cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Do report cards tell consumers anything they don't already know? The case of Medicare HMOs

Estimated responses to report cards may reflect learning about quality that would have occurred in their absence ("market-based learning"). Using panel data on Medicare HMOs, we examine the relationship between enrollment and quality before and after report cards were mailed to 40 million Medicare beneficiaries in 1999 and 2000. We find consumers learn from both public report cards and market-based sources, with the latter having a larger impact. Consumers are especially sensitive to both sources of information when the variance in HMO quality is greater. The effect of report cards is driven by beneficiaries' responses to consumer satisfaction scores.
What every veterinarian needs to know about pet trusts.

Most pet owners are extremely devoted to their pets, often considering them members of the family. This devotion can carry over into the owner’s will or trust, leaving gifts for their pets in such instruments. A will or trust involving the pet can be important to the veterinarian because, for example, a trust could specify whether and under what circumstances a medical procedure or euthanasia may take place. This article provides an overview of pet trusts, including historical background and current developments, pet trust basics, and a discussion of key concerns for veterinarians relating to pet trusts.
The Valuation of an Educational Degree at Divorce

This article focuses on the problem of the valuation of an educational degree at divorce. Educational degrees present two problems: Is the educational degree a marital property asset subject to division at divorce, and if so, how can or should such a degree be valued? There has been much argument concerning the property issue, without satisfactory results. In fact, modern courts recognize many intangibles as property, although their characteristics are not materially different from an educational degree. As will be discussed, an educational degree should also be recognized as property.An exclusive focus on the property issue, however, ignores the knotty problem of valuation. Many courts have anguished over the first issue, only to dismiss the difficult valuation problem without much analysis. The valuation of an educational degree is unlike the valuation of wrongful death awards or professional goodwill. Although some courts have estimated the degree to be worth the present value of the attributable income stream, such a calculation is unrealistic in view of the many variables involved. Ultimately, any attempt to value the worth of an educational degree deteriorates into speculation largely influenced by the widely varying testimony of competing economic experts.A fair solution to this problem must enable the supporting spouse to share in the degree’s value if it was earned during the marriage with the expectation that it would provide mutual benefits. Yet the remedy must also avoid a harsh penalty that compels the student spouse to relinquish the just rewards of hard work and ambition. In addition, an equitable award must apply consistently to marriages of varying durations, as well as to degrees that vary greatly in the extent to which they increase future earnings. Finally, a fair settlement must be workable, so that courts can apply it with relative ease and preferably without the need to use expensive economic experts whose fees in the divorce context are unjustified.The first section of this article examines some current remedies and will demonstrate that awards in the past have depended more on the facts of the case than on the law. This case-by-case relief creates unacceptable inconsistencies between long and short duration marriages. The next section will discuss the property issue and its confused disposition by various courts. The third section focuses on the valuation problem and reviews attempted valuations by the courts, as well as other proposed methods of valuation. The currently applied valuation methods and proposed formulas are all problematic and should be avoided. The article concludes with a proposed remedy for recompense to the supporting spouse based on a labor theory of value. This proposed remedy combines the virtues of fairness and workability.
Compensating the Victims of Failure to Vaccinate: What Are the Options

This Article asks whether parents who choose not to vaccinate their child should be liable if that child, at higher risk of infectious disease than vaccinated children, transmits a vaccine-preventable disease to another. The Article argues that a tort remedy in this situation is both desirable and appropriate. It is desirable to assure compensation to the injured child and the family, who should not have to face the insult of financial ruin on top of the injury from the disease. It is appropriate to require that a family that chooses not to vaccinate a child fully internalizes the costs of that decision, and does not pass it on to others. This Article argues there should be a duty to act in the aforementioned situation, since the non-vaccinating parents create a risk. Even if not vaccinating is seen as nonfeasance, there are policy reasons to create an exception to the default rule that there is no duty to act. As an alternative, the Article suggests creating a statutory duty to act. This Article suggests that legal exemptions from school immunization requirements are not a barrier to liability, since the considerations behind those exemptions are separate from tort liability. It addresses the problem of demonstrating causation, and suggests in which types of cases showing causation would be possible, and when proximate cause is capable of extending from an index case to subsequent cases. The Article concludes by addressing potential counter arguments.
Serial Entrepreneurs and Small Business Bankruptcies

