cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Risks for the Long Run: A Potential Resolution of Asset Pricing Puzzles

We model consumption and dividend growth rates as containing (1) a small longrun predictable component, and (2) fluctuating economic uncertainty (consumption volatility). These dynamics, for which we provide empirical support, in conjunction with Epstein and Zin’s (1989) preferences, can explain key asset markets phenomena. In our economy, financial markets dislike economic uncertainty and better long-run growth prospects raise equity prices. The model can justify the equity premium, the risk-free rate, and the volatility of the market return, risk-free rate, and the price‐ dividend ratio. As in the data, dividend yields predict returns and the volatility of returns is time-varying.
Thoughts and prayers – Do they crowd out charity donations?

For centuries, scholars have examined what motivates prosocial behavior. In the U.S., prosocial behavior is routinely accompanied by thoughts and prayers. Yet, the impact on prosocial behavior of such gestures is unknown. We examine how thoughts and prayers affect charity donations to victims of a major public risk—natural disasters. Our analytical framework suggests both thoughts and prayers increase empathy for those receiving such gestures, which may positively impact donations. However, we also find that prayers on behalf of others are regarded as helpful to recipients—we identify them as a moral action—which can generate a counter-veiling substitution effect on donations. On net, our framework suggests prayers crowd out donations to natural disaster victims, while thoughts do not. We test these predictions in three incentivized experiments with Red Cross donations to hurricane victims. Consistent with our model, our main experiment finds prayers reduce donations, while thoughts do not. Two follow-up experiments find results are robust to alternative hurricane locations but may be sensitive to other frames—we find no impact of thoughts or prayers on donations when donations are capped at small amounts. Nevertheless, our results provide the novel insight that prayers may have important effects on material aid in the wake of public catastrophes (in two out of three experiments they crowd out donations), which highlights the importance of research on the impact of prayers on prosocial behavior.
Colonialism and Modern Constructions of Race: A Preliminary Inquiry

This article aims at an examination of the colonial career of the modern construction of race and its traces in post-coloniality. It locates race in regimes of legality and illegality attendant to British colonial rule over India to underscore the defining role of colonialism in modern constructions of race. The first part recounts the modern grammar of racial difference rooted in the colonial encounter between modern Europe and its colonies. The second part identifies three specific sites of deployment of colonial racial stereotypes in colonial India, namely, "martial races," "criminal tribes," and indentured labor. The last part traces the shadow of the colonial discourse of race on anti-colonial nationalism and post-colonial designs of governance in South Asia.
Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry

The Internet may significantly reduce search costs by enabling price comparisons on‐line. This paper provides empirical evidence on how Internet comparison shopping sites affected the prices of life insurance in the 1990s. With micro data on individual insurance policies and with individual and policy characteristics controlled for, hedonic‐type regressions show that increases in Internet use significantly reduced the price of term life insurance. Further evidence shows that prices did not fall with rising Internet usage in the period before the sites began, nor for insurance types that were not covered on the sites. The results suggest that the growth of the Internet has reduced term life prices by 8–15 percent. The results also show that the initial introduction of the Internet search sites is initially associated with an increase in price dispersion within demographic groups, but as use spreads, the dispersion falls.
The Private Equity Myth

Private equity has become a huge force in American business, but how is it creating value. The paper shows that private equity firms in recent years have paid high prices for acquired companies, leveraging them up, and then hoping to sell them to someone else. Doubts are raised as to whether this is a good strategy for investors or the nation.
The Characteristics and Valuation of Loss Reserves of Property Casualty Insurers

This study examines characteristics and valuation of claim loss reserves of property casualty insurers. Using SEC disclosures of revisions (development) in loss reserve estimates, we document substantial serial correlation in loss reserve development, indicating that reported loss reserves do not fully reflect available information, consistent with management exercising discretion over reported loss reserves. We find that loss reserve development reported one year after the balance sheet date has significant explanatory power for firm value incremental to book value of equity and earnings, suggesting investors at least partially identify management's influence on reported loss reserves, and adjust firm values accordingly.
Ending Perpetual War? Constitutional War Termination Powers and the Conflict Against Al Qaeda

