cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Federal Constitutions, Global Governance, and the Role of Forests in Regulating Climate Change

Federal systems of government present more difficulties for international treaty formation than perhaps any other form of governance. Federal constitutions that grant subnational governments virtually exclusive regulatory authority over certain subject matter may constrain national governments during international negotiations - a national government that cannot constitutionally bind subnational governments to an international agreement cannot freely arrange its international obligations. While federal nations that grant subnational governments exclusive regulatory control obviously place value on stringent decentralization and the benefits it provides in those regulatory areas, the difficulty lies in striking a balance between global governance and constitutional decentralization in federal systems. Recent scholarship demonstrates that U.S. federalism, for example, may jeopardize international negotiations seeking to utilize certain mechanisms of global forest management to combat climate change, since subnational forest management is a regulatory responsibility reserved for state governments under current constitutional jurisprudence. This Article expands that scholarship by undertaking a comparative constitutional analysis of five other federal systems - Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, and Russia. These nations, along with the United States, are crucial to climate and forest negotiations since they account for 54 percent of the world’s total forest cover. This Article reviews the constitutional allocation of forest regulatory authority between national and subnational governments in these nations to better understand potential complications that federal systems present for global climate governance aimed at forests. The Article concludes that federal systems maintaining three key elements within their constitutional structure are most capable of agreeing to an international climate agreement that incorporates forests in a consequential manner - successfully implementing that treaty on domestic scales, and doing so in a way that maintains the recognized benefits of decentralized forest management at the local level: (1) national constitutional primacy over forest management, (2) national sharing of constitutional forest management authority, and (3) adequate forest policy institutional enforcement capacity. The Article also establishes the foundation for further research assessing how the constitutional status quo of federal systems lacking key elements may be adjusted to achieve more effective climate and forest governance.
Spot-forward cointegration, structural breaks and FX market unbiasedness

Abstract FX market unbiasedness requires spot-forward cointegration with unitary vector, or a stationary forward-premium (FP). These conditions have found mixed support, which recent research explains via FP fractional integration. An alternative explanation is breaks in spot-forward cointegration regressions, so that I apply Gregory and Hansen [Gregory, A.W., Hansen, B.E., 1996a. Residual-based tests for cointegration in models with regime shifts. Journal of Econometrics 70, 99–126; 1996b. Tests for cointegration in models with regime and trend shifts. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 58, 555–560] models to DM, Yen and Pound data, allowing for intercept, slope, and time-trend shifts. I adapt the procedure of Bai [Bai, J., 1997. Estimation of a change point in multiple regression models. Review of Economics and Statistics 79, 551–563] to sequentially search for multiple breaks, and find evidence of cointegration with “regime-and-trend shifts” for the three currencies. Cointegration-with-breaks regressions show stationary residuals and unitary slopes across regimes, consistent with long-run unbiasedness overall. Forward-premium regressions estimated for subsamples determined by cointegration-regression break dates find support for short-run unbiasedness in some regimes but not others.
Does merger enforcement depend on the portion of the merger associated with the competitive concerns

Most mergers involve multiple markets. The potential for settlement can vary by the fraction of the overall deal attributable to the markets of concern. (i.e., by the “overlap”). If an antitrust agency challenges a merger having only a small overlap, negotiating a settlement is very likely; but if the entire transaction is at issue, a challenge decision often leads to litigation. Regulators, antitrust attorneys, and expert economists have long wondered if the degree of overlap influences upon the agency’s challenge decision, because settlement and litigation impose disparate costs (including litigation risks and time-delays) on the agency and firms. Given over 20 years of experience with modern merger analysis, it is possible to address this question with several empirical models: (1) a two-stage estimation of the settle-challenge process, (2) decomposition analyses focused on matters exhibiting either high or low overlaps, and (3) statistical matching analyses. These models predict differences of 13 to 19 percentage points between the challenge probabilities of mergers exhibiting high and low overlaps. The difference suggests the potential for over- or under-enforcement. Comparing the FTC policy to that of the court quantifies this potential. The exact magnitude depends on the assumptions used to interpret the evidence. One set of assumptions suggests less enforcement when the overlap is high, while another set of assumptions predicts more enforcement when the overlap is low.
Like mother like son? Experimental evidence on the transmission of values from parents to children

