cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Integrability theorems and conformally constant Chern scalar curvature metrics in almost Hermitian geometry

The various scalar curvatures on an almost Hermitian manifold are studied, in particular with respect to conformal variations. We show several integrability theorems, which state that two of these can only agree in the Kahler case. Our main question is the existence of almost Kahler metrics with conformally constant Chern scalar curvature. This problem is completely solved for ruled manifolds and in a complementary case where methods from the Chern-Yamabe problem are adapted to the non-integrable case. Also a moment map interpretation of the problem is given, leading to a Futaki invariant and the usual picture from geometric invariant theory.
Plant stem-cell organization and differentiation at single-cell resolution

Plants maintain populations of pluripotent stem cells in shoot apical meristems (SAMs), which continuously produce new aboveground organs. We used single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to achieve an unbiased characterization of the transcriptional landscape of the maize shoot stem-cell niche and its differentiating cellular descendants. Stem cells housed in the SAM tip are engaged in genome integrity maintenance and exhibit a low rate of cell division, consistent with their contributions to germline and somatic cell fates. Surprisingly, we find no evidence for a canonical stem-cell organizing center subtending these cells. In addition, trajectory inference was used to trace the gene expression changes that accompany cell differentiation, revealing that ectopic expression of KNOTTED1 (KN1) accelerates cell differentiation and promotes development of the sheathing maize leaf base. These single-cell transcriptomic analyses of the shoot apex yield insight into the processes of stem-cell function and cell-fate acquisition in the maize seedling and provide a valuable scaffold on which to better dissect the genetic control of plant shoot morphogenesis at the cellular level.
Analysis of regression-discontinuity designs with multiple cutoffs or multiple scores:

In this article, we introduce the Stata (and R) package rdmulti, which consists of three commands (rdmc, rdmcplot, rdms) for analyzing regression-discontinuity (RD) designs with multiple cutoffs or...
Estrogen and sex-dependent loss of the vocal learning system in female zebra finches

Sex hormones alter the organization of the brain during early development and coordinate various behaviors throughout life. In zebra finches, song learning is limited to males, with the associated song learning brain pathways only maturing in males and atrophying in females. While this atrophy can be prevented by treating females with exogenous estrogen during early post-hatch development, the requirement of estrogen during normal male song system development is uncertain. For the first time in songbirds, we administered exemestane, a potent third generation estrogen synthesis inhibitor, from the day of hatching until adulthood in order to reassess the role of estrogen in song circuit development. We examined the behavior, brain anatomy, and transcriptomes of individual song nuclei in these pharmacologically manipulated animals. We found that males with long-term exemestane treatment had diminished male-specific plumage and impaired song learning, but minimal effect on song nuclei sizes and their specialized transcriptome. Consistent with prior findings, females with long-term estrogen treatment retained a functional song system with song nuclei that had specialized gene expression similar, but not identical to males. We also observed that different song nuclei responded to estrogen manipulation differently, with Area X in the striatum being the most altered by estrogen modulation. These findings support the hypothesis that song learning is an ancestral trait in both sexes that was subsequently suppressed in females of some species and that estrogen has come to play a critical role in modulating this suppression as well as refinement of song learning.
Tasting nuclear pasta made with classical molecular dynamics simulations

Nuclear clusters or voids in the inner crust of neutron stars were predicted to have various shapes collectively nicknamed nuclear pasta. The recent review in Ref. [1] by Lopez, Dorso and Frank summarized their systematic investigations into properties especially the morphological and thermodynamical phase transitions of the nuclear pasta within a Classical Molecular Dynamics model, providing further stimuli to find more observational evidences of the predicted nuclear pasta in neutron stars.
Invertible $K(2)$-Local $E$-Modules in $C_4$-Spectra

We compute the Picard group of the category of K(2)–local module spectra over the ring spectrum EhC4, where E is a height 2 Morava E–theory and C4 is a subgroup of the associated Morava stabilizer group. This group can be identified with the Picard group of K(2)–local E–modules in genuine C4–spectra. We show that in addition to a cyclic subgroup of order 32 generated by E∧S1, the Picard group contains a subgroup of order 2 generated by E∧S7+σ, where σ is the sign representation of the group C4. In the process, we completely compute the RO(C4)–graded Mackey functor homotopy fixed point spectral sequence for the C4–spectrum E“.
Heart Block in Unpalliated Complex Adult Congenital Heart Disease: Massive Collateral Burden Precludes Epicardial Pacemaker.

