cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Strategy-proofness in the Large

We propose a criterion of approximate incentive compatibility, strategy-proofness in the large (SP-L), and argue that it is a useful second-best to exact strategy-proofness (SP) for market design. Conceptually, SP-L requires that an agent who regards a mechanism’s “prices” as exogenous to her report—be they traditional prices as in an auction mechanism, or price-like statistics in an assignment or matching mechanism—has a dominant strategy to report truthfully. Mathematically, SP-L weakens SP in two ways: (1) truth-telling is required to be approximately optimal (within epsilon in a large enough market) rather than exactly optimal, and (2) incentive compatibility is evaluated ex interim, with respect to all full-support i.i.d. probability distributions of play, rather than ex post with respect to all possible realizations of play. This places SP-L in between the traditional notion of approximate SP, which evaluates incentives to manipulate ex post and as a result is too strong to obtain our main results in support of SP-L, and the traditional notion of approximate Bayes-Nash incentive compatibility, which, like SP-L, evaluates incentives to manipulate ex interim, but which imposes common knowledge and strategic sophistication assumptions that are often viewed as unrealistic.
THE MEANING OF A PRECEDENT

A familiar jurisprudential view is that a judicial decision functions as a legal precedent by laying down a rule and that the content of this rule is set by officials. Precedents can be followed only by acting in accordance with this rule. This view is mistaken on all counts. A judicial decision functions as a precedent by being an example. At its best, it is an example both for officials and for a target population. Even precedents outside of law function as examples when they have conduct-guiding significance. Examples may be rule-like in their scope, but need not be. Their import is independent of their justification; this point has implications for coherence theories of precedent meaning. The content and scope of a legal decision’s extension is not set exclusively by officials. It is socially set and depends upon social salience.
Getting to Know the Poor

This essay explores how we get to know the poor, focusing on the poor voices literature of academics and international institutions. I first examine the challenge of avoiding tokenism while still providing context in portrayals of the poor. The essay then highlights the distance between the poor and the non-poor, showing how this separation, when coupled with negative stereotypes regarding the poor, can negatively impact policy.
Do after-tax returns affect mutual fund inflows?

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between the after-tax returns that taxable investors earn on equity mutual funds and the subsequent cash inflows to these funds. Previous studies have documented that funds with high pretax returns attract greater inflows. This paper presents evidence, based on a large sample of retail equity mutual funds over the period 1993–1999, that after-tax returns have more explanatory power than pretax returns in explaining inflows. In addition, funds with large overhangs of unrealized capital gains experience smaller inflows, all else equal, than funds without such unrealized gains. A large capital gain overhang discourages both gross fund inflows and gross outflows, but the inflow effect dominates the outflow effect.
Volume versus Variance: Implications of Data-intensive Workflows.

A data-intensive workflow is a process that is faced with a large volume or highly variable forms of information. The increasing digitization of office processes, the use of workflows to integrate publicly available data sources, and the application of workflow technology to scientific problem solving have led to an increased interest in the design and deployment of data-intensive workflows. This paper discusses the notion of data-intensive workflows and outlines the implications of increasing data volumes and variances for the design of process-aware applications.
The Color of Mass Incarceration

This article looks at the issue of incarceration with a focus on the number of African Americans both male and female who are now incarcerated in the United States. The article takes an analytical perspective in reviewing the fact that the majority of African Americans in the prison population are not there for violent crimes, but yet, African Americans contribute to the mass color of incarceration. The article also includes discussion on how the “so-called” justice systems has treated African Americans unfairly when charged with the same criminal offenses as those of the majority population. The paper also addresses the issue of whether or not mass incarceration of African American men is an “institutional” means for decreasing the African American population in the United States.
Genetics and Insurance: Accessing and Using Private Information

Is information about a person's genome, whether derived from the analysis of DNA or otherwise, protected by the right to privacy? If it is, why and in what manner? It often appears that some people believe that the answer to this question is to be found in molecular genetics itself. They point to the rapid progress being made in basic and applied aspects of this field of biology; this progress has remarkably increased what is known about human genetics. Since knowledge of a particular person's genetic makeup entails a potential intrusion into that person's most private realms and exposes him or her to dire results if revealed to others, they argue, the law needs to protect “genetic privacy.” There is nothing inherently wrong with this account, but it certainly presupposes that we know—and agree about—what it means to protect privacy and, indeed, what interests are implicated in the concept and why they matter. Rather than make this assumption, in this essay I first elaborate a concept of privacy before turning to the potential privacy implications that arise at the intersection of human genetics and the field of insurance. I argue that the core value here is self-determination broadly conceived—that control over one's genetic information may be important for achieving self-determination—but that at least in the context of contracts for life insurance, we should be reluctant to recognize “rights” that would permanently preclude the use of genetic data by insurers.
Ingredient-based food fears and avoidance: Antecedents and antidotes