Abstract This paper studies whether prosocial values are transmitted from parents to their children. We do so through an economic experiment in which children and their parents play a standard public goods game. The experimental data presents us with a surprising result. While we find significant heterogeneity in cooperative preferences in both parents and children, we cannot reject the null that the correlation between the degree of cooperation of a child and that of his or her parent is zero. That is, there is lack of evidence in our data that prosocial values are transmitted from parents to children. This finding is robust to the inclusion of demographic and socio-economic controls. Finally, parents show a significant degree of conditional cooperation, thus confirming the results of the existing experimental literature; such conditional cooperation is however absent in children.
Institutional Change in Authoritarian Settings: A Study of Environmental Penalties in China

We examine institutional change processes in authoritarian settings and hypothesize about how different types of institutional pressure can spur governmental action with regard to firms’ environmen...
Comments on Child Abuse Litigation in a "Testimonial" World: The Intersection of Competency, Hearsay, and Confrontation

This article explores the impact the testimonial approach to Confrontation Clause jurisprudence has on child abuse cases. While neither Crawford nor Davis dealt with child witnesses, they contain several references that are significant in analyzing hearsay by children who do not testify. I discuss the possible interpretations of White v. Illinois, Idaho v. Wright, and King v. Brasier in a testimonial regime before turning to issues regarding the competency of child witnesses and their ability to provide an adequate opportunity for cross-examination. The article highlights the increased importance of Maryland v. Craig in presenting testimony by child witness, and argues that Craig's balancing approach to confrontation survives Crawford. Forfeiture is analyzed in the child abuse context. Finally, the article evaluates the admissibility of statements that were originally made in forensic interviews, in medical settings, and to private individuals who have no mandatory reporting obligations or law enforcement ties, when the child does not testify at trial.
Mandatory IFRS reporting and changes in enforcement

Abstract In recent years, reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) became mandatory in many countries. The capital-market effects around this change have been extensively studied, but their sources are not yet well understood. This study aims to distinguish between several potential explanations for the observed capital-market effects. We find that, across all countries, mandatory IFRS reporting had little impact on liquidity. The liquidity effects around IFRS introduction are concentrated in the European Union (EU) and limited to five EU countries that concurrently made substantive changes in reporting enforcement. There is little evidence of liquidity benefits in IFRS countries without substantive enforcement changes even when they have strong legal and regulatory systems. Moreover, we find similar liquidity effects for firms that experience enforcement changes but do not concurrently switch to IFRS. Thus, changes in reporting enforcement or (unobserved) factors associated with these changes play a critical role for the observed liquidity benefits after mandatory IFRS adoption. In contrast, the change in accounting standards seems to have had little effect on market liquidity.
Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Healthcare: Unanswered questions in Theory and Policy*

Intellectual property regimes are usually presumed to exert positiveinducements on technological innovation. However, given the dire nature ofaccess to critical health technologies for most of the world’s population, it isworth revisiting this assumption for health technologies. This paper situatesintellectual property rights (IPRs) for health technologies at the intersectionof three fields: innovation studies, welfare theories, and international politicaleconomy. It revisits the conceptual underpinnings of property rights with particularrelevance for needs of today’s industrializing, or so-called “developing”countries. This paper argues that the debates on IPR have poorly exploredcounterfactuals in pharmaceuticals and biotechnologies where other meansof inducement may exist and innovations may arise in conditions where IPR iseither absent or irrelevant. To do this, it first discusses utility as a basis for IPRsand the challenges –philosophical, theoretical and most importantly, practical- intranslating this to real-world use. It draws on history to analyze pharmaceuticalprior drug generations and alternate inducements. The article offers a novelconceptual framework to study innovation in developing contexts where IPR can be specifically situated. If the real goal is accessible and affordable healthcare- anissue of immense importance worldwide- then we may need to cease barking upthe wrong tree of intellectual property rights.
Examination as a method of consumer protection

Lack of compliance with consumer protection law has been a crucial problem in the field for as long as such law has existed. In the aftermath of the consumer movement of the 1960s and 1970s, scholars struggled with the question of why the movement’s new consumer protection statutes on the books did not result in more consumer protection in action.1 The problem was sufficiently acute that some commentators argued that the real purpose of the legislation was to legitimize the current order by providing an illusion of consumer protection.2 Fast-forward several decades to just before the recent financial crisis, and little had changed. At the federal level, an ideological aversion to consumer protection that went beyond disclosure3 led to a paucity of regulatory development and enforcement,4 despite a statutory regime that could have provided meaningful consumer protection.5 States attempted to fill the gap, but
Demand Estimation under Incomplete Product Availability

Incomplete product availability is an important feature of many markets; ignoring changes in availability may bias demand estimates. We study a new dataset from a wireless inventory system installed on 54 vending machines to track product availability every four hours. The data allow us to account for product availability when estimating demand, and provides a valuable source of variation for identifying substitution patterns. We develop a procedure that allows for changes in product availability even when availability is only observed periodically. We find significant dierences in demand estimates, with the corrected model predicting significantly larger impacts of stock-outs on profitability.
Understanding the Effect of Advertising on Stock Returns and Firm Value: Theory and Evidence from a Structural Model

