cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Long-Term Effect of Demographic Shocks on the Evolution of Gender Roles: Evidence from the transatlantic Slave Trade

Can demographic shocks affect the long-run evolution of female labor force participation and gender norms? This paper traces current variation in women’s participation in the labor force within Sub-Saharan Africa to the emergence of a female-biased sex ratio during the centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. This historical shock affected the division of labor along gender lines in the remaining African population, as women substituted for the missing men by taking up areas of work that were traditionally male tasks. By exploiting variation in the degree to which different ethnic groups were affected by the transatlantic slave trade, I show that women whose ancestors were more exposed to this shock are today more likely to be in the labor force, have lower levels of fertility, and are more likely to participate in household decisions. The marriage market and the cultural transmission of internal norms across generations represent important mechanisms explaining this long-run persistence.
Protective efficacy of a SARS-CoV-2 DNA vaccine in wild-type and immunosuppressed Syrian hamsters

A worldwide effort to counter the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in hundreds of candidate vaccines moving through various stages of research and development, including several vaccines in phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials. A relatively small number of these vaccines have been evaluated in SARS-CoV-2 disease models, and fewer in a severe disease model. Here, a SARS-CoV-2 DNA targeting the spike protein and delivered by jet injection, nCoV-S(JET), elicited neutralizing antibodies in hamsters and was protective in both wild-type and transiently immunosuppressed hamster models. This study highlights the DNA vaccine, nCoV-S(JET), we developed has a great potential to move to next stage of preclinical studies, and it also demonstrates that the transiently-immunosuppressed Syrian hamsters, which recapitulate severe and prolonged COVID-19 disease, can be used for preclinical evaluation of the protective efficacy of spike-based COVID-19 vaccines.
Intra-firm Specialization, Income Distribution, and International Trade

The impact of international trade on a firm`s degree of specialization and income distribution is studied in a general equilibrium framework in which...
The costs of risk: examining the missing link between globalization and social spending

Globalization is often credited with the expansion of the welfare state and increased spending on social insurance programs. However, empirical evidence on the relationship between globalization and social welfare spending is mixed. One possible explanation for these mixed results might be country-specific factors that mediate the effect of globalization on social spending, such as key characteristics of a country's labor market. Countries with fluid, flexible labor markets likely respond to globalization differently than countries with rigid, inflexible markets. At the micro level, workers who find it costly to adjust to market volatility will likely demand compensatory and insurance programs to offset the high costs of adjustment. Given this, the relationship between globalization and social insurance is likely to be more sharply positive among countries with relatively immobile labor. I test this argument using data on social expenditures in both developed and developing countries. The findings indicate that trade exposure increases social spending in countries where workers face high adjustment costs. When workers face low adjustment costs, trade exposure has a strong reductive effect on social spending. This reductive effect declines as adjustment costs increase.
The Taxing Law of Taxpayer Standing

This article, "The Taxing Law of Taxpayer Standing," is a comprehensive exploration of the issues raised by the Supreme Court case Hein v. Freedom from Religion, et al, 551 U.S. __ (2007). The Court in Hein denied standing to federal taxpayers challenging President Bush's faith-based initiative program. This decision makes it virtually impossible for plaintiffs to challenge Executive Branch actions that allegedly violate the Establishment Clause unless Congress specifically authorized the expenditure at issue. If the President, for example, placed a permanent cross in the White House without using funds earmarked by Congress, it is unlikely anyone would have standing to challenge that decision. Hein also reaffirms the seminal taxpayer standing case, Flast v. Cohen, which has been repeatedly criticized by scholars and Supreme Court Justices. This piece details the history of the taxpayer standing question, fully discusses the Hein decision, and suggests an alternative approach to this vexing jurisdictional question.
Bargaining or biology? The history and future of paternity law and parental status.

In practice, paternity rulings are remarkably unimportant. With the exception of state welfare authorities pursuing mostly impoverished biological fathers, few paternity actions are brought, few mothers want to bring them and (even with state-sponsored pursuit) very few dollars get transferred to children as a result of them. In theory, however, paternity judgments are very and perniciously important because they keep alive the biological fatherhood ideal, an ideal that has never been reflected in law or fact and that is inconsistent with the emerging law of parental rights and responsibilities. This article challenges the biological fatherhood ideal and suggests that contract, or private bargaining between adults, both does and should play a more important role than biology in determining parenthood. A bargaining theory of parenthood is consistent with the traditional legal framework in which marriage defined paternity, parallel to the contractual doctrine governing most decisions in the reproductive technology area, and operative in many of the equitable parenthood cases vesting parental obligation in non-biologically related adults. It is also more reflective of the way parenthood is experienced by both parents and children. The article describes the ubiquity of parental bargaining and deal-making and goes on to evaluate the costs and benefits of a more comprehensive contractually-based paradigm for determining parenthood.
Attrition through Enforcement: A Rational Approach to Illegal Immigration

