cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Improving out-of-sample predictions using response times and a model of the decision process

Abstract A basic problem in empirical economics involves using data from one domain to make out-of-sample predictions for a different, but related environment. When the choice data are binary, a canonical method for making these types of predictions is the logistic choice model. This paper investigates whether it is possible to improve out-of-sample predictions by changing two aspects of the canonical approach: 1) Using response times in addition to the choice data, and 2) Combining them using a model from the psychology and neuroscience literature, the Drift-Diffusion Model (DDM). Two experiments compare the out-of-sample choice prediction accuracies of both methods and in both cases the DDM method outperforms a logistic prediction method. Furthermore, the DDM allows for out-of-sample process predictions. Both experiments validate the DDM as a method for predicting out-of-sample response times.
THE 1998 OECD CONVENTION: AN IMPETUS FOR WORLDWIDE CHANGES IN ATTITUDES TOWARD CORRUPTION IN BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS

The Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, as formulated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), provides an impetus for worldwide changes in legislation governing international business transactions. The Convention obligates signatory countries to adopt domestic legislation making bribery of foreign public officials a criminal act. Additionally, the Convention emulates the corporate accountability approach of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to detect corrupt payments. The Convention alone is not enough, however, to address other corrosive aspects of corruption. This article examines the strengths of the Convention, analyzes its shortcomings, and recommends that the OECD pursue a multi-faceted strategy to tackle corruption. The strategy should include alliances with other multilateral organizations, international financial institutions, and civil society to develop additional initiatives for educating relevant parties and changing their attitudes about corruption, so that it will be significantly diminished.
The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations

The Protestant Reformation was a crucial spring of modern international relations. Had it lever occurred, a system of sovereign states would not have arrived, at least not in the form or at he time that it did at the Peace of Westphalia. This is the counterfactual the author seeks to sustain. He first advances an elaborated but qualified defense of the conventional wisdom that Westphalia is the origin of modern international relations. He then accounts for how Protestant deas exerted influence through transforming identities and exercising social power. Structural heories, emphasizing changes in material power, are skeptical of this account. The author roots lis empirical defense of ideas in the strong correlation between Reformation crises and polities' interests in Westphalia. A description of the historical causal pathways running from ideas to political interest then follows. Germany and France are brought as cases to illustrate two of these pathways. Finally, the author shows the evidentiary weakness of alternative structural material explanations.
Texas Advance Directives Act: Nearly a Model Dispute Resolution Mechanism for Intractable Medical Futility Conflicts

Increasingly, clinicians and commentators have been calling for the establishment of special adjudicatory dispute resolution mechanisms to resolve intractable medical futility disputes. As a leading model to follow, policymakers both around the United States and around the world have been looking to the conflict resolution provisions in the 1999 Texas Advance Directives Act (‘TADA’). In this article, I provide a complete and thorough review of the purpose, history, and operation of TADA. I conclude that TADA is a commendable attempt to balance the competing goals of efficiency and fairness in the resolution of these time-sensitive life-and-death conflicts. But TADA is too lopsided. It is far more efficient than it is fair. TADA should be amended to better comport with fundamental notions of procedural due process.
Partisan Activism and Access to Welfare in Lebanon.

How do welfare regimes function when state institutions are weak and ethnic or sectarian groups control access to basic services? This paper explores how people gain access to basic services in Lebanon, where sectarian political parties from all major religious communities are key providers of social assistance and services. Based on analyses of an original national survey (n = 1,911) as well as in-depth interviews with providers and other elites (n = 175) and beneficiaries of social programs (n = 135), I make two main empirical claims in the paper. First, political activism and a demonstrated commitment to a party are associated with access to social assistance; and second, higher levels of political activism may facilitate access to higher levels or quantities of aid, including food baskets and financial assistance for medical and educational costs. These arguments highlight how politics can mediate access to social assistance in direct ways and add new dimensions to scholarly debates about clientelism by focusing on contexts with politicized religious identities and by problematizing the actual goods and services exchanged.
Domesticating discourses: European law, English judges, and political institutions

Political science research on Europeanization has focused too little on the domestic legal-constitutional implications of European legal integration. We address this relative neglect, identifying two models of the impact of European law on domestic judicial discourses and testing them against evidence on the invocation of three EU law concepts within English courts. Contrary to a statist model, which expects judicial discourses to correspond closely with direct importations of European law through the preliminary reference procedure, we find stronger support for an indigenization model in which courts gradually domesticate previously alien concepts. These domesticating discourses offer new insights into domestic political and constitutional orders in the context of European and international legalization.
UNDERSTANDING THE MASS-RADIUS RELATION FOR SUB-NEPTUNES: RADIUS AS A PROXY FOR COMPOSITION