This paper brings structural modeling to the literature on financial research in marketing. I propose a dynamic investment-based model to understand the impact of advertising expenditures on stock returns and firm value. In addition, by interpreting advertising expenditures as an investment in brand capital, the approach in this paper provides a novel way to measure brand equity grounded in economic theory. Using the Euler equations from the firm's maximization problem, I derive closed-form expressions for the firm's equilibrium stock returns and market value, which depend on observable firm characteristics. I test the model's predictions by the generalized method of moments and data from a large cross section of publicly traded firms. The model is able to match simultaneously the pattern of average stock returns and firm values of portfolios sorted on advertising expenditures that standard asset pricing models cannot. The estimation results also show that brand equity accounts for a substantial fraction of firm market value about 23%, and that this value varies substantially across industries. Implications of the findings for research at the intersection of marketing and finance are discussed. This paper was accepted by Wei Xiong, finance.
Preference reversals: The impact of truth-revealing monetary incentives

Researchers vigorously debate the impact of incentives in preference reversal experiments. Do incentives alter behavior and generate economically consistent choices? Lichtenstein and Slovic (1971) document inconsistencies (reversals) in revealed preference in gamble pairs across paired choice and individual pricing tasks. The observed pattern is inconsistent with stable underlying preferences expressed with simple errors. Lichtenstein and Slovic (1973) and Grether and Plott (1979) introduce incentives, but aggregate reversal rates change little. These results fostered numerous replications and assertions that models of non-stable preferences are required to explain reversals. Contrary to this research, we find that incentives can generate more economically consistent behavior. Our reevaluation of existing experimental data shows that incentives have a clear impact by better aligning aggregate choices and prices. The effect is sufficiently large that, with truth-revealing incentives, a stable-preferences-with-error model not only explains behavior, but fits the data as well as any model possibly could.
Solar irradiance changes and phytoplankton productivity in Earth's ocean following astrophysical ionizing radiation events

Abstract Two atmospheric responses to simulated astrophysical ionizing radiation events significant to life on Earth are production of odd-nitrogen species, especially NO2, and subsequent depletion of stratospheric ozone. Ozone depletion increases incident short-wavelength ultraviolet radiation (UVB, 280–315 nm) and longer (>600 nm) wavelengths of photosynthetically available radiation (PAR, 400–700 nm). On the other hand, the NO2 haze decreases atmospheric transmission in the long-wavelength UVA (315–400 nm) and short-wavelength PAR. Here, we use the results of previous simulations of incident spectral irradiance following an ionizing radiation event to predict changes in terran productivity focusing on photosynthesis of marine phytoplankton. The prediction is based on a spectral model of photosynthetic response, which was developed for the dominant genera in central regions of the ocean (Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus), and on remote-sensing-based observations of spectral water transparency, temperat...
Ask Not For Whom the Law School Bell Tolls: Professor Tamanaha, Failing Law Schools, and (Mis)Diagnosing the Problem

In this article, I critically review the Brian Z. Tamanaha book, Failing Law Schools (2012). I believe that Professor Tamanaha’s book is a needed wakeup call. However, had his analyses been more comprehensive and his proposed remedies been more nuanced and less self-abnegating, the project would have been a useful irritant and a beacon, shining uncomfortable and disinfecting light on an important sector of postsecondary education. It might have even set out real reforms that could have been adopted and could have led to real change, rather than the cursing the darkness and blaming faculty evident in Failing Law Schools.
New Paths in International Criminal Justice? The Internal Rules of the Cambodian Extraordinary Chambers

The Internal Rules of the Cambodian Extraordinary Chambers adopted in June 2007 provide some insight into how a non-adversarial system might work in the context of a hybrid tribunal with jurisdiction over both domestic and international crimes. This approach presents various novelties, especially with respect to the pre-trial and trial stages of the proceedings, and provides an example of integration into a domestic non-adversarial system of principles derived from international criminal procedure.
How to Attract and Retain Readers in Enterprise Blogging

