cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Why Do EPS Forecast Error and Dispersion Not Vary with Scale? Implications for Analyst and Managerial Behavior

We document a counter-intuitive finding regarding analyst forecasts of quarterly earnings per share (EPS): magnitudes of deviations from benchmarks—individual forecasts versus consensus (dispersion) and consensus versus actual (forecast error)—do not vary with scale. Seasonally differenced EPS, or time-series forecast error, also exhibits substantial lack of variation with scale, but only for firms followed by analysts. This lack of variation with scale is not observed for analyst and time-series forecasts for (a) EPS for some countries, (b) sales and cash flows for all countries, and (c) stock splits. We propose and investigate different explanations for these puzzling regularities that have important implications for practice and research. We believe the cause is managerial smoothing of EPS designed to reduce across-firm variation in EPS volatility.
Transfer up or down? Dialogue groups between Turkish and Armenian communities in the United States

Drawing from four case studies of dialogue groups between Turkish American and Armenian American communities organized over the past decade, this article examines the political value of grassroots diplomacy. In particular, it questions the emphasis on the transfer-up paradigm prevalent in the literature of conflict resolution, which is premised on the ultimate importance of governmental structures in brokering a resolution. Instead, the article focuses on the role that grassroots communities can play in civil society development between two communities as an alternate pathway toward conflict resolution and reconciliation. The article also takes up the dilemma that dialogue groups face: to promote a resolution to a conflict versus advancing social justice and human rights. The article concludes with a set of theoretical and policy recommendations.
Revitalizing the U.S. Compliance Power

This essay provides a commentary on Medellin v. Texas, where the Supreme Court invalidated a presidential memorandum directing states to comply with a judgment of the International Court of Justice. As a consequence of Medellin, the president and the courts may now at times be powerless to achieve compliance with a U.S. treaty. This essay considers how the U.S. compliance power can be revitalized after Medellin. Part I critiques the approach taken by the Court in Medellin and shows that there was an alternative interpretation of the United Nations Charter and the U.S. Constitution. Part II considers the implications of the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions for future U.S. implementing legislation and treaty design.
The Cosmetic/Drug Dilemma: FDA Regulation of Alpha-Hydroxy Acids

Should products containing alpha-hydroxy acids or similar substances be considered cosmetics or drugs under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 (FDCA)? Under most interpretations of the FDCA with regard to cosmetics, the answer to this question would be rooted not in the chemical composition or physiological effect of AHAs but rather in how the manufacturer has positioned the product and the promises made as to its effects. The cosmetic/drug distinction has considerable implications for the cosmetics industry because of the difference in regulation between cosmetics and drugs, most notably the lack of any requirement of premarket review for cosmetic products. A decision that AHAs are to be regulated as drugs could force manufacturers to pull available products from the market and submit extensive tests as to the products' safety and effectiveness for FDA approval, clearly an undesirable result for the industry. But a decision that the products are to be treated as cosmetics means that any regulation of their safety comes completely ex post in the form of product liability suits or FDA seizure proceedings, which involve considerable government resources.
The Political Economy of Regulating Contract

Contracts can be regulated through either ex ante mandatory rules or ex post default rules. Most explanations for why particular classes of contract should be regulated in one manner or the other study microeconomic features of the transactions at issue. The focus is on the dynamics by which terms are privately set, and there is little attention to differences between prospective parties except their level of information and bargaining power, properties they bear as individuals in relation to the transaction at hand. Such explanations are inherently limited in their ability to explain systematic differences between the regulatory strategies of continental Europe and the United States. This Article takes a different approach. It explains a regime’s preferred method of regulating contracts, especially in the employment and consumer contexts, by reference to macro features of its political economy. Both the normative question of whether a mandatory or default approach is superior, and the positive question of which approach is probable, turn on characteristics of the population set that will be subject to the rule, characteristics of market structure in that jurisdiction, and various political institutions. Unlike others commenting on the mandatory-default divide, this Article emphasizes the importance of political and economic features of the transactional environment, not the microeconomics of the transactions themselves. The four environmental factors I study here are heterogeneity, mobility, sectoral composition and institutional capacity. After exploring their effects on domestic regulatory strategy, I discuss the limitations they pose for transnational regulation. Although “private regulation” might appear a third regulatory mode suitable in the transnational context, I argue that private agreements that constrain other private agreements are not properly regarded as an alternative to either ex ante mandatory rules or ex post interpretive defaults imposed by the state.
Using XBRL to Conduct a Large-Scale Study of Discrepancies between the Accounting Numbers in Compustat and SEC 10-K Filings