This Article presents a framework for interpreting the constitutional war termination powers of Congress and the President and applies this framework to questions involving how and when the war against Al Qaeda and associated forces could end. Although constitutional theory and practice suggest the validity of congressional actions to initiate war, the issue of Congress’s constitutional role in ending war has received little attention in scholarly debates. Theoretically, this Article contends that terminating war without meaningful cooperation between the President and Congress generates tension with the principle of the separation of powers underpinning the U.S. constitutional system, with the Framers’ division of the treaty-making authority, and with the values they enshrine. Practically, this Article suggests that although the participation of both Congress and the President in the war termination process may make it more difficult to end a war, such cooperative political branch action ensures greater transparency and accountability in this constitutional process. This Article also examines normative questions about the role of the President and Congress in exercising their respective war termination powers, and argues that the treaty-making process represents an approach to war termination that best reflects the constitutional values of the interdependence of the political branches, while checking interbranch rivalry and preserving the constitutional and foreign relations prerogatives of Congress and the President.
Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Part-Time Employment: Early Evidence

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires employers with at least 50 full-time-equivalent employees to offer “affordable” health insurance to employees working 30 or more hours per week. If employers do not comply with the mandate, they may face substantial financial penalties. Employers can potentially circumvent the mandate by reducing weekly hours below the 30-hour threshold or by using other nonstandard employment arrangements (direct-hire temporaries, agency temporaries, small contractors, and independent contractors). We examine the effects of the ACA on short-hours, part-time employment. Using monthly CPS data, we estimate that the ACA resulted in an increase in low-hours, involuntary part-time employment of a half-million to a million workers in retail, accommodations, and food services, the sectors in which employers are most likely to reduce hours if they choose to circumvent the mandate, and also the sectors in which low-wage workers are most likely to be affected. Our empirical strategy uses as a control group Hawaii, which has had a more stringent employer health insurance mandate than that of the ACA for several decades. The findings are robust to placebo tests and alternative specifications. JEL Classification Codes: I13, J23, J3
Testing the hypothesis of collusive behavior among OPEC members

Abstract This paper presents a test to discriminate among collusive and competitive behavior by producers of exhaustible resources. In contrast to previous studies (Griffin, 1985; Jones, 1990), which are based on static models, our approach is based on of the dynamic implications of the optimization problem faced by a competitive producer. We use this framework to test the hypothesis of collusive behavior within OPEC between 1983 and 1991. The existence of future markets allows us to sidestep the difficult issues related to the estimation of future prices and demand.
Credibility of Voluntary Disclosure

I examine the credibility of a manager's disclosure of privately observed nonverifiable information to an investor in a repeated cheap-talk game setting. In the single-period game no communication occurs. In the repeated game, however, the manager almost always truthfully reveals his private information provided the manager is sufficiently patient, the accounting report is sufficiently useful for assessing the truthfulness of the manager's voluntary disclosure, and the manager's disclosure performance is evaluated over a sufficiently long period. These factors may explain a manager's propensity to release private information to investors.
Jurisdiction and Judgments Recognition at the Hague Conference: Choices Made, Treaties Completed, and the Path Ahead

The article begins with the context in which a Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments was first proposed in 1992. It then traces the history of the Hague negotiations, both from within those negotiations and in regard to important developments outside the negotiations, through the completion of the 2005 Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and the 2019 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. The article ends with comments on whether it is advisable to now resume discussion of a separate convention on direct jurisdiction.
An Examination of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Issues

This article provides an overview of 2012 Foreign Corrupt Practice Act enforcement and examines the top FCPA issues from the year. The goal of the article is to place FCPA enforcement in better context and provide readers a more informed base in analyzing enforcement trends, assessing enforcement agency rhetoric and policy positions, and in sifting through the mounds of information disseminated by FCPA Inc.
Science and Morality: Pragmatic Reflections on Rorty's 'Pragmatism'

"Pragmatism," says Richard Rorty, "puts natural science on all fours with politics and art. It is one more source of suggestions about what to do with our lives."' Some self-professed pragmatists, like the American philosopher W.V.O. Quine, would obviously deny this.2 I shall not engage in a proprietary dispute here about the label "pragmatism,"3 but I do want to present a kind of pragmatic challenge to the idea that we have reason to think "science [is] on all fours with politics and art." Let us start with a familiar distinction between questions of "theoretical reason" (questions about what we ought to believe) and questions of "practical reason" (questions about what we ought to do). Ethics, politics, and, on some views, art address what we ought to do ("what to do with our lives," as Rorty puts it); science, insofar as we credit its deliverances, tells us what we ought to believe. When Mendelian genetics supplied the causal mechanism explaining the truth of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, it did not tell us "what to do with our lives." But when Herbert Spencer and other social Darwinists interpreted Darwin's theory metaphorically as describing patterns of wealth distribution in society, it did entail a practical conclusion: the socioeconomically "weak" ought to be allowed to perish, as they are not "fit" enough to survive in the marketplace. Unfortunately for the Social Darwinist apologists, for man-made inequities there was no genetic mechanism to support their story. Like Rorty,
Influences on sponsorship deals in NASCAR: indirect evidence from time on camera.

