cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
RETHINKING BANK REGULATION: A REVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

The debate over bank powers has taken on special urgency with the recent flurry of proposed mergers, such as the Citicorp-Travelers Group combination, that would break down the barriers between commercial and investment banking. After more than a decade of failed attempts to expand the scope of permissible bank activities, the House of Representatives recently voted for the first time in favor of a bill to end these Depression era limitations. The issue will be taken up by the Senate this fall. Most of the rationales for regulating banks fall into two broad categories: (1) the need to control potential conflicts of interest stemming from banks' multiple roles as deposit-takers, lenders, securities underwriters, and investment advisers; and (2) the perceived need to protect against the possibility of bank panics and widespread financial instability. In reviewing the historical evidence compiled by banking and finance scholars over the years, this article finds remarkably little cause for concern and suggests the regulatory cure may be far worse than the disease. On the first issue, the article cites a number of recent studies suggesting that market forces deal more effectively than regulation with conflicts of interests that can arise when commercial banks are engaged in securities underwriting. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, investors during the pre-Glass-Steagall era appear to have been better off when they purchased securities from commercial banks rather than investment banks. Moreover, to enhance their credibility in the market, many commercial banks during this period chose to put some distance between their lending and underwriting activities by establishing separate securities affiliates, thereby creating voluntary “firewalls.” In examining the issue of how the expansion of bank powers would affect economic stability, the second half of the article cites a large body of research–including studies of different historical periods and countries–attesting to the durability of commercial (and universal) banking systems. Indeed, one of the most important findings issuing from this research is that the regulatory safety net has often had the unfortunate impact of undermining rather than promoting financial stability.
Final Authority To Bind With Moral Mistakes: On The Explanatory Potential Of Inclusive Legal Positivism

Inclusive positivists accept the Incorporation Thesis, according to which there are conceptually possible legal systems in which the legality criteria "incorporate" substantive moral norms in the following sense: satisfaction of those norms is a necessary or sufficient condition for a proposition to count as law. The Incorporation Thesis seems to permit a more natural explanation of the role moral principles play in adjudicating hard issues of law. Whereas the exclusive positivist must explain those principles as constraints on judicial discretion, the inclusive positivist can explain those principles as defining necessary or sufficient conditions for law. In this essay, I argue that this framework does not help us to understand legal practice in any developed legal system we are likely to encounter. In particular, I argue that a moral norm N cannot function as a necessary or sufficient condition of legality if the rule of recognition grants a court general legal authority to bind officials with either of two conflicting decisions on whether a proposition is law in virtue of satisfying N. But since, as a practical matter, it would be very difficult for beings like us to produce a viable legal system that doesn't afford some court such authority, genuinely inclusive legal systems are very unlikely in worlds that resemble ours in salient respects.
Saving the First Amendment from Itself: Relief from the Sherman Act Against the Rabbinic Cartels

America’s rabbis currently structure their employment market with rules that flagrantly violate the Sherman Act. The consequences of these rules, in addition to the predictable economic outcomes of inflated wages for rabbis and restricted consumer freedoms for the congregations that employ them, meaningfully hinder Jewish communities from seeking their preferred spiritual leader. Although the First Amendment cannot combat against this privately-orchestrated (yet paradigmatic) restriction on religious expression, the Sherman Act can. Ironically, however, the rabbinic organizations implementing the restrictive policies claim that the First Amendment immunizes them from Sherman Act scrutiny, thereby claiming the First Amendment empowers them to do what the First Amendment was arguably designed to prevent. This essay evaluates this interesting intersection between the Sherman Act and the First Amendment, and it argues that the Sherman Act can, and must, be vigorously applied against the private rabbinic cartels.
EU Leverage and National Interests in the Balkans: The Puzzles of Enlargement Ten Years On

EU enlargement continues in the Western Balkans in the 2010s because the underlying dynamics remain largely unchanged: EU Member States still see enlargement as a matter of national interest, bringing long-term economic and geopolitical benefits. The risk of instability in the Western Balkans has made the dividends from the EU's ‘democratizing effect’ especially substantial. I argue that the enlargement process continues to have a ‘democratizing effect,’ as Western Balkans candidates and proto-candidates respond to the incentives of EU membership: political parties have changed their agendas to make them EU-compatible, and governments have implemented policy changes to move forward in the pre-accession process. Yet the EU is taking on candidates with difficult initial conditions. I explore the changes the EU has made in order to exercise its leverage more effectively in the Western Balkans and check whether these helped overcome the pre-accession process' earlier problems with expertise, consistency and legitimacy.
The World Trade Organization and Law Enforcement