Complete heart block is a common complication for adults with congenital heart disease (CHD). Epicardial pacing is preferred in patients with septal shunting due to risk of thromboembolism. Anatomic changes in complex CHD may preclude surgical epicardial lead placement. Thromboembolism risk reduction in such patients requiring endocardial pacing remains questionable. (Level of Difficulty: Advanced.).
Controlled exciton–plasmon coupling in a mixture of ultrathin periodically aligned single-wall carbon nanotube arrays

We study theoretically the in-plane electromagnetic response and the exciton–plasmon interactions for an experimentally feasible carbon nanotube (CN) film system composed of parallel aligned periodic semiconducting CN arrays embedded in an ultrathin finite-thickness dielectric. For homogeneous single-CN films, the intertube coupling and thermal broadening bring the exciton and interband plasmon resonances closer together. They can even overlap due to the inhomogeneous broadening for films composed of array mixtures with a slight CN diameter distribution. In such systems, the real part of the response function is negative for a broad range of energies (negative refraction band), and the CN film behaves as a hyperbolic metamaterial. We also show that for a properly fabricated two-component CN film, by varying the relative weights of the two constituent CN array components, one can tune the optical absorption profile to make the film transmit or absorb light in the neighborhood of an exciton absorption resonance on-demand.
Learning Representations for Multi-Vehicle Spatiotemporal Interactions with Semi-Stochastic Potential Fields

Reliable representation of multi-vehicle interactions in urban traffic is pivotal but challenging for autonomous vehicles due to the volatility of the traffic environment, such as roundabouts and intersections. This paper describes a semi-stochastic potential field approach to represent multi-vehicle interactions by integrating a deterministic field approach with a stochastic one. First, we conduct a comprehensive evaluation of potential fields for representing multi-agent intersections from the deterministic and stochastic perspectives. For the former, the estimates at each location in the region of interest (ROI) are deterministic, which is usually built using a family of parameterized exponential functions directly. For the latter, the estimates are stochastic and specified by a random variable, which is usually built based on stochastic processes such as the Gaussian process. Our proposed semi-stochastic potential field, combining the best of both, is validated based on the INTERACTION dataset collected in complicated real-world urban settings, including intersections and roundabout. Results demonstrate that our approach can capture more valuable information than either the deterministic or stochastic ones alone. This work sheds light on the development of algorithms in decision-making, path/motion planning, and navigation for autonomous vehicles in the cluttered urban settings.
Perry Drug Stores, Inc.: Accounting and Control Issues for Inventory in a Retail Environment

This case recounts an actual sequence of events that unfolded in the early 1990s. The facts of this case were drawn primarily from two enforcement releases issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (viz., AAER Nos. 1015 and 1037) and from the 1991–1994 annual reports of Perry Drug Stores, Inc. In 1992, Perry Drug Stores ranked as the 14th largest drug store chain in the nation. During that year, Perry's management discovered that the company's inventory was significantly overstated. Physical inventories of Perry's more than 200 retail outlets revealed a $20.3 million inventory shortage, representing 14 percent of the company's book inventory. The company's year‐end book inventory figure was an estimate yielded by the gross profit method. Perry's executives decided not to record a book‐to‐physical inventory adjustment to recognize the shortage during fiscal 1992. Perry's independent auditors were aware of this decision and did not object to it. When the company's 1993 physical inventory confirmed th...
A Dilemma of Doctrinal Design: Rights, Identity and the Work-Family Conflict

In the conversations that take place among my female friends and colleagues, it is difficult to think of a more popular topic than how to balance work and family. In the past year alone, the topic has given rise to several popular books and articles, including Anne-Marie Slaughter’s highly publicized piece in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.”1 It is the perennial question—not just for my generation, but for several generations of women: How are women to balance work with starting and raising a family? Is it possible to have the same career one would have had without having children? Can one achieve the same status as men who are fathers but who are not burdened with the same caretaking expectations? What does it mean to be a good mother? Is that reconcilable with the professional goals we developed and nurtured before the ticking of our biological clocks was so audible in our minds? The quest to balance work and family is clearly about evolving the workplace to allow women more flexibility, but it is also a debate about identity: how we perceive ourselves vis-avis the workplace and the home; who we want to be as professionals and employees; and—for those of us who choose to be—who we want to be as parents. Regardless of how accommodating or progressive workplaces become, the onus will also remain on us—and, for those of us who have partners, on them as well—to strike our own personal
Whistling in Silence: The Implications of Arbitration on Qui Tam Claims Under the False Claims Act

