cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pennies for Your Thoughts: Costly Product Consideration and Purchase Quantity Thresholds

Costly product consideration reduces consumer demand for variety and intensifies competition at the extensive margin.
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics: A Critical Reassessment

The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics is part of the Court’s recent quartet of patent eligibility decisions, which also includes Bilski v. Kappos, Mayo v. Prometheus and Alice v. CLS Bank. Each of these decisions has significantly shaped the contours of patent eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act in ways that have been both applauded and criticized. The Myriad case, however, was significant beyond its impact on Sec-tion 101 jurisprudence. Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about Myriad is that it meant so many different things to so many different people. It was seen, and tried, as a case impacting patient rights, access to healthcare, scientific freedom, and human dignity. In this article, portions of which will appear in a forthcoming book, I offer a close textual analysis of the Myriad decision, responding to both its critics and supporters. I then situate Myriad within the larger context of biotechnology patenting, the commercialization of publicly funded university research and the U.S. healthcare system. I conclude with observations about the ways that cases like Myriad exemplify the manner in which the common law evolves, particularly in areas of rapid technological change.
Exchange Rates and Casualties During the First World War

Abstract I estimate two factor models of Swiss exchange rates during the First World War. I have data for five of the primary belligerents: Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and Austria–Hungary. At the outbreak of the war, these nations suspended convertibility of their currencies into gold with the promise that after the war each would restore convertibility at the old par. However, once convertibility was suspended, the value of each currency depended on the outcome of the war. From these exchange rates I extract a common trend and a common factor. Movements in the common trend are consistent with the quantity theory of money. The common factor contains information on contemporaries’ expectations about the war's resolution. This common factor and its innovations are correlated with time series on soldiers killed, wounded, and taken prisoner.
Automation, Speed, and Stock Market Quality: The NYSE’s Hybrid

Automation and trading speed are increasingly important aspects of competition among financial markets. Yet we know little about how changing a market's automation and speed affects the cost of immediacy and price discovery, two key dimensions of market quality. At the end of 2006 the New York Stock Exchange introduced its Hybrid Market, increasing automation and reducing the execution time for market orders from 10 seconds to less than one second. We find that the change raises the cost of immediacy (bid-ask spreads) because of increased adverse selection and reduces the noise in prices, making prices more efficient.
Equity Trading in the 21st Century

The US equity market has changed dramatically in recent years. Increasing automation and the entry of new trading platforms have resulted in intense competition among trading platforms.Despite these changes, traders still face the same challenges as before. They seek to minimize the total cost of trading, including commissions, bid/ask spreads, and market impact. New technologies allow traders to implement traditional strategies more effectively. For example, dark pools and indications of interest are just an updated form of tactics that NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) floor traders used to search for counterparties while minimizing the exposure of their clients' trading interest to prevent front running.Virtually every measurable dimension of US equity market quality has improved. Execution speeds and retail commissions have fallen. Bid-ask spreads have fallen and remain low, although they spiked upward along with volatility during the recent financial crisis. Market depth has increased. Studies of institutional transactions costs find US costs among the lowest in the world. Unlike during the Crash of 1987, the US equity market mechanism handled the increase in trading volume and volatility without disruption. However, our markets lack a market-wide risk management system that would deal with computer-generated chaos in real time, and our regulators should address this."Make or take" pricing, the charging of access fees to market orders that "take" liquidity and paying rebates to limit orders that "make" liquidity, causes distortions that should be corrected. Such charges are not reflected in the quotations used for the measurement of best execution. Direct access by nonbrokers to trading platforms requires appropriate risk management. Front running orders in correlated securities should be banned.
Bringing Nuremberg Home: Justice Jackson's Path Back to Buffalo, October 4, 1946