This empirical study suggests that, far from ensuring assets are put to their best use, Chapter 11 encourages entrepreneurs to remain too long with failed busi‐ nesses before trying to start new ones. Small entrepreneurs open and close a number of businesses over the course of their careers as they search for the busi‐ ness (or employer) that offers the best match with their skills. Chapter 11 delays this matching process and, over this dimension, differs little from rent control and other government policies that encourage socially wasteful lock‐in of scarce resources. These costs may not be large, as bankruptcy judges are aware of and guard against them. At the same time, however, few benefits offset these costs. The typical Chapter 11 is a small business that has few, if any, specialized assets. It is organized around the owner‐operator’s human capital and can be (and usu‐ ally is) reassembled by the owner at low cost. Other than delay, the outcome of a Chapter 11 case—reorganization or liquidation—has little bearing on a small en‐ trepreneur’s career.
Time Variation in Diversification Benefits of Commodity, REITs, and TIPS

Diversification benefits of three “hot” asset classes—Commodity, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)—are well-studied on an individual basis and in a static setting. Using data from 1970 to 2010, this paper documents both that the three asset classes are in general not substitutes for each other, and that diversification benefits of each asset class change substantially over time. Therefore, all three asset classes ought to be included in investors’ portfolios. Furthermore, we show that the observed time variation in diversification benefits can be explained by time-varying return correlations. To see the implications of these findings for asset allocation in practice, we examine the out-of-sample performance of portfolio strategies, based on a variety of correlation structures. We find that the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model (Engle, J Bus Econ Stat 20(3):339–350, 2002) outperforms other correlation structures, such as rolling-window, historical, and constant correlations. Our findings suggest that diversification benefits of the three asset classes should be examined in a dynamic setting, and that investors need to use appropriate correlation estimates to adjust for such time variation.
The Political Economy of Bureaucratic Overload: Evidence from Rural Development Officials in India

Government programs often fail on the ground because of poor implementation by local bureaucrats. Prominent explanations for poor implementation emphasize bureaucratic rent-seeking and capture. This article documents a different pathology that we term bureaucratic overload: local bureaucrats are often heavily under-resourced relative to their responsibilities. We advance a two-step theory explaining why bureaucratic overload is detrimental to implementation as well as why politicians under-invest in local bureaucracy, emphasizing a lack of electoral incentives. Drawing on a nationwide survey of local rural development officials across India, including time-usage diaries that measure their daily behavior, we provide quantitative evidence that (i) officials with fewer resources are worse at implementing rural development programs, plausibly because they are unable to allocate enough time to managerial tasks and (ii) fewer resources are provided in administrative units where political responsibility for implementation is less clear. The findings shed light on the political economy and bureaucratic behavior underpinning weak local state capacity.
The nature of tournaments

This paper characterizes the optimal way for a principal to structure a rank-order tournament in a moral hazard setting (as in Lazear and Rosen in J Polit Econ 89:841–864, 1981). We find that it is often optimal to give rewards to top performers that are smaller in magnitude than corresponding punishments to poor performers. The paper identifies four reasons why the principal might prefer to give larger rewards than punishments: (1) R is small relative to P (where R is risk aversion and P is absolute prudence); (2) the distribution of shocks to output is asymmetric and the asymmetry takes a particular form; (3) the principal faces a limited liability constraint; and (4) there is agent heterogeneity of a particular form.
In search of the natural rate of unemployment

Abstract The natural rate of unemployment can be measured as the time-varying steady state of a structural vector autoregression. For post-War US data, the natural rate implied by this approach is more volatile than most previous estimates, with its movements accounting for the bulk of the variation in the unemployment rate, as well as substantial portions of the variation in aggregate output and inflation. These movements, in turn, can be related to variables associated with labor-market search theory, including unemployment benefits, labor productivity, real wages, and sectoral shifts in the labor market. There is also a strong negative relationship between inflation and the corresponding measure of cyclical unemployment, supporting the existence of a short-run Phillips curve.
Cook v. NARA Versus the Public’s Right to Know

