cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Theory and Evidence in International Conflict: A Response to de Marchi, Gelpi, and Grynaviski

In this article, we show that de Marchi, Gelpi, and Grynaviski’s substantive analyses are fully consistent with our prior theoretical conjecture about international conflict. We note that they also agree with our main methodological point that out-of-sample forecasting performance should be a primary standard used to evaluate international conflict studies. However, we demonstrate that all other methodological conclusions drawn by de Marchi, Gelpi, and Gryanaviski are false. For example, by using the same evaluative criterion for both models, it is easy to see that their claim that properly specified logit models outperform neural network models is incorrect. Finally, we show that flexible neural network models are able to identify important empirical relationships between democracy and conflict that the logit model excludes a priori; this should not be surprising since the logit model is merely a limiting special case of the neural network model.
The Modern Age of Informed Consent

This essay explores the informed consent ramifications of the confluence of these two phenomena: Developments in medical technology and emerging adulthood. In particular, it explores consent to medical treatments by emerging adults that are both elective and irreversible. In such cases, policy considerations dictate that additional safeguards be implemented to ensure that the consent given is truly informed. Part II of this essay provides an overview of the informed consent doctrine and outlines a variety of advancements in elective medical technology. Part III explores the concept of emerging adulthood. Part IV suggests that when emerging adults seek medical treatments that are elective, non-emergent, and irreversible, the law should require deliberative consent, a process that mandates counseling by a patient advocate along with a waiting period.
THE ROLE OF INFORMATION IN INNOVATION AND COMPETITION

Innovation is typically a trial-and-error process. While some research paths lead to the innovation sought, others result in dead ends. Because firms benefit from their competitors working in the wrong direction, they do not reveal their dead-end findings. Time and resources are wasted on projects that other firms have already found to be fruitless. We offer a simple model with two firms and two research lines to study this prevalent problem. We characterize the equilibrium in a decentralized environment that necessarily entails significant efficiency losses due to wasteful dead-end replication and an information externality that leads to an early abandonment of the risky project. We show that different types of firms follow different innovation strategies and create different kinds of welfare losses. In an extension of the core model, we also study a centralized mechanism whereby firms are incentivized to disclose their actions and share their private information in a timely manner. (JEL: O31, D92)
The Labor Demand Curve is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market

Immigration is not evenly balanced across groups of workers who have the same education but differ in their work experience, and the nature of the supply imbalance changes over time. This paper develops a new approach for estimating the labor market impact of immigration by exploiting this variation in supply shifts across education-experience groups. I assume that similarly educated workers with different levels of experience participate in a national labor market and are not perfect substitutes. The analysis indicates that immigration lowers the wage of competing workers: a 10 percent increase in supply reduces wages by 3 to 4 percent.
Names and Reputations: An Empirical Analysis

This paper tests several predictions from the literature on firm reputation, and confirms a main result: poor performance leads a firm to conceal its reputation. A residential plumbing firm with a record of complaints one standard deviation above the mean is 133.2 percent more likely to change its name. In addition, firms with longer track records are less likely to change their names or exit, while firms with more firm-specific investments, such as advertising, are more likely to change their names than exit. In addition, firms in small markets value their reputations comparatively more than firms in large markets. (JEL L14, L25, L84)
Outside CEOs and innovation

Research Summary: Innovation is the principle driver of firm and economic growth. Thus, one disturbing trend that may explain stagnant growth is a 65% decline in firms’ R&D productivity. We propose that the rise of outside Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) may be partially responsible for the decline because those CEOs are more likely to lack technological domain expertise necessary to manage R&D effectively. While this proposition was motivated by interviews with Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), we test it at large scale. We find that firm R&D productivity decays during the tenure of outside CEOs relative to that of inside CEOs. We further find this effect is more pronounced for firms with high R&D intensity and for firms employing outside CEOs with more remote experience, lending circumstantial support for the underlying assumption regarding lack of expertise. Note that this is not a call for boards to avoid outside CEOs, rather it is recommendation to consider the implications for innovation. Managerial Summary: While outside CEOs offer advantages over internal candidates, we argue one unintended consequence is weaker innovation. This argument was prompted by two coincident trends: a 65% decline in companies’ R&D productivity and a doubling of outside Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). The argument was reinforced by interviews with Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), who recounted shifts in orientation from R&D as an investment to R&D as an expense that occurred shortly in response to a new CEO. We felt this shift was more likely with outside CEOs because they may lack technological domain expertise necessary to effectively manage R&D. Our results are consistent with the argument—company R&D productivity decreases under outside CEOs. Note, however, that we don’t advocate avoiding outside CEOs, rather we recommend R&D firms consider technological domain expertise during CEO hiring.
Overblocking autonomy: the case of mandatory library filtering software

