cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Clustering, factor discovery and optimal transport

The clustering problem, and more generally, latent factor discovery --or latent space inference-- is formulated in terms of the Wasserstein barycenter problem from optimal transport. The objective proposed is the maximization of the variability attributable to class, further characterized as the minimization of the variance of the Wasserstein barycenter. Existing theory, which constrains the transport maps to rigid translations, is extended to affine transformations. The resulting non-parametric clustering algorithms include k-means as a special case and exhibit more robust performance. A continuous version of these algorithms discovers continuous latent variables and generalizes principal curves. The strength of these algorithms is demonstrated by tests on both artificial and real-world data sets.
Innovative Technology and Operations for Alleviating Poverty through Women’s Economic Empowerment

Can technology and operations enable the world to achieve various United Nation Sustainable Development Goals? I provide my own perspective on this question by focusing on the issue of gender equality through the lens of “women’s economic empowerment”. To do so, I use case examples to describe how innovative operations enabled by technologies (mobile phones/online platforms, solar technology, Blockchain / AI, and Internet of Things) can empower women to alleviate poverty, reduce hunger by improving health, increase access to clean water and sanitation, increase access to education and decent work. Then I share some ideas for Operations Management researchers to consider so that we can explore and develop ways to close the “gender gap”.
Scalable Synthesis of Minimum-Information Linear-Gaussian Control by Distributed Optimization

We consider a discrete-time linear-quadratic-Gaussian control problem in which we minimize a weighted sum of the directed information from the state of the system to the control input and the control cost. The optimal control and sensing policies can be synthesized jointly by solving a semidefinite programming problem. However, the existing solutions typically scale cubic with the horizon length. We leverage the structure in the problem to develop a distributed algorithm that decomposes the synthesis problem into a set of smaller problems, one for each time step. We prove that the algorithm runs in time linear in the horizon length. As an application of the algorithm, we consider a path-planning problem in a state space with obstacles under the presence of stochastic disturbances. The algorithm computes a locally optimal solution that jointly minimizes the perception and control cost while ensuring the safety of the path. The numerical examples show that the algorithm can scale to thousands of horizon length and compute locally optimal solutions.
M-theory, black holes and cosmology.

This paper is dedicated to Michael J. Duff on the occasion of his 70th birthday. I discuss some issues of M-theory/string theory/supergravity closely related to Mikes interests. I describe a relati...
THE METHODOLOGY OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS AS A SOPHISTICATED, RATHER THAN NAIVE, PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS

One of the big mistakes in modern intellectual history of the Austrian school is to jump from the reality of Mises's and Hayek's being on the wrong side of the zeitgeist to a claim that they were somehow dismissed relics of a pre-scientific age or martyrs to the causes. The reality is that Mises and Hayek were neither refuted nor martyred; they were simply on the opposite side of history in the second half of the twentieth century. The scientific respect accorded to them as reflected by the awarding of the Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (1969, Mises) and the Nobel Prize (1974, Hayek) indicates their high stature despite their unpopular positions in methodology, analytics, and political economy. Critics overstate the refutation, and followers overplay the martyrdom. But there is no doubt that during the historical context of 1950 to 1975 economics, the ideas that Mises and Hayek laid out in Human Action and Individualism and Economic Order did not receive the scientific and scholarly attention they would in the period since 1975 and today.
The Global Right to Property

Does a right to property exist under international law? The traditional answer to this question is “no” ― a right to property can arise only under national law. But sweeping economic and political changes in recent decades have laid the foundation for recognizing a global right to property. Ideological opposition to property rights has faded with the end of the Cold War; China, Russia, and other socialist states have transitioned to market economies which are premised on private property; and the globalization of trade has enhanced international support for protecting property rights. Accordingly, it is appropriate to revisit the question.This article challenges the conventional wisdom that a right to property can arise only under national law. It is the first legal scholarship to demonstrate that a right to property exists under international law, not merely as a moral precept but rather as an entitlement which all nations must honor. The existence of the global right to property is supported by three independent lines of analysis: conventional law; general principles of law; and customary international law.Recognition of the global right to property has practical implications for the international legal system. It will ensure that the right is respected in proceedings before international judicial and arbitral tribunals. Over time, it will also contribute to building the legal framework for regulating property in the global commons, areas which are outside of the sovereign jurisdiction of any nation such as the high seas, outer space, and Antarctica.
Cases and Case-Lawyers

