cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
HIPAA Privacy Rule 2.0.

Mark A. Rothstein On January 25, 2013, the Federal Register published the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) omnibus amendments to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules.1 These modifications also include the final versions of the HIPAA regulation amendments mandated by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act)2 and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA).3 Although the amended rules were effective on March 26, 2013, covered entities and their business associates (which now have direct liability for violations of the regulations) have a compliance date of September 23, 2013.4 It has been 10 years since the April 14, 2003 compliance date for the original HIPAA Privacy Rule.5 Despite HHS’ clarification of some issues by posting answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs),6 there have been no significant amendments to the Privacy Rule since 2003. It has been the view of many covered entities, regulators, and analysts that several provisions of the original Privacy Rule were unworkable or caused unintended consequences. Therefore, the recent rulemaking provided an opportunity to correct some longidentified problems and to integrate congressional directives under the HITECH Act and GINA into the Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules. The amendments and the regulatory explanations are long, technical, and arcane. This article focuses on two important areas of the Privacy Rule with significant changes: research and genetic information. It indicates how a number of the revisions have failed to resolve or have exacerbated problems under the Privacy Rule. Research Sale of Protected Health Information (PHI) Based on language in the HITECH Act, the revised Privacy Rule prohibits the sale of protected health information (PHI) without an authorization.7 One important exception permits payment for research disclosures where the payment is “a reasonable cost-based fee to cover the cost to prepare and transmit the protected health information.”8 This means that the covered entity may be compensated by a sponsor for performing research; only the disclosure of PHI associated with the research is subject to this limitation.
Central Bank Independence and Macro-Prudential Regulation

When a central bank is in charge of both price and financial stability, a new time-inconsistency problem may arise. Monetary policy may be abused to reduce the private sector’s real debt burden after a financial shock materializes.
A Difference Estimator for Testing Equality of Variances for Paired Time Series

A difference estimator of the standard error for the difference in variances of paired time series is proposed. The difference estimator uses the independence of periodogram ordinates to remove nuisance parameters. The difference estimator is easier to compute than one centered on the smoothed periodogram, but shares the same small sample shortcomings for non-normal series
Why mutual funds “underperform”

Abstract I propose a parsimonious model that reproduces the negative risk-adjusted performance of actively managed equity mutual funds. In the model, a fund manager can generate state-dependent active returns at a disutility. Negative expected performance and mutual fund investing simultaneously arise in equilibrium because the active return the fund manager generates covaries positively with a component of the pricing kernel that the performance measure omits, consistent with recent empirical evidence. Using data on U.S. funds, I also document new empirical evidence consistent with the model's cross-sectional implications.
THE ABILITY OF EARNINGS TO PREDICT FUTURE OPERATING CASH FLOWS HAS BEEN INCREASING NOT DECREASING

We investigate the relationship between earnings and one-year-ahead operating cash flows from 1973 to 2000. Although the extant research indicates a weakening relationship between contemporaneous earnings and stock prices over time, we find that the relationship between current earnings and future operating cash flows has increased over time. This result holds for numerous divisions of our sample. Out-of-sample predictions of operating cash flows generally show increasing forecast accuracy over time. Increasing accounting conservatism appears to play a role in this phenomenon.
Hedge funds, insiders, and the decoupling of economic and voting ownership: Empty voting and hidden (morphable) ownership

Abstract Most U.S. public companies have a single class of voting common shares: voting power is proportional to economic ownership. Linking votes to shares is often thought to be desirable, because, as residual claimants, shareholders have an incentive to exercise voting power well. The linkage also facilitates the market for corporate control. On the other hand, decoupling is efficient in some situations. Equity derivatives and other capital market developments now allow shareholders to readily decouple voting rights from economic ownership of shares, often without public disclosure. Hedge funds are prominent users of decoupling. Sometimes they hold more votes than economic ownership (a situation we term “empty voting”). Sometimes they hold undisclosed economic ownership without votes, but often with the de facto ability to acquire votes if needed (a situation we term ‘‘hidden (morphable) ownership”). This Article analyzes empty voting and hidden (morphable) ownership, which we term the “new vote buying.” We offer a framework for unpacking its functional elements and assess its potential benefits and costs. Two companion legal articles (Hu, Henry T.C., and Bernard S. Black, 2006a. The New Vote Buying: Empty Voting and Hidden (Morphable) Ownership, Southern California Law Review 79, 811–908#, and Hu, Henry T.C., and Bernard S. Black, 2006b. Empty Voting and Hidden Ownership: Taxonomy, Implications and Reforms, Business Lawyer 61, 1011–1069.) provide more details on current disclosure rules and offer a disclosure reform proposal.
A Convergent t-statistic in Spurious Regressions