In Cook v. National Archives and Records Administration, the court misapplied the Freedom of Information Act’s (FOIA) privacy exemption to hide presidential records, favoring secrecy over the public interest. The court set up a double standard by protecting George W. Bush and Richard Cheney’s library reference requests—even though, under laws created during the Bush administration, librarians would face possible prison sentences for refusing to turn over similar requests. In 2013, a Gawker reporter named John Cook made a FOIA request to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to get more information on “who’s digging through what in former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney’s libraries.” Cook hoped to get a glimpse of NARA’s special access request policies and procedures because Bush, Cheney, and their representatives made thousands of secret requests to sift through presidential records before the public could see the papers. The requests were secret because NARA maintains presidential records pursuant to the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which limits public access to presidential archives through several statutory embargoes. During the embargo periods, former presidents and vice presidents, and their designated representatives, are the only people who can look through the collection. This special privilege is provided by the PRA and carried out by NARA archivists through the “special access request” process. The Cook v. NARA court relies on Exemption 6, the FOIA exemption that protects records containing personal information, to make Bush and Cheney’s special access requests off limits to the public. The court determines that the former officials’ interest in privately researching for their memoirs outweighs the public’s interest in seeing NARA’s operations during secretive record embargo periods (which have historically been opportunities for special access recipients to destroy and exploit presidential records), denying FOIA’s transparency directives. This case note suggests that the Second Circuit tipped the balance too far in favor of privacy in Cook v. NARA by mistakenly (1) treating Bush and Cheney like ordinary academic scholars, (2) ignoring the open-government, transparency purposes of both the Presidential Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act, and (3) determining that PRA embargo periods are to provide former officials with unfettered access to their records.
Russia's Internal Border

In integrated economies, inter-city price differences can be explained largely by transportation costs. This is not the case in Russia. Here, we argue that this is due to an internal border that separates a region we denote as the Red Belt from the rest of Russia. Regions within the Red Belt exhibit high degrees of price dispersion and thus seem isolated. Moreover, these regions have been relatively slow to adopt economic reforms, and have suffered relatively low growth rates. The impact of the border on price dispersion is shown to be comparable to the impact of the US–Canadian border.
Inefficient Investment Waves

We show that firms' individually optimal liquidity management results in socially inefficient boom-and-bust patterns. Financially constrained firms decide on the level of their liquid resources facing cash-flow shocks and time-varying investment opportunities. Firms' liquidity management decisions generate simultaneous waves in aggregate cash holdings and investment, even if technology remains constant. These investment waves are not constrained efficient in general, because the social and private value of liquidity differs. The resulting pecuniary externality affects incentives differentially depending on the state of the economy, and often overinvestment occurs during booms and underinvestment occurs during recessions. In general, policies intended to mitigate underinvestment raise prices during recessions, making overinvestment during booms worse. However, a well-designed price-support policy will increase welfare in both booms and recessions.
Retribution's Role

For many decades, criminal law scholars have directed their efforts at finding a philosophical justification of criminal punishment. This endeavor has created a split between retributivists (who deem punishment justified by the wrongdoing of the offender) and utilitarians (who deem it justified by its good consequences such as deterring future crime). This Article suggests that the dialogue between retributivists and utilitarians would profit from a change in the way they frame the central question of what justifies punishment. Specifically, the question could be divided as follows. First, why does the state have a right to punish? And second, why does it choose to exercise that right? The first question is answered most naturally by retributive considerations, whereas the second locates the most natural space for utilitarian values. This framing device, it is hoped, resolves some of the disputes between retributivists and utilitarians while sharpening the focus on those that remain.
The greatest externality story (n)ever told

This article critiques current undergraduate economics textbooks’ treatment of externalities. Despite a tremendous scholarly pushback since 1920 to Pigou’s path-breaking writings, modern textbook a...
Policy Surveillance: A Vital Public Health Practice Comes of Age

Governments use statutes, regulations, and policies, often in innovative ways, to promote health and safety. Organizations outside government, from private schools to major corporations, create rules on matters as diverse as tobacco use and paid sick leave. Very little of this activity is systematically tracked. Even as the rest of the health system is working to build, share, and use a wide range of health and social data, legal information largely remains trapped in text files and pdfs, excluded from the universe of usable data. This article makes the case for the practice of policy surveillance to help end the anomalous treatment of law in public health research and practice. Policy surveillance is the systematic, scientific collection and analysis of laws of public health significance. It meets several important needs. Scientific collection and coding of important laws and policies creates data suitable for use in rigorous evaluation studies. Policy surveillance addresses the chronic lack of readily accessible, nonpartisan information about status and trends in health legislation and policy. It provides the opportunity to build policy capacity in the public health workforce. We trace its emergence over the past fifty years, show its value, and identify major challenges ahead.
A reexamination of output convergence in the U.S. states: Toward which level(s) are they converging?

