cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Legal Information Management in a Global and Digital Age: Revolution and Tradition

This article presents an overview of the public policy issues surrounding digital libraries, and describes some current trends, such as Web 2.0, the social network. It discusses the impact of globalization and the Internet on international and foreign law information, the free access to law movement and open access scholarship, and mass digitization projects, then turns to some concerns, focusing on preservation and long term access to born digital legal information and authentication of official digital legal information It finally discusses new roles for librarians, called upon to evaluate the quality of information; teach legal research methodology; and be advocates in information policy. Law librarians are encouraged to join professional associations and undergo continuous professional education. A recent development in the U.S.A., to add a legal research test on the bar exam, is of interest to the whole world, because it signifies the importance of a sound legal research training to the competent practice of law.
Identifying credit demand, financial intermediation, and supply of funds shocks: A structural VAR approach

Abstract In this paper, we identify three exogenous shocks to credit market: demand for credit, supply of funds into the financial system, and the willingness to lend of financial institutions (financial intermediation), and also, determine the contribution of these shocks to fluctuations in the credit market and overall economic activity. We estimate a structural vector autoregression model where the three credit shocks are identified with a set of sign restrictions motivated by a simple partial equilibrium model of financial intermediation. We find that the credit demand shock explains significantly the variations in the long-term loan rate proxied by the Moody’s Baa corporate bond yield, while the supply of funds shock contributes to most of the fluctuations in the short-term commercial paper rate. The financial intermediation shock drives most of the fluctuations in the quantity of loans as well as the spread between the Baa and commercial paper rates. Of the credit shocks, we find that the financial intermediation shock has the largest impact on real economic activity. In fact, our analysis implies that the sharp decline in output during the 2007–2009 financial crisis is largely attributable to the financial intermediation shock, along with shocks originating outside of the financial system.
A Unified Rationale for Section 2-607(3)(a) Notification

An aggrieved buyer that fails to give its seller timely notification of breach, or that gives a timely but insufficient notification, suffers serious and sometimes catastrophic consequences under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC or Code). On the serious end, a buyer entitled to reject must provide its seller with a timely notification' that makes it clear that the goods again belong to the seller, with failure as to either timeliness or sufficiency resulting in acceptance rather than rejection. Obvious policy rationales support both requirements. The timeliness requirement creates an incentive for a buyer to exercise its inspection rights quickly. Prompt detection and reporting of a nonconformity is desirable because a cure can be effectuated more quickly, thereby mitigating the harm to both parties. If there is no cure, the seller can maximize the goods' resale value by recovering them quickly and, as nearly as practicable, in the same condition as when they were tendered. Regarding sufficiency, if a notification merely states that there is a problem, the seller could legitimately assume that the buyer intends to accept the goods and that the purpose of the notification is to preserve its right to recover monetary damages. This level of information will not suffice for a rejection: The seller must be made aware that the buyer does not intend to keep the goods so that it can exercise its cure rights or recover the goods. A revocation of acceptance also requires a timely notification that advises the seller that the seller owns the goods, and the underlying policies are the same as in cases of rejection.Professor Richard Speidel, to whose memory this tribute issue is dedicated, sought through the Article 2 revision process to ameliorate the harsh effects of section 2-607(3)(a). The premise of this Article is that the approach drafted by Professor Speidel is far superior to the original approach. The denial of any remedy to an aggrieved party because it stumbles with respect to some aspect of a notification is draconian, and section 2-607(3)(a) should not be retained in its present form. It is easy to see why Professor Speidel, who championed fairness in the substance and application of the law, was troubled with the provision.
Changes in Cash: Persistence and Pricing Implications

This paper decomposes the cash component of earnings and analyzes persistence characteristics and pricing implications of various subcomponents, with particular attention to changes in cash. Changes in underlying fundamentals might dictate changes in cash to new optimal levels. Alternatively, suboptimal changes in cash might result from agency costs allowing managers� actions to diverge from the best interests of shareholders. We predict and find that both suboptimal increases and decreases in cash bode poorly for future earnings. In fact, we find that suboptimal increases (decreases) in cash have less (greater) persistence than any of the earnings components we study, including accruals and net distributions to both shareholders and debt holders. Market efficiency tests indicate that the market severely punishes firms with suboptimal decreases in cash, but we find no evidence to support the hubris hypothesis that the market overreacts to the earnings implications of unwarranted increases in cash.
Intellectual property and practical reason