When corporate sponsors want to maximize their exposure, they often focus sponsorship dollars on events, teams and athletes that will prove to be reliable, respectable and, most important, repetitive advertising outlets. Analysing the factors that increase a broadcaster’s propensity to display a sponsor during television broadcasts is often hard to measure. Using a unique data set describing NASCAR broadcasts, we indirectly analyse what influences the value of a sponsorship contract through a proxy for driver sponsorship value: the value of time on camera (VTOC). We find that the VTOC is influenced by driver performance and their celebrity status, as measured by driver experience and inherited brand-name capital. Although the values of individual sponsorship contracts are generally not reported, the evidence herein suggests that driver performance and status likely influence the value of NASCAR sponsorship contracts.
Identifying the Distribution of Treatment Effects under Support Restrictions

The distribution of treatment effects (DTE) is often of interest in the context of welfare policy evaluation. In this paper, I consider partial identification of the DTE under known marginal distributions and support restrictions on the potential outcomes. Examples of such support restrictions include monotone treatment response, concave treatment response, convex treatment response, and the Roy model of self-selection. To establish informative bounds on the DTE, I formulate the problem as an optimal transportation linear program and develop a new dual representation to characterize the identification region with respect to the known marginal distributions. I use this result to derive informative bounds for concrete economic examples. I also propose an estimation procedure and illustrate the usefulness of my approach in the context of an empirical analysis of the effects of smoking on infant birth weight. The empirical results show that monotone treatment response has a substantial identifiying power for the DTE when the marginal distributions of the potential outcomes are given.
Illich (Via Cayley) On Prisons

This Article considers whether, more than a dozen years after publication of Cayley’s book, "The Expanding Prison: The Crisis in Crime and Punishment and the Search for Alternatives," Illich’s theories help us to make sense of America’s “prison-industrial complex.” The Author concludes that our current situation reflects in part the dynamics of his theory of “counterproductivity,” but that Illich did not take sufficient account of the salience of race and class in American criminal punishment.
FISCAL POLICY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS

We examine the effect of fiscal policy on sovereign risk spreads and investigate whether the interaction of fiscal variables with political institutions affect financial markets. Using panel data from emerging market countries, we find that revenue-based adjustment lowers spreads more than spending-based adjustment. Financial markets also react to the composition of spending. Cuts in current spending lower spreads more than cuts in investment. We show that debt-financed spending increases sovereign risk, while tax-financed spending lowers spreads, suggesting that international investors prefer the latter. Further, we find evidence that financial markets’ reaction to fiscal policy depends on political institutions.
Forecasting without Consequence? Evidence on the Properties of Retiring CEOs' Forecasts of Future Earnings

ABSTRACT: We investigate whether retiring CEOs engage in opportunistic terminal-year forecasting behavior and the circumstances in which such behavior is likely to be more or less pronounced. Using a within-CEO empirical design, we find that retiring CEOs are more likely to issue forecasts of future earnings, and that they issue such forecasts more frequently in their terminal year relative to other years during their tenure with the firm. Further, retiring CEOs' terminal-year forecasts of future earnings are more likely to convey good news and are more optimistically biased relative to pre-terminal years. Opportunistic terminal-year forecasting behavior is: (1) more pronounced in the presence of higher CEO equity incentives and when discretionary expenditures are cut in the terminal year, and (2) less pronounced in the presence of stronger monitoring mechanisms, such as higher institutional ownership. Collectively, our results provide evidence on a potential implication of the CEO horizon problem that ha...
The cross-sectional relation between conditional heteroskedasticity, the implied volatility smile, and the variance risk premium.

Abstract This paper estimates how the shape of the implied volatility smile and the size of the variance risk premium relate to parameters of GARCH-type time-series models measuring how conditional volatility responds to return shocks. Markets in which return shocks lead to large increases in conditional volatility tend to have larger variance risk premia than markets in which the impact on conditional volatility is slight. Markets in which negative (positive) return shocks lead to larger increases in future volatility than positive (negative) return shocks tend to have downward (upward) sloping implied volatility smiles. Also, differences in how volatility responds to return shocks as measured by GARCH-type models explain much, but not all, of the variations in excess kurtosis and multi-period skewness across different markets.
Sponsorship Matters: Assessing Business Participation in Government- and Industry-Sponsored Voluntary Environmental Programs

Stakeholders who seek to reward or punish businesses for their environmental programs often cannot observe these organizations’ internal policies and operations. To address these informational problems, and signal their beyond-compliance environmental commitments, some businesses are participating in voluntary environmental programs (VEPs). This article examines whether business managers associate the brand value of VEPs—due to their differing program sponsors—with the perceived preferences of their critical stakeholders. Drawing on a novel data set of nearly 300 organizations, we assess business’ participation in 19 government- and industry-sponsored VEPs. We find that managers who recognize the importance of stakeholder influences on their business’ environmental practices are more likely to participate in a VEP but that pressures from different stakeholders are associated with variations in organizations’ participation in either government- or industry-sponsored VEPs.
Geography and the Internet: is the Internet a substitute or a complement for cities?

