cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
MINIMUM WAGES AND THE DEMAND FOR LABOR

I formulate measures of the effective minimum wage, based on broad definitions of the labor costs that face employers, and use these measures in reestimating some simple equations relating the relative employment of youths and adults to the U.S. minimum wage using aggregate data for 1954-78.I then ground the model more closely in the theory of factor demand, first by adding the relative wages of youths and adults to the equation describing their relative employment, and then by specifying a complete system of demand equations for these two types of labor. Teen employment responds quite robustly to changes in the effective minimum in these specifications, with an elasticity of -0.1. A translog cost function defined over young workers, adults, and capital shows that the effective minimum wage reduces employers' ability to substitute other factors for young workers. Using both sets of results, I find that a subminimum wage for youths would have increased their employment with at most a small loss of jobs among adults.
A Supply Approach to Valuation

A new methodology for equity valuation arises from the perspective of managers' supply of capital assets. Under q-theory, managers optimally adjust the supply of assets to changes in their market value. The first-order condition of investment then provides a valuation equation that infers asset prices from managers' costs of supplying the assets. This equation fits well the Tobin's q levels across many testing assets, including portfolios formed on q. With current investment-to-capital as the only input, the supply approach does not require cash flow forecasts or discount rate estimates, both of which are notoriously difficult to obtain in practice. The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.
Why we need an electron-ion collider

In this study, we present a brief argument making the science case for an electron-ion collider.
RONALD COASE’S “NATURE OF THE FIRM” AND THE ARGUMENT FOR ECONOMIC PLANNING

Ronald Coase was in his early twenties when he developed his groundbreaking theory of the firm. This theory represented a new approach with no obvious precursors, but from where did it arise? This article traces the origins of Coase’s theory of the firm and provides a context for its formation. I argue that Coase’s arguments were rooted in the exchange of ideas in the Socialist Calculation Debate, and that, in this context, one could read his theory of the firm as an argument in defense of economic planning.
Decomposition Analyses of Racial/Ethnic Differences in High Return Investment Ownership after the Great Recession

Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning Volume 26, Issue 1 2015, x-xx. © 2015 Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education®. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) assumes there is a tradeoff between risk and return, because investors are rewarded with higher returns for assuming risk (Sharpe, 1964), so “high return investment” is almost the same as “risky investment.” One way of classifying which investments are high return is using historical mean rates of returns and standard deviation of each asset as criteria. Assets with high returns and high volatilities have been classified as high return investments (Embrey & Fox, 1997; Gutter, Fox, & Montalto., 1999; Gutter & Fontes, 2006; Hanna, et al., 2010). Stocks and business assets have been commonly classified as high return investments, but there have been differences in classifying bonds and real estate assets as high return investments. However, bonds in general have less volatility than stocks. Although some types of bonds (e.g., corporate, junk, and foreign government bonds) might potentially be referred to as high return investments considering our definition of high return investments based on historical mean returns and standard deviation, it is difficult to identify riskier types of bonds households own in publicly available datasets such as the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). In addition, stocks in aggregate have performed better than bonds over the long term. The geometric means of annual nominal returns of small stocks, large stocks, and long-term government bonds were 12.3%, 10.1%, and 5.5%, respectively, from 1926 to 2013, and $1 invested in hypothetical index mutual funds as of January 1, 1926 would have grown by December 31, 2013 to $26,641 in a small stock fund, $4,677 in a large stock fund, and $109 in a long-term government bond fund (Morningstar, 2014). Based on our definition of high return investments and the data Decomposition Analyses of Racial/Ethnic Differences in High Return Investment Ownership after the Great Recession
Evidentiary Arbitrage: The Fabrication of Evidence and the Verifiability of Contract Performance

The design of legal obligations, whether by a public body such as a legislature or by private contract, should anticipate the enforcement process that induces compliance. Judicial enforcement is costly and imperfect, largely because of limits on the court's ability to detect facts accurately. In adversarial litigation, courts are often fooled by fabricated, suppressed, or otherwise manipulated evidence. Given that fabricated evidence is both more costly and less valuable than truthful evidence, one would think that contracting parties should design their agreement so as to deter future evidence fabrication. To the contrary, this article suggests that evidence fabrication may be harnessed by contracting parties to improve the (evidentiary) cost-efficiency of performance incentives in their relationship. This paper thereby addresses the concept of verifiability in contract theory, the puzzling tolerance of the adjudicatory system for fabrication, and the incentives to fabricate created by thresholds in burdens of proof.
On the Specification and Estimation of the Production Function for Cognitive Achievement