ABSTRACTIn the 19th century, the term “case lawyer” was used as a label for lawyers who seemed to care more about locating precedents applicable to their current cases than understanding the principles behind the reported case law. Criticisms of case lawyers appeared in English journals in the late 1820s, then in the United States, usually from those who believed that every lawyer needed to know and understand the unchanging principles of the common law in order to resolve issues not found in the reported cases. After the Civil War, expressions of concern about case lawyers increased with the significant growth in the amount of published law after private companies entered the legal publishing market. By the turn of the 20th century, it was generally acknowledged the number of cases had made it impossible for attorneys to not focus on locating precedents. In the 20th century most references to case lawyers were historical, even as the amount of published law facing lawyers continued to grow.
Joining the Club: Accession to the GATT/WTO

Which states join international institutions? Existing theories of the multilateral trade regime, the GATT/WTO, emphasize gains from cooperation on substantive policies regulated by the institution. We argue that political ties rather than issue-area functional gains determine who joins, and we show how geopolitical alignment shapes the demand and supply sides of membership. Discretionary accession rules allow members to selectively recruit some countries in pursuit of foreign policy goals, and common interests attract applicants who are not yet free traders. We use a duration model to statistically analyze accession time to application and length of accession negotiations for the period 1948–2014. Our findings challenge the view that states first liberalize trade to join the GATT/WTO. Instead, democracy and foreign policy similarity encourage states to join. The importance of political ties for membership in the trade regime suggests that theories of international institutions must look beyond narrowly d...
Surveillance, Secrecy, and the Search for Meaningful Accountability

One of the most intractable problems in the debate around maintaining the rule of law while combating the threat of terrorism is the question of secrecy and transparency. In peace time, important tenets to the rule of law include transparency of the law, limits on government power, and consistency of the law as applied to individuals in the polity. Yet the post-9/11 decision-making by the Bush and Obama administrations has been characterized be excessive secrecy that stymies most efforts to hold the government accountable for its abuses. Executive branch policy with regard to detention, interrogation, targeted killing and surveillance are kept secret, and that secrecy has been largely validated by a compliant judiciary that has dismissed almost all suits challenging human and civil rights abuses resulting from counterterrorism programs. Efforts by Congress to engage in meaningful oversight have met with mixed results; in the area of government surveillance, such efforts have been fruitless without the benefit of leaked information on warrantless surveillance by government insiders, since the executive branch has generally refused to make public vital aspects of its surveillance programs in ways that could give oversight efforts more muscle. At the same time, the executive branch has consistently defended the legality and efficacy of these surveillance programs. This paper considers the nature and effect of the warrantless surveillance infrastructure constructed in the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and discusses surveillance-related powers and accountability measures in the United Kingdom and India as comparative examples. Through this analysis, this paper questions whether accountability over government abuses in this area exists in an effective form, or if governments have constructed a post-9/11 legal architecture with regard to surveillance that engenders excessive secrecy and renders accountability mechanisms largely meaningless.
New Evidence on the Performance Advantages of Multihospital Systems

This study analyzes the performance effects of proprietary, multihospital systems. It is shown that the organizational structure of these systems may affect the operating costs of member hospitals. Estimating a cost function for Florida hospitals and controlling for other factors, the average costs of HUMANA hospitals are empirically about 17 percent lower, while the costs of other leading chains are about 12 percent lower than not-for-profit institutions. These results contrast with earlier studies that found no such differences. Furthermore, the cost differential that exists between system and non-system hospitals can be largely attributed to technical efficiencies arising from chain ownership.
Restructuring “Germany Inc.”: The Politics of Company and Takeover Law Reform in Germany and the European Union

The reform of German company law by the Control and Transparency Law (KonTraG) of 1998 reveals the politics of corporate governance liberalization. The reforms strengthened the supervisory board, shareholder rights, and shareholder equality, but left intra-corporate power relations largely intact. Major German financial institutions supported the reform's contribution to the modernization of German finance, but blocked mandatory divestment of equity stakes and cross-shareholding. Conversely, organized labor prevented any erosion of supervisory board codetermination. Paradoxically, by eliminating traditional takeover defenses, the KonTraG's liberalization of company law mobilized German political opposition to the European Union's (EU) draft Takeover Directive and limited further legal liberalization.
Taking Law Seriously