Increased threats from transborder criminal activity are leading to stronger governmental and intergovernmental responses in the military, judicial, and regulatory arenas. These efforts, particularly the non-military efforts, raise a new issue in international economic law: the intersection between trade and law enforcement. This paper provides an overview of this “trade and law enforcement” linkage in four areas: (1) security, (2) health, (3) human rights, and (4) environmental protection. To explain the linkage between trade and law enforcement, I present the taxonomy of how trade measures are usable for law enforcement, and I offer a synopsis of the WTO provisions relevant to law enforcement and national security. I also examine the ways that law enforcement efforts might infringe WTO rules. Finally, I discuss new approaches for the WTO to promote law enforcement objectives.
The Future of Practice Guidelines: Should They Constitute Conclusive Evidence of the Standard of Care?

This article is a legal and policy exploration of the use of clinical practice guidelines in malpractice litigation. Ms. Finder argues that guidelines are valuable in ascertaining the applicable standard of care in malpractice cases, but that they should not be afforded conclusive weight. She begins by defining the array of practice guidelines, as well as their applications and commonalities. The author then explains the process of admitting guidelines into evidence under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals to prove or disprove malpractice, detailing the two factors of relevancy and reliability. She then asserts the continued need for a judicial process through which parties can challenge the guidelines themselves. Furthermore, she surveys how various courts have approached the admissibility of guidelines as evidence of the standard of care. She then examines both judicial and legislative efforts at affording them conclusive weight. Finally, Ms. Finder evaluates how guidelines can actually improve the process of malpractice litigation, and addresses the biases inherent in using them for evidentiary purposes.
The First MBA President: George W. Bush as Public Administrator

President Bush was praised early in his first term as a tough-minded decision maker who knows how to get things done. This essay argues that President Bush possesses formidable political skills that have helped him achieve many of his policy goals, focusing on his most important national security policies: the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism and the treatment of detainees, the use of intelligence leading up to the war, and the reorganization of the executive branch. In the end, however, President Bush’s deficiencies as a public administrator have undermined his policy successes.
Counterfeiting in the People's Republic of China

The counterfeiting of trademarks, brands, and other forms of intellectual property in the People's Republic of China ("PRC") is now the most serious counterfeiting problem in the history of the world and appears to be still on the rise. Estimates put the losses from counterfeiting suffered by trademark and brand owners doing business in China in the billions or even tens of billions of dollars per year. The unprecedented severity and magnitude of the counterfeiting problem raises a number of immediate questions. How did a problem of this magnitude arise, and what measures are being undertaken to improve the current situation? This Article examines counterfeiting in China, its origins, and problems in enforcement. It also provides some suggestions for alleviating the problem, and concludes with some observations about the future of counterfeiting in China. This examination is timely because of the seriousness of the problem, the increased attention given to counterfeiting, and China's on-going efforts to bring existing laws into conformity with the World Trade Organization's Agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property as part of the negotiations to bring China into the WTO.
Plemel as a Primer on Proving Paternity

Although in the past courts only permitted genetic evidence in paternity suits to prove that an accused man was not the father, with the advent of new genetic tests, which easily can exclude ninety to nitey-five percent of the population in most cases, the supreme courts of Massachusetts, Oregon, and Utah have held that various genetic tests may be used to prove paternity. While a positive move, the admissibility of genetic proof of paternity raises serious questions as to the manner in which this evidence should be presented in court. In the interests of efficiency, some jurisdictions seem to dispense with the requirement of having an expert appear in order to establish the chain of custody, to explain the scientific procedures, and to interpret the laboratory findings. When an expert does testify, the interpretations of the laboratory results may be abstruse or even misleading. While a great many courts admit such evidence uncritically, the newer decisions recognize many of the problems associated with the presentation and interpretation of inclusionary test results. This article analyzes the opinion of the Oregon Supreme Court in Plemel v. Walter and concludes that its analysis is preeminent among this newer line of cases and is an instructive guide for genetic evidence in paternity suits.
Transboundary spillovers and decentralization of environmental policies

Abstract Most US federal environmental policies allow states to assume responsibility for implementation and enforcement of regulations; states with this responsibility are referred to as “authorized” or having “primacy.” Although such decentralization may have benefits, it may also have costs when pollution crosses state borders. This paper estimates these costs empirically by studying the free riding of states authorized under the Clean Water Act. The analysis examines water quality in rivers around the US and includes fixed effects for the location where water quality is monitored to address unobserved geographic heterogeneity. The estimated equations suggest that free riding gives rise to a 4% degradation of water quality downstream of authorized states, with an environmental cost downstream of $17 million annually.
Optimal integration strategies for the multinational firm