The public debate about illegal immigration in the United States has been based on the false dichotomy that the only choices are either total removal of all twelve to twenty million illegal aliens or total amnesty. This article proposes a concerted strategy of attrition through enforcement such that if the risk of detention, prosecution and involuntary removal increases, and the probability of obtaining employment decreases, the only rational decision for an illegal alien is to depart the United States on their own. A nation-wide strategy of attrition through enforcement would require, most importantly, employer use of the E-Verify system to verify the work authorization of new employees. Additional components include increasing the removal rate of aliens not convicted of serious felonies, increasing the rate of detention during removal proceedings to prevent absconding, increasing agreements between ICE and state agencies, ending sanctuary cities; and increasing the number of ICE interior enforcement agents. Attrition through enforcement works as has been shown to work in Arizona and through the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. If implemented nationwide, it would do much to restore the rule of law in immigration and gradually reduce the number of illegal aliens in the United States.
Competition in the Audit Market: Policy Implications

The audit market's unique combination of features—its role in capital market transparency, mandated demand, and concentrated supply—means it receives considerable attention from policy makers. We explore the effects of two market scenarios that have been the focus of policy discussions: mandatory audit firm rotation and further supply concentration due to the exit of a “Big 4” audit firm. To do so, we first estimate publicly traded firms' demand for auditing services, allowing the services provided by each of the Big 4 to be differentiated products. We then use those estimates to calculate how each scenario would affect client firms' consumer surplus. We estimate that, for U.S. publicly trade firms, mandatory audit firm rotation would induce consumer surplus losses of approximately $2.7 billion if rotation were required after 10 years and $4.7–5.0 billion if after only four years. We find similarly that exit by one of the Big 4 would reduce client firms' surplus by $1.4–1.8 billion. These estimates reflect only the value of firms' lost options to hire the exiting audit firm; they do not include likely fee increases resulting from less competition among audit firms. The latter could result in audit fee increases between $0.75–1.3 billion per year for mandatory rotation and $0.47–0.58 billion per year for the disappearance of a Big 4 audit firm. Such losses are substantial; by comparison, total audit fees for public firms were $11 billion in 2010
Information Content of DQAF Indicators; Empirical Entropy Analysis

The study presents an analysis of the information content of IMF’s Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF) indicators. There are significant differences in the quantity of information between DQAF dimensions and sub-dimensions. The most informative DQAF dimension is accessibility, followed by the prerequisites of quality and accuracy and reliability. The least informative DQAF dimensions are serviceability and assurances of integrity. The implication of these findings is that the current DQAF indicators do not maximize the amount of information that could be obtained during data ROSC missions. An additional set of assessments that would refine the existing DQAF indicators would be beneficial in maximizing the information gathered during data ROSC mission. The entropy of DQAF indicators could also be used in the construction of a cardinal index of data quality.
Extraterritorial internet gambling: legal challenges and policy options

Casino gambling in the USA is highly regulated. Internet gambling operations circumvent domestic regulatory systems designed to accomplish various policy goals, including protecting minors, enforcing tax laws and preventing money laundering. The absence of international cooperation and legal options for restricting access to internet gambling appear limited to targeting domestic aspects of the internet business model, including advertising and financial services. However, financial intermediaries provide a constantly moving target for regulators. Willingness to pursue more invasive policy options may depend on what social science research reveals about the social harms of internet gambling, as well as security threats from unregulated cash flows.
The effects of teenage fatherhood on young adult outcomes.

This paper uses national longitudinal data and several new empirical strategies to examine the consequences of teenage fatherhood. The key contribution is to compare economic outcomes of young fathers to young men whose partners experienced a miscarriage rather than a live birth. The results suggest that teenage fatherhood decreases years of schooling and the likelihood of receiving a high school diploma and increases general educational development receipt. Teenage fatherhood also appears to increase early marriage and cohabitation, and has mixed short-term effects on several labor market outcomes. (JEL J13, J24, J10)
Holmes and Honors Law at LSU - From the Great Hall to La Maison Française

Holmes and Honors Law at LSU. Speech at Spring Banquet, LSU Honors College Advocates, rehearsing a special honors college course featuring Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes taught in LSU Law School for honors undergraduates aspiring to attend law school.
Cash Balance Pension Plan Conversions: An Analysis Of Motivations And Pension Costs