We investigate the dynamics of blog reading behavior of employees in an enterprise blogosphere. A dynamic model is developed and calibrated using longitudinal data from a Fortune 1,000 IT services firm. Our modeling framework allows us to segregate the impact of textual characteristics sentiment and quality of a post on attracting readers from retaining them. We find that the textual characteristics that appeal to the sentiment of the reader affect both reader attraction and retention. However, textual characteristics that reflect only the quality of the posts affect only reader retention. We identify a variety-seeking behavior of blog readers where they dynamically switch from reading on one set of topics to another. The modeling framework and findings of this study highlight opportunities for the firm to influence blog-reading behavior of its employees to align it with its goals. Overall, this study contributes to improved understanding of reading behavior of individuals in communities formed around user generated content.
Unified Topological Response Theory For Gapped and Gapless Free Fermions

A general framework already exists to describe how insulators respond to electromagnetic fields. Now, a new universal framework describes the response of both insulators and metals.
Can a franchise chain coordinate

Abstract In today's business landscape, the familiar traditional corporation has been augmented by new species, such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, and franchise chains. The properties of these new species, termed hybrid forms, are distinctly different from the traditional corporation. In this paper, we examine whether one hybrid form, the franchise chain, can coordinate elements of the marketing mix (price, quality, and advertising) in the pattern suggested by theory and achieved by the traditional corporation. Results suggest they cannot. Therefore, franchise chains appear to be unable to coordinate the elements of the marketing mix. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Social Media and Firm Equity Value

Companies have increasingly advocated social media technologies to transform businesses and improve organizational performance. This study scrutinizes the predictive relationships between social media and firm equity value, the relative effects of social media metrics compared with conventional online behavioral metrics, and the dynamics of these relationships. The results derived from vector autoregressive models suggest that social media-based metrics Web blogs and consumer ratings are significant leading indicators of firm equity value. Interestingly, conventional online behavioral metrics Google searches and Web traffic are found to have a significant yet substantially weaker predictive relationship with firm equity value than social media metrics. We also find that social media has a faster predictive value, i.e., shorter “wear-in” time, than conventional online media. These findings are robust to a consistent set of volume-based measures total blog posts, rating volume, total page views, and search intensity. Collectively, this study proffers new insights for senior executives with respect to firm equity valuations and the transformative power of social media.
Common risk factors in the cross-section of corporate bond returns

Abstract We investigate the cross-sectional determinants of corporate bond returns and find that downside risk is the strongest predictor of future bond returns. We also introduce common risk factors based on the prevalent risk characteristics of corporate bonds—downside risk, credit risk, and liquidity risk—and find that these novel bond factors have economically and statistically significant risk premiums that cannot be explained by long-established stock and bond market factors. We show that the newly proposed risk factors outperform all other models considered in the literature in explaining the returns of the industry- and size/maturity-sorted portfolios of corporate bonds.
Determinants of Foreign Versus Domestic Real Estate Investment: Property Level Evidence from Listed Real Estate Investment Firms

We examine the determinants of foreign real estate investment relative to the domestic case using the portfolios of a large sample of publicly traded real estate investment companies; where foreign investment is defined as the property owner headquarters being located in a different country than a given asset. The cross-sectional results provide strong evidence that real estate firms are more likely to take a smaller stake in larger assets when investing abroad. The penchant for large assets holds when controlling for economic activity, real estate investment opportunities, depth and sophistication of the capital markets, investor protection and the legal framework, administrative burdens and regulatory limitations, and the socio-cultural and political environment at both the property nation and headquarter nation levels. In general, foreign ownership is less likely with industrial, office, retail, and self-storage properties. Capital market development is consistently negatively related to foreign investment.
Making Sense of "Moral Rights" in Intellectual Property

This Article offers a novel account of the theoretical foundations of American “Moral Rights” laws in intellectual property, laws which give artists the right to prevent purchasers of their works from altering those works, even after the purchase is complete, if the artist disapproves of the alterations. Conventional accounts of these laws’ foundations rely either on economic incentives or on creators’ “rights of personality.” Examination of the central provisions of both federal and state moral rights laws, however, reveals the implausibility of both those accounts: the central provisions that the laws actually contain are incompatible with what we would expect to find if the traditional accounts were correct, and no mere variant of the traditional accounts is likely to be plausible. Instead, these laws are best understood as resting upon a moral duty of respect for artworks’ creative excellence. Such an account both flows naturally from broader American cultural practices concerning respect for excellence and succeeds, where the other accounts failed, in providing a coherent explanation for the central provisions that we in fact observe in American moral rights laws. The Article further explains why these moral rights protections are given only to visual artists and not to creators of other works, and it shows how this analysis can inform debates about expanding creators’ legal rights of attribution. The Article also draws upon the considerable similarities between visual art and other products of human creativity to highlight the broader challenge that its analysis poses to the traditional, purely economic, understanding of the foundations of American intellectual property law more generally.
Quorum and Turnout in Referenda