This paper considers methods for modelling the production function for cognitive achievement in a way that captures theoretical notions that child development is a cumulative process depending on the history of family and school inputs and on innate ability. It develops a general modelling framework that accommodates many of the estimating equations used in the literatures. It considers different ways of addressing data limitations, and it makes precise the identifying assumptions needed to justify alternative approaches. Commonly used specifications are shown to place restrictive assumptions on the production technology. Ways of testing modelling assumptions and of relaxing them are discussed.
International Organizations and the Creation of Customary International Law

This article argues that international organizations “as such” can contribute directly to the creation of customary international law for three independent reasons. First, the states establishing an international organization may subjectively intend for that organization to be able to contribute to the creation of customary international law. Second, the capacity to contribute to at least some kinds of customary international law may be an implied power of the organization. Third, the capacity to contribute to at least some kinds of customary international law is a necessary incident of other features or authorities of international organizations — specifically the combination of international legal personality and the capacity to operate on the international plane. Recognizing international organizations' direct role in making customary international law is unlikely to result in a dramatic shift in the content of customary international law or in the processes by which particular rules of customary international law are ascertained. The circumstances in which international organizations can contribute directly are fairly discrete and limited. That is not to say, however, that international organizations’ capacity to contribute directly to making customary international law does not matter. Instead, this conclusion matters primarily because it reinforces other conclusions about how international organizations fit into the international legal system. As a theoretical matter, recognizing that international organizations directly contribute to the formation of customary international law reinforces the conclusions that customary international law binds international organizations and that international organizations incur international responsibility when they violate international law. Both are important components for assuring the accountability of international organizations. As a practical matter, acknowledging that international organizations can contribute to the formation of customary international law may also have important consequences for how IO lawyers understand and carry out their work.
Inverse Enclosure: Abdicating the Green Technology Landscape

The shift to “better” technology may have a social mandate, but it can be delayed due to entry barriers like switching costs or startup costs. Energy is a particularly good example of a sector facing such challenges. To encourage the switch to more efficient, less polluting, domestic energy sources, governments across the globe provide a push with research funding or specific market interventions like tax incentives and use requirements. Notably, the acceleration of green energy technology has been accompanied by a surge in private patent rights. The issues related to such an increasingly crowded innovation space have been described in the literature and are generally understood by firms and policymakers. However, the politically charged nature of green technology may give rise to a unique and somewhat novel problem in the developed world: an abdication of the technology landscape by a nation that unilaterally reduces or eliminates support. This paper will explore a scenario in which a developed country’s domestic industry becomes hemmed in by foreign-owned patents. Referring to it as inverse enclosure, this work describes a legal landscape that is defined by a nation, but captured by others. It is essentially the inverse of the IP enclosure confronting developing countries. This paper articulates a mechanism for inverse enclosure and posits that it may impact technology innovation and constrain access. A framework for managing the patent landscape is presented as a partial shield against enclosure. Given the importance of technology areas like alternative energy, understanding the risks of inverse enclosure is necessary for both industry and government.
The Effect of Governance Reforms on Financial Reporting Fraud

In response to financial reporting scandals, Congress and the securities exchanges mandated increases in board and audit committee independence and banned most non-audit services. We exploit these exogenous shocks to examine whether these governance reforms reduced financial reporting fraud. Comparing firms forced to comply with the reforms to firms already in compliance, we find that mandated increases in overall board independence significantly reduced the rate of fraud, while mandating a fully independent audit committee had a weaker effect. Further, banning non-audit services did not reduce the incidence of fraud.
Reset for Regulation and Utilities: Leadership for a Time of Constant Change

This paper describes a process for a reset of regulation and utilities in today’s environment of constant change. “Reset” means to develop fresh perspectives and knowledge about the future, all the while holding in trust the wisdom of the past. The paper examines three juxtapositions: (1) Focus on next practices, not best practices; (2) Emphasize learning the why of how things work and not just the what; and (3) Provide leadership rather than try to lead.
Trade flows in a spatial oligopoly: gravity fits well, but what does it explain?