In U.S. v.American Library Association (2003), the Supreme Court upheld the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which mandated that libraries receiving federal funding for public Internet access install content-filtering programs on computers which provide that access. These programs analyze incoming content, and block the receipt of objectionable material, in particular pornography. Thus, patrons at public libraries are protected from unintentionally (or intentionally) accessing objectionable material, and, in the case of minors, from accessing potentially damaging material. At least, that is the official story. In this paper, I develop three points. (1) I argue that CIPA and ALA are better read as examples of the enforcement of a regime of normative sexuality. The question of minors accessing pornography is only relevant to the official story insofar as it provides a rhetorically persuasive example of deviance from that normative regime. CIPAs full target includes information about topics such as homosexuality and contraception. (2) Rather than (or in addition to) punishing deviances directly, CIPA attempts to constitute a “public” in which such deviancy can never occur in the first place. Hence, the designation of a “public” space serves to domesticate alternative sexualities and to sanitize that space of sexual difference. (3) This interaction at the border of the public and private spheres offers an opportunity to reflect on and underscore the ways that subject formation and subjectivity are mediated through technological artifacts like the Internet.
In Defense of Corporate Persons

This essay is a critique of this attack on corporate personhood. It explains that the corporate separateness - corporate “personhood” - is an important legal principle as a matter of corporate law. What’s more, as a matter of constitutional law, corporate “personhood” deserves a more nuanced analysis than has been typically offered in arguing in favor of an amendment to overturn Citizens United. Indeed, the concept of corporate “personhood” can in fact be marshaled in arguments against corporations being able to assert constitutional rights. In the nascent category of cases brought by corporations asserting rights of religious freedom, for example, corporations typically derivatively assert the religious claims of their shareholders. Attention to corporate “personhood” would lead courts to separate the claims of shareholders from those of the corporation itself, leading to a dismissal of corporate religious claims asserted on behalf of shareholders. Finally, it proposes that the concerns motivating the movement against corporate personhood should be ameliorated with adjustments in corporate governance rather than constitutional law. In corporate law, what we need are changes in corporate governance to make corporations more like persons, not less. Unlike persons, corporations are expected to act if they have only one goal - the production of shareholder value. People must balance a range of obligations, both moral and legal. Requiring corporations to attend to a broader range of stakeholders would make corporations more like people, would make them better citizens, and would make their political participation less problematic.
Institutional Lessons from the 2000 Presidential Election

Although scholarly and media attention in the wake of the presidential election of 2000 has focused primarily on its unusual aspects, such extraordinary events also lead us to analyze aspects of our legal and political systems that we tend to take for granted when elections run smoothly.1 Among the latter set of lessons that can be drawn from the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore are conclusions about the dynamic and complex relationships among our institutions of governance. In this Essay, I will discuss two related issues of institutional design and institutional choice that have applicability beyond the most recent presidential contest. First, the Bush-Gore election concretely illustrates that institutional design is a crucial consideration in determining which part of the government is best suited to render particular decisions. When institutions must become involved in majoritarian political decisions such as the selection of a President, it may be better to rely largely on the political branches than on the judiciary for several reasons. This allocation of decisionmaking authority is preferable because of the greater democratic credentials of Congress. As Justice Breyer put it in the context of the 2000 election, “Congress, being a political body, expresses the people’s will far more accurately than does an unelected Court. And the people’s will is what elections are about.”2 In addition, there is a less-often recognized advantage of institutional design enjoyed by the legislature. In some cases presenting highly charged political questions, the legislature can adopt procedural frameworks to shape decisionmaking and restrain partisan opportunism before a particular controversy arises. In the case of the 2000 election, the United States Congress actually had a framework in place that would have allowed it to handle any challenges to the
Competency and risk-relativity

In this paper I discuss the view that the appropriate concept of competence is a decision-relative one: that a person may be competent to make one decision but not another. The argument that I present is that neither of the two competing theories supporting the decision-relative approach, internalism and externalism, can provide a coherent explanation of why a person's competence should be thought to be relative to a particular decision. On the one hand, internalism, which regards competence as exhaustively a matter of the person's understanding, fails to identify the specific skills or content that would warrant linking a specific decision with competence, and thus cannot provide an account of decision-relative that parallels task-relative. On the other hand, externalism, which regards competence as a matter of the person's understanding in relation to external elements such as risk, cannot adequately defend why a person's competence to make a decision should 'track' the level of probable harm that results from the decision.
The Need for Non-Discretionary Interlocutory Appellate Review in Multidistrict Litigation

Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) is a tool for managing complex litigation by transferring cases with common questions of fact to a single judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings. The subject matter of the cases can run the gamut from airplane crashes to securities fraud to environmental disasters, such as the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Today, about a third of all pending civil cases in federal court are part of the MDL system. A single judge renders all the important legal decisions in each MDL, exerting outsized impact on the parties and on the evolution of the law—and does so with virtually no scrutiny from other judges. This power centralization promotes efficient case management, but it can be an anathema to our conception of decentralized justice. One instance of unreviewable pretrial error can have immediate and sweeping impact on thousands of cases in one fell swoop. It is time to restore the balance of judicial power. This Article argues for an expansion of non-discretionary interlocutory appellate jurisdiction over certain legal rulings rendered in MDL cases. Any opportunity to appeal before the end of the case reflects an inherent value judgment that the immediate rights at stake outweigh the burdens that interlocutory review imposes on the courts. The discretionary approach to interlocutory appellate jurisdiction has proven generally adequate. But it is not adequate in the context of MDL proceedings, where the risks and consequences of legal error are heightened considerably. Ultimately, MDL cases tend to settle rather than proceed to final judgment, so the appellate courts rarely have an opportunity to clarify the law, and the settlements are often mispriced as a result of the uncertainty. The absence of appellate review also deprives our jurisprudence of one of its central features—the
Executive stock options and IPO underpricing

In about one-third of US IPOs between 1996 and 2000, executives received stock options with an exercise price set equal to the IPO offer price (rather than a price determined by the market). Among firms with such “IPO options”, 58 percent of top executives receive a net gain from underpricing, meaning the gain from IPO options exceeds the loss from the dilution of their pre-IPO shareholdings. If executives can influence the IPO offer price, we expect a positive relation between these IPO options and underpricing. Alternatively, executives may be able to influence the timing and terms of their stock options, and this would similarly predict a positive relation between IPO options and underpricing. However, we fail to find any evidence of such a relation. Our results run counter to the emerging literature claiming that managers blatantly take self-serving actions to improve their personal welfare at shareholder expense.
Measuring state capacity: Theoretical and empirical implications for the study of civil conflict

This article identifies and addresses key conceptual and measurement issues raised by measures of state capacity in studies of civil conflict. First, it reviews competing definitions and operationa...
Robust New Product Pricing

We study the pricing decision for a monopolist launching a new innovation. At the time of launch, we assume that the monopolist has incomplete information about the true demand curve. Despite the lack of objective information the firm must set a retail price to maximize total profits. To model this environment, we develop a novel two-period non-Bayesian framework where the monopolist sets the price in each period based only on a nonparametric set of all feasible demand curves. Optimal prices are dynamic as prices in any period allow the firm to learn about demand and improve future pricing decisions. Our main results show that the direction of dynamic introductory prices (versus static prices) depends on the type of heterogeneity in the market. We find that (1) when consumers have homogeneous preferences, introductory dynamic price is higher than the static price; (2) when consumers have heterogeneous preferences and the monopolist has no ex ante information, the introductory dynamic price is the same as ...
Fraud detection in online consumer reviews

Increasingly, consumers depend on social information channels, such as user-posted online reviews, to make purchase decisions. These reviews are assumed to be unbiased reflections of other consumers' experiences with the products or services. While extensively assumed, the literature has not tested the existence or non-existence of review manipulation. By using data from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, our study investigates if vendors, publishers, and writers consistently manipulate online consumer reviews. We document the existence of online review manipulation and show that the manipulation strategy of firms seems to be a monotonically decreasing function of the product's true quality or the mean consumer rating of that product. Hence, manipulation decreases the informativeness of online reviews. Furthermore though consumers understand the existence of manipulation, they can only partially correct it based on their expectation of the overall level of manipulation. Hence, vendors are able to change the final outcomes by manipulating online reviewers. In addition, we demonstrate that at the early stages, after an item is released to the Amazon market, both price and reviews serve as quality indicators. Thus, at this stage, a higher price leads to an increase in sales instead of a decrease in sales. At the late stages, price assumes its normal role, meaning a higher price leads to a decrease in sales. Finally, on average, there is a higher level of manipulation on Barnes & Noble than on Amazon.
Reforming the Special Procedures and Mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights

Special Procedures and Mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights United Nations Human Rights.
The Increasing Use of Challenges to Expert Evidence Under Daubert and Rule 702 in Patent Litigation

This paper discusses the increasing use of challenges to expert evidence under Rule 702 and Daubert in patent cases. It includes a discussion of both appellate and district court decisions addressing the admissibility of expert evidence relating to various substantive issues as well as damages in patent cases.
Rethinking Immigration’s Mandatory Detention Regime: Politics, Profit, and the Meaning of “Custody”

This article discusses the legislative history of mandatory immigration detention and offers two different interpretations of the mandatory statute that would allow for greater use of detention alternatives. The article provides historical context to the emergence of mandatory detention and discusses the for-profit prison industry's political influence in shaping today's immigration detention regime. Lastly, the article discusses interpretations of the term "custody" in the mandatory detention statute that would allow immigration officials to meet the statute's requirements without resorting to detention.
Consolidation and ownership trends of nonfederal hydropower generating assets, 1980–2003

Abstract This paper analyzes ownership trends of nonfederal hydropower generating assets from 1980–2003. Previous research has shown that the overall electricity industry is unique in that, because of the extreme inelasticity of demand for power, even small sectors of the industry have the potential to exhibit substantial price setting behavior. Hydropower assets especially, with their unique ability to “shift” electricity between time periods, have the potential to be used to exhibit horizontal market power. For this reason, an analysis of consolidation trends of hydropower assets is important. Our empirical results show that from 1980–2003, while transfer rates of nonfederal hydropower dams have been substantial (at 46%), there is little evidence of consolidation leading to the potential exercise of horizontal market power as a result of this. A detailed look at the data reveals that it is smaller dams, with less power production capacity, that have tended to be transferred more than other dams over this time period, and that it is private industrial owners and private utilities that are selling dams to private non-utility generation companies. This suggests that a realignment of hydropower assets, most likely in response to state-and federal-level regulatory initiatives, is taking place, but that increasing consolidation along with this is currently not a threat.
In Defense of Life: Enforcing the Bill of Rights on Behalf of Poor, Minority and Disadvantaged Persons Facing the Death Penalty

I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here, to meet with distinguished members of the legal profession and law students and to talk with you about how well the legal system and our profession are responding to the challenge of deciding who dies.This year is the twentieth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia, in which the death penalty as it had existed for 200 years in our country's history was found to be unconstitutionally applied. We have now had about nineteen years of experience with the new death penalty statutes passed after Furman. We are in a position to examine whether the constitutional deficiencies identified in Furman-discrimination against minorities and the poor and arbitrariness and capriciousness have been eliminated from the process of imposing death.We have also just completed the year in which we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. I know that those of you here today recognize that the Bill of Rights is not a collection of technicalities. The Bill of Rights is one of the most fundamental and important documents of our national existence. It is one of our nation's great exports. It is something that people around the world admire about our country.It is thus appropriate for us to examine here today how well the Bill of Rights is being enforced in these cases, cases involving human life; how well our profession, the legal profession, has fulfilled its responsibility to make the protections of the Bill of Rights available to those facing the death penalty; and, finally, whether the Bill of Rights is serving its purpose of protecting the poorest and most powerless people of our society.
Price Discrimination with Contract Terms: The Lost-Volume Problem

The “lost-volume” problem in contract law poses a problem of contract design. A seller with market power who faces buyers with private valuations for the subject of sale solves the problem with a combination of a required positive down payment and a later transaction price above cost. This combination maximizes the surplus the seller can capture from the buyers, but the contract is inefficient: the positive down payment cuts off contracting and a price above cost induces breach by buyers who value the product above its cost. The lost-volume question, then, is whether a court should enforce the inefficient contract the seller prefers or should instead impose one of two mandatory rules: permitting the seller to recover full lost-profit damages or no damages at all. These mandatory rules produce inefficiencies of their own. This paper’s contribution is (a) to clarify the lost-volume problem; (b) to show that the three judicially implementable solutions cannot be Pareto-ranked abstractly: which outcome best turns on the distribution of buyer valuations in particular markets; (c) to show which value distributions likely would yield efficiency under each of the solutions; and (d) to argue, for second-order reasons, that courts should enforce the consensual contract rather than impose either mandatory rule.
Conditional performance measurement using portfolio weights: evidence for pension funds☆