In recent years, many corporations have replaced their traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans with cash balance (CB) plans, which share many of the characteristics of defined contribution plans. This study provides empirical evidence on the characteristics of CB converters and the behavior of pension costs and obligations pre- and post-conversion. We find that CB converters are larger than firms that retain traditional DB plans as well as those that terminate DB plans. They are less profitable than the former, but more profitable than the latter. CB conversions are not associated with proxies for greater labor mobility (e.g., firm-specific employee turnover rate). They are associated with a workforce that is closer to retirement, on average, lending credence to the breach of implicit contract rather than the labor market hypothesis as a motivator of CB conversions. Consistent with this intuition, we document that CB converters recognize a reduction of unrecognized prior service costs in the year of conversion, consistent with a negative plan amendment. Unlike pre-conversion, pension costs and obligations are significantly lower for CB firms post-conversion than for a matched sample of firms retaining traditional DB plans. CB conversions are more popular than DB plan terminations among firms with overfunded pension plans in periods when expected return on plan assets is likely to be high, with a consequent positive effect on reported income.
Did retirees save enough to compensate for the increase in individual risk exposure

The United States experienced an unprecedented financial crisis after 2007. This paper analyzes whether retirees had enough wealth built up to weather the financial risks that materialized in the crisis. Financial risks associated with saving for retirement had increasingly shifted onto individuals and away from the public and employers during the decades before the crisis. This growing personal responsibility should have brought about more saving and less risk taking. I use data from the Federal Reserve's triennial Survey of Consumer Finances first to define an income threshold for retirees, specifically whether annuity income is greater than twice the poverty line: a common proxy for basic income needs. I then calculate the potential retirement income that retirees could expect if they translated all of their wealth into income and if the income is adjusted for market, idiosyncratic, and longevity risks. I compare the potential risk-adjusted income for retirees with annuity income above twice the povert...
The House That Taxpayers Built: Exploring the Rise in Publicly Funded Baseball Stadiums from 1953 Through the Present

This Article explains how MLB club-owners use their control over the market for premier, professional baseball to demand free public stadiums. Part I of this Article explains how the United States has moved from having just one publicly funded MLB stadium (pre-1950s) to having over twenty-five publicly funded stadiums (present). Part II shows how, in recent years, MLB club-owners have continued to demand more money from their host cities and how host cities generally succumb to MLB club-owners’ demands.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM MUTUAL FUNDS

This article develops and tests a model of how organizational structure influences organizational performance. Organizational structure, conceptualized as the decision-making structure among a group of individuals, is shown to affect the number of initiatives pursued by organizations and the omission and commission errors (Type I and II errors, respectively) made by organizations. The empirical setting is more than 150,000 stock-picking decisions made by 609 mutual funds. Mutual funds offer an ideal and rare setting to test the theory, since there are detailed records on the projects they face, the decisions they make, and the outcomes of these decisions. The study’s independent variable, organizational structure, is coded based on fund management descriptions made by Morningstar, and estimates of the omission and commission errors are computed by a novel technique that uses bootstrapping to create measures that are comparable across funds. The findings suggest that organizational structure has relevant and predictable effects on a wide range of organizations. In particular, the article shows empirically that increasing the consensus threshold required by a committee in charge of selecting projects leads to more omission errors, fewer commission errors, and fewer approved projects. Applications include designing organizations that achieve a given mix of exploration and exploitation, as well as predicting the consequences of centralization and decentralization. This work constitutes the first large-sample empirical test of the model by Sah and Stiglitz (1986). Copyright  2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
What is "Fair" Partisan Representation, and How Can It Be Constitutionalized? The Case for a Return to Fixed Election Districts

A recent outpouring of public and academic criticism of gerrymandering raises difficult questions about when and under what circumstances the representation of political parties and their supporters can be considered fair. The difficulty is not, as Justice Kennedy recently suggested, that we lack consensual standards for evaluating the fairness of partisan representation. Such standards exist, but they tend to be subverted by the use of territorial districts. This occurs routinely because party and territory are conflicting and for the most part incommensurable principles upon which to found a system of legislative representation. The real question raised by gerrymandering is therefore not how to define fair partisan representation in general, but how to do so within a system of representation committed to territorial districts. Taking the nearly universal American commitment to territorial forms of representation as given, I argue that a commitment to territorial districting can be best justified by a normative commitment to localness and local issues as the proper subject of state politics. The paper then inquires how a representational system might be structured both to honor the commitment to territoriality on its own terms and simultaneously to satisfy other requirements of fairness in legislative representation. I argue that the best solution may be to revive what was in the nineteenth century the dominant form of legislative representation: instead of fixing permanently the number of legislators and varying the boundaries of their districts, as we do now, we might be better off fixing permanently the boundaries of legislative districts and varying the number of legislators each district elects. Using local government units such as counties and towns as election districts best honors the normative justifications for territorial districting while still permitting satisfaction of conditions of fairness in both population equality and partisan representation.
Two Conceptions of Fundamentality