Abstract We examine integration strategies of multinational firms that face a rich array of choices of international organization. Each firm must provide headquarter services from its home country, but can produce its intermediate inputs and conduct assembly operations in one or more of three locations. We study the equilibrium choices of firms that differ in productivity levels, focusing on the role that industry characteristics such as the fixed costs of foreign subsidiaries, the cost of transporting intermediate and final goods, and the regional composition of the consumer market play in determining the optimal integration strategies.
Hidden Structure: Using Network Methods to Map System Architecture

Abstract In this paper, we describe an operational methodology for characterizing the architecture of complex technical systems and demonstrate its application to a large sample of software releases. Our methodology is based upon directed network graphs, which allows us to identify all of the direct and indirect linkages between the components in a system. We use this approach to define three fundamental architectural patterns, which we label core–periphery, multi-core, and hierarchical. Applying our methodology to a sample of 1286 software releases from 17 applications, we find that the majority of releases possess a “core–periphery” structure. This architecture is characterized by a single dominant cyclic group of components (the “Core”) that is large relative to the system as a whole as well as to other cyclic groups in the system. We show that the size of the Core varies widely, even for systems that perform the same function. These differences appear to be associated with different models of development – open, distributed organizations develop systems with smaller Cores, while closed, co-located organizations develop systems with larger Cores. Our findings establish some “stylized facts” about the fine-grained structure of large, real-world technical systems, serving as a point of departure for future empirical work.
Nationalism in Winter Sports Judging and Its Lessons for Organizational Decision Making

This paper exploits nationalistic biases in Olympic winter sports judging to study the problem of designing a decision-making process that uses the input of potentially biased agents. Judges score athletes from their own countries higher than other judges do, and they appear to vary their biases strategically in response to the stakes, the scrutiny given the event, and the degree of subjectivity of the performance aspect being scored. Ski jumping judges display a taste for fairness in that they compensate for the nationalistic biases of other panel members, while figure skating judges appear to engage in vote trading and bloc judging. Career concerns create incentives for judges: biased judges are less likely to be chosen to judge the Olympics in ski jumping but more likely in figure skating; this is consistent with judges being chosen centrally in ski jumping and by national federations in figure skating. The sports truncate extreme scores to different degrees; both ski jumping and, especially, figure skating are shown to truncate too aggressively. Extreme truncation not only discards information, but may also make the vote trading in figure skating easier to implement. These findings have implications for both the current proposals for reforming the judging of figure skating and for designing decision making in organizations more generally.
Epitaxial growth and electronic properties of mixed valence YbAl3 thin films

We report the growth of thin films of the mixed valence compound YbAl3 on MgO using molecular-beam epitaxy. Employing an aluminum buffer layer, epitaxial (001) films can be grown with sub-nm surface roughness. Using x-ray diffraction, in situ low-energy electron diffraction, and aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, we establish that the films are ordered in the bulk as well as at the surface. Our films show a coherence temperature of 37 K, comparable to that reported for bulk single crystals. Photoelectron spectroscopy reveals contributions from both f13 and f12 final states establishing that YbAl3 is a mixed valence compound and shows the presence of a Kondo Resonance peak near the Fermi-level.
Tail-risk hedging, dividend chasing, and investment constraints: The use of exchange-traded notes by mutual funds

Abstract Our study examines mutual fund demand for a newly designed security, exchange-traded notes (ETNs). We find strong evidence that mutual fund long positions in ETNs significantly underperform and that the motivations to hold ETNs lie outside of maximizing returns. Mutual funds hold ETNs to hedge tail risk and to gain access to higher dividend yields. Mutual funds have a strong preference for derivative-like ETNs although this preference is unrelated to contractual constraints. Finally, we show that skilled timing of ETN investments is limited to the short-sales market.
Miranda Warnings, Torture, the Right to Counsel and the War on Terror

Forty years after the Miranda1 decision, the crimes that rivet the nation are different than those that consumed the public in 1966. September 11 is in many ways a dividing line.2 Before September 11, we believed torture was unthinkable; now we do not. Before September 11, we debated whether Miranda made sense from the perspective of law enforcement; now, the notion that terror suspects would be given Miranda warnings seems almost quaint. It is plain that the Bush Administration is treating the vast majority of terror suspects far outside the realm of ordinary law enforcement, where the protections of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments are uncertain at best. The Miranda decision was, in many ways, very much the product of its time. Decided in the same era as Brown v. Board of Education,3 it was arguably motivated, in large part, by a desire to achieve greater equality in the criminal justice system, and to provide greater access to justice to the most disadvantaged members of society.4 Miranda was a controversial decision
In vivo assessment of neurodegeneration in Spinocerebellar Ataxia type 7.