ABSTRACT: Compustat is frequently used for both research and decision making. It has been documented that information found in the Compustat database differs from both the information found in other accounting databases and the information disclosed in corporate financial filings (San Miguel 1977; Rosenberg and Houglet 1974; Yang, Vasarhelyi, and Liu 2003; Tallapally, Luehlfing, and Motha 2011, 2012; Boritz and No 2013). In this study, we conduct the first large-scale comparison of Compustat and 10-K data. Specifically, we compare 30 accounting line items of approximately 5,000 companies for the period from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012. We find that the values reported in Compustat significantly differ from the values reported in 10-K filings. We also find that the amount and magnitude of the original data alterations introduced by Compustat depend on the type of the accounting item and company characteristics, such as industry and size.
Privacy Protests: Surveillance Evasion and Fourth Amendment Suspicion

The police tend to think that those who evade surveillance are criminals. Yet the evasion may only be a protest against the surveillance itself. Faced with the growing surveillance capacities of the government, some people object. They buy “burners” (prepaid phones) or “freedom phones” from Asia that have had all tracking devices removed, or they hide their smartphones in ad hoc Faraday cages that block their signals. They use Tor to surf the internet. They identify tracking devices with GPS detectors. They avoid credit cards and choose cash, prepaid debit cards, or bitcoins. They burn their garbage. At the extreme end, some “live off the grid” and cut off all contact with the modern world.
Humanism in Business – Towards a Paradigm Shift?

Management theory and practice are facing unprecedented challenges. The lack of sustainability, the increasing inequity, and the continuous decline in societal trust pose a threat to ‘business as usual’ (Jackson and Nelson, 2004). Capitalism is at a crossroad and scholars, practitioners, and policy makers are called to rethink business strategy in light of major external changes (Arena, 2004; Hart, 2005). In the following, we review an alternative view of human beings that is based on a renewed Darwinian theory developed by Lawrence and Nohria (2002). We label this alternative view ‘humanistic’ and draw distinctions to current ‘economistic’ conceptions. We then develop the consequences that this humanistic view has for business organizations, examining business strategy, governance structures, leadership forms, and organizational culture. Afterward, we outline the influences of humanism on management in the past and the present, and suggest options for humanism to shape the future of management. In this manner, we will contribute to the discussion of alternative management paradigms that help solve the current crises.
A national probability survey on education and training for CAD/CAM

Manufacturing facilities having CAD/CAM in place were surveyed to access their training priorities. In addition, factors explaining variations in training programs were explored. The results indicate that not all plants have seen a need for training (especially those which are smaller and have less automated equipment). For those who have training programs, the programs were found to teach generic as well as traditional machine skills to a variety of occupations. An organization's decision to adopt a CAM/CAM training program was primarily related to three factors: the amount of CAD/CAM equipment installed, plant size, and relative size of manufacturing operations (integrations of the CAD/CAM equipment and market variables were less influential). An organization's decision about scope or extensiveness of the training was related to somewhat different and more varied factors including the degree to which the CAD/CAM equipment is integrated, and growth in the firm's industry. Implications of these findings for research and practise are discussed.
Casting a Wider Net: Another Decade of Legislative Expansion of the Death Penalty in the United States

During the last decade, judges, politicians, scholars, and the general public have become troubled about problems with the death penalty in the United States. Also during this time, major studies of the death penalty have recommended a reduction in the number of statutory factors that make one eligible for the death penalty. Despite these concerns, legislatures continue to expand their capital punishment statutes to make more defendants eligible for the death penalty. This Article examines how, during a time of growing concern about innocence and arbitrariness in the death penalty system, a number of legislatures have continued to expand their death penalty statutes, often in inadequate attempts to address other legitimate societal concerns. The ultimate impact of such an ever-expanding death penalty is that almost all murders become eligible for the death penalty, a result that is inconsistent with the Eighth Amendment. The Article begins in Part One by giving a brief overview of the role of statutory eligibility factors in capital cases. This Part also discusses several recent studies that recommend that legislatures should be eliminating aggravating factors, not adding them. In Part Two, the Article lists and categorizes the large number of new eligibility factors that legislatures have added since 1995. In Part Three, the Article discusses some of the reasons for the new factors, and it considers the implications of the expanding death penalty statutes. The Article discusses the inconsistencies between the recommendations to eliminate aggravating factors and the actual practice of adding aggravating factors. The Article concludes that although legislatures have slowed down their expansions of the death penalty in the last few years, many states have broader death penalty statutes than they had a decade ago. These ongoing expansions raise constitutional issues and have been an ineffective response to legitimate political concerns. Another article by the author compiles older capital eligibility and aggravating factors.
Accounting Conservatism, the Quality of Earnings, and Stock Returns