In scholarship on intellectual property (‘IP’), nonconsequentialist justifications for IP rights seem to suffer from one of two flaws. To some, such justifications seem indeterminate; they seem not...
The role of body flexibility in stroke enhancements for finite-length undulatory swimmers in viscoelastic fluids

Author(s): Thomases, B; Guy, RD | Abstract: The role of passive body dynamics on the kinematics of swimming micro-organisms in complex fluids is investigated. Asymptotic analysis of small-amplitude motions of a finite-length undulatory swimmer in a Stokes-Oldroyd-B fluid is used to predict shape changes that result as body elasticity and fluid elasticity are varied. Results from the analysis are compared with numerical simulations and the numerically simulated shape changes agree with the analysis at both small and large amplitudes, even for strongly elastic flows. We compute a stroke-induced swimming speed that accounts for the shape changes, but not additional effects of fluid elasticity. Elasticity-induced shape changes lead to larger-amplitude strokes for sufficiently soft swimmers in a viscoelastic fluid, and these stroke boosts can lead to swimming speed-ups. However, for the strokes we examine, we find that additional effects of fluid elasticity generically result in a slow-down. Our high amplitude strokes in strongly elastic flows lead to a qualitatively different regime in which highly concentrated elastic stresses accumulate near swimmer bodies and dramatic slow-downs are seen.
Radical repertoires: : The incidence and impact of corporate-sponsored social activism

This article explores when and why firms participate in overt corporate-sponsored social activism. To shed light on this question, I empirically explore the emergence and implications of a new strategic phenomenon in nonmarket strategy—the corporate-sponsored boycott—in which firms voluntarily cooperate with contentious social movement organizations to sponsor boycotts that protest the contested social practices of other companies or entities at higher orders of market organization, such as industries, transnational regulators, or states. Using a longitudinal database that tracks the social movement challenges faced by 300 large companies between 1993 and 2007, I provide evidence that overt corporate-sponsored activism is used by companies that are chronically targeted and losing ground to activists, especially when those companies are facing a reputational deficit. Furthermore, I find that participation in overt corporate-sponsored activism is associated with significant decreases in the number of activi...
AB INITIO COSMOLOGICAL SIMULATIONS OF CR7 AS AN ACTIVE BLACK HOLE

We present the first ab initio cosmological simulations of a CR7-like object which approximately reproduce the observed line widths and strengths. In our model, CR7 is powered by a massive ($3.23 \times 10^7$ $M_\odot$) black hole (BH) the accretion rate of which varies between $\simeq$ 0.25 and $\simeq$ 0.9 times the Eddington rate on timescales as short as 10$^3$ yr. Our model takes into account multi-dimensional effects, X-ray feedback, secondary ionizations and primordial chemistry. We estimate Ly-$\alpha$ line widths by post-processing simulation output with Monte Carlo radiative transfer and calculate emissivity contributions from radiative recombination and collisional excitation. We find the luminosities in the Lyman-$\alpha$ and He II 1640 angstrom lines to be $5.0\times10^{44}$ and $2.4\times10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$, respectively, in agreement with the observed values of $>$ $8.3\times10^{43}$ and $2.0\times10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$. We also find that the black hole heats the halo and renders it unable to produce stars as required to keep the halo metal free. These results demonstrate the viability of the BH hypothesis for CR7 in a cosmological context. Assuming the BH mass and accretion rate that we find, we estimate the synchrotron luminosity of CR7 to be $P \simeq 10^{40} - 10^{41}$ erg s$^{-1}$, which is sufficiently luminous to be observed in $\mu$Jy observations and would discriminate this scenario from one where the luminosity is driven by Population III stars.
The change in information uncertainty and acquirer wealth losses

A large body of literature demonstrates that acquisitions are on average value destroying for the acquirer. We investigate whether the change in the acquirer’s information uncertainty contributes to acquirer wealth losses. Information uncertainty affects the discount rate (the cost of capital), which in turn influences stock price. Our results indicate that acquisitions lead to increases in information uncertainty, as proxied by analysts’ earnings forecast dispersion. We also find that the change in information uncertainty is negatively related to acquirer long-term stock performance, after controlling for the acquirer’s fundamentals. Taken together, this evidence is consistent with the conclusion that increases in information uncertainty resulting from acquisitions contribute to acquirer post-acquisition wealth losses
Learning from Private Information in Noisy Repeated Games