The positive literature on judicial behavior has not received nearly the attention it deserves. That literature has a great deal to offer, both to legal scholars and to those who are concerned about the role of legal institutions generally. For example, the literature has the potential to help shed light on the ability of courts to protect rights and foster economic development. This article argues that the positive literature has failed to see its due in large part because positive scholars often do not take law and legal institutions seriously enough.The article identifies three specific sets of problems with the positive scholarship, offering detailed suggestions on how positive scholars can avoid them. The first is the problem of normative bite: Too often positive scholars of judicial behavior seem to be trapped in their own disciplinary debates, without pausing to examine why it is that they are studying what courts and legal institutions do. Second, positive scholars need to pay greater attention to the norms of the law, i.e., how law and legal institutions operate. A skeptical stance toward law is fine, but that skepticism should not get in the way of accurately understanding properly the mechanics of law and legal institutions. Finally, empiricists in particular must take great care regarding the data upon which they rely. It is difficult to obtain good data on the workings of legal systems. Data that are readily available often present a distorted picture of the system being studied.Barry Friedman is Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law at New York University School of Law (barry.friedman@nyu.edu). The author thanks Chuck Cameron, Lee Epstein, Jennifer Hochschild, Jeff Lax, Stefanie Lindquist, Liam Murphy, Jeff Segal, Seana Shiffrin, Jim Spriggs, and three anonymous reviewers for invaluable comments on prior drafts. All errors are the author's own. Jane O'Brien and Kathleen O'Neill provided terrific research assistance.
Childcare and the ‘Care Gap’ in the United States and Australia

This article discusses solutions to the care gap. The alternatives of on-site and employer-funded, inclusive and mixed-type, and universal childcare are discussed.
Evaluating corporate executives’ exchange rate forecasts under a flexible loss function

We examine asymmetry in the loss function of corporate executives in their exchange rate forecasts and test for rationality of the forecast under the assumption of a possibly asymmetric loss function. We find evidence that the loss function of the forecast with a 1-year horizon is symmetric and support for rationality. These findings hold for manufacturing and nonmanufacturing sectors.
Criticizing the Obligatory Acts of Lawyers: A Response to Markovits's Legal Ethics from the Lawyer's Point of View

It is tempting to think that if the role of being a lawyer is justified, then a lawyer who occupies that role in a way consistent with its justification cannot be ethically criticized for what he does. But Daniel Markovits rightly points out that we cannot rest our ethical inquiry so easily. Even if we suppose that something like our current adversary system, as an institution, is morally justified, something is still ethically askew because lawyers engage in a number of ethically dubious practices, such as papering cases, filing implausible claims and counterclaims, and delaying or extending discovery in order to force advantageous settlements. Markovits claims that “the duties attached to their professional roles require lawyers to lie, to cheat, and to abuse.” But this raises a puzzle. How can we make sense of the thought that certain actions are ethically obligatory, and at the same time that one can be ethically criticized for taking them? Doesn’t criticism imply that one should be acting differently? And if one should be acting differently, how can one also be obliged to act that way?I argue that Markovits both exaggerates and misdiagnoses the problem. He exaggerates the problem insofar as he argues that in an ideal adversary system, lawyers are ethically obliged to lie, cheat, and abuse. He misdiagnoses the problem insofar as he argues that the tension arises out of a tension between first-person and third- person frameworks for moral justification.I think a better diagnosis of the puzzle regarding how there can be obligatory actions that nonetheless merit criticism is that the obligations reflect what must be done in the actual world, and the criticisms reflect the way the real world deviates from the ideal. The real world deviates from the ideal world due to a kind of race to the bottom, a race driven by various pressures, including the desire to keep unscrupulous clients with unscrupulous lawyers in check, the economic pressure to win, and the temptations of a false ethical ideology according to which lawyers should do whatever they can do and get away with doing that will help their clients win. The criticism that still attaches to sharp practices, even when they are justified as necessary means of preventing morally deserving clients from being put at an unfair disadvantage, reflects a disgust with the race to the bottom in general. But it also reflects a discomfort with letting the ends justify the means.
African American Student Athletes' Perceptions of Career Transition in Sport: A Qualitative and Visual Elicitation.

This study focuses on 26 African American athletes and explores their perceptions of athletic career transition. Participants consisted of student athletes from a United States National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division IIA institution in the Southeastern region. Participants completed the Life After Sports Scale (LASS), a 58-item inventory utilized to qualitatively and quantitatively examine seven different domains which influence perceptions of the career transition process. The scope of this inquiry examines the qualitative domain of the LASS in which participants were visually primed with a narrative description of a student athlete that has made transition out of sport successfully. Five major themes emerged from the African American student athletes' perceptions of the career transition process: Inspirational Imagery Validation, Academic and Athletic Success, Classroom Accomplishments, Family Devotion, and Life After Sports. These themes are discussed in relation to relevant career dev...
Siting Renewable Energy: Land Use and Regulatory Context