This article aims to show that fundamentality is construed differently in the two most prominent strategies of analysis we find in physical science and engineering today: (1) atomistic, reductive analysis and (2) Systems analysis. Correspondingly, atomism is the conception according to which the simplest (smallest) indivisible entity of a certain kind is most fundamental; while systemism, as will be articulated here, is the conception according to which the bonds that structure wholes are most fundamental, and scale and/or constituting entities are of no significance whatsoever for fundamentality. Accordingly, atomists maintain that the basic entities—the atoms—are fundamental, and together with the “external” interactions among them, are sufficient for illuminating all the features and behaviors of the wholes they constitute; whereas systemists proclaim that it is instead structural qualities of systems, that flow from internal relations among their constituents and translate directly into behaviors, that are fundamental, and by themselves largely (if not entirely) sufficient for illuminating the features and behaviors of the wholes thereby structured. Systemism, as will be argued, is consistent with the nonexistence of a fundamental “level” of nondecomposable entities, just as it is consistent with the existence of such a level. Still, systemism is a conception of the fundamental in quite different, but still ontological terms. Systemism can serve the special sciences—the social sciences especially—better than the conception of fundamentality in terms of atoms. Systemism is, in fact, a conception of fundamentality that has rather different uses—and importantly, different resonances. This conception of fundamentality makes contact with questions
The Cost of Good Intentions: Why the Supreme Court's Decision Upholding Affirmative Action Admission Programs Is Detrimental to the Cause

This article provides an overview of the Federal Courts' interpretation of equal protection challenges to affirmative action admission policies beginning with University of California v. Bakke through the recent Supreme Court decisions of Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. The article then identifies and outlines the appropriate elements of a constitutionally sound affirmative action admission policy. Finally, the article concludes that the permissible policy is almost unattainable for schools other than small institutions.
The New Biopolitics: Autonomy, Demography, and Nationhood

I. Introduction 890 II. The New Biopolitics: Two Crises 897 A. Sub-replacement Fertility and Rising Dependency Ratios 897 B. "Bare Branches" and Sex Asymmetry 900 1. The growth of the bare branches 902 2. The consequences of sex disproportion 905 III. Demographic Crisis and Political Threat 907 A. The Pattern of Pro-natalist Politics 907 B. The Politics of Pensions and Immigration 912 C. Sex Disproportion and Politics 914 IV. A Brief History of Biopolitics 919 A. Thomas Malthus and Demographic Pessimism 921 B. The Vicissitudes of Human "Improvement" 924 C. Second-Generation Biopolitics: The Turn to Autonomy 927 V. Intergenerational and International Burden-Sharing: A Model for Biopolitical Public Policy 930 VI. Women's Empowerment, Sex Ratios, and Fertility: The Core of Biopolitics 936 A. Women's Empowerment and Demographics 937 1. The contours of the problem 937 2. Women's substantive freedom: The key to a cycle of reform 940 3. Fertility and women's substantive freedom 944 B. Women's Empowerment and Democracy: A First Pass .. 949 VII. Conclusion 954 I. INTRODUCTION Political thinkers have long worried that freedom might be self-undermining, tending to erode the liberal rights and democratic politics that form its foundations.1 The argument has ancient and modern versions, versions of the political left and of the right.2 No doubt the only adequate answer is the sum of the answers to many particular questions: whether and when popular elections undermine liberal rights, how free markets enhance or undermine democracy, and so forth. In this article, I address an emerging problem in a central area of contemporary freedom: reproductive autonomy. I ask whether reproductive autonomy can undermine the political conditions that sustain it: a political and legal culture committed to individual rights and the stability of the political order across generations. The possibility that reproductive freedom might be self-undermining arises from two demographic crises. In Europe and Northeast Asia, fertility rates-the number of children the average woman will bear in her lifetime-have fallen well below the level needed to replace the existing population.3 Meanwhile, in the largest and more important developing countries, India and China, young men outnumber young women by scores of millions, and the gap between the sexes is growing.4 Each trend is the aggregate result of hundreds of millions of increasingly autonomous reproductive decisions. When I refer to "reproductive autonomy," I do not mean exclusively or even primarily the legally protected access to abortion and/or contraception that United States commentators tend to designate by the term. I am deliberately referring to the whole suite of factors that make women and families inclined and able to exercise self-conscious agency in whether and when to bear children. In expanding the term, I am not trying to make any normative point about the desirability or adequacy of uses of the term that focuses on legal protections (although I have liberal views about the rights of contraception and abortion). …
Spiky globalization of venture capital investments: the influence of prior human networks