We study the perfect type-contingently public ex-post equilibrium (PTXE) of repeated games with incomplete information where players observe imperfect public signals of the actions and the map from actions to signal distributions is itself unknown. The PTXE payoffs when players are patient are determined by the intersection of the maximal half spaces in various directions; we focus on the “cross-state” directions that consider payoffs in two or more states. We develop conditions under which the maximal half spaces in these directions impose no constraints on the equilibrium set, so that equilibrium play can be as if the players have learned the state. We use these conditions to provide a sufficient condition for the folk theorem, and a characterization of the PTXE payoffs in games with a known monitoring structure.
How do immigrants spend their time? The process of assimilation

Sharp differences in time use by nativity emerge when activities are distinguished by incidence and intensity in recent US data. A model with daily fixed costs for assimilating activities predicts that immigrants are less likely than natives to undertake such activities on a given day; but those who do will spend relatively more time on them. Activities such as purchasing, education, and market work conform to the model. Other results suggest that fixed costs for assimilating activities are higher for immigrants with poor English proficiency or who originate in less developed countries. An analysis of comparable Australian data yields similar results.
First Amendment Imperialism (A Response to Michael Walzer's Leary Lecture)

The First Amendment threatens to swallow up all politics, replacing democratic decision-making based on claims that policies are in the public interest with judicial analysis of the nature of free speech and the distinction between speech and action. In the manner of classic social contract theory, First Amendment law asserts the separation of the state from the most salient issues of democratic debate. Increasingly, however, it acts as a bar to governmental action not just with regard to the issues of conscience and religious practice with which it began, but far into the realm of economic regulation we thought the courts had abandoned to the legislatures after the Lochner disaster.
SEPARATION OF OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL

ABSENT fiat, the form of organization that survives in an activity is the one that delivers the product demanded by customers at the lowest price while covering costs.1 Our goal is to explain the survival of organizations characterized by separation of "ownership" and "control"-a problem that has bothered students of corporations from Adam Smith to Berle and Means and Jensen and Meckling.2 In more precise language, we are concerned with the survival of organizations in which important decision agents do not bear a substantial share of the wealth effects of their decisions. We argue that the separation of decision and risk-bearing functions observed in large corporations is common to other organizations such as large professional partnerships, financial mutuals, and nonprofits. We contend that separation of decision and risk-bearing functions survives in these organizations in part because of the benefits of specialization of
Judge Jack Weinstein and the Construction of Tort Law in America: An Intellectual History

This Article explores the intersection between the judicial and scholarly work of Judge Jack Weinstein, particularly as related to mass tort litigation and the development of legal theory and tort law in America. The primary focus will be on Judge Weinstein’s handling of the Agent Orange litigation. Judge Weinstein’s tenure on the federal bench began in 1967. Some seven years earlier, Ronald Coase published his The Problem of Social Costs, a monumental moment in American legal theory and tort law policy. Three years later, Guido Calabresi published his path-breaking text, The Costs of Accidents. These two texts are representative of the law and neoclassical economics movement, which would indelibly shape tort law theory in America during Judge Weinstein’s years as a judge.Law and neoclassical economics is most often discussed as a methodology for analyzing tort law on the basis of efficiency. However, it also exemplifies a broader approach to law that goes beyond efficiency analysis and can be found in much of contemporary legal theory. This broader approach focuses its analysis on the social good as opposed to prioritizing individual rights. It is through the lens of these two features of twentieth-century legal theory (efficiency and the social good), particularly as they apply to tort law, that this Article will examine the Agent Orange litigation.The Agent Orange litigation is a landmark in American history. It involved hundreds of lawsuits, thousands of claimants (15,000 by one estimate), and seven corporate defendants. Aside from its scope, the issues surrounding Agent Orange are particularly worthy of attention because they exemplify the problems associated with resolving mass tort cases. An intriguing aspect of Judge Weinstein’s worldview, which is reflected in the disposition of the Agent Orange litigation, is that he champions efficiency and the social good while placing a premium on recognizing individual suffering as an existential reality.Of course, the Agent Orange litigation is also circumscribed by the specter of the Vietnam War, which makes it an even more compelling site of inquiry. The Agent Orange litigation and Judge Weinstein’s legendary handling of it provides us with a unique opportunity to consider tort law in the context of not only legal theory, but one of America’s most searing historical moments, the Vietnam War.
Do managers seek control and entrenchment

