cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Recent Developments: Hitting the Ceiling: An Examination of Barriers to Success for Asian American Women

This paper aims to fill the void in legal research on the experiences of Asian American women. This paper is limited in scope and focuses specifically on the experiences of middle-class, educated, Asian American women. It also focuses on societal forces that create barriers to success for Asian American women, such as stereotyping. Asian Americans are not a monolithic group. They are from different countries with distinct histories, and differing languages, cultures, cuisines, and religions. Nevertheless, our dominant society often mistakes all Asian Americans as being members of a monolithic group. For that reason, this paper focuses specifically on external forces creating barriers to success. It will not discuss internal cultural forces that may also create barriers to success for Asian Americans. Part II discusses the exclusion of Asian American women from the theories of the “glass ceiling” and the “bamboo ceiling.” Part III describes the study of intersectionality, its limitations, and potential for understanding and eradicating the barriers to success for Asian American women. To fully understand the barriers to success for Asian American women, Part IV will examine the history of exclusion and stereotypes of Asian American women; this Part will also discuss the model minority myth and how Asian American women fit into this narrative. Part V will examine how these stereotypes contribute to discrimination against Asian American women in the workplace. This paper concludes with a discussion on ways to acknowledge the experiences of Asian American women and remove these barriers to success.
On the Creation of Acceptable Conjoint Analysis Experimental Designs

Conjoint analysis studies typically utilize orthogonal fractional factorial experimental designs to construct a set of hypothetical stimuli. Occasionally, these designs include environmentally correlated attributes that can lead to stimulus profiles that are not representative of the subject's environment. To date, no one has proposed a remedy well-grounded in statistical theory. This note presents a new methodology utilizing combinatorial optimization procedures for creating modified fractional factorial designs that are as “orthogonal” as possible, which do not contain nonrepresentative stimulus profiles.
A Short and Plain Solution to the Medical Malpractice Crisis: Why Charles E. Clark Remains Prophetically Correct about Special Pleading and the Big Case

Antitrust. Patent infringement. Civil rights. Employment discrimination. And now, medical malpractice. The common thread among each of these categories of cases is that judges and advocates have, at one time or another, sought to elevate the pleading requirements in federal court for these so-called "big cases." To date, every such effort has failed.6 But none of the previous attempts have garnered the wide range of support now coming from such influential sources as the majority of physicians, Congress, and the President of the United States.Our country is in the middle of a similar predicament-a medical malpractice crisis that is influencing, and attempting to alter, the rules of pleading in federal court. Essentially, doctors and their advocates assert that without stiff and immediate limitations on medical malpractice litigation, doctors will be unable to afford the escalating costs of medical malpractice insurance coverage and will eventually be "run out of town" or at least out of business, leaving many of us without the aid of a physician when we need medical care. Although many reforms have already been enacted, those challenging the reforms assert that medical malpractice continues to occur and that victims continue to need access to a forum for judicial relief.' Without seeking to embrace or advance the merits of either camp's arguments, this Article will instead seek to respond to the residual quandary posed by the current national crisis-how pleading requirements in medical malpractice cases are infringing upon the Federal Rules in diversity actions.Because there are very few instances where medical malpractice issues arise under federal statute, invariably, the majority of medical malpractice cases filed in federal court will enter via diversity jurisdiction. Thus, while doctors and plaintiffs lawyers debate the finer points of the medical malpractice crisis, this Article focuses on resolving the impending Erie question regarding heightened pleading in federally filed medical malpractice actions. Part II of this Article provides a brief overview of the medical malpractice crisis and its impact on litigation. Part III evaluates the proffered solution-heightened pleading-and assesses the various approaches taken by federal courts in resolving the Erie issue presented by heightened pleading. Part IV critiques the proffered solution from the perspective of history, the Federal Rules, and precedent. In doing so, Part IV will trace the evolution of notice pleading and underscore the lasting and unchanging nature of Rule 8 from Dioguardi to Conley to Leatherman to Swierkiewicz. Finally, Part V offers an improved solution to the medical malpractice crisis that more fully addresses the concerns of overburdened physicians while more closely meeting the equally important needs of injured patients and keeping intact the important procedural design of the Federal Rules. For now, it appears the "big case" is once again upon us.
Load-dependent relationships between frontal fNIRS activity and performance: A data-driven PLS approach.