We study the tendency to connect to the Internet and the online and offline shopping behavior of connected persons. We document that larger markets have more locally-targeted online content and that individuals are more likely to connect in markets with more local online content, suggesting the Internet is a complement to cities. Yet, holding local online content constant, people are less likely to connect in larger markets, indicating that the Internet is also a substitute for cities. Finally, we find that individuals connect to overcome local isolation, in the form of racial isolation or distance to retail stores.
The Lifting of Corporate Veil Doctrine in Hong Kong: An Empirical, Comparative and Development Perspective:

This paper provides an empirical, comparative, and devel- opment perspective on the corporate veil doctrine. It contains a compre- hensive survey of the corporate veil cases in Hong Kong. The survey results are then compared with comparable surveys of the US cases to highlight relevant characteristics in the Hong Kong courts' approach to the doctrine. The paper also analyses the doctrine and the limited liabil- ity principle in a development perspective to suggest that the Hong Kong courts should apply the doctrine more assertively to address externalization of corporate business costs, which is the inevitable con- sequence of limited liability.
Jurisdiction, Merits, and Substantiality

This paper, prepared for Tulsa Law Review's 2005 Supreme Court Review, comments on Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp. (2006), which held that the employee-numerosity requirement of Title VII was an element of the merits of a claim, not the subject matter jurisdiction of the Court. But the Court cited, thus supporting the continued validity of, Bell v. Hood (1946), its long-standing, but oft-questioned, decision holding that a court may lack federal-question jurisdiction if a plainly federal claim is insubstantial or frivolous. This comment analyzes the many problems that Bell creates in drawing lines between jurisdiction and merits and explains why the Arbaugh Court should not have relied on the rule and why it should eliminate the jurisdictional doctrine of substantiality.
Occupation inflation in the Current Population Survey

A common caveat often accompanying results relying on household surveys regards respondent error. There is research using administrative data to estimate the extent of error, the correlates of error, and potential corrections for the error. The authors investigate measurement error in occupation classification in the Current Population Survey (CPS) using the panel component of the CPS to identify those who incorrectly report changing occupation. We find evidence that individuals are inflating their occupation to higher skilled and higher paying occupations than the ones they actually perform. Occupation inflation biases the education and race coefficients in standard Mincer equation results within occupations.
Them’s Fightin’ Words: The Effects of Violent Rhetoric on Ethical Decision Making in Business

Business managers regularly employ metaphorical violent rhetoric as a means of motivating their employees to action. While it might be effective to this end, research on violent media suggests that violent rhetoric might have other, less desirable consequences. This study examines how the use of metaphorical violent rhetoric by business managers impacts the ethical decision making of employees. We develop and test a model that explains how the use of violent rhetoric impacts employees’ willingness to break ethical standards, depending on the source of the rhetoric. The results of two experiments suggest that the use of violent rhetoric by a CEO at a competing company increases employees’ willingness to engage in ethical violations while the use of violent rhetoric by employees’ own CEO decreases their willingness to engage in unethical behavior. Furthermore, we find that participants who made less ethical decisions motivated by violent rhetoric used by a competitor’s CEO did not view their decisions as less ethical than the other participants in the experiments. The results of these studies highlight potentially harmful unintended consequences of the use of violent rhetoric, providing knowledge that should be useful to managers and academics who want to increase employee motivation without increasing a willingness to engage in unethical behavior.
A Few Steps Toward an Explanatory Theory of International Law