Abstract A unique dataset of post-IPO thrifts with heterogeneous initial insider ownership allows us to use revealed preferences to determine the level of ownership insiders believe to be optimal. We find strong evidence that insider ownership converges to the 20% to 30% range, whether insiders begin with diffuse or concentrated ownership. This range of ownership has been found consistent with entrenchment and control in the literature. Our results are robust to a battery of variables related to insider ownership such as moral hazard, adverse selection, market timing, insider characteristics, and firm characteristics. Furthermore, we find that managers with diffuse ownership accumulate shares most aggressively during the period of regulatory anti-takeover protection, consistent with an entrenchment motive. We find that managers with above-average pay are more likely to seek higher ownership, consistent with the existence of private benefits of control. Finally, we find that insider ownership determines equity issuance, leverage, and share liquidity in ways consistent with expected accumulation or reduction in insider ownership for control purposes.
An Antigua Gambling Model for the International Tax Regime

The international tax world is facing a defining moment. While there is little agreement on anything within the field, there appears to be a growing consensus that the modern international tax regime — the so-called flawed miracle emerging from World War II — is irrevocably broken. As the countries of the world confront the challenges facing the international tax regime in the next century, new models for an institutional framework for international tax become increasingly crucial to its success. While significant progress has been made in developing underlying norms to serve as the basis for a modern international tax regime, less focus has been paid to building the institutions and structures necessary to implement these norms. To this end, this Essay proposes looking to the recent experience of the WTO in the Antigua Gambling case as a model for a new institutional framework for the new international tax regime. The Essay then proposes three potential ways to do so: (1) the creditable gross-withholding tax method, (2) the extraterritorial excise tax method, and (3) the WTO cross-retaliation method.By serving as an example of how to balance the needs of larger, wealthier countries and smaller, poorer ones, the Antigua Gambling model could help overcome one of the largest obstacles confronting the development of a modern international tax regime. Perhaps an Antigua Gambling model could serve as the basis for a new institutional framework for international tax.
Are Hard Pegs Ever Credible in Emerging Markets? Evidence from the Classical Gold Standard

We test whether fixed exchange rate regimes are ever credible in emerging markets by analyzing the behavior of short-term domestic trade bills across countries during the classical gold standard period, the most widely used hard peg in modern financial history. We exploit the fact that global capital markets were unfettered in order to identify the currency-risk component using uncovered interest parity for 17 of the largest emerging market borrowers for the period 1870-1913. We show that five years after a country joined the gold standard, the currency risk premium averaged at least 285 basis points for emerging market economies. We estimate that investors expected exchange rates to fall by roughly 28 percent even after emerging market borrowers joined the gold standard. Positive currency risk premiums that persisted long after gold standard adoption suggests that hard pegs for emerging market borrowers may never be fully credible.
Climate Change and Collective Action

Climate change presents the greatest collective action problem the international community has yet confronted. The unequal distribution of expected costs and benefits from climate change (based on mean damage estimates from probability distribution functions) creates different incentives for different countries, which can be expected to bargain in their own perceived interests. Unresolved collective action problems explain the notorious flaws in the Kyoto Protocol, and continue to impede efforts to replace or improve on Kyoto. Policy recommendations and negotiating strategies that ignore those collective action problems are likely to prove ineffective. This paper explains why collective action problems are far more serious in the case of the Kyoto Protocol than they were in the case of the Montreal Protocol on protecting the stratospheric ozone layer, and offers recommendations for reducing those problems. In particular, due consideration of (1) low-probability, high magnitude climate changes (beyond the mean estimates of damages) and (2) the secondary effects of climate change (implicating, for example, national security interests) should better align the interests of the parties. At the very least, it should raise the lowest common denominator of the parties, resulting in a substantially stronger and more effective international climate change regime.
Affiliated Banker on Board and Conservative Accounting

ABSTRACT: We examine the effect of lender monitoring through board representation, which we label “affiliated banker on board” (AFB) on conservative accounting. We hypothesize that monitoring reduces lenders' demand for conservatism-facilitated control transfers through debt covenants by reducing the information asymmetry that underlies the agency problem of debt. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that AFB firms have markedly lower conservative accounting than non-AFB firms. This result is robust to a battery of tests that account for bias from both observable and unobservable factors. We also find additional evidence to support key elements of our hypothesis. First, an examination of the relation between borrower-unfavorable renegotiations and covenant violations suggests that board representation allows lenders to renegotiate in a timelier manner based on private information. Second, an examination of the relation between covenant intensity and conservative accounting suggests that board represent...
Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination

We study race in the labor market by sending fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perceived race, resumes are randomly assigned African-American- or White-sounding names. White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more responsive to resume quality for White names than for African-American ones. The racial gap is uniform across occupation, industry, and employer size. We also find little evidence that employers are inferring social class from the names. Differential treatment by race still appears to still be prominent in the U.S. labor market. (JEL J71, J64).
Banking the Poor