As a young man early in the 20th century, Robert H. Jackson lived and practiced law in Buffalo, New York, and developed strong ties to that leading United States city, its people, its legal profession and its University.By the mid-1940s, Jackson’s life path reached high levels in U.S. government, including acclaimed service as Solicitor General, as Attorney General, and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. In spring 1945 as Hitler’s Germany was being defeated militarily, President Truman appointed Justice Jackson to represent the U.S. in what became the international prosecution and adjudication, in Nuremberg, of the principal Nazi war criminals. During Jackson’s 1945-46 service as U.S. chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, he was away from the U.S. and missed an entire Supreme Court term.In fall 1946, Justice Jackson returned from Nuremberg to the Supreme Court by way of Buffalo. At the invitation of the University of Buffalo (UB) as it celebrated its centennial, Jackson accepted an honorary degree, the first it had ever awarded. Jackson then delivered, at the centennial’s closing convocation, an address explicating his just-completed work at Nuremberg. Jackson described the Nuremberg trial as a significant step in global education and international law development and he discussed its connection to national systems of constitutional law. Although Jackson’s 1946 UB address was widely published and discussed in its era, it was not published in a law journal and, over the years, it was generally forgotten. On October 4, 2011, SUNY Buffalo Law School devoted its prominent annual James McCormick Mitchell Lecture to a program commemorating Justice Jackson’s 1946 UB centennial address. This Essay, based on a Mitchell Lecture that was part of that 65th anniversary program, traces Jackson’s path, including his law practice and friendships in Buffalo and his sojourns from there to Washington to Nuremberg and, in October 1946, back to Buffalo. The Essay describes UB’s spring 1946 offer to Jackson of an honorary degree; his initial acceptance; his subsequent offer to withdraw after he created, in June 1946, public controversy about Supreme Court justice ethics; UB’s reaffirmation of its decision to honor Jackson; his speech writing as he waited for the Nuremberg judgment; his last-minute travel from Nuremberg to Buffalo; and the 1946 UB centennial events that culminated in his significant address.This Essay and other components growing out of SUNY Buffalo’s 2011 Mitchell Lecture program — an introductory Essay by Professors Alfred S. Konefsky and Tara J. Melish; Justice Robert H. Jackson’s 1946 centennial address; and Mitchell Lectures by Professors Eric L. Muller and Mary L. Dudziak — are published in Volume 60 of the Buffalo Law Review (in print and online). The Konefsky & Melish, Muller, and Dudziak essays also are posted on SSRN.
Information Markets and the Comovement of Asset Prices

Traditional asset pricing models predict that covariance between prices of difierent assets should be lower than what we observe in the data. This model generates high covariance within a rational expectations framework by introducing markets for information about asset payofis. When information is costly, rational investors will not buy information about all assets; they will learn about a subset. Because information production has high flxed costs, competitive producers charge more for low-demand information than for high-demand information. A price that declines in quantity makes investors want to purchase a common subset of information. If investors price many assets using a common subset of information, then a shock to one signal is passed on as a common shock to many asset prices. These common shocks to asset prices generate ‘excess covariance.’ The cross-sectional and time-series properties of asset price covariance are consistent with this explanation.
Strategic basins of attraction, the path dominance core, and network formation games

Given the preferences of players and the rules governing network formation, what networks are likely to emerge and persist? And how do individuals and coalitions evaluate possible consequences of their actions in forming networks? To address these questions we introduce a model of network formation whose primitives consist of a feasible set of networks, player preferences, the rules of network formation, and a dominance relation on feasible networks. The rules of network formation may range from noncooperative, where players may only act unilaterally, to cooperative, where coalitions of players may act in concert. The dominance relation over feasible networks incorporates not only player preferences and the rules of network formation but also assumptions concerning the degree of farsightedness of players. A specification of the primitives induces an
CFOs and CEOs: Who have the most influence on earnings management?

This study examines the association between chief financial officer (CFO) equity incentives and earnings management. Chief executive officer (CEO) equity incentives have been shown to be associated with accruals management and the likelihood of beating analyst forecasts (Bergstresser and Philippon, 2006; Cheng and Warfield, 2005). Because CFOs’ primary responsibility is financial reporting, CFO equity incentives should play a stronger role than those of the CEO in earnings management. We find that the magnitude of accruals and the likelihood of beating analyst forecasts are more sensitive to CFO equity incentives than to those of the CEO. Our evidence supports the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new disclosure requirement on CFO compensation. & 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
How do analysts interpret management range forecasts

Range forecasts have evolved to be the most common form of management forecasts. Prior studies typically use the midpoint to evaluate analyst reaction to range forecasts, implicitly assuming that analysts place equal weights on the upper and the lower bounds of management range forecasts. We empirically test this restrictive assumption and provide strong evidence of unequal weights – analysts place significantly more (less) weight on the lower (upper) bound of forecast ranges. Moreover, such overweight on the lower bound is more pronounced when analysts face higher ambiguity, consistent with the “max–min” axiom, which predicts that decision-makers tend to assign higher probability to the worst-case scenario when facing ambiguity. Further tests show that “optimal revisions” with perfect foresight of actual earnings also overweight the lower bound.
On animal spirits and economic decisions: Value-at-Risk and Value-within-Reach as measures of risk and return