. This paper reexamines the issue of output convergence among the 48 states in the continental United States. Implementing multiple panel data techniques to state per capita output during the period 1929–2001 reveals little evidence of stochastic convergence in all 48 states, but some evidence among collections of states at the regional level. This observation may suggest that output convergence in the United States has proceeded among geographically neighboring states rather than among distant states, notwithstanding the nearly complete integration of product and factor markets. Our findings appear to be robust to a subsample analysis, although the intensity of convergence varies with the choice of output measure and deflator. Industrial structures and geographic proximity are considered as potential explanations for the regional pattern of output growth dynamics.
Accounting rules? Stock buybacks and stock options: Additional evidence

Abstract This paper finds that CEO stock options influence the choice, amount, and timing of funds distributed as a buyback. These results favor a managerial opportunism motive for buybacks over other theories and support two key research expectations – that buybacks impose option-induced agency costs on outside shareholders, and that managers benefit from weak governance and unclear accounting in this choice. CEOs increase their insider selling following a buyback, which also supports a managerial opportunism perspective. Once we control for these agency factors, we find no evidence that buyback activity associates reliably with EPS accretion from the reduction in common shares. We conclude that the popular use of stock buybacks as a form of cash distribution derives significantly from a strong contemporaneous relation between buybacks and CEOs’ use of stock options as additional compensation.
Komesar'S razor: Comparative institutional analysis in a world of networks

This contribution to the Symposium in honor of Professor Neil Komesar’s pathbreaking work on comparative institutional analysis addresses one question: what is the relevance of comparative institutional analysis to a world based on networks of individuals often operating across institutions or working to create new institutions? After a review of the context for Komesar’s work and an appreciation of “Komesar’s Razor,” the author addresses this key question in the context of three contemporary debates: international intellectual property reform, same-sex marriage, and reform of health care delivery and finance in the United States. The main conclusion is that Komesar’s work provides an important starting point for addressing institutions in a world of networks.
Statistical study of particle acceleration in the core of foreshock transients

Several types of foreshock transients upstream of Earth's bow shock possessing a tenuous, hot core have been observed and simulated. Because of the low dynamic pressure in their cores, these phenomena can significantly disturb the bow shock and the magnetosphere-ionosphere system. Recent observations have also demonstrated that foreshock transients can accelerate particles which, when transported earthward, can affect space weather. Understanding the potential of foreshock transients to accelerate particles can help us understand shock acceleration at Earth and at other planetary and astrophysical systems. To further investigate foreshock transients’ potential for acceleration we conduct a statistical study of ion and electron energization in the core of foreshock transients. We find that electron energies typically increase there, evidently due to an internal acceleration process, whereas, as expected, ion energies most often decrease to support transient formation and expansion. Nevertheless, ion energy enhancements can be seen in some events suggesting an internal ion acceleration process as well. Formation conditions of foreshock transients are related to weak solar wind magnetic field strength and fast solar wind speed. Ion and electron energization are also positively correlated with solar wind speed.
Before the flood: the history of baseball's antitrust exemption

This article addresses the historical anomaly of baseball’s exemption from the federal antitrust laws. Starting with Justice Holmes’ opinion in the 1922 Federal Baseball case, the article criticizes the Supreme Court’s rigid adherence to stare decisis despite considerable changes in the legal and economic context. Ultimately, in the Curt Flood case the Court acknowledges the error of its previous ways, but stubbornly refuses to correct the law, leaving to Congress the ultimate power to revise a half century of judicial errors.
Financial contagion risk and the stochastic discount factor

I provide evidence that financial contagion risk is an important source of the equity risk premium. Banks’ contributions to aggregate financial contagion are estimated in a state space framework and linked to systemic risk. Greater bank connectedness today leads to increased systemic risk 3–12 months later. More contagious banks earn significantly greater risk-adjusted returns than less contagious ones and the tradable high contagion-minus-low contagion bank portfolio is priced in the cross-section of stock returns. Stocks that co-move more strongly with contagious banks have greater expected returns. These results are robust to factor model specification, test assets, and time period considered.
War, Trade, and Distrust: Why Trade Agreements Don’t Always Keep the Peace

There is growing evidence that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) provide strong institutional incentives to prevent international conflict among member states, often creating the conditions of t...
The Effect of Incentive Contracts on Learning and Performance