When a firm practices conservative accounting, changes in the amount of its investments can affect the quality of its earnings. Growth in investment reduces reported earnings and creates reserves. Reducing investment releases those reserves, increasing earnings. If the change in investment is temporary, then current earnings is temporarily depressed or inflated, and thus is not a good indicator of future earnings. This study develops diagnostic measures of this joint effect of investment and conservative accounting. We find that these measures forecast differences in future return on net operating assets relative to current return on net operating assets. Moreover, these measures also forecast stock returns—indicating that investors do not appreciate how conservatism and changes in investment combine to raise questions about the quality of reported earnings.
Microfoundations of Corporate Social Responsibility and Irresponsibility

This study examines the importance of social perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI). Drawing from social psychology literature on stereotypes, we argue that ...
Presidents, Bureaucracy, and Housing Discrimination Policy: The Fair Housing Acts of 1968 and 1988

Housing segregation and discrimination remain contemporary American problems despite 40 years of policy initiatives aimed at combating them. Since strong presidential support and active bureaucratic enforcement of fair housing laws should reduce these problems, we investigate variation over time in presidential support for the Fair Housing Acts of 1968 and 1988 (Title VIII) and their enforcement. Our findings first indicate that President Nixon's interpretation of Title VIII notably weakened its scope and enforcement, but the most liberal outcomes in Title VIII policy and enforcement since the 1960s ironically surfaced during the Reagan years. Then merging two unique databases, we explore variations in Title VIII enforcement and find some fluctuation across enforcement indicators. Our study suggests that housing discrimination and segregation can be expected to continue absent strong presidential support and active bureaucratic enforcement of Title VIII that encourages a significant role for state and local civil rights agencies.
Pattern-forming fronts in a Swift-Hohenberg equation with directional quenching - parallel and oblique stripes

We study the effect of domain growth on the orientation of striped phases in a Swift-Hohenberg equation. Domain growth is encoded in a step-like parameter dependence that allows stripe formation in a half plane, and suppresses patterns in the complement, while the boundary of the pattern-forming region is propagating with fixed normal velocity. We construct front solutions that leave behind stripes in the pattern-forming region that are parallel to or at a small oblique angle to the boundary. Technically, the construction of stripe formation parallel to the boundary relies on ill-posed, infinite-dimensional spatial dynamics. Stripes forming at a small oblique angle are constructed using a functional-analytic, perturbative approach. Here, the main difficulties are the presence of continuous spectrum and the fact that small oblique angles appear as a singular perturbation in a traveling-wave problem. We resolve the former difficulty using a farfield-core decomposition and Fredholm theory in weighted spaces. The singular perturbation problem is resolved using preconditioners and boot-strapping.
On the optimality of resetting executive stock options

The practice of resetting strike prices on underwater executive stock options has drawn criticism for weakening managerial incentives. Our model shows that although the anticipation of resetting can negatively affect initial incentives, resetting can still be an important, value-enhancing aspect of compensation contracts, even from an ex-ante standpoint. In fact, we find that some resetting is almost always optimal. The relative advantages of resetting diminish with greater ability of managers to influence the resetting process, greater relative importance of external factors on stock performance, and lower costs of replacing incumbent managers.
CAN SELF-REGULATION WORK? LESSONS FROM THE PRIVATE SECURITY AND MILITARY INDUSTRY

Various efforts have been undertaken in recent years to clarify the legal framework governing the outsourcing of security and military functions to private actors. While national and international legislation have made little progress, self-regulation has advanced steadily. The article provides the first normative assessment of self-regulation in the private security and military industry – and as such offers interesting insights for other industries that are transnational in reach and under-regulated by domestic, regional, and international law. Though industry critics tend to deplore the normative 'softness' of self-regulation and its voluntary nature, it appears to have shifted behavioral norms and triggered a compliance pull. Its weakness, I argue, lies elsewhere: regrettably, emerging self-regulatory schemes in the industry focus on monitoring (as opposed to sanctioning) and on corporate accountability (as opposed to individual accountability). To overcome these limitations, I suggest the adoption of an OECD-type model of governance for the private security and military industry. The model would combine the use of regional bodies at the monitoring level with an international supervisory body at the sanctioning level. Unlike existing regulatory schemes, the proposed model has the ability to monitor and sanction both corporations and their employees. At a time where many industries struggle to find optimal modes of governance, the Article highlights the recent experience of an industry where much creativity has been shown. Beyond the lessons learned for the regulation of war and security, the Article highlights the potential of a mode of governance that has somewhat fallen out of fashion, and draws attention to the benefits of involving certain non-state actors in law-making processes. 1 I would like to thank the American Society of International Law for inviting me to present this article at its 2012 mid-year meeting and the panel’s chair, Professor Laura Dickinson, for her insightful comments on a first draft; as well as the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University for inviting me to present this paper as part of the Carol Becker Middle East Speaker Series. I greatly benefited from my exchanges with the participants at both events. Any mistake is of course my responsibility only.
Asymmetric information and corporate derivatives use