This paper investigates the asymptotic properties of the t-statistic in spurious regressions when the bandwidth in the estimation of the heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent (HAC) standard error is set proportional to the sample size. Using autocovariances of large lags, the so-defined HAC estimator is capable of capturing the high persistence of the regressor and regression residuals. It is shown that the resulting t-statistic converges to a nondegenerate limiting distribution for all cases of spurious regressions considered in the literature. This finding sheds some new light on the nature of spurious regressions.I am very grateful to Bruce Hansen and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors and omissions are mine alone.
Disclosure Quality and the Mispricing of Accruals and Cash Flow

In this paper, we investigate the role that disclosure quality plays in the accurate valuation of accruals and cash flow. We predict that stock prices of firms with higher-quality disclosures more ...
The Character and Determinants of Corporate Capital Gains

This paper analyzes how corporate capital gains taxes affect the capital gains realization decisions of firms. The paper outlines the tax treatment of corporate capital gains, the consequent incentives for firms with gains and losses, the efficiency consequences of these taxes in the context of other taxes and capital market distortions, and the response of firms to these incentives. Despite receiving limited attention, corporate capital gains realizations have averaged 30 percent of individual capital gains realizations over the last 50 years and have increased dramatically in importance over the last decade. By 1999, the ratio of net long-term capital gains to income subject to tax was 21 percent and was distributed across various industries, which suggests the importance of realization behavior to corporate financing decisions. Time-series analysis of aggregate realization behavior demonstrates that corporate capital gains taxes affect realization behavior significantly. Similarly, an analysis of firm-...
Conceptualizing violence against pregnant women

Violence against pregnant women has been largely overlooked by social and legal discourses. Violence often begins or escalates during pregnancy, yet the criminal law as currently constituted fails to provide a remedy commensurate with the victim's injury. The pregnant battered woman thus lies outside the reach of law's protection. This Article explores the nature of pregnancy battering - violence inflicted on a pregnant woman by her intimate - and the limitations of the criminal law's response to it. I begin by introducing to legal scholarship current scientific research on the prevalence, dynamics, and consequences of violence during pregnancy. I then turn to the failure of conventional legal structures to redress pregnancy battering, asserting that criminal law decontextualizes violence and disregards the victim's pregnancy, resulting in an unduly restrictive definition of her injury. In recent years, a new paradigm that purports to redress violence against pregnant woman has ascended. Embodied in the recently enacted federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (UVV), this approach identifies the fetus as the victim of violence. To evaluate the merits of this model, I consider how the construct of fetal personhood has historically served as a vehicle for state control over the lives of women. I claim that what is distinct - and particularly pernicious - about the UVV and analogous state statutes is that the pregnant woman, who was historically subject to paternalistic regulations enforcing idealized notions of motherhood, is now vanished altogether. Feminist theory, which might be expected to provide a framework that addresses criminal law's inadequacies in this area, itself offers an incomplete understanding of pregnancy. In order to challenge law's flawed definition of pregnancy battering, a richer, more complex story must be told. By integrating two strands of feminist scholarship that have developed largely in opposition to one another, my aim is to conceptualize pregnancy in a manner that animates an affirmative vision for criminal law functioning in this realm. Articulating how pregnant victims of domestic violence suffer allows for the possibility of meaningful criminal law remediation. To this end, I propose a new statutory approach that brings the woman - as fully constituted by her pregnancy - into legal focus.
Conflict resolution: benchmarking water utility performance

SUMMARY The water sector has economic and symbolic importance for citizens in developing countries. Water utility benchmarking is no panacea for improving water sector performance. Nevertheless, it can contribute to addressing four sources of conflict in the design and implementation of policies: cognitive conflicts (based on technical disagreements regarding how data might be analysed and interpreted), interest conflicts (where suppliers and demanders obtain different benefits and costs under alternative policies), values conflicts (involving ideology or personal preferences regarding water sector outcomes) and authority conflicts (stemming from jurisdictional disagreements over who has the last word). These potential sources of conflict characterise most politically-charged situations, including water supply management. This article examines the extent to which water utility benchmarking facilitates conflict resolution. Without information on historical trends, current baselines and realistic targets, conflicts over reforms to improve sector performance can weaken systems that are already fragile, particularly those in developing countries. This article attempts to improve our understanding of the links between sources of conflict, government approaches for dealing with conflict and the role of water utility benchmarking as a complementary strategy for addressing policy issues. Benchmarking is one way regulators and managers can promote conflict resolution that allows participants to focus on performance. The principles apply to all sectors with significant state oversight. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Regime Question: Theory Building in Democracy Studies