Abstract Let us suppose that presently unimagined is possible, that “the unexpected may happen” ( Marshall (1920) . Principles of economics , McMillan, London, p. 347). Then “human decisions affecting the future, whether personal, political or economic, cannot depend on strict mathematical expectation since the basis for making such calculations does not exist” ( Keynes (1936) . The general theory of employment, interest and money, Harcourt Brace, New York, NY, pp. 162–163) and “individual initiative will only be adequate when reasonable calculation is supplemented and supported by animal spirits” ( Keynes (1936) . The general theory of employment, interest and money , Harcourt Brace, New York, NY, p. 162)—by “a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction” ( Keynes (1936) . The general theory of employment, interest and money , Harcourt Brace, New York, NY, p. 161). It is intended here to examine an investment's Value-at-Risk as a reasonable calculation of the worst threat an action appears to make possible, and its return counterpart, referred to as the investment's Value-within-Reach, as a reasonable calculation of the best hope an action appears to offer. In exploring the extension of the Value-at-Risk approach from applications to investments in financial assets to applications to investments in real assets, the properties of Value-at-Risk as a risk measure are reviewed. Recognizing that Value-at-Risk focuses exclusively on downside risk, a complementary set of properties is specified which is shown to be necessary and sufficient for the acceptance of Value-within-Reach as a measure of return. This note concludes with remarks on a distribution's focus-values, consisting of the distribution's Value-at-Risk and Value-within-Reach, as reasonable calculation of a course of action's risk and return.
The Compatibility of Patent Law and the Internet

intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and technological work. ' 49 The rule's asserted justification is that certain basic building blocks of science and technology ought not to be patentable because they are central to further innovation and ought to be freely available. Applying this rule, the Court concluded that the method was not patentable because it was an abstract concept as well as a basic building block and because a patent on the method would wholly preempt any use of the concept, useful only in computers. 50 Benson's rule led to a next wave of software patents-for inventions of classic patentable classes of matter-most pertinently industrial processes in which software played a role and machines containing software as an integral part. In 1982, in Diamond v. Diehr,51 the Supreme Court approved of the patentability of a process of the former type to calculate the optimal time for curing rubber, using in part a computer employing Arrhenius's equation.52 The Court noted that the patentee was not seeking to preempt all uses of the equation, but rather to embed the algorithm as a component in an industrial process just to cure synthetic rubber.53 In 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit-the appellate court with exclusive jurisdiction over almost all patent appeals54-held that software inventions claimed as parts of a general-purpose computer constituted patentable subject matter as well, because they produce "'a useful, concrete and tangible result.' 55 The Federal Circuit revisited this decision in 2009 in In 45. Eli Lilly & Co. v. Barr Labs., Inc., 251 F.3d 955, 963 (Fed. Cir. 2001). 46. 35 U.S.C. § 154(a). 47. 409 U.S. 63 (1972). 48. Id. at 71-72. 49. Id. at 67. 50. Id. at 68-72. 51. 450 U.S. 175 (1981).
Private and Public Investments in Biomedical Research.

Recent policy attention has focused on proposals to reduce prices for drugs that have received public funding. From an implementation perspective, such policies rely on public disclosure of government support for research. In this paper, we highlight two conceptual problems with past attempts to measure these public disclosures and construct a new dataset that corrects for these problems. Our corrected measures suggest that underreporting of public research support is less of an issue than previously thought.
Towards a Constructive Public-Private Partnership to Enforce Competition Law.

Virtually every jurisdiction is considering the most appropriate role for private rights of actions for damages for competition violations. The United States is in the midst of reexamining these issues in the context of the Antitrust Modernization Commission created by Congress. The European Commission is nearing the conclusion of its lengthy review of the proper role of private damage actions in member state courts. Other jurisdictions both new and old to competition enforcement are wrestling with whether and how to implement effective private enforcement. Some private rights of actions are a necessary compliment to the public enforcement of competition law, but that the precise shape and extent of those rights is heavily dependent on the unique law, history, judiciary, and legal culture of each jurisdiction. At a minimum, some form of damage action for indirect purchasers and some method of class action or other form of aggregate litigation is necessary to have an effective private damage right. It is most ironic that the United States is seeking to restrict those rights of actions precisely at the same time that most of the rest of the world is seeking to expand private rights of actions to supplement existing public enforcement regimes. Neither public or private enforcement should "monopolize" competition law, but must work together to deter, detect, punish, and compensate victims of unlawful anticompetitive conduct.
Changes in the Value of Life, 1940-1980