Abstract This study investigates food fears that are ingredient-based, focusing on the case of high-fructose corn syrup. The results of a national phone survey of 1008 U.S. mothers offer five preliminary sets of observations: first, consumers with a fear of a specific ingredient – such as high-fructose corn syrup – may exaggerate and overweigh perceived risks. Second, such consumers may often receive more information from the internet than from television. Third, they may be partly influenced by their reference group. Fourth, ingredients associated with less healthy foods mainly hurt evaluation of foods perceived as relatively healthy. Fifth, food fears may be offset when an ingredient’s history, background, and general usage are effectively communicated. These findings suggest new insights for understanding how public health, industry, and consumer groups can more effectively target and address ingredient fears.
Federalists, Federalism, and Federal Jurisdiction

Historians and legal scholars generally agree that during John Marshall's tenure as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, the federal judiciary expanded its power to interpret the Constitution and asserted with increasing force its authority to speak on behalf of the Union. This single story of judicial nationalism, however, contains two distinct and largely non-overlapping strands. Historians have tended to focus on the Supreme Court alone, to the exclusion of the lower federal courts, and have largely treated early national controversies over the lower federal courts as outgrowths of the political turmoil that accompanied the emergence of the first party system. Legal scholars in the fields of federal courts and constitutional law, meanwhile, have devoted significant attention to the lower federal courts but have largely neglected the history of how those courts developed beyond the key early moments of the Constitutional Convention and the First Congress.
Fertility and Economic Growth: Do Immigrant Maids Play a Role?

A significant source of child-care services in East and South-East Asia are provided by immigrant maids. Using a modified version of the model used in Galor and Weil (1996), the present paper analyses the impact of this source of child-care services on women’s labor market participation, fertility behavior and the household purchase of child-care services. The results show that a lower price for the maid service leads to a lower savings rate, a higher demand for children and less time being spent with children. We also find that hiring immigrant maids leads to lower economic growth in the long run.
Some Dumb Girl Syndrome: Challenging and Subverting Destructive Stereotypes of Female Attorneys

This Essay considers ways in which female attorneys confront sexism and stereotyping in the legal profession and in life, and strongly endorses embracing feminism, and wearing comfortable shoes.
Cyclicality and Sectoral Linkages: Aggregate Fluctuations from Independent Sectoral Shocks

Abstract The traditional argument against the relevance of sector-specific shocks for the aggregate phenomenon of business cycles invokes the law of large numbers: positive shocks in some sectors are offset by negative shocks in other sectors. This paper hypothesizes that cancellation of sector-specific shocks via the law of large numbers is affected by interactions among producing sectors. The analysis is performed within the context of a multisector model similar in spirit to that of Long and Plosser [J. Polit. Econ.91(1983), 39–69]. It is shown that the rate at which the law of large numbers applies is controlled by the rate of increase in the number offullrows in the input-use matrix rather than by the rate of increase in the total number of sectors. Investigations of actual input-use matrices from the U.S. economy reveal that the number of full rows increases much slower than the total number of rows upon disaggregation, and when these input-use matrices are used to parameterize the model, aggregate volatility from sectoral shocks declines at less than half the rate implied by the law of large numbers. This finding leaves open the possibility that a sizeable portion of aggregate volatility is caused by “smaller” shocks to individual sectors. Simple statistics calculated from the model indicate that as much as 80% the volatility in U.S. gross domestic product growth rates could be the result of independent shocks to two-digit Standard Industrial Code sectors.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: E1, E32, C67.
The rules of standard‐setting organizations: an empirical analysis

May 31, 2006 This paper empirically explores standard-setting organizations’ policy choices. Consistent with Lerner-Tirole (2006), we find (a) a negative relationship between the extent to which an SSO is oriented to technology sponsors and the concession level required of sponsors and (b) a positive correlation between the sponsor-friendliness of the selected SSO and the quality of the standard. We also develop and test two extensions of the earlier model: the presence of provisions mandating royalty-free licensing is negatively associated with disclosure requirements, and the relationship between concessions and user friendliness is weaker when there is only a limited number of SSOs.
Justice Kennedy’s “Gay Agenda”: Romer, Lawrence, and the Struggle for Marriage Equality