Low-income households often lack access to banking accounts and face high costs for transacting basic financial services through check cashers and other alternative financial service providers. These families find it more difficult to save and plan financially for the future. Living paycheck to paycheck leaves them vulnerable to medical or job emergencies that may endanger their financial stability, and lack of longer-term savings undermines their ability to improve skills, purchase a home, or send their children to college. Additionally, high cost financial services and inadequate access to bank accounts may undermine widely shared societal goals of reducing poverty, moving families from welfare to work, and rewarding work through incentives such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. This Article calls for the transformation of financial services for the poor. The Article first explores the dual financial services market in which insured depository institutions largely serve middleand upperincome persons, and check cashers and other alternative service providers largely serve lowand moderate-income households. The Article argues that the social benefits of breaking down barriers between these markets exceed the costs of doing so. The Article also contends that network externalities in electronic payment systems help explain why some technologies that would help low-income consumers have not been as rapidly adopted as would be socially beneficial. In response to this problem, the Article recommends governmental incentives for private sector financial and technological innovation to help lower banking and savings barriers for the poor. Better access to financial services is critical for low-income persons seeking to enter the economic mainstream.
Why do farmers behave as they do? Understanding compliance with rural, agricultural, and food attribute standards

Abstract Agricultural production experiences a shift in underlying institutions during the last years., Importance of private stakeholders like retailers, processors, consumers as well as tax payers is, emerging. Eligibility for single farm payments and marketing of products is linked to compliance with, diverse codes of practice and standards. Voluntary certification schemes are not only relevant with, respect to agriculture's traditional activity (i.e. food production), but is also highly relevant in case of, rural policies. Examples are the EU's agri-environmental schemes, aimed at preserving biodiversity, landscape elements, etc., which are characterized by voluntary participation and the contractual, commitment to apply certain standards. However, these relationships are highly characterized by, information asymmetries. Economic literature offers several approaches to analyse similar relations. The classical approach bases on the assumption of utility maximising agents that will comply with, rules as long as the net utility of compliance will be higher than the net utility of an offence. Recent, evidence challenges this result. Experiments show that people behave more honest than the classical, deterrence model predicts. Main objective of the paper is to compare the various approaches to explain, compliant behaviour. Additionally, an outlook for empirical applications of the theoretical framework, developed here is given to motivate further research. However, our outlook shows that the selection of, appropriate variables to analyse compliance empirically is open to debate.
The Desirability of forgiveness in regulatory enforcement

I present a model that explains two common features of regulatory enforcement: selective forgiveness of noncompliance, and the collection of information on a firm’s compliance activities and not just its compliance status. I show that forgiving noncompliance is optimal if the information on a firm’s compliance activities constitutes sufficiently strong evidence of the firm having exerted a high level of compliance effort. The key benefit of forgiving noncompliance is a reduction in the probability with which the firm needs to be monitored.
Fighting the Lone Wolf Mentality: Twenty-First Century Reflections on the Paradoxical State of American Indian Law

What survives of American Indian tribal sovereignty rests largely on decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, which rely in turn on constitutional principles, various Indian treaties, federal statutes, and what amounts to judge-made federal common law. But the Court has historically been an enemy as much as an ally of Indian sovereignty, and today it seems intent on undermining what remains of the basic principles of American Indian law. In a remarkable reversal, the political branches of the federal and even some state governments are now (sometimes) more friendly than federal and state courts to Indian tribal interests.This article is part of a symposium marking the centennial of the Court's decision in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903), often called the "Dred Scott of Indian law." Lone Wolf upheld Congress's plenary power to seize Native American lands and abrogate Indian treaties. Later decisions qualified Lone Wolf's extreme abdication of judicial scrutiny and signalled a partial and tentative judicial defense of tribal rights. Yet the Lone Wolf mentality survives and has even undergone a revival on the modern Court, largely at the instigation of Chief Justice Rehnquist.The article begins by holding up as examples three cases decided in 1999, by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Navajo Nation Supreme Court, and the California Supreme Court. The first two reaffirmed Indian sovereignty and treaty rights. The California court, dealing with an Indian casino issue, went against tribal interests over a strong dissent, but the decision quickly boomeranged as the people of California overruled their judges to allow vastly expanded gaming on Indian lands.The article then goes back in time to review Lone Wolf and its progeny, pointing out how even the Warren Court, as late as 1955, outdid Lone Wolf in showing disregard for Indian property rights under the Constitution. The article surveys several key cases after 1955. Some of these countered the Lone Wolf mentality, but they also reveal Rehnquist's growing influence. The Court in 1999, for example, reaffirmed Indian treaty rights in a 5-4 decision barely noticed except by Indian law specialists. But Rehnquist's dissent, among other startling moves, sought to resurrect an anti-Indian rule of treaty interpretation so dated and extreme it was rejected in 1905 by the same Court that decided Lone Wolf. Instead of construing relevant law in favor of Indian treaty rights, as the Court has at least purported to do since long before Lone Wolf, Rehnquist strained to uphold the legality of an Indian removal order dating from 1850.The article closes by discussing two cases decided in 2001 (one unanimous and one over a notably weak dissent) in which Rehnquist wrote or joined the Court's opinion. Both cut back Indian sovereignty in terms suggesting a triumphal revival of the Lone Wolf mentality in the new millennium, and both suggest that this revival faces little effective opposition on the Court.
Evaluating Living Wage Laws in the United States: Good Intentions and Economic Reality in Conflict?