Abstract Spinocerebellar Ataxia type 7 (SCA7) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive cerebellar ataxia and retinal degeneration. Increasing loss of visual function complicates the use of clinical scales to track the progression of motor symptoms, hampering our ability to develop accurate biomarkers of disease progression, and thus test the efficacy of potential treatments. We aimed to identify imaging measures of neurodegeneration, which may more accurately reflect SCA7 severity and progression. While common structural MRI techniques have been previously used for this purpose, they can be biased by neurodegeneration-driven increases in extracellular CSF-like water. In a cross-sectional study, we analyzed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data collected from a cohort of 13 SCA7 patients and 14 healthy volunteers using: 1) a diffusion tensor-based image registration technique, and 2) a dual-compartment DTI model to control for the potential increase in extracellular CSF-like water. These methodologies allowed us to assess both volumetric and microstructural abnormalities in both white and gray matter brain-wide in SCA7 patients for the first time. To measure tissue volume, we performed diffusion tensor-based morphometry (DTBM) using the tensor-based registration. To assess tissue microstructure, we computed the parenchymal mean diffusivity (pMD) and parenchymal fractional anisotropy (pFA) using the dual compartment model. This model also enabled us to estimate the parenchymal volume fraction (pVF), a measure of parenchymal tissue volume within a given voxel. While DTBM and pVF revealed tissue loss primarily in the brainstem, cerebellum, thalamus, and major motor white matter tracts in patients (p 1), pMD and pFA detected microstructural abnormalities in virtually all tissues brain-wide (p 1). The Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia trended towards correlation with cerebellar pVF (r = -0.66, p = 0.104, FDR corrected) and global white matter pFA (r = -0.64, p = 0.104, FDR corrected). These results advance our understanding of neurodegeneration in living SCA7 patients by providing the first voxel-wise characterization of white matter volume loss and gray matter microstructural abnormalities. Moving forward, this comprehensive approach could be applied to characterize the full spatiotemporal pattern of neurodegeneration in SCA7, and potentially develop an accurate imaging biomarker of disease progression.
Outing Outcomes: An Empirical Study of Confidential Employment Discrimination Settlements

Table of ContentsI. Introduction 112II. The Empirical Landscape 117A. Global Studies 118B. Discrimination Type-Specific Studies 123III. The Chicago Dataset 125A. The Genesis of the Project 125B. The Content of the Dataset 129IV. The Outcomes: Measuring Success 139A. Refining the Dataset: Class Action and Multiple Party Litigation 139B. Gross Amounts of Recovery 144C. Gross Amounts of Loss 151D. Level of Success 152V. Lessons from the Data 157VI. Conclusion 160I. IntroductionNobody really knows what happens to employment discrimination claims in the federal courts. Of the more than 17,000 cases terminated in 2005, only 535, or 3.4%, went to trial.1 Perhaps another 25% of these were resolved by pre-trial motions.2 It is generally assumed that some 70% of these cases end in settlement.3 But this is only an assumption, because employment discrimination settlements are almost uniformly governed by private contracts containing confidentiality clauses.4 Often, the court records merely indicate that these cases have been voluntarily dismissed, and even when there is an indication of settlement, no data reflecting the terms are available. Thus, these settlements have been invisible in the burgeoning empirical scholarship about employment discrimination outcomes-until now. This Article analyzes the outcomes of close to 500 employment discrimination cases resolved by magistrate judges in the Chicago federal district court. Beginning in 1999, what I will call the "Chicago Project" established a coded dataset of settlement terms without any identification of parties, so as to comply with confidentiality agreements.5Why do settlement outcomes matter?6 For the same reasons that verdicts matter: They affect public perceptions and public policy. The public policy discourse about employment discrimination is highly contested, with divergent competing narratives. Are these claimants whiners and complainers, out to make a quick buck on meritless allegations? Or are they true victims of the subtle but significant forms of discrimination that still abound in the workplace, who do not receive fair and unbiased treatment in the courts?Conservative pundits assert that employers are being held hostage by the discrimination laws.7 They are besieged by frivolous claims and forced into nuisance settlements to avoid out-of-control legal fees. If they risk litigation, they are at the mercy of jury whims that can lead to crippling awards. Employment discrimination claims are a sub-set of the litigation explosion that is crippling American business and making us non-competitive in the global marketplace. Capitalizing upon and fueling these fears, insurance companies now offer "employment practices liability insurance," to protect against runaway expenses, with websites claiming that, for example, "settlements in [sexual harassment] cases in 2003 exceeded 50 million" dollars.8 The media also contribute to questionable representations of employment discrimination litigation. One study found that newspaper reports reflected an 85% win rate for plaintiffs with average recoveries of $1. …
Asset Allocation and Section 529 Plans