We demonstrate a spiky globalization pattern in the cross-border spread of venture capital: rather than being uniformly distributed, cross-border venture capital flows are unevenly distributed, in that certain regions of the U.S. display particularly intense linkages with certain foreign nations. We posit that such spiky globalization of venture capital is driven by the spiky globalization pattern of prior human networks between locations, and we provide empirical results supportive of our hypothesis. Specifically, we reason that immigrant entrepreneurs inherently tend to collocate with each other in their host nation, thus advantaging certain regions in the competition to act as sources and destinations of cross-border venture capital. This study sheds new light on geographical patterns in international venture capital and entrepreneurship. Copyright © 2010 Strategic Management Society.
Market Timing with Cay

Market timing strategies using deviations from the long-run log consumption-wealth ratio (Cay) are tested to evaluate whether such strategies deliver superior investment performance. Several statistical tests indicate that true Cay embeds economically significant information about future market returns. At the same time, constraints such as the need to use the estimated rather than true ratio and delays in availability of macroeconomic data cast doubt on the likelihood that the market can be timed using mechanistic strategies based on Cay. Further research will ascertain whether it is possible to implement successful timing strategies using such a ratio.
IPO characteristics of index firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the initial public offerings (IPOs) of the firms that are eventually included in one of the S&P 400, the S&P 500, or the S&P 600 Indices. Do these firms have very different IPO features than the rest of the IPOs?Design/methodology/approach – The control sample is formed of IPOs that are not included in the corresponding index, and the IPOs that end up in each S&P index are compared to this control sample. Logistic regressions are utilized to estimate the odds of inclusion into one of these indices.Findings – The author finds that the IPO features, such as underpricing, offer price, underwriter's reputation, venture capital presence, and so on, are found to be substantially different for the index samples. The index firms are found to be “superstars” that deliver extremely high long‐run returns between their IPO date and their index inclusion date. The above results suggest that the quality of index firms has a persistent component to it that can be det...
Wireless Localism: Beyond the Shroud of Objectivity in Federal Spectrum Administration

Recent innovations in mobile wireless technology have instigated a debate between two camps of legal scholars about how policymakers should structure federal administration of the electromagnetic spectrum. The first argues that the Federal Communications Commission should define spectrum use rights more clearly and give spectrum licensees near fee-simple property rights in frequencies that they can use and sell in secondary markets as they wish. The second camp argues that, rather than award exclusive licenses to the highest bidder, the FCC ought to open much if not most of the spectrum to unlicensed use by smartphones and tablets equipped with the newest spectrum administration technology. This Article shows that, first, both of these camps comprise a new orthodoxy that eschews conventions in public lawmaking in federal spectrum administration for an approach that is sealed away from direct public scrutiny. This emergent approach assumes that the market for emergent smart spectrum sharing technologies can more objectively realize the public interest than public participation in the policymaking processes.Second, this Article challenges the new orthodoxy by arguing that local public participation in federal spectrum administration in particular can align the new technologies with the diverse priorities of each community in ways that neither the technologies alone nor the markets for them ever can. It is of no legal or normative consequence, it asserts, that substantive federal spectrum policy encourages commercial adoption of the newest technology. Rather, the Article posits, lawmakers in this field ought to create procedural mechanisms in federal spectrum administration that accommodate local communities’ diverging interests. In the end, the Article proposes a solution based on relatively recent legal scholarship and developments in public law administration.
Credit Spreads and Monetary Policy

We consider the desirability of modifying a standard Taylor rule for interest rate policy to incorporate adjustments for measures of financial conditions. We consider the consequences of such adjustments for the way policy would respond to a variety of disturbances, using the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with credit frictions developed in Curdia and Woodford (2009a). According to our model, an adjustment for variations in credit spreads can improve upon the standard Taylor rule, but the optimal size of adjustment depends on the source of the variation in credit spreads. A response to the quantity of credit is less likely to be helpful.
Lockbox Government: Segregated Funding Strategies and the Decline of Governmental Flexibility

Proponents of “reinvention” assert that it will produce governments that are more agile, better able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions, and able to produce public services at much lower cost. However, attempts to make government “work better and cost less” have had limited success. Policy-makers have consequently invested their creative energy in another class of institutional innovations: segregated funding strategies, which protect agencies and programs from the impact of fiscal restraint by excluding them from normal budgeting processes. The proliferation of budget “lockboxes” may actually introduce new rigidities into the public sector and erode democratic influence in policy-making. On the other hand, there may be some circumstances in which these devices can be justified as a method of ensuring that critical long-run interests receive appropriate attention.
Fluid consumption and the potential role of canteen shape in minimizing dehydration.