Justice Kennedy, in his near quarter century on the United States Supreme Court, authored the two most important decisions positively affecting the lives of gays and lesbians in the United States: Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas. These two decisions were monumental in bringing gays and lesbians in the United States into the realm of constitutional protection. Rightfully, Justice Kennedy has been lauded for his thoughtful and sensitive gay-friendly jurisprudence. Justice Kennedy’s key gay-rights decisions have been subjected to substantial criticism even by those favoring gay and lesbian rights, however. There are ambiguities in both Romer and Lawrence that have permitted lower courts to interpret these decisions extremely narrowly. Further, because of the
There are infinitely many elliptic Carmichael numbers

In 1987, Dan Gordon defined an elliptic curve analogue to Carmichael numbers known as elliptic Carmichael numbers. In this paper, we prove that there are infinitely many elliptic Carmichael numbers. In doing so, we resolve in the affirmative the question of whether there exist infinitely square-free, composite integers $n$ such that for every prime $p$ that divides $n$, $p+1|n+1$.
Cash Holdings, Competition, and Innovation

We demonstrate theoretically and empirically that strategic considerations are important in shaping the cash policies of innovative firms. In our model, firms compete in product markets with uncertain structure using cash as a commitment device to invest in innovation. We show that firms’ equilibrium cash holdings are related to the expected intensity of competition. The sign and magnitude of this relation depends on firms’ financial constraints. Consistent with the strategic motive for hoarding cash, we show that firms’ cash holdings are negatively affected by their rivals’ cash-holding choices, even more so when competition is expected to be intense.
Domestic Monetary Policy and World Oil Prices

In 2000 and 2001 Russia faced a puzzle: high world oil prices, while ensuring GDP growth and strong fiscal balance, generated serious problems for domestic monetary and exchange rate policies. The Central Bank was forced to buy excess foreign exchange supply on the market, thereby paving the way for monetary expansion and inflation. On the other hand, the Central Bank’s rejection of rouble interventions in the forex market would have resulted in nominal appreciation of the rouble. In either case the outcome is fast real appreciation of the rouble, deterioration of the current account and slowdown of the economy. This article attempts to provide grounds for optimal monetary policy choice within the framework of a theoretical model of an open economy, which is similar to that of Russia in 2000 and 2001.
Searching for the EU Social Dialogue Model

The European Union and the United States operate different variants of market capitalism. The EU model uses social dialogue institutions to help determine economic outcomes, particularly in the labor market, whereas the US relies more on market forces. The theory of competitive markets provides a powerful framework for analyzing market driven economies and for assessing the conditions under which unfettered markets yield desirable outcomes. But there is no comparable framework for analyzing institution driven economies. This paper argues that models of efficient bargaining/the Coase Theorem offer the best framework for analyzing social dialogue economies and for identifying policies and institutional reforms to improve their functioning.
Controllable fusion of human brain organoids using acoustofluidics

The fusion of human organoids holds promising potential in modeling physiological and pathological processes of tissue genesis and organogenesis. However, current fused organoid models face challenges of high heterogeneity and variable reproducibility, which may stem from the random fusion of heterogeneous organoids. Thus, we developed a simple and versatile acoustofluidic method to improve the standardization of fused organoid models via a controllable spatial arrangement of organoids. By regulating dynamic acoustic fields within a hexagonal acoustofluidic device, we can rotate, transport, and fuse one organoid with another in a contact-free, label-free, and minimal-impact manner. As a proof-of-concept to model the development of the human midbrain-to-forebrain mesocortical pathway, we acoustically fused human forebrain organoids (hFOs) and human midbrain organoids (hMOs) with the controllable alignment of neuroepithelial buds. We found that post-assembly, hMO can successfully project tyrosine hydroxylase neurons towards hFO, accompanied by an increase of firing rates and synchrony of excitatory neurons. Moreover, we found that our controllable fusion method can regulate neuron projection (e.g., range, length, and density), projection maturation (e.g., higher firing rate and synchrony), and neural progenitor cell (NPC) division in the assembloids via the initial spatial control. Thus, our acoustofluidic method may serve as a label-free, contact-free, and highly biocompatible tool to effectively assemble organoids and facilitate the standardization and robustness of organoid-based disease models and tissue engineering.
Irreversible abatement investment under cost uncertainties: tradable emission permits and emissions charges