Transiting planet surveys like Kepler have provided a wealth of information on the distribution of planetary radii, particularly for the new populations of super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets. In order to aid in the physical interpretation of these radii, we compute model radii for low-mass rocky planets with hydrogen-helium envelopes. We provide model radii for planets 1-20 M ⊕, with envelope fractions 0.01%-20%, levels of irradiation 0.1-1000 times Earth's, and ages from 100 Myr to 10 Gyr. In addition we provide simple analytic fits that summarize how radius depends on each of these parameters. Most importantly, we show that at fixed H/He envelope fraction, radii show little dependence on mass for planets with more than 1% of their mass in their envelope. Consequently, planetary radius is to a first order a proxy for planetary composition, i.e., H/He envelope fraction, for Neptune- and sub-Neptune-sized planets. We recast the observed mass-radius relationship as a mass-composition relationship and discuss it in light of traditional core accretion theory. We discuss the transition from rocky super-Earths to sub-Neptune planets with large volatile envelopes. We suggest 1.75 R ⊕ as a physically motivated dividing line between these two populations of planets. Finally, we discuss these results in light of the observed radius occurrence distribution found by Kepler. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Contexts of Accountability under Systemic Reform: Implications for Principal Influence on Instruction and Supervision.

Purpose:The study investigates how various accountability contexts—including states, local boards, districts, school site councils, parent associations, and teachers—affect the ability of principals to influence instructional and supervisory decisions in their schools.Data:Data for the analysis come from 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey responses of 8,524 elementary, middle, and high school principals in low-, moderate-, and high-control states. Principals responded to queries regarding their personal influence and the influence of various other policy actors on decisions in the instructional and supervisory domains in the principals’ schools.Analysis:To examine variation in principal influence within and between states, the study uses hierarchical linear modeling as its primary analytic technique.Findings:Results indicate that the various accountability contexts differentially affect principals’ influence, which also vary by domain, extent of state control, and region.Implications for Practice:Princ...
Political capital and moral hazard

Abstract This paper examines how political connections affect risk exposure of financial institutions. Using a geography-based measure, I find that politically connected firms have higher leverage and their stocks have higher volatility and beta. Furthermore, prior to the 2008 financial crisis, politically-connected financial firms had higher leverage and were more likely to increase their leverage during the housing bubble in response to local growth in median housing prices. During the crisis, higher leverage was associated with worse performance but being in a state with a US Senator on the Banking Committee was correlated with weakly improved stock returns and reduced bankruptcy probability, highlighting the value of political connections for financial firms.
HARM AND ITS MORAL SIGNIFICANCE

Standard, familiar models portray harms and benefits as symmetrical. Usually, harm is portrayed as involving a worsening of one's situation, and benefits as involving an improvement. Yet morally, the aversion, prevention, and relief of harms seem, at least presumptively, to matter more than the provision, protection, and maintenance of comparable and often greater benefits. Standard models of harms and benefits have difficulty acknowledging this priority, much less explaining it. They also fail to identify harm accurately and reliably. In this paper, I develop these problems, argue that we should reconsider our commitment to the standard models, and then merely gesture at the direction in which we might locate a superior approach, one that better accounts for the moral significance of harm and its relation to autonomy rights.
Welfare as Happiness

I. A HAPPINESS-BASED APPROACH TO WELL-BEING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1588 A. WEAK WELFARISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1589 B. HAPPINESS AND THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF LIFE . . . . . . . . . 1590 C. WELFARE AS HAPPINESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1591 D. FEELING VS. EVALUATING AND THE CHOICE OF THE TIME INTERVAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1592 1. Determining Worth by Aggregating Moments . . . . . . . . 1593 2. Moment-by-Moment Feeling vs. Assessed Well-Being . 1594 3. Time Intervals: Projects vs. Moments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1595 E. MEASURING HAPPINESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1595 1. Experience Sampling Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1596 2. Life Satisfaction Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1598 3. Reliability and Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1599 4. Hedonic Psychology’s Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1600
The Many Faces of Fault in Contract Law: Or How to Do Economics Right, Without Really Trying

Modern law often rests on the assumption that a uniform costbenefit formula is the proper way to determine fault in ordinary contract disputes. This Article disputes that vision by defending the view that different standards of fault are appropriate in different contexts. The central distinction is one that holds parties in gratuitous transactions only to the standard of care that they bring to their own affairs, while insisting on the higher objective standard of ordinary care in commercial transactions. That bifurcation leads to efficient searches. Persons who hold themselves out in particular lines of business in effect warrant their ability to achieve uniform standards, while individuals who seek favors from their friends are incentivized to choose them carefully given the subjective standard of care. These results, moreover, derive from the Roman conceptions of care brought into the Anglo-American law through the 1703 decision in Coggs v. Bernard, and are shown to have surprising durability in dealing with agency, medical malpractice, occupier liability, guest statute, and frustration cases. Often the efficient standard of fault is given only to those who do economics without really trying.
The Jurisdiction of the Writers Guild to Determine Authorship of Movies and Television Programs