Large distance and border effects on trade flows in some industries may result from the collusive division of geographic markets. In the Brazilian cement industry, traditional gravity equations fit the data well, yet limited regional flows are due to firms' strategic behaviour. Thanks to a unique institutional setting and an unusually rich data set, I directly control for trade costs, which – despite their importance – cannot account for the observed segmentation of local markets at current prices. The paper highlights how collusive behaviour can magnify the effects of distance, as firms use geography to coordinate on higher prices and less cross-hauling. Les effets de grande distance et de frontieres sur les flux de commerce dans certaines industries peuvent etre le resultat d'une division collusive des marches geographiques. Dans l'industrie bresilienne du ciment, les equations de gravite s'ajustent bien aux donnees, mais les flux regionaux limites entre regions sont attribuables au comportement strategique des firmes. Grâce a un contexte institutionnel unique et a une base de donnees inhabituelles, l'auteur a pu prendre en compte directement les couts du commerce qui – malgre leur importance – ne peuvent pas expliquer la segmentation observee des marches locaux aux prix courants. Le memoire met en lumiere comment le comportement de collusion peut magnifier les effets de distance a proportion que les firmes utilisent la geographie pour assurer une coordination fondee sur des prix plus eleves et moins de transport transfrontalier.
Moral hazard and adverse selection in the originate-to-distribute model of bank credit

Abstract Bank credit has evolved from the traditional relationship banking model to an originate-to-distribute model. We show that the borrowers whose loans are sold in the secondary market underperform their peers by about 9% per year (risk-adjusted) over the three-year period following the initial sale of their loans. Therefore, either banks are originating and selling loans of lower quality borrowers based on unobservable private information (adverse selection), and/or loan sales lead to diminished bank monitoring that affects borrowers negatively (moral hazard). We propose regulatory restrictions on loan sales, increased disclosure, and a loan trading exchange/clearinghouse as mechanisms to alleviate these problems.
Bankruptcy Law and Inefficient Entitlements

The question as to the justification of bankruptcy law remains unanswered. The literature tends to emphasize the conflict and inability to compromise between the different normative outlooks of the insolvency law system. A deeper reflection on the existing theories of bankruptcy law reveals, however, that all theories share the same starting point: All theories share the understanding that efficiency considerations justify the enforcement of contractual bankruptcy arrangements. When the social theories call for increased levels of coercion and redistribution, these theories rely on normative considerations of distributive justice and rehabilitation values. They by no means rely on efficiency grounds. This article presents a new theory of bankruptcy law that challenges this shared starting point. The article joins the economic analysis’ focus on efficiency considerations. It calls for bankruptcy law rules that would maximize the aggregate value of the debtor’s assets to his or her creditors and equity holders. Yet, the analysis shows that under particular circumstances, efficiency-based considerations can support the coercive avoidance of existing entitlements. Accordingly, I will argue that the role of bankruptcy law is to provide the procedural and substantive framework for severing the debtor’s economic resources from his or her inefficient liabilities. Finally, the analysis shows how the new theoretical framework explains many of the positive legal arrangements of bankruptcy law. First, it explains why courts prefer reorganization plans over liquidation proceedings. Second, it explains the special priority that is afforded by the law to post-petition creditors. Finally, it explains the arrangements regarding executory contracts.
Judging Jena's DA: The Prosecutor and Racial Esteem

This Article uses the views of the Jena Six prosecutor, Reed Walters, concerning the justifications for his role in the Jena Six affair, as a foil for exploring the proper role of prosecutors more generally in our system of justice.1 Walters’s actions indicate that he favors the traditional prosecutoras-advocate role, which is focused on the individual case. In addition to other attendant harms, this role ignores how each such case harms the social esteem of the suspect’s racial group. A better conception of the prosecutor’s role would recognize his part in this economy of racial disesteem. The Jena Six were African American students at Jena High in Louisiana, who were arrested for their alleged assault on a white student, Justin Barker.2 The assault on Barker occurred in the wake of a series of events that began when three white students hung nooses on a “white tree” after black students sat under it.3 The details of the case are well-summarized
Two More Ways Not to Think about Privacy and the Fourth Amendment

This Essay challenges two increasingly common ideas about privacy and the Fourth Amendment . The first is that any protections needed against government infringements on privacy in the information age are best developed outside the courts and outside constitutional law. The second is that the various puzzles encountered when thinking about privacy and the Fourth Amendment can be solved or circumvented through some kind of invocation of the past: a focus on the text of the Fourth Amendment; the study of its history; or an effort to preserve the amount of privacy that used to exist , either when the Fourth Amendment was adopted or at some later point.
On the Rate of Abiogenesis from a Bayesian Informatics Perspective

Abstract Life appears to have emerged relatively quickly on the Earth, a fact sometimes used to justify a high rate of spontaneous abiogenesis (λ) among Earth-like worlds. Conditioned upon a single...
Legal issues arising out of blood testing for human growth hormone.

