cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
On Pellarin's $L$-series

Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for a negative integer to be a trivial zero of a new type of $L$-series recently discovered by F. Pellarin, and it is shown that any such trivial zero is simple. We determine the exact degree of the special polynomials associated to Pellarin's $L$-series. The theory of Carlitz polynomial approximations is developed further for both additive and $\mathbb{F}_q$-linear functions. Using Carlitz' theory we give generating series for the power sums occurring as the coefficients of the special polynomials associated to Pellarin's series, and a connection is made between the Wagner representation for $\chi_t$ and the value of Pellarin's $L$-series at 1.
Testing tournament selection in creative problem solving using crowds

We tested a technique for creative problem solving, which used crowd-based genetic algorithms; one crowd generated initial ideas, another crowd evaluated the quality of these ideas, and yet another crowd combined pairs of ideas selected by the computer. The pairs were selected through a tournament method, in which two ideas chosen were biased toward higher quality. To test the technique, we asked a crowd to evaluate a subset of 468 solutions for the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico produced by another crowd of 1853 individuals, and 311 solutions by 311 experts. The crowd evaluated the most creative crowd solutions as creative as the most creative expert solutions. Moreover, tournament selection led to greater improvement in the creativity of combined solutions than random selection, in which two solutions were chosen randomly. Creative problem solving using crowd-based genetic algorithms can work with good design.
Incremental Query Processing on Big Data Streams

This paper addresses online query processing for large-scale, incremental data analysis on a distributed stream processing engine (DSPE). Our goal is to convert any SQL-like query to an incremental DSPE program automatically. In contrast to other approaches, we derive incremental programs that return accurate results, not approximate answers, by retaining a minimal state during the query evaluation lifetime and by using a novel incremental evaluation technique, which, at each time interval, returns an accurate snapshot answer that depends on the current state and the latest batches of data. Our methods can handle many forms of queries on nested data collections, including iterative and nested queries, group-by with aggregation, and equi-joins. Finally, we report on a prototype implementation of our framework, called MRQL Streaming, running on top of Spark and we experimentally validate the effectiveness of our methods.
The non-frustration rule of the UK City Code on Takeover and Mergers and related agency problems: What are the implications for the EC Takeover Directive?

The Takeover Directive, first envisioned in the White Paper on completing the Internal Market, was finally adopted in 2004, after almost 20 years of work. The Takeover Directive is based upon the assumption that the takeover offers numerous benefits to companies, investors, and, ultimately, the European economy as a whole. The functions of a takeover include disciplining management, stimulating competition, and disseminating good management practice, thus improving the quality of management as well as corporate performance. While one of the major purposes of the Takeover Directive is to mitigate the agency problem in the takeover context, some mechanisms, such as “broad neutrality” (Article 9) and the “breakthrough rule” (Article 11) are nevertheless made optional both at the Member State and at the individual company levels. As a result of the compromise among Member States, whether this Directive can achieve its goal, and to what extent, deserves further consideration. Article 20 of the Takeover Directive instructs the Commission to carry out a survey on the enforcement and experience of the Takeover Directive in 2011 for the purpose of considering future amendments. To this end, on December 16, 2008, the Commission drafted a checklist for Member States to provide relevant information as to takeover bids taking place in their respective markets. Whether the Directive really works in the way the Commission had originally intended, however, remains far from clear. Given the fact that many aspects of the Takeover Directive followed the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, the UK experience with regard to the agency problem in the takeover context can provide useful guidance to the revision of the Takeover Directive. Among others, the major weapon for tackling the agency problem under the Takeover Directive, namely, the non-frustration rule, was modeled after the Takeover Code. This paper seeks to explore the functions of the non-frustration rule in the UK and its implications for the Takeover Directive.
Contrasting Concepts of Capital: Yet Another Look at the Hayek-Keynes Debate

Abstract: Although much of the debate between Hayek and Keynes is today portrayed in terms of policy differences, those are not the most fundamental divisions between their conceptions of economics. I argue that their economics diverges most significantly in how they understand the role of capital in a market economy, and how capital relates to issues of savings and investment. Specifically, Hayek‟s Austrian conception of capital provides a very different, and very much disaggregated, vision of the market process that can help identify the flaws in Keynesian theory and policy. When capital is seen as reflective of human plans and where it is understood to have multiple but not an infinite number of uses, the economist is forced to consider the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic phenomena in a way that validates Hayek‟s complaint that Keynes‟s aggregates conceal the fundamental mechanisms of change. Keywords: Keynes, capital theory, business cycles, macroeconomics, Hayek JEL codes:
What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Mass Torts