This paper, part of a symposium on literary-legal scholarship on the concept of “Juris-Dictions,” explores the uses of the concept of jurisdiction in the process by which the Writers Guild of America (WGA or Guild) – the union that represents film and TV writers – determines screen credit for writers. Screen credit is governed by the terms of a contract between the WGA and production companies stipulating that the WGA has the exclusive jurisdiction to determine screen and advertising credit for writers who worked on the production. The jurisdiction of the WGA to determine credit – which is the power of writers to decide authorship of works that the writers do not own and of which they are not the legal “authors” within the meaning of copyright law – is enormously important to writers. It gives writers the power to determine who should be known as the author of a film or TV script, which affects how much writers get paid, whether their future work will get produced, how they are regarded within the Hollywood community, and how films and TV programs are interpreted by critics and by that segment of the public who pay attention to writers. Hollywood writers use the legal concept of jurisdiction to assert their power to define authorship, and they use multiple forms of procedural and substantive law to determine the credited author of a script. Because writers are not owners of their work, and because many people contribute to the finished film, writers are credited for stories that are not quite the same as the ones they actually wrote. Yet they insist on credit nevertheless, and for good reason. Ever anxious about their status as the authors of a film in a world in which directors and actors are far more likely to be seen by the public and by critics as the authors of a film or TV show, writers use their jurisdiction over writing credit to protect their status as authors. While jurisdiction is always the device by which law sanctions the exercise of power, the jurisdiction of the Writers Guild reflects and creates a particular form of power in Hollywood: the power to define individual authorship of a collective creation, which in turn creates the power to be paid to tell stories.
An Information-Theoretic Foundation for the Weighted Updating Model

Weighted Updating generalizes Bayesian updating, allowing for biased beliefs by weighting the likelihood function and prior distribution with positive real exponents. I provide a rigorous foundation for the model by showing that transforming a distribution by exponential weighting (and normalizing) systematically affects the information entropy of the resulting distribution. For weights greater than one the resulting distribution has less information entropy than the original distribution, and vice versa. The entropy of a distribution measures how informative a decision maker is treating the underlying observation(s), so this result suggests a useful interpretation of the weights. For example, a weight greater than one on a likelihood function models an individual who is treating the associated observation(s) as being more informative
Productivity and offshoring innovative activities

ABSTRACTRecent studies suggest that firms may gain from global sourcing of innovative activities. Yet, only a small number of firms offshore their R&D, design, and engineering tasks. To explain this selection pattern, this paper examines the heterogeneity in total factor productivity among a large group of European firms. The results suggest that those firms that offshore their innovative activities tend to be more productive than domestic firms, exporters, and other multinational corporations. This finding implies that firms with superior productivity are more likely to exploit the global task distribution in innovative activities, which may provide an explanation for why such low participation is observed in the data.
Principal 2-blocks and Sylow 2-subgroups

Let $G$ be a finite group with Sylow $2$-subgroup $P \leqslant G$. Navarro-Tiep-Vallejo have conjectured that the principal $2$-block of $N_G(P)$ contains exactly one irreducible Brauer character if and only if all odd-degree ordinary irreducible characters in the principal $2$-block of $G$ are fixed by a certain Galois automorphism $\sigma \in \mathrm{Gal}(\mathbb{Q}_{|G|}/\mathbb{Q})$. Recent work of Navarro-Vallejo has reduced this conjecture to a problem about finite simple groups. We show that their conjecture holds for all finite simple groups, thus establishing the conjecture for all finite groups.
Pathways after Default: What Happens to Distressed Mortgage Borrowers and Their Homes?

We use a detailed dataset of seriously delinquent mortgages to examine the dynamic process of mortgage default—from initial delinquency and default to final resolution of the loan and disposition of the property. We estimate a two-stage competing risk hazard model to assess the factors associated with post-default outcomes, including whether a borrower receives a legal notice of foreclosure. In particular, we focus on a borrower’s ability to avoid a foreclosure auction by getting a modification, by refinancing the loan, or by selling the property. We find that the outcomes of the foreclosure process are significantly related to: loan characteristics including the borrower’s credit history, current loan-to-value and the presence of a junior lien; the borrower’s post-default payment behavior, including the borrower’s participation in foreclosure counseling; neighborhood characteristics such as foreclosure rates, recent house price depreciation and median income; and the borrower’s race and ethnicity.
The double galaxy cluster Abell 2465 – I. Basic properties: optical imaging and spectroscopy