If any one sentence about international law has stood the test of time, it is Louis Henkin's: "almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all of the time.” If this is true, why is this true? What makes it true? How do nations invent rules that then turn around and bind them? Are international rules simply pragmatic and expedient? Or do they embody values such as the need for international cooperation? Is international law a mixed game of conflict and cooperation because of its rules, or do its rules make it a game of conflict and cooperation? It is hard to imagine a set of rules in all of human history that is more important and less understood than the rules of international law. Tags: Theory of International Law, Reductionism, Exceptionalism, Legal Realism, Soft Law [pg1]** In the Preface to his recent book How International Law Works, Andrew T. Guzman writes: "[w]hen teaching international law, one is confronted with foundational questions from the very start of the course. Does international law affect state behavior, and if so, how does it do so?"FN1 Professor Guzman is too reserved to say that international law simply lacks a theory that would answer and explain these issues. To be sure, after four thousand years of being the sole and exclusive set of legal rules among nations, it is nothing short of remarkable that international law has not yet become thoroughly understood and explained. In dogged search of an explanatory theory, Part I of this article is a critical overview of today's most prominent theories of international law. Part II argues that we must construct our theory upon a law that is enforceable and is enforced. Finally, Part III discusses methodologies that should be taken into account in the quest for an explanatory theory of international law. [pg2] I. OVERVIEW OF CURRENT THEORIES
Is Learning to “Think Like a Lawyer” Enough?

[T]he impression is common, almost universal. Let no young [person] choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.
Using Stationarity Tests in Antitrust Market Definition

ABSTRACTUsing Stationarity Tests in Antitrust Market Definition* In this Paper it is argued that, if two products or geographic areas belong inthe same market, their relative price must be stationary. Hence stationaritytests like the ADF and the KPSS can be helpful in delineating the relevantmarket for Antitrust purposes, particularly for abuses of dominant positionsand agreements between competitors. The proposed procedure is closelyrelated with cointegration analysis but has more general validity. Anapplication to the Italian milk market illustrates the technique.JEL Classification: L41Keywords: antitrust market definition, dickey-fuller test, KPSS test, mergerguidelines and stationarityMario ForniDipartimento Di Economia PoliticaUniversita di Modena e Reggio EmiliaVia Berengario 5141100 MODENAITALYTel: (39 59) 417 852Fax: (39 59) 417 948Email: forni@unimo.it For further Discussion Papers by this author see: www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?authorid=128014 * Support from the Italian Antitrust Authority (AGCM) is gratefullyacknowledged. The Paper reflects the views of the author, not necessarilythose of the AGCM. The author thanks Fabio Massimo Esposito, MassimoFerrero, Michele Grillo, Mauro La Noce and Pierluigi Sabbatini for helpfulcomments.Submitted 09 February 2002
Exclusive Disjunction and the Biconditional: An Even-Odd Relationship

(1993). Exclusive Disjunction and the Biconditional: An Even-Odd Relationship. Mathematics Magazine: Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 124-124.
The Model Penal Code’s Wrong Turn: Renunciation as a Defense to Criminal Conspiracy

While the Model Penal Code was certainly one of the most influential developments in criminal law in the past century, the American Law Institute (ALI) took a seriously wrong turn by recognizing “renunciation” as a defense to the crime of conspiracy. Under the Model Penal Code formulation, a member of a conspiracy who later disavows the agreement and thwarts its objective (for example, by notifying authorities of the planned crime in order to prevent its completion) is afforded a complete defense to conspiracy liability. This defense has enormous implications for crimes involving national security and terrorism, which are typically planned covertly and involve extensive coordination among multiple actors. Many states follow the Model Penal Code approach and recognize the renunciation defense, without defining its precise contours or limits. Other states are still struggling with the issue and have yet to accept or reject the renunciation doctrine. After surveying state and federal law across the United States, this Article unpacks proposed policy arguments both for and against the renunciation defense. This Article concludes that none of the ALI’s pragmatic justifications in support of the doctrine survive close scrutiny. Moreover, when considering the presence of social harm caused by an actor’s participation in a conspiracy—in contrast to the absence of harm with other inchoate offenses such as incomplete attempts—renunciation is theoretically inconsistent with the retributive aims of the criminal law. Renunciation should be best understood historically as a special form of legislative grace designed to counteract some of the harsher aspects of conspiracy law. This Article argues that states grappling with this issue should decline to recognize the renunciation defense and instead focus their attention on eliminating some of the more notable inequities of conspiracy liability. ∗ Professor, Boston College Law School. The author is grateful to Mark Sullivan, Legal Information Librarian in the Boston College Law Library, for his invaluable research support and direction, and to students Robert Hatfield, Jeff Christensen, and Kevin Smith for their capable editorial assistance. † Executive Director, Rappaport Center for Law and Public Service, Suffolk University Law School, and Adjunct Faculty, Boston College Law School. 1 Cassidy and Massing: The Model Penal Code’s Wrong Turn: Renunciation as a Defense to C Published by UF Law Scholarship Repository, 2012 354 FLORIDA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 64 INTRODUCTION 354 I. A BRIEF LOOK AT THE COMMON LAW OF CONSPIRACY AND ITS EVOLUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 356 II. THE MODEL PENAL CODE AND RENUNCIATION 359 III. RENUNCIATION UNDER STATE LAW 366 IV. RENUNCIATION AND WITHDRAWAL UNDER FEDERAL LAW ....... 373 V. POLICY CONSIDERATIONS 376 CONCLUSION 385
Advisor Choice in Asia-Pacific Property Markets