Abstract This paper combines the use of portfolio holdings data and conditioning information to create a new performance measure. Our conditional weight-based measure has several advantages. Using conditioning information avoids biases in weight-based measures as discussed by Grinblatt and Titman (J. Business 60 (1993)). When conditioning information is used, returns-based measures face a bias if managers can trade between observation dates. The new measures avoid this interim trading bias. We use the new measures to provide fresh insights about performance in a sample of U.S. equity pension fund managers.
The Naked Land: The Dayton Accords, Property Disputes, and Bosnia's Real Constitution

The Dayton Accords have brought peace and stability to Bosnia. Yet the Accords were intended to do more: they were meant to create conditions for the restoration of political unity among Bosnia's factions. On these scores, Dayton has failed. Moreover, there remains a wide rift between the international community's perceptions of the local parties' obligations and those parties' own perceptions and conduct. One of the most complicated aspects of post-conflict Bosnia is the range of disputes over real property. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, and so far Dayton has proven singularly incapable of creating any meaningful resolution. Yet the situation is by no means anarchical: There are legal and quasi-legal structures in place in all areas of the country that shape property disputes - if only to shape the ways in which policies of eviction and ethnic cleansing can be pursued. This Article examines the modes of resolving property disputes enforced by the various ethnic governments operating on Bosnian territory. What are the rules that have actually shaped the disposition of property disputes? What is the relationship between the international community's imposed solution - the Dayton Accords - and the systems actually operating in the country? What do those domestic systems tell us about the essential nature of those regimes: their aspirations, their modes of legitimation, their purposes for being? In answering these questions, the Article explores the degree to which the regulation of property disputes in Bosnia is evidence, not merely of rights violations, but of a wholly different constitutional conception of what society and the polity should be. Bosnia's domestic regimes are fundamentally - constitutionally - at odds with the commitments imposed upon them in the Dayton Accords. Yet the international community has assessed the legitimacy of the various parties by international standards and imposed norms on them without reference to internal dynamics of legitimacy. A more textured understanding of these regimes' relationship to the rule of law is important because, to the degree these systems are characterized as internally legitimate, their legitimation is independent of the norms outsiders seek to impose on them. The Article argues that in failing adequately to address these issues, the international community risks either the complete irrelevance of its norms, or a dangerous and compromising co-optation. The international community's efforts in Bosnia suffer from an irresolvable contradiction: they seek to ensure liberal human rights on a foundation of illiberal, ethnically exclusive states. This contradiction poses a serious conceptual and moral challenge to scholars and policy makers: the maintenance of peace in Bosnia will likely require consolidation of ethnic status, but that will in turn subordinate the very values and commitments that have inspired much of the human rights community's hopes for the country's future.
Solar power for street vendors? Problems with centralized charging stations in urban markets

Abstract While energy poverty is a particularly large problem in rural areas, rapid urbanization in developing countries is also raising concerns about energy access in urban areas. How can policymakers improve energy access for the urban poor? We address this question by investigating the use of solar power for improved lighting for urban street vendors. We conduct a field study of the centralized charging station model in Patna, Bihar, India. A solar panel is installed in a marketplace and vendors can rent and charge the batteries of the lights for a daily fee. Our findings reveal potential problems with the approach. Key issues include opposition by local strongmen who operate diesel generators, the difficulty of finding local entrepreneurs to operate the system, vendor misuse of the lights, and physical barriers such as land availability. Policy recommendations include considering the sales of standalone devices and relying on the urban electricity grid for connections.
Rationality and forecasting accuracy of exchange rate expectations: Evidence from survey-based forecasts

Abstract We examine rationality, forecasting accuracy, and economic value of the survey-based exchange rate forecasts for 10 developed and 23 developing countries at the 3-, 12-, and 24-month horizons. Using the data from two surveys for the period from 2004 to 2012, we find strong evidence that the forecasts for developing countries are biased at all forecast horizons. For developed countries, forecasts are strongly biased at the 3-month horizon, the bias decreases at the 12-month horizon, and increases again at the 24-month horizon. Based on the magnitude of the forecast errors and the direction of change, long-term forecasts are more accurate than short-term forecasts. Economic evaluation of the forecasts indicates that the forecasters are successful at generating positive economic profits, and economic gains of the forecasts for developed countries improve with the forecast horizon.
Impact of bankruptcy law reform on capital markets in Brazil