Optical imaging and spectroscopic observations of the z = 0.245 double galaxy cluster Abell 2465 are described. This object appears to be undergoing a major merger. It is a double X-ray source and is detected in the radio at 1.4 GHz. The purpose of this paper is to investigate signatures of the interaction of the two components. Redshifts were measured to determine velocity dispersions and virial radii of each component. The technique of fuzzy clustering was used to assign membership weights to the galaxies in each clump. Using redshifts of 93 cluster members within 1.4 Mpc of the subcluster centres, the virial masses of the north-east (NE) and south-west (SW) components are M v = 4.1 ± 0.8 x 10 14 and 3.8 ± 0.8 x 10 14 M ⊙ , respectively. These agree within the errors with masses from X-ray scaling relations. The projected velocity difference between the two subclusters is 205 ± 149 km s ―1 . The anisotropy parameter, β, is found to be low for both components. Spectra of 37 per cent of the spectroscopically observed galaxies show emission lines and are predominantly star forming in the diagnostic diagram. No strong active galactic nucleus sources were found. The emission-line galaxies tend to lie between the two cluster centres with more near the SW clump. The luminosity functions of the two subclusters differ. The NE component is similar to many rich clusters, while the SW component has more faint galaxies. The NE clump's light profile follows a single Navarro-Frenk-White profile with c = 10 while the SW is better fitted with an extended outer region and a compact inner core, consistent with available X-ray data indicating that the SW clump has a cooling core. The observed differences and properties of the two components of Abell 2465 are interpreted to have been caused by a collision 2―4 Gyr ago, after which they have moved apart and are now near their apocentres, although the start of a merger remains a possibility. The number of emission-line galaxies gives weight to the idea that galaxy cluster collisions trigger star formation.
IDENTIFYING RESTRICTIONS FOR FINITE PARAMETER CONTINUOUS TIME MODELS WITH DISCRETE TIME DATA

This paper revisits the question of parameter identification when a linear continuous time model is sampled only at equispaced points in time. Following the framework and assumptions of Phillips (1973), we consider models characterized by first-order, linear systems of stochastic differential equations and use a priori restrictions on the model parameters as identifying restrictions. A practical rank condition is derived to test whether any particular collection of at least general linear restrictions on the parameter matrix is sufficient for identification. We then consider extensions to incorporate prior restrictions on the covariance matrix of the disturbances, to identify the covariance matrix itself, and to address identification in models with cointegration.
Does The World Need U.S. Farmers Even If Americans Don’t?

We consider the implications of trends in the number of U.S. farmers and food imports on the question of what role U.S. farmers have in an increasingly global agrifood system. Our discussion stems from the argument some scholars have made that American consumers can import their food more cheaply from other countries than it can produce it. We consider the distinction between U.S. farmers and agriculture and the effect of the U.S. food footprint on developing nations to argue there might be an important role for U.S. farmers, even if it appears Americans don’t need them. For instance, we may need to protect U.S. farmland and, by implication, U.S. farmers, for future food security needs both domestic and international. We also explore the role of U.S. farmers by considering the question of whether food is a privilege or a right. Although Americans seem to accept that food is a privilege, many scholars and commentators argue that, at least on a global scale, food is a right, particularly for the world’s poor and hungry. If this is the case, then U.S. farmers might have a role in meeting the associated obligation to ensure that the poor of the world have enough food to eat. We look at the consequences of determining that food is a right versus a privilege and the implications of that decision for agricultural subsidies as well as U.S. agriculture and nutrition policies.
Derivational robustness, credible substitute systems and mathematical economic models: the case of stability analysis in Walrasian general equilibrium theory

This paper supports the literature which argues that derivational robustness can have epistemic import in highly idealized economic models. The defense is based on a particular example from mathematical economic theory, the dynamic Walrasian general equilibrium model. It is argued that derivational robustness first increased and later decreased the credibility of the Walrasian model. The example demonstrates that derivational robustness correctly describes the practices of a particular group of influential economic theorists and provides support for the arguments of philosophers who have offered a general epistemic justification of such practices.
Metabolic Heat in Microbial Conflict and Cooperation

Author(s): Frank, SA | Abstract: Many microbes live in habitats below their optimum temperature. Retention of metabolic heat by aggregation or insulation would boost growth. Generation of excess metabolic heat may also provide benefit. A cell that makes excess metabolic heat pays the cost of production, whereas the benefit may be shared by neighbors within a zone of local heat capture. Metabolic heat as a shareable public good raises interesting questions about conflict and cooperation of heat production and capture. Metabolic heat may also be deployed as a weapon. Species with greater thermotolerance gain by raising local temperature to outcompete less thermotolerant taxa. Metabolic heat may provide defense against bacteriophage attack, by analogy with fever in vertebrates. This article outlines the theory of metabolic heat in microbial conflict and cooperation, presenting several predictions for future study.
The Dark Side of Internal Capital Markets: Divisional Rent-Seeking and Inefficient Investment