This paper examines advisor choice decisions by publicly traded REITs and listed property companies in Asia-Pacific real estate markets. Using a sample of 168 firms, we find robust evidence that firms strategically evaluate and compare the increased agency costs associated with external advisement against the potential benefits associated with collocating decision rights with location specific soft information. Our empirical results reveal real estate companies tend to hire external advisors when they invest in countries: 1) that are more economically and politically unstable, 2) whose legal system is based on civil law, 3) where the level of corruption is perceived to be high, and 4) when disclosure is relatively poor. Additionally, we find the probability of retaining an external advisor is directly related to the expected agency costs. Lastly, we find evidence of return premiums in excess of 13 % for firms whose organizational structure matches their investment profile. As such, we conclude that the decision to hire an external advisor represents a value relevant trade-off between the costs and benefits of this organizational arrangement.
Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution

There are two views of the British Industrial Revolution in the literature today. The more traditional description sees the Industrial Revolution as a broad change in the British economy and society. This broad view of the Industrial Revolution has been challenged by Crafts and Harley who see the Industrial Revolution as the result of technical change in only a few industries. This article presents a test of these views using the Ricardian model of international trade with many goods. British trade data are used to implement the test and discriminate between the two views of the Industrial Revolution.
Adapting Without Accepting: The Need for a Long-Term Strategy for "Full Service" Representation of the Poor

A central challenge facing the Equal Justice community is to adapt to the changes of the past two years without becoming reconciled to those changes or the ideological agenda that produced them. To do so, we must restore our institutional capacity to afford poor clients a full spectrum of unrestricted legislative, administrative, and judicial advocacy. That requires the development of a shadow network of organizations that would complement the ongoing work of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) grantees, by providing services that those grantees can no longer offer their clients. This is a challenge that calls upon our shared vision of a just society. And it is also a challenge that forces us to grapple with the less edifying but inexorable demands of money and funding.
The Future of Classwide Punitive Damages

Conventional wisdom holds that the punitive damages class action is susceptible not only to doctrinal restraints imposed on class actions but also to constitutional due process limitations placed on punitive damages. Thus, it would seem that the prospects for punitive damages classes are even grimmer than for class actions generally.This conventional picture misunderstands the role of punitive damages and, in particular, the relationship between class actions and punitive damages. It either ignores or underestimates the distinctly societal element of punitive damages, which makes them especially conducive to aggregate treatment. Furthermore, punitive damages classes offer a solution to the constitutional due process problem of juries awarding “classwide” damages in a single-plaintiff case.Courts’ conceptualization of punitive damages as either individualistic or societal dictates how they decide the certification question. My survey of recent case law reveals that courts taking the plaintiff-focused individualistic view of punitive damages tend to deny class certification, while courts embracing the defendant-focused societal view are more likely to certify a punitive damages class, all else being equal. Therefore, the viability of the punitive damages class depends upon the persuasiveness of the societal conception of punitive damages.Based on this empirical grounding, I discuss two possibilities for reform. First, state legislatures and courts could affirmatively define the collectivized, societal rationale for punitive damages. Such state legislative measures would likely withstand constitutional scrutiny under Philip Morris USA v. Williams, given the U.S. Supreme Court’s reaffirmation of the primacy of the state’s role in defining the legitimate purposes of punitive damages. Second, federal courts — in the absence of definitive guidance from authoritative sources on state substantive law — could consider the underlying societal rationale for punitive damages in the course of their certification decisions. To do so would not only be permitted, but indeed warranted, by the Rules Enabling Act.
Sect, Subsidy, and Sacrifice: An Economist's View of Ultra-Orthodox Jews

Israeli Ultra-Orthodox men study full-time in yeshiva until age 40 on average. Why do fathers with families in poverty choose yeshiva over work? Draft deferments subsidize yeshiva attendance, yet attendance typically continues long after exemption. Fertility rates are high (TFR = 7.6) and rising. A social interaction approach explains these anomalies. Yeshiva attendance signals commitment to the community, which provides mutual insurance to members. Prohibitions strengthen communities by effectively taxing real wages, inducing high fertility. Historically, the incursion of markets into traditional communities produces Ultra-Orthodoxy. Subsidies induce dramatic reductions in labor supply and unparalleled increases in fertility, illustrating extreme responses social groups may have to interventions.
Bundling and quality assurance