For nearly twenty years, corporate defendants have sought unsuccessfully to use arbitration to roll back protections for whistleblowers suing under federal law. The state and federal judiciaries have long stymied these efforts, on the grounds that defendants cannot force the Government’s claims into the secretive forum of arbitration. In January 2013, this protection came to an end. A federal court ruled for the first time that a whistleblower suing on behalf of the United States must pursue its action in arbitration. Five moths later, this trend continued as federal courts have compelled arbitration of state law qui tam actions. This article argues that while the courts foundered in their reasoning, their holdings were legally correct based on Supreme Court case law and a legislative loophole in the Dodd-Frank Amendments of 2010. As a result, arbitration could fundamentally alter the way that whistleblower actions are investigated and prosecuted, and may blunt what has been described as the “government’s primary litigation tool for recovering losses sustained as the result of fraud.” 1 Andrews: Whistling in Silence: The Implications of Arbitration on Qui Tam Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2015 [Vol. 15: 203, 2015] Whistling in Silence PEPPERDINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION LAW JOURNAL
Structural Violence and Migrant Deaths in Southern Arizona: Data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2013

This article analyzes numeric trends and demographic characteristics of undocumented border crossers (UBCs) who have perished in southern Arizona between 1990 and 2013 in the area covered by the Pi...
Speculative retail trading and asset prices

This paper examines the characteristics and pricing of stocks that are actively traded by speculative retail investors. We find that stocks with high retail trading proportion (RTP) have strong lottery features and they attract retail investors with strong gambling propensity. Furthermore, these stocks tend to be overpriced and earn significantly negative alpha. The average monthly return differential between the extreme RTP quintiles is −0.60%. This negative RTP premium is stronger among stocks that have lottery features or arelocated in regions where people exhibit stronger gambling propensity. Collectively, these results indicate that speculative retail trading affects stock prices.
The man on the moon, immortality, and other millennial myths: the prospects and perils of human genetic engineering.

The year 2000 provides an opportunity to reflect on the past 1000 years, and speculate on human life in the next 1000 years. This exercise forces us to think seriously about what is unique and special about being human, and what human traits must be preserved to preserve humanity itself. Using the major historical events of the past 1000 years, but concentrating on three in the last 50 years, World War II, the moon landing, and the prospect of human genetic engineering, I argue that the major human accomplishment of the past millennium has the development of universal human rights based on human dignity. The misuse of science, most obviously in World War II by the Nazis, but also with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, threatens not only these human rights, but our very survival as a species. Weapons of mass destruction are direct threats. But there are scientific developments that appear much more benign that are actually more likely to result in genocide. The most crucial of these is genetic engineering, and it is suggested that if we are successful in engineering a "superior" human. We constantly compare the new genetics to "putting a man on the moon", but if history is a guide, this genetic engineering will not lead to a sterile publicity stunt like the moon landing, but instead will inevitably lead to genocide: the "inferiors" killing off the "superiors" or vice-versa. Suggestions for international action to avert genetic genocide are made, including an international treaty banning specific "species altering" techniques and species-endangering experiments, complete with an oversight and enforcement mechanism. Specific treaty language remains to be written, but the overall goal is to develop a mechanism to put humans in charge of a science now grown so powerful that its fruits threatens the very survival of our species, rather than simply letting well-intentioned scientists continue to lead us down the path of species suicide in the name of individual immortality.
Stigma Dilution and Over-Criminalization

Criminalizing an act that provides weak signals about a person's productivity and character can dilute the stigma attached to having a criminal record. This reduces the deterrence of serious crimes that do provide strong signals regarding the offender's character. Over-criminalization occurs when the costs associated with reduced deterrence due to stigma dilution off-set potential benefits associated with criminalizing the less harmful act. Identifying conditions under which stigma dilution is likely and comparatively costly allows the determination of factors that affect the desirability of (de)criminalizing various acts. These factors are discussed in the context of marijuana possession offenses to illustrate how over-criminalization may reduce social welfare. The normative desirability of various practices in criminal law are also discussed vis-a-vis their impacts on stigma dilution.
An examination of marketing techniques that influence Millennials' perceptions of whether a product is environmentally friendly

People's concern for the environment is prevalent throughout the world. Businesses have responded by creating and marketing products that are ‘green’ or environmentally friendly. While there have been a variety of studies on green marketing, there has been little academic research on green marketing to Generation Y, also called Gen Y or Millennials. The purpose of this study is to provide a brief review of environmental issues, including examples of past research, and to identify effective marketing techniques that businesses can use in communicating the environmentally friendliness of their products to Millennials. A survey of 602 Millennials was made to gather data for the study. Results indicate that there are marketing techniques that are considerably more effective than others, and that in some cases there are differences between males and females in how these techniques are perceived.
Rebalancing growth in China : a three-handed approach