We investigate the relationship between derivatives use and the extent of asymmetric information faced by the firm. Using alternative analyst forecast proxies for asymmetric information, we find evidence that both the use of derivatives and the extent of derivatives usage is associated with lower asymmetric information. Specifically, for firms using derivatives (notably currency derivatives) we find that analysts' earnings forecasts have significantly greater accuracy and lower dispersion. These findings support the conjectures of DeMarzo and Duffie (1995) and Breeden and Viswanathan (1998) who argue that hedging reduces noise related to exogenous factors and hence decreases the level of asymmetric information regarding a firm's earnings. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22: 241–267, 2002
Using item response theory to improve measurement in strategic management research: An application to corporate social responsibility

Research summary: This article uses item response theory (IRT) to advance strategic management research, focusing on an application to corporate social responsibility (CSR). IRT explicitly models firms' and individuals' observable actions in order to measure unobserved, latent characteristics. IRT models have helped researchers improve measures in numerous disciplines. To demonstrate their potential in strategic management, we show how the method improves on a key measure of corporate social responsibility and corporate social performance (CSP), the KLD Index, by creating what we term D-SOCIAL-KLD scores, and associated estimates of their accuracy, from the underlying data. We show, for instance, that firms such as Apple may not be as “good” as previously thought, while firms such as Walmart may perform better than typically believed. We also show that the D-SOCIAL-KLD measure outperforms the KLD Index and factor analysis in predicting new CSR-related activity. Managerial summary: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to grow in importance among the press, political activists, managers, analysts, and investors, yet measurement techniques have not kept up. We show that the most common approach for measuring CSR—adding up observable traits—is fundamentally flawed, even if these traits accurately capture CSR-related behavior. We introduce an improved measurement technique that treats these traits as test questions that are differentially weighted, so that “hard” CSR activities affect a company's score more than “easy” CSR activities. This approach produces a measure that offers a more reliable comparison of firms than standard measures. Our approach has a number of additional advantages, including differentiating firms that receive identical scores on an additive scale and accounting for how CSR-related behavior has evolved over time. Anybody who cares about CSR should consider using our measure (available at www.socialscores.org) as the basis for analyzing firms' CSR. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Health Care and the Illegal Immigrant

The question of whether illegal immigrants should be entitled to some form of health coverage in the United States sits at the intersection of two contentious debates: health reform and immigration reform. Proponents of extending coverage argue that the United States has a moral obligation to provide health care to all those within its borders. Conversely, those against doing so argue that immigrants illegally present in the country should not be entitled to public benefits. This Article seeks to chart a middle course between these extremes while answering two questions. First, does constitutional law mandate extending health coverage to illegal immigrants? Second, even if not legally mandated, are there compelling policy reasons for extending such coverage? This Article concludes that while health coverage for illegal immigrants is not required under prevailing constitutional norms, extending coverage as a matter of policy would serve the broader interests of the United States. Extending coverage would be beneficial as a matter of economics and public health, generating spillover benefits for all US citizens and those in the US healthcare and health insurance systems.
Second Best Damage Action Deterrence

Potential defendants faced with the prospect of tort or tort-like damage actions can reduce their liability exposure in a number of ways. Prior scholarship has dwelled primarily on the possibility that they may respond to the threat of liability by augmenting the amount of care they take.1 Defendants (I limit myself to defendants for simplicity) will increase their expenditures on care, so the theory goes, when those expenditures yield sufficient liability-reducing dividends; more care decreases liability exposure by simultaneously making it less likely that the actors will be found to have behaved tortiously in the event of an accident and subsequent lawsuit, and by shrinking the probability and perhaps the severity of accidents. What prior scholarship has not focused on is that even contemplated behavioral changes—in the type rather than amount of care defendants take, or the type rather than amount of harm they inflict—that do nothing to shift the probability or severity of accidents may, in many circumstances, limit expected liability by lowering the probability of claims or losses, or the expected amount of damages. In particular, I argue in this paper that potential litigation can induce potential defendants to favor more cognizable or demonstrable care, and less cognizable or demonstrable harm. The circumstances in which I am interested abound. For example, in negligence law, some types of care are well suited to documentary proof, others need testimony, and still others are not well suited to
TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION

Abstract Growth theory can go a long way toward accounting for phenomena linked with U.S. economic development. Some examples are: (i) the secular decline in fertility between 1800 and 1980, (ii) the decline in agricultural employment and the rise in skill since 1800, (iii) the demise of child labor starting around 1900, (iv) the increase in female labor-force participation from 1900 to 1980, (v) the baby boom from 1936 to 1972. Growth theory models are presented to address all of these facts. The analysis emphasizes the role of technological progress as a catalyst for economic transformation.
News shocks and inflation

Abstract This paper shows that the empirically documented disinflationary nature of news shocks is consistent with the implications of a sensibly modified version of a New Keynesian model, even if capital is introduced to the model. The modification proposed in the current paper, however, is different from those already known in the literature. In the presence of capital, the newly proposed modification is better capable of fitting the data.
The scientific status of geometric models of choice and similarities judgment

Research on geometric representations of human choice is a classic example of scientific progress. In this paper I argue that this subfield has developed a body of scientific knowledge using the scientific method.
Debates and Dichotomies: Exploring the Presumptions Underlying Contentions About the Geography of Armed Conflict

An examination of the growing literature on the topic of the geography of armed conflict suggests that the differences of opinion, between and among academics, policymakers and military lawyers, for example, are nearly intractable. Statements about the propriety of a certain target under the law of armed conflict are often met by pronouncements regarding the role of jus ad bellum in cabining the use of force in the territory of another state or the restrictive parameters of the international human rights/law enforcement regime for addressing individuals who pose a threat or danger to others. Indeed, one might easily conclude that the participants in these debates are simply operating in entirely separate analytical paradigms, leading to interesting and challenging intellectual discussions but not to productive conversations that advance the analysis and move beyond the debate to effective potential resolution of a complicated and multi-layered issue. However, unlike pornography or terrorism, where notwithstanding a myriad of different definitions, “you know it when you see it”, little agreement exists even on whether there is a specific, definable geography of armed conflict at all. To help move beyond this impasse, this article explores the presumptions underlying the ongoing debates regarding the geography of armed conflict, in an effort to untangle the debates and provide new opportunities and venues for discussion—and thus to help advance the development of the law of armed conflict and other relevant bodies of law. These presumptions appear in particular in four dichotomies that inherently help drive the debates but are brushed aside or not taken into consideration: law versus policy; authority versus obligation; territory versus threat; and submission of the collective enemy versus elimination of an individual threat. For each or any of these dichotomies, the lens through which one views the contrasting positions will then have a significant—if not determinative—effect on considerations and conclusions regarding questions of geography and the battlefield. As a result, recognizing these dichotomies and understanding how they impact the current discourse is critical to any effective conversation, whether in the academic or policy arenas.
The Transformation of Mexican Retailing with NAFTA

With the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, in 1994, the opening up of Mexican commercial sectors was completed. Thereafter, the growth of multinational supermarket chains accelerated and Mexican food distributors and retailers were forced into redefinition and regrouping, not only at company level but also at the regional–location level. The central and northern regions are witnessing increased efforts on the part of supermarket chains to capture local market segments, a process which imposes new demands on producers, wholesalers, and consumers. This article addresses the strategies of competition and collaboration of Mexican and US supermarket chains in the new regional context, and highlights the lack of Mexican public policy to help domestic retailers to compete effectively.
Highway costs and efficient mix of state and local funds

Governments and transportation networks are both hierarchically organized. Some state governments finance most of their highways, whereas in other states similar roads are financed locally. Larger governments attain scale economies. However, they also tend to be more bureaucratic and have higher operating costs, all else being equal, because of problems such as span of control. A study was done to relate highway expenditures with the share of expenditure by state governments to determine how governments should allocate expenditure on all roads in a state. Highways are divided into two hierarchical classes (higher and lower), governments into two layers (state and local), and costs into capital and operations and maintenance. Regression models to predict different highway expenditures on each highway class as a function of utilization, capacity, and funding shares are estimated. It is found that there is a share of expenditures by each level of government for each highway class that results in a minimum ex...
Reconciling Strict Liability with Corrective Justice in Contract Law