Abstract A major concern with tradable emission permits is that stochastic permit prices may reduce a firm’s incentive to invest in abatement capital or technologies relative to other policies such as a fixed emissions charge. However, under efficient permit trading, the permit price uncertainty is caused by abatement cost uncertainties which affect investment under both permit and charge policies. We develop a rational expectations general equilibrium model of permit trading and irreversible abatement investment to show how cost uncertainties affect investment under permits. We compare the resulting investment incentive with that under charges. After controlling for the assumption that random shocks affect the abatement cost linearly, we find that firms’ investment incentive decreases in cost uncertainties, but more so under emissions charges than under permits. Therefore, tradable permits in fact may help maintain firms’ investment incentive under uncertainty.
Randomization in optimal income tax schedules

Abstract The optimal income tax problem is one of many problems in economics for which a randomized allocation may be desirable. For a two-class economy, we characterize optimal random tax schedules and present necessary and sufficient conditions for local randomization either to be Pareto improving or to extend the constrained Pareto frontier. We present another sufficient condition for nonlocal randomization to be Pareto improving, which need not violate ex post or ex ante horizontal equity. Lastly, an example demonstrates that the gains from randomization may be large.
Incentives to provide local public goods: fiscal federalism, Russian style

Abstract Based on a unique data set on Russian city budgets, this paper shows that revenue sharing between regional and local governments provides local governments with no incentive to increase tax base or provide public goods. Any change in local government’s own revenues is almost entirely offset by changes in shared revenues. This leads to governmental over-regulation of private businesses. It is shown that fiscal incentives are a determinant of the formation of private business and the efficiency of public goods provision. The Russian federalism is compared to the Chinese federalism, where fiscal incentives reputedly are stronger in many provinces.
Accuracy measures for American put option pricing algorithms

I address the dichotomy between American put option pricing theory and the numerical algorithms designed to estimate American put option prices. The literature has focused only on pricing error. However, early exercise is the essence of American option pricing (exercising) and with it comes the possibility of early exercise error and its opportunity costs. I introduce an economically viable metric that identifies all the errors of American put option pricing algorithms. The accuracy of such algorithms can thereby be fully assessed. A rational option pricing result generalises the usual integral equation and motivates pure pricing error. This provides new intuition for the optimality condition for early exercise. Early exercise error is motivated by comparing discounted expected profits generated by the estimated model vs. the optimal early exercise model. The error measure applies to any put pricing algorithm and any benchmark. We illustrate our total error measure with a new algorithm.
Uncertainty and the Dynamics of R&D

Uncertainty varies strongly over time, rising by 50% to 100% in recessions and by up to 200% after major economic and political shocks. This paper shows that higher uncertainty reduces the responsiveness of R&D to changes in business conditions - a “caution-effect” - making it more persistent over time. Thus, uncertainty will play a critical role in shaping the dynamics of R&D through the business cycle, and its response to technology policy. I also show that if firms are increasing their level of R&D then the effect of uncertainty will be negative, while if firms are reducing R&D then the effect of uncertainty will be positive.
Credible Sales Mechanisms and Intermediaries

We consider a seller who faces several buyers and lacks access to an institution to credibly close a sale. If buyers anticipate that the seller may negotiate further, they will prefer to wait before making their best and final offers. This in turn induces the seller to bargain at length with buyers, even if doing so is costly. When the seller's cost of soliciting another round of offers is either very large or very small, the seller credibly commits to an auction and experiences negligible bargaining costs. Otherwise, there may be several rounds of increasing offers and significant seller losses. In these situations, an intermediary with a sufficiently valuable reputation and/or weak marginal incentives regarding price can create value by credibly committing to help sell the object without delay.
Accounting Informs Investors and Earnings Management is Rife: Two Questionable Beliefs

SYNOPSIS: This short essay addresses the inordinate amount of attention given in the literature to two seemingly widely-held but questionable beliefs: that a major role of financial reporting is providing new information for equity investors, and that “earnings management” is rampant. In this essay, I discuss these beliefs, indicate why I consider them “most incorrect,” and offer conjectures on why they have not been corrected.
Complementarities and the Demand for Home Broadband Internet Services

Before the deregulation of digital subscriber line (DSL) services by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2005, phone companies were required to share their DSL bandwidth with independent DSL providers. Despite the large number of independent providers that entered the market, phone companies accounted for 95.3% of all DSL subscribers in 2005. A common explanation for this is based on supply-side factors such as the costs faced by these providers to lease phone lines from phone companies, as well as the price discounts offered by phone companies. In this paper, we look for a demand-side explanation for this market outcome. Analyzing consumer choices in the broadband category alone would lead us to the conclusion that consumers have a much higher preference for their local phone providers---a finding at odds with service awards received by independent DSL providers. Thus we look for a demand-side explanation that is based on the demand not just for broadband services but also for related services such as cable TV and local phone. We find evidence of strong complementarities between the consumption of broadband and of those related categories. The main source of such complementarities, in our data, is the benefits to consumers from having a single provider for multiple services. We then carry out counterfactual experiments assuming that there are no changes in the regular prices of the various services. Our results indicate that the share of phone companies in the broadband market would have been 43% smaller without complementarities stemming from such a single-provider effect, whereas shutting off the state dependence effects would have reduced their share by 30%, and shutting off the effects of price discounts on the DSL+local phone bundle would have resulted in their share declining by 21%.
Simple Robust Hedging with Nearby Contracts

