such sources have been valuable in contesting much of what was identified in 1885 by the Superintendent of Indian Schools who complained about the mainstream textbooks that alternatively represented Indians as monsters and as romantic heroes (Reyhner & Eder, 2004, p. 75). Rarely, in my review of textbooks do I find the explicit language found in my paper on late 19th century school textbooks (Simpson, 2006). However, as a teacher in American Indian schools, my students and I really questioned any improvement. History still felt like a weapon. This paper is the result of the search to find a method or approach to help teachers and students learn about how historical discourse in school textbooks requires history to be thought about in certain ways.
Legal briefing: medical futility and assisted suicide.

Since 2009, Professor Pope has authored a quarterly "Legal Briefing" column for the Journal of Clinical Ethics. Each briefing comprehensively reviews legal developments concerning a particular issue in clinical bioethics. The Journal of Clinical Ethics owns the exclusive copyright to distribute the full-text content.This column is the successor of the Legal Trends column published in this journal since its first issue. But as indicated by the title, this column has adopted a new format. The old format consisted of a comprehensive citation-rich survey of all legal developments across a wide range of bioethics topics. While this nearly bibliographic collection of authorities was surely useful to many readers, staking out such a broad field left little room for analysis or explanation of the briefly-mentioned legal developments. This new Legal Briefing column will cover legal developments pertaining to just one or two topics in clinical ethics. Thereby, this column aims to provide readers with a deeper, more thorough understanding of evolving legal themes and issues. The primary objective is to synthesize and analyze recent changes in and applications of the law, not to assess the ethical or jurisprudential justifiability of such changes and applications. This issue’s Legal Briefing column covers legal developments pertaining to medical futility and assisted suicide. Not only have both these topics been the subject of recent articles in this Journal, but they have also been the subject of significant legislative and judicial activity over the past several months. While seemingly unrelated, medical futility and assisted suicide are endpoints on the same continuum. While the futility debate exemplifies limits on autonomy to pursue life-prolonging procedures, the assisted suicide debate exemplifies limits on autonomy to pursue life-ending procedures.
Clearing the Smoke from Philip Morris V. Williams: The Past, Present, and Future of Punitive Damages

In Philip Morris USA v. Williams, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not permit the imposition of punitive damages to punish a defendant for harm caused to third parties. This Article critiques the reasoning, but seeks ultimately to vindicate the result, of that landmark decision. It argues that, although the Court’s procedural due process analysis does not stand up to scrutiny, punitive damages as punishment for third-party harm do indeed violate procedural due process, but for reasons far more profound than those offered by the Court. To reach that conclusion, the Article confronts the most basic and fundamental questions about punitive damages—questions that the Supreme Court has studiously avoided for more than a century: what, exactly, is the purpose of punitive damages, and how is it constitutional to impose them as a form of punishment in a judicial proceeding without affording the defendant the protection of the Constitution’s criminal procedural safeguards? The Article argues that punitive damages are properly conceptualized as a form of punishment for private wrongs: judicially sanctioned private revenge. As such, it makes both theoretical and doctrinal sense to impose them without affording the defendant criminal procedural protections, which are necessitated only for the punishment of public wrongs on behalf of society. When, however, courts employ punitive damages as a form of punishment for public wrongs, they become a substitute for the criminal law, which thus makes an intolerable end run around the Bill of Rights. For that reason, Williams was ultimately correct that punitive damages must be limited to punishment for the harm done to the individual plaintiff, not the harm done to the general public. This reasoning suggests that contrary to the emerging conventional wisdom, Williams does not stand in the way of the imposition of nonpunitive extracompensatory damages of the type favored by law and economics scholars as a means of forcing the defendant to internalize the costs of its behavior in order to achieve optimal deterrence. author. Associate Professor, The George Washington University Law School. For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this Article, the author would like to thank Michael Abramowicz, Michael Allen, Judge Guido Calabresi, William Colby, David Fontana, Frederick Lawrence, Chip Lupu, Dan Markel, Christopher Robinette, Shilpa Satoskar, Sheila Scheuerman, Anthony Sebok, Catherine Sharkey, Jonathan Siegel, Peter Smith, Roger Trangsrud, Benjamin Zipursky, and the participants in the work-in-progress workshop at The George Washington University Law School.
Considering Multiple Materialities for Account Combinations in Audit Planning and Evaluation: A Cost Efficient Approach