This review article assesses the accomplishments and limitations of the best of recent research on democratization and democracy in Europe, South America, and post-Soviet Eurasia with regard to the challenge of theory building. Concerning the dependent variables of this literature, the article argues that the concepts of democratic transition, democratic consolidation, and democratic quality, as currently conceptualized, do not provide a clear focus for causal theorizing. It recommends, rather, that the proper subject matter of regime analysis should be the origins and stability of regime types and suggests how the semantic field of democracy studies could be clarified through a focus on the concepts of democratic transition and democratic stability. Relatedly, it argues that democracy scholars have made unwarranted use of aggregate and dichotomous measures and advocates instead the use of more disaggregate and nuanced measures. Concerning causal theories, the article shows that researchers have identified a range of potential explanatory factors and proposed suggestive complex causal models. Nonetheless, it also argues that democracy scholars have rarely formulated clearly specified general causal models and identifies some key pitfalls to be avoided as scholars tackle two key tasks: the development of thick and general theory and the definition of causal models. The conclusion raises the need to place theory building in context and argues that scholars must also turn their attention to the demanding challenges of data generation and causal assessment.
Impeachment and Presidential Immunity from Judicial Process

The Lewinsky affair played out under ground rules shaped in the Watergate affair, an earlier episode involving misconduct by a President. A predicate of the impeachment of President Clinton was the President's involvement in a private civil lawsuit. A sitting President's exposure to compulsory judicial process has been accepted almost without demur among academic commentators since the 1974 case of United States v. Nixon. As for impeachment, the academic consensus is that the Constitution defines impeachable offenses as "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," the latter terms describing an imprecisely bounded category of serious offenses. This paper contends that both of these views are misconceived. The prevailing view of impeachment and presidential immunity slights both the terms of the Constitution and history. The scope of impeachment, based on a straightforward reading of the constitutional provisions concerning it, is demonstrably different from the academic consensus. The text of the Constitution and relevant history reveal that 1) impeachable offenses are not defined in the Constitution; 2) "high crimes and misdemeanors" are an historically well-defined category of offenses aimed specifically against the state, for which removal from office is mandatory upon conviction by the Senate; 3) Congress has the power to impeach and remove civil officers for a range of offenses other than high crimes and misdemeanors; and 4) the Senate can impose sanctions less severe than removal from office--censure, for example--on civil officers convicted of such other offenses. The textual and historical support for these propositions is powerful, if not overwhelming. When impeachment is correctly understood, the question of the President's immunity from judicial process takes on a different light. There is neither a constitutional basis nor a sound footing in policy for any official action against a sitting President other than impeachment.
Compensation and Incentives: Practice vs. Theory

A thorough understanding of internal incentive structures is critical to developing a viable theory of the firm, since these incentives determine to a large extent how individuals inside an organization behave. Many common features of organizational incentive systems are not easily explained by traditional economic theory—including egalitarian pay systems in which compensation is largely independent of performance, the overwhelming use of promotion-based incentive systems, the absence of up-front fees for jobs and effective bonding contracts, and the general reluctance of employers to fire, penalize, or give poor performance evaluations to employees. Typical explanations for these practices offered by behaviorists and practitioners are distinctly uneconomic—focusing on notions such as fairness, equity, morale, trust, social responsibility, and culture. The challenge to economists is to provide viable economic explanations for these practices or to integrate these alternative notions into the traditional economic model.
Aggregation bias, compositional change, and the border effect

Borders affect the composition, not only the level, of interregional trade. In disaggregated U.S. Commodity Flow data, border effects vary substantially across commodities. Substantial border–induced compositional change suggests the possibility that standard estimates suffer from aggregation bias arising from endogenous industry location patterns and the presence of zero observations in commodity–level trade. Adjusting for these effects reduces the estimate of the aggregate border effect from 20.9 to 5.7. JEL Classification: F14, F15 Biais d’agregation, changement de composition, et effet de frontieres. Les frontieres affectent la composition et pas seulement le volume de commerce inter-regional. Une analyse des donnees desagregees des flux de commerce de biens des Etats-Unis montre que l’effet de frontieres varie substantiellement selon les biens. Le changement de composition du commerce engendre par les frontieres suggere la possibilite que les estimations usuelles souffrent d’un biais d’agregation resultant des patterns de localisation industrielle endogenes et de la presence d’observations nulles dans le commerce de certains biens. Un ajustement pour tenir compte de ces effets suggere que les effets de frontieres passent de 20.9 a 5.7.
The Impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the Entry and Exit of Retail Firms

