cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A sharp approximation for ATM-forward option prices and implied volatilites

In this paper, we provide an approximation formula for at-the-money forward options based on a Polya approximation of the cumulative density function of the standard normal distribution, and prove that the relative error of this approximation is uniformly bounded for options with arbitrarily large (or small) maturities and implied volatilities. This approximation is viable in practice: for options with implied volatility less than 95% and maturity less than three years, which includes the large majority of traded options, the values given by the approximation formula fall within the tightest typical implied vol bid–ask spreads. The relative errors of the corresponding approximate option values are also uniformly bounded for all maturities and implied volatilities. The error bounds established here are the first results in the literature holding for all integrated volatilities, and are vastly superior to those of two other approximation formulas analyzed in this paper, including the Brenner–Subrahmanyam formula.
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and the Entrepreneur: Protecting Naïve Issuers from Sophisticated Investors

The purpose of U.S. securities laws is to protect investors by requiring full disclosure on the part of the issuers of securities. The intent is to increase the efficiency and integrity of the nation’s capital markets by ensuring that all material information is publicly available. Thus, the laws were created and have been amended to provide legal redress for investors who were not provided with sufficient information to make a reasoned decision. In most respects, these laws presume relative naivete on the part of the investors and relative knowledge and power on the part of the issuers. There is evidence suggesting, however, that in the sphere of new ventures, the balance of power may be tipped in favor of the investors and away from the issuers. Indeed, it is often the case that entrepreneurs, though expert in their substantive field, tend to be naive in financial and business matters. Investors, particularly venture capitalists, on the other hand, tend to be experienced and knowledgeable in financial matters. In these circumstances, there was a threat that securities laws could exacerbate the power imbalance in favor of the investors and leave the entrepreneurs vulnerable to unfair dealing. Specifically, because of the tenuous financial position of new ventures, any heavy-handedness on the part of investors could kill the venture, regardless of the merits of the investors’ claims. Indeed, any threat of litigation, regardless of how spurious, could paralyze a new venture. This article first examines the current research regarding control mechanisms used by investors in new ventures and conflicts that arise between investors and entrepreneurs. The legal environment associated with private securities litigation is then examined in detail. Specifically, this article examines court interpretations of the language within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act regarding allegations of fraud; finding that the Act, though intended to address other perceived abuses, may actually benefit entrepreneurs accused of securities fraud in new venture financing. This article then briefly examines additional non-legal attributes that may also favor entrepreneurs when dealing with new venture financiers.
Public-Private Health Law: Multiple Directions in Public Health

Public health law has been a quintessentially public law field, centered around a system of administrative agencies. In some respects, the field is moving even closer to the core of governmental functions. Since September 11, the 2001 anthrax attacks and Hurricane Katrina, the conceptual framework of emergency preparedness and response has subsumed ever larger segments of public health policymaking. Emergency planning has become an important discourse of governance, one which reveals a great deal about the operations of state power. In this article, I identify three approaches to governance embedded in today's public health law and policy. The first and most traditional approach to governance is that of dominant state authority. What is notable is how this approach is being strengthened by a trend toward greater centralization and hierarchy in infectious disease control, pushing public health into a tighter command and control structure. I describe how this framing process has the effect of melding population health concerns and the security state, as well as insinuating a discourse of emergency response into non-emergency policy-making. The second governance model in the public health field is the public-private administrative model. Although public-private models for administrative governance are relatively new to public health compared to many other fields, calls for partnerships with the private sector for the purpose of achieving population health goals are growing. Increasingly, private sector entities are implicated in the state's matrix of collaborative public health institutions. The third governance construct is based on the insight from governmentality theory that the state already permeates the private sector even without formal authority; power flows back and forth between public and private entities through a multiplicity of channels and technologies. New federal proposals for "modern quarantine" provide an example. "Modern quarantine" policies would depend on the public's instinct to voluntarily sequester themselves in a pandemic, thus utilizing indirect and less coercive methods to control the spread of infectious disease. However, this proposal fails to engage with the full dimensions of the public sector role that would be necessary to enable people to remain at home for three months or more. It cannot succeed without mandates and incentives emanating from the state, a reality which official policy documents have elided. From this analysis we can learn a great deal about both current directions in public health policy and about the utility and limitations of new governance theory. The three governance trends taken together exemplify a paradox fundamental to contemporary political debates: how the same apparatus can be intensifying as a security state while at the same time deploying new governance and privatization initiatives. The concept of modern quarantine demonstrates that serious complications lurk beneath the surface when policymakers engage in shallow invocations of new regulatory rhetoric.
The Impact of Online Product Reviews on Product Returns

Although many researchers in information systems and marketing have studied the effect of product reviews on sales, few have looked at their effect on product returns. We hypothesize that, by reduc...
Comprehensive Income: Who's Afraid of Performance Reporting?