This article first examines the question, “What is a living wage?” and provides a range of specific dollar amounts derived through a conceptual assessment of the term. It then provides a series of cost estimates of living wage laws in various cities. Based on these cost estimates, the article examines a set of alternative adjustments that covered firms could make to absorb these costs, including raising prices and productivity, redistributing the firm’s income more equally, laying off employees, and relocating out of the area covered by the law. Prospective and retrospective evidence is used to reach an overall assessment of the benefits of living wage laws relative to their costs.
The Flawed Mechanics of Mutual Fund Fee Litigation

We identify a number of serious mechanical flaws in the statutes and judicial doctrines that organize fee liability for mutual fund managers. Originating in section 36(b) of the Investment Company Act, this form of liability allows investors to sue managers for charging fees above a judicially created standard. Commentators have extensively debated whether this form of liability should exist, but in this paper we focus instead on improving the mechanics of how it actually works. We identify a number of problems. Among other things, statutes and case law give recoveries to investors who did not actually pay the relevant fees. Statutes and case law also impose no penalties to provide deterrence; they treat similar categories of fees differently; they create an unusual settlement process that prevents litigants from settling their full claims; they expose low-cost advisers to serious litigation risk; they exhibit deep confusion about what makes fees excessive; and they provide unduly small incentives for plaintiffs’ lawyers that are only adequate in cases of low merit. Most of these problems appear to be the unintended results of accidents and confusion, rather than deliberate policy choices. We conclude by offering specific ideas for reform.
SKILL, AGGLOMERATION, AND INEQUALITY IN THE SPATIAL ECONOMY

This paper develops a spatial equilibrium model with skill heterogeneity and agglomeration forces that stem from local idea exchange. I structurally estimate the model using American census data to study policy effects on real wage inequality between and within college and noncollege workers. Using the estimated model, I find: (1) Skill composition and local spillovers, respectively, account for 30% and 70% of the city‐level relationship between productivity and employment. (2) Recent skill‐biased technological changes largely increased the welfare inequality between groups and within college workers. (3) Small transfers from larger to smaller cities may reduce inequality without changing aggregate welfare.
The Supreme Court's Shrinking Election Law Docket, 2001–2010: A Legacy of Bush v. Gore or Fear of the Roberts Court?

Abstract This article describes the drop in Supreme Court election law cases in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and offers at least a partial explanation as to the reasons for the drop. Although the general amount of election law litigation has risen dramatically since 2000, the number of cases in which parties sought Supreme Court review declined by more than 36 percent from the 1991–2000 decade compared to the 2001–2010 decade. Factoring that decline into account, the data show that the Court issued written opinions in nearly the same percentage of election law cases each decade in which parties sought Supreme Court review—11.9% of cases in the 1991–2000 decade, and 10.5% of cases in 2001–2010. While I cannot exclude the possibility that the Court shied away from hearing some election law cases out of Bush v. Gore fatigue or as the result of random noise, the drop in the number of election law cases in which litigants sought Supreme Court review cases seems to explain a great deal of the d...
The role of the propensity score in estimating dose-response functions