This paper reports the results of an experiment that examines how incentive‐based compensation contracts compare to flat‐wage compensation contracts in motivating individual learning and performance. I use a multiperiod cognitive task where the accounting system generates information (feedback) that has both a contracting role and a belief‐revision role. The results suggest that incentives enhance performance and the rate of improvement in performance by increasing both: (1) the amount of time participants devoted to the task, and (2) participants' analysis and use of information. Further, I find evidence that incentives improve performance only after considerable feedback and experience, which may help explain why many prior one‐shot decision‐making experiments show no incentive effects. Collectively, the results suggest that incentives induce individuals to work longer and smarter, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will develop and use the innovative strategies frequently required to perform w...
Social Network Analysis and the Diffusion of the Strict Liability Rule for Manufacturing Defects, 1963–87

This article reports the results of a study that uses social network analysis to compare the persuasiveness of legal precedents in the diffusion of the strict liability rule for manufacturing defects. This new study tests which legal precedents were most influential and also whether certain state judicial variables influenced the diffusion process. The results are striking. The federal circuit regions appear to define an important reference group in the diffusion process, and social network effects dominate economic and political variables. In addition, the de facto separation of powers in the enactment of new state legislation appears to influence courts' propensities to adopt the strict liability rule. When the executive and legislative branches were controlled by the same political party, regardless of whether it was Republican or Democratic, state courts were more inclined to adopt the strict liability rule.
How Did RGGI Do It? Political Economy and Emissions Auctions

Among the major emissions trading schemes in operation around the world, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, or “Reggie”) stands alone: this CO2 cap-and-trade program among nine northeastern states is the only such scheme to rely primarily on auctions to distribute emissions allowances. The standard practice — distributing allowances for free on the basis of historical emissions — elicits begrudging but politically crucial support from some regulated emitters. Like carbon taxation, allowance auctioning has long been considered economically superior to its alternatives but politically infeasible.How did the RGGI states manage to defy conventional wisdom and institute a program so reliant on auctions? Existing analyses of RGGI's political origins credit entrepreneurial state-level bureaucrats with converting promising theory into policy reality. These analyses, however, are incomplete and cannot explain why RGGI-state legislatures overwhelmingly supported auctioning in spite of concentrated industry opposition.This Article suggests that the politics of auctioning in RGGI cannot be understood apart from recent fundamental changes in the structure of electricity regulation. In the Northeast, restructuring has entailed the breakup of electric utilities and the creation of competitive regional wholesale electricity markets, which together have remade the political economy of energy policy. The newly-transformed utility sector now includes industry players who do not oppose auctioning, and state legislators, fearing RGGI-induced wholesale rate increases, have embraced auctions as a source of revenue to offset adverse rate effects. The story of RGGI thus demonstrates that received political wisdom can be upset by policy developments in adjacent fields, and reminds us of the political contingencies that undergird even the most carefully crafted regulatory interventions.
Nearshore Alternative: Latin America's Potential in the Offshore Legal Process Outsourcing Marketplace

The outsourcing industry has for years been dominated by service centers in India. Recently, the country has led the charge to more customized services in the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) industry, which requires specialized knowledge and skills rather than merely a large pool of workers. A subset of this trend is the offshore Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) sector, which has been growing in recent years. While India continues to be the largest offshore KPO provider, the industry is gaining strength in other offshore destinations. In fact, Evalueserve – a global research and analytics firm – predicts that India’s market share in the KPO sector will fall to just 59 percent by 2013-14, down from more than 70 percent in 2006. While this is still a majority percentage of the market, it leaves the door open for other countries to compete. This Article considers whether nearshoring legal services is a viable alternative or, at the very least, whether Latin America could serve as a complement to India’s offshore LPO industry. Part I will give an overview of the offshore outsourcing phenomenon, including the emergence of offshore LPO as employed by both corporations and law firms in the United States and United Kingdom. It also gives an overview of some of the major ethical implications of offshore LPO. Part II will evaluate India’s market control in the offshoring industry generally as well as its role in the offshore LPO sector specifically. It will describe some of the reasons why India is a popular destination for offshore LPO, including its large pool of English-speaking workers and the nation’s predication on the common law system. The section will continue by considering some of the India’s shortcomings in the offshore LPO field. Part III will compare Latin American countries to assess whether they can compete with India in the global offshore LPO market. It will look at the various components that make offshoring work and will evaluate which Latin American nations have the best potential for entry into the offshore LPO marketplace. The section will conclude with a discussion of the unique issues posed by offshoring LPO to Latin America, including the use of civil law in the region, and evaluate whether these factors do in fact hinder the region as a nearshore alternative to India. Part IV will provide recommendations as to what Latin American countries must do in order to become competitive offshore LPO destinations. It will also encourage investigation and research into additional factors that could contribute to this analysis.
How to Generate Good Profit Maximization Problems.