Congress enacted The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 over the protests of small business advocates who claimed that the ADA would trigger a wave of bankruptcies. Although the profitability of firms may suffer from the costs of ADA compliance, no systematic evidence is available. This paper seeks to determine if the ADA had a measurable impact on both the entry of new firms and the failure rates (exit) of existing firms. The data used in the study are counts of business establishments currently operating by county and type of business. Backing out the entry and exit rates from the establishment count data is a major econometric contribution of the paper. The empirical results imply that the ADA indeed decreased the number of retail firms. There were fewer retail firms after the ADA was passed, and the drop was larger in states in which the ADA was more of a legal innovation, and in states that had more disabled people, more ADA-related lawsuits, and more ADA-related labor complaints. The same conclusions hold when baseline trends for larger establishments (those least vulnerable to the costs imposed by the ADA) are differenced out. There is also evidence that employment and access discrimination suits imposed real costs on retail stores, encouraging exit. However, the exit of incumbents was partially offset by new entrants, which may imply that stores less able to adapt to the new requirements made room for the entry of stores better able to adapt. So, while the prediction by the pessimists that the ADA would cause firms to fail may be correct, the decline in the number of firms was partially offset by new entry.
Managing for Stakeholders: Trade-offs or Value Creation

The ideas in this article have been developed in a number of publications, foremost of which is R. Edward Freeman, Jeffrey Harrison, and Andrew Wicks, Managing for Stakeholders: Survival, Reputation and Success, Yale University Press, 2007, and R. Edward Freeman, “Managing for Stakeholders,” in T. Beauchamp, N. Bowie, and D. Arnold (eds.) Ethical Theory and Business, 8th edition, Pearson, 2008. I am grateful to editors, publishers, and co-authors for their support, and allowing me to further develop these ideas here.
What a Difference a Year Makes: The International Court of Justice’s 2012 Jurisprudence

An analysis of any particular decision of the International Court of Justice sometimes misses broader, cross-cutting themes that animate the Court’s jurisprudence. This essay, prepared for an April 2013 symposium at the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, in Florence, explores a few of the themes that emerged from the Court’s 2012 jurisprudence. First, notwithstanding the development of treaty regimes across a broad array of international law, there remains an enduring relevance of customary international law and general principles of law as sources of international law. Second, when identifying rules of customary international law, there is an enduring attraction to analyzing the effects of multilateral treaties in codifying or crystalizing customary rules, rather than relying on a classic analysis of the day-to-day practice of States in conjunction with their opinio juris. Third, the concept of jus cogens remains a powerful feature of international law, available in theory to trump a State’s ability to engage in contrary treaties, yet in practice the concept seems to get little traction; certainly, violations of jus cogens have proven unable to open the door to claims before national and international tribunals. Finally, international law has increasingly become attuned to the rights of persons as against the power of States and international organizations, but the traditional processes of international law pose difficult and sometimes insurmountable hurdles to persons in effectively vindicating those rights. The Court’s jurisprudence highlights areas of international law that are incomplete or unsatisfactory. The ICJ’s role is not to legislate solutions in those areas, but the Court’s decisions point the direction for changes that might be pursued, either through the development of new treaties or institutions or improvements to those that already exist. Consequently, this essay concludes by suggesting some implications for the future codification and progressive development of international law.
Reinvigorating the concept of benefit: the failure of drug company-sponsored research on human subjects.

In the early 1970s, Congress directed the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare to create a commission for the purpose of ascertaining the important principles that should guide biomedical research that uses human research subjects. The report of this commission was to be published by the Secretary in the Federal Register and, unless the Secretary made any other proposals, it was to become law, a statement of what the United States government required. This report became known as the Belmont Report, and its contents are widely known, though its legal status is not as well-known or appreciated. The world of research and science has changed dramatically since the Belmont Report was written. This Article is not making a new claim when it says that pharmaceutical companies manipulate and suppress data that is generated on human research subjects in order to protect and expand on the industry’s profitability. However, the interplay between this use of data and the requirements of the Belmont Report have, until now, gone unexamined. Last year literally millions of Americans were participants in medical research, with estimates ranging from 2.3 million to upwards
Effects of Alcoholic Beverage Prices and Legal Drinking Ages on Youth Alcohol Use