Corrective-justice theorists have enjoyed a certain amount of success explaining tort law. Some of these theorists have begun to apply corrective-justice theory to the law of contract, but they have not yet explained how corrective justice, which normally argues that private law is concerned with the correction of wrongdoing done to victims by injurers, can explain a body of law like contract that seems indifferent to wrongdoing. In this paper, I argue that this void is a problem for corrective-justice theories of contract, since although contract compensates for breach it does not do so as a way of responding to breach as a form of moral wrongdoing. Corrective justice can still explain contract law, however, because there is a way of understanding corrective justice as the view that private law compensates for losses that are wrongful even though they may or may not be the result of wrongdoing. Moreover, I argue that by understanding corrective justice in this way we achieve a general theory of contract that is more acceptable from the point of view of political liberalism than the current non-corrective accounts of contract.
Three Attempts at Inflation Forecasting in Pakistan

1This paper presents three empirical approaches to forecasting inflation in Pakistan. The preferred approach is a leading indicators model in which broad money growth and private sector credit growth help forecast inflation. A univariate approach also yields reasonable forecasts, but seems less suited to capturing turning points. A vector autoregressive (VAR) model illustrates how monetary developments can be described by a Phillips-curve type relationship. We deal with potential parameter instability on account of fundamental changes in Pakistan’s economic system by restricting our sample to more recent observations. Gregorian and Islamic calendar seasonality a re addressed by using 12-month moving averages. Inflation forecasts can be important input for monetary policy formulation. For most central banks, inflation is at least one monetary policy objective. Given typical time lags, monetary policy needs to be concerned with future inflation rather than with current inflation levels. Inflation forecasts that link future inflation to current developments can bridge this gap. Some central banks have even adopted an inflation forecast target. However, this assumes that inflation forecasts are very reliable. Still, even in situations where structural relationships are less stable and data quality is still evolving, quantitative inflation forecasts can provide useful information on future developments that need to be combined with additional analysis going beyond econometrical relationships. This paper attempts to develop an inflation forecasting model for Pakistan.
Nearly-Singular Design in GMM and Generalized Empirical Likelihood Estimators

Nearly-Singular design relaxes the nonsingularity assumption of the limit weight matrix in GMM, and the nonsingularity of the limit variance matrix for the first order conditions in GEL. The sample versions of these matrices are nonsingular, but in large samples we assume these sample matrices converge to a singular matrix. This can result in size distortions for the overidentifying restrictions test and large bias for the estimators. This nearly-singular design may occur because of the similar instruments in these matrices. We derive the large sample theory for GMM and GEL estimators under nearly-singular design. The rate of convergence of the estimators is slower than root n.
Short horizons and tempting situations: Lack of continuity to our future selves leads to unethical decision making and behavior.

People who feel continuity with their future selves are more likely to behave in ethically responsible ways as compared to people who lack continuity with their future selves. We find that individual differences in perceived similarity to one’s future self predicts tolerance of unethical business decisions (Studies 1a and 1b), and that the consideration of future consequences mediates the extent to which people regard inappropriate negotiation strategies as unethical (Study 2). We reveal that low future self-continuity predicts unethical behavior in the form of lies, false promises, and cheating (Studies 3 and 4), and that these relationships hold when controlling for general personality dimensions and trait levels of self-control (Study 4). Finally, we establish a causal relationship between future self-continuity and ethical judgments by showing that when people are prompted to focus on their future self (as opposed to the future), they express more disapproval of unethical behavior (Study 5).
Pressure effects on strained FeSe0.5Te0.5 thin films

The pressure effect on the resistivity and superconducting Tc of prestrained thin films of the iron chalcogenide superconductor FeSe0.5Te0.5 is studied. Films with different anion heights above the Fe layer showing different values of ambient pressure Tc’s are compressed up to a pressure of 1.7 GPa. All films exhibit a significant increase of Tc with pressure. The results cannot solely be explained by a pressure-induced decrease of the anion height but other parameters have to be considered to explain the data for all films.
Macro-hedging for commodity exporters ☆

Abstract This paper uses a dynamic optimization model to quantify the potential welfare gains of hedging against commodity price risk for commodity-exporting countries. We show that hedging enhances domestic welfare through two channels: first, by reducing export income volatility; and second, by reducing the country's need to hold precautionary reserves and improving the country's ability to borrow against future export income. Under plausible calibrations of the model, the second channel may lead to much larger welfare gains, amounting to several percentage points of annual consumption.
Do Theories of Statutory Interpretation Matter--A Case Study