Previous research has concluded that prespecified asset allocations used by many Section 529 college savings plans are suboptimal. We extend this research to show that though it may be true, it is true for reasons other than those asserted in previous research. In addition, it tends to deflect attention from other investment options and strategies. JEL classification: G11, G20, G29
Book Review, J.O. Haley's Antitrust in Germany and Japan, The First Fifty Years, 1947-1998

John Haley’s comparative study of competition law in Germany and Japan is in many ways a pioneering work. It uses comparative analysis to provide insights into the development and operation of competition law in the two countries, and, as the author notes, there has been very little serious scholarly work of this kind, despite its potential benefits. This is all the more remarkable because of the intense interest during recent years in the "internationalization" of competition law. The book takes comparison seriously and shows some of the ways in which it can produce valuable insights that cannot be easily discerned, if at all, through other methods. For this reason alone, the book is of much value.
Efficient Contracting Between Foreign Investors and Host States: Evidence from Stabilization Clauses

Bilateral investment treaties are agreements between sovereign states that give broad protections to investors and investments made within the jurisdiction of the other state. The prevailing view in the academy and practice is that developing countries sign bilateral investment treaties in order to reassure investors from developed states that their investments will be safe from changes in domestic law. Without these “credible commitments,” investors would be deterred from making investments, depriving developing countries of foreign capital. This Article disputes that view by demonstrating that foreign investors and host states effectively contract around the risk of changes in the law. This Article applies transaction cost economic theory to the most comprehensive empirical study of stabilization clauses (provisions intended to manage post-investment changes in domestic law) recently conducted under the auspices of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation. The analysis shows that investors and states demonstrate principles of efficient contracting even without the protections of bilateral investment treaties (BIT). This finding adds to current research focusing on the “credible commitment” story. The Article concludes that (1) BITs can be explained as instruments developed and developing states use in their competition for markets and capital and (2) differences in the reasons states execute BITs raise significant doubts about conclusions drawn based on aggregate phenomena.
Shared appreciation mortgages: Lessons from the UK

Abstract The recent rise in shared appreciation mortgage (SAM) availability motivates careful consideration of underlying borrower incentives. The lender’s share of appreciation in SAMs (share) is essentially a dynamic prepayment penalty imposed on the borrower. However, the borrower faces a moral hazard due to his ability to affect the penalty by reducing maintenance. We adapt a competing risks mortgage-pricing model to calculate SAM theoretical equilibrium rates. Our borrower possesses rational expectations of both the house price market and interest rates. Our simulation results may help explain the lack of secondary market interest for the UK SAMs containing extreme contract terms.
Job satisfaction among Russian workers

Are Russian workers satisfied with their jobs? If not, why does it matter and what can be done? Empirical evidence based on studies of US workers suggests that job satisfaction tends to correlate positively with labor productivity and negatively with labor turnover, both of which influence firm performance. Improving firm performance without substantially increasing costs is uppermost in the minds of many Russian managers. This paper analyzes the nature and scope of job satisfaction among Russian workers, using survey data to: identify the level of job satisfaction expressed by 1,200 survey participants in response to questions about satisfaction with the job and satisfaction with the work that is done in the job; investigate the variation in job satisfaction explained by differences in worker characteristics – both objective characteristics (age, gender, education, work experience, supervisory responsibilities, unemployment experience, marital status, recent change in workplace, number of jobs held at the time of the interview, for example) and subjective characteristics (attitude toward work); ascertain the link between job satisfaction and select intrinsic and extrinsic job characteristics; and evaluate the extent to which job satisfaction is correlated with alternative measures of organizational commitment. While endogeneity and simultaneity preclude establishing causality, these cross section data do permit evaluation of factors highly correlated with job satisfaction. The specific aim of the paper is to identify factors that increase the probability that a worker will express a high level of job satisfaction. The results will prove useful in designing effective reward structures and/or reducing turnover, as well as establishing management‐training programs to promote more effective teamwork.
Experimental Tests of a Descriptive Theory of Combined Auditee Risk Assessment