The present paper is an attempt to define the contours of the right macroeconomic strategy for China. In a nutshell, we believe that the package includes a decrease in saving, with a focus on private saving, an increase in the supply of services, in particular health services, and an appreciation of the RMB. This is why we refer to this strategy as a “three-handed approach”: action on the fiscal and budgetary front, accompanied by currency revaluation. We start by asking how the Chinese economy got to where it is, what the strategy has been since the beginning of the reforms, and what the main characteristics of the economy are today. We then ask what is the desirable path for the future, and which are the main policy trade-offs implied by such a path. Finally, we put the various pieces together to describe what we believe is a consistent policy package. (Edited by Xiaoming Feng)
Insider sales based on short-term earnings information

I find strong evidence of insiders selling shares prior to imminent bad earnings news through their Rule 10b5-1 trading plans. While Rule 10b5-1 selling plans may conjure images of regular selling over a sustained period of time, I find that insiders’ sales under these plans often consist of a small number of sales (the median plan consists of four sales) and commonly occur over a short period of time (the median plan lasts less than 150 days). Abnormal stock returns, earnings surprises, and abnormal earnings announcement returns are all significantly negative following plans that are short-term in nature, but not following plans that are long-term in nature. Although Rule 10b5-1 does not specify a minimum length for selling plans, finding that sales within short plans significantly outperform sales within longer plans suggests that restrictions on plan length would reduce the incidence and appearance of informed selling through Rule 10b5-1 plans.
Promoting Cooperative Parenting: Programs and Prospects

We know that children profit from the care of two involved and cooperative parents, but can family law effectively promote these conditions? This article briefly describes and evaluates current strategies to promote parental involvement and cooperation, including altered custody standards, parent education, and initiatives aimed at enhancing family stability and harmony. It concludes that, in order to effectively promote stable, cooperative parenting, lawmakers will need to pursue many different strategies. The evidence suggests that no single strategy has the capacity to effectively promote cooperative, involved parenting after parents have separated; the evidence similarly suggests that no single strategy can channel childbearing and rearing into relationships with optimal prospects of stability and low conflict. Even a multi-strategy initiative will confront many obstacles - demographic, logistical, emotional - that will impede its effectiveness. The magnitude of the behavioral shifts that a coordinated multi-strategy initiative might produce thus remains unclear.
Explicit and Implicit Incentives for Multiple Agents

This monograph presents existing and new research on three approaches to multiagent incentives. The goal of all three approaches is to find theories that better explain observed institutions than the standard approach has.
Do Firms Adjust Their Timely Loss Recognition in Response to Changes in the Banking Industry

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the banking sector on firms’ timely recognition of economic losses. In particular, we focus on the entry of foreign banks into India during the 1990s, which likely causes an exogenous increase in lender demand for timely loss recognition. Analyzing variation in both the timing and the location of the new foreign banks’ entries, we find that foreign bank entry is associated with more timely loss recognition and this increase is positively related to a firm's subsequent debt levels. The change appears driven by a shift in firms’ incentives to supply additional information to lenders and lenders seem to value this information. The increase in timely loss recognition is also concentrated among firms more dependent on external financing: private firms, smaller firms, and nongroup firms. Overall, our evidence suggests that a firm's accounting choices respond to changes in the banking industry.
Recovering from Critical Incidents: Evidence from Paramedic Performance

Problem definition: In service operations settings where the difficulty of jobs is unpredictable, workers can encounter critical incidents (CIs)—jobs that are sufficiently disturbing to challenge w...
IPOs and Long-Term Relationships: An Advantage of Book Building

There is a global trend in initial public offerings toward the increased use of book building. Relative to other methods such as auctions, a key feature of book building is that the underwriter has total discretion in allocating shares, allowing allocations to be based on long-term relationships between underwriters and investors. In a multiperiod model with endogenous (and costly) information acquisition. I show that the underwriter's ability to lower underpricing depends largely on its ability to favor regular uninformed investors. One implication is that the hybrid book building/open offer method, which is becoming increasingly popular internationally, will lead to higher underpricing than straight book building. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
Does Auditor Quality and Tenure Matter to Investors? Evidence from the Bond Market

We examine the relation between auditor characteristics (quality and tenure) and the cost of debt financing. Consistent with the hypothesis that audit characteristics are important to the capital markets, we find that (1) auditor quality and tenure are negatively and significantly related to the cost of debt financing, (2) the relation between auditor characteristics and the cost of debt is most pronounced in firms with debt that is noninvestment grade, and (3) both the insurance and information role of audits are economically significant to the cost of debt. Overall, our results suggest that, through their dual roles of providing information and insurance, auditor quality and tenure matter to capital market participants.
Policing the chain gang: Panel cointegration analysis of the stability of the Suffolk System, 1825–1858