Statutory interpretation has been a fertile area of scholarship, but we know relatively little about the practical impact of various theories of interpretation. The ideal test would involve presenting randomly selected cases to two judges who are similar in most other respects but have sharply different theories of interpretation. As it happens, such a situation is presented by Judges Posner and Easterbrook, who have sat together on over 800 reported panel decisions. (Because en banc cases are subject to selection bias, they are discussed separately in the paper.) Posner is a leading advocate of pragmatism, while Easterbrook is equally well-known for his support of formalism. As it turns out, the two judges voted differently in only one percent of these roughly 800 cases. This is substantially below the average level of disagreement among Seventh Circuit judges, and is also below the average rate for courts of appeals generally. Moreover, a careful examination of the statutory cases in which the two judges disagreed confirms that their theoretical disputes were not outcome determinative. Because Posner and Easterbrook have shown particularly serious interests in theories of interpretation (compared to most judges), the apparently slight level of impact on outcomes seems especially surprising. While far from definitive, this study suggests strongly that the conventional wisdom on this point significantly overestimates the impact of a judge's theoretical stances on voting behavior.
The "Abuse Excuse" in Capital Sentencing Trials: Is It Relevant to Responsibility, Punishment, or Neither?

The violent criminal who was a victim of severe childhood abuse frequently appears in the responsibility literature because he presents a difficulty for theorists who maintain the compatibility of causal determinism and our practices of holding persons responsible. The challenge is based on the fact that learning about an offender's horrific childhood mitigates the indignation that many persons feel towards him, possibly indicating that they hold him less than fully responsible. Many capital defendants present evidence of suffering childhood abuse, and many jurors find this evidence to count against imposing death. The most obvious explanation for a response like this is that the abuse was a cause of the crime, andso rendered the offender less than fully responsible for it. But this intuitive explanation theatens the claim that responsibility is compatible with causation. Indeed, if causation is a basis for excuse (even a partial one), the fairness of holding persons responsible is threatened given that all our behavior is caused by factors, such as our upbringing, outside our control. A common compatibilist response to this challenge is that abuse is relevant to responsibility if the abuse caused a diminished capacity for practical reasoning. This response, however, cannot account for all cases in which abuse evidence appears relevant to the punishment determination, and thus I confront the challenge more directly. I argue that there are cases in which it is appropriate for jurors to consider abuse evidence independently of whether the capital defendant's reasoning capacities were diminished and offer an account to justify the consideration of that evidence as mitigating, even when we should resist concluding that the offender was less than fully responsible. My argument rests on distinguishing the capacities required for responsibility from other considerations that militate against punishment and which help justify the criminal law. A minimally decent moral education, which some forms of abuse preclude, is one of those considerations that helps justify the criminal law's harsh penalties. I argue that it is more difficult to justify the death penalty for a defendant who was deprived of a minimally decent moral education compared with others who were not, regardless of whether that defendant's reasoning capacities were sufficient for full responsibility.
Has microfinance lost its moral compass

This paper argues that microfinance in south Asia, like mainstream finance in North America and Europe, "has lost its moral compass". Microfinance institutions have increasingly focused on financial performance and have neglected their declared social mission of poverty reduction and empowerment. Loan officers in the field are under enormous pressure to achieve individual financial targets and now routinely mistreat clients, especially poor women. The values of neo-liberal mainstream finance in the rich world have spread to microcredit in the villages of Bangladesh and India. This situation is hidden from western publics who are fed the lie of "the magic of microfinance" by their media, guided by the needs and interests of mainstream finance seeking to provide some "good news" about the financial sector as scandal after scandal unfold. Urgent action is needed, particularly from the leaders of the microfinance industry, to refocus their organisations and workforce on achieving both financial and social performance targets.
Unilateral Effects Analysis in Differentiated Product Markets: Guidelines, Policy, and Change

The Merger Guidelines highlight unilateral effects analysis as the primary anticompetitive theory in differentiated product markets. This study evaluates the Federal Trade Commission’s historical record to determine what considerations drive the internal review process, if these considerations depend on the type of competition within the differentiated market under review, and if policy has changed much over the 20 years since the 1992 Merger Guidelines were issued. The results identify the importance of price-based competition to the analysis, as markets that are characterized by price competition tend to generate significantly higher estimates for the probability of a unilateral effects finding, all else equal, especially when repositioning is difficult. Moreover, a little fluctuation is detected in policy, but no real evidence of change over the 20-year period of the study exists.
Population Policies, Fertility, Women's Human Capital, and Child Quality *