To date, no U.S. or foreign court or arbitral tribunal has directly considered whether mandatory blood testing of athletes for banned performance-enhancing substances, including synthetic human growth hormone (rhGH), violates any internationally or nationally recognized individual rights to privacy or bodily integrity. To determine how this issue is likely to be resolved in litigation or arbitration, this article reviews the developing U.S. law and private international law established by arbitration awards regarding the legality of drug testing at the various levels of athletic competition as well as the compelled taking and testing of a person’s blood outside the context of athletics.
Negligence Versus Strict Liability: The Case of Underwriter Liability in IPO's

[The present article focuses on the following question: What degree of liability should be imposed on the leader of the consortium of underwriters (leader) and on the other underwriters of initial public offerings (IPO's) for misleading details in the offering prospectus negligence or strict liability? The article explores new justifications for imposing liability in terms of negligence rather than strict liability. In a model representing the problem of hidden actions by the firm and the leader, leading to a moral hazard problem, the present article demonstrates that the negligence rule has advantages over the strict liability rule. The justifications derived from this model focus on the fact that a negligence rule serves the law's function in serving the moral hazard problem optimally, since the rule only obliges the court to ask whether the leader has indeed carried out an optimal due diligence. Moreover, a negligence rule also assists the law optimally in reducing costs due to the effect of the due diligence procedure on third parties, contributes to the creation of a standard due diligence procedure, and has an external positive effect on the private capital raising market. In an additional model presenting IPO pricing using the bookbuilding method, the leader manages to reach an equilibrium in which she convinces an optimal number of permanent investors to invest in collecting information about the offered security's value. This model shows that the negligence rule is preferable to the strict liability rule, as it helps convince various investors that the leader indeed made the optimal effort in executing due diligence, and therefore allows them to reduce the costs of maintaining the testing and verification system, while at the same time increasing certainty as to the accurateness of the market demand curve presented by the leader. In addition, a negligence rule better serves the post-IPO market in dealing with strategic actions by the leader intended to maximize the latter's profits in that market. A further justfication focuses on the leader's insurance role, and on her ability to be the IPO's "least expensive insurer. " Arguably, hold* Assistant Professor of Law (Lecturer), Radzyner School of Law, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya. J.S.D.; LL.M.; M.A. (Economics); LL.B.; and B.A. (Economics), Tel-Aviv
RFID-Enabled Discovery of Supply Networks

Many organizations have very limited information about the supply networks in which they are involved. For the purpose of planning business strategies, tracing products, and assuring product quality, organizations are eager to know their entire supply networks, i.e., who are their supplierspsila suppliers and who are their buyerspsila buyers. However, because an organization's higher-tier suppliers and buyers are not directly connected to the organization, it is difficult for the organization to obtain the information about all entities and their relationships in its supply networks. This paper aims at providing an innovative solution for organizations to discover their supply networks. We first propose a new taxonomy of supply networks, which provides a necessary and systematic framework for mapping supply networks based on the mapping purpose and available information. We then develop a methodology for discovering and mapping supply networks by means of radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled capture and sharing of the information about the movement of products throughout supply networks. This research solves a real-world supply chain management problem of what supply networks can be discovered using RFID and Internet technologies and how to discover them.
Reason and Authority in the European Court of Justice

Introduction 308 I. Reason Giving in European Law and Politics 315 A. Administrative Reasons 316 B. Legislative Reasons 319 C. Judicial Reasons 322 II. Politicizing European Law 327 A. Historical Path Dependency and the Challenge of a European Political Identity 329 1. The Early History of the ECJ 329 2. Recent Challenges: The Formation of a European Identity 332 B. Breaking Free: Toward a Discursive Turn in European Law 338 1. The Internal Dimension: The Form and Substance of Judicial Reasons 338 2. The “External Effects” of the Discursive Turn .... 341 III. The Preservation of Judicial Authority: Answers to Counterarguments 345 A. Objections Based on Institutional Design 347 1. Vulnerability: Renewable Terms and the Danger of Political Pressure 347 2. Timing: The Problem of Original Jurisdiction ..... 351
Implementing Antitrust's Welfare Goals