In this article, the author considers the merits of two classes of profit maximization problems: those involving perfectly competitive firms with quadratic and cubic cost functions. While relatively easy to develop and solve, problems based on quadratic cost functions are too simple to address a number of important issues, such as the use of second-order conditions and the short-run shutdown condition. Problems based on cubic cost functions are mathematically richer but often involve messy arithmetic; furthermore, many are not plausible representations of a firm's costs. Finding cubic functions that do not suffer from these drawbacks can be a time-consuming process. The author addresses this issue by providing a procedure to generate profit maximization problems that are theoretically interesting, economically plausible, and computationally simple.
International Economic Sanctions Against a Dictator

Wintrobe's (1990, 1998) dictatorship model is adapted to examine the impacts of economic sanctions on an autocrat. It is shown that the dictator's choice of the level of power, and the quantities of loyalty and repression used as inputs in the production of power, are affected by the type and magnitude of sanctions and by the impact of sanctions on the political effectiveness of opposition groups. Sanctions have direct and indirect effects on the prices of loyalty and repression as well as potentially generating rents that might be captured either by the dictator or by the opposition.
Goal–Attribute Compatibility in Consumer Choice

This research advances the notion that product evaluations are a function of the compatibility of consumers’ goals with the attributes describing choice alternatives. Building on the concept of self-regulation, it is argued that attribute evaluations are moderated by individuals’ goal orientation and, specifically, that attributes compatible with individuals’ regulatory orientation tend to be overweighted in choice. This proposition is tested by examining the impact of goal orientation on consumer preferences in 3 different contexts: (a) hedonic versus utilitarian attributes, (b) performance versus reliability attributes, and (c) attractive versus unattractive (good vs. bad) attributes. The data show that prevention-focused individuals are more likely to overweight (in relative terms) utilitarian, reliability-related, and unattractive attributes than promotion-focused consumers, who are more likely to place relatively more weight on hedonic, performance-related, and attractive attributes. Considered together, these findings support the proposition that attributes compatible with individuals’ goal orientation tend to be overweighted in choice.
Preserving Human Potential As Freedom: A Framework For Regulating Epigenetic Harms

Epigenetics is a rapidly evolving scientific field of inquiry examining how a wide range of environmental, social, and nutritional exposures can dramatically control how genes are expressed without changing the underlying DNA. Research has demonstrated that epigenetics plays a large role in human development and in disease causation. In a sense, epigenetics blurs the distinction between "nature" and "nurture" as experiences (nurture) become a part of intrinsic biology (nature). Remarkably, some epigenetic modifications are durable across generations, meaning that exposures from our grandparents' generation might affect our health now, even if we have not experienced the same exposures. In the same vein, current exposures could affect the health of not only individuals currently living but also future generations. Given the relative novelty of epigenetics research and the multifactorial nature of human development and disease causation, it is unlikely that conclusive proof can be established showing that particular exposures lead to epigenetic risks that manifest into specific conditions. Using the Capabilities Approach ("CA") developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, this article argues that epigenetic risk is not merely a medical issue, but that it more generally implicates the underlying fairness and justice of our social contract. For instance, how we develop mentally or physically has a tremendous impact upon our inherent capabilities and our set of life options. The CA prompts us to ask questions such as: (1) what impact do particular epigenetic risks have on our ability to exercise free choices; (2) are these risks avoidable; and (3) how are these risks distributed across society? Due to the complex nature of epigenetic risk, tort law is predictably incapable of addressing this harm. Further, while regulatory agencies possess the statutory authority to begin addressing epigenetic harms, currently these agencies are not attuned to measure or to respond to this type of harm. This article argues that it is imperative to initiate a regulatory framework to address epigenetic risk from specific substances even if conclusive proof of disease causation cannot be established. Shifting the burden of generating epigenetic risk data to producers of suspected harmful substances serves as a start. As information concerning epigenetic risks accrues, the regulatory response should evolve concurrently. As part of a dynamic policy-making approach our goals need to encompass the following: (i) promotion of knowledge in the scientific, legal, and public domains; (ii) assessment and modification of current regulations to address preventable risk; and (iii) an overarching commitment to protect human capabilities in an equitable manner.
‘Economic property rights’ as ‘nonsense upon stilts’: a comment on Hodgson