ABSTRACT: Firms can report comprehensive income in either an income‐statement‐like performance statement or the statement of equity. Traditional theories of contracting incentives cannot explain this reporting location choice that only affects where comprehensive income data appear, because the contractible values of net income, other comprehensive income items, and comprehensive income are exactly the same regardless of the location where the firm reports comprehensive income. Drawing on theory, analysis of comment letters, and results of survey‐based and behavioral research, we identify two factors—equity‐based incentives and concerns over job security—that help explain why most firms do not follow policymakers' preference to report comprehensive income in a performance statement. Our empirical evidence on a broad cross‐section of firms shows that managers with stronger equity‐based incentives and less job security are significantly less likely to use performance reporting. Overall, our study suggests t...
The Expectations of Consumers

In 1997, the American Law Institute promulgated the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability, an ambitious and important project that decisively rejected the consumer expectations doctrine in favor of a risk-utility test for product design defect claims. In the few years following promulgation of the Third Restatement, however, several courts have issued opinions expressing strong judicial allegiance to the consumer expectations doctrine. Indeed, at times they have appeared deeply suspicious of the ALI Restatement project and its recommendation to abandon consumer expectations as an independent test for product design defectiveness. This article examines the disjunction between rhetoric and reality in post-Third Restatement products liability decisions. It aims to demonstrate, first, that the doctrinal framework established by the Third Restatement is in fact an accurate representation of design defectiveness litigation despite the apparent persistence of the consumer expectations test. Second, this article seeks to explore whether scholars nevertheless can and should articulate a more significant, conceptually independent role for the consumer expectations test, given that several courts appear determined to retain the test as part of their products liability jurisprudence. Toward that end, this article explores several possible substantive foundations that might be laid for the consumer expectations test. Initially, it locates several points along the tradeoff spectrum between descriptive attractiveness and theoretical tractability, none of which provide a wholly satisfactory response to the challenge of giving content to the consumer expectations doctrine. More promising findings, however, emerge from cognitive and social psychology, behavioral economics, and other social science investigations of human behavior and decision-making. In particular, researchers from those fields have uncovered a wealth of knowledge in recent years concerning the manner in which individuals perceive and process information regarding health and safety dangers. As it turns out, lay individuals frequently comprehend such risks in ways that depart systematically from the approaches that characterize expert decision-making. Although such departures sometimes result from undesirable factual or cognitive errors on the part of individuals, a substantial remaining core of lay risk perception cannot easily be dismissed as irrational or otherwise lacking foundation. This article therefore argues that the consumer expectations test should be redirected toward these important cognitive and behavioral phenomena that are not as readily subsumed within the more analytically rigid risk-utility test. In this manner, the doctrine that refuses to die may yet find a purpose, nearly forty years after its accidental birth.
Financial Performance As It Relates To Pollution Control: An Empirical Analysis

This paper explores the firm-level characteristics that explain pollution emissions during 19881996. Differences in pollution approach between different types of firms provide an unique research setting to investigate how firms with favorable environmental reputations compare to firms with unfavorable environmental reputations regarding emissions what firm characteristics are related to environmental performance, and how firms respond to regulation changes. The paper is the first to use emissions information from a non-financial source to analyze differences between firms to changes in regulatory requirements. The results provide clear evidence that green firms behave markedly different, have different firm characteristics, and react to changes in regulatory regime in different ways than their non-green counterparts.
The tax (dis)advantage of a firm issuing options on its own stock

Abstract It is common for firms to issue or purchase options on the firm's own stock. Examples include convertible bonds, warrants, call options as employee compensation, and the sale of put options as part of share repurchase programs. This paper shows that option positions with implicit borrowing—such as put sales and call purchases—are tax-disadvantaged relative to the equivalent synthetic option with explicit borrowing. Conversely, option positions with implicit lending—such as warrants—are tax-advantaged. I also show that firms are better off from a tax perspective issuing bifurcated convertible bonds—bonds plus warrants—rather than an otherwise equivalent standard convertible.
Indirect Land Use Change, Uncertainty, and Biofuels, Policy