United States antitrust policy is said to promote some version of economic welfare. Antitrust promotes allocative efficiency by ensuring that markets are as competitive as they can practicably be, and that firms do not face unreasonable roadblocks to attaining productive efficiency, which refers to both cost minimization and innovation. One important welfare debate is whether antitrust should adopt a “consumer welfare” principle rather than a more general “total welfare” principle.The simple version of the consumer welfare test is not a balancing test. If consumers are harmed by reduced output or higher prices resulting from the exercise of market power, then this fact trumps any offsetting gains to producers. In this sense the consumer welfare test is easier to administer on a case by case basis than general welfare tests that may have to trade consumer losses and producer gains against each other.The volume and complexity of the academic debate on the general welfare vs. consumer welfare question creates an impression of policy significance that is completely belied by the case law. Few if any decisions have turned on the difference. In fact, antitrust policy generally applies both tests in the following sense. First, the economic analysis from the dominant Harvard and Chicago schools of antitrust is consistently concerned with general welfare. Second, however, if the evidence in a particular case indicates that a challenged practice facilitates the exercise of market power, resulting in output that is actually lower and prices that are actually higher, then tribunals uniformly condemn the restraint without regard to offsetting efficiencies. Indeed, one is hard pressed to find a single appellate decision that made a fact finding that a challenged practice resulted in lower market wide output and higher prices, but that also went on to approve the restraint because proven efficiencies exceeded consumer losses. In sum, courts invariably apply a consumer welfare test.In the paradigm cases that are commonly used as illustrations in this debate, all consumers either gain or lose from a practice. Often things are not that simple. Many practices affect different consumers in different ways, making the computation of net effects very difficult. Among such practices are (1) variable proportion ties; (2) ties that result in interproduct price discrimination; (3) tying and bundled discounts of imperfect complements; (4) vertical restraints and other practices used to facilitate third degree price discrimination; and (5) resale price maintenance which causes nominally higher prices but produces services that are more valuable to some customers than to others.When a practice causes both consumer harm and consumer benefit but net effects are unknown, producer gains may become more relevant, particularly if they result from significant production efficiencies.
Phase Space Measure Concentration for AN Ideal Gas

We point out that a special case of an ideal gas exhibits concentration of the volume of its phase space, which is a sphere, around its equator in the thermodynamic limit. The rate of approach to the thermodynamic limit is determined. Our argument relies on the spherical isoperimetric inequality of Levy and Gromov.
Governance in the gullies : democratic responsiveness and leadership in Delhi's slums

The authors use detailed ethnographic evidence to design and interpret a broad representative survey of 800 households in Delhi's slums, examining the processes by which residents gain access to formal government and develop their own informal modes of leadership. While ethnically homogeneous slums transplant rural institutions to the city, newer and ethnically diverse slums depend on informal leaders who gain their authority through political connections, education, and network entrepreneurship. Education and political affiliation are more important than seniority in determining a leader's influence. Informal leaders are accessible to all slum dwellers, but formal government figures are most accessed by the wealthy and the well-connected.
The impact of fat tails on equilibrium rates of return and term premia

Abstract We investigate the impact of ignoring fat tails observed in the empirical distributions of macroeconomic time series on the equilibrium implications of the consumption-based asset-pricing model with habit formation. Fat tails in the empirical distributions of consumption growth rates are modeled as a dampened power law process that nevertheless guarantees finiteness of moments of all orders. This renders model-implied mean equilibrium rates of return and equity and term premia finite. Comparison with a benchmark Gaussian process reveals that accounting for fat tails lowers the model-implied mean risk-free rate by 20 percent, raises the mean equity premium by 80 percent and the term premium by 20 percent, bringing the model implications closer to their empirically observed counterparts. Fat tails also increase the model-implied volatility of the risk-free rate and the equity premium.
A multi-category customer base analysis

Customer base analysis is an essential tool to measure and develop relationships with customers. While various models have been proposed in a noncontractual setting, they focus primarily on analyzing transactional patterns associated with a single product category or a firm-level activity, such as the times at which purchases are made at a particular retailer. This research proposes a modeling framework for customer base analysis in a multi-category context. Specifically, we model the time between a customer's purchases at the firm and the product categories that comprise her shopping basket arising from multi-category choice decisions. The proposed model uses a latent space approach that parsimoniously captures the dynamics of multi-category shopping behavior due to the interplay between purchase timing and shopping basket composition. We also account for interdependence among multiple categories, temporal dependence across category choices, and latent customer attrition. Using category-level transaction data, we show that the proposed model offers excellent fit and performance in predicting customer purchase patterns across multiple categories. The forecasts and inferences afforded by our model can assist managers in tailoring marketing efforts across categories.
Strategic Subsidies for Green Goods