We present the first nationwide value of life estimates for the United States at more than one point in time. Our estimates are for every ten years between 1940 and 1980, a period when declines in fatal accident rates were historically unprecedented. Our estimated elasticity of value of life with respect to per capita GNP is 1.5 to 1.7. We illustrate the importance of rising value of life for policy evaluation by examining the benefits of improved longevity since 1900. Our estimated elasticity implies that the current marginal increase in longevity is more valuable than the large increase in the first half of the twentieth century.
The objectives of financial reporting: a historical survey and analysis

This article is a survey and analysis of the succession of writings on the objectives of financial reporting during the past 90 years. Its aim is to contribute towards an understanding of the origi...
The Margins of Global Sourcing: Theory and Evidence from U.S. Firms

This paper studies the extensive and intensive margins of rms’ global sourcing decisions. First, it presents three new facts on U.S. rms’ import behavior that highlight the importance of the extensive margin in explaining cross-sectional variation in U.S. import volumes. These facts motivate the development of a quantiable multi-country global sourcing model with heterogeneous rms, in which rms self-select into importing based on their productivity and country-specic variables (wages, trade costs, and technology). The model delivers a simple
'Aux Armes, Citoyens!:' Time for Law Schools to Lead the Movement for Free and Open Access to the Law

This article is a manifesto that outlines the principles of the open access to legal information movement and sounds a call to action for law schools to become leaders in that movement. The article surveys the present legal information environment, reviews the development of computer-assisted legal information and the long-term future of book-based legal research, and discusses the problems inherent in a system where two large 'information resource' corporations control access to legal information. After considering the need for open access to the law for pro se litigants, scholars from outside the legal academy, and practicing lawyers, after considering and rejecting courts and legislators as viable guarantors of open access, and with the model of the clinical legal community's tradition of engaged scholarship as an example, the article concludes that America's law schools have both the opportunity and obligation to provide an alternative to the commercial legal information sites and make America's law freely available to all. The article ends with a series of proposed principles that might guide such an open-access legal information site.
You'll Never Work (Or Play) Here Again: A Lingering Question in Title IX Retaliation Claims Brought by Coaches and Athletes After Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education

Schools and colleges have made enormous progress toward gender equity in sports in the forty years since the enactment of Title IX. Nevertheless, problems remain, including a tendency to retaliate against whistleblowers who complain about unequal treament of male and female athletes. Perhaps the best-known Title IX whistleblower in the United states is Roderick Jackson, a girls' high school basketball coach whose complaints to superiors about mistreatment of his team resulted in the loss of his coaching job. But he was vindicated when the United states Supreme Court held in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education that the private right of action implied by Title IX encompasses claims of retaliation against whistleblowers. A lingering question after the Jackson decision is whether the law will protect from retaliation a complainant who mistakenly contends that his or her institution has violated Title IX. This article considers alternative answers to that question and recommends using either a contextual reasonableness or good faith standard, instead of the existing reasonable belief standard, to determine whether a plaintiff in a Title IX retaliation action honestly thought the conduct originally complained of was unlawful. Either recommended alternative reflects the youth and lack of legal sophistication of many Title IX complainants, and the remedial purpose of Title IX, better than the reasonable belief standard does.
The interaction between public and private governments: An empirical analysis

Abstract Private governments, found in planned developments and condominiums, are increasingly common methods of delivering local services to residents. This paper provides the first empirical study of their impact on local public finance. A novel data set of homeowners' associations allows construction of a panel of private governments in California. Panel methods test whether public expenditures respond to private government prevalence. Estimates indicate that local governments lower spending moderately in response to private government activity, consistent with strategic substitution. The paper then examines various mechanisms to explain this downloading and shows that the substitutability between public and private providers is key to which services are downloaded. Evidence also suggests that the economies of scale in service production in small cities temper the offloading of public services to private governments.
Peer firms in relative performance evaluation

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) in chief executive officer (CEO) compensation provides insurance against external shocks and yields a more informative measure of CEO actions. I argue that empirical evidence on the use of RPE is mixed because previous studies rely on a misspecified peer group. External shocks and flexibility in responding to the shocks are functions of, for example, the firm's technology, the complexity of the organization, and the ability to access external credit, which depend on firm size. When peers are composed of similar industry-size firms, evidence is consistent with the use of RPE in CEO compensation.
Differences of opinion, endogenous liquidity, and asset prices

This paper studies how investors' differences of opinion affect liquidity and asset prices. In our economy, excessively optimistic investors are subject to an endogenous funding constraint that prevents default due to ex-ante-limited commitment. When the funding constraint binds, optimists use their savings to increase their consumption share, deterring default. This allows them to place speculative trades, increasing market liquidity. Their losses on these trades make them prone to default, leading to a renewed binding of the funding constraint. This feedback between funding illiquidity, disagreement, and market liquidity is consistent with several empirical features of liquidity and financial asset prices.
Universal Health Care, American Pragmatism, and the Ethics of Health Policy: Questioning Political Efficacy