Abstract Conventional monetary theory suggests that a closed system banking regime may lead to in-concert overexpansions of circulation by its banks. However, Selgin, 2001 , Selgin, 2010 argues that this is unlikely as long as there are enough banks to ensure (i) routine interbank settlement and (ii) no collusion amongst banks refraining from redeeming one another’s notes. Banks effectively form a “chain gang” where in-concert expansion requires coordination that is prohibitively costly in a system with many banks. In order to test this conjecture, we examine state-level data on circulations and reserves from the Suffolk Banking System (1825–1858) in New England. In addition to narrative evidence on the stability of the Suffolk, panel cointegration tests provide evidence of a long-run relationship between state-level circulations and total reserves. The estimated error-correction mechanisms suggest a deviation half-life of about 2 years. We argue that a cointegrating relationship between circulations and reserves, along with rapid error-correction, supports the Selgin hypothesis.
House prices and home owner saving behavior

This paper examines the empirical link between house price appreciation and the savings behavior of home owners during the 1980s. The analysis uses household asset and debt data for a sample of under age 65 home-owning households from the 1984 and 1989 waves of the PSID to construct changes in real household wealth as a measure of household saving behavior. Cross-time and cross-regional variation in housing market conditions are used to identify behavioral savings effects. The empirical analysis suggests that the estimated marginal propensity to consume out of real housing capital gains is 0.03 for the median saver household. However, there is an asymmetry in the saving response to both total and unanticipated real housing capital gains. All the savings offset comes from households that experience real housing capital losses. Households that experience real gains do not change their saving behavior. The existence of this asymmetry casts doubt on the power of changes in house prices to explain the time-series path of saving in the United States.
Technology, Employment, and the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations?

Abstract I estimate a decomposition of productivity and hours into technology and non-technology components. Two results stand out: (a) the estimated conditional correlations of hours and productivity are negative for technology shocks, positive for nontechnology shocks; (b) hours show a persistent decline in response to a positive technology shock. Most of the results hold for a variety of model specifications, and for the majority of G7 countries. The picture that emerges is hard to reconcile with a conventional real-business-cycle interpretation of business cycles, but is shown to be consistent with a simple model with monopolistic competition and sticky prices. (JEL E32, E24)
From Smith to Schumpeter: A theory of take-off and convergence to sustained growth

Abstract This paper proposes a theory of the emergence of modern Schumpeterian growth that focuses on the within-industry forces that regulate the response of firms and entrepreneurs to Smithian market expansion and thus identifies an amplification mechanism that the literature has neglected. Because it solves the model in closed-form, the paper provides analytical insight on the forces that drive the economy׳s phase transition and the associated qualitative transformation of industrial activity. The resulting S-shaped path of GDP per capita replicates the key feature of the data: an accelerating phase followed by a deceleration with convergence to a stationary growth rate. The model also yields predictions for grand ratios like consumption/GDP, profits/GDP, and the distribution of income across factors of production.
From Bismarck to Maastricht: The March to European Union and the Labor Compact

Abstract This paper considers the likely impact that European Union (EU) will have on the labor compact. It is argued that, despite increased economic integration in Europe, countries will still be able to maintain distinct labor practices if they are willing to bear the cost of those practices. The incidence of many social protections probably already falls on workers. In addition, it is argued that imperfect mobility of capital, labor, goods and services will limit the pressure that integration will place on the labor compact. Evidence is presented suggesting that labor mobility among EU countries has not increased after the elimination of remaining restrictions on intra-EU labor mobility in 1993. Moreover, immigration from non-EU countries, which is much larger than intra-EU migration, has declined since 1993. Evidence is also reviewed suggesting that the demand for social protection rises when countries are more open, and therefore subject to more severe external shocks. This finding suggests that increased economic integration and European Monetary Union (EMU) could lead to greater demand for social protection. The U.S. experience with state workers' compensation insurance programs is offered as an example of enduring differences in labor market protections in highly integrated regional economies with a common currency.
A growing disparity in earnings disclosure mechanisms: The rise of concurrently released earnings announcements and 10-Ks

Abstract We document a growing disparity in earnings disclosure mechanisms. Firms are increasingly disclosing earnings announcements (EA) concurrently with the 10-K filing instead of first issuing a ‘stand-alone’ EA. Firm adoption of concurrent EA/10-Ks is associated with lower investor sophistication, greater impediments to producing timely and reliable earnings information, and greater industry-level concurrent reporting. Concurrent EA/10-Ks differ from stand-alone EAs in that investors anticipate more information in the EA, disclosures are preempted by industry peer EAs, the market reaction is muted even when controlling for EA timing, and post-earnings-announcement drift is greater.
Financial Disclosure and Market Transparency with Costly Information Processing