This paper proposes a new hedging strategy based on approximate matching of contract characteristics instead of risk sensitivities. The strategy hedges an option with three options at different maturities and strikes by matching the option function expansion along maturity and strike rather than risk factors. Its hedging effectiveness varies with the maturity and strike distance between the target and the hedge options, but is robust to variations in the underlying risk dynamics. Simulation analysis under different risk environments and historical analysis on S&P 500 index options both show that a wide spectrum of strike-maturity combinations can outperform dynamic delta hedging.
Fourth Amendment Textualism

The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable searches” is one of the most storied constitutional commands. Yet after decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence, a coherent definition of the term “search” remains surprisingly elusive. Even the Justices know they have a problem. Recent opinions only halfheartedly apply the controlling “reasonable expectation of privacy” test and its wildly unpopular cousin, “third-party doctrine,” with a few Justices in open revolt. These fissures hint at the Court’s openness to a new approach. Unfortunately, no viable alternatives appear on the horizon. The Justices themselves offer little in the way of a replacement. And scholars’ proposals exhibit the same complexity, subjectivity, and illegitimacy that pervade the status quo. This Article proposes a shift toward simplicity. Buried underneath the doctrinal complexity of the past fifty years is a straightforward constitutional directive. A three-part formula, derived from the constitutional text, deftly solves the Fourth Amendment “search” conundrums that continue to beguile the Court. This textualist approach offers clarity and legitimacy, both long missing from “search” jurisprudence. And by generating predictable and sensible answers, the proposed framework establishes clear boundaries for police investigation, while incentivizing legislators to add additional privacy protections where needed.
A First Amendment Perspective on the Construction of Third Party Copyright Liability

Third-party copyright liability raises specific First Amendment problems that remain relatively unexplored. Among other things, such liability separates the danger of liability from the benefits of speaking, making key actors prone to careless censorship of speech. This Article applies the First Amendment to third-party copyright liability by drawing lessons from the famous cases of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. It concludes that vicarious liability should be sharply curtailed, and that the application of presumed damages is constitutionally problematic in many contributory liability cases.
A Fugitive from the Camp of the Conquerors: The Revival of Equal Sovereignty Doctrine in Shelby County v. Holder

* Associate Professor of Law, Jindal Global Law School, National Capitol Region of Delhi India; Executive Director of the Centre on Public Law and Jurisprudence (CPLJ). LL.M., New York University School of Law (2001). JD, Northeastern University School of Law (2000); B.A. Hons. (Social and Critical Theory), New College of Florida. Thanks to Professors Priya Gupta and Rehan Abeyratne for detailed comments and special thanks to Prof. Anthony Paul Farley, who not only invited me to participate in this symposium, but also introduced me to the area of election law a decade a half ago when I assisted with research that culminated in a now-classic article about Shaw v. Reno.
Let Justice Be Done, Though the Heavens May Fall: The Law of Freedom

In May 1772 Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench in England, heard preliminary arguments in the case of James Somerset, a Virginia slave who claimed his freedom under English common law. Charles Stewart, Somerset's master, wanted to send the slave to Jamaica to be sold. Somerset sought a writ of habeas corpus to escape this fate. This action brought the legality of slavery before the highest court in Great Britain.This case would serve as the precedent for freeing slaves in a number of jurisdictions outside of Great Britain. Yet, Somerset did not bring immediate freedom to all slaves in England; as late as the 1830s at least some blacks were probably enslaved in Great Britain. And, Somerset surely had little immediate impact on most of the Empire, where slavery existed for another half century.
Robustly Optimal Auctions with Unknown Resale Opportunities