Based on an analysis of the second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted between 1976 and 1980, we find that the frequency of the consumption of beer, the most popular alcoholic beverage among youths, is inversely related to the real price of beer and to the minimum legal age for its purchase and consumption. The negative price and legal drinking age effects are by no means limited to reductions in the fraction of youths who consume beer infrequently (less than once a week). Instead, the fractions of youths who consume beer fairly frequently (1-3times a week) and frequently (4-7 times a week) fall more in absolute or percentage terms than the fraction of infrequent drinkers when price or the drinking age rises. These are striking findings because frequent and fairly frequent drinkers are likely to be responsible for a large percentage of youth motor vehicle accidents and deaths. Simulations suggest that, if reductions in youth alcohol use and abuse are desired, both a uniform drinking age of 21 and an increase in the Federal excise tax rate on beer are effective policies to accomplish this goal. They also suggest that the tax policy may be more potent than the drinking age policy.
Bargaining in the Shadow of Social Institutions: Competing Discourses and Social Change in Workplace Mobilization of Civil Rights

The Family and Medical Leave Act requires employers to provide job-protected leave, but little is known about how these leave rights operate in practice or how they interact with other normative systems to construct the meaning of leave. Drawing on interviews with workers who negotiated contested leaves, this study examines how social institutions influence workplace mobilization of these rights. I find that leave rights remain embedded within institutionalized conceptions of work, gender, and disability that shape workers’ perceptions, preferences, and choices about mobilizing their rights. I also find, however, that workers can draw on law as a culture discourse to challenge these assumptions, to build coalitions, and to renegotiate the meaning of leave. Until recently, the United States was virtually the only major industrialized country without a family leave policy. Employers could legally fire workers who needed time off to care for seriously ill children, ill or injured spouses, or aging and dying parents. Employers could also legally fire workers unable to work due to temporary serious illnesses or injuries. And employers could legally fire women who needed time off for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions so long as they also denied time off to nonpregnant employees who were unable to work. Time off after the birth of a child remained a benefit provided at employers’ discretion, a benefit primarily available to well-paid professional or management workers (Kamerman, Kahn, & Kingston 1983).
Serotonergic Genotypes, Neuroticism, and Financial Choices

Life financial outcomes carry a significant heritable component, but the mechanisms by which genes influence financial choices remain unclear. Focusing on a polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), we found that individuals possessing the short allele of this gene invested less in equities, were less engaged in actively making investment decisions, and had fewer credit lines. Short allele carriers also showed higher levels of the personality trait neuroticism, despite not differing from others with respect to cognitive skills, education, or wealth. Mediation analysis suggested that the presence of the 5-HTTLPR short allele decreased real life measures of financial risk taking through its influence on neuroticism. These findings show that 5-HTTLPR short allele carriers avoid risky and complex financial choices due to negative emotional reactions, and have implications for understanding and managing individual differences in financial choice.
Rule 26(a)(2)(B) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: In the Interest of Full Disclosure

This Note examines the varying interpretations of Rule 26(a)(2)(B) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, an issue currently dividing the nation’s circuit courts of appeal and district courts. Interpreting the Rule for its plain meaning yields an exemption for expert witnesses who are either treating physicians or employees of a party in the case. While some courts have followed this textualist approach, more have opted for a broader interpretation, imposing the expert report requirements of Rule 26 on employee experts and treating physicians under certain circumstances. In keeping with the spirit of the Rules, courts should interpret the Rule broadly so as to encourage full disclosure while the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure considers potential amendments.
The impact of deposit insurance on S&L shareholders' risk/return trade-offs

This article empirically examines how savings and loan associations' (S&Ls') stock returns respond to asset mix changes. When deposit insurance is underpriced, increases in financial leverage and the riskiness of the asset portfolio should lead to increases in expected return on common stock. In particular, changes in asset components which increase the volatility of an institution's portfolio should lead the stock market to upwardly revalue S&L equity. This hypothesis is examined using data for the July 1984–December 1989 period. Increases in commercial mortgage loans, acquisition and development loans, and investments in service corporations appear to cause higher return for shareholders of poorly capitalized, failing S&Ls. Similar increases appear to have little impact on the common stock returns of well-capitalized S&Ls.
The Impact of Liquidity Risk on the Prices of Swaps with Default Risk

Liquidity risk, i.e., the likelihood that a swap can be “sold” (i.e., assigned) may affect swap prices. This article addresses the importance of liquidity risk as a factor in the valuation of swaps, which are subject to default risk. The author presents a model for pricing these swaps by incorporating a proxy for liquidity risk. Using the model, the author finds that the effects of liquidity risk may partially offset the effects of default risk.
Formulating a New Atrocity Speech Offense: Incitement to Commit War Crimes