SUMMARY: This research experimentally investigates how auditors make combined auditee risk judgments during the planning of the audit of an account balance in a client's financial statements. Experimental tests were performed of whether the predictions of the AICPA model of auditee risk determination are descriptive of auditors' judgments. In addition, tests were performed of other plausible descriptive models using the methods of psychological measurement. The results indicate that the AICPA model is not descriptive of auditors' judgments, and that auditors' judgments of combined auditee risk are best explained by the range model, a revised‐weight model, as compared to the alternative descriptive models tested. The results of the experiment extend the prior literature in this area by (1) facilitating the resolution of the conflicting conclusions from prior research regarding the descriptive validity of the audit‐risk model, and (2) by identifying the range model that describes an idiosyncratic, yet plaus...
Solidarity and Health: A Public Goods Justification

This comment on Professor ter Meulen's paper, "Solidarity and Justice in Health Care," offers additional perspectives on solidarity's importance for health. Noting the findings of social epidemiology, the paper explains that health has important public good dimensions. It is both non-rivlalrous because one person's health does not diminish another's, and it is largely determined by non-excludable access goods, including social networks, social determinants, and public health efforts. The public good dimension of health underscores the mutual dependence and shared stake that people have with respect to health, and highlights the importance of coming together in solidarity for the sake of health. This is not to say that solidarity cannot also foster exclusionary tendencies; however, the recognition of mutual dependency with respect to health can foster an inclusive solidarity for the health of all people.
Matching and anonymity

This work introduces a set-theoretic foundation of deterministic bilateral matching processes and studies their properties. In particular, it formalizes a link between matching and informational constraints by developing a notion of anonymity that is based on the agents’ matching histories. It also explains why and how various matching processes generate different degrees of “informational isolation” in the economy. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach to modeling matching frameworks by discussing the classical turnpike model of Townsend.
Freedom to Tinker

Tinkering with technologies and other human-made artifacts is a long-standing practice. Freedom to tinker has largely existed without formal legal recognition. Tinkering has typically taken place in an unregulated zone within which people were at liberty to act unobstructed by others so long as they did not harm others.The main reason why it now seems desirable to articulate some legal principles about freedom to tinker and why it needs to be preserved is because freedom to tinker is being challenged by some legal developments. This Article explains that user-innovators have traditionally had considerable freedom to tinker under trade secrecy, patent, and trademark laws. Although copyright law permits a modest degree of tinkering with existing products, it restricts freedom to tinker more than other IP laws. Copyright law and sometimes contract law place substantial constraints on user rights to tinker with and modify computer programs and other digital works. These constraints are of particular concern to tinkerers because computer programs are embedded in such a wide range of technologies these days. This Article offers suggestions about how and why the law should protect a zone of freedom to tinker for socially beneficial purposes.
The rapid evolution of homo economicus: Brief exposure to neoclassical assumptions increases self-interested behavior

Abstract Economics students have been shown to exhibit more selfishness than other students. Because the literature identifies the impact of long-term exposure to economics instruction (e.g., taking a course), it cannot isolate the specific course content responsible; nor can selection, peer effects, or other confounds be properly controlled for. In a laboratory experiment, we use a within- and across-subject design to identify the impact of brief, randomly-assigned economics lessons on behavior in the ultimatum game (UG), dictator game (DG), prisoner's dilemma (PD), and public-goods game (PGG). We find that a brief lesson that includes the assumptions of self-interest and strategic considerations moves behavior toward traditional economic rationality in UG, PD, and DG. Despite entering the study with higher levels of selfishness than others, subjects with prior exposure to economics instruction have similar training effects. We show that the lesson reduces efficiency and increases inequity in the UG. The results demonstrate that even brief exposure to commonplace neoclassical economics assumptions measurably moves behavior toward self-interest.
Closing Impunity Gaps for the Crime of Aggression

Table of ContentsI. Introduction 53II. Crime of Aggression under International Law 57A. From Nuremberg to Kampala and Beyond 57B. A Crime Different from Other Core Crimes 621. State act of aggression 622. Jus ad bellum v. jus in bello 623. Leadership element 63III. Adjudicating the International Crime of Aggression in Domestic Courts.... 64A. Territorial Jurisdiction, Including Territorial Effects 65B. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction 661. Active and passive nationality jurisdictions 672. Protective jurisdiction 683. Universal jurisdiction 69IV. Domestic Jurisdictions and the Crime of Aggression: An Impossible Relationship? 72A. State Sovereignty and Par in Parem Non Habet Imperium 72B. Challenges to Domestic Prosecutions of the Crime of Aggression 751. Politicization of aggression trials 752. Aggressor state incentive to shield individual aggressors from punishment 753. Victim state's inability to prosecute and lack of incentives for third-party states 764. Jurisdictional immunities of high-ranking government officials 775. Act of State and Political Question Doctrines 78V. Conclusion 79I. IntroductionNuremberg was a watershed moment for holding individuals accountable for waging aggressive war. From 1946 to 1948, the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal and the International Tribunal for the Far East tried and convicted several individuals for "crimes against peace,"1 the legal term for what international law today defines as the crime of aggression.2 Crimes against peace included the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.'" At the end of World War II, the crime of aggression was coined the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."4Since then, however, courts have not enforced the international crime of aggression, even though states and their leaders have continued to engage in the illegal use of armed force against other states in violation of the U.N. Charter.5 The lack of a clear definition for the crime of aggression, the politics of the Cold War and post-Cold War world order, and the evolving nature of conflict have contributed to this 70-year hiatus in justice and accountability for aggression.6Current events, however, demonstrate a pressing need to criminalize aggression in order to deter leaders from waging aggressive war. …
Apportionment Methods and the House of Representatives