Globally and locally, government support policies for green goods (like renewable energy) are much more popular internationally than raising the cost of bads (as through carbon taxes). These support policies may encourage downstream consumption (renewable energy deployment) or upstream development and manufacturing of those technologies. The use of subsidiesparticularly upstream onesis disciplined by World Trade Organization agreements, and its subsidies code lacks exceptions for transboundary externalities like human health or resource conservation, including those related to combating global climate change. The strategic trade literature has devoted little attention to the range of market failures related to green goods. This paper considers the market for a new environmental good that when consumed downstream may provide external benefits like reduced emissions. The technology is traded internationally but provided by a limited set of upstream suppliers that may operate in imperfect markets, such as with market power or external scale economies. We examine the national incentives and global rationales for offering production and consumption subsidies in producer countries, allowing that some of the downstream market may lie in nonregulating third-party countries. Although technology producer countries can benefit from restraints on upstream subsidies, global welfare is higher without them, and market failures imply that optimal subsidies are even higher. We supplement the analysis with numerical simulations of the case of renewable energy, exploring optimal subsidies for the major renewable energy producing and consuming regions and the cost of restrictions on upstream subsidies.
Titles of Nobility, Hereditary Privilege, and the Unconstitutionality of Legacy Preferences in Public School Admissions

This Article argues that legacy preferences in public university admissions violate the Constitution’s prohibition on titles of nobility. Examining considerable evidence from the late eighteenth century, the Article argues that the Nobility Clauses were not limited to the prohibition of certain distinctive titles, such as “duke” or “earl,” but had a substantive content that included a prohibition on all hereditary privileges with respect to state institutions. The Article places special emphasis on the dispute surrounding the formation of the Society of the Cincinnati, a hereditary organization formed by officers of the Continental Army. This Society was repeatedly denounced by prominent Americans as a violation of the Articles of Confederation’s prohibition on titles of nobility. This interpretation of the Nobility Clauses as a prohibition on hereditary privilege was echoed during the ratification of the Constitution and the post-ratification period. This Article also sets forth a framework for building a modern jurisprudence under the Nobility Clauses and concludes that legacy preferences are blatantly inconsistent with the Constitution’s prohibition on hereditary privilege. Indeed, the closest analogues to such preferences in American law are the notorious “grandfather clauses” of the Jim Crow South, under which access to the ballot was predicated upon the status of one’s ancestors. The Article considers a variety of counterarguments supporting the practice of legacy preferences and concludes that none of them are sufficient to surmount the Nobility Clauses’ prohibition of hereditary privilege. ∗ Acting Professor of Law, University of California, Davis. A.B., summa cum laude, Harvard University; J.D., Yale Law School. I am grateful to Akhil Reed Amar, Alan Brownstein, Anupam Chander, Joel Dobris, Chris Elmendorf, Floyd Feeney, Jeff Hauser, Margaret Johns, Kevin Johnson, Rob Mikos, Angela Onwauchi-Willig, and Martha West for helpful insights and to Chiayu Chang, John McClure, and, especially, Amber Dodge, for superb research assistance. Special thanks to Dean Rex Perschbacher and the Dean’s Summer Research Fund at U.C. Davis Law School for financial
Sparse and optimal acquisition design for diffusion MRI and beyond.

Purpose: Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in combination with functional MRI promises a whole new vista for scientists to investigate noninvasively the structural and functional connectivity of the human brain—the human connectome, which had heretofore been out of reach. As with other imaging modalities, diffusion MRI data are inherently noisy and its acquisition time-consuming. Further, a faithful representation of the human connectome that can serve as a predictive model requires a robust and accurate data-analytic pipeline. The focus of this paper is on one of the key segments of this pipeline—in particular, the development of a sparse and optimal acquisition (SOA) design for diffusion MRI multiple-shell acquisition and beyond. Methods: The authors propose a novel optimality criterion for sparse multiple-shell acquisition and quasimultiple-shell designs in diffusion MRI and a novel and effective semistochastic and moderately greedy combinatorial search strategy with simulated annealing to locate the optimum design or configuration. The goal of the optimality criteria is threefold: first, to maximize uniformity of the diffusion measurements in each shell, which is equivalent to maximal incoherence in angular measurements; second, to maximize coverage of the diffusion measurements around each radial line to achieve maximal incoherence in radial measurements for multiple-shell acquisition; and finally, to ensure maximum uniformity of diffusion measurement directions in the limiting case when all the shells are coincidental as in the case of a single-shell acquisition. The approach taken in evaluating the stability of various acquisition designs is based on the condition number and the A-optimal measure of the design matrix. Results: Even though the number of distinct configurations for a given set of diffusion gradient directions is very large in general—e.g., in the order of 10232 for a set of 144 diffusion gradient directions, the proposed search strategy was found to be effective in finding the optimum configuration. It was found that the square design is the most robust (i.e., with stable condition numbers and A-optimal measures under varying experimental conditions) among many other possible designs of the same sample size. Under the same performance evaluation, the square design was found to be more robust than the widely used sampling schemes similar to that of 3D radial MRI and of diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI). Conclusions: A novel optimality criterion for sparse multiple-shell acquisition and quasimultiple-shell designs in diffusion MRI and an effective search strategy for finding the best configuration have been developed. The results are very promising, interesting, and practical for diffusion MRI acquisitions.
Tradition, Principle and Self-Sovereignty: Competing Conceptions of Liberty in the United States Constitution