This Article takes up the increasingly important land use question of siting for renewable energy. As concern over climate change grows, new policies are being crafted at all levels of government to support renewable energy as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These policies are driving the need to site and construct new power plants that will utilize renewable resources. Historically, power plant siting has been the province of state and local governments, so the regulatory context into which renewables are being integrated varies, sometimes significantly, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. To examine this regulatory context, this Article focuses on Florida, a state which consumes the third-most electricity in the United States but which generates less than 2 percent of that electricity from renewable resources. The Article first provides an overview of Florida’s power supply sector and sets out the existing regulatory context for terrestrial siting of energy facilities. It then situates Florida’s most promising renewable resources within that context, identifies regulatory barriers that implicate siting, and considers the siting issues unique to each resource. As the article explains, we now have a window of opportunity in which state and local governments can plan for and guide renewable energy siting—an approach that contrasts with utility-driven planning and siting that has long been standard practice.
The Case for Procedural Safeguards in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

The U. S. Refugee Admissions Program (“USRAP”) is a humanitarian program that resettles vulnerable refugees to the United States. Though these refugees have suffered from extraordinarily high rates of trauma, the refugee admissions process does not have formal statutory or regulatory safeguards to accommodate the vulnerable nature of many applicants for resettlement. Yet, the applicants who have suffered the most trauma, including victims of sexual and gender-based violence, are the refugees most likely to be impeded by a process that largely centers on proving the severity of their trauma. To promote accurate outcomes, and to decrease the risk of retraumatization during the resettlement adjudication process, Congress should enact procedural safeguards to govern USRAP. In applications for resettlement, refugees should be guaranteed access to counsel during their interviews, access to evidence used by USRAP against the refugee, written reasons for USRAP’s adverse decisions, the opportunity to appeal, and pre-screening for, and accommodation of, vulnerable traits that might impact the adjudication process.
SHAREHOLDERS' UNANIMITY WITH INCOMPLETE MARKETS*

Macroeconomic models with heterogeneous agents and incomplete markets (e.g. Krusell and Smith, 1998) usually assume that consumers, rather than Þrms, own and accumulate physical capital. This assumption, while convenient, is without loss of generality only if the asset market is complete. When Þnancial markets are incomplete, shareholders will in general disagree on the optimal level of investment to be undertaken by the Þrm. This paper derives conditions under which shareholders unanimity obtains in equilibrium despite the incompleteness of the asset market. In the general equilibrium economy analyzed here consumers face idiosyncratic labor income risk and trade Þrms’ shares in the stock market. A Þrm’s shareholders decide how much of its earnings to invest in physical capital and how much to distribute as dividends. The return on a Þrm’s capital investment is affected by an aggregate productivity shock. The paper contains two main results. First, if the production function exhibits constant returns to scale and short-sales constraints are not binding, then in a competitive equilibrium a Þrm’s shareholders will unanimously agree on the optimal level of investment. Thus, the allocation of resources in this economy is the same as in an economy where consumers accumulate physical capital directly. Second, when short-sales constraints are binding, instead, the unanimity result breaks down. In this case, constrained shareholders prefer a higher level of investment than unconstrained ones.
Designing pro-poor water and sewer concessions: early lessons from Bolivia

The Bolivian government awarded a concession for water and sewer services in La Paz and El Alto in 1997. One goal of doing so was to expand in-house water and sewer service to low-income households. The author uses the Aguas del Illimani case to explore how the design of typical concession agreements (with monopoly private service suppliers) can affect outcomes in poor neighborhoods. She finds that outcomes in services can be affected by the concession contracts, by the contract bid process, by sector regulations, and by regulatory arrangements. To increase the likelihood of improvements in low-income areas, policymakers should: a) Make contract objectives clear and easily measurable. b) Eliminate policy barriers to serving the poor (including property title requirements and service boundaries that exclude poor neighborhoods). c) Design financial incentives consistent with service expansion or improved objectives for low-income areas. Contracts are subject to negotiation, so expansion or connection mandates alone do not guarantee that concessionaires will serve poor areas. Provisions and standards that reduce service options (for example, requirements that eliminate all alternatives to in-house connections) or restrict the emergence of new service providers (for example, granting exclusivity in the service area) could do more harm than good. In two years of operation, Aguas del Illimani met its first expansion mandate and tool many steps to facilitate income areas. The company and the Bolivian water regulator were willing to discuss and seek possible solutions to problems associated with servicing poor neighborhoods. It is too early to tell whether these gains will be sustainable or to predict how privatization will ultimately affect poor households in La Paz and El Alto.
Decentralized Responses to Good Fortune and Bad Luck