We study a model where some investors (“hedgers”) are bad at information processing, while others (“speculators”) have superior information-processing ability and trade purely to exploit it. The disclosure of financial information induces a trade externality: if speculators refrain from trading, hedgers do the same, depressing the asset price. Market transparency reinforces this mechanism, by making speculators’ trades more visible to hedgers. As a consequence, asset sellers will oppose both the disclosure of fundamentals and trading transparency. This is socially inefficient if a large fraction of market participants are speculators and hedgers have low processing costs. But in these circumstances, forbidding hedgers’ access to the market may dominate mandatory disclosure.
Lost in the Compromise: Free Speech, Criminal Justice, and Attorney Pretrial Publicity

I. PREVIOUS APPROACHES 1878 A. The Supreme Court and Attorney Pretrial Publicity 1878 B. The Compromise Between Fair Trials and the First Amendment 1881 1. The Model Rules and the ABA 1881 2. Applying In-Court Restrictions to Extrajudicial Speech 1883 3. Freedman and Starwood’s Non-Compromise ...... 1884 C. The First Amendment Strongly Protects Attorney Pretrial Publicity 1884 D. Structural Signaling 1885 E. Ignoring the First Amendment Problem 1886
The Labor Supply Effects of the Social Security Earnings Test

The Social Security earnings test taxes away benefits at a 33%-50% rate once earnings pass a threshold amount. I investigate the response to three past changes in the earnings test rules, each applying to some age groups and not others. I find that beneficiaries bunch in substantial numbers just below the earnings threshold, and the bunching shifts when the earnings test rules change. These shifts in the budget constraint are incorporated into an econometric model to identify income and substitution effects. The estimation yields significant elasticities that suggest considerable deadweight loss suffered by working beneficiaries.
Green Cards for Foreign House Buyers: A Way to Help Stabilize Housing Prices

The continuing decline in US housing prices is making it difficult to effectively address our nation’s financial and economic problems. Any measures that would serve to help stabilize housing prices without requiring substantial government expenditures merit serious consideration. Richard Lefrak and Gary Shilling have recently set forth in the Wall Street Journal the broad outlines of a proposed change in immigration law that would confer conditional residency and eventually permanent residency upon foreign purchasers of US houses. In this article I present and discuss a modified version of their proposal that is more comprehensive and that seeks to avoid the problems that have plagued the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ existing EB-5 foreign investor visa program. My proposal calls for a minimum equity investment requirement of $40,000, provides foreign purchasers of US houses with immediate conditional residency and then permanent residency after three years of ownership, initially limits the number of visas that can be granted annually to 85,000, and allows foreign purchasers to rent out these houses if they choose to do so. It does not call for any changes in the current US tax treatment of foreign source income, although certain changes in that treatment would make this program significantly more attractive to some potential foreign investors. This proposal would in my opinion reduce the current excess supply of housing that is depressing housing prices by perhaps as much as 3.5% or more per year, and thus make a modest but significant contribution to stabilizing housing prices. The proposal does raise some legitimate concerns of both an economic and non-economic nature, but its potential benefits justify pursuing this approach despite those concerns.
Employment-Based Health Insurance and Job Mobility: Is there Evidence of Job-Lock?

The majority of privately insured Americans obtain their health insurance through their own or a family member's employment. The rationale for employers to provide health insurance is straightforward. By pooling the risks of individuals, employers can reduce adverse selection and lower administrative expenses. In addition, they benefit from tax laws allowing businesses to deduct their health insurance costs. These advantages of employer provision, however, must be weighed against the distortions they may generate in individual labor market decisions. In particular, health insurance may distort job mobility if employees decide to keep jobs they would rather leave for fear of losing coverage for preexisting conditions,' a possibility that has been termed "job-lock." This paper attempts to quantify the effect of employer-provided health insurance on the labor market mobility of individuals. The link between employer-provided health insurance and
The Relationship between Civil Rule 11 and Lawyer Discipline: An Empirical Analysis Suggesting Institutional Choices in the Regulation of Lawyers