An analytic framework is provided for incorporating different user perspectives on materiality into the audit process. The framework serves as a tool for disaggregating materiality to specific acco...
The Logic of Reciprocity: Trust, Collective Action, and Law

The Logic of Collective Action1 has for decades supplied the logic of public-policy analysis. In this pioneering application of public choice theory, Mancur Olson elegantly punctured the premise shared by a variety of political theories that individuals can be expected to act consistently with the interest of the groups to which they belong. Absent externally imposed incentives, wealth-maximizing individuals, he argued, will rarely find it in their interest to contribute to goods that benefit the group as a whole, but rather will "free ride" on the contributions that other group members make. As a result, too few individuals will contribute sufficiently, and the well-being of the group will suffer.2 These assumptions dominate public-policy analysis and public policy itself across a host of regulatory domains from tax collection to environmental conservation, from street-level policing to policing of the internet. But as a wealth of social science evidence now makes clear, Olson's Logic is false. In collective-action settings, individuals adopt not a materially calculating posture but rather a richer, more emotionally nuanced reciprocal one. When they perceive that others are behaving cooperatively, individuals are moved by honor, altruism, and like dispositions to contribute to public goods even without the inducement of material incentives. When, in contrast, they perceive that others are shirking or otherwise taking advantage of them, individuals are moved by resentment and pride to withhold their own cooperation and even to engage in personally costly forms of retaliation. This set of dynamics which I propose to refer to as the "logic of reciprocity" suggests not only an alternative account of when collective-action problems will arise, but also an alternative program for solving (or simply avoiding) them through law. Whereas the con-
Housing Demand and Community Choice: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract Housing demand reflects the household's simultaneous choice of the neighborhood, whether to own or rent the dwelling, and the quantity of housing services demanded. Existing literature emphasizes the final two factors, but overlooks the choice of community. This paper develops an econometric model that incorporates all three components, and then estimates this model using a sample of Tampa, Florida, households. Incorporating community choice increases the price elasticity of demand and reduces the differential between white and comparable nonwhite households. The results are robust to the inclusion of permanent income and taxes.
Accuracy of fluid approximations for queueing systems with congestion-sensitive demand and implications for capacity sizing

Abstract We study the accuracy of fluid approximations in single- and many-server queueing systems in which the arrival rate depends on the congestion in the system. If the potential demand rate exceeds the system’s capacity, then the fluid approximations are found to exhibit O ( 1 ) -accuracy—their error does not increase with system size. These fluid approximations are used to solve two capacity sizing problems: minimizing total system cost and maximizing social welfare. We find that the solutions to both these problems exhibit interesting differences, and further that under some conditions, the fluid prescriptions exhibit o ( 1 ) -optimality, that is, their optimality gap is asymptotically zero.
Baumol’s productive and unproductive entrepreneurship after 25 years

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of Baumol’s work on entrepreneurship has had on framing the economic development puzzle. Design/methodology/approach – In many ways, the intuition behind the paper is straightforward. Entrepreneurs allocate their time and attention based on the relative payoffs they face in any given social setting. If the institutional environment rewards productive entrepreneurship, then the time and attention of entrepreneurial actors in the economy will be directed toward realizing the gains from trade and the gains from innovation. If, on the other hand, there are greater returns from the allocation of that time and attention toward rent-seeking and even criminal activity, alert individuals will respond to those incentives accordingly. The simplicity of the point being made is part of the brilliance in Baumol’s article. As with other classics in economics, once stated the proposition seems to be so basic it is amazing that others did not put it that way be...
The Future of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in the Hands of a Conservative Court