With imperfect private monitoring, a firm selling two experience goods can increase both producer and consumer surplus by bundling. Bundling constrains consumers to buy two products, making consumers better informed and ensuring that they use tougher punishment strategies. Both increased monitoring and increased punishment benefit other consumers, so bundling overcomes a freeâ€ rider problem. The social value of bundling is even larger if consumers cannot attribute a negative signal to the specific product that generated it, or if one of the two goods is a durable and the other is a complementary nondurable. Our results are robust to mixed bundling.
The Link Between Voting and Life Satisfaction in Latin America

What is the relationship between voting and individual life satisfaction in Latin America? While studies of Western Europe suggest that voters are happier than nonvoters, this relationship has not been explored in the younger democracies of the developing world, including those of Latin America. Using multilevel regression models to examine individual-level survey data, this study shows a positive correlation between voting and happiness in the region, noting, however, that the relationship is attenuated in those countries that have enforced compulsory voting. We then explore the causal direction of this relationship: while the existing literature points to voting as a possible determinant of individual happiness, it is also possible that happier individuals are more likely to vote. Three different strategies are used to disentangle this relationship. On balance, the evidence suggests that individual happiness is more likely to be a cause rather than an effect of voting in Latin America.
Doing as They Would Do: How the Perceived Ethical Preferences of Third-Party Beneficiaries Impact Ethical Decision-Making

Although unethical behavior often benefits third-parties not directly complicit in the misconduct, not all beneficiaries welcome these ill-gotten benefits. We investigate whether actors consider the ethical preferences of potential beneficiaries or rely solely on their own ethical predispositions when making decisions that affect others. Three studies demonstrate that the perceived ethical preferences of these beneficiaries can substantially influence the likelihood that actors behave unethically on their behalves. These studies show that actors consider the ethical preferences of beneficiaries only when their own ethical disposition is outcome-based.
An Alternative Test of Racial Prejudice in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence

We propose a simple model of trooper behavior to design empirical tests for whether troopers of different races are monolithic in their search behavior, and whether they exhibit relative racial prejudice in motor vehicle searches. Our test of relative racial prejudice provides a partial solution to the well-known infra-marginality and omitted variables problems associated with outcome tests. When applied to a unique data set from Florida, our tests soundly reject the hypothesis that troopers of different races are monolithic in their search behavior, but fail to reject the hypothesis that troopers of different races do not exhibit relative racial prejudice.
Equilibrium asset prices with undiversifiable labor income risk

Abstract In a two-period Lucas tree economy in which ex ante identical, but ex post dissimilar, agents face undiversifiable labor income risk, calibrating a (wrong) representative agent model results in overstating the equilibrium riskfree rate and in understating the equilibrium equity premium if the utility function exhibits decreasing absolute risk aversion and decreasing absolute prudence. These behavioral assumptions provide, as a consequence, a theoretical rationale for the often advanced conjecture that nontraded risk contributes to the solution of the riskfree rate and equity premium puzzles.
When Any Sentence is a Life Sentence: Employment Discrimination Against Ex-Offenders

For the sixty-five million Americans with a criminal record, it is cruelly ironic that perhaps the most important resource for turning their lives around—employment—is also often the most elusive. Shut out from legitimate job opportunities, many ex-offenders resort to illegal means of survival that hasten their return to prison. Recidivism has devastating consequences not only for the individual offender, but also the family, the community, and society at large. This article proposes three amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that seek to balance ex-offenders’ need for employment with employers’ safety concerns. First, employers should be prohibited from discriminating against an ex-offender whose criminal record is not directly related to the job in question or who does not pose an unreasonable threat to property or to the safety of others. Second, employer inquiries about an applicant’s criminal record should be delayed until after at least one job interview. Third, a negligent hiring provision should be added to Title VII that creates a rebuttable presumption against negligence and that caps damages in certain cases. These measures represent a sensible, middle-of-the-road approach that promotes the employment of ex-offenders in appropriate cases, while ensuring that neither employers nor the public are unduly burdened as a result.  Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology, Brigham Young University; J.D., University of Michigan Law School; B.S. and M.S., Brigham Young University. Washington University Open Scholarship 46 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [VOL. 93:45
On the sum-product ratio problem and its applications