The standard revenue-maximizing auction discriminates against a priori stronger bidders so as to reduce their information rents. We show that such discrimination is no longer optimal when the auction’s winner may resell to another bidder, and the auctioneer has non-Bayesian uncertainty about such resale opportunities. We identify a “worst-case” resale scenario, in which bidders’ values become publicly known after the auction and losing bidders compete Bertrand-style to buy the object from the winner. With this form of resale, misallocation no longer reduces the information rents of the high-value bidder, as he could still secure the same rents by buying the object in resale. Under regularity assumptions, we show that revenue is maximized by a version of the Vickrey auction with bidder-specific reserve prices, first proposed by Ausubel and Cramton (2004). The proof of optimality involves constructing Lagrange multipliers on a double continuum of binding non-local incentive constraints.
TAX COMPLIANCE AS A COORDINATION GAME

This paper uses laboratory experiments to investigate compliance behavior when returns are selected for audit based upon the deviation of each individual’s tax report from the average report of all other taxpayers. Our experimental results indicate that individuals find it difficult to coordinate on the zero-compliance equilibrium. However, pre-game communication that mimics information-sharing provided by tax guides provides a mechanism that allows such coordination. Nevertheless, the tax authority is able to overcome this taxpayer coordination by a subtle change is its audit rule, a change that targets the audits in a different way without increasing the number of audits.
Current account norms in natural resource rich and capital scarce economies

Abstract The permanent income hypothesis implies that frictionless open economies with exhaustible natural resources should save abroad most of their resource windfalls and, therefore, feature current account surpluses. Resource rich developing countries (RRDCs), on the other hand, face substantial development needs and tight external borrowing constraints. By relaxing these constraints and providing a key financing source for public investment, resource windfalls might then be associated with current account deficits or at least low surpluses. In this paper, we develop a neoclassical model with private and public investment and several pervasive features in RRDCs, including absorptive capacity constraints, inefficiencies in investment, borrowing constraints, and capital scarcity. We use the model to study the role of investment and these frictions in shaping the current account dynamics under windfalls. Since consumption and investment decisions are optimal, the model also serves to analyze current account norms (benchmarks). We apply the model to the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa and discuss how our results can be used to inform external sustainability analyses in RRDCs.
The Euro Area Crisis: Need for a Supranational Fiscal Risk Sharing Mechanism?

The aim of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area and whether a supranational fiscal risk sharing mechanism could insure countries against very severe downturns. Using an unbalanced panel of 15 euro area countries over the period 1979–2010, the results of the paper show that: (i) the effectiveness of risk sharing mechanisms in the euro area is significantly lower than in existing federations (such as the U.S. and Germany) and (ii) it falls sharply in severe downturns just when it is needed most; (iii) a supranational fiscal stabilization mechanism, financed by a relatively small contribution, would be able to fully insure euro area countries against very severe, persistent and unanticipated downturns.
A veil of tax exemption?: A proposal for the continuation of federal tax-exempt status for "nonprofit" hospitals.

Nonprofit, or tax-exempt, hospitals have been increasingly scrutinized in recent decades by the American public and government officials due to their tax exemption. A majority of this criticism stems from the notion that these hospitals are providing community benefits that are significantly less than the value of their tax exemption. It would be ill-conceived to simply cease the tax exemption extended to hospitals due to the potential dire repercussions. Rather than considering the cessation of hospital tax exemption, the standard by which tax-exempt hospitals qualify for their exempt status should be changed from the current community benefit standard to a measured community benefit standard. Adopting the measured community benefit standard described would improve the quality and quantity of benefits provided, increase public transparency as far as the amount and nature of community benefits procured, augment hospital autonomy, and incentivize hospitals to provide benefits in new ways.
Lattice thermal transport in two-dimensional alloys and fractal heterostructures.

Engineering thermal transport in two dimensional materials, alloys and heterostructures is critical for the design of next-generation flexible optoelectronic and energy harvesting devices. Direct experimental characterization of lattice thermal conductivity in these ultra-thin systems is challenging and the impact of dopant atoms and hetero-phase interfaces, introduced unintentionally during synthesis or as part of deliberate material design, on thermal transport properties is not understood. Here, we use non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to calculate lattice thermal conductivity of $${\mathrm {(Mo|W)Se_2}}$$ monolayer crystals including $${\mathrm {Mo}}_{1-x}{\mathrm {W}}_x{\mathrm {Se_2}}$$ alloys with substitutional point defects, periodic $${\mathrm {MoSe_2}|\mathrm {WSe_2}}$$ heterostructures with characteristic length scales and scale-free fractal $${\mathrm {MoSe_2}}|{\mathrm {WSe_2}}$$ heterostructures. Each of these features has a distinct effect on phonon propagation in the crystal, which can be used to design fractal and periodic alloy structures with highly tunable thermal conductivities. This control over lattice thermal conductivity will enable applications ranging from thermal barriers to thermoelectrics.
Free trade agreements versus customs unions