We analyze the effect of turnout requirements in referenda in the context of a group turnout model. We show that a participation quorum requirement may reduce the turnout so severely that it generates a “quorum paradox”: In equilibrium, the expected turnout exceeds the participation quorum only if this requirement is not imposed. Furthermore, a participation quorum does not necessarily imply a bias for the status quo. We also show that in order to induce a given expected turnout and avoid the quorum paradox, the quorum should be set at a level that is lower than half the target. Finally, we argue that a super majority requirement to overturn the status quo is never equivalent to a participation quorum. (JEL: D72)
Distracted from Distraction by Distraction: Reimagining Estate Tax Reform

Recent legislation has left a gift and estate tax that will apply to far fewer than 1% of all decedents each year. This Article, prepared for a symposium on Tax Advice for the Second Obama Administration, argues that the estate tax has become largely irrelevant, except ironically as a spur to the creation and perpetuation of dynastic wealth via “Dynasty Trusts.” The tax no longer meets any compelling policy rationale, such as raising revenue, “backing up” the income tax, injecting progression into the tax system, or breaking up large concentrations of wealth. It is time to move on, and to meaningfully address the 800lb gorilla in the room – the problem of unrealized appreciation. The de facto demise of the death tax gives policymakers reason to reconsider the “stepped-up basis” rule of IRC Section 1014 for assets acquired from a decedent. This rule allows those with financial capital to live tax-free and escape all taxation. Its rationale has been linked to the estate tax. Out of the ashes of the estate tax, then, a path for hope arises – lawmakers should consider a capital gains/realization-on-death rule, as Canada has, or a consistent carryover basis regime for all gratuitous transfers, whether on life or at death.
Philosophical issues in tort law

The union of contemporary philosophy and tort law has never been better. Perhaps the most dynamic current in contemporary tort theory concerns the increasingly sophisticated inquires into the doctrinal elements of the law of torts, with the tort of negligence in particular garnering the most attention from theorists. In this article, I examine philosophically rich issues revolving around each of the elements constituting the tort of negligence: compensable injury, duty, breach, actual cause, and proximate cause.
Psi to N Nbar m

In this invited talk I discuss two recent applications of charmonium (Ψ) decays to final states, where N is a nucleon and m is a light meson. There are several motivations for studying these decays: 1) They are useful for the study of N* spectroscopy; 2) they can be used to estimate cross sections for the associated charmonium production processes , which PANDA plans to exploit in searches for charmonium hybrid exotics; and 3) they may allow the direct experimental measurement of NNm (meson-nucleon) strong couplings, which provide crucial input information for meson exchange models of the NN force. The latter two topics are considered in this talk, which will also compare results from a simple hadron pole model of these decays to recent experimental data.
Managing Water Rights Using Fishing Rights as a Model

This Article addresses the need to view water rights as licenses subject to government revocation, without just compensation, in the same way that fishing rights are viewed as licenses subject to government management. It focuses specifically on the methods used to address water resource allocation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California, and on fish allocation issues in the Pacific Northwest. It explores property rights in water and fish, particularly in regard to Fifth Amendment takings challenges when government regulations diminish water rights and fishing rights. The Article concludes by recognizing that both water and fish resources should be managed as ecosystems and governed by the public trust doctrine, and rejecting private property rights in either fish or water as a violation of the public trust doctrine, in which public resources are given away to private interests.
The Boundaries Of Privacy Harm

This Essay describes the outer boundaries and core properties of privacy harm, an important, unique, but chronically under-theorized injury. I argue that the vast majority of privacy harms fall into just two categories. The subjective category of privacy harm is the unwanted perception of observation. This category describes unwelcome mental states—anxiety, embarrassment, fear—that stem from the belief that one is being watched or monitored. Examples include everything from a landlord listening in on his tenants to generalized surveillance. The objective category of privacy harm is the unanticipated or coerced use of information concerning a person against that person. These are negative, external actions justified by reference to personal information. Examples include identity theft, the leaking of classified information that reveals an undercover agent, and the use of a drunk-driving suspect’s blood as evidence against him. The subjective and objective categories of privacy harm are distinct but related. Just as assault is the anticipation of battery, so is the unwanted perception of observation largely an apprehension about informationdriven consequences. The categories represent, respectively, the realization and consequence of a loss of control over personal information. The approach usefully uncouples privacy harm from privacy violations, demonstrating that each can occur without the other. It creates a “limiting principle” capable of revealing when another value—autonomy or equality, for instance—is more directly at stake, and a “rule of recognition” that permits the identification of a privacy harm when no other harm is apparent. Finally, the approach permits the sizing of privacy harm in novel ways, pointing the way toward a better science of privacy harm. * Senior Research Fellow, Stanford Center for Internet and Society, Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School. My sincere thanks to Danielle Keats Citron, Daniel Solove, Chris Hoofnagle, Siva Vaidhynathan, Paul Ohm, Neil Richards, Katherine Strandburg, Woodrow Hartzog, “Dissent” and other participants at Privacy Law Scholars Conference 2010. Thanks also to Stefania Fusco, Samuel Bray, and Elizabeth Pollman for commenting on earlier drafts. Thanks to Katherine Merriam for research assistance.
The Fog of War: Prosecuting Illegal Uses of Force as Crimes Against Humanity