Since the time of the Pharaohs, certain military commanders have sought to demonize the enemy in speeches given to troops before sending them into battle. If officers could equate their foes with filthy vermin, ferocious beasts, or unholy goblins, then their subordinates might take the field in a frenzy, ready to slaughter every last combatant—even those wounded or attempting to surrender. In certain cases, so whipped up with hatred, troops might even go so far as to kill women and children in the vicinity of the battlefield. And such speech has arisen in cases of military campaigns illegitimate from their conception—ethnic cleansing operations, for example, that have required dehumanizing the enemy and thereby conditioning and inspiring the rank and file to inflict violence on innocent civilians. Depending on the words used by the commanding officer in these situations, such speech would not necessarily amount to “orders” given to the troops. But what if, in spite of the noxious intent underlying them
An Economist's Perspective on Technology and the Liberal Arts

A question of considerable significance that confronts our nation’s universities in general and our institutes of technology in particular is the apposite role of the liberal arts in an institute of technology. As such, the purpose of this paper is to provide an economist’s perspective on the nexuses between the liberal arts and technology. We begin with a set of questions that are interdisciplinary in nature but also have a substantial economic content to them. We then discuss a subset of these questions expansively. In particular, we point to the ways in which a liberal education enhances our understanding of all aspects of this subset of questions. Our basic point is that these and most other momentous questions of the day are inherently interdisciplinary in nature. Therefore, they can only be addressed meaningfully by combining a liberal education with solid training in at least one discipline.
Short-Term Incentive Effects of a Reduction in the NOL Carryback Period

ABSTRACT We examine whether the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA 1997), which reduced the net operating loss (NOL) carryback period from three to two years, created a short-term incentive effect to shift income to accelerate loss recognition in the tax year 1997. We find that our sample of NOL firms in the treatment year of 1997 display higher (lower) levels of income-decreasing (-increasing) earnings management, compared to a control sample of loss firms. When we focus strictly on the NOL firms in the transition year, we find that firms with higher reported income tax expense in fiscal year 1995 display greater income shifting to accelerate loss recognition. We also find that income shifting is greater for treatment NOL firms that expect to report losses in the post-TRA 1997 regime. Overall, our study highlights how changes in tax law provisions (as opposed to tax rate changes) affect firms' reporting behavior.
Competition, Consumer Welfare, and the Social Cost of Monopoly

Conventional deadweight loss measures of the social cost of monopoly ignore, among other things, the social cost of inducing competition and thus cannot accurately capture the loss in social welfare. In this Article, we suggest an alternative method of measuring the social cost of monopoly. Using elements of general equilibrium theory, we propose a social cost metric where the benchmark is the Pareto optimal state of the economy that uses the least amount of resources, consistent with consumers’ utility levels in the monopolized state. If the primary goal of antitrust policy is the enhancement of consumer welfare, then the proper benchmark is Pareto optimality, not simply competitive markets. We discuss the implications of our approach for antitrust law as well as how our methodology can be used in practice for allegations of monopoly power given a history of price-demand observations.
Do idiosyncratic jumps matter

Abstract We show that idiosyncratic jumps are a key determinant of mean stock returns from both an ex post and ex ante perspective. Ex post, the entire annual average return of a typical stock accrues on the four days on which its price jumps. Ex ante, idiosyncratic jump risk earns a premium: a value-weighted weekly long-short portfolio that buys (sells) stocks with high (low) predicted jump probabilities earns annualized mean returns of 9.4% and four-factor alphas of 8.1%. This strategy’s returns are larger when there are greater limits to arbitrage. These results are consistent with investor aversion to idiosyncratic jump risk.
Specification of policy rules and performance measures in multicountry simulation studies

Abstract Much recent analysis of international monetary and fiscal policy issues has been conducted by stochastic simulations with multicountry econometric models. In these studies it has become standard practice to consider alternative policy rules of a form that calls for departures of a policy instrument, from some ‘baseline’ reference path, that are proportional to deviations of a specified target variable from its own baseline path. The present paper argues that this standard rule form is seriously defective for such issues because th eimplied rules often fail to be operational and have associated performance measures that can be misleading in important cases. (JEL C50, F30).
Failures: Diffusion, Learning, and Policy Abandonment