Most forms of egalitarian theory impose on government (and through it other people) to redress the inequalities of fortune that result from bad luck. This Article takes issue with the various forms of this large claim, and argues that decentralized forms of assistance are likely in the long run to do better by the very standards by which egalitarians justify their own program. The alleviation of poverty depends in the first instance on increases in wealth that can only come through private innovation and technological advances. These have in fact produced major improvements in overall well-being, with disproportionate advances for the poor. But if one starts with Dworkin’s unsustainable distinction between option and brute luck, or Nussbaum and Sen’s capability theory, then no egalitarian theory can deliver on the promise to level differences in wealth without seriously compromising overall levels of social welfare. By expanding the scope of government regulation, these proposals open the door to selfish political forces whose political clout ensures that ill-conceived programs, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, frustrate the very goals they hope to achieve. State intervention to redistribute resources should be understood as a last resort for dealing with problems of ill fortune.
PLUG-IN SELECTION OF THE NUMBER OF FREQUENCIES IN REGRESSION ESTIMATES OF THE MEMORY PARAMETER OF A LONG-MEMORY TIME SERIES

We consider the problem of selecting the number of frequencies, m, in a log-periodogram regression estimator of the memory parameter d of a Gaussian long-memory time series. It is known that under certain conditions the optimal m, minimizing the mean squared error of the corresponding estimator of d, is given by m(opt)=Cn4/5, where n is the sample size and C is a constant. In practice, C would be unknown since it depends on the properties of the spectral density near zero frequency. In this paper, we propose an estimator of C based again on a log-periodogram regression and derive its consistency. We also derive an asymptotically valid confidence interval for d when the number of frequencies used in the regression is deterministic and proportional to n4/5. In this case, squared bias cannot be neglected since it is of the same order as the variance. In a Monte Carlo study, we examine the performance of the plug-in estimator of d, in which m is obtained by using the estimator of C in the formula for m(opt) above. We also study the performance of a bias-corrected version of the plug-in estimator of d. Comparisons with the choice m=n1/2 frequencies, as originally suggested by Geweke and Porter-Hudak (The estimation and application of long memory time series models. Journal of Time Ser. Anal. 4 (1983), 221–37), are provided.
Learning with Information Capacity Constraints

Motivated by the fact that investors have limited time and attention to process information, this paper provides a continuous-time equilibrium model to analyze the effects of a capacity constraint in the learning process of a representative investor, who optimally allocates her information capacity across multiple sources of uncertainty. Consequently, the cross-sectional structure of information and the resulting asset price dynamics are determined endogenously. The model provides implications on both consumption behavior and the cross-sectional differences in price informativeness in terms of supply of information, speed of price adjustments to fundamental shocks, and price reactions to firm disclosures.
Usurping the Sovereignty of Sovereignty

Stephen Krasner's Sovereignty and Michael Ross Fowler and Julie Marie Bunck's Law, Power, and the Sovereign State together pose the deepest challenge yet to the assumption of sovereignty in international relations scholarship. Both claim not merely that state sovereignty is now compromised but also that it has always been severely truncated, violated, and curtailed. Both works contribute importantly to the field by amassing and cataloging formidable evidence of compromises of sovereignty. Yet by failing to provide a yardstick by which to compare these compromises with states' comparative respect for sovereignty, both works ultimately fail to sustain their thesis. Both also overlook the constitutive dimension of sovereignty, a dimension whose acknowledgment would render sovereignty far more stable than either admits. By contrast, a third work, Rodney Bruce Hall's National Collective Identity, commendably explores the constitutive role of sovereignty and applies it to the development of the nation-state system. The strengths and weaknesses of all three works help set an agenda for future scholarship on sovereignty.
Impact of Macroeconomic Announcements on US Equity Prices: 2009–2013

Returns of several US equity exchange-traded funds on the days of major macroeconomic announcements are examined for the period of January 2009 to July 2013. The ARMA+GARCH model with external linear regression terms that describe announcement events and their surprises is used. It is found that mean daily returns may be notably higher on the announcement days than those for the buy-and-hold strategy, though their difference may be not statistically significant. The ISM Manufacturing Reports, Non-Farm Payrolls, International Trade Balance, Index of Leading Indicators, Housing Starts, and Jobless Claims turn out to be the most statistically significant factors in the model. Three trading strategies that realize daily returns on the various macroeconomic announcement days are compared with the buy-and-hold strategy. The choice of announcements with statistically significant regression coefficients yields higher mean daily returns and better Sharpe ratios but possibly lower compound returns. Transaction costs may significantly affect profitability of these trading strategies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Spillover effects of subprime mortgage originations: The effects of single-family mortgage credit expansion on the multifamily rental market ☆