SUMMARY Estimation of average treatment effects in observational studies often requires adjustment for differences in pre-treatment variables. If the number of pre-treatment variables is large, standard covariance adjustment methods are often inadequate. Rosenbaum & Rubin (1983) propose an alternative method for adjusting for pre-treatment variables for the binary treatment case based on the so-called propensity score. Here an extension of the propensity score methodology is proposed that allows for estimation of average casual effects with multi-valued treatments. Estimation of average treatment effects in observational studies often requires adjustment for differences in pre-treatment variables. If the number of pre-treatment variables is large and their distribution varies substantially with treatment status, standard adjustment methods such as covari- ance adjustment are often inadequate. Rosenbaum & Rubin (1983, 1984) propose an alternative method for adjusting for pre-treatment variables based on the propensity score, the conditional probability of receiving the treatment given pre-treatment variables. They demonstrate that adjusting solely for the propensity score removes all bias associated with differences in the pre- treatment variables. The Rosenbaum-Rubin proposals deal exclusively with binary-valued treat- ments. In many cases of interest, however, treatments take on more than two values. Here an extension of the propensity score methodology is proposed that allows for estimation of average causal effects with multi-valued treatments. The key insight is that for estimation of average causal effects it is not necessary to divide the population into subpopulations where causal comparisons are valid, as the propensity score does; it is sufficient to divide the population into subpopulations where average potential outcomes can be estimated.
A general theory of power concentration: demographic influences on political organization

Why is the exercise of political power highly concentrated in some polities and widely dispersed in others? We argue that one important causal factor is demographic. Populous polities are characterized by less concentrated structures of authority. To explain this relationship, we invoke two mechanisms: heterogeneity and trust. The theory is demonstrated with a wide variety of empirical measures in cross-country analyses including most sovereign states and extending back to the 19th century. The result suggests the possibility of a ubiquitous ‘law’ of politics.
Defense Supplementals and the Budget Process

Supplemental appropriations provide emergency adjustments to the current year, usually for national defense contingencies and natural disaster emergencies. Recently, they have adopted some of the complexities of the regular appropriation process. For example, both the president and Congress may suggest when a supplemental is a dire emergency and thus beyond spending discipline and when it must be offset. Some supplementals have paid for nonemergency activities, others have resulted in funding decreases, and still others have resulted in spending in future years. Compared to the normal appropriation process, supplementals are usually passed expeditiously. Defense supplementals are generally precisely priced, whereas disaster supplementals tend to be lump sum estimates.
GOVERNMENT PARTISANSHIP AND PROPERTY RIGHTS: CROSS-COUNTRY FIRM-LEVEL EVIDENCE

Property rights are essential to economic development but vary with the political environment. We develop and test the claim that government partisanship influences the security of business firms' property rights: the perceived security of property rights increases when right-wing parties take power and declines with the election of left-leaning parties. Unlike research that uses country-level aggregates to draw inferences about the determinants of secure property rights, we analyze survey responses of over 7,400 firm owners from 73 countries using a novel difference-in-differences approach. We find that the political partisanship of the government in power strongly affects individual perceptions of property rights: firm owners are more likely to perceive that their property rights are secure under right-leaning governments. Our results are robust to firm- and country-level economic performance as well as controls for political institutions that might induce more stability to property rights, such as the number of checks and balances (veto players) in a system. Overall, our results indicate that business owners' beliefs about the security of property rights are highly responsive to changes in government partisanship.
The term structure of the forward premium

Abstract Most studies of the efficiency of the foreign exchange market focus on a single maturity — usually a one month forward exchange rate. However, one observes that forward contracts of many maturities are simultaneously traded in the foreign exchange market. The hypothesis that the foreign exchange market uses all available information has implications for the joint behavior of forward exchange rates of various maturities. This paper proposes an equilibrium theory of the term structure of the forward premium. The model is tested using data on the German and Canadian exchange rates; the results indicate that the data are consistent with the theory for Germany and inconsistent with the theory for Canada.
Is Money in Politics Harming Trust in Government? Evidence from Two Survey Experiments

Abstract Campaign finance policy in the United States is based on key assumptions about how voters use information about money to evaluate candidates and institutions. In one view, voters use information about campaign contributions as informative signals of a candidate's policy views, leading to better informed voters; in another view, contributions signal the potential for government corruption, leading to more cynical voters. Despite the prominence of these views in theoretical and policy debates, empirical evidence is scarce. To circumvent issues with existing observational studies, and to speak more directly to policy debates, I present the results of two survey experiments where I randomly vary voters' information about political money in mock election campaigns. My results support the view that campaign contributions allow voters to better place candidates on an ideological spectrum. In contrast, I find only limited evidence that contributions depress voters' trust in government.
Real Estate Mergers: Corporate Control & Shareholder Wealth