Until NAFTA, analyses of preferential trading arrangements began by assuming a customs union with a common external tariff, and the differences between customs unions and free trade agreements (FTAs) have been littie analyzed. This paper points to some of the differences between FTAs and customs unions, and shows that on welfare grounds a customs union is always Pareto-superior to an FTA. Moreover, the political economy of FTAs will lead to more opposition to further multilateral trade liberalization than will customs unions.
Predicting failure in the commercial banking industry

The ability to predict bank failure has become much more important since the mortgage foreclosure crisis began in 2007. The model proposed in this study uses proxies for the regulatory standards embodied in the so-called CAMELS rating system, as well as several local or national economic variables to produce a model that is robust enough to forecast bank failure for the entire commercial bank industry in the United States. This model is able to predict failure (survival) accurately for commercial banks during both the Savings and Loan crisis and the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Other important results include the insignificance of several factors proposed in the literature, including total assets, real price of energy, currency ratio and the interest rate spread.
The Impact of Internet Referral Services on a Supply Chain

In many industries, Internet referral services, hosted either by independent third-party infomediaries or by manufacturers, serve as digitally enabled lead generators in electronic markets, directing consumer traffic to downstream retailers in a distribution network. This reshapes the extended enterprise from the traditional network of upstream manufacturers and downstream retailers to include midstream third-party and manufacturer-owned referral services in the supply chain. We model competition between retailers in a supply chain with such digitally enabled institutions and consider their impact on the optimal contracts among the manufacturer, referral intermediary, and the retailers. Offline, retailers face a higher customer discovery cost. In return, they can engage in price discrimination based on consumer valuations. Online, they save on the discovery costs but lose the ability to identify consumer valuations. This critical trade-off drives firms' equilibrium strategies. We derive the optimal contracts for different entities in the supply chain and highlight how these contracts change with the entry of independent and manufacturer-owned referral services. The establishment of a referral service is a strategic decision by the manufacturer. It leads to diversion of supply chain profit from a third-party infomediary to the manufacturer. Further, it enables the manufacturer to respond to an infomediary, by giving itself greater flexibility in setting the unit wholesale fee to the profit-maximizing level. Both third-party and manufacturer-sponsored referral services play a critical role in enabling retailers to discriminate across consumers' different valuations. Retailers use online referral services to screen out low-valuation consumers and sell only to high-valuation consumers in the online channel. Our model thus endogenously derives a correlation between consumer valuation and online purchase behavior. Finally, we show that under some circumstances, it is too costly for the manufacturer to eliminate the referral infomediary.
A Note on Settlements under the Contingent Fee Method of Compensating Lawyers

Abstract It is commonly thought that a lawyer working under a contingent fee arrangement has an excessive motive—relative to his client’s interest—to settle the case, leading to a lower-than-desirable settlement amount and a high settlement rate. The conventional analysis that generates this conclusion omits an important consideration—that if the case were to go to trial, the lawyer would spend an inadequate amount of time on it. We demonstrate that once this effect is taken into account, the lawyer could have an insufficient motive to settle, the opposite of what is usually believed. Specifically, the lawyer’s settlement demand could be too high and the resulting settlement rate too low.
Migration in the UNFCCC Workstream on Loss and Damage: An Assessment of Alternative Framings and Conceivable Responses

Discourses on ‘climate migration’ have played an instrumental role in initiating negotiations on loss and damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Yet, to date, the framing of climate migration has not been clear: it has been considered as a tool for reducing loss and damage (hence essentially a form of adaptation) or, alternatively, as a source of loss and damage for the migrants or for other concerned communities. Moreover, proposed approaches to address climate migration as a form of loss and damage have extended beyond compensation, and remain controversial among developed nations. In the highly politicized field of migration governance, however, this article submits that policy support and guidance in addressing loss and damage could prompt dangerous forms of political interference, such as the imposition of a Western objective of containing migrants to the Global South. It is thus suggested that top-down migration policies may not help vulnerable nations who face loss and damage in the context of climate migration.
Topological resolutions in K(2)‐local homotopy theory at the prime 2

We provide a topological duality resolution for the spectrum $E_2^{h\mathbb{S}_2^1}$, which itself can be used to build the $K(2)$-local sphere. The resolution is built from spectra of the form $E_2^{hF}$ where $E_2$ is the Morava spectrum for the formal group of a supersingular curve at the prime $2$ and $F$ is a finite subgroup of the automorphisms of that formal group. The results are in complete analogy with the resolutions of Goerss, Henn, Mahowald, and Rezk at the prime $3$, but the methods are of necessity very different. As in the prime $3$ case, the main difficulty is in identifying the top fiber; to do this, we make calculations using Henn's centralizer resolution.
Crisis Poison Pills