We study the so-called sum-product ratio problem, under which the numerator is the sum of numbers in a subset and the denominator is the product of numbers in the same subset. Unlike the sum-sum ratio problem, which corresponds to the assortment problem under the multinomial logit model, the sum-product ratio problem is generally NP-complete. We develop a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme and discuss several potential applications and useful extensions.
Introduction: Reflections on Two Decades of Congressional Budgeting

Even casual observers of federal policy making cannot help but notice the increasing preeminence of the Congressional budget process. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which created this process, brought forth profound changes in budgeting practices, both within Congress and between Congress and the president. In addition, the last decade has seen numerous attempts to use the process for deficit control. The goal of this special symposium is how congressional procedures-adapted over time-have affected the federal budgeting process. Each article examines the original purpose of the 1974 statute and analyzes the statute's impact over more than two decades.
The Sincerity of Public Reason

An important objection to the idea of public reason is that it permits and perhaps encourages citizens and public officials to give insincere justifications for their political decisions. Against this objection, I defend a principle of sincere public justification. First, I claim that political justifications must be public in two senses. They must be based on shared or public reasons, and those reasons must be presented in public discourse. Actual publicity, or the giving of reasons in public, is valuable for a number of reasons, but I focus mainly on its ability to improve the quality of political decisions. After defining the general concept of sincerity, and guarding against a certain form epistemic or psychological skepticism about it, I offer a principle of sincere public justification. I then defend that principle against two competing alternatives, a more demanding principle that includes a stringent motivational requirement, and a less demanding principle that abandons public sincerity in favor of private sincerity. Lastly, having stated and justified an ideal of public sincerity, I show how that ideal can be used to respond to the objection that public reason permits or encourages insincere political justification.
Financial Markets Uncertainty and the Rawlsian Argument for Central Counterparty Clearing of OTC Derivatives

One of the key measures in the Dodd-Frank Act intended to curb systemic risk in the financial system is the central counterparty (CCP) clearing mandate for over-the-counter derivatives. The mandate reflects the belief of legislators and many financial markets experts that these derivatives, particularly credit default swaps, were a key cause of the financial crisis of 2008. While derivative markets do create extensive interconnections between financial institutions, and were essential to the creation of the structured finance securities that fueled the housing bubble, in hindsight it appears that derivatives were not a proximate cause but more likely one of many ‘but for’ structural causes of the crisis. As a result, the CCP clearing mandate has come in for extensive criticism on the grounds that it carries with it significant risks for the global financial system, while providing little benefit in return. This Article offers a critical examination of the arguments against CCP clearing and a defense of the mandate and other Dodd-Frank Title VII derivatives provisions. Beginning with the fundamental uncertainty about the true causes of the crisis that remains, including a strong probable role for a ‘behavioral’ cause of the crisis on account of the panic of financial institutions, it then examines the arguments against CCP clearing, finding that they rely on overly narrow boundaries in order to achieve a measure of precision in making a cost-benefit analysis, thereby ignoring many of the important costs that derivatives indirectly contributed to. Given that a more complete cost-benefit analysis appears to run aground on the complexity of accurately enumerating all the costs and benefits associated with modern financial markets, this Article instead proposes looking at the problem of derivatives regulation through a Rawlsian framework. Central to Rawls’s thought is the procedure of decision-making under conditions of fundamental uncertainty, or the maximin rule. I argue that application of the maximin rule is appropriate here, and that unlike the standard cost-benefit analysis grounded in utilitarianism, Rawls’s views lead to a holistic understanding of the financial markets in their larger societal context that both guides and justifies legislative action in the context of fundamental uncertainty by prioritizing the safety of the financial system. Such a holistic understanding of economic regulation is necessary as governments struggle to preserve social stability in the face of widespread economic challenges such as unemployment, income inequality, excessive debt, and continuing instability in the financial system.
Signing Unconstitutional Laws

INTRODUCTION 304 I. THE RECEIVED VIEWS 306 II. THE PRESIDENT’S POWERS AND DUTIES 309 A. THE LACK OF A CATEGORICAL RULE: TEXT 309 B. THE LACK OF A CATEGORICAL RULE: STRUCTURE 311 C. CONSTITUTIONAL RISKS 313 III. WHEN ARE LAWS UNCONSTITUTIONAL? 317 A. “ON THE BOOKS” 318 B. THE SUBJECTS OF THE CONSTITUTION 319 IV. CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 322 A. NIXON’S CONSTITUTIONALISM 323 B. OTHER EXAMPLES 325 C. UNREDEEMABLE LAWS 328 D. CONSTITUTIONAL CONSEQUENTIALISM 331 CONCLUSION 332