The seemingly straightforward task of assigning seats to states according to population runs into several politically unacceptable complications. It is shown that this is a serious problem in the s...
Pump up the Volume: Income Risk and Counter-cyclical Asset Trading

This paper develops a model of consumption smoothing using financial assets, incomplete markets, and idiosyncratic shocks. It contributes to the literature on asset markets by exposing a structural break in stock trading volume in the 1970s, which in turn demonstrates a negative correlation between trading volume and aggregate output. The model is able to not only match the correct sign of this correlation but also a portion of the standard deviation of turnover.
Prospects for improving the intrinsic and extrinsic properties of magnesium diboride superconducting strands

The magnetic and transport properties of MgB2 films present performance goals yet to be attained for powder-processed bulk samples and conductors. Carbon-doped films have exhibited upper critical fields, ?0Hc2, as high as 60?T and a possible upper limit of more than twice this value has been predicted. Very high critical current densities, Jc, have also been measured for films, e.g.?25?MA?cm?2 in the self-field and 7?kA?cm?2 in 15?T. Such performance limits are still out of reach for even the best MgB2 magnet wire. In discussing the present status and prospects for improving the performance of powder-based wire we focus attention on (1)?the intrinsic (intragrain) superconducting properties of MgB2?Hc2 and flux pinning, and (2)?the factors that control the efficiency with which current is transported from grain to grain in the conductor, an extrinsic (intergrain) property. With regard to item (1), the role of dopants in Hc2 enhancement is discussed and examples presented. On the other hand their roles in increasing Jc, both via Hc2 enhancement as well as via direct fluxoid/pinning center interaction, are discussed and a comprehensive survey of Hc2 dopants and flux pinning additives is presented. Dopant selection, chemistry, methods of introduction (inclusion), and homogeneity of distribution (via the rounding of the superconducting electronic specific heat transition) are considered. Current transport through the powder-processed wire (an extrinsic property) is partially blocked by the inherent granularity of the material itself and the chemical or other properties of the intergrain surfaces. Overall porosity, including reduced density and intergranular blocking, is quantified in terms of the measured temperature dependence of the normal-state resistivity compared to that of a clean single crystal. Several experimental results are presented in terms of per cent effective cross-sectional area for current transport. These and other such results indicate that in many cases less than 15% of the conductor's cross-sectional area is able to carry transport current. It is pointed out that densification in association with the elimination of grain-boundary blocking phases would yield fivefold-to-tenfold increases in Jc in relevant regimes, enabling the performance of MgB2 in selected applications to compete with that of Nb3Sn.
Capitalization and Community Size

Abstract Studies often show taxes and public services capitalized into house prices, but no one has tested whether the rate of capitalization depends on community size. The theoretical model of W. H. Hoyt (1999, Regional Science and Urban Economics , 29, 155–171), predicts that capitalization occurs, but that the rate of capitalization is weaker in large communities. Hoyt's model is tested empirically using a house price hedonic framework. The tax capitalization results are less clear, but the school quality and crime results firmly support the model's predictions. Using both school districts and municipalities to measure communities, larger communities weaken the rate of capitalization.
Price effects in online product reviews: an analytical model and empirical analysis

Consumer reviews may reflect not only perceived quality but also the difference between quality and price (perceived value). In markets where product prices change frequently, these price-influenced reviews may be biased as a signal of product quality when used by consumers possessing no knowledge of historical prices. In this paper, we develop an analytical model that examines the impact of price-influenced reviews on firm optimal pricing and consumer welfare. We quantify the price effects in consumer reviews for different formats of review systems using actual market prices and online consumer ratings data collected for the digital camera market. Our empirical results suggest that unidimensional ratings, commonly used in most review systems, can be substantially biased by price effects. In fact, unidimensional ratings are more closely correlated with ratings of product value than ratings of product quality. Our findings suggest the importance for firms to account for these price effects in their overall marketing strategy and suggest that review systems could better serve consumers by explicitly expanding review dimensions to separate perceived value and perceived quality.
Queueing systems with leadtime constraints : A fluid-model approach for admission and sequencing control