Hodgson's ( 2015 ) critique of extra-legal ‘property rights’ – in this case, so-called ‘economic property rights’ – is right on target. This Comment contributes two further points to his critique. First, the notion of ‘economic property rights’ is based on what Gilbert Ryle (1949) referred to as a ‘category mistake’, conflating physical possession, which is a brute fact about the world, with the right or entitlement to possession, which is a social or institutional fact that cannot exist in the absence of some social contract, convention, covenant, or agreement. The very notion of a non-institutional ‘right’ is oxymoronic. Second, the fact that property is an institutional fact does not mean it must exist with the structure of a ‘state’ (as Bentham suggested). Rather, institutions like ‘property rights’ only require some community, however large or small, operating with what Searle ( 1995 ; 2005 ) calls collective intentionality and collective acceptance, according to shared ‘rules of recognition’ (Hart, 1997 ).
Against Permititis: Why Voluntary Organizations Should Regulate the Use of Cancer Drugs

One of the thorniest questions in legal analysis concerns the longstanding tension between individual autonomy and social control. The principle of autonomy, or individual self-rule, holds a strong grip on everyone’s imagination by posing the following question: If I am not allowed to control my own destiny, just who can? In this context, autonomy functions as the first and most powerful line of defense against the domination of one person by another and of all individuals by the state. At the same time, the faithful adherence to the principle of individual autonomy could be almost too strong, because it precludes the ability of the state to organize the provision of public goods. Writing in 1965, Mancur Olson, Jr. showed how the absence of state intervention could lead to the underprovision of key public goods such as national defense.1 Three years later, Garrett Hardin showed how the failure to impose social controls could lead to the tragedy of the commons, whereby excessive hunting
Standing Lessons: What We Can Learn When Conservative Plaintiffs Lose Under Article III Standing Doctrine

The Supreme Court’s Article III standing doctrine has plagued liberal groups for nearly forty years. Recently, however, the doctrine has blocked a number of conservative lawsuits opposing gay marriage, the 2010 health care law, and the expansion of federal funding for stem-cell research. What can we learn from these cases? Because contemporary criticisms of standing doctrine have usually come from the left and defenses from the right, it is commonplace to associate arguments for broad standing with left-wing political agendas. But, as some scholars have shown, older versions of standing doctrine served liberal purposes in the New Deal and its immediate aftermath. The current strict standing doctrine, now keeping conservative activists out of federal court, may have returned to its roots. But if one truly believes that the federal courts should be open to more plaintiffs, one should instead see that these cases present a strange-bedfellows moment that might persuade a majority of the Court to alter existing standing doctrine. Liberal members of the Court generally advocate for a more expansive doctrine of standing; conservative members of the Court usually support restrictive standing doctrine, but their interest in reaching the merits of certain cases may lead them to agree to certain reforms. In this Article, I address that prospect, as well as the possibility that Congress might enact legislation to force the standing question. If the Court seizes the opportunity to reform standing doctrine, what are its options? Will changes to the doctrine affect all plaintiffs? Or are these recent examples of conservative impact litigation different in kind from the cases that generated current standing doctrine? In answering these questions, I review recent suggestions for amending the doctrine. In the end, I conclude, these new conservative cases are lamentably unlikely to lead to much change in the law of standing.
Inference, arbitrage, and asset price volatility ☆

Abstract Does the presence of arbitrageurs decrease equilibrium asset price volatility? I study an economy with arbitrageurs, informed investors, and noise traders. Arbitrageurs face a trade-off between “inference” and “arbitrage”: they would like to buy assets in response to temporary price declines—the arbitrage effect—but sell when prices decline permanently—the inference effect. In equilibrium, the presence of arbitrageurs increases volatility when the inference effect dominates the arbitrage effect. From a technical point of view, the paper offers closed form solutions to a dynamic equilibrium model with asymmetric information and non-Gaussian priors.
Social Interactions in Adolescent Television Viewing