This Essay argues that the future of the majority-minority district is in peril, as a conservative majority on the Court stands poised to strike down section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. When the Court takes up the constitutionality of Section 2, binding precedent will play a secondary role at best. Instead, the Justices’ policy goals and ideological preferences - namely, their personal disdain for the use of race in public life - will guide the Court’s conclusion. In this vein, Justice Kennedy holds the fate of the Act in his hands. To be clear, this Essay is not trying to prognosticate the future of the Act. Instead, it is far more intrigued by the many lessons that the fate of the Act offers about the Court as an institution; the Court’s treatment of colored communities and their interests; and the role political attitudes play in guiding judicial behavior. As the Court continues to position itself at the center of many political controversies, these lessons gain greater urgency.
Mining Sacred Space: Law's Enactment of Competing Ontologies in the American West:

Current controversies regarding uranium mining in the American West are about more than competing legal requirements; they are about competing conceptualizations of space that are grounded in diffe...
Binding the Executive (by Law or by Politics)

Consider a recent snapshot of our imperial presidency. It is Thursday, September 25, 2008, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. We are at the heart of the financial meltdown. Not two weeks before, investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, jeopardizing hundreds of creditor counterparties, including major financial institutions. The following day, insurance giant American International Group (AIG) discloses enormous losses on credit default swaps, prompting the Federal Reserve to extend an emergency loan of $85 billion in exchange for a 79.9 percent equity stake in the company. One of the nation’s oldest money market funds, Reserve Primary Fund, experiences a run, collapsing to an unprecedented share price of less than a dollar and “breaking the buck.” It is clear the Treasury and the Federal Reserve need more funds to forestall a general liquidity crunch. In the Roosevelt Room, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are addressing skeptical congressional leaders and the two presidential candidates, explaining
Case Studies on Location: Taking to the Field in Economics

The author describes how to conceptualize and organize a successful, multi-day field trip organized around a case study problem. By doing so, the instructor exposes students to diverse perspectives and leads them through the process of policy analysis from collecting and organizing information to identifying the relevant economic concepts and applying them in a complex real-world setting.
Kenya’s Long Anti-Corruption Agenda: 1952-2010: Prospects and Challenges of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Under the 2010 Constitution

This article examines Kenya's anti-corruption agenda over the past six decades, ending with Kenya's new Constitution of 2010. It concludes that the prospects of an effective anti-corruption regime cannot be predicted, in spite of recent obvious institutional improvements. Almost every turn made to combat corruption in Kenya has suffered setbacks because the judiciary was unsympathetic to the broader anti-corruption agenda or because Parliament or the executive branch found ways to cover up corrupt behavior. Further, many of the old corrupt guard remains in the government. These challenges remain even under the new constitution.
A Structural Evaluation of a Large-Scale Quasi-Experimental Microfinance Initiative

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (R03 HD04776801)
Learning Algorithms for Minimizing Queue Length Regret

We consider a system consisting of a single transmitter/receiver pair and N channels over which they may communicate. Packets randomly arrive to the transmitter’s queue and wait to be successfully sent to the receiver. The transmitter may attempt a frame transmission on one channel at a time, where each frame includes a packet if one is in the queue. For each channel, an attempted transmission is successful with an unknown probability. The transmitter’s objective is to quickly identify the best channel to minimize the number of packets in the queue over T time slots. To analyze system performance, we introduce queue length regret, which is the expected difference between the total queue length of a learning policy and a controller that knows the rates, a priori. One approach to designing a transmission policy would be to apply algorithms from the literature that solve the closely-related stochastic multi-armed bandit problem. These policies would focus on maximizing the number of successful frame transmissions over time. However, we show that these methods have $\Omega (\log {{T}})$ queue length regret. On the other hand, we show that there exists a set of queue-length based policies that can obtain order optimal ${O}(1)$ queue length regret. We use our theoretical analysis to devise heuristic methods that are shown to perform well in simulation.
Optimal Control of an Oligopoly Model of Advertising