We develop a two-tiered agency model that shows how rent-seeking behavior on the part of division managers can subvert the workings of an internal capital market. By rent-seeking, division managers can raise their bargaining power and extract greater overall compensation from the CEO. And because the CEO is herself an agent of outside investors, this extra compensation may take the form not of cash wages, but rather of preferential capital budgeting allocations. One interesting feature of our model is that it implies a kind of “socialism” in internal capital allocation, whereby weaker divisions get subsidized by stronger ones.
The Distribution of Reit Liquidity

In this study, we examine the distribution of market liquidity for a broad sample of real estate investment trusts (REITs). While prior research has focused on the average liquidity of REITs, we ex...
Failing Failed States: A Response to John Yoo

In Fixing Failed States, 99 CALIF. L. REV. 95 (2011), John Yoo shows that intervening states seeking to transform the social, economic, and political framework of failed states aim to do too much and ultimately fail. Yoo proposes that the role of intervening states should be minimal — enforcing power-sharing agreements between competing groups within failed states, rather than transforming them into parliamentary democracies. Stated another way, he argues that failed states are best stabilized by military guarantees from western countries. He argues that the rules prohibiting the use of force should be loosened to facilitate such military guarantees as a means of re-stabilizing failed states. In my response to Yoo’s, I argue that his proposals overstate the benefits of loosening the prohibition against the use of force and the rule that occupied countries be restored to full sovereignty. By proceeding primarily from a security perspective, he offers a military solution that risks exacerbating rather than resolving the problem of failed states while failing to support his arguments with persuasive evidence and case studies to support the efficacy of his proposals. Ultimately, I disagree with the means Yoo proposes to fix failed states.
Two Views of Accounting Measurement

The two views to be addressed here are the Chambers/Sydney view that accepts only one measurement method—current net realizable price—and the Staubus/mainstream view that accepts several measurement methods in the same financial report. These two views became well-established in the literature of accounting in the 1960s and their proponents have clung tenaciously to their oft-criticized positions for some forty years. However commendable their original expositions may have been, their continuing existence does no credit to the small coterie of accountants now interested in theory. This article is aimed at ‘narrowing the areas of difference’ between adherents to the two views by isolating fundamental bases for them and exposing the reasoning supporting their structures. In a nutshell, they differ in their objectives and they can be expected to survive unless their adherents agree on the objectives of financial reporting.
An empirical evaluation of the transitivity, monotonicity, accounting, and conjoint axioms for perceived risk

Abstract This study tests the adequacy of the axioms underlying Luce and Weber's (1986) conjoint expected risk model. Risk judgments are found to be transitive. Monotonicity or the substitution principle per se seems to hold, but the related probability accounting assumption is violated. The conjoint structure assumptions about the effect of change of scale transformations on risk hold for negative-outcome lotteries but encounter some difficulty for positive-outcome lotteries. Possible explanations for violations are suggested, and implications of these results for the modeling of perceived risk are discussed.
Dynamic effect of Tobin's Q on price-to-earnings ratio

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamic effect of Tobin's q ratio on price-to-earnings (PE) ratio. Design/methodology/approach – The objective of this study is to investigate the dynamic effect of Tobin's q on PE ratio. To achieve this objective, a vector autoregressive analysis (Equation (1)) is employed to analyze the quarterly data from 1951Q4 to 2012Q4 to determine the generalized impulse response functions and perform the variance decomposition of Tobin's q ratio on PE ratio. The Granger causality Wald test is performed to determine if Tobin's q ratio causes PE ratio and vice versa. Findings – Based on the analysis of the quarterly market-level data from 1951Q4 to 2012Q4, the results show that PE ratio significantly drops immediately following the shock to the change in Tobin's q ratio. The results from the Granger-causality test indicate that Tobin's q ratio change causes PE ratio to drop. There is not a reverse causation from PE ratio to Tobin's q ratio change. The varianc...
What is the systemic risk exposure of financial institutions

I compare the performance of three measures of institution-level systemic risk exposure — Exposure CoVaR (Adrian and Brunnermeier, 2016), systemic expected shortfall (Acharya et al., 2016), and Granger causality (Billio et al., 2012). I modify Exposure CoVaR to allow for forecasting, and estimate the ability of each measure to forecast the performance of financial institutions during systemic crisis periods in 1998 (LTCM) and 2008 (Lehman Brothers). I find that Exposure CoVaR forecasts the within-crisis performance of financial institutions, and provides useful forecasts of future systemic risk exposures. Systemic expected shortfall and Granger causality do not forecast the performance of financial institutions reliably during crises. I also find, using cross-sectional regressions, that foreign equity exposure and securitization income determine systemic risk exposure during the 1998 and 2008 crises, respectively; financial institution size determines systemic risk exposure during both crisis periods; and executive compensation does not determine systemic risk exposure.
The Association between Changes in Interest Rates, Earnings, and Equity Values*