We show that a large number of firms adopt poison pills during periods of market turmoil. Specifically, during the coronavirus pandemic, many firms adopted poison pills following declines in valuations, and stock prices increased upon the announcement of firms' poison pill adoption. Stock price increases are driven by (1) firms in which activist shareholders acquire ownership stakes and (2) firms in industries that had high exposure to the crisis. Likewise, we find a positive reaction to pills with provisions directed at stalling activists' interventions. Our results suggest that crisis pills that target potentially disruptive ownership changes may benefit current shareholders. © 2020 The Author(s).
The time structure of production in the US, 2002–2009

The US time structure of production during the 2002 through 2009 business cycle is characterized empirically using industry-level input-output data. An industry’s total industry output requirement (TIOR) is proposed as a metric for “roundaboutness”. I find that the time structure of production lengthened following the Federal Reserve’s 2002 expansionary deviation from the Taylor rule and then contracted during the Great Recession. Value added growth in the most-roundabout of US industries accelerated relative to that of the least-roundabout industries. Heading into the Great Recession, value-added growth in the most-roundabout industries contracted early and turned negative in 2007 while value-added growth in the least-roundabout industries remained positive until 2009. The stylized facts of the time structure of production are consistent with Austrian Business Cycle Theory.
Law’s Knowledge: Science for Justice in Legal Settings

Legal developments following Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc indicate a growing need to reevaluate the decision’s fundamental assumptions about law, science, and their interactions.I argue that in Daubert and two successor cases, the Supreme Court misconceived both the nature of scientific practice and its links to legal fact-finding. The decisions endorsed a separatist model of law and science, presupposing a sharper boundary between the institutions than exists or should exist.A better approach is to recognize that law and science are both knowledge-generating institutions, but that fact-making serves different functions in these two settings. The important question for the law is not how judges can best do justice to science, but rather how courts can better render justice under conditions of uncertainty and ignorance.
PROBING QUANTUM GENERAL RELATIVITY THROUGH EXACTLY SOLUBLE MIDI-SUPERSPACES II: POLARIZED GOWDY MODELS

Canonical quantization of the polarized Gowdy midi-superspace with a 3-torus spatial topology is carried out. As in an earlier work on the Einstein–Rosen cylindrical waves, symmetry reduction is used to cast the original problem in four-dimensional spacetimes to a three-dimensional setting. To our knowledge, this is the first complete, systematic treatment of the Gowdy model in the geometrodynamical setting.
Socio-Econo-Engineering: What is the Right Dose of Capitalism Regarding Fertility? Recommendations How to Use Capitalism for Population Control and How to Avert the Falling Rate of Fertility in Capitalist Territories

Based on a 180 country strong worldwide data set and cross sectional correlation studies, this paper outlines that hallmark pillars of capitalism are all negatively associated with fertility rates. The 2017 Economic Freedom Index is significantly negatively correlated with fertility rates around the globe. Based on a 139 country strong worldwide dataset on industrialization as measured by the UNIDO in the Industrialization Intensity Index of 2014 and fertility rates, a highly significant negative relation is found between industrialization and fertility rates around the world. Urban areas around the world tend to have higher fertility rates and access to markets within rural communities lowers fertility rates measured by the World Bank Rural Access Index for 64 countries around the world. The inverse relation of economic freedom and fertility was also found for 50 U.S. states based on the 2017 Economic Freedom Index and fertility rates in the United States.
Select the valid and relevant moments: An information-based LASSO for GMM with many moments

Abstract This paper studies the selection of valid and relevant moments for the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. For applications with many candidate moments, our asymptotic analysis accommodates a diverging number of moments as the sample size increases. The proposed procedure achieves three objectives in one-step: (i) the valid and relevant moments are distinguished from the invalid or irrelevant ones; (ii) all desired moments are selected in one step instead of in a stepwise manner; (iii) the parameters of interest are automatically estimated with all selected moments as opposed to a post-selection estimation. The new method performs moment selection and efficient estimation simultaneously via an information-based adaptive GMM shrinkage estimation, where an appropriate penalty is attached to the standard GMM criterion to link moment selection to shrinkage estimation. The penalty is designed to signal both moment validity and relevance for consistent moment selection. We develop asymptotic results for the high-dimensional GMM shrinkage estimator, allowing for non-smooth sample moments and weakly dependent observations. For practical implementation, this one-step procedure is computationally attractive.