Studies of the diffusion of policies tend to focus on innovations that successfully spread across governments. Implicit in such diffusion is the abandonment of the previous policy. Yet little is known about whether governments abandon policies that have failed elsewhere, as would be consistent with states acting as policy laboratories not only for policy successes but also for failures. This article focuses on the possible abandonment of failing welfare-to-work policies in the formative years (1997–2002) of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program across the 50 U.S. states. Using a dyad-based event history analysis, I find that, if both states in a pairing have a policy and one state's policy fails (in employing welfare recipients, reducing welfare rolls, or reducing overall poverty rates), then the other state is much more likely to abandon that failing policy. Moreover, such learning from the other state's experience is more common when the states are ideologically similar to one another and when the legislature in the potentially learning state is more professional.
An Integrative Analysis of Person–Organization Fit Theories

This study provides an integrative analysis of three approaches to person–organization (P–O) fit theory and measurement: values congruence and personality congruence (supplementary fit measures), and work environment congruence (a needs–supplies fit measure). Commensurate measures of each aspect of fit were collected from 105 employees in six organizations in the western United States. Values congruence and work environment congruence were both related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but personality congruence was not. All three fit measures were related to employees' intent to remain with their employer, although this effect was generally mediated by satisfaction and commitment. When multiple fit measures were used in a single analysis, values congruence and work environment congruence had the strongest and most consistent effects on the outcome measures. These results suggest a revised, multidimensional model of P–O fit.
Losing my religion: The effects of religious scandals on religious participation and charitable giving

Abstract We study how the U.S. Catholic clergy abuse scandals affected religious participation, religious beliefs, and pro-social behavior. To estimate the causal effects of the scandals on various outcomes, we conduct an event-study analysis that exploits the fine distribution of the scandals over space and time. First, a scandal causes a significant and long-lasting decline in religious participation in the zip code where it occurs. Second, the decline in religious participation does not generate a statistically significant decline in religious beliefs, pro-social beliefs, and some commonly used measures of pro-social behavior. This evidence is consistent with the view that changes in religious participation during adulthood may have limited or no effect on deep beliefs and values. Third, the scandals cause a long-lasting decline in charitable contributions. Indeed, the decline in charitable giving is an order of magnitude larger than the direct costs of the scandals to the Catholic churches (e.g., lawsuits). If we assume that the scandals affect charitable giving only through the decline in religious participation, our estimates would suggest that the strong cross-sectional correlation between religious participation and charitable giving has the presumed direction of causality.
The Public Trust in Private Hands: Social Security and the Politics of Government Investment

The funding crisis facing Social Security could be dramatically reduced if the $1.9 trillion accumulating in the Trust Fund were put into a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds and other assets instead of the low yield U.S. Treasury certificates in which the Fund is currently invested. While the long term economic benefits of a diversified portfolio are largely undisputed, politicians cannot agree on whether the government or private individuals should make the investment decision. Republicans and Libertarians are philosophically opposed to government investment because of legitimate fears that politicians will interfere in corporate governance and steer money into investments that serve special interests. One reason Republicans advanced personal accounts as a solution to the funding crisis was because individual taxpayers, rather than the government, would make the investment decision. However, for a variety of reasons, the Republican personal accounts proposals are politically infeasible, and with time running out, a different strategy to leverage the private markets is needed. Another solution to the problems posed by government investment would be to create a federal government corporation (FGC) as an investment vehicle for the Social Security Administration (SSA). Historically, FGCs have played an important role in managing the nation's financial interests. Using an FGC as the investment arm for the SSA would distance the Fund from political influence so that professional investment advisors could make decisions based on wealth maximization rather than political influence. The solution has precedent in other countries. The Canadian government shifted its social insurance fund to a federal Crown corporation in 1997. The Crown corporation has not only remained politically neutral, it has also earned a higher rate of return than previous investments in government bonds. However, U.S. legal scholars question the legitimacy, accountability and transparency of American FGCs. Given the uncertain nature of the state action doctrine, it is not always clear whether an FGC is a state actor and therefore needs to comport with U.S. constitutional requirements as well as be subject to legislation governing federal agencies. This article explores the theoretical, constitutional and legal ramifications of creating a federal government corporation for the purpose of investing the $1.9 trillion Social Security Trust Fund in higher yield securities. The article concludes that not only can such an entity be consistent with democratic principles, it may be the best chance U.S. lawmakers have to address Social Security's funding crisis while mitigating anticipated tax increases and benefit cuts.
Clinical Aspects of Imaging in Maxillofacial Trauma

Summary Imaging of maxillofacial injuries serves as the principal means of qualifying the clinical diagnosis. Imaging assists in treatment planning of comprehensive surgical repair. The use of more invasive means of providing stable fixation of facial fractures has increased the demands made on fracture imaging. Clinical decision making depends on a thorough understanding of the clinical findings in an injury and its anatomic features as delineated on imaging.
Behavioral and Neural Fusion of Expectation with Sensation.