Abstract Neuroimaging research frequently demonstrates load-dependent activation in prefrontal and parietal cortex during working memory tasks such as the N-back. Most of this work has been conducted in fMRI, but functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is gaining traction as a less invasive and more flexible alternative to measuring cortical hemodynamics. Few fNIRS studies, however, have examined how working memory load-dependent changes in brain hemodynamics relate to performance. The current study employs a newly developed and robust statistical analysis of task-based fNIRS data in a large sample, and demonstrates the utility of data-driven, multivariate analyses to link brain activation and behavior in this modality. Seventy participants completed a standard N-back task with three N-back levels (N = 1, 2, 3) while fNIRS data were collected from frontal and parietal cortex. Overall, participants showed reliably greater fronto-parietal activation for the 2-back versus the 1-back task, suggesting fronto-parietal fNIRS measurements are sensitive to differences in cognitive load. The results for 3-back were much less consistent, potentially due to poor behavioral performance in the 3-back task. To address this, a multivariate analysis (behavioral partial least squares, PLS) was conducted to examine the interaction between fNIRS activation and performance at each N-back level. Results of the PLS analysis demonstrated differences in the relationship between accuracy and change in the deoxyhemoglobin fNIRS signal as a function of N-back level in eight mid-frontal channels. Specifically, greater reductions in deoxyhemoglobin (i.e., more activation) were positively related to performance on the 3-back task, unrelated to accuracy in the 2-back task, and negatively associated with accuracy in the 1-back task. This pattern of results suggests that the metabolic demands correlated with neural activity required for high levels of accuracy vary as a consequence of task difficulty/cognitive load, whereby more automaticity during the 1-back task (less mid-frontal activity) predicted superior performance on this relatively easy task, and successful engagement of this mid-frontal region was required for high accuracy on a more difficult and cognitively demanding 3-back task. In summary, we show that fNIRS activity can track working memory load and can uncover significant associations between brain activity and performance, thus opening the door for this modality to be used in more wide-spread applications.
Altruistic Dynamic Pricing with Customer Regret

A model is considered in which firms internalize the costly regret that consumers experience when prices change unexpectedly. This regret is greater when prices change by more, and this can explain why the actual size of price increases for firms with rigid prices is less sensitive to inflation than in models with fixed costs of changing prices. Regret costs of this form also lead to more variable price changes than fixed costs do. Last, the practice of announcing price increases in advance is easier to rationalize with regret concerns by consumers than with more standard approaches to price rigidity.
Meyer, Pierce, and the History of the Entire Human Race: Barbarism, Social Progress, and (the Fall and Rise of) Parental Rights

In order to submerge the individual and develop ideal citizens, Sparta assembled the males at seven into barracks and intrusted their subsequent education and training to official guardians. Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius their ideas touching the relation between individual and state were wholly different from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be affirmed that any Legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of a state without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution. -Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 402 (1923)
Portion size me: downsizing our consumption norms.

We are a nation of super-sized portions and supersized people. When faced with the family-sized box of breakfast cereal, five sizes of french fries, or a 14-in dinner plate, it is easy to forget our world history. In 75 years we have gone from shivering in Depression breadlines and hoarding food-ration stamps to being an overweight, super-sized country. Most of us are now surrounded with a portion-distorted embarrassment of food (1). We find portion distortions in supermarkets, where the number of larger sizes has increased 10-fold between 1970 and 2000 (2). We find portion distortions in restaurants, where the jumbo-sized portions are consistently 250% larger than the regular portion. We even find portion distortions in our homes (3), where the sizes of our bowls and glasses have steadily increased and where the surface area of the average dinner plate has increased 36% since 1960 (4). And if our bowls, glasses, and plates do not distort us, our recipes will. In the 2006 edition of the Joy of Cooking, the serving size of some entrees has increased by as much as 62% from some recipes in the first edition of 1920. This commentary addresses four questions: (a) Who is portion-size prone? (b) Why do portion sizes lead us to overeat? (c) What caused portion distortion? and (d) How can we downsize our consumption norms?
Firm age and innovation

We examine how firm age relates to innovtion quality, and how this relationship varies depending on the nature of technology. Using data on patents of COMPUSTAT firms, we find that firm age is negatively related to technical quality, and that this effect is greater in technologically active areas. The economic implication of this effect is substantial; each additional year reduces the impact of a 10% increase in R&D intensity on the firm's market value by over 3%.
Diffusing the Cloud: Cloud Computing and Implications for Public Policy

Cloud Computing is rapidly emerging as the new information technology platform. It is, however, much more than simply a new set of technologies and business models. Cloud Computing is transforming how consumers, companies, and governments store information, how they process that information, and how they utilize computing power. It can be an engine of innovation, a platform for entrepreneurship, and driver of corporate efficiency. While an increasingly commonly term, confusion remains over what exactly constitutes Cloud Computing, how the markets are unfolding, and what forces will drive their evolution and diffusion. This paper provides an overview and conceptual tools for business leaders, policymakers, and non-specialist scholars to identify, distill, and easily understand the core aspects of how Cloud Computing service markets are developing, and how an array of policy issues will influence how this new computing platform unfolds across the world.
PATENTLY NON-OBVIOUS II: EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE HINDSIGHT ISSUE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT IN KSR v. TELEFLEX