Abstract We study how multi-product queueing systems should be controlled so that sojourn times (or end-to-end delays) do not exceed specified leadtimes. The network dynamically decides when to admit new arrivals and how to sequence the jobs in the system. To analyze this difficult problem, we propose an approach based on fluid-model analysis that translates the leadtime specifications into deterministic constraints on the queue length vector. The main benefit of this approach is that it is possible (and relatively easy) to construct scheduling and multi-product admission policies for leadtime control. Additional results are: (a) While this approach is simpler than a heavy-traffic approach, the admission policies that emerge from it are also more specific than, but consistent with, those from heavy-traffic analysis. (b) A simulation study gives a first indication that the policies also perform well in stochastic systems. (c) Our approach specifies a “tailored” admission region for any given sequencing policy. Such joint admission and sequencing control is “robust” in the following sense: system performance is relatively insensitive to the particular choice of sequencing rule when used in conjunction with tailored admission control. As an example, we discuss the tailored admission regions for two well-known sequencing policies: Generalized Processor Sharing and Generalized Longest Queue. (d) While we first focus on the multi-product single server system, we do extend to networks and identify some subtleties.
The Age of Constitutions in the Americas

The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been aptly called the “Age of Codifications.” The same period was also the Age of Constitutions. Although a great deal is known about the migration of prenational and transnational legal sources and ideas that led to national codes of civil and criminal law in Europe and the Americas, much less is known about similar processes on the constitutional level. Constitutional historians have been more parochial than their private law counterparts, most likely because of the relationship between constitutions and nations. In the light of independence, nations immediately needed constitutions to solidify gains and to consolidate state power. The study of these processes becomes national narratives, often in conversation with the former colonial power, which are disconnected from more general or regional trends. As Linda Colley's article in this issue illustrates, it is important to step back to view the constitution-making process from an Atlantic perspective that ties the Americas, North and South, into the area of study. The Age of Constitutions in the Americas must include Latin America and the Caribbean.
Mutual Fund Tournaments: The Sorting Bias and New Evidence

Previous findings regarding the risk-shifting behavior of mid-year underperforming mutual fund managers are mixed. In this article, I show that this is due to a "sorting bias," which is caused by the sorting of first-half risk levels when establishing relative mid-year performance. Even without risk-shifting behavior, mean reversion of these sorted risk levels results in the detection of tournament behavior. After correcting for this bias, I find evidence supporting the hypothesis that first-half underperforming managers increase portfolio risk during the second half of the year and that this tournament behavior is not dependent on first-half market conditions. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.
Conditional Bureaucratic Discretion and State Welfare Diffusion under AFDC

In this article, I evaluate whether a state’s level of bureaucratic discretionary authority with respect to welfare policy makes that state more or less likely to participate in policy diffusion with other states that share similar levels of bureaucratic discretionary authority. Using data on levels of access to welfare services in the late Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) era (1976–90), I find that bureaucrats across states who are granted high-discretionary authority engage in policy diffusion with one another. Diffusion based on similarity in discretionary authority is more pronounced when bureaucrats possess high compared with no discretion and does not occur when bureaucrats possess low discretion. Moreover, diffusion between high-discretion bureaucrats operates concurrently with geographic- and economic-driven forms of diffusion that have been well documented in the policy diffusion literature. Results demonstrate that a state’s choice of how much discretion to give bureaucrats can ope...
Labor Values are First Amendment Values: Why Union Comprehensive Campaigns are Protected Speech

Corporate targets of union “comprehensive campaigns” increasingly have responded by filing civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuits alleging that unions’ speech and petitioning activities are extortionate. These lawsuits are the descendants of the Supreme Court’s unexplained treatment of much labor speech as less worthy of protection than other types of speech. Starting from the position that speech that promotes democratic discourse deserves top-tier First Amendment protection, I argue that labor speech - which plays a unique role in civil society - should be on an equal footing with civil rights speech. Thus, even if union advocacy qualifies as legal extortion, the First Amendment should trump civil RICO enforcement, with two limited exceptions: speech that is actually malicious, and speech that imminently threatens to force an employer to choose between breaking the law and suffering significant economic harm or shutting its doors altogether.