Abstract The dramatic expansion in subprime mortgage credit fueled a remarkable boom and bust in the US housing market and created a global financial crisis. Even though considerable research examines the housing and mortgage markets during the previous decade, how the expansion in mortgage credit affected the rental market remains unclear; and yet, over 30 percent of all U.S. households reside in the rental market. Our study fills this gap by showing how the multifamily rental market was adversely affected by the development of subprime lending in the single-family market before the advent of the 2007/2008 subprime induced financial crisis. We provide evidence for a fundamentals based linkage by which the effect of an innovation in one market (i.e, the growth in subprime mortgage originations) is propagated through to another market. Using a large database of residential rental lease payment records, our results confirm that the expansion in subprime lending corresponds with an overall decline in the quality of rental payments. Finally, we present evidence showing that the financial performance of multifamily rental properties reflected the increase in rental lease defaults.
The Hurricane Katrina Levee Breach Litigation: Getting the First Geoengineering Liability Case Right

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina flattened the Gulf Coast from the Alabama border to 100 miles west of New Orleans. The New Orleans levees failed, and much of the city was flooded. More than 1800 people died, and property damage is estimated at $108 billion. While Katrina was not the most deadly or expensive hurricane in U.S. history, it was the worst storm in more than eighty years and destroyed public complacency about the government’s ability to respond to disasters. The conventional story of the destruction of New Orleans is that the levees broke because the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) did not design and build them correctly. The district court’s holding in In re Katrina Canal Breaches Consolidated Litigation (Robinson), dis-
The Dark Side of the Future: An Experimental Test of Commitment Problems in Bargaining

While most existing theoretical and experimental literatures focus on how a high probability of repeated play can lead to more socially efficient outcomes (for instance, using the result that cooperation is possible in a repeated prisoner's dilemma), this paper focuses on the detrimental effects of repeated play—the “dark side of the future.” I study a resource division model with repeated interaction and changes in bargaining strength. The model predicts a negative relationship between the likelihood of repeated interaction and social efficiency. This is because the longer shadow of the future exacerbates commitment problems created by changes in bargaining strength. I test and find support for the model using incentivized laboratory experiments. Increases in the likelihood of repeated play lead to more socially inefficient outcomes in the laboratory.
An Argument in Favor of Decriminalization

This Article discusses the reasons why a policy of prohibition has not only failed to solve the drug abuse problem, but has made the problem worse. In response to such failings, this Article recommends, as an alternative to a drug-policy based on law enforcement, a measured and carefully implemented program of drug decriminalization based on the public health system. An alternate name for this policy is "medicalization."
Self-guided Approximate Linear Programs

Approximate linear programs (ALPs) are well-known models based on value function approximations (VFAs) to obtain policies and lower bounds on the optimal policy cost of discounted-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs). Formulating an ALP requires (i) basis functions, the linear combination of which defines the VFA, and (ii) a state-relevance distribution, which determines the relative importance of different states in the ALP objective for the purpose of minimizing VFA error. Both these choices are typically heuristic: basis function selection relies on domain knowledge while the state-relevance distribution is specified using the frequency of states visited by a heuristic policy. We propose a self-guided sequence of ALPs that embeds random basis functions obtained via inexpensive sampling and uses the known VFA from the previous iteration to guide VFA computation in the current iteration. Self-guided ALPs mitigate the need for domain knowledge during basis function selection as well as the impact of the initial choice of the state-relevance distribution, thus significantly reducing the ALP implementation burden. We establish high probability error bounds on the VFAs from this sequence and show that a worst-case measure of policy performance is improved. We find that these favorable implementation and theoretical properties translate to encouraging numerical results on perishable inventory control and options pricing applications, where self-guided ALP policies improve upon policies from problem-specific methods. More broadly, our research takes a meaningful step toward application-agnostic policies and bounds for MDPs.
Legal doctrine and political control

We model legal doctrine as an instrument of political control by higher courts over lower courts and the case outcomes they produce. We focus on the choice between determinate and indeterminate doctrines within a hierarchy of courts where political-ideological alignment between lower and higher courts varies. We show that the choice over doctrinal determinacy depends on the distribution of cases, the distribution of litigants, judicial types, and the level of policy alignment between higher and lower court judges. The model suggests the optimal doctrinal choice for a high court, given the political-ideological alignment between the high court and the lower court, the control characteristics of doctrines themselves, and the matching of doctrines to litigant pools. This has implications regarding preference divergence within the judicial hierarchy, the interaction of different doctrines, and interplay between doctrinal specificity and doctrinal reach.
Directed Technical Change