For the first time in thirty years, the Supreme Court will consider the core patent requirement that an invention be non-obvious. At the heart of the case lies the challenge of how to insulate non-obvious decisions from the distortion of the hindsight bias. This Article reports the latest empirical studies in a line of hindsight research, which present experimental data bearing directly on the issue before the Court: how individuals make non-obvious decisions under existing Supreme Court and Federal Circuit precedent. The study results indicate that the Federal Circuit's suggestion, teaching, or motivation requirement, the precedent challenged before the Supreme Court in KSR v. Teleflex, does not produce erroneous nonobvious outcomes. This result contradicts the claims of the petitioners in KSR and other critics of the suggestion requirement. On the other hand, the results do not demonstrate that the suggestion test ameliorates the hindsight bias in the manner usually claimed by its supporters. An additional study indicates that the Supreme Court's Graham framework does not resolve the hindsight problem either. Given the substantial and confirmed prejudicial effect of the hindsight bias, the Article concludes that the suggestion test should be retained for several reasons: it does not appear to cause the harms hypothesized by its critics, it potentially reduces the hindsight bias for complex technology inventions, and the problem the test confronts (erroneous decisions that an invention is obvious in hindsight) is known and significant while the problem the test is alleged to create (over-compensation for the hindsight bias) is unconfirmed and conjectural. The Article concludes with a recommendation for bifurcating the nonobvious decision at the Patent and Trademark Office. Combined with an earlier proposal for jury trials, these recommendations present the only known means for eliminating the hindsight effect and producing patent decisions that comport with the Patent Act and Supreme Court precedent. * © 2006 Gregory N. Mandel. Associate Dean for Research & Scholarship and Professor of Law, Albany Law School. I am grateful to the participants of the Intellectual Property Scholars Conference at Boalt Hall-Berkeley Law School, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies at the University of Texas School of Law, Patent Law: Recent Development and Proposals for Reform at Santa Clara School of Law, and the Intellectual Property Colloquium at the University of Arizona College of Law for their helpful comments. 1 MANDEL: PATENTLY NON-OBVIOUS II Published by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository, 2007 YALE JOURNAL OF LAW & TECHNOLOGY 2006-2007
Modeling college major choices using elicited measures of expectations and counterfactuals

Abstract The choice of a college major plays a critical role in determining the future earnings of college graduates. Students make their college major decisions in part due to the future earnings streams associated with the different majors. We survey students about what their expected earnings would be both in the major they have chosen and in counterfactual majors. We also elicit students’ subjective assessments of their abilities in chosen and counterfactual majors. We estimate a model of college major choice that incorporates these subjective expectations and assessments. We show that both expected earnings and students’ abilities in the different majors are important determinants of a student’s choice of a college major. We also consider how differences in students’ forecasts about what the average Duke student would earn in different majors versus what they expect they would earn both influence one’s choice of a college major. In particular, our estimates suggest that 7.8% of students would switch majors if they had the same expectations about the average returns to different majors and differed only in their perceived comparative advantages across these majors.
Short-Term Debt and Bank Risk

The extant literature suggests that one of the main causes of the recent financial crisis was the excessive use of short-term debt by banks. Using a large sample of banks, we find that increases in repurchase agreements (repos) were recognized by external capital markets to increase bank risk in the pre-crisis period. In the crisis, we find a negative relationship between repos and risk. We attribute this result to evidence suggesting that “good” banks were able to continue funding their repos, whereas “bad” banks had to significantly decrease their repo funding.
Context Effects without a Context: Attribute Balance as a Reason for Choice

This article extends the notion of context effects beyond the relational properties of choice alternatives to include attribute balance as a reason for choice. The data reported in two experiments demonstrate that attribute balance has a significant impact on extremeness-aversion and trade-off-contrast effects reported in prior research. The proposition that consumers use attribute balance as a reason for choice is further supported by the finding that attribute balance moderates the impact of justification on the strength of extremeness aversion and trade-off contrast. These findings offer a new perspective on the decision processes underlying context effects in choice.
Anisotropic Curie temperature materials