In this essay, I explore how thinking about the ethics of health policy is distinct from thinking either about ethics or about health policy. This is because a policy that seems ethically optimal may be pragmatically untenable, while a pragmatically tenable policy may be ethically problematic. If ought implies can, then some kind of pragmatic value seems required for any given policy choice to be relevant in policy discourse. I consider one particularly volatile and contentious health policy - universal health care - in light of the tension between ethics and American pragmatism, and conclude that justifying the policy on the basis of a theory of human needs is unlikely to be successful in policy discourse. Moreover, I challenge the common move from the existence of such needs to a theory of rights to such care. All this is not to assail a policy of universal health care per se, but simply to argue that, from a pragmatic (policy) perspective, grounding its justification in a theory of need may be unlikely to persuade stakeholders not already inclined to support such a policy.
The economics of club bidding and value creation

Abstract Many acquisitions are conducted by clubs, i.e., coalitions of acquirers that submit a single bid. We present a novel analysis of club bidding where the club creates value by aggregating, at least partially, bidders' values. We show that club formation can lead to higher acquisition prices when the number of bidders is exogenously fixed and large. However, when entry costs require bidders to optimize their participation decisions, club formation acts as an endogenous limit on competition and reduces the target's premium. In contrast, social efficiency with club bidding is always higher. Our findings can reconcile the contradictory evidence on club bidding.
The Laws of Fear

Cognitive and social psychologists have uncovered a number of features of ordinary thinking about risk. Giving particular attention to the work of Paul Slovic, this review-essay explores how an understanding of human cognition bears on law and public policy. The basic conclusion is that people make many mistakes in thinking about risk and that sensible policies, and sensible law, will follow statistical evidence, not ordinary people. The discussion explores the use of heuristics, the effects of cascades, the role of emotions, demographic differences, the role of trust, and the possibility that ordinary people have a special “rationality” distinct from that of experts. Because people are prone to error, what matters, most of the time, is actual risk, not perceived risk. In the late 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency embarked on an ambitious project, designed to compare the views of “the public” and “EPA experts” on the seriousness of environmental problems.1 The project revealed some striking anomalies, for the two groups sharply diverged on some crucial issues. With respect to health risks, the public’s top five concerns included radioactive waste, radiation from nuclear accidents, industrial pollution of waterways, and hazardous waste sites.2 But in the view of EPA experts, not one of these problems deserved a “high” level of concern. Two of the public’s top concerns (nuclear accident radiation and radioactive waste) were not even * Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago. I am grateful to Daniel Kahneman, Martha Nussbaum, and Richard A. Posner for very helpful comments on a previous draft. 1 Counting on Science At EPA, 249 Science 616 (1990).
Is doing good good for you? how corporate charitable contributions enhance revenue growth

This study examines the impact of corporate philanthropy growth on sales growth using a large sample of charitable contributions made by U.S. public companies from 1989 through 2000. Applying Granger causality tests, we find that charitable contributions are significantly associated with future revenue, whereas the association between revenue and future contributions is marginally significant at best. We then identify the mechanism underlying our findings. Our results are particularly pronounced for firms that are highly sensitive to consumer perception, where individual consumers are the predominant customers. In addition, we document a positive relationship between contributions and customer satisfaction. Overall, our evidence suggests that corporate philanthropy, under certain circumstances, furthers firms' economic objectives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A case of mistaken identity: George Stigler, “The Problem of Social Cost,” and the Coase theorem

“The Problem of Social Cost” is rightly credited with helping to launch the economic analysis of law. George Stigler plays a central role in the professional reception of Coase’s work and, in particular, of the idea that came to be known as the Coase theorem. While Coase’s negotiation result was taken up in the scholarly literature not long after the publication of “The Problem of Social Cost,” it was Stigler who gave the theorem its name and introduced it to scores of readers in The Theory of Price (1966). His remaking of Coase’s idea into a “theorem” had significant rhetorical force, which, combined with the challenge that it pose to received thinking about externality problems, both lent credibility to the idea and made it a force to be reckoned with. The present paper analyzes Stigler’s various commentaries on the Coase theorem with a view to getting at both how Stigler understood the theorem and its import and why he exhibited such a fascination with it over the last 30 years of his life.
Emotion and rationality: A critical review and interpretation of empirical evidence.