Abstract We examine an oligopoly model of advertising competition where each firm's market share depends on its own and its competitors’ advertising decisions. A differential game model is developed and used to derive the closed-loop Nash equilibrium under symmetric as well as asymmetric competition. We obtain explicit solutions under certain plausible conditions, and discuss the effects of an increase in the number of competing firms on advertising expenditure, market share and profitability.
Real exchange rates and competitiveness : a clarification of concepts, and some measurements for Europe

This paper examines indicators of competitiveness. It analyses the conceptual foundations of conventional measures of the real exchange rate and finds that inferences about competitiveness from these indicators require strong, and in many cases implausible, assumptions. Based on this analysis some alternative measures are proposed and their use is illustrated using data from Europe. Given the usefulness of standardised indicators, four simple charts are proposed; these help solve some conundrums in the European data and provide the basis for a richer set of inferences about competitiveness.
Stale economic news, media and the stock market

Abstract I employ a classification of headlines from newspapers and wire services to examine whether stale macroeconomic news affects stock prices. Unlike with individual stocks, the cost of obtaining information about major economic releases is relatively low. Thus, stock prices should adjust to economic news announcements prior to their coverage in newspapers. I find statistically and economically significant relationship between stale news stories on unemployment and next week’s S&P 500 returns. This effect is then completely reversed during the following week. These findings show that investors are affected by salient information and support the hypothesis that investors overreact to stale macroeconomic news reported in newspapers.
Medicaid Policy Changes in Mental Health Care and Their Effect on Mental Health Outcomes

In recent years, Medicaid has experienced a dramatic increase in spending on prescription drugs in general and psychotropic medications in particular. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of increased Medicaid spending on psychotropic drugs on improving the mental health and well-being of participants at the population level. Specifically, we study the effect on outcomes that are strongly correlated with mood disorders, including depression and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder, controlling for concomitant increases in Medicaid eligibility thresholds and expansion into managed care for mental health services. Knowledge of the effects of changes in the Medicaid program is crucial to policymakers as they consider implementing and expanding mental health services. Our results show that increased spending on antidepressants and stimulants are associated with improvements in some outcomes, but not in others.
Exclusion as a Core Competition Concern

A contemporary consensus in antitrust discourse inappropriately places exclusionary conduct at the periphery of competition policy. Contrary to that common view, exclusion is as important as collusion as a matter of precedent, the structure of doctrinal rules, economics, and sound competition policy. In particular, courts treat exclusionary violations as routine and serious competitive problems; an emerging doctrinal rule for truncated condemnation of ―plain‖ exclusionary conduct (practices foreclosing rivals that lack a plausible efficiency justification) parallels the evolving judicial approach toward ―naked‖ collusion; exclusion and collusion can be understood within a common economic framework that emphasizes the close relationship between the two ways of exercising market power, notwithstanding differences between them in the mechanisms by which market power is obtained; and policy concerns about the likelihood or significance of enforcement errors do not justify assigning exclusion a lesser priority than collusion. Moreover, anticompetitive exclusion may be the more important problem because it poses a particular threat to economic growth. Recognizing exclusion as a core concern of competition policy along with collusion could lead enforcers to place a higher priority on attacking exclusion, particularly conduct foreclosing potential entry in markets subject to rapid technological change, and to raise the penalties in egregious exclusion cases through criminal enforcement. It would also encourage further development of the doctrinal rule governing truncated condemnation of exclusionary conduct, and protect the legitimacy of the rules prohibiting anticompetitive exclusion against pressure for modifications that would limit enforcement. Aug. 21, 2012 Exclusion as a Core Competition Concern 1 EXCLUSION AS A CORE COMPETITION CONCERN
Do private equity consortiums facilitate collusion in takeover bidding