ABSTRACT Hypohydration can unknowingly occur in military personnel during exertion, especially in the heat. Such dehydration can impair cognitive and physical performance. Some portion of exercise-induced dehydration may be offset by changing the perceptual biases of soldiers when filling and drinking from canteens. Using comparably sized water bottles, we investigated this perceptual bias with 50 Army and Marine ROTC students by showing that those given short, wide, clear water bottles poured and drank more water than those given taller bottles that held the same volume. Even although those given short, wide water bottles poured 38% more water, they did not perceive themselves as having poured or drunk more. The implications for decreasing dehydration in the field and in garrison are discussed.
Financial reporting opacity and informed trading by international institutional investors

Abstract Using cross-country data on trading by international mutual funds, I find that firms with more opaque information environments, as captured by firm- and country-level measures of the availability of financial reporting information, experience more privately informed trading by institutional investors. The association between firm-level opacity and informed trading is most pronounced where country-level disclosure infrastructures are less developed and for those investors for whom the incentives and opportunities to acquire private information are greatest. A difference-in-differences analysis of the returns earned by institutions in opaque stocks suggests that this information advantage is economically significant.
The Performance of REIT-owned Properties and the Impact of REIT Market Power

Using a unique, detailed panel dataset of lodging properties, this paper tests whether properties owned by real estate investment trusts (REITs) perform differently than other properties and whether the concentration of real estate ownership brought about by REITs has increased market power. Our results demonstrate that REIT-owned properties, which are primarily mid-scale and high-end hotels, did not perform significantly better, on average, than other mid-scale or high-end hotels in the same geographic area. However, because of the superior overall performance of mid-scale and high-end hotels, REIT properties as a whole did perform better, on average, than non-REIT properties. From these results we conclude that the superior performance of REIT properties was due to the fact that REITs tended to acquire properties in market segments that performed well; REIT ownership in itself does not appear to have increased performance. Our results also suggest that the superior performance of the market segments in which REITs have a significant presence is not attributable to the market power of the REITs.
Classification and Market Pricing of the Cash Flows and Accruals on Trading Positions

Despite the classification of the cash flows on trading positions as operating under SFAS No. 102, trading is economically a hybrid operating/non‐operating activity. Reflecting this hybrid nature, we hypothesize and find that the change in net trading assets has a less positive association with returns and future CFO than do the pure operating components of cash flows and accruals, and it has a more positive association with returns and future CFO than do the pure non‐operating components of cash flows. Our paper is the first to propose and test hypotheses about the valuation implications of such hybrid cash flows and accruals.
Linear filtering for asymmetric stochastic volatility models

Abstract Linear filtering techniques are used to develop a quasi maximum likelihood estimator for asymmetric stochastic volatility models. The estimator is straightforward to implement and performs well in Monte Carlo experiments.
Decentralized Management Hinders Coastal Climate Adaptation: The Spatial-dynamics of Beach Nourishment

Climate change threatens to alter coastline erosion patterns in space and time and coastal communities adapt to these threats with decentralized shoreline stabilization measures. We model interactions between two neighboring towns, and explore welfare implications of spatial-dynamic feedbacks in the coastal zone. When communities are adjacent, the community with a wider beach loses sand to the community with a narrower beach through alongshore sediment transport. Spatial-dynamic feedbacks create incentives for both communities to nourish less, resulting in lower long-run beach width and lower property values in both communities, a result that parallels the classic prisoner’s dilemma. Intensifying erosion—consistent with accelerating sea level rise—increases the losses from failure to coordinate. Higher erosion also increases inequality in the distribution of benefits across communities under spatially coordinated management. This disincentive to coordinate suggests the need for higher-level government intervention to address a traditionally local problem. We show that a spatially targeted subsidy can achieve the first best outcome, and explore conditions under which a second-best uniform subsidy leads to small or large losses.
The impact of award uncertainty on settlement negotiations