Indirect land use change (ILUC)—the theory that the use of cropland for biofuels raises food prices and thus increases the incentive to convert forests and grasslands to crop production, thereby releasing stored carbon and decreasing future carbon sequestration—is a particular concern with ethanol produced from corn kernels since corn is such a major food crop (and livestock feed) and international food commodity markets are relatively inelastic. This Article examines how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dealt with the uncertainty of regulating biofuels policy in the context of corn ethanol, but the lessons have broader applicability to biofuels policy and more generally to decision making under conditions of great uncertainty. The first Part discusses how biofuels may contribute to the mitigation of climate change, analyzes the U.S. statutory scheme for renewable fuels, explores the issues surrounding the statute’s mandate for consideration of ILUC, and explains how EPA resolved the ILUC issue in the case of corn ethanol. The second Part probes EPA’s treatment of uncertainty regarding ILUC in its decision to approve corn ethanol as a renewable fuel—primarily considering whether the broad range of emission figures used made the decision riskier, whether the central estimate used was appropriate, and whether the irreversibility of the decision should have been considered. The third Part considers the policy issues surrounding ILUC more generally—addressing whether ILUC should be considered in biofuels policy or ignored because of concerns about the reliability of models of ILUC and whether there are policy responses that might ameliorate ILUC and narrow the range of uncertainty about its severity. The Article concludes that EPA acted responsibly and in good faith, however, the determination regarding ILUC for corn ethanol involved sig-
Carrots and sticks in private climate governance

When public governance fails to address important environmental threats—such as climate change—private governance by firms, not-for-profits, individuals, and households can produce significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Private governance can take the form of either a carrot or a stick, using incentives or punishments. Shareholder activism as a form of private governance of corporations has largely been confrontational, leading most climate-related actions to fail. This Article examines the potential for private governance to take a more collaborative approach and to frame shareholder engagement with management in terms of opportunity. It also examines private governance successes at reducing household emissions and finds that these too emphasize making it attractive and convenient for households to act.
Commodity futures prices and economic news: An examination under alternative monetary regimes

This paper presents empirical evidence on the reactions of commodity futures prices to the announcements of the money supply (Ml), the Federal Reserve discount and surcharge rates, the CPI, the PPI, the unemployment rate and the U.S. industrial production index. Survey data were utilized to separate the unanticipated component of an announcement from the anticipated component. The purpose of the paper is two-fold. First, to re-examine the policy anticipations and inflationary expectations hypotheses in the context of commodity futures markets during alternative monetary regimes. Second, to examine the issue of commodity market efficiency using the event study approach-a method of analysis that is capable of testing the single hypothesis of market efficiency. Prior to October 1979, when the Fed had a federal funds rate target, the reactions to both announcements were insignificant and mixed in sign. However, after October 1979, the majority of these same reaction coefficients turn negative and quite a few are statistically significant. Furthermore, over the entire 1977-1984 period, a majority of the coefficients on the money supply and inflation surprises are negative. Clearly, these results are strongly in favor of the policy anticipations hypothesis and against the inflationary expectations hypothesis.
Fiscal policy tracking design in the time–frequency domain using wavelet analysis

Abstract In this paper discrete wavelet filtering techniques are applied to decompose macroeconomic data so that they can be simultaneously analyzed in both the time and frequency domains. The MODWT (Maximal Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform) is applied to US quarterly GDP data to obtain the underlying cyclical structure of the GDP components. A MATLAB program is then used to design optimal fiscal policy within an LQ tracking model with wavelet decomposition, and the results are compared with an aggregate model with no frequency decomposition. The results show that fiscal policy is more active under the wavelet-based model, and that the consumption and investment trajectories under the aggregate model are misaligned. We also simulate FHEC (Frequency Harmonizing Emphasis Control) strategies that allow policymakers to concentrate the policy thrust on tracking frequencies that are optimally aligned with policy goals under different targeting priorities. These strategies are only available by using time–frequency analysis. This research is the first to construct fiscal policy in an applied optimal control model based on the short and long cyclical lag structures obtained from wavelet analysis. Our wavelet-based optimal control procedure allows the policymaker to construct a pragmatic tracking policy, avoid suboptimal policies gleaned from an aggregate model, and reduce the potential for destabilization that might otherwise result due to improper thrust and timing.
CREATING PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE IN FINANCIALLY TROUBLED COMPANIES