Abstract We address whether the joint bidding by private equity consortiums facilitates collusion in the takeover market. We employ a sample of 870 takeovers of publicly traded targets in the 2003 to 2007 period, the time period which is the focus of investigation by the Justice Department and the source of cases for class action lawsuits. A unique aspect of our analysis is that we determine the identification of private equity bidders from actual merger documents rather than rely on sources such as Securities Data Corp and that we analyze both prominent private equity bidders as well as smaller private equity firms. Our analysis finds competitive reasons for consortium formation based on scale, risk and bidder expertise. We also find that both single private equity bidders and private equity consortiums are associated with significantly greater levels of takeover competition than other types of bidders. While we find some evidence that target abnormal returns are lower in private equity consortium deals for narrow windows around the initial takeover-related announcement date, we find that these results do not hold for longer event windows that better account for the differences in the takeover process across types of bidders. Analysis that controls for the endogenous selection of consortium formation also fails to find any negative effect of consortiums on either takeover competition or target returns. We also do not find any negative effects of consortiums formed by prominent private equity firms. We interpret the evidence to be inconsistent with a collusive explanation for consortium formation in the 2003 to 2007 period and to be consistent with competitive reasons for consortium formation.
Self-supervised Representation Learning with Relative Predictive Coding

This paper introduces Relative Predictive Coding (RPC), a new contrastive representation learning objective that maintains a good balance among training stability, minibatch size sensitivity, and downstream task performance. The key to the success of RPC is two-fold. First, RPC introduces the relative parameters to regularize the objective for boundedness and low variance. Second, RPC contains no logarithm and exponential score functions, which are the main cause of training instability in prior contrastive objectives. We empirically verify the effectiveness of RPC on benchmark vision and speech self-supervised learning tasks. Lastly, we relate RPC with mutual information (MI) estimation, showing RPC can be used to estimate MI with low variance.
The Injustice of Inequality

In many countries, the operation of legal, political and regulatory institutions is subverted by the wealthy and the politically powerful for their own benefit. This subversion takes the form of corruption, intimidation, and other forms of influence. We present a model of such institutional subversion – focusing specifically on courts – and of the effects of inequality in economic and political resources on the magnitude of subversion. We then use the model to analyze the consequences of institutional subversion for the law and order environment in the country, as well as for capital accumulation and growth. We illustrate the model with historical evidence from Gilded Age United States and the transition economies of the 1990s. We also present some cross-country evidence consistent with the basic prediction of the model.
Present Bias and Criminal Law

Although “present bias” (or weakness of will, impulsiveness, myopia, or bounded willpower) was flagged as an issue for legal examination by Tom Ulen and Russell Korobkin over a decade ago, the concept has received insufficient attention in the legal field - and most of that attention has focused on its implications for the regulation of credit and savings. But, as demonstrated by this Article, the inconsistency of time preferences has wider implications, especially for criminal law. First, present bias may have significant implications for the general deterrence of crime. Individuals with time-inconsistent preferences may give in to immediate temptations to offend, even though they will not plan to exploit more distant opportunities to offend. To create additional deterrence by exploiting the present bias, one must either make the deferred costs of crime immediate or make the immediate benefits of crime deferred. For this reason, present bias heightens the importance of timing arrests closer to the commission of a crime - which suggests overlooked benefits from undercover operations. It also increases the efficiency of private crime prevention when these measures pose costs that occur contemporaneously with the benefits of crime. Second, present bias explains addiction, otherwise puzzling conditions of probation and parole, and the self-control mechanisms for dealing with addiction and tempting criminal behavior. Preventative measures, whether imposed by the state as a condition of probation and parole or imposed by the potential offender through “self-exclusion,” work by preventing an individual from having the opportunity to succumb to temptation.
Does Stare Decisis Apply in the Eighth Amendment Death Penalty Context