The relation between emotion and rationality is assessed by reviewing empirical findings from multiple disciplines. Two types of emotional phenomena are examined— incidental emotional states and integral emotional responses—and three conceptions of rationality are considered—logical, material, and ecological. Emotional states influence reasoning processes, are often misattributed to focal objects, distort beliefs in an assimilative fashion, disrupt self-control when intensely negative, but do not necessarily increase risk-taking. Integral emotional responses are often used as proxies for values, and valuations based on these responses exhibit distinct properties: efficiency, consistency, polarization, myopia, scale- insensitivity, and reference-dependence. Emotions seem to promote social and moral behavior. Conjectures about the design features of the affective system that give rise to seeming sources of rationality or irrationality are proposed. It is concluded that any categorical statement about the overall rationality or irrationality of emotion would be misleading.
Internal Capital Markets and Corporate Refocusing

Abstract This paper develops a theory of organization based on the benefits and costs of internal capital markets. A central assumption is that the transaction cost of raising external funds is greater than the cost of internal funds. The benefit of internal resource allocation is that it gives the firm a real option to avoid external capital markets (and the associated deadweight transaction costs) in more states of the world than single-business firms. The cost is that internal resource flexibility exacerbates an overinvestment agency problem. The optimal focus is determined by trading off the benefit of the option against the cost of overinvestment. In this context, we show how the relative efficiency of integration and separation depends ultimately on assignment of control rights over cash flow. Testable implications are derived for the level of divisional investment, the sensitivity of divisional investment to cash flow, and the diversification discount. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D82, G34, L22.
Compensation in the Post‐FIN 48 Period: The Case of Contracting on Tax Performance and Uncertainty

Academic and anecdotal evidence indicates that incentive systems often provide short-term payouts without regard for long-term consequences. New detailed disclosures mandated by FIN No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, enable us to use a tax setting to investigate whether boards adjust performance-based pay for uncertainty. We find managers’ bonus payouts are positively associated with tax performance; however, bonus payouts are lower when measures of ex ante tax uncertainty are higher. Our results are robust to tests of alternative explanations including financial reporting aggressiveness, overall firm risk, and other forms of compensation. Further, we document that the relation between bonus compensation and tax performance has changed in the post-FIN No. 48 period. Specifically, we identify a significant association between bonus payout and GAAP ETR only in the pre-FIN No. 48 period and a significant association between bonus payout and cash ETR only in the post-FIN No. 48 period, suggesting that the relation between compensation and tax avoidance should be examined carefully with particular attention to the post-FIN No. 48 period.
Audit time pressure and earnings quality: An examination of accelerated filings

Abstract Using publicly available data from annual reports, we find that SEC rule changes (33-8128 and 33-8644) that impose time pressure on the audits of registered firms have a negative impact on earnings quality, which we interpret as evidence of lower audit quality. Consistent with our predictions, we find that the 10-K accelerations reduced audit quality only when it actually reduced the number of days from year-end to audit report date, and that this effect was more acute for smaller, accelerated filers and during the initial deadline change (relative to the second). We also provide insights into the quality of these audits by conducting a survey of thirty-two retired audit partners. Survey results underscore the challenges time pressure imposes on receiving and evaluating complex valuations (such as for derivatives, pensions, and goodwill) and resolving audit adjustments.
The Long-Term Effects of Early Life Medicaid Coverage*

In this study, we evaluate how an expansion of Medicaid coverage for pregnant women and infants affected the adult outcomes ofindividuals who gained access to coverage in utero and during the first year oflife. We find that cohorts whose mothers gained eligibilityfor prenatal coverage under Medicaid have lower rates ofchronic conditions as adults and fewer hospitalizations related to diabetes and obesity. We also find that the expansions increased high school graduation rates. Our results indicate that expanding Medicaid prenatal coverage had long-term benefits for the next generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
"Never Again"? German Chemical Corporation Complicity in the Kurdish Genocide

German chemical corporations were complicit in the gassing of Allied troops in World War I and concentration camp prisoners in World War II. The shock of the Holocaust resulted in adoption of the Genocide Convention and the determination to never let this happen again. Genocide, of course, has happened again, but the great irony is that German chemical corporations were once more complicit in the genocide that wiped out thousands of Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq in 1988. Corporations should be criminally liable for their conduct - including genocide. This paper reviews the evidence and makes the case for prosecuting German chemical corporations for their involvement in the Kurdish genocide.
The Social Construction of Sarbanes-Oxley