For many problems in macroeconomics, development economics, labour economics, and international trade, whether technical change is biased towards particular factors is of central importance. This paper develops a simple framework to analyse the forces that shape these biases. There are two major forces affecting equilibrium bias: the price effect and the market size effect. While the former encourages innovations directed at scarce factors, the latter leads to technical change favouring abundant factors. The elasticity of substitution between different factors regulates how powerful these effects are, determining how technical change and factor prices respond to changes in relative supplies. If the elasticity of substitution is sufficiently large, the long run relative demand for a factor can slope up.I apply this framework to develop possible explanations to the following questions: why technical change over the past 60 years was skill biased, and why the skill bias may have accelerated over the past 25 years? Why new technologies introduced during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were unskill biased? What is the effect of biased technical change on the income gap between rich and poor countries? Does international trade affect the skill bias of technical change? What are the implications of wage push for technical change? Why is technical change generally labour augmenting rather than capital augmenting? Copyright 2002, Wiley-Blackwell.
Multilateral, Regional and Bilateral Trade‐Policy Options for the United States and Japan

We have used the Michigan Model of World Production and Trade to simulate the economic effects on the United States, Japan, and other major trading countries/regions of the Doha Round of WTO multilateral trade negotiations and a variety of regional/bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) involving the United States and Japan. We estimate that an assumed reduction of post-Uruguay Round tariffs and other barriers on agricultural and industrial products and services by 33 per cent in the Doha Round would increase world welfare by $686.4 billion, with gains of $164.0 billion for the United States, $132.6 billion for Japan, and significant gains for all other industrialised and developing countries/regions. If there were global free trade with all post-Uruguay Round trade barriers completely removed, world welfare would increase by $2.1 trillion, with gains of $497.0 billion (5.5 per cent of GNP) for the United States and $401.9 billion (6.2 per cent of GNP) for Japan. Regional agreements such as an APEC FTA, an ASEAN Plus 3 FTA, and a Western Hemisphere FTA would increase global and member country welfare but much less so than the Doha multilateral trade round would. Separate bilateral FTAs involving Japan with Singapore, Mexico, Chile and Korea, and the United States with Chile, Singapore and Korea would have positive, though generally small, welfare effects on the partner countries, but potentially disruptive sectoral employment shifts in some countries. There would be trade diversion and detrimental welfare effects on some non-member countries for both the regional and bilateral FTAs analysed. The welfare gains from multilateral trade liberalisation are therefore considerably greater than the gains from preferential trading arrangements and more uniformly positive for all countries.
Do information releases increase or decrease information asymmetry? New evidence from analyst forecast announcements ☆

Abstract Prior literature documents that both earnings announcements and management earnings forecasts increase information asymmetry at announcement. In contrast, we predict and document that analyst earnings forecasts decrease information asymmetry at announcement. As expected, this directional contrast is temporary, in that all three information release types lead to a decrease in information asymmetry following the short-window announcement period. Our evidence demonstrates that the direction of the effect of a public information release on announcement-period information asymmetry is determined by how the information contained in the release relates to prior information held by sophisticated and unsophisticated investors, which supports extant disclosure theory.
What is Securitization? And for What Purpose?

In Re: Defining Securitization, Professor Jonathan Lipson attempts to define a ―true‖ securitization transaction, ultimately characterizing it as ―a purchase of primary payment rights by a special purpose entity that (1) legally isolates such payment rights from a bankruptcy (or similar insolvency) estate of the originator, and (2) results, directly or indirectly, in the issuance of securities whose value is determined by the payment rights so purchased.‖ There is much to admire in Lipson‘s attempt but also much to question.
Reforming the Robinson-Patman Act to Serve Consumers and Control Powerful Buyers:

The Robinson-Patman Act suffers from two major flaws. First, its fundamental goal is not to promote competition and benefit consumers but to protect small business. Second, it frequently fails to p...
The effects of teenage childbearing on the short- and long-term health behaviors of mothers

A national sample of US teenagers combined with a complementary sample of US adults are used to examine the effects of teenage childbearing on health behaviors by comparing female siblings in both the teenage sample and a sample of adults. Additionally, miscarriage information available in the teenage sample is used to form comparison groups. Unlike previous estimates of the effects of teenage childbearing on health behaviors, the results using these US samples and research designs suggest that teenage childbearing has negligible effects on several measures of unhealthy behaviors for mothers and may be protective for drug use and binge drinking.
Getting a second chance: the role of imagery in the influence of inaction regret on behavioral intent