This Article considers the possibility of the prosecution of aggression as a crime against humanity before the International Criminal Court (“ICC”). First, it explores the constitutive elements of crimes against humanity and compares them to those of the crime of aggression. In doing so, it identifies a number of areas where aggression will assist in establishing critical elements required to sustain a conviction for crimes against humanity. Second, it presents a legal strategy whereby aggression can be adjudicated as an element of co-perpetration as a mode of liability when prosecuting crimes against humanity. In this manner, a factual finding that aggression has been committed can be made without entering a conviction per se for the crime. Such a finding can then be considered at sentencing either as an aggravating factor or as indicative of the gravity of the crimes and could ultimately result in the imposition of a longer custodial sentence. Thus, whilst the ICC may not currently possess jurisdiction ratione materiae over aggression, this should not limit the ability of ICC prosecutors to substantively invoke the crime where crimes against humanity are committed as a result of the illegal use of armed
An Emerging Uniformity for International Law

The status of international law in the U.S. legal system has been hotly contested. Most international law scholars maintain that customary international law ("CIL") is federal common law immediately applicable in federal courts. A minority of scholars has responded that CIL may be applied by federal courts only when authorized by the political branches. The Supreme Court's decision in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), stoked the debate. In Sosa's wake, scholars have overwhelmingly concluded that the Supreme Court endorsed the majority view that CIL is federal common law. This Article asserts that Sosa has been both misperceived and underappreciated. Sosa not only supports the minority position that federal judicial authority to incorporate CIL hinges on congressional intent, but Sosa also suggests that federal incorporation is governed by the same considerations that determine whether treaties are self-executing and immediately applicable in U.S. courts: namely, the intent of the political branches, specific definition, mutuality, practical consequences, foreign relations effects, and alternative means of enforcement. Sosa thus manifests the emergence of a uniform doctrine that governs the federal status of both treaties and CIL. This emerging doctrine, which serves to police the distribution of lawmaking and foreign affairs authority between the judiciary and the political branches, has significant implications. It suggests that the reigning confusion over the domestic status of international law is being replaced with doctrinal clarity and coherence, reveals that the collective wisdom on the domestic status of international law is out of step with Supreme Court jurisprudence, results in more appropriate treatment of CIL relative to treaties, and indicates that efforts to incorporate international law as federal law should focus on the political branches, not the courts.
The brevity and violence of contractions and expansions

Abstract Early studies of business cycles argued that contractions in economic activity were briefer (shorter) and more violent (rapid) than expansions. This paper systematically investigates this claim and in the process discovers a robust new business cycle fact: contractions in employment are briefer and more violent than expansions but we cannot reject the null of equal brevity and violence for expansions and contractions in output. The difference arises because employment typically lags output around peaks but they coincide in their troughs. We discuss the performance of existing business cycle models in accounting for this fact, and conclude that none can fully account for it. We then show that a business cycle model with asymmetric adjustment costs on employment and a choice of when to scrap old technologies can account for the business cycle fact both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Mistaken Perceptions: Cases and Consequences

Mezias and Starbuck (2003) review previous work and report striking new evidence indicating that managers can be quite mistaken in their perceptions regarding some matters, even matters quite close to their jobs. This is reminiscent of much evidence on politicians and ordinary citizens that generally show a weak grip on basic facts. In assessing how much difference this weakness makes, it is useful to distinguish among four perspectives on managers as: (i) informants for academic research; (ii) performers of their normal work; (iii) problem-solvers in novel situations; (iv) strategic thinkers. Mezias and Starbuck's results suggest a negative assessment on (i) and (iii), but are less clearly relevant on (ii); some open questions regarding (iv) are put forward.
Whistleblower’s Delight: An Evaluation of the Third Circuit Decision in Foglia v. Renal Ventures