Legal disputes are often negotiated under the backdrop of an adjudicated award. While settlements are common, they are not universal. In this paper, we empirically explore how uncertainty in adjudicated awards impacts settlement negotiations. To do so, we develop an experimental design to test how increases in variance and positive skewness of the award distribution impact negotiations and settlement rates. We find increases in variance decrease settlement rates, while increases in skewness generally increases settlement rates. We also gather individual measures of risk aversion and prudence, and incorporate these measures into the analysis to test for heterogeneous treatment effects. Overall, our results suggest that highly variable adjudicated awards can contribute to the excess use of inefficient litigation, while more positively skewed awards can reduce the use of inefficient litigation.
Grabbing the Bullcoming by the Horns: How the Supreme Court Could Have Used Bullcoming v. New Mexico to Clarify Confrontation Clause Requirements for CSI-type Reports

In the pilot episode of the hit television show CSI, Grissom says to Warrick: "Concentrate on what cannot lie. The evidence." Although Grissom is a beloved figure in U.S. popular culture, the U.S. is currently unwilling to accept that evidence never lies. In stark contrast to Grissom's statement, the common law has a long history of allowing criminal defendants to cross-examine and question witnesses providing evidence against them. The right to confront an accusatory witness is reflected in the historical legal documents of Great Britain, in Shakespearean writing, and even in the Bible. In the United States, the right to confront was enshrined in the Sixth Amendment to the Federal Constitution which provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to be confronted with the witnesses against him..." The right to confront applies at both the federal level and at the state level (through the Fourteenth Amendment). Although there is some consensus that the Constitution grants criminal defendants some right to confront their accuser, there is much less agreement on exactly who must be confronted and for what kinds of accusations or statements. Particularly controversial is whether the Confrontation Clause requires a scientific analyst to testify in criminal cases where such an analyst conducts a test, perhaps using a machine or other apparatus, and then prepares a report communicating the results of that test, and that report (or evidence of it) is offered at trial against an accused. The purpose of this Article is to highlight the issues raised by, and potential consequences of, the applicability (or inapplicability) of the Confrontation Clause to forensic scientists creating purportedly objective reports, in various situations. Part I introduces the Article. Part II provides some case law history of Confrontation Clause jurisprudence so that the issues may be placed in their historical and analytical context. Part III sets forth the facts, the lower court proceedings, and the Supreme Court decision, in Bullcoming v. New Mexico. Part IV identifies the nine important issues that arose prior to Bullcoming and discusses where they stand after that decision. Also considered in that Part are some consequences to law enforcement policy. Finally, Part V presents our conclusions. Even though the Supreme Court in Bullcoming chose to refrain from laying to rest most of the issues we identify, we hope that this paper will, at least, add to the ongoing dialogue on forensics and confrontation rights, and encourage more work in this important and developing area of law.
Using betting market odds to measure the uncertainty of outcome in major league baseball

Betting market odds for Major League Baseball are used to examine the level of uncertainty of outcome, an ex-ante form of competitive balance. The efficient markets hypothesis cannot be rejected for the years 1990-2006 in Major League Baseball. Therefore, the odds provide an ex-ante measure of the uncertainty of outcome of baseball games in the minds of fans and bettors. The odds for both the American and National Leagues were shown to increase during the 1990s, implying more certainty in the expected outcome of the game. Bettors and fans believed favorites in Major League Baseball were more likely to win during this time frame. Differences in the average odds, formed ex-ante, compared to win percentages, formed ex-post, help to explain the dichotomy found in Schmidt and Berri (2001) in relation to public belief in less competitiveness compared to economic findings of relatively high levels of competitive balance.
Criminals Get All the Rights: The Sociolegal Construction of Different Rights to Die

In the United States, different people have different rights to die. This Article traces the origins of death-sentenced prisoners’ ability to enlist assistance in dying and compares it to the considerably more circumscribed right held by people with serious illness. It uses empirical research on “volunteers,” death-sentenced prisoners who sought execution, to argue that the legal standard for adjudicating their requests to hasten execution should be changed. Empirical evidence suggests many of the concerns governing the regulation of assisted dying in the medical context are present in the death row case. This Article therefore urges courts to use a balancing test comparable to that developed in cases involving assisted dying in the medical context. Further, counsel should be appointed to articulate the state’s interests in subjecting the conviction and sentence to appellate review.
The BBLR Approach to tax Reform in Emerging Countries