Existence of anisotropic Curie temperature materials [E. R. Callen, Phys. Rev. 124, 1373 (1961)] is a longstanding prediction - materials that become paramagnetic along certain crystal directions at a lower temperature while remaining magnetically ordered in other directions up to a higher temperature. Validating Callen's theory, we show that all directions within the basal plane of monoclinic Fe7S8 single crystals remain ordered up to 603 K while the hard c-axis becomes paramagnetic at 225 K. Materials with such a large directional dependence of Curie temperature opens the possibility of uniquely new devices and phenomena.
Protectionist Pressures, Imports and Employment in the United States

This paper assesses the theoretical and empirical basis for American labor union leaders’ contention that imports have been a large source of job loss in the United States. It is shown, first, that identification of job losses “due to imports” is exceptionally difficult because economic growth affects adversely the industries believed affected by imports. Then, an accounting framework is employed to assess possible empirical orders of magnitude. The results are fairly conclusive in indicating that factors other than import competition have been primary in leading to structural shifts in employment.
The role of in-house counsel in post-Soviet Russia in the wake of privatization

The mass privatization of Russian industrial enterprises in the early 1990s would seem to have provided an opportunity for in-house lawyers to enhance their role within the enterprise. Drawing on a series of in-depth case studies, the article argues that the shift from state socialism to the market had minimal impact on Russian in-house counsel. The lawyers themselves made little effort to take on new duties in the areas of commercial paper or corporate governance, and were often sidelined even in their traditional areas of competence, such as contractual relations with suppliers and customers. The case studies reveal variation, which are driven by institutional history and barter levels.
Chameleons: The Misuse of Theoretical Models in Finance and Economics

In this essay I discuss how theoretical models in finance and economics are used in ways that make them â€œchameleonsâ€ and how chameleons devalue the intellectual currency and muddy policy debates. A model becomes a chameleon when it is built on assumptions with dubious connections to the real world but nevertheless has conclusions that are uncritically (or not critically enough) applied to understanding our economy. I discuss how chameleons are created and nurtured by the mistaken notion that one should not judge a model by its assumptions, by the unfounded argument that models should have equal standing until definitive empirical tests are conducted, and by misplaced appeals to â€œas-ifâ€ arguments, mathematical elegance, subtlety, references to assumptions being â€œstandard in the literature,â€ and the need for tractability.
Testing the Volatility Term Structure Using Option Hedging Criteria

The Black-Scholes formula assumes future volatility is a constant and known parameter, but this is now well-known to be untrue. A variety of models with time-varying volatility have been introduced, but there is no consensus on which one is the best, or even on how to answer that question properly. Engle and Rosenberg propose that the appropriate test of the efficacy of a given volatility model should be how well it can hedge an options position. They consider five models: Black-Scholes (BS), a BS variant with mean-reverting implied volatility, and three forms of GARCH-based model. They test how well each one is able to hedge against changing volatility by comparing their performance in a hedge of one straddle with another. The most accurate model out of sample is the GARCH components-with-leverage model. By contrast, a delta-vega hedge based on the BS model was poor, frequently leading to higher variance for the hedge than for the unhedged position.
Settlement procedures and stock market efficiency

This study examines why most derivatives markets that settle on the day following expiration choose the opening rather than the closing price as the final settlement price (FSP), whereas most markets that settle on the expiration day select an average rather than a single price as the FSP. Four exogenous changes in the Taiwan Futures Exchange settlement procedures provide an experimental basis for studying the settlement procedures’ impact on underlying assets. Greatest market efficiency is observed when the FSP is determined by a single rather than an average price and hypothesize that manipulation is prevented at the expense of market quality.
A paper tiger? An empirical analysis of majority voting

Abstract Majority voting in board elections has emerged as a dominant theme in recent proxy seasons. Analysis of majority voting is important: first, the impact is controversial yet scant empirical evidence exists. Second, Congress is still considering mandating this practice. Third, there has been a tectonic shift in adoptions of majority voting, from 16% to over 67% of S&P 500 firms in just two years. Fourth, the vast majority of shareholder proposals for majority voting are sponsored by unions with little shareholdings. Proponents argue that majority voting aligns shareholder–director interests. Opponents argue that the practice will be disruptive and could result in the failure of boards to meet exchange and SEC requirements. Others assert that majority voting is a paper tiger, amounting to form over substance, particularly since many adoptions are non-binding. We provide an empirical analysis of the wealth effects, characteristics, and efficacy of majority voting. Our results are consistent with the paper tiger hypothesis.
Similarities and dissimilarities between psychiatric cluster disorders.