This article provides striking evidence that U.S.-style financial reorganization leads to significant increases in the concentration of equity ownership. In a study of 77 publicly held firms that restructured their debt privately or filed for bankruptcy during the 1980s, the authors find that these firms also systematically restructured senior managers' incentives and, in the process, created a much stronger link between managers' wealth and firm performance. The creation of pay-for-performance in financially distressed firms was a direct consequence of high turnover in the top executive suite. When companies become financially distressed, compensation practices come to more closely resemble those found in venture capital firms as well as LBOs and other highly leveraged organizations.
Liberal democracy and nuclear despotism: two ethical foreign policy dilemmas

This article advances a critical analysis of John Rawls’s justification of liberal democratic nuclear deterrence in the post-Cold War era as found in The Law of Peoples . Rawls’s justification overlooked how nuclear-armed liberal democracies are ensnared in two intransigent ethical dilemmas: one in which the mandate to secure liberal constitutionalism requires both the preservation and violation of important constitutional provisions in domestic affairs, and the other in which this same mandate requires both the preservation and violation of the liberal commitment to international legal arrangements and to the rule of law generally. On this view, the choice to violate constitutional provisions and international legal arrangements is evidence of nuclear despotism. Moreover, this choice does not imply that the ethical foreign policy dilemmas were resolved. Instead, it implies that the dilemmas force liberal democratic governments into implementing ethically paradoxical policy outcomes. Keywords: nuclear ethics; nuclear deterrence; liberal democracy; nuclear despotism; John Rawls; national security; foreign policy (Published: 16 September 2013) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 6 , No. 3, 2013, pp. 155-174. http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/egp.v6i3.20344
Curtailing Intermittent Generation in Electrical Systems

Energy generation from intermittent renewable sources introduces additional variability into electrical systems, resulting in a higher cost of balancing against the increased variabilities. Ways to balance demand and supply for electricity include using flexible generation resources, storage operations, and curtailing intermittent generation. This paper focuses on the operational and environmental impact of curtailing intermittent generation. We construct a stochastic dynamic optimization model that captures the critical components of the system operating cost and analyze how various generation resources should operate with and without curtailing intermittent generation. We find that the system cost reduction per unit of curtailed energy is consistently significant and the presence of storage may increase the cost saving per unit of curtailed energy. We also find that curtailing intermittent generation often leads to system emission reductions.
Neuronal Odor Coding in the Larval Sensory Cone of Anopheles Coluzzii : Complex Responses from a Simple System

Anopheles mosquitoes are the sole vectors of malaria and other diseases that represent significant threats to global public health. While adult female mosquitoes are responsible for disease transmission, the pre-adult larval stages of the malaria vector Anopheles coluzzii and other mosquitoes rely on a broad spectrum of sensory cues to navigate their aquatic habitats efficiently to avoid predators and search for food. Of these, mosquito larvae rely heavily on volatile chemical signals that directly activate their olfactory apparatus. Because most studies on mosquito olfaction focus on adults, a paucity of attention has been given to the larval olfactory system, in which the peripheral components are associated with the sensory cone of the larval antennae. To address this, we have investigated the electrophysiological response profile of the larval sensory cone in Anopheles mosquitoes. We found that the larval sensory cone is particularly tuned to alcohols, thiazoles and heterocyclics. Furthermore, these responses can be assigned to discrete groups of sensory cone neurons with distinctive, dose-dependent odorant-response profiles that also provide larvae with the ability to discriminate among compounds with similar chemical structures. A correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between specific larval chemosensory receptors and the response profiles of sensory cone neuron groups. These studies reveal that the larval sensory cone is a highly sophisticated organ that is sensitive to a broad range of compounds and is capable of a remarkable degree of chemical discrimination. Taken together, this study presents critical insights into olfactory coding processes in An. coluzzii larvae that further our understanding of larval chemical ecology and will contribute to the development of novel larval-based strategies and tools for mosquito control and the reduction of vector-borne disease transmission.
Robustness of Social-Ecological Systems to Spatial and Temporal Variability

Some social-ecological systems (SESs) have persisted for hundreds of years, remaining in particular configurations that have withstood a variety of natural and social disturbances. Many of these long-lived SESs have adapted their institutions to the particular pattern of variability they have experienced over time as well as to the broader economic, political, and social system in which they are located. Such adaptations alter resource use patterns in time and/or space to maintain the configuration of the SESs. Even well-adapted SESs, however, can become vulnerable to new types of disturbances. Through the analysis of a series of case studies, we begin to characterize different types of adaptations to particular types of variability and explore vulnerabilities that may emerge as a result of this adaptive process. Understanding such vulnerabilities may be critical if our interest is to contribute to the future adaptations of SESs as the more rapid processes of globalization unfold.
A model of the bimetallic system