francaisLa notion de «liberte» qui est protegee par la constitution des Etats-Unis a ete a tour de role interpretee comme etant la «liberte» d’expression, de religion et d’association, sans contrainte de couteuses lois des Etats; la «liberte» des consommateurs et des producteurs de faire des choix de marche individuels, y compris le choix de vendre son travail a n’importe quel prix juge approprie, libre de legislation paternaliste ou de repartition qui pourrait limiter cette activite; et notre liberte a nous tous qui vivons dans cette sphere de faire des choix relatifs a notre vie reproductive ou familiale, sans contrainte qu’une loi de l’Etat puisse limiter ces decisions pour des raisons de morale publique. Bien que la Cour supreme des Etats-Unis ne l’ait jamais fait, le meme terme pourrait aussi etre interprete de maniere a proteger la liberte positive d’individus desirant faire un travail honnete, profiter d’une securite et d’un bien-etre physiques generaux et assumer les responsabilites d’un citoyen. D’ailleurs, une telle interpretation progressive pourrait mieux s’inscrire dans la raison d’etre globale des amendements de reconstitution dont fait partie le droit de ne pas etre prive de sa liberte sans application reguliere de la loi. EnglishThe “liberty” protected by the United States Constitution has been variously interpreted as the “liberty” of thinking persons to speak, worship and associate with others, unimpeded by onerous state law; the “liberty” of consumers and producers to make individual market choices, including the choice to sell one's labour at any price one sees fit, free of redistributive or paternalistic legislation that might restrict it; and the liberty of all of us in the domestic sphere to make choices regarding reproductive and family life, free of state law that might restrict it on grounds relating to public morals. Although the United States Supreme Court has never done so, the same phrase could also be interpreted as protecting the positive liberty of individuals to engage in decent work, to enjoy general physical safety and welfare, and to be prepared for the duties of citizenship. Such a progressive interpretation, in fact, might be more in line with the overall purpose of the Reconstruction Amendments, of which the right to not be deprived of one’s liberty without due process of law, is a part.
Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market

Data from downtown Boston in the 1990s show that loss aversion determines seller behavior in the housing market. Condominium owners subject to nominal losses 1) set higher asking prices of 25‐ 35 percent of the difference between the property’ s expected selling price and their original purchase price; 2) attain higher selling prices of 3‐ 18 percent of that difference; and 3) exhibit a much lower sale hazard than other sellers. The list price results are twice as large for owneroccupants as investors, but hold for both. These e ndings suggest that sellers are averse to realizing (nominal) losses and help explain the positive price-volume correlation in real estate markets.
The effects of soft drink taxes on child and adolescent consumption and weight outcomes

Abstract Childhood and adolescent obesity is associated with serious adverse lifetime health consequences and its prevalence has increased rapidly. Soft drink consumption has also expanded rapidly, so much so that soft drinks are currently the largest single contributors to energy intake. In this paper, we investigate the potential for soft drink taxes to combat rising levels of child and adolescent obesity through a reduction in consumption. Our results, based on state soft drink sales and excise tax information between 1989 and 2006 and the National Health Examination and Nutrition Survey, suggest that soft drink taxation, as currently practiced in the United States, leads to a moderate reduction in soft drink consumption by children and adolescents. However, we show that this reduction in soda consumption is completely offset by increases in consumption of other high-calorie drinks.
A Note on Deficit, Implicit Debt, and Interest Rates

This short note revisits the long-standing issue of the relationship between government borrowings and interest rates using vector autoregression (VAR) models. In particular, we consider the dynamic impacts of both official deficit and implicit debt on the interest rates. Two measures of unfunded Social Security obligations (implicit debt) are examined. The recently developed generalized forecast error variance decompositions, which are invariant to the ordering of variables in VARs, are adopted. We find that temporary shocks to the official deficit do not cause real interest rate changes in the short term but do cause moderate changes in the long term. They have significant impact on nominal interest rates in both short and long horizons. The implicit debt also appears to have some moderate influence on real interest rates at long horizons.
Employment in the New Age of Trade and Technology: Implications for Labor and Employment Law