In 2014, in Foglia v. Renal Ventures Management LLC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit evaluated the pleading requirements needed to satisfy Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, within the context of False Claims Act complaints. The Third Circuit concurred with the First, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits and determined that it is necessary to provide only reliable indicia that leads to a strong inference of a scheme to submit false claims. This is in opposition to the holdings of some Circuits, which have required complaints to allege specific times, places, contents of acts, and identity of actors. This Comment argues the Third Circuit applied the correct standard because the requirement of advanced specificity at the initial pleading stage presents an unreasonable hurdle to whistleblowers seeking discovery.
The Digital Video Recorder: Unbundling Advertising and Content

Next time you turn on your television, actually watch the commercials and you will quickly see how poorly the economic model of TV is working. They put on a commercial for dog food, but you are allergic to dogs, a commercial for diapers, but, mercifully, your kids are old enough that you no longer need to decide whether Pampers are better than Huggies. Many of the commercials are for product categories that you do not purchase; others are for products, such as cars or computers, that you use constantly but purchase only sporadically. Most ads are targeted at no more than the broad side of the barn: Adults 18-49 or Women 25-54 or some other rough demographic segment. We are at a point where this model can be altered dramatically. The digital video recorder (DVR)the best-known names are TiVo and ReplayTVtakes home-taping of TV programs to a new level by dropping the tapes used by the VCR and recording instead to a hard disk. The continuing, dramatic drop in the cost of a gigabyte of storage makes it possible to switch from clunky tapes to smooth digital storage. Plus, the DVR comes with software to make it much easier to record your favorite shows: tell it to record Friends forever and it will. The DVR also promises that we never need watch another commercial, and some versions of ReplayTV make it possible to redistribute copied programs to other viewers. It would be easy to dismiss the DVR as just an updated VCR and to assume that we should apply the same rules to both. But responses to drops in transaction costs can be highly nonlinear. As Napster and its successors have made clear, practices tolerated offline-for music, physical sharing of tapes and CDs-might have dramatically different consequences when moved online at vastly lower transaction costs. The DVR is just one manifestation of the possibilities of adding intel-
An Approximation Approach for Response-Adaptive Clinical Trial Design

Multiarmed bandit (MAB) problems, typically modeled as Markov decision processes (MDPs), exemplify the learning versus earning trade-off. An area that has motivated theoretical research in MAB desi...
Capital Gains Taxes, Pricing Spreads, and Arbitrage: Evidence from Cross‐Listed Firms in the U.S.

ABSTRACT: We examine how shareholder‐level taxes affect the contemporaneous pricing of foreign firms' U.S. cross‐listed and underlying home‐country securities surrounding the 1997 reduction in U.S. capital gains tax rates. Consistent with tax capitalization, we find that the performance of cross‐listed shares is negatively related to dividend yield, suggesting an abnormal price increase for shares with greater anticipated taxable capital gains. Due to barriers to cross‐border arbitrage, underlying home‐country securities, on average, do not react during the event, creating a temporary tax‐induced pricing spread. When costs of arbitrage are low, the pricing disparity quickly dissipates and home‐country shares closely mirror the pricing of their cross‐listed counterparts. In further tests, we are unable to document lock‐in behavior, which predicates a decrease in prices attributable to a surge in volume for shares with greater accrued taxable capital gains. Overall, our findings suggest that an exogenous sh...
Are We Safer from Terrorism? No, but We Can Be

This essay marks the fifth anniversary of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. It explores whether Americans are now safer from terrorism thanks to the reforms set forth in the Act, reforms taken from the recommendations the 9/11 Commission. The consensus of intelligence experts is that the fundamental problems with intelligence sharing and coordination that existed prior to 9/11 have not been resolved. This lack of progress was recently exposed in the Christmas Day (2009) attempt by an al Qaeda sympathizer to set off explosives in a plane landing in Detroit. Intelligence failures are inevitable owing to entrenched practices and trade-offs inherent to intelligence work that cannot be eliminated through structural reforms. With the growth of anti-American radicalism, it is increasingly evident that Americans cannot be made safer from terrorism if the primary focus is on intelligence reform. The only long term solution is to reduce the supply of terrorists. This cannot be accomplished through military actions alone because these very military actions are fanning further radicalization, adding more recruits to the ranks of terrorists. The provisions in the Act that propose to dampen anti-American extremism are absurdly inadequate because the 9/11 Commission and Congress failed to recognize the factors that fuel this extremism. To provide a deeper understanding, this essay elaborates on the remarkable reverse image that grips both sides in this conflict: Americans believe that Muslim extremists attacked America first, and continue to attack us, whereas Muslims targeting us believe that America attacked Muslims first, and continues to attack Muslims. This essay was written by invitation of the Review to be paired (from contrasting perspectives) with a contribution from the first Director of National Intelligence, Ambassador John Negroponte.
Optimal Risk in Agricultural Contracts