Abstract A longstanding puzzle in the bimetallic literature concerns the stability of the relative price of gold and silver in the absence of arbitrage possibilities in the major bimetallic countries in the 19th century. This paper offers a solution by developing a model of bimetallism that adds the `disequilibrium’ dynamics relevant when Gresham's law has driven out the `good money'. The model demonstrates how the bimetallic mint ratios of major countries acted as sets of regulating barriers to stabilize the relative price of gold and silver. An empirical investigation confirms the presence of the associated target-zone effects in bimetallic data.
The Provision of Effort in Self-Designing Work Groups: The Case of Collaborative Research

Teams of academic coauthors can be conceptualized as self-designing work groups, an infrequently studied but increasingly prevalent group structure. This research note considers issues surrounding how management scholars form collaborative teams, provide effort toward completion of research projects, evaluate colleagues’efforts, and decide whether to pursue further collaborative opportunities with them. The findings indicate that withholding effort occurs in self-designing groups, such as research collaborations, and that the emotional bonds that group members form with colleagues play a key role in whether they decide to work together again, as well as in how they react to perceptions that a coauthor withheld effort.
The Fourth Revolution

This essay examines contemporary treatments by historians and legal scholars on the constitutional shift of the 1930's. The history component focuses on William Leuchtenburg's The Supreme Court Reborn, a series of essays on the cases, justices, and constitutional maneuvering of the depression era. The essay praises Leuchtenburg for his ability to tell engaging stories about the central constitutional controversies without dumbing them down to simple parables. The essay then turns to the legal aspects of the shift, arguing that despite frays at some of the edges, the underlying theories of the commerce, spending, and due process clauses have been proven correct by history. It suggests greater use of historical essays in law school classes to bring occasionally dry topics (dormant commerce clause, anyone?) to life and to reveal the power of individual narratives in creating the cases and controversies that determined our existing constitutional doctrine and current legal disagreements.
Are Politicians Really Paid Like Bureaucrats

Abstract We provide the first empirical analysis of gubernatorial pay. Using U.S. data for 1950–90, we document substantial variation in the wages of politicians, both across states and over time. Gubernatorial wages respond to changes in state income per capita and taxes. We estimate that governors receive a 1 percent pay cut for each 10 percent increase in per capita tax payments and a 4.5 percent increase in pay for each 10 percent increase in income per capita in their states. There is evidence that the tax elasticity reflects a form of “reward for performance.” The evidence for the income elasticity of pay is less conclusive but is suggestive of “rent extraction” motives. Finally, we find that democratic institutions play an important role in shaping pay. For example, voter initiatives and the presence of political opposition significantly reduce the income elasticity of pay and increase tax elasticities of pay.
Testing the Validity of a Demand Model: An Operations Perspective

The fields of statistics and econometrics have developed powerful methods for testing the validity (specification) of a model based on its fit to underlying data. Unlike statisticians, managers are typically more interested in the performance of a decision rather than the statistical validity of the underlying model. We propose a framework and a statistical test that incorporate decision performance into a measure of statistical validity. Under general conditions on the objective function, asymptotic behavior of our test admits a sharp and simple characterization. We develop our approach in a revenue management setting and apply the test to a data set used to optimize prices for consumer loans. We show that traditional model-based goodness-of-fit tests may consistently reject simple parametric models of consumer response (e.g., the ubiquitous logit model), while at the same time these models may “pass” the proposed performance-based test. Such situations arise when decisions derived from a postulated (and possibly incorrect) model generate results that cannot be distinguished statistically from the best achievable performance---i.e., when demand relationships are fully known.
A life not worth living

The work of Dan Brock and Helga Kuhse is typical of the current stream of thought rejecting the validity of sanctity of life appeals to instill objective inviolable worth in human life regardless of the quality of life of the patient. The context of a person’s life is supremely important. In their systems life can have high value, yet the value of life can be outweighed by the force of other disvalues. The notion of quality of life has increasingly come to signify the measurement of the worth of a person’s life itself. Having a life equals personal life. Any objectivity to life resides in ‘personal’, ‘biographical’, or ‘creative’ life, not mere biological life. Personal life represents the minimal threshold for any objective worth.In responding to this challenge, John Finnis has argued extensively that life is an intrinsic good - a basic human good. Following from our grasp of human life as a basic incommensurable good, it cannot be practically reasonable both to affirm that (a) ‘human life is a basic hum...
Pay or Play Programs and ERISA Section 514: Proposals for Amending the Statutory Scheme