New bankruptcy laws which give greater protection to creditors were signed into law in Brazil on Feb 9, 2005. The paper tests whether greater protection to creditors led to growth in capital markets in Brazil as predicted by La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny (1997, 1998, 2002 and 2006). Our analysis shows that the money market responded positively with a drop of 600 basis points in the Selic, the benchmark interest rate, after the new law went into effect. Aggregate stock market indexes reacted positively when the new rules were signed into law. Long-term returns to stock market indexes consisting of firms which offer greater protection to shareholders, are positive, which strongly supports the La Porta, et al predictions. JEL CODES: G15
'God's Created Order', Gender Complementarity, and the Federal Marriage Amendment

Does marriage, in the United States, need the protection of an amendment to the federal constitution, which would enshrine marriage as only the union of a man and a woman? In answering "yes" to this question, sponsors and supporters of the Federal Marriage Protection Amendment (FMPA), in the House of Representatives and the Senate, have made various appeals to the gender complementarity of marriage: (1) opposite-sex marriage is part of "God's created order;" (2) procreation is the purpose of marriage and has a tight nexus with optimal mother/father parenting; (3) marriage bridges the "gender divide" by properly ordering heterosexual desire and procreation; (4) marriage is "about children," not adult love; and (5) traditional marriage transmits values crucial to democracy. This article canvasses and critically evaluates a sampling of these arguments, as they have featured in Congressional hearings and debates about the FMPA. It asks whether FMPA supporters can reconcile their stance about the imperative of protecting the gender complementarity of traditional marriage with the transformation of marriage brought about by family law reforms and contemporary Equal Protection jurisprudence. It argues that FMPA supporters continually and uncritically appeal to gender complementarity as a justification for preserving "traditional marriage" without addressing marriage's evolution and whether marriage's definition should continue to evolve.
The American liberal colonial tradition

The American liberal myths of the self-made man, of the liberal individual, and of American exceptionalism all rely upon a disavowed relationship to the constitutive role of settler colonization in the foundation, development, and structure of the USA. I place political scientist Louis Hartz's 1955 work, The Liberal Tradition in America, at the center of this essay because his argument re-animates while posing as a critique of the narrative of American exceptionalism. We see in Hartz someone struggling, and not quite succeeding, to challenge the constraints of American political discourse. In this effort, Hartz implicitly suggests the presence of an American liberal colonial tradition, one that upsets the story of America's exceptionalist founding by seeing liberalism and settler colonialism as mutually constitutive logics. In the end, Hartz sees but cannot fully grasp the explanatory power that comes with placing settler colonial logic at the center of a critique of the foundational myths of America.
Do they do it for the money

Abstract Using a sample of all top management who were indicted for illegal insider trading in the United States for trades during the period 1989–2002, we explore the economic rationality of this white-collar crime. If this crime is an economically rational activity in the sense of Becker (1968), where a crime is committed if its expected benefits exceed its expected costs, “poorer” top management should be doing the most illegal insider trading. This is because the “poor” have less to lose (present value of foregone future compensation if caught is lower for them). We find in the data, however, that indictments are concentrated in the “richer” strata after we control for firm size, industry, firm growth opportunities, executive age, the opportunity to commit illegal insider trading, and the possibility that regulators target the “richer” strata. We thus rule out the economic motive for this white-collar crime, and leave open the possibility of other motives.
Indirect Taxation in Developing Countries: A General Equilibrium Approach

Indirect taxes are an important element in stabilization tax packages that aim to raise revenue in the short run. This paper evaluates, by using a general equilibrium model, alternative instruments of indirect taxation in middle-income developing countries. It uses data for Thailand as an illustration and examines the effects of these instruments on revenue, efficiency, equity, and international competitiveness. The paper shows that the interaction between taxes and the distortions caused by various policies can be important for revenue and efficiency. It also reveals significant backward shifting and a link between outward-looking supply-side tax policies and trade policies in industrial countries.
PRODUCTIVITY MATTERS FOR TRADE POLICY: THEORY AND EVIDENCE*