Prior research has demonstrated that consumers who take an opportunity and are satisfied (satisfied takers) are likely to avail of a future opportunity when it is presented again but those who forsake an opportunity and experience regret (regretful forsakers) are less likely to do so, exhibiting inaction inertia. In this research we demonstrate when and why regret for inaction may result in the intent to avail of a future opportunity and compare this intent with that of satisfied consumers. Specifically, we demonstrate in two studies that (1) when consumers forgo an opportunity and experience regret, they are motivated to avail of a similar opportunity when it is presented in the future, and (2) this intent by regretful forsakers may be more intense than that experienced by satisfied customers due to the elicitation of mental imagery regarding the anticipated consumption episode.
Fiscal deficits and relative prices in a growing world economy

Abstract This paper studies the transmission of fiscal disturbances between countries and the effect of those disturbances on worldwide capital intensity in a context of growth. The model developed to address these issues allows for the production of both nontradable and relatively capital-intensive tradable goods; a central finding is that factor markets can be a major channel for the communication of fiscal policy shocks to world interest rates, to private saving decisions, and, ultimately, to global asset supplies and their distribution among countries. Particular predictions of the model illustrate how changes in public debt ratios and shifts in government spending patterns affect resource allocation and the welfare of various generations, both at home and abroad.
Partisan Ambivalence, Split-Ticket Voting, and Divided Government

Despite recent periods of unified party control of government in Washington, DC, divided government has been the norm in recent decades. Scholars agree that when both presidential and congressional candidates are on the ballot the driving force behind divided government at the national level is split-ticket voting. In this study, I present a new psychological model of split-ticket voting. I posit that ticket splitting is motivated by ambivalence over the two major political parties. I test this partisan ambivalence explanation on split-ticket votes between president and Congress nationally between 1988 and 2004 and voting for state executive offices in Ohio in 1998. I find that partisan ambivalence predicts ticket splitting at both the national and state levels and does so about as well as some other explanations. The results of this study suggest that divided government occurs, in part, because voters are divided within themselves.
The brief life of the gag clause: why anti-gag clause legislation isn't enough.

This article takes a critical view of efforts to enact legislation banning the use of so-called gag clauses in managed care physician contracts. The premise is that such anti-gag clause laws, although motivated by admirable goals, are an inherently flawed effort to address a fundamental problem: assuring that patients have access to information about treatment options that are not covered by their insurance, or are disfavored due to high cost. After reviewing the development of managed care and the history of the gag clause debate, the article critiques the anti-gag clause legislation enacted, identifying significant gaps in the protections available. Ultimately, the article argues that anti-gag clause legislation alone is not an adequate response to the underlying informational problem, and that only an examination of the fundamental incentive structure of managed care will provide the tools to craft a definitive solution.
The Colorblind Lottery

Although the Supreme Court upheld Michigan Law School's admissions policies in Grutter, the multiple opinions in that case revealed the deep divisions that remain over the legitimacy of race-conscious policies and the meaning of equal protection. At the heart of this division lies disagreement over the concept of colorblindness. For Justices Scalia and Thomas, as well as the advocacy groups that backed the plaintiffs in Grutter and Gratz, colorblindness is an absolute imperative, prohibiting race-conscious decision-making in all but the most dire situations. This insistence on formal colorblindness has lead to the conclusion in several recent court cases that race-conscious decision-making is so problematic that even a lottery is preferable. Although this claim has gone largely unnoticed, it follows logically from an insistence on formal colorblindness. This Essay examines the juxtaposition of race and chance as one way of unpacking the meaning of "colorblindness." The demand that decision-making be colorblind is often motivated by basic notions of fairness: persons should be judged according to their individual merit, not some irrelevant, arbitrary criterion over which they have no control. Yet decision by lot does not necessarily promote these values any more than taking race into account. Lotteries may appear neutral because they rely on chance to select winners; however, this focus masks the substantive choices that determine who is and who is not given a chance to participate. Comparing race and chance also helps conceptualize the burden imposed by race-conscious policies. Far from what the rhetoric suggests, race-conscious policies do not necessarily deprive whites of fixed entitlements. Instead, their impact is to alter the odds of success between racial groups. And in situations, like higher education, in which white claimants far outnumber racial minorities, the impact on white applicants is often quite minimal. Contrasting race-conscious decision-making with choosing by lot reveals that "colorblindness" is often merely shorthand for other types of fairness arguments. To continue to insist on colorblindness in situations where those arguments do not apply - for example, when the alternative is a lottery - reveals the inherent circularity of formal colorblindness.