Fiscal experts have years proposed a holy trinity of tax reform options for developing countries: broader bases, lower rates, and better administration. The review in this paper of fifty years of experience auggests that what might be called the BBLR approach-- broader bases and lower rates -- to tax structure reform holds up fairly well. Nonetheless, some qualifications to the basic BBLR approach are suggested and the continuing fundamental importance of understanding and improving tax administration is stressed.
VERs and Price Undertakings under the WTO

Under the rules of the WTO, governments are prohibited from negotiating voluntary export restraints (VERs) but may negotiate price undertakings (i.e. import price minima). While these two policies can have identical effects in models of perfect competition, they can have very different economic consequences with imperfect competition. The model presented here shows that in a model of international Bertrand duopoly, a VER can result in lower domestic prices and profits than a price minimum regime. This suggests that price undertakings should also be prohibited under the WTO.
A tutorial on portfolio-based control algorithms for merchant energy trading operations

Abstract Merchant energy trading companies operate energy conversion facilities and infrastructure via direct or contractual ownership. Portfolio-based control algorithms are a real option approach that practitioners use to manage these assets. To avoid potential model error, this approach represents the operations of these assets as portfolios of traded financial instruments on energy commodities. Optimization of the portfolio composition subject to the asset operational constraints yields a market-value, an operating policy, and a financial hedge for the asset. We provide a tutorial on this methodology, focusing on examples of natural gas transport and storage assets. We frame the presentation within the typical organizational structure of merchant energy trading companies. We also discuss limitations of this approach and their possible remedies.
The N-Word at Work: Contextualizing Language in the Workplace

The N-Word at Work examines the misinterpretation of language in employment discrimination cases. There is a widening gap between the use and meaning of words in modern American culture and courts’ treatment of those words. This is particularly true in the case of derogatory slurs and phrases but is equally true for discriminatory language in general. This article argues for a context-driven theory of linguistic meaning that is compatible with the purposes of Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes but that would re-inject a sense of reality into the consideration of discriminatory language.Both the legal literature and judicial system have largely ignored this problem of language in discrimination cases. Perhaps sensing an emerging problem in the lower courts, in its 2006 decision in Ash v. Tyson, the Supreme Court devoted a single, vague sentence to the meaning of language in discrimination cases. Nonetheless, the problem persists among appellate and district courts alike. In late 2010, for example, a federal district court in Philadelphia addressed the issue head-on in a case involving a white employee who was terminated for using “the N-word” and claimed in his reverse-race discrimination case that had he been African American and used the word, he would not have been disciplined. Like its predecessors, the court approached the problem in a formalistic way that resulted in a context-blind approach to language with unsatisfactory results.This article calls attention to this issue by examining the uses and meanings of discriminatory language in modern culture and advocates a theory of meaning that relies on the context in which it is used, the identity of the user, and the social, historical, and cultural framework in which the language developed. The article highlights the mistreatment of language by trial and appellate courts and tracks the troubling history of Ash, which was finally resolved in December 2011 after two trials, a trip to the Supreme Court and four reviews by the Eleventh Circuit. Finally, the article suggests solutions to this seemingly intractable problem, including the need for (1) robust guidance from the Supreme Court on the purposes of anti-discrimination law and the non-literal applications of that law that make flexible, context-driven considerations of discriminatory language both possible and preferable and (2) extra-legal expert testimony akin to social framework evidence that could translate the cultural realities of language for courts.
Option Pricing: Theory and Numerical Methods

The goal of this article is to introduce readers to the fundamental ideas underlying theory and practice of financial derivatives pricing. We begin by defining financial derivatives. Our discussion is focused on stock options, although the same ideas apply to other derivatives. We present commonly used models for the evolution of stock prices: binomial and trinomial trees; and geometric Brownian motion. We discuss shortcomings of these models and suggest alternatives. Using the binomial model for the stock price evolution, we illustrate the main idea of asset pricing theory—no-arbitrage pricing—and derive the price of a stock option. This formula creates an opportunity to discuss another important idea in asset pricing—risk-neutral valuation. We introduce the Black–Scholes and Merton model and present the celebrated Black–Scholes and Merton PDE and option pricing formulas. Although some derivatives afford closed form expressions (e.g., Black–Scholes and Merton formulas) for their prices, the vast majority of derivatives must be priced numerically. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of three main numerical methods: lattice models, Monte Carlo simulation, and finite difference methods. The article is concluded with a brief overview the literature that will help readers to continue learning about this fascinating topic. Keywords: geometric Brownian motion; binomial trees; European and American options; no-arbitrage pricing; risk-neutral valuation; Monte Carlo simulation; finite difference methods; Black Scholes partial differential equation; Black–Scholes formula