Twenty years ago, Deborah Hensler and a team of scholars at the RAND Corporation's Institute for Civil Justice issued a report entitled Trends in Tort Litigation: The Story Behind the Statistics? Pressure had been mounting both in the business community and the Republican Party to "reform" tort law throughout the 1980s.2 There was concern that Americans "egged on by avaricious lawyers, sue[d] too readily, and irresponsible juries and activist judges wayla[id] blameless businesses at enormous cost to social and economic well-being."3 The RAND report argued that the real risk of a torts "explosion" came from the world of mass torts.4 The report's authors presciently focused on asbestos and the Dalkon Shield litigation, citing these as examples of how mass latent injury suits represented a new challenge to the tort system.5 The study concluded that "[mjass latent injury torts are the most volatile world of tort litigation. Costs, dynamic legal environment, and the uncomfortable fit between these cases and the tort system conspire to make the number, outcome, and future costs of these suits highly uncertain."6 Since these words have been written, the world of mass torts has remained much the same. Asbestos suits continue to be filed, now numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Settlements in asbestos, Dalkon Shield, and silicone breast implants have led to the bankruptcy of many major corporations. Mass tort claims have been crafted to deal with a series of potentially damaging social phenomena, including cigarettes, handguns, and fast food. The class action bar is now seen as a powerful force in American politics.
Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China

How can authoritarian states credibly signal their intentions in international crises? Nationalist, antiforeign protests are one mechanism by which authoritarian leaders can visibly demonstrate their domestic vulnerability. Because protests in authoritarian states are risky and costly to repress, the decision to allow or stifle popular mobilization is informative. The threat of instability demonstrates resolve, and the cost of concession increases the credibility of a tough stance. The danger of instability and escalation increases foreign incentives to make concessions and preserve the status quo. This logic helps explain the pattern of authoritarian tolerance and repression toward nationalist protest. A case study of two U.S.-China crises shows how China's management of anti-American protests affected U.S. beliefs about Chinese resolve.
Pricing, Exposure and Residential Listing Strategies

Sellers of houses signal their motivation or willingness to sell through price and contractual provisions in their listing agreements. A pricing strategy is for motivated sellers to set their listi...
"Our Cities Institutions" and the Institution of the Common Law

The audiences of early modern English drama were multiple, and they intersected with the legal system in various ways, whether through the cross-pollination of the theaters and the Inns of Court, the representations of the sovereign’s justice performed before him, or the shared evidentiary orientations of jurors and spectators. As this piece written for a symposium on “Reasoning from Literature” contends, Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure addressed to these various audiences the question of whether the King should judge in person. In doing so, it drew on extant political theories suggesting that the King refrain from exposing himself to public censure by condemning criminals and also augured Sir Edward Coke’s subsequent resistance on the basis of the common law to King James I’s assertion of a right to sit in judgment. Rather than choosing between these positions, the play points out the deficiencies inherent in each and leaves its audiences - including both King James I himself and his subjects - to reason from the examples it provides.
Further Tests of Static Oligopoly Models: Whiskey, 1882–1898

Using data from the turn-of-the-century whiskey industry, we conduct tests of the NEIO methodology similar to those conducted by Genesove and Mullin [1998]. Like Genesove and Mullin, we find that the NEIO methodology appears to perform reasonably well for low levels of market power. Conduct is somewhat overestimated, with estimates ranging from 0.17 to 0.35 as compared to direct estimates of 0.09. Cost parameters are generally underestimated. Estimates of conduct and remaining cost parameters improve significantly, however, with additional information on cost. Estimates improve further if conduct is allowed to have two regimes, which are identified based on historical evidence.
The role of corporate governance in the write-off decision