* Thomas Aquinas Reynolds Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. Thanks to Bill Bratton, Steve Choi, Walter Dellinger, Mitu Gulati, John Coates, David Skeel, Robert Eli Rosen, Mitt Regan, Vicki Jackson, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, workshop participants at Duke and Georgetown, and participants and commentators at the Sarbanes-Oxley symposium at the University of Michigan for valuable comments, and to Michael Cohen for his research assistance. 1. Pub. L. No. 107-204, 116 Stat. 745 (codified in scattered sections of 11, 15, 18, 28 and 29 U.S.C. (Supp. m 2003)).
Schiavo : The Road Not Taken

Using the Schiavo case as a springboard, this article explores how a bioethics process could provide, in some situations, a better way of dealing with dilemmas over withdrawal of life-saving medical treatment. It briefly examines the different kinds of processes that health care facilities have to deal with these problems and focuses on a bioethics consultation/mediation, in which a trained person helps the participants - the health care team, the patient to the extent he or she is able to communicate, the proxy, if any, and the family - to reach a decision on what should be done. It recognizes the risks of such a process and calls for a constrained deference, in which the consultant/mediator will seek to ensure an adequate, open discourse and to deflect the participants from any outcomes that are ethically problematic. It then compares such a process with adjudication, both in terms of process values and likely substantive outcomes. In regard to substance, it distinguishes between those situations in which the patient had provided an advance directive, where his or her wishes should be followed even if the active participants might prefer a different outcome and those where there is no advance directive. In the latter situation, the decision reached by a consensus among the parties should ordinarily be followed, given the values furthered by doing so and the relative lack of certainty regarding what specific outcome the patient would have wanted.
Consumer Protection in the Americas: A Second Wave of American Revolutions?

This article, which draws on the author's experience as a member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organization of American States, focuses on the problem of crafting an appropriate hemispheric regime for the protection of consumer rights. The subject is now a major element in the agenda of the OAS Specialized Conference on Private International Law (know also under its Spanish acronym as the CIDIP process), in part because of the increased salience of the issue in light of increasing e-commerce. The article, based on the author's presentation at a symposium at the St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota on economic development in Latin America, argues that the problem of consumer protection in international transactions in the region needs to be re-conceptualized as a problem in international law an politics. It argues that the important welfare gains that can be achieved through a trade-based approach to consumer protection that avoids implicit subsidies for exporters and disguised discrimination or protectionism in favor of competing domestic producers needs to be coupled explicitly with a socio-political approach that takes advantage of pro-democratic and rule of law-enhancing effects of enhanced consumer protections. The article then argue that, in addition to being normatively compelling, this proposed re-conceptualization is in the foreign policy interest of the U.S. It concludes with an incremental legal strategy for developing this new agenda.
Territorial Tax System Reform and Corporate Financial Policies

We examine the effect of a permanent change to a country corporate income repatriation tax system on corporate financial policies. In 2009, Japan and the United Kingdom switched from a worldwide system to a territorial system for the taxation of repatriated foreign earnings, effectively reducing the tax liabilities of most multinational firms when repatriating earnings. We find that after the change firms accumulate less cash, pay out larger amounts through dividends and share repurchases, and invest less abroad. We do not find that the tax system change has significantly affected domestic investments even when controlling for capital constraints
Situational and trait interactions among goal orientations

Regulatory focus theory has been used to describe and explain a wide range of consumer responses. This goal orientation has been examined both as a chronic difference and a situational variable. Yet, it is unclear how a situational manipulation interacts with the individual’s chronic goal orientation. The present research investigates the potential for interactions and suggests that typical outcomes of regulatory focus are likely to emerge more clearly under circumstances in which promotion focus is manipulated. The studies demonstrate asymmetric effects in the interactions of chronic and situational manipulations of regulatory focus using different manipulations and outcome variables. The implications of these findings are significant for any research involving the manipulation of variables that can also be considered as chronic tendencies.
Representing the Poor and Homeless: Innovations in Advocacy Tackling Homelessness Through Economic Self-Sufficiency

The homeless community is diverse, and the causes of homelessness are complex. As part of a Symposium entitled, "Representing the Poor and Homeless: Innovations in Advocacy Tackling Homelessness through Economic Self-sufficiency," the author discusses the challenges faced by those who attempt to address the needs of homeless people. This essay focuses on policies and innovations in income creation for homeless people. The author advocates for integrated approaches to homelessness prevention and policies that combine housing, income, and social services. In this regard, the author explores economic self-sufficiency through such innovations as microenterprise development, a rapidly growing and innovative strategy in advocacy for the poor, homeless and other persons in need such as dislocated workers and domestic violence survivors. The author also examines innovative job training in the context of supportive housing and/or supportive services and public policy incentives such as tax credits to sustain homelessness advocacy. Finally, the author concludes that an economic self-sufficiency strategy such as microenterprise development is as valuable for homeless people as it is for others when coupled with housing and other supportive services.
2004 Trade Policy Review – The United States