There is a growing literature that investigates the effect of trade liberalization on productivity. Nearly all such studies assume that trade policy is determined independently of productivity, hence it is exogenous. The author shows that this assumption is not valid in general, both theoretically and empirically, and that researchers may be underestimating the positive effect of liberalization on productivity when they do not account for the endogeneity bias. On the theory side, he demonstrates that under a standard political economy model of trade protection, productivity directly influences tariffs. Moreover, this productivity-tariff relationship partly determines the extent of liberalization across sectors even in the presence of a large exogenous unilateral liberalization shock that affects all sectors. The link between productivity and tariffs is maintained after the author includes in his political economy model a learning-by-doing motive of protection, which also serves as the source of liberalization. On the empirical side, he examines total factor productivity (TFP) estimates obtained at the firm level for Colombia between 1983 and 1998, and finds that more productive sectors receive more protection within this period. In estimating the effect of productivity on tariffs, he controls for the endogeneity of the two main right-hand-side variables-the inverse import penetration to import demand elasticity ratio and productivity-by using materials prices, the capital to output ratio, a measure of scale economies, and the TFP of the upstream industries as robust instruments. The author also accounts for the large trade liberalization between 1990 and 1992, and finds that the sectors with a higher productivity gain are liberalized less. Finally, he illustrates a system of equations estimation and shows that the positive impact of liberalization on productivity grows stronger when corrected for the endogeneity bias.
Peasants, Tanners, and Psychiatrists: Using Films to Teach Comparative Law

Films have proven to be a useful teaching tool for a course on Comparative Law. The films serve to introduce the class to the look and feel of legal proceedings from selected foreign legal systems and to illustrate particular aspects of how these legal proceedings differ from our own. The article summarizes the results of more than 10 years of experience in using films. It will be of interest to others who teach Comparative Law and also to lawyers, judges, and students who want a video means of oriented themselves to foreign legal traditions. The article discusses the limitations of such films as teaching (or orientation) tools, both in general and with regard to each particular film. Peasants, Tanners, and Psychiatrists: Using Films to Teach Comparative Law Joseph W. Dellapenna Table of
Gender Justice through Public Interest Litigation: Case Studies from India

This Article examines the application of the Supreme Court of India’s enterprising Public Interest Litigation (PIL) mechanism to a subject of compelling global concern: violations of women’s rights. India is currently receiving much international attention for its dynamism and innovation on various fronts, yet the country also remains steeped in centuriesold norms and conventions. This tension is reflected in the decisions of the Supreme Court, which has assumed an active role in enforcing women’s rights through PIL but is sometimes limited in this regard by the complex cultural context in which it operates. Based on an analysis of Indian constitutional law, case studies of landmark Supreme Court decisions, and extensive interviews with stakeholders in India, the Author argues that the PIL vehicle has great potential for advancing gender justice. However, the success of this endeavor in a society that is rapidly evolving—yet still deeply patriarchal— * Portions of this Article are adapted from LITIGATING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: USING PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION AND INTERNATIONAL LAW TO PROMOTE GENDER JUSTICE IN INDIA (2006), a report the Author wrote during a Robert L. Bernstein Fellowship in International Human Rights at the Center for Reproductive Rights. The views presented in this Article belong only to the Author, the individuals cited, or both. ∗∗ J.D., Yale Law School (2003); B.A., Princeton University (1999). The Author is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Princeton University. She thanks Jayanth Krishnan, Katherine Franke, Elizabeth Brundidge, Anil Kalhan, C. Raj Kumar, Vishnu Vardhan Shankar, Nick Robinson, and Monica Hakimi for their helpful comments on drafts of the Article. The Author is also grateful to the Bernstein Fellowship and the Center for Reproductive Rights, and to all the interviewees in India for generously sharing their time, knowledge, and experiences. Correspondence should be directed to avani@aya.yale.edu. 834 VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 41:833 will depend upon strategic mobilization by women’s rights advocates and committed efforts by the Court to enforce the rights of women, independent of mainstream opinion and within the boundaries of the separation-of-powers doctrine. If India can assume a leading role in advancing gender justice through its judiciary, its PIL mechanism could serve as an inspiring model for other constitutional courts and international human rights bodies.
Wrong Way Corrigan and Recent Developments in the Nonprofit Landscape: A Need for New Legal Approaches

In July 1938, an aviator, Douglas Corrigan, flew from Long Beach California to New York’s Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. His flight plan called for him to return to California. On July 17, Corrigan took off in thick fog, and headed east because airport officials had told him to lift off in any direction save west, as there were some buildings at the western edge of the field. He continued flying east, claiming his compass indicated he was heading west. After a twenty-eight hour, thirteen-minute flight, Corrigan landed in Dublin, Ireland. He became a national hero, and his nickname, “Wrong Way Corrigan,” became a colloquialism describing anyone who blunders and goes the wrong way.2 This essay argues that some of the assumptions by which we view and regulate the nonprofit sector are traveling, as did Wrong Way Corrigan, in the wrong direction. This is due to faulty assumptions about the nonprofit universe, overreactions to perceived problems, and a reluctance to consider innovative approaches to existing problems. This essay examines some of the erroneous assumptions, discusses recent legislative initiatives, and suggests that there is a need for more than incremental approaches when considering the nonprofit landscape. It argues that regulation of fiduciary behavior should be at the local level, or a combination of local and state regulation, in contrast to federal enforcement. Federal tax law issues are
Women as Candidates: An Experimental Study in Turkey