Population policies are defined here as voluntary programs which help people control their fertility and expect to improve their lives. There are few studies of the long-run effects of policy-induced changes in fertility on the welfare of women, such as policies that subsidize the diffusion and use of best practice birth control technologies. Evaluation of the consequences of such family planning programs almost never assess their long-run consequences, such as on labor supply, savings, or investment in the human capital of children, although they occasionally estimate the short-run association with the adoption of contraception or age-specific fertility. The dearth of long-run family planning experiments has led economists to consider instrumental variables as a substitute for policy interventions which not only determine variation in fertility but are arguably independent of the reproductive preferences of parents or unobserved constraints that might influence family life cycle behaviors. Using these instrumental variables to estimate the effect of this exogenous variation in fertility on family outcomes, economists discover these “cross effects” of fertility on family welfare outcomes tend to be substantially smaller in absolute magnitude than the OLS estimates of partial correlations referred to in the literature as evidence of the beneficial social externalities associated with the policies that reduce fertility. The paper summarizes critically the empirical literature on fertility and development and proposes an agenda for research on the topic.
The induced innovation hypothesis and energy-saving technological change

We develop a methodology for testing Hicks’s induced innovation hypothesis by estimating a product-characteristics model of energy-using consumer durables, augmenting the hypothesis to allow for the ine uence of government regulations. For the products we explored, the evidence suggests that (i) the rate of overall innovation was independent of energy prices and regulations; (ii) the direction of innovation was responsive to energy price changes for some products but not for others; (iii) energy price changes induced changes in the subset of technically feasible models that were offered for sale; (iv) this responsiveness increased substantially during the period after energy-efficiency product labeling was required; and (v) nonetheless, a sizable portion of efficiency improvements were autonomous.
Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy

Aid potentially can contribute to democratization in several ways: (1) through technical assistance focusing on electoral processes, the strengthening of legislatures and judiciaries as checks on executive power, and the promotion of civil society organizations, including a free press; (2) through conditionality; and (3) by improving education and increasing per capita incomes, which research shows are conducive to democratization. This study provides a multivariate analysis of the impact of aid on democratization in a large sample of recipient nations over the 1975–2000 period. Using two different democracy indexes and two different measures of aid intensity, no evidence is found that aid promotes democracy. This result is robust to alternative model specifications and estimation techniques, including the use of exogenous instruments for aid. Results are similar if the analysis is confined to the post–Cold War period (1990–2000), despite the reduced dependence of the U.S. and other donors on pro-Western authoritarian regimes among aid recipient nations.
Market arbitrage, social choice and the core

This paper establishes a clear connection between equilibrium theory, game theory and social choice theory by showing that, for a well defined social choice problem, a condition which is necessary and sufficient to solve this problem – limited arbitrage – is the same as the condition which is necessary and sufficient to establish the existence of an equilibrium and the core. The connection is strengthened by establishing that a market allocation, which is in the core, can always be realized as a social allocation, i.e. an allocation which is optimal according to an ordering chosen by a social choice rule. Limited arbitrage characterizes those economies without Condorcet triples, and those for which Arrow’s paradox can be resolved on choices of large utility values.
Information content of cross‐sectional option prices: A comparison of alternative currency option pricing models on the Japanese yen

This article implements a currency option pricing model for the general case of stochastic volatility, stochastic interest rates, and jumps in an attempt to reconcile levels of risk-neutral skewness and kurtosis with observed option prices on the Japanese yen and to analyze the information content of the cross section of option prices by investigating the hedging and pricing performance of various currency option pricing models. The study makes use of both a method of moments and a more traditional generalized-least-squares (GLS) estimation technique, taking advantage of the fact that methods of moments do not specifically require the use of cross-sectional option prices, whereas GLS does. Results centered around the Asia economic crisis of 1997 and 1998 indicate that the cross section of option prices surprisingly does not appear to contain superior information as the two estimation techniques yield relatively similar results once idiosyncratic differences between them are acknowledged. Extensions of the G. Bakshi, C. Cao, and Z. Chen (1997) results to currencies are also provided. © 2006Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:33–59, 2006
Technological Change at Work: The Impact of Employee Involvement on the Effectiveness of Health Information Technology

The link between employee involvement (EI) and organizational performance is not clear-cut, and the diffusion of information technology (IT) in the workplace complicates this relationship. The auth...