ERISA section 514 preempts many state and local “pay or play” laws, which mandate employer contributions to their employees’ health insurance. Given the attention that health insurance received in the presidential election cycle, there is a reasonable likelihood of legislative action to achieve a national “pay or play” health care program in the coming years. But a national bill will leave gaps that states and localities may be able to fill – if they were not preempted by ERISA. Therefore, the negotiation of a national health insurance program should address ERISA preemption in order to enable state experimentation. The Article proposes and evaluates a number of options to amend section 514, ranging from targeted statutory changes to federal agency discretion to “depreempt” state and local pay or play laws.
Inertia-induced accumulation of flotsam in the subtropical gyres

Recent surveys of marine plastic debris density have revealed high levels in the center of the subtropical gyres. Earlier studies have argued that the formation of great garbage patches is due to Ekman convergence in such regions. In this work we report a tendency so far overlooked of drogued and undrogued drifters to accumulate distinctly over the subtropical gyres, with undrogued drifters accumulating in the same areas where plastic debris accumulate. We show that the observed accumulation is too fast for Ekman convergence to explain it. We demonstrate that the accumulation is controlled by finite-size and buoyancy (i.e., inertial) effects on undrogued drifter motion subjected to ocean current and wind drags. We infer that the motion of flotsam in general is constrained by similar effects. This is done by using a newly proposed Maxey-Riley equation which models the submerged (surfaced) drifter portion as a sphere of the fractional volume that is submerged (surfaced).
Novel QCD Phenomenology

I review a number of topics where conventional wisdom in hadron physics has been challenged. For example, hadrons can be produced at large transverse momentum directly within a hard higher-twist QCD subprocess, rather than from jet fragmentation. Such 'direct' processes can explain the deviations from perturbative QCD predictions in measurements of inclusive hadron cross sections at fixed x{sub T} = 2p{sub T}/{radical}s, as well as the 'baryon anomaly', the anomalously large proton-to-pion ratio seen in high centrality heavy ion collisions. Initial-state and final-state interactions of the struck quark, the soft-gluon rescattering associated with its Wilson line, lead to Bjorken-scaling single-spin asymmetries, diffractive deep inelastic scattering, the breakdown of the Lam-Tung relation in Drell-Yan reactions, as well as nuclear shadowing and antishadowing. The Gribov-Glauber theory predicts that antishadowing of nuclear structure functions is not universal, but instead depends on the flavor quantum numbers of each quark and antiquark, thus explaining the anomalous nuclear dependence measured in deep-inelastic neutrino scattering. Since shadowing and antishadowing arise from the physics of leading-twist diffractive deep inelastic scattering, one cannot attribute such phenomena to the structure of the nucleus itself. It is thus important to distinguish 'static' structure functions, the probability distributions computed from the squaremore » of the target light-front wavefunctions, versus 'dynamical' structure functions which include the effects of the final-state rescattering of the struck quark. The importance of the J = 0 photon-quark QCD contact interaction in deeply virtual Compton scattering is also emphasized. The scheme-independent BLM method for setting the renormalization scale is discussed. Eliminating the renormalization scale ambiguity greatly improves the precision of QCD predictions and increases the sensitivity of searches for new physics at the LHC. Other novel features of QCD are discussed, including the consequences of confinement for quark and gluon condensates.« less
Managing Systemic Risk in Legal Systems