Abstract The recent popularity of write-offs allows for examination of the role governance plays in the write-off decision. I find that well governed companies are more likely to announce write-offs. Additionally, better governed firms announce smaller write-offs relative to poorly governed firms. The evidence also indicates that the stocks of well governed firms experience announcement abnormal returns that are over six percent higher than those of poorly governed firms. The results suggest better governed firms take a pro-active approach to reveal bad news early, and thereby mitigate further uncertainty for investors.
Heterogeneity of Ambiguity Preferences

Abstract There is much interest in ambiguity-averse behavior under uncertainty, and many theories have been advanced to explain this. Empirical analyses of choices involving ambiguous options have typically used a representative agent model. We address the question of whether representative agent models are accurate approximations of reality or whether there is substantial heterogeneity in ambiguity preferences. In contrast to the representative agent model, we find that the vast majority of participants are not significantly ambiguity averse and that a significant proportion of participants are consistent with expected utility theory. This finding has important implications for the application of behavioral economics.
Enforcing Traditional Cultural Property Protections

There are many challenges associated with enforcing the protections afforded Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs) under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). This paper examines how the ...
The ICC and the Security Council: How Much Support is There for Ending Impunity?

Kenyan government’s refusal to cooperate had made it too difficult to obtain evidence against him. This led Professor Kontorovich to argue that the ICC’s goal of ending impunity for serious violations of international criminal law is a utopian dream that cannot be achieved given the current state of the world. The dismissal of the case against Kenyatta does, indeed, raise serious questions, but Professor Dutton addresses the ramifications of the Kenyatta case in more detail.
Examining the Potential Benefits of Internal Control Monitoring Technology

ABSTRACT: We analyze the potential benefits that firms can realize from implementing technology specifically aimed at monitoring the effectiveness of their internal control systems. The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission asserts that effective internal control monitoring should enhance the efficiency of internal control processes, and, in turn, the assurance over such processes (COSO 2009a). We develop hypotheses to test the realization of these potential benefits. Specifically, we identify a sample of firms that implemented internal control monitoring technology in response to the internal control requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Consistent with our hypotheses, we document that the implementation of internal control monitoring technology is associated with lower likelihood of material weaknesses, smaller increases in audit fees, and smaller increases in audit delays during the post-SOX time period. We discuss the potential implications of our findings for research rel...
CAFA Settlement Notice Provision: Optimal Regulatory Policy?

Professor of Law, New York University School of Law. I am grateful to Herschel Elkins, Special Assistant Attorney General for Consumer Policy, Coordination, and Development in the California Attorney General's office; James Tierney, Director of the State Attorney General Program at Columbia Law School and former Attorney General of Maine; and three anonymous representatives from three different state offices of attorney general (referenced in footnotes as State A, State B, and State C) for sharing with me their knowledge of and experience with the CAFA settlement notice provision. Howard Erichson, Trevor Morrison, and William Rubenstein provided helpful comments, and Jacob Karabell provided excellent research assistance and participation in fieldwork. Pub. L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4 (codified in scattered sections of 28 U.S.C.). See, e.g., Symposium, Fairness to Whom? Perspectives on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 156 U. PA. L. REV. 1439 (2008); Symposium, Emerging Issues in Class Action Law, 53 UCLAL. REV. 1303 (2006).
Toward a General Theory of Tort Law: Strict Liability in Context

In this extensive article I revisit my earlier writings from the 1970s that deal with tort liability in both stranger and consensual arrangements. On the former, I examine Stephen Perry’s 1988 critique of my work, and more recent contributions by Joshua Getzler and Benjamin Zipursky, to defend the view that a rigorous conception of causation under a theory of strict liability is neither logically impossible nor practically unworkable. In so doing, I reexamine the earlier efforts by writers such as Joseph Beale and H.L.A. Hart & Tony Honore on causation in order to show how some controversial moves within their theories can be clarified without having to resort to the standard views of causation that work off the notion of “but for” causes. In addition, I explain, in connection with the critique of Jill Horwitz, why some form of a negligence system remains appropriate for medical malpractice cases. In these consensual cases, doctrines of charitable immunity for nonprofit institutions often removed the need to investigate the basis of liability. But once those were removed, a contractual system, which in practice would never embrace a strict liability rule would often turn to some form of negligence, often coupled with institutional changes, such as arbitration and explicit limitations on contractual damages.
Staged-financing contracts with private information