The common molecular mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders are not well understood. Prior attempts to assess the pathological mechanisms responsible for psychiatric disorders have been limited by biased selection of comparable disorders, datasets/cohort availability, and challenges with data normalization. Here, using DisGeNET, a gene-disease associations database, we sought to expand such investigations in terms of number and types of diseases. In a top-down manner, we analyzed an unbiased cluster of 36 psychiatric disorders and comorbid conditions at biological pathway, cell-type, drug-target, and chromosome levels and deployed density index, a novel metric to quantify similarities (close to 1) and dissimilarities (close to 0) between these disorders at each level. At pathway level, we show that cognition and neurotransmission drive the similarity and are involved across all disorders, whereas immune-system and signal-response coupling (cell surface receptors, signal transduction, gene expression, and metabolic process) drives the dissimilarity and are involved with specific disorders. The analysis at the drug-target level supports the involvement of neurotransmission-related changes across these disorders. At cell-type level, dendrite-targeting interneurons, across all layers, are most involved. Finally, by matching the clustering pattern at each level of analysis, we showed that the similarity between the disorders is influenced most at the chromosomal level and to some extent at the cellular level. Together, these findings provide first insights into distinct cellular and molecular pathologies, druggable mechanisms associated with several psychiatric disorders and comorbid conditions and demonstrate that similarities between these disorders originate at the chromosome level and disperse in a bottom-up manner at cellular and pathway levels.
On Madison, Muslims, and the New York City Police Department

An exchange of letters between James Madison and Thomas Jefferson frames this Article. In October of 1787, Madison, the intellectual and political force behind the successful adoption of the Constitution in September of that year, had forwarded a copy of the newly proposed document to Jefferson, who was then serving in Paris as America’s Minister to France. 2 Jefferson’s reply was immediate. 3 While mostly complimentary, he was highly critical of the absence of a bill of
Tax Policy in Emerging Countries

We consider in this paper how emerging countries may in practice best design and develop tax policies, given the complex economic and political environments they face. After an overview of what tax systems look like around the world, we discuss the principal objectives that countries may attempt to achieve through tax policy. We conclude by considering the broad political economy context within which tax policy and development issues must be designed and implemented. Our aim is to set out some of the basic issues facing tax policy in emerging countries and to outline some key elements that should be considered in designing the best feasible tax structure for any particular country at a particular time.
Investors Do Respond to Poor Mutual Fund Performance: Evidence from Inflows and Outflows

We examine the relation between mutual fund performance and gross flows for a large sample of actively managed U.S. mutual funds. Unlike previous studies that have only examined periods of generally increasing net flows, our sample includes periods of both increasing and decreasing net flows. We find that outflows are related to performance, with investors withdrawing money from poor performers. We also find that outflows and inflows respond asymmetrically to performance, outflows increase more aggressively following poor performance, and inflows increase more aggressively following good performance. Additionally, we find a symmetric performance net flow relation. © 2012, The Eastern Finance Association.
Managers' Segment Financial Reporting Choice: An Analysis Of Firms' Segment Reconciliations

Under SFAS No. 131, a company is required to provide a reconciliation of the total of the reportable segments profit or loss to the firms consolidated income. This paper investigates these segment disclosures and related determinants of managers segment financial reporting choices. We focus on managers decisions to report segment-to-firm level reconciliations (i.e., segment reconciliations (SERs)) differences between firm-level and aggregated segment-level earnings. On average, we find that SERs are significant when the differences are not equal to zero. Firms with higher agency costs and greater accruals are less likely to report segment reconciliations. However, firms that have a greater number of segments, larger firms, and firms with higher leverage, losses, and greater earnings volatility are more likely to report SER?0. Consistent with managers having some segment reporting discretion, our overall findings suggest a managers segment reporting choice is partly driven by agency costs. Interestingly, among firms with reported segment reconciliations, firms with higher agency costs are more likely to report positive SERs. Consequently, this study documents a relation between proxies for agency costs and managers decisions to report segment reconciliations. Policy implications and suggestions for future research are discussed in the paper.
Do Shareholder Rights Affect the Cost of Bank Loans

Using a large sample of bank loans issued to U.S. firms between 1990 and 2004, we find that lower takeover defenses (as proxied by the lower G-index of Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick 2003) significantly increase the cost of loans for a firm. Firms with lowest takeover defense (democracy) pay a 25% higher spread on their bank loans as compared with firms with the highest takeover defense (dictatorship), after controlling for various firm and loan characteristics. Further investigations indicate that banks charge a higher loan spread to firms with higher takeover vulnerability mainly because of their concern about a substantial increase in financial risk after the takeover. Our results have important implications for understanding the link between a firm's governance structure and its cost of capital. Our study suggests that firms that rely too much on corporate control market as a governance device are punished by costlier bank loans. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
Max Weber and the ‘Spirit’ of The Protestant Ethic:

Weber’s account of the iron cage of capitalism, which once might have stirred readers to resist the alienation it describes, has by now lost much of its critical force, as if the metaphor itself had turned to steel. And yet, just as Weber thought there was in the notion of ‘duty in a calling’ a ghost of capitalism’s religious origins, I argue that there is in the language of The Protestant Ethic and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism a ghost of the text’s once critical nature. With this in mind, and following Weber’s lead as he conjures the ‘spirit’ of capitalism and traces its roots to the Reformation, this article finds in The Protestant Ethic evidence of a certain ‘spirit’ of Weber’s science — a science that decides on the meaning of its evidence in ways not always avowed, and finds its own antecedents in the hermeneutic practices it analyzes.
Search, Essential Facilities, and the Antitrust Duty to Deal

The Federal Trade Commission recently voted unanimously to close the portion of its antitrust investigation into Google's search practices without filing a complaint. The agency apparently concluded that the firm's practice of favoring its own content in search results did not violate U.S. antitrust laws. This paper suggests that the FTC's decision was correct. Seeking the competitive advantages inherent in integration, which is what preferential treatment of one’s own property is about, is usually not unlawful. This article examines whether “essential facilities” and the duty-to-deal nonetheless provide a basis for prohibiting this practice, as some have suggested, and concludes that they do not. On the threshold monopoly power issue, most assume, based on Google’s high percentage of general search queries, that Google has monopoly power. This paper analyzes why this assumption, though intuitively appealing, is incorrect. It also considers other problems with invoking either principle in the display of search results. For essential facilities, for example, important issues regarding which is the alleged essential facility, whether there is denial of access, and whether the facility is capable of being shared have been largely overlooked. Yet they present major challenges for the application of the doctrine in the search context. For the duty-to-deal, it is equally difficult to see how the principle, rarely applicable, can be made to apply.This paper also questions a fundamental assumption embedded in the discourse -- that the favoring of one’s own property in search results, being good for a search engine, must be anticompetitive. Antitrust law is consumer-centric, and practices that benefit search users, while also benefiting the search engine, would not be anticompetitive even if they incidentally hurt some competing providers. The paper ends with a discussion of some policy issues and concludes that they generally cut in favor of allowing search engines to incorporate new features and redesign their product, even if that might unfortunately adversely impact some competitors in ancillary markets.
The Evolution of Global Labor Markets since 1830: Background Evidence and Hypotheses

Abstract Debate over the economic convergence of currently industrialized nations has suffered a number of shortcomings. First, the underlying data base has typically been limited to Angus Maddison′s GNP and GNP per worker-hour estimates. This paper offers a new data base, purchasing-power-parity-adjusted real wage rates for unskilled labor. Second, the debate has typically focused on end points from the 19th century to the present, paying little attention to differential behavior in four distinct regimes: 1830 to midcentury, midcentury to World War I, the interwar decades, and the post-World War II experience. Third, with some recent exceptions, the search for explanations has focused primarily on technological advance, while ignoring the potential role of global factor and commodity market integration (and disintegration). The new real wage data base confirms some old stylized facts and offers some new ideas. It also points out how these four regimes differed. They differed enough to suggest that different explanations will be necessary.
Familiarity Bias and Perceived Future Home Price Movements

This study empirically confirms the existence of the status quo deviation aversion hypothesis, but not increasing status quo deviation aversion, in people who own their primary residence. The examination was conducted in the 20 Case-Shiller Metropolitan Statistical Areas across the country. The results are systemic and do not vary substantially by demographic characteristics. However, variations are noted with different levels of real estate knowledge, income, purchase motive, relative home tenure, and excess relative housing risk.
An Econometric Analysis of Nonsynchronous Trading

Abstract We develop a stochastic model of nonsynchronous asset prices based on sampling with random censoring. In addition to generalizing existing models of nontrading, our framework allows the explicit calculation of the effects of infrequent trading on the time series properties of asset returns. These are empirically testable implications for the variances, autocorrelations, and cross-autocorrelations of returns to individual stocks as well as to portfolios. We construct estimators to quantify the magnitude of nontrading effects in commonly used stock returns data bases, and show the extent to which this phenomenon is responsible for the recent rejections of the random walk hypothesis.
Smallholder technical efficiency controlling for environmental production conditions