The American legal system has proven remarkably robust even in the face vast and often tumultuous political, social, economic, and technological change. Yet our system of law is not unlike other complex social, biological, and physical systems in exhibiting local fragility in the midst of its global robustness. Understanding how this “robust yet fragile” (RYF) dilemma operates in legal systems is important to the extent law is expected to assist in managing systemic risk — the risk of large local or even system-wide failures — in other social systems. Indeed, legal system failures have been blamed as partly responsible for disasters such as the recent financial system crisis and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. If we cannot effectively manage systemic risk within the legal system, however, how can we expect the legal system to manage systemic risk elsewhere? This Article employs a complexity science model of the RYF dilemma to explore why systemic risk persists in legal systems and how to manage it. Part I defines complexity in the context of the institutions and instruments that make up the legal system. Part II defines the five dimensions of robustness that support functionality of the legal system: (1) reliability; (2) efficiency; (3) scalability; (4) modularity, and (5) evolvability. Part III then defines system fragility, examining the internal and external constraints that impede legal system robustness and the fail-safe system control strategies for managing their effects. With those basic elements of the RYF dilemma model in place, Part IV defines systemic risk, exploring the paradoxical role of increasingly organized complexity brought about by fail-safe strategies as a source of legal system failure. There is no way around the RYF dilemma — some degree of systemic risk is inherent in any complex adaptive system — but the balance between robustness and fragility is something we can hope to influence. To explore how, Part V applies the RYF dilemma model to a concrete systemic risk management context — oil drilling in the deep Gulf of Mexico. The legal regime governing offshore oil exploration and extraction has been blamed as contributing to the set of failures that led to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon spill and is at the center of reform initiatives. Using this case study, I argue that the RYF dilemma model provides valuable insights into how legal systems fail and how to manage legal systemic risk.
Link to Success: How Blogs Build an Audience by Promoting Rivals

Empirically, we find that Web logs (or “blogs”) often link to other blogs in the same category. We present an analytical model that explains why a rational blogger may choose to link to another blog. We allow bloggers to differ along two dimensions: (1) the ability to post news-breaking content, and (2) the ability to find news in other blogs. By linking, a blog signals to the reader that it will be able to direct her to news in other blogs in the future. The downside of a link is that it is a positive signal on the rival's news-breaking ability. We show that linking will be in equilibrium when the heterogeneity on the ability to break news is low relative to the heterogeneity on the ability to find news in other blogs. One implication of the linking mechanism is that blogs that are high on the news-breaking ability are more likely to gain readers. Hence, despite the fact that bloggers link for purely selfish reasons, the macro effects of this activity is that readers' learning is enhanced. This paper was accepted by J. Miguel Villas-Boas, marketing.
Dynamic pricing: when to entice brand switching and when to reward consumer loyalty

This article develops a theory of dynamic pricing in which firms may offer separate prices to different consumers based on their past purchases. Brand preferences over two periods are described by a copula admitting various degrees of positive dependence. When commitment to future prices is infeasible, each firm offers lower prices to its rival's customers. When firms can commit to future prices, consumer loyalty is rewarded if preference dependence is low, but enticing brand switching occurs if preference dependence is high. Our theory provides a unified treatment of the two pricing policies and sheds light on observed practices across industries.
Bundling and Consumer Misperception

This Essay studies bundling of two (or more) products as a strategic response to consumer misperception. In contrast to the bundling and tying studied in the antitrust literature-strategies used by a seller with market power in market A trying to leverage its market power into market B-bundling in response to consumer misperception may occur in intensely competitive markets. The analysis demonstrates that such competitive bundling can be either welfare enhancing or welfare reducing. The Essay considers several "unbundling policies" that can protect consumers and increase welfare in markets where bundling is undesirable.
Can the International Criminal Court Deter Atrocity

Whether and how violence can be controlled to spare innocent lives is a central issue in international relations. The most ambitious effort to date has been the International Criminal Court (ICC), designed to enhance security and safety by preventing egregious human rights abuses and deterring international crimes. We offer the first systematic assessment of the ICC's deterrent effects for both state and nonstate actors. Although no institution can deter all actors, the ICC can deter some governments and those rebel groups that seek legitimacy. We find support for this conditional impact of the ICC cross-nationally. Our work has implications for the study of international relations and institutions, and supports the violence-reducing role of pursuing justice in international affairs.
Alternative Dispute Resolution in Sport Management and the Sport Management Curriculum

The article covers the basics of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It then demonstrates how the instructor can utilize and incorporate ADR to effectively teach in sport management classes and sports law at the intercollegiate level.
Dealing with dying: how insurers can help patients seeking last-chance therapies (even when the answer is "no").