Many of the findings of the seventh Trade Policy Review of the United States are similar to those reached in earlier reviews: the US is unanimously acknowledged as having an open and transparent system; the US economy has remained amongst the world's most competitive, and has continued to support global growth by keeping its import market largely open. This review finds, however, that the US has developed a disturbing pattern of non-compliance with WTO rules. During the period of review the United States enacted policies, most notably the infamous Byrd Amendment and the 2001–02 steel safeguard action, that were found to be clear violations of its WTO obligations. Despite these and other such findings, the United States has obstinately refused to bring its domestic statutes in line with WTO rules. In addition, in recent years the United States’ aggressive pursuit of regional and bilateral initiatives has led many Members to question whether the United States is committed to the multilateral approach espoused by the WTO. Overall, despite the US's many virtues, Member countries expressed concern that the US's stated leadership of and commitment to the WTO is not matched by its actions.
Abortion, physician-assisted suicide and the Constitution: the view from without and within.

The article is an examination of the Supreme Court's constitutional treatment of abortion and physician-assisted suicide and of the societal impact of the Court's constitutional treatment of those issues. The Court has held that the state may not prohibit a woman from having an abortion until the stage of viability has been reached. This means that, as a practical matter, a woman has a constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion and that abortion is now operationally acceptable in American society. Approximately 1.3 million abortions are performed each year, close to 90% of them in the first trimester, and the women obtaining abortions represent a cross-section of women of childbearing age. In contrast, the Court has held that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, including for persons in the end stages of a terminal illness. But in so holding the Court emphasized that people do have a constitutionally protected right to refuse or discontinue lifesaving medical treatment, and when so doing, to receive terminal sedation. Some Justices further indicated that there may be a constitutionally protected right to receive adequate pain medication, even though this may have the effect of hastening inevitable death. In other words, for the terminally ill, in the end stages of their terminal illness, there is a "right to die slowly and under sedation," but there is no "right to die all at once."
CEO risk-taking incentives and relative performance evaluation

This paper examines how changes in CEO risk‐taking incentives are associated with changes in the use of relative performance evaluation (RPE) in CEO contracts. Using a shock to the accounting for executive stock options (FAS 123R), I confirm that risk‐taking incentives and option grants declined following FAS 123R using a within‐firm design, but not a within‐CEO‐firm design. Decreased risk‐taking incentives lead executives to invest in projects with lower systematic risk and can result in reduced incentives to hedge exposure to systematic risk in CEO compensation contracts via RPE. However, CEO relative risk aversion increases with decreases in risk‐taking incentives, potentially increasing incentives to protect CEO wealth from systematic performance via RPE. Testing these competing predictions, I find modest evidence consistent with reduced RPE surrounding FAS 123R, suggesting that when CEO risk‐taking incentives are reduced, so are incentives to shield CEO pay from systematic performance.
Response Mode Effects and Moral Values.

In five studies, we measured the extent to which subjects weight moral product attributes in different response modes. We found that nonprice judgments such as likelihood of purchase ratings were more reflective of expressed moral attitudes than were pricing responses, and that holistic price evaluations were especially unlikely to reflect moral considerations. Post-task ratings confirmed the preference results, as did an experiment controlling for the influence of task goals. Our results have implications for compatibility theories of preference elicitation, the predictability of respondent ratings of attribute unacceptability, and the measurement of utilities for morally charged attributes.
COMPETING CONCEPTIONS OF MODERN DESERT: VENGEFUL, DEONTOLOGICAL, AND EMPIRICAL

The English Criminal Justice Act 1991 was intended to set desert as the dominant principle in sentencing but the failure of the drafters to use language making the explicit led to a serious undermining of the principle in subsequent interpretation and application of the Act by a judiciary who never favored the approach. A conception of desert used by many writers, what might be called “vengeful desert,” is captured in often-quoted biblical phrase: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” The deontological conception of desert focuses not on harm of offense but on the blameworthiness of the offender, as drawn from the arguments and analyses of moral philosophy. Empirical desert, like deontological desert, focuses on the blameworthiness of the offender. But in determining the principles by which punishment is to be assessed, it looks not to philosophical analyses but rather to the community’s intuitions of justice.