Numerous studies have documented that stock returns are negatively related to changes in interest rates, but there has been little corroborating research on the information in interestrate changes about the fundamentals that the stock market prices. The negative correlation is often attributed to changes in the discount rate, a denominator effect in a valuation model. However, there may also be a numerator effect on the expected payoffs that are discounted. This paper shows that changes in interest rates are positively related to subsequent earnings, but the change in earnings is typically not large enough to cover the change in the required return. Hence, the net (numerator and denominator) effect on equity value is negative, consistent with the results of the research on interest rates and stock returns.
The Objective Value of Subjective Value: A Multi-Round Negotiation Study

A 2-round negotiation study provided evidence that positive feelings resulting from one negotiation can be economically rewarding in a second negotiation. Negotiators experiencing greater subjective value (SV)—that is, social, perceptual, and emotional outcomes from a negotiation—in Round 1 achieved greater individual and joint objective negotiation performance in Round 2, even with Round 1 economic outcomes controlled. Moreover, Round 1 SV predicted the desire to negotiate again with the same counterpart, whereas objective negotiation performance had no such association. Taken together, the results suggest that positive feelings, not just positive outcomes, can evoke future economic success.
Jury Trials in Japan

Seeking to involve their citizens in the judicial system as well to establish a check on the power of the judiciary, the Japanese have enacted legislation to create jury trials. The type of jury trial enacted by this legislation, which takes effect in 2009, is a mixed-jury system where judges and citizens participate together in jury deliberations. This article first explores the differences between mixed juries and the American jury system. It then suggests why the Japanese opted for a mixed-jury system. From that point the article explores psychological theory surrounding collective judgment and how dominant individuals influence group dynamics. With these theories in mind, the article explores Japanese cultural attitudes and suggests that the objective of meaningful citizen participation might be impeded in the jury deliberation process. Finally, the article proposes specific procedural devices to ensure meaningful citizen participation.
Does an Academic Research Paper Contain Useful Knowledge? No (p<.05)

Commentary on the Mort et al. paper. Assume that you are handed a paper randomly selected from an academic journal in your field. What is the likelihood that it contains useful knowledge?
System and life-world in Habermas's theory of communicative action

In his recent Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns1 Jurgen Habermas develops a "two-level" theory of modern societies within which he attempts to integrate the action-theoretical and systems-theoretical sociological perspectives. One can distinguish four stages in the development of this theory: 1) its action-theoretical foundations in the notion of communicative action, 2) Habermas's construction of the concept of the "life-world" as the social background to communicative action, 3) his critical review of systems-theoretical concepts, and finally 4) his construction of a model of society that can integrate insights from both the action-theoretical and systems-theoretical approaches a highly generalized model of social process as "interchange" between the functionally organized economic and administrative systems, on one hand, and the "components" of the communicatively structured "life-world," on the other.
On Overreaching, or Why Rick Perry May Save the Voting Rights Act but Destroy Affirmative Action

Abstract The State of Texas is presently staking out two positions that are not typically pursued by a single litigant. On the one hand, Texas is seeking the invalidation of the Voting Rights Act, and, on the other, the State is now defending the validity of the expansive race-based affirmative action policy it uses at its flagship university. This Essay presses the claim that Texas has increased the chance it will lose in both Texas v. Holder and Fisher v. University of Texas because it has opted to stake out markedly extreme positions in each. I argue that Texas would be more likely to succeed had it chosen to temper both its actions and claims in the pending cases. As it stands, Texas's assertive stance in Fisher promises to bolster the aversion many Justices already feel towards affirmative action. With regard to the VRA, however, Texas's uncompromising approach to the regime may prove to be the VRA's best defense. As recent redistricting and voter ID decisions suggest, Texas's stance may be provide w...
MobilityMirror: Bias-Adjusted Transportation Datasets

We describe customized synthetic datasets for publishing mobility data. Companies are providing new transportation modalities, and their data is of high value for integrative transportation research, policy enforcement, and public accountability. However, these companies are disincentivized from sharing data not only to protect the privacy of individuals (drivers and/or passengers), but also to protect their own competitive advantage. Moreover, demographic biases arising from how the services are delivered may be amplified if released data is used in other contexts.
ODD LOT ORDER AGGRESSIVENESS AND STEALTH TRADING