Objective To examine whether social interactions influence the television viewing choices of adolescents in grades 7 through 12. Design Data from a nationally representative cross-sectional survey were used to examine the association between individual-level and school-level television choices. An instrumental variables approach was used to solve the simultaneity problem found in models that examine the association between individual and aggregate choices. Setting In-home interviews in the United States collected in 1996. Participants A sample of 4532 students in grades 7 through 12 in 132 US public and private schools who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Main Exposure The reported television viewing choices of an individual's schoolmates. Main Outcome Measure The number of hours of television individuals reported viewing in a week. Results The number of hours of television that adolescents report viewing per week was associated with their peers' reported hours of television viewing. Adjusted for other covariates, a 1-hour increase in average school-level television viewing was associated with an increase in almost half an hour of television viewing at the individual level. Conclusions Evidence suggests that social interactions within schools influence the hours of television that adolescents report viewing. This finding is important for both future attempts at modeling the determinants of adolescent television viewing and suggestions for future policy interventions. The presence of social interactions implies that interventions that affect the social norms of television viewing within schools could also change individual television viewing. In reducing the number of hours of television watched, these interventions could also positively affect adolescent obesity, emotional problems, and academic achievement.
The international political economy data resource

Quantitative scholars in international relations often draw repeatedly on the same sources of country-year data across a diverse range of projects. The International Political Economy Data Resource seeks to provide a public good to the field by standardizing and merging together 951 variables from 78 core International Political Economy data sources into a single dataset, increasing efficiency and reducing the risk of data management errors. Easier access to data encourages researchers to perform more robustness checks in their own work and replicate others’ published results more often. It also and makes it easier for teachers of quantitative research methods to assign realistic exercises to their students. This resource will be updated and expanded annually. The full resource is available via the Harvard Dataverse Network, with versions also available via the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University and NewGene.
Does wealth inequality matter for growth? The effect of billionaire wealth, income distribution, and poverty

Abstract A fundamental question in social sciences relates to the effect of wealth inequality on economic growth. Yet, in tackling the question, researchers have had to use income as a proxy for wealth. We derive a global measure of wealth inequality from Forbes magazine's listing of billionaires and compare its effect on growth to the effects of income inequality and poverty. Our results suggest that wealth inequality has a negative relationship with economic growth, but when we control for the fact that some billionaires acquired wealth through political connections, the relationship between politically connected wealth inequality and economic growth is negative, while politically unconnected wealth inequality, income inequality, and initial poverty have no significant relationship.
Why Does the American Constitution Lack Social and Economic Guarantees

Why does the American Constitution lack contain social and economic guarantees, which appear in most contemporary constitutions? This essay explores four possible answers: chronological, cultural, institutional, and realist. The chronological explanation emphasizes the fact that in the late eighteenth century, social and economic rights simply were not on the viewscreen for constitution-makers. The point is correct, but as a complete account, the chronological explanation fails for the simple reason that constitutional meaning changes over time. The institutional explanation emphasizes that Americans typically see constitutional rights not as mere goals or aspirations, but as pragmatic instruments for judicial enforcement. The difficulty with the institutional explanation is that social and economic rights can, in fact, be enforced judicially. The cultural explanation sees the absence of social and economic rights as part of the general failure of socialist movements in the United States (“American exceptionalism”). The problem with this explanation is that social and economic rights can in fact coexist with a market economy. The realist explanation places a spotlight on the underappreciated fact that the United States Supreme Court came very close, in the 1960s and 1970s, to recognizing social and economic rights under the Constitution. The Court’s refusal to recognize such rights was largely a result of the presidential election of 1968 and in particular of four critical appointments by President Nixon. This is an important source of “American exceptionalism” in the domain of social and economic rights. Here as elsewhere, there is a possibility of multiple equilibria, and with a small difference or two, the United States might well have had an equilibrium that included social and economic rights. “The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfill the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.”
An Implementable Institutional Reform that Transfers Control of Government Spending Levels from Politicians to Voters

Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principal-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to non-optimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians’ tax and spending behavior. Popular among such constraints are various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. These approaches, however, are shown here to have serious limitations, including failure to address the central concern of spending level. An alternative approach is advanced here that relies on a Coase-like mechanism that transfers control of government spending to the voter. Prisoner’s Dilemma incentives and political competition are seen to be critical to the superiority of the present mechanism to approaches requiring budget balance.