External review has not cured the health care dispute resolution system with regard to patients' requests for coverage of last-chance therapies, even if it has done some good in the area of medical necessity determinations. This Article discusses the difficult issues posed by coverage requests for last-chance therapies and proposes that insurers take into consideration the state in which patients seeking last-chance therapies are operating when engaging in decisionmaking in this area. Insurers must recognize that denials of coverage will force patients both to face a classic example of a tragic choice in health care, and to come to terms with the fact that no treatment is available to help them live. Communication about decisionmaking and about the decision itself should be accomplished through a process that treats patients as individuals rather than as covered lives and uses multidisciplinary teams to work through a dialogue about the myriad social, emotional and medical issues raised by requests for coverage of last-chance therapies.
The Excess Smoothness of Consumption: Identification and Interpretation

Deaton's observation that consumption appears to be "too smooth" is easily reconciled with the notion that consumption exhibits "excess sensitivity" to current income. The reconciliation invokes the plausible assumption that households forecast on the basis of a larger information set than the econometrician. The empirical case for excess smoothness is strengthened by showing that the innovations in permanent income can be inferred from an autoregression of income and saving, not only under the permanent income hypothesis, but also under the excess sensitivity model. Empirically, parameter restrictions imposed on the bivariate autoregression by the excess sensitivity model are not rejected.
Audit Procurement: Managing Audit Quality and Audit Fees in Response to Agency Costs

This study examines (1) the association between agency costs and audit‐procurement practices, and (2) the association between audit‐procurement practices, audit quality, and audit fees. Improved audit procurement has been promoted as a mechanism for improving audit quality, particularly in the public sector where auditor moral hazard problems have historically existed. Using a sample of municipal organizations, we find evidence that cities facing higher levels of agency costs, and cities that rely more on their external auditors to relieve such costs, tend to have better‐developed audit‐procurement practices. We also find evidence that well‐developed audit‐procurement practices (and individual audit‐procurement elements), are associated with the hiring of auditors who have higher levels of industry experience—suggestive of higher audit quality. Finally, we find evidence suggesting that well‐developed audit‐procurement practices have a minimal combined effect on audit fees; however, individual audit‐procur...
Debt and Bargaining Outcomes: Evidence from U.S. Hospitals

Using the healthcare industry as a novel laboratory, I study whether a firm’s use of debt enhances its bargaining power during negotiations with nonfinancial stakeholders. I find that reimbursement...
Lava worlds: From early earth to exoplanets

Abstract The magma ocean concept was first conceived to explain the geology of the Moon, but hemispherical or global oceans of silicate melt could be a widespread “lava world” phase of rocky planet accretion, and could persist on planets on short-period orbits around other stars. The formation and crystallization of magma oceans could be a defining stage in the assembly of a core, origin of a crust, initiation of tectonics, and formation of an atmosphere. The last decade has seen significant advances in our understanding of this phenomenon through analysis of terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples, planetary missions, and astronomical observations of exoplanets. This review describes the energetic basis of magma oceans and lava worlds and the lava lake analogs available for study on Earth and Io. It provides an overview of evidence for magma oceans throughout the Solar System and considers the factors that control the rocks these magma oceans leave behind. It describes research on theoretical and observed exoplanets that could host extant magma oceans and summarizes efforts to detect and characterize them. It reviews modeling of the evolution of magma oceans as a result of crystallization and evaporation, the interaction with the underlying solid mantle, and the effects of planetary rotation. The review also considers theoretical investigations on the formation of an atmosphere in concert with the magma ocean and in response to irradiation from the host star, and possible end-states. Finally, it describes needs and gaps in our knowledge and points to future opportunities with new planetary missions and space telescopes to identify and better characterize lava worlds around nearby stars.
Increasing Time to Baccalaureate Degree in the United States

Abstract Time to completion of the baccalaureate degree has increased markedly in the United States over the past three decades. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972 and the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, we show that the increase in time to degree is localized among those who begin their postsecondary education at public colleges outside the most selective universities. We consider several potential explanations for these trends. First, we show that changes in the college preparedness and the demographic composition of degree recipients cannot account for the observed increases. Instead, our results identify declines in collegiate resources in the less selective public sector and increases in student employment as potential explanations for the observed increases in time to degree.
Urban Green Uses: The New Renewal

After decades in which rapid growth was the planning challenge that grabbed the headlines, we find ourselves at a time when cities across the nation—including many that were growth hot spots even a few years ago—are confronting a different reality. Instead of worrying about how to make growth better or smarter, many cities wonder whether they will see much growth at all. The mortgage crisis and associated collapse of the housing boom has left unfinished projects and excess housing capacity in cities across the nation. In this changed environment, the Rust Belt cities of the Northeast and Midwest find that they have important lessons and guidance to offer. Cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Youngstown, and others have experienced decades-long population decline that has opened great gaps in urban land use; these cities now are leading the way in innovative reuse that has been called “Re-Imagining,” “Cities in Transition,” “Smart Shrinkage” or (perhaps less appealing) “Smart Decline.” The common thread: these ...