We investigate the degree to which orders are aggressively priced, paying particular attention to odd lot orders, and examine whether odd lot orders are being successfully used in stealth trading strategies. We find that odd lot orders execute at higher frequencies than larger orders, which is due to odd lot orders being aggressively priced. We find that microstructure changes have not altered the nature of price aggressiveness, but its determinants hold different explanatory power for odd lot orders. We find evidence that informed traders are shredding their orders into odd lot orders and stealth trading is permeating odd lot denominations.
A Dynamic View of Organizational Transformation: The Changing Face of Chinese SOEs Under Transition

The controlled process of economic reform in China has attracted growing attention from around the world due to its significance for theory and practice. What has been missing in the literature is ...
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

We consider intellectual property rights (IPRs) in a Schumpeterian growth model in which patent holders face the threats of profit loss due to imitation and complete valuation loss due to outside innovation. We disaggregate IPR policies by distinguishing between the quality of the IPR regime and the intensity of IPR enforcement. An increase in the quality of the IPR regime unambiguously promotes growth. However, the relationship between IPR enforcement intensity and growth follows an inverted U-shaped curve. The growth-maximizing intensity of IPR enforcement is decreasing in institutional quality. We also investigate the model's welfare implications and examine the economy under a no-growth equilibrium.
Moral Ambiguity in White Collar Criminal Law

Many cases involving allegations of white collar criminality reflect a striking quality of moral ambiguity, a tendency to blur the lines between what is truly criminal and what is not. After offering five case studies in which such ambiguity is manifest, the article posits ten overlapping and interrelated factors that help explain both the causes and effects of this phenomenon. In some cases, it is difficult to distinguish between what is criminal and what is "merely aggressive" behavior, as when a defendant argues that: alleged extortion was merely "hardball negotiating," obstruction of justice was nothing more than "zealous advocacy," perjury was just "wiliness" on the witness stand, fraud was really "creative accounting," tax evasion was merely "tax avoidance," bribes were actually "campaign contributions," and so on. In other cases (involving, for example, various intellectual property and regulatory offenses), legislatures have criminalized conduct that large segments of the public simply do not regard as worthy of criminalization. Also relevant in understanding the causes and effects of moral ambiguity in white collar criminal law are factors such as: the complexity of the underlying conduct involved; the difficulty of defining harms and identifying victims; the diffusion of responsibility among numerous responsible agents; confusion caused by the statutory conflation of inchoate and completed offenses, and by the distinctive role played by mens rea; the overlap between civil and criminal sanctions; the fact that white collar crimes are often codified apart from more traditional offenses; less severe treatment of white collar crime by prosecutors, the courts, and in sentencing; and the way in which white collar crime is treated by the media and in the academy.
Once and Future Copyright

Copyright is like a well-meaning but ultimately bothersome friend, eager to help but nearly impossible to get rid of. It attaches indiscriminately to the simplest acts of expression, without regard for whether the author needs or wants its protection. This automatic propertization made sense in the print era, when mass distribution of information was an expensive process rarely undertaken by those with no plans to profit from their creativity. It makes little sense today. The following article shows that copyright=s overly solicitous nature is the source of several seemingly unrelated and intractable problemsCe.g., closed code, copyright as censorship, technological hegemonyCthat have resulted from trying to fit the digital peg of computer technology into the analog hole of copyright law. The common solution to these problems involves a purposefully retrograde approach that cures their twenty-firstcentury ills using nineteenth-century tools: copyright=s antiquated formalities. Resurrecting publication, notice, registration, and deposit as threshold requirements for copyright protection prevents authors and publishers from achieving technologically what they do not merit legally, while at the same time ensuring that copyright does not apply in contexts where it is neither necessary nor useful.
Federal deductibility and local property tax rates

Abstract Recent econometric work has suggested that federal deductibility of state and local taxes has raised the proportion of these taxes—especially property taxes—in local budgets. This paper lends additional support to these earlier findings by showing that one channel through which deductibility leads to higher local property tax revenues is by increasing the rate of local property taxation. Specifically, we find that if deductibility were eliminated, the mean property tax rate in our sample would fall by 0.00715 ($7.15 per $1000 of assessed property), or 21.1% of the mean tax rate.
L-Band Photometry of L and T Dwarfs

We present K- and L-band photometry obtained with the Keck I telescope for a representative sample of L and T dwarfs. These observations were motivated in part by the dominant role H2O and CH4 play in shaping the flux near 2 and 3 μm and by the potential use of these bands as indicators of spectral class in the infrared. In addition, these observations aid the determination of the bolometric luminosity of L and T dwarfs. Here we report the K, L', and Ls magnitudes of our objects and the trends observed in the (K-L') and (K-Ls) colors as a function of L and T dwarf spectral class. We compare these colors with theoretical models, derive a relationship between effective temperature and L spectral class, and compare our temperature estimates with others.
Dynamic Image for 3D MRI Image Alzheimer’s Disease Classification