Patriarchal practices and understandings, especially those based on religious teachings, are seen as serious hindrances to women's access to political power. This obstacle often is seen as greatest in countries where Islam is the dominant religion. This study offers preliminary insights regarding how the sex of political candidates affects voting perceptions and behavior in Turkey, one of the few democratic countries with a Muslim majority population. We designed an experiment in which university students read speeches by candidates from the two major parties (AKP and CHP), randomly varying the sex of the candidates. We find that candidate sex influences respondents' evaluations of areas of competence and perceptions of individual characteristics. It has almost no impact, however, on voting decisions. When it comes to voting, party support and policy stands are vastly more important than candidate sex, even for religiously observant voters.
The Right to Redemption: Juvenile Dispositions and Sentences

The punishment of juveniles remains a troubling yet under-theorized aspect of the criminal and juvenile justice systems. These systems emphasize accountability, victim restoration, and retribution as reasons to punish underage offenders. In fact, American juvenile systems will remove the most egregious offenders to criminal courts for trial and sentencing. The United States Supreme Court in recent years, however, has issued a number of opinions emphasizing that the Eighth Amendment requires that the punishment of children must account for their lesser moral culpability, developmental immaturity, and potential for rehabilitation. State courts also have begun to reconsider their own dispositional and sentencing schemes in light of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence.The reality of ‘juveniles’ immaturity militates in favor of a right to redemption. This Article begins by discussing the available data about the number and types of dispositions juveniles receive, waivers to criminal court, and the criminal sentences imposed. The analysis also considers the collateral consequences for minors who are adjudicated delinquent or who are criminally convicted. The discussion then turns to the effects of juvenile and criminal court involvement on children and the subsequent impact on life outcomes. The analysis considers theoretical, jurisprudential, and constitutional implications of juvenile sentencing with a special emphasis on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. This Article concludes with the proposal for the contours of a right to redemption and its implications for reform to the current system and suggests strategies for the individual defense lawyer.
A policy maker's dilemma: Preventing terrorism or preventing blame

Although anti-terrorism policy should be based on a normative treatment of risk that incorporates likelihoods of attack, policy makers’ anti-terror decisions may be influenced by the blame they expect from failing to prevent attacks. We show that people’s anti-terror budget priorities before a perceived attack and blame judgments after a perceived attack are associated with the attack’s severity and how upsetting it is but largely independent of its likelihood. We also show that anti-terror budget priorities are influenced by directly highlighting the likelihood of the attack, but because of outcome biases, highlighting the attack’s prior likelihood has no influence on judgments of blame, severity, or emotion after an attack is perceived to have occurred. Thus, because of accountability effects, we propose policy makers face a dilemma: prevent terrorism using normative methods that incorporate the likelihood of attack or prevent blame by preventing terrorist attacks the public find most blameworthy.
The ADVANCE Democracy Act and the Future of United States Democracy Promotion Efforts

This article addresses whether and to what extent the Obama administration should continue the Bush administration policies relating to democracy promotion. The focus of the article is on the ADVANCE Act of 2007, a legislative enactment that institutionalized democracy promotion in the State Department. After explicating the key provisions of this Act, as well as their implementation status, the article addresses key critiques leveled at democracy promotion, as well as areas where the Obama administration can expand on what has been accomplished thus far in this field. In the end, democracy promotion should continue to be an integral component of the United States'' foreign policy, and the Obama administration is uniquely placed to ensure the efficacy of such efforters in the near-term. Whether the administration can add such a broadly conceived endeavor to its current plate is another, unaddressed, issue.
The effect of exit on entry deterrence strategies

Abstract Recent analyses of entry deterrence strategies have required an incumbent's post-entry output or pricing strategy to be profit maximizing. However, most papers have continued to assume that either an incumbent can commit not to exit after entry or that exit is never optimal. When there are avoidable fixed costs of operating in any period, however, exit can be the optimal strategy. In this situation, entry deterrence strategies operate very differently than when exit is never optimal. In fact, the possibility of exit can make some, previously effective, strategies completely ineffective while improving the effectiveness of others.