Abstract Smallholder agricultural production depends heavily on environmental production conditions that are largely exogenously determined. Yet, few data sets collect necessary, detailed information on environmental production conditions. This oversight raises the spectre of likely omitted variables bias because farmers' input choices typically respond in part to environmental conditions. Moreover, because environmental production conditions are rarely symmetrically distributed, the omission also generally leads to upward bias in estimated technical inefficiency and to biased estimates of the correlates of estimated technical inefficiency as well. Using panel data from 464 traditional rice plots in Cote d'Ivoire, we show that controlling for heterogeneous environmental production conditions significantly changes inferences, perhaps especially with respect to smallholder rice farmers' estimated technical inefficiency.
Investment Opportunities and the Design of Debt Securities

We investigate a puzzling empirical regularity: the near-total absence of restrictive covenants from publicly traded convertible bonds issued by U.S. companies. In a study of 192 recent debt issues, we find that an issuer's investment opportunities are negatively related to the presence of covenants and positively associated with the incidence of convertibility. The results support an interpretation that covenants impose costs by limiting managers' choices, leading firms that value managerial flexibility to prefer convertibility as a method of reducing the agency costs of debt.
Representativeness of the Low-Income Population in the Health and Retirement Study

Abstract We study to what extent the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is representative of all income groups, but with a particular emphasis on low-income groups. To focus on the HRS sample composition and abstract from potential measurement issues associated with measures of income, we exploit the SSA administrative data matched to the HRS sample and compare the distribution of the matched SSA variables against the distribution of the same variables for the same population in the SSA databases. Overall, the HRS is representative for the population it covers. However, for some subgroups in the low-income population, there are some differences.
Taxing Publicly Traded Entities

Publicly traded entities are generally treated as corporations for U.S. tax purposes. Under various exceptions, however, publicly traded entities may obtain special treatment if they earn predominately certain specified types of qualifying income. This Article examines potential rationales for granting special tax treatment to certain publicly traded entities. As the analysis in this Article will show, many of the potential rationales are unconvincing. In addition, to the extent that some rationales may be persuasive, the current rules are not designed in a way that best comports with these potential justifications. Therefore, reform is needed. To reform the current system, this Article proposes narrowing the scope of what may be classified as qualifying income so that special tax treatment is bestowed upon publicly traded entities only when warranted by underlying policy justifications. Specifically, this Article proposes that income that is classified as qualifying income under current law should not be classified in that manner unless it is earned by holding a publicly traded asset. In addition, current law grants favorable treatment to all income earned by a publicly traded entity if and only if the entity earns predominately qualifying income. This Article assesses whether tax law should, instead, grant special tax treatment to only qualifying income earned by a publicly traded entity, but with the special treatment applying regardless of whether the entity earns predominately qualifying income. Ultimately, this Article concludes that, on balance, concerns about complexity justify continuation of a regime under which beneficial treatment applies to all income earned by a publicly traded entity if and only if the entity earns predominately qualifying income, provided that the scope of what may be classified as qualifying income is narrowed in the manner proposed by this Article.
Information Resources Management Expenditures in the States: A Case for Integrating Accounting and Budgeting Systems

A recent national study has found that states may be spending $20 billion on information resources management (IRM) in FY1989. The significant findings of the study regarding financial management are highlighted to show the dimensions of the IRM expenditures in the states. The second part of the paper examines how well the states' accounting systems are able to provide data on IRM expenditures for budgetary decisions. The article expands upon an important issue raised in the study's findings: the need for better integration of accounting and budgeting systems to improve management of information resources. An Information Object Classification Scheme, first suggested by the Commission on Federal Paperwork, is proposed as an important step in helping states improve their information resources management.
Challenging Paternity: Histories of Copyright

Intellectual Property law has long been characterized by formalistic legal and economic analyses suited for practitioners of law and classical economics. It has more recently garnered the attention of scholars looking to investigate the social elements and contexts from which IP emerges and functions. Context, authority, and power have all been unveiled by critical interrogations of commonplace elements of IP, such as the ‘author.’ This review considers three recent books: Mark Rose’s Authors and Owners, Martha Woodmansee’s The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics, and David Saunders’ Authorship and Copyright. The first two engage the complex cultural context of copyright law’s historical emergency, highlighting the interconnectedness between various discourses in national contexts. The third is a less nuanced of the history of copyright and author’s rights in five jurisdictions.
Rejectable Choice Sets: How Seemingly Irrelevant No-Choice Options Affect Consumer Decision Processes