We propose to apply a 2D CNN architecture to 3D MRI image Alzheimer’s disease classification. Training a 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) is time-consuming and computationally expensive. We make use of approximate rank pooling to transform the 3D MRI image volume into a 2D image to use as input to a 2D CNN. We show our proposed CNN model achieves \(9.5\%\) better Alzheimer’s disease classification accuracy than the baseline 3D models. We also show that our method allows for efficient training, requiring only \(20\%\) of the training time compared to 3D CNN models. The code is available online: https://github.com/UkyVision/alzheimer-project.
Crowds, Lending, Machine, and Bias

Can machines outperform crowds in financial lending decisions? Using data from a crowd-lending platform, we show that, compared with portfolios created by crowds, a reasonably sophisticated machine...
Colossal switchable photocurrents in topological Janus transition metal dichalcogenides

Nonlinear optical properties, such as bulk photovoltaic effects, possess great potential in energy harvesting, photodetection, rectification, etc. To enable efficient light–current conversion, materials with strong photo-responsivity are highly desirable. In this work, we predict that monolayer Janus transition metal dichalcogenides (JTMDs) in the 1T′ phase possess colossal nonlinear photoconductivity owing to their topological band mixing, strong inversion symmetry breaking, and small electronic bandgap. 1T′ JTMDs have inverted bandgaps on the order of 10 meV and are exceptionally responsive to light in the terahertz (THz) range. By first-principles calculations, we reveal that 1T′ JTMDs possess shift current (SC) conductivity as large as 2300 nm μA V−2, equivalent to a photo-responsivity of 2800 mA/W. The circular current (CC) conductivity of 1T′ JTMDs is as large as ∼104 nm μA V−2. These remarkable photo-responsivities indicate that the 1T′ JTMDs can serve as efficient photodetectors in the THz range. We also find that external stimuli such as the in-plane strain and out-of-plane electric field can induce topological phase transitions in 1T′ JTMDs and that the SC can abruptly flip their directions. The abrupt change of the nonlinear photocurrent can be used to characterize the topological transition and has potential applications in 2D optomechanics and nonlinear optoelectronics.
De rham complexes for weak galerkin finite element spaces

Abstract Two de Rham complex sequences of the finite element spaces are introduced for weak finite element functions and weak derivatives developed in the weak Galerkin (WG) finite element methods on general polyhedral elements. One of the sequences uses polynomials of equal order for all the finite element spaces involved in the sequence and the other one uses polynomials of naturally descending orders. It is shown that the diagrams in both de Rham complexes commute for general polyhedral elements. The exactness of one of the complexes is established for the lowest order element.
Delivering Solidarity: Platform Architecture and Collective Contention in China’s Platform Economy:

This study examines how and when labor control and management leads to collective resistance in China’s food-delivery platform economy. I develop the concept of “platform architecture” to examine t...
Genome‐wide reduction in chromatin accessibility and unique transcription factor footprints in endothelial cells and fibroblasts in scleroderma skin

OBJECTIVE Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is characterized by widespread fibrosis and vascular complications. This study was undertaken to examine the chromatin landscape and transcription factor footprints in SSc, using an assay for genome-wide chromatin accessibility. METHODS Dermal endothelial cells (ECs) and fibroblasts were isolated from healthy controls and patients with diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc). Assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with sequencing (ATAC-seq) was performed to assess genome-wide chromatin accessibility at a read depth of ~150 million reads per sample. Transcription factor footprinting and motif binding analysis were performed, followed by functional experiments. RESULTS Chromatin accessibility was significantly reduced in dcSSc patients compared to healthy controls. Differentially accessible chromatin loci were enriched in pathways and gene ontologies involved in the nervous system, cell membrane projections and cilia motility, nuclear and steroid receptors, and nitric oxide. In addition, chromatin binding of transcription factors SNAI2, ETV2, and ELF1 was significantly increased in dcSSc ECs, while recruitment of RUNX1 and RUNX2 was enriched in dcSSc fibroblasts. We found significant down-regulation of the neuronal gene NRXN1 and up-regulation of SNAI2 and ETV2 in dcSSc ECs. In dcSSc fibroblasts, down-regulation of the neuronal gene ENTPD1 and up-regulation of RUNX2 were confirmed. Further functional analysis revealed that ETV2 and NRXN1 dysregulation affected angiogenesis in ECs, while ENTPD1 enhanced profibrotic properties in dcSSc fibroblasts. CONCLUSION Our data identify the chromatin blueprint of dcSSc, and suggest that neuronal-related characteristics of SSc ECs and fibroblasts could be a culprit for dysregulated angiogenesis and enhanced fibrosis. Targeting the key pathways and transcription factors identified might present novel therapeutic approaches in SSc.