Commentators have either predicted or argued for more disciplinary referrals based upon Rule 11 proceedings. Now, some ten years after the 1993 amendments to Rule 11, this Article considers two questions about the relationship between Rule 11 sanctions against lawyers and professional discipline against these lawyers for that same conduct. First, is there any empirical evidence to support a relationship between Rule 11 sanctions against lawyers and professional discipline for their litigation conduct? Second, should lawyers face professional discipline for litigation conduct giving rise to Rule 11 sanctions? The answers to these two questions shed some light on the role Rule 11 plays and should play in the regulation of the legal profession. This Article explores the history and types of lawyer regulation and how Rule 11 fits into the scheme of regulating lawyers for their litigation conduct in federal courts. It analyzes the enforcement of the 1993 version of Rule 11 by the federal courts over the last ten years and the correlation of Rule 11 sanctions and lawyer discipline for the same conduct. The data collected demonstrate that there is little correlation between Rule 11 sanctions against lawyers and reported cases of disciplinary bodies imposing discipline on the lawyers for their litigation conduct. Finally, the author evaluates the institutional choices implicit in the current relationship between Rule 11 and lawyer discipline and discusses whether there should be more disciplinary sanctions against lawyers for Rule 11 violations. The author argues that the present institutional choice, which does not require lawyer discipline in every instance where a federal judge sanctions a lawyer's litigation conduct, is a wise choice.
The Detection of Two Distinct High Ionization States in a QSO Lyman-Limit Absorption System: Evidence for Hierarchical Galaxy Formation at Z ~ 3?

We have detected two high ionization phases of gas in the z~2.77 partial Lyman-limit system (LLS) toward QSO 1157+3143. We detect the first phase by C IV and Si IV absorption and the second phase?which is either warmer or undergoing larger random bulk motions than the first?via O VI absorption. Both phases of gas are present in similar column density ratios in each of the five velocity components, making it appear that this LLS is constructed of five very similar building blocks. We find that this system displays some of the properties expected of a hierarchical merging event, although published models may have trouble explaining the Si IV absorption we observe. When different ions show similar velocity structure, we commonly assume that they arise in the same gas, and we compare their column densities to derive the ionization and abundances. For this one absorption system, the different ions have similar velocity, but they do not arise in the same gas.
Bank-Based or Market-Based Financial Systems: Which is Better?

Abstract For over a century, economists and policymakers have debated the relative merits of bank-based versus market-based financial systems. Recent research, however, argues that classifying countries as bank- or market-based is not a very fruitful way to distinguish financial systems. This paper represents the first broad, cross-country examination of which view of financial structure is more consistent with the data. The results indicate that although overall financial development is robustly linked with economic growth, there is no support for either the bank-based or the market-based view. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G0, K2, O4.
Subjective Well-Being, Income, Economic Development and Growth

We explore the relationships between subjective well-being and income, as seen across individuals within a given country, between countries in a given year, and as a country grows through time. We show that richer individuals in a given country are more satisfied with their lives than are poorer individuals, and establish that this relationship is similar in most countries around the world. Turning to the relationship between countries, we show that average life satisfaction is higher in countries with greater GDP per capita. The magnitude of the satisfaction-income gradient is roughly the same whether we compare individuals or countries, suggesting that absolute income plays an important role in influencing well-being. Finally, studying changes in satisfaction over time, we find that as countries experience economic growth, their citizens’ life satisfaction typically grows, and that those countries experiencing more rapid economic growth also tend to experience more rapid growth in life satisfaction. These results together suggest that measured subjective well-being grows hand in hand with material living standards. JEL-Code: O11, I31, I32.
Unexpected Consequences From Knock-On Effects: A Different Standard for Computer Network Operations?

The evolution of computer network operations (CNO), and computer network attack (CNA) in particular, has vastly expanded the capabilities of today's military commander and, subsequently, expanded the targets he can now attack. This expansion of the commander's potential target list has caused some to cast doubt on the ability of the military commander to adequately apply the traditional principles of the law of war when using CNO. However, commanders need only apply the traditional law of war analysis, including the principle of distinction, the balance between military necessity and humanity, and the principle of proportionality to ensure they correctly apply this new technology during armed conflict. In other words, a commander may use CNA if he, in good faith, believes that the damage to civilian objects and injury to civilians that is expected from the attack, including potential knock-on effects, given the circumstances as known to him at the time after taking all feasible measures to ascertain those circumstances, is not excessive to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. Applying this standard is sufficient and there is no need to amend the law of war to account for this new technology.
Mobile Edge Computing Network Control: Tradeoff Between Delay and Cost

As mobile edge computing (MEC) finds widespread use for relieving the computational burden of compute- and interaction-intensive applications on end user devices, understanding the resulting delay and cost performance is drawing significant attention. While most existing works focus on single-task offloading in single-hop MEC networks, next generation applications (e.g., industrial automation, augmented/virtual reality) require advance models and algorithms for dynamic configuration of multi-task services over multi-hop MEC networks. In this work, we leverage recent advances in dynamic cloud network control to provide a comprehensive study of the performance of multi-hop MEC networks, addressing the key problems of multi-task offloading, timely packet scheduling, and joint computation and communication resource allocation. We present a fully distributed algorithm based on Lyapunov control theory that achieves throughput-optimal performance with delay and cost guarantees. Simulation results validate our theoretical analysis and provide insightful guidelines on the interplay between communication and computation resources in MEC networks.
The effects of technological supervision on gig workers: organizational control and motivation of Uber, taxi, and limousine drivers