Throughout the past few decades, the Supreme Court has steadily chipped away at the death penalty. It was only recently, however, that courts have confronted what role precedent plays in the Eighth Amendment death penalty context. Surprisingly, few scholars have yet explored this important and complicated issue. Precedent in this area is unique because the law of the Eighth Amendment is always changing and the Eighth Amendment has been interpreted to be applied more broadly in the death penalty context. This Article argues that precedent in the Eighth Amendment death penalty context does not apply in the typical fashion. Instead of applying Supreme Court outcomes as precedent in this context, lower courts should apply Supreme Court rationale. This is consistent with the language of Supreme Court opinions and will afford greater and speedier justice to death penalty defendants.
Shared Health Governance

Health and Social Justice (Ruger 2009a) developed the “health capability paradigm,” a conception of justice and health in domestic societies. This idea undergirds an alternative framework of social cooperation called “shared health governance” (SHG). SHG puts forth a set of moral responsibilities, motivational aspirations, and institutional arrangements, and apportions roles for implementation in striving for health justice. This article develops further the SHG framework and explains its importance and implications for governing health domestically.
Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance

This paper presents new evidence on why unemployment insurance (UI) benefits affect search behavior and develops a simple method of calculating the welfare gains from UI using this evidence. I show that 60 percent of the increase in unemployment durations caused by UI benefits is due to a “liquidity effect” rather than distortions on marginal incentives to search (“moral hazard”) by combining two empirical strategies. First, I find that increases in benefits have much larger effects on durations for liquidity‐constrained households. Second, lump‐sum severance payments increase durations substantially among constrained households. I derive a formula for the optimal benefit level that depends only on the reduced‐form liquidity and moral hazard elasticities. The formula implies that the optimal UI benefit level exceeds 50 percent of the wage. The “exact identification” approach to welfare analysis proposed here yields robust optimal policy results because it does not require structural estimation of primitives.
The Native American Law Opinions of Judge Noonan: Do We Hear the Faint Voice of Bartólome de las Casas?

The broad purpose of this essay is to look at Judge John T. Noonan's decisions involving issues connected with Native Americans. Because federal Indian law now relies so heavily on the plenary power model (born out of legal positivism) to the exclusion of the consent model (born out of natural law), it is instructive to see how, if at all, Judge Noonan is able to use natural law principles in an area of law now dominated by a positivistic model. As background, I look briefly at the Spanish and British legal models that were used to justify the dispossession of native peoples in North America. I then describe federal policy, showing how it was an extension of the British legal model and a rejection of the Spanish model. I then review the early reliance on the consent model and explain how it gave way to the plenary power model. My discussion then turns to Judge Noonan's opinions and shows that the plenary power model leaves little room for the assertion of natural law principles embodied in the consent model.
Putting the Guesswork Back Into Capital Sentencing

In 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court deemed it "incontestable" that a death sentence is cruel and unusual if inflicted "by reason of [the defendant's] race, religion, wealth, social position, or class, or if it is imposed under a procedure that gives room for the play of such prejudices." Arbitrary and discriminatory patterns in capital sentencing moved the Court to strike down death penalty statutes that required judges or juries to cast thumbs-up or thumbs-down verdicts against offenders found guilty of capital crimes. The issue of innocence was barely a footnote in Furman; the Court's concerns focused on race, class, and fairness in the imposition of the ultimate punishment.
Predictability in Emerging Sovereign Debt Markets

I find strong evidence of economically and statistically significant predictability in Brady bonds, the most liquid emerging debt market, by implementing a new model for credit spreads. Active management provides U.S. investors in emerging markets with double the buy‐and‐hold returns at lower risk and the equivalent of free options on Brady bonds. My analysis suggests that predictability is primarily driven by credit spread deviations from fundamentals rather than time‐varying risk or risk premia. This inefficiency results from the restrictions of a nontransparent, institutionally dominated, dealer market and the lack of a fully developed derivatives market for emerging country credit risk.