Abstract To date, research on no-choice options has primarily examined the conditions that foster choice deferral, thus focusing on the frequency with which consumers select the no-choice option. In this article, the authors argue that even if the no-choice option is not selected, its mere presence in the choice set may alter consumers' choices. More specifically, they investigate how decision processes and preferences change when consumers have a no-choice option versus when they are forced to choose from a given choice set. They propose that the inclusion of a no-choice option in a choice set affects preferences by leading consumers to determine not only which alternative is best, but which, if any, are acceptable (i.e., meet the consumer's minimum needs). Accordingly, the authors demonstrate that the inclusion of a no-choice option in the choice set (1) leads to more alternative- (rather than attribute-) based information processing, (2) increases the importance of attributes that are more meaningful w...
Dual Sourcing Under Random Supply Capacities: The Role of the Slow Supplier

Sourcing from multiple suppliers with different characteristics is common in practice for various reasons. This paper studies a dynamic procurement planning problem in which the firm can replenish inventory from a fast and a slow supplier, both with uncertain capacities. The optimal policy is characterized by two reorder points, one for each supplier. Whenever the pre-order inventory level is below the reorder point, a replenishment order is issued to the corresponding supplier. Interestingly, the reorder point for the slow supplier can be higher than that of the fast even if the former has a higher cost, lower reliability, and smaller capacity than the latter, suggesting the possibility of ordering exclusively from an inferior slow supplier in the short term. Moreover, the firm may allocate a larger portion of the long-term total order quantity to the slow supplier than to the fast, even if the former does not possess any cost or reliability advantage over the latter. Such phenomena, different from the observations made in previous studies, happen when the demand is uncertain and the supply is limited or unreliable. Our observations highlight the importance of incorporating both demand uncertainty and supplier characteristics (i.e., cost, lead time, capacity and uncertainty) in a unified framework when formulating supplier selection and order allocation strategies.
INTEGRATING COMPUTERIZED LEGAL RESEARCH INTO THE UNDERGRADUATE LAW CURRICULUM

This innovative article urges professors to integrate technology into the Business Law curriculum. Published in 1987, this article anticipated the explosion in the use of technology for legal research as well as its use in the classroom setting. The author notes how students embrace technology and are thereby able to maximize their own research initiatives and educational achievements.
Idiosyncratic Risk Innovations and the Idiosyncratic Risk-Return Relation*

Stocks with increases in idiosyncratic risk tend to earn low subsequent returnsfor a few months. However, high idiosyncratic risk stocks eventually earnpersistently high returns. These results are consistent with positively pricedidiosyncratic risk and temporary underreaction to idiosyncratic riskinnovations. Because risk levels and innovations are correlated, the relationbetween historical idiosyncratic risk and returns may reflect both risk premiumsand underreaction and yield misleading inference regarding the price of risk.The results reconcile previous work offering conflicting evidence on the priceof idiosyncratic risk and help to discriminate among explanations for theidiosyncratic risk-return relation.
Supply chain management and the evolution of the “Big Middle”

Abstract The authors define the “Big Middle” as the marketspace in which the bulk of retailers compete for the majority of customers and the preponderance of expenditures occur. Therefore, it is the space in which retailers aspire to exist in their quest for increased revenues, scale economies, and profits. An enduring concept, the Big Middle appears in any economy in which large-scale retailing has developed. In general merchandise retailing in the U.S., there have been three Big Middle subperiods, each defined by a distinct branch of the general merchandising tree; driven by geographic, technological, and socioeconomic changes; and dominated by preeminent retail chains. During the variety store subperiod, the F.W. Woolworth chain dominated. In the national-chain department store subperiod, Sears Roebuck and JCPenney were the primary retailers, and in the modern discounter subperiod, Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target have emerged as leaders. The authors argue that the development of these subperiods and the success of their major retailers have depended on the efficient and effective flow of merchandise from suppliers to customers. Optimizing this flow always has entailed harnessing current technology, given the geographic and socioeconomic realities of the time. Currently, technology facilitates a comprehensive application of supply chain management, whereas previous technology only permitted a simplified version.
The Segregation of Markets

Campaign-finance reformers fear that rich donors’ money can be used disproportionately to influence the content of campaign advertising and thus, perhaps, the results of elections. In European football, UEFA has attempted to ban “financial doping,” rich owners’ use of money earned in sectors other than football to pay large sums for the best football players. Campaign-finance reform efforts and “financial fair play” rules in sport may seem like bespoke solutions to different problems. In fact, they are the same solution to the same problem. Both are attempts to ensure that power accumulated in one market is not brought into another market so as to distort and damage its proper functioning. Market segregation, which seeks to bar explicit or implicit trans-market “currency” exchanges, disconnects the markets’ decisionmaking rationales. By understanding the segregation regulatory tool and its characteristic difficulties, including the appearance of black-market currency exchanges and the entrenchment of incumbents, it is possible to see in more general terms the challenges in many other legal settings, including moral rights and so-called “repugnant transactions.”