This study contributes new evidence to distinguish why mergers occur in the real estate industry by quantifying the combined firm return for nearly three decades of real estate mergers. As a measure of the overall change in shareholder wealth created by a merger, the combined firm return plays a key role in differentiating competing merger theories and is quantified for the real estate industry for the first time. Findings from this study are consistent with the notion that real estate mergers occur because firms with superior management acquire other firms that possess unexploited opportunities to cut costs and increase earnings (the inefficient management hypothesis). Furthermore, the results indicate that real estate mergers generally create wealth, as shareholders at best realize modest gains and at worst break even.
The Soviet experiment with pure communism

Following the October Revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks embarked upon a series of initiatives in order to bring about a socialist economic order. Traditional accounts of these events—"War Communism”; and the New Economic Policy—are deficient in two respects. First, they do not consider the policy implications of early twentieth‐century Marxism. Second, they do not appreciate the economic coordination problems such policies would, and did, encounter. As a result, the standard account of early Soviet socialism is distorted. This paper attempts to rectify these deficiencies by discussing the Bolshevisks’ own assessments of their purposes and exploring the consequences of their policies in the period 1918–1921.
The Limits of Multiple Rights and Remedies: A Call for Revisiting the Law of the Workplace

Professor Hodges discusses the 2004 decision of the National Labor Relations Board in IBM Corp., and how this decision illustrates two major problems with current workplace regulation. First, there are two distinct but overlapping systems - the individual and the collective - which often collide. The result is, at best, an imperfect realization of rights under both systems, and perhaps more often, the sacrifice of rights under one to right under the other. Second, the multitude of forums available for litigation results in multiple claims arising out of the same action, as well as tribunals deciding issues outside their expertise. The article considers the costs and benefits of the current regulatory system for employers and employees, and makes some broad suggestions for change, urging a revitalization of the collective system and creation of a system of labor courts to resolve workplace disputes.
The impact of public pension board of trustee composition on state bond ratings

The declining financial health of public pension systems is increasingly becoming a budgetary concern for many state and local governments. While the academic literature has identified several factors behind the growth in unfunded state and local public pension liabilities, there is mixed evidence on how the composition of a pension system’s board of trustees affects a pension’s financial health. This article contributes to this literature by measuring how public pension board composition affects fund financial health as measured by state bond ratings. With a panel dataset of state pensions between 2001 and 2014 our results indicate that elected board members are consistently associated with lower bond ratings (and thus higher borrowing costs) while appointed and ex-officio board members are associated with higher bond ratings. These results are robust to a number of specifications.
Investment Recommendations and the Essence of Duty

I recommend that federal bank, commodity, and securities regulators jointly modify the manner in which financial intermediaries market investment transactions in order to provide investors with quantitative information that facilitates comparison across products and understanding of risk. On its face, the Dodd-Frank Act does little to address the balkanization of business conduct standards but continues Congress’s policy of classifying the obligations of financial services providers by regulatory category (e.g., “securities,” “derivatives,” “banking,” “consumer finance”). To the extent that opponents of harmonization dwell on the talismanic significance of words such as “fiduciary,” “suitability,” and “duty of care,” I propose a safe harbor that distills the essence of a fiduciary’s obligations to permit consistent application across all financial services products.
Prosociality and the military

In this paper, I consider a body of observational evidence not commonly studied by social scientists, namely the behavior of men and women (mostly men) in the military. I focus here on two issues: first the behavioral foundations for creating an effective military unit and second, evidence that infantrymen have historically been reluctant to fire on the enemy and how this reluctance has been overcome in the last half century through changes in military training. The evidence in each of these areas reinforces the appeal of the idea of cognitive modularity, the view that thought and behavior are influenced by different “mental organs.” With respect to behavior, these usually align in the counsel they provide. But not always, and focusing on circumstances where guidance conflicts—Prisoners Dilemmas are examples—offers a route towards building a behavioral science with greater explanatory and predictive success.
How Sales Taxes Affect Customer and Firm Behavior: The Role of Search on the Internet

Abstract When a multichannel retailer opens its first retail store in a state, the firm is obligated to collect sales taxes on all Internet and catalog orders shipped to that state. This article assesses how opening a store affects Internet and catalog demand. The authors analyze purchase behavior among customers who live far from the retail store but must now pay sales taxes on catalog and Internet purchases. A comparable group of customers in a neighboring state serves as a control. The results show that Internet sales decrease significantly, but catalog sales are unaffected. Further investigation indicates that the difference in these outcomes is partly attributable to the ease with which customers can search for lower prices at competing retailers. The authors extend the analysis to a panel of multichannel firms and show that retailers that earn a large proportion of their revenue from direct channels avoid opening a first store in high-tax states. They conclude that current U.S. sales taxes laws have...