Does supervision from technological platforms alter gig workers’ motivation and perceptions of control? We address this question with two field studies set in the passenger livery (pick up and drop...
A Declarative Approach to Business Rules in Contracts: Courteous Logic Programs in XML

We address why, and especially how, to represent business rules in e-commerce contracts. By contracts, we mean descriptions of goods and services offered or sought, including ancillary agreements detailing terms of a deal. We observe that rules are useful in contracts to represent conditional relationships, e.g., in terms & conditions, service provisions, and surrounding business processes, and we illustrate this point with several examples. We analyze requirements (desiderata) for representing such rules in contracts. The requirements include: declarative semantics so as to enable shared understanding and interoperability; prioritized conflict handling so as to enable modular updating/revision; ease of parsing; integration into WWW-world software engineering; direct executability; and computational tractability. We give a representational approach that consists of two novel aspects. First, we give a new fundamental knowledge representation formalism: a generalized version of Courteous Logic Programs (CLP), which expressively extends declarative ordinary logic programs (OLP) to include prioritized conflict handling, thus enabling modularity in specifying and revising rule-sets. Our approach to implementing CLP is a courteous compiler that transCopyright ACM. To appear: Proceedings of the 1st ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce (EC99), to be held Denver, Colorado, USA, Nov. 3–5, 1999. Edited by Michael P. Wellman. New York, NY: ACM Press, 1999. http://www.ibm.com/iac/ec99/ or http://www.acm.org. forms any CLP into a semantically equivalent OLP with moderate, tractable computational overhead. Second, we give a new XML encoding of CLP, called Business Rules Markup Language (BRML), suitable for interchange between heterogeneous commercial rule languages. BRML can also express a broad subset of ANSI-draft Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) which overlaps with CLP. Our new approach, unlike previous approaches, provides not only declarative semantics but also prioritized conflict handling, ease of parsing, and integration into WWW-world software engineering. We argue that this new approach meets the overall requirements to a greater extent than any of the previous approaches, including than KIF, the leading previous declarative approach. We have implemented both aspects of our approach; a free alpha prototype called CommonRules was released on the Web in July of 1999, at http://alphaworks.ibm.com. An extended version of this paper will be available as a forthcoming IBM Research Report (at http://www.research.ibm.com).
Financial literacy and shrouded credit card rewards

Credit card companies charge an interchange fee for each transaction, and almost half of this fee is returned to consumers in the form of a reward or perk program. Among credit card users who do not use cards for borrowing (convenience users), rewards are a means to negotiate the implicit price of the interchange fee. Any consumer whose time cost is less than the value of rebates should rationally choose a reward card. Half of convenience users do not own a reward card. We hypothesize that credit card companies segment customers by marketing non-salient credit card characteristics to appeal to naive consumers while offering lower-price cards (net the rebate) to compete for more sophisticated consumers as suggested in Gabaix and Laibson (2006). Consumer sophistication is measured using a 20-question financial literacy instrument in a large national data set. When household characteristics such as education, income and wealth are controlled in a multivariate analysis, respondents in the highest financial literacy quintile were twice as likely to own a rewards card. The relation between literacy and reward cards provides evidence that credit card rebates resemble other markets where hidden product attributes create a welfare transfer from naive to sophisticated consumers.
Beyond Judicial Minimalism

Many judges are minimalists. They favor rulings that are narrow, in the sense that they govern only the circumstances of the particular case, and also shallow, in the sense that they do not accept a deep theory of the legal provision at issue. In law, narrow and shallow decisions have real advantages insofar as they reduce both decision costs and error costs; make space for democratic engagement on fundamental questions; and reflect a norm of civic respect. In many cases, however, minimalism is hard to justify in these ways. Sometimes small steps increase the aggregate costs of decisions; sometimes they produce large errors, especially when they export decision-making burdens to fallible people. Predictability is an important variable, and minimalist decisions can compromise predictability. Sometimes large, nonminalist steps serve democratic values and do not compromise the norm of civic respect. It follows that the justifications for minimalism are unconvincing in many contexts. The debate between minimalists and their adversaries is closely related to the debate between those who prefer standards and those who prefer rules, though there are some important differences.