In this article, Professor Dau-Schmidt examines changes in the employment relationship due to new information technology and the rise of the global economy and explores the implications of those changes for labor and employment law. Professor Dau-Schmidt argues that information technology and the globalization of the economy have caused a shift in the paradigmatic employment relationship from one of long-term employment governed by an internal labor market and corporate administrative rules to one of short-term employment governed by an international spot market for labor. This change in the typical employment relationship from one of long-term employment governed by an internal labor market to one of short-term employment governed by an international spot market for labor raises a host of issues for our national labor policies and labor and employment law. Increased employee turnover raises assessment and monitoring costs. How do we encourage employers to give letters of reference and allow employers to accurately assess and monitor employees' productivity, while still adequately protecting employees from defamation and needless infringements on their privacy? Increased employee turnover also poses a threat to employer trade secrets and investments in human capital. How do we allow employers to adequately protect corporate secrets and recoup training costs without unduly infringing on employee initiative and freedom of movement? Moreover, how do we ensure that employees obtain adequate training to maintain their productivity and standard of living in an economy in which training has become paramount? Moreover, in a labor market in which employees may have numerous employers over the course of their work life, how do we provide employees with the semblance of a career, complete with promotions and benefits comparable to those that were provided in the long-term employment relationships of the internal labor market? The increased competitiveness and turnover of the labor market have only increased obstacles to employee collective action and negotiation with their employers. How do we insure adequate opportunities for employee expression of a collective voice in this new environment? Finally, the globalization of the economy undermines nations' ability to undertake even efficient regulation that might put their employers at a competitive disadvantage. How do we maintain democratic values and the rule of law in a country whose economy dances to the tune of a global economy? Professor Dau-Schmidt examines these questions and proposes several solutions that are consistent with the new information technology and global economy.
Competition Between Two-Sided Platforms Under Demand and Supply Congestion Effects

Problem definition : This paper explores the impact of competition between platforms in the sharing economy. Examples include the cases of Uber and Lyft in the context of ride-sharing platforms. In...
SKEPTICISM BORDERING ON DISTRUST: FAMILY LAW IN THE HOLLYWOOD CINEMA

This article critiques Hollywood films from the last last 20–30 years that relate to family law. More specifically, this article considers films involving marriage, divorce, child custody, and adoption and focuses on the portrayal of law in those films. While the films are not tightly connected to one another and surely do not share a unified theme, the films do share a surprising skepticism bordering on distrust regarding law, legal procedures, and legal institutions. Hollywood appears to have picked up a general sentiment that family should be a private, intimate sanctuary and is better off without state intrusion through law. The films incorporate this sentiment and also reinforce it by teaching viewers to be leery of law in family matters. Key Points for the Family Court Community: 1 Recent Hollywood films include not only abundant portrayals of family life but also numerous examples of family law. 2 As a result, these Hollywood films have the potential to educate viewers about family law and to prompt certain normative attitudes about family law. 3 In general, Hollywood films invite viewers to be skeptical and even disdainful of family law.
Asymmetric information and the mode of entry in foreign credit markets

Abstract In a newly liberalized credit market, foreign banks with cost advantages are likely to be less informed than domestic banks that hold information on credit risks. These relative advantages may generate incentives for a foreign bank to negotiate acquisition of a domestic bank in order to capture information endowments. However, if it is difficult to assess the value of information held by banks, the foreign bank will face important choices about the optimal mode of entry and what acquisition price to pay. These choices have implications for the survival of domestic banks and how capital is allocated after liberalization.
Reflections on the replication corner: In praise of conceptual replications

Abstract We contrast the philosophy guiding the Replication Corner at IJRM with replication efforts in psychology. Psychology has promoted “exact” or “direct” replications, reflecting an interest in statistical conclusion validity of the original findings. Implicitly, this philosophy treats non-replication as evidence that the original finding is not “real” — a conclusion that we believe is unwarranted. In contrast, we have encouraged “conceptual replications” (replicating at the construct level but with different operationalization) and “replications with extensions”, reflecting our interest in providing evidence on the external validity and generalizability of published findings. In particular, our belief is that this replication philosophy allows for both replication and the creation of new knowledge. We express our views about why we believe our approach is more constructive, and describe lessons learned in the three years we have been involved in editing the IJRM Replication Corner. Of our thirty published conceptual replications, most found results replicating the original findings, sometimes identifying moderators.