Humans perceive expected stimuli faster and more accurately. However, the mechanism behind the integration of expectations with sensory information during perception remains unclear. We investigate...
Stochastic Security: Adversarial Defense Using Long-Run Dynamics of Energy-Based Models

The vulnerability of deep networks to adversarial attacks is a central problem for deep learning from the perspective of both cognition and security. The current most successful defense method is to train a classifier using adversarial images created during learning. Another defense approach involves transformation or purification of the original input to remove adversarial signals before the image is classified. We focus on defending naturally-trained classifiers using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling with an Energy-Based Model (EBM) for adversarial purification. In contrast to adversarial training, our approach is intended to secure highly vulnerable pre-existing classifiers. To our knowledge, no prior defense method is capable of securing naturally-trained classifiers, and our method is the first to validate a post-training defense approach that is distinct from current successful defenses which modify classifier training. The memoryless behavior of long-run MCMC sampling will eventually remove adversarial signals, while metastable behavior preserves consistent appearance of MCMC samples after many steps to allow accurate long-run prediction. Balancing these factors can lead to effective purification and robust classification. We evaluate adversarial defense with an EBM using the strongest known attacks against purification. Our contributions are 1) an improved method for training EBM's with realistic long-run MCMC samples for effective purification, 2) an Expectation-Over-Transformation (EOT) defense that resolves ambiguities for evaluating stochastic defenses and from which the EOT attack naturally follows, and 3) state-of-the-art adversarial defense for naturally-trained classifiers and competitive defense compared to adversarial training on CIFAR-10, SVHN, and CIFAR-100.
Use of Neural Networks for Stable, Accurate and Physically Consistent Parameterization of Subgrid Atmospheric Processes With Good Performance at Reduced Precision

A promising approach to improve climate-model simulations is to replace traditional subgrid parameterizations based on simplified physical models by machine learning algorithms that are data-driven. However, neural networks (NNs) often lead to instabilities and climate drift when coupled to an atmospheric model. Here we learn an NN parameterization from a high-resolution atmospheric simulation in an idealized domain by coarse graining the model equations and output. The NN parameterization has a structure that ensures physical constraints are respected, and it leads to stable simulations that replicate the climate of the high-resolution simulation with similar accuracy to a successful random-forest parameterization while needing far less memory. We find that the simulations are stable for a variety of NN architectures and horizontal resolutions, and that an NN with substantially reduced numerical precision could decrease computational costs without affecting the quality of simulations.
Artificial Intelligence Accelerators Based on Graphene Optoelectronic Devices

Optical and optoelectronic approaches of performing matrix-vector multiplication (MVM) operations have shown the great promise of accelerating machine learning (ML) algorithms with unprecedented performance. The incorporation of nanomaterials into the system can further improve the performance thanks to their extraordinary properties, but the non-uniformity and variation of nanostructures in the macroscopic scale pose severe limitations for large-scale hardware deployment. Here, we report a new optoelectronic architecture consisting of spatial light modulators and photodetector arrays made from graphene to perform MVM. The ultrahigh carrier mobility of graphene, nearly-zero-power-consumption electro-optic control, and extreme parallelism suggest ultrahigh data throughput and ultralow-power consumption. Moreover, we develop a methodology of performing accurate calculations with imperfect components, laying the foundation for scalable systems. Finally, we perform a few representative ML algorithms, including singular value decomposition, support vector machine, and deep neural networks, to show the versatility and generality of our platform.
Modeling subgrid combustion processes in simulations of thermonuclear supernovae

Supernovae of type Ia are thought to arise from the thermonuclear incineration of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf stellar remnant. However, the detailed explosion scenario and stellar evolutionary origin scenario – or scenarios – which lead to observed supernovae are still quite uncertain. One of the principal tests of proposed scenarios is comparison with the explosion products inferred, for example, from the spectrum of the supernovae. Making this comparison requires computation of the combustion dynamics and products through simulation of proposed scenarios. Here we discuss two specific proposed explosion scenarios, the deflagration-detonation transition and the helium shell double detonation, With these two examples in mind, we proceed to discuss challenges to computational modeling of the combustion taking place in these explosions. Both subsonically and supersonically propagating reaction fronts are discussed, called deflagrations and detonations respectively. Several major stages of the combustion occur on length and time scales that are many orders of magnitude smaller than those accessible in simulations of the explosion. Models which attempt to capture this sub-grid behavior and the verification of those models is briefly discussed.