Abstract It is a commonplace observation that risk-averse farmers ought to prefer less risk. In this paper, we provide three qualifications to this commonplace. First, we note that (properly defined) “less risk” need not imply “smaller variance.” Second, we note that when farmers produce under contract, there may be an important tension between risk and incentives, and we provide a simple characterization of the optimal risk in any production system. Third, we note that while at the margin the behavior of risk-averse farmers may appear to be nearly risk-neutral, it does not follow that one can generally treat such producers “as if” they were risk-neutral without being greatly led astray.
A model of cost-based transfer pricing

In most decentralized organizations, goods and services are transferred between divisions. These transfers are frequently recorded in the accounting books of the divisions; the term transfer price refers to the dollar amount of the interdivisional exchange. This study considers two main issues: (i) the costs and the benefits of delegating decisions through a system of transfer pricing and divisional performance evaluation, and (ii) the performance of one common method of pricing intrafirm transactions: cost-based transfer pricing. The study analyzes a firm in which each divisional manager has better information about the divisional environment than what is known by the firm's top management. The first half of the paper demonstrates that the firm can attain the optimal level of profits with a compensation system utilizing (i) reports by divisional managers describing in complete detail each manager's private information, and (ii) divisional performance evaluation with cost-based transfer pricing. Next, a situation is considered in which divisional managers are not able to communicate their private information to the firm's top management because of complexity of divisional environments or managers' specialized expertise. In this bounded-rationality setting, a managerial-compensation system employing cost-based transfer pricing allows the firm to earn strictly higher expected profits than if all decisions are made by the firm's top management relying on divisional managers' reports.
Costly arbitrage and the myth of idiosyncratic risk

Abstract Transaction and holding costs make arbitrage costly. Mispricing exists to the extent that arbitrage costs prevent rational traders from fully eliminating inefficiencies. Although the relation between mispricing and transaction costs is well-known, the relation between mispricing and holding costs is misunderstood. One holding cost, idiosyncratic risk, is particularly misunderstood. Various myths are debunked, including the common myth that idiosyncratic risk matters because arbitrageurs only have access to a small number of projects [Shleifer and Vishny, 1997. The limits of arbitrage. The Journal of Finance 52, 35–55.]. The literature demonstrates that idiosyncratic risk is the single largest cost faced by arbitrageurs.
Kyoto cluster culture: National and regional entrepreneurship strategy and policy in Japan and the United States

What causes regions such as Kyoto (city and prefecture) to create a self-sustaining critical mass, or cluster, of new venture start-ups in emerging sectors? Can this success in ‘clustering’ entrepreneurial businesses be replicated elsewhere? What are the most effective ways to connect fledgling firms to critical resources? This article examines life science (biotechnology and medical device) start-ups and their founders, firms and emerging clusters within which they are embedded. Firms and regions are examined through original case study survey/interviews and network analysis of entrepreneurial social (strategic support) networks and resource environments. Informal and formal strategy and policy networks – innovative coalitions of local stakeholders – are analyzed in terms of their relative success in creating an innovative milieu of extra-firm social networks within which new firms can prosper. Findings from Kyoto are compared with Minneapolis/St Paul (aka the ‘Twin Cities’), which is also attempting to create a convergence of products derived from innovations in two or more technology sectors (for example, nanotechnology and biotechnology), also based upon its strong medical device industry. Understanding Kyoto's cluster culture in a comparative perspective offers some strategic and policy lessons for newcomer regions and entrepreneurs, which are not dependent on a particular national context.
MULTIVARIATE SUBORDINATION OF MARKOV PROCESSES WITH FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS

This paper develops the procedure of multivariate subordination for a collection of independent Markov processes with killing. Starting from d independent Markov processes with killing and an independent d-dimensional time change , we construct a new process by time, changing each of the Markov processes with a coordinate . When is a d-dimensional Levy subordinator, the time changed process is a time-homogeneous Markov process with state-dependent jumps and killing in the product of the state spaces of . The dependence among jumps of its components is governed by the d-dimensional Levy measure of the subordinator. When is a d-dimensional additive subordinator, Y is a time-inhomogeneous Markov process. When with forming a multivariate Markov process, is a Markov process, where each plays a role of stochastic volatility of . This construction provides a rich modeling architecture for building multivariate models in finance with time- and state-dependent jumps, stochastic volatility, and killing (default). The semigroup theory provides powerful analytical and computational tools for securities pricing in this framework. To illustrate, the paper considers applications to multiname unified credit-equity models and correlated commodity models.