Abstract This paper studies the use of incentive contracts in the Bolton–Scharfstein model when some agents in the population are technically constrained from falsifying reports and stealing cash [Bolton, P., Scharfstein, D., 1990. A theory of predation based on agency problems in financial contracting. Amer. Econ. Rev. 80, 94–106]. The original Bolton–Scharfstein contract may not be optimal for a large range of parametric values. The optimal contract may induce falsification and stealing in equilibrium and social welfare may be improved. Moreover, the optimal contract does not screen different types of agents. Empirical implications for various types of staged-contracts are discussed.
Properties of Economic Income in a Private Information Setting

. This paper adopts a valuation perspective within an asymmetric information setting and explores properties of economic income. The optimal intertemporal contract induces an accrual component of income which would not exist absent the information problem. The contracting solution introduces a dampening effect—if cash flow increases by one dollar, income increases by less than one dollar. Thus, the accrual is inversely related to cash flows. Further, this dampening is greater for more favorable cash outcomes. Resume. Les auteurs adoptent la perspective de l'evaluation en situation d'asymetrie de l'information et explorent les proprietes du benefice economique. Le contrat intertemporel optimal fait intervenir une amplification du benefice qui n'existerait pas si ce n'etait de la presence du probleme d'information. La solution contractuelle amene un effet attenuateur — c'est-a-dire qu'a une augmentation du flux monetaire de un dollar correspond une augmentation du benefice de moins de un dollar. Ainsi, l'amplification est en relation inverse avec les flux monetaires. En outre, l'attenuation est plus marquee dans le cas de resultats monetaires plus avantageux.
Frictions, Heterogeneity and Optimality in Mortgage Modeling

The purpose of this article is to provide a unified framework for incorporating frictions into a theoretical options-pricing model (OPM) for mortgages. This article presents formulation for a frictions-adjustable mortgage model that integrates borrower heterogeneity while simultaneously preserving prepayment and default financial decisions. Our model demonstrates the flexibility of the OPM by simulating separate and concurrent effects of three categories of frictions on the mortgage and mortgage components. Researchers can use our example formulation to determine the effects of specific borrower characteristics on mortgage values without destroying the options theoretic framework.
Neuropsychological and Early Environmental Correlates of Sex Differences in Crime

Results of recent research suggest that longitudinal influences on sex differences in verbal and spatial abilities, and delinquent behavior, may be similar. The present study examined biological, environmental, and psychological variables collected from birth through age 17 on a sample of subjects who participated in the Philadelphia Collaborative Perinatal Project (CPP). Findings supported in part past research suggesting that environmental relationships with intellectual ability and delinquency are strongest for males, whereas biological relationships are somewhat more important for females. Socioeconomic factors were among the strongest predictors of delinquency for both sexes, however. In turn, biological and environmental influences on verbal and spatial abilities and their relationships with later achievement were different between the sexes. Results are discussed in terms of possible sex differences in the development of the left and right cerebral hemispheres, as well as in the vulnerability to en...
The Newsvendor under Demand Ambiguity: Combining Data with Moment and Tail Information

Operations managers do not typically have full information about the demand distribution. Recognizing this, data-driven approaches have been proposed in which the manager has no information beyond the evolving history of demand observations. In practice, managers often have some partial information about the demand distribution in addition to demand observations. We consider a repeated newsvendor setting, and propose a maximum-entropy based technique, termed Second Order Belief Maximum Entropy (SOBME), which allows the manager to effectively combine demand observations with distributional information in the form of bounds on the moments or tails. In the proposed approach, the decision maker forms a belief about possible demand distributions, and dynamically updates it over time using the available data and the partial distributional information. We derive a closed-form solution for the updating mechanism, and highlight that it generalizes the traditional Bayesian mechanism with an exponential modifier tha...
Value seeking and prediction-decision inconsistency: why don't people take what they predict they'll like the most?

In this research, it is proposed that, when making a choice between consumption goods, people do not just think about which option will deliver the highest consumption utility but also think about which choice is most consistent with rationales—beliefs about how they should make decisions. The present article examines a specific rationale, value seeking. The value-seeking rationale refers to the belief that one should choose the option in a choice set that has the highest monetary value. Studies 1 and 2 show that value seeking could lead to a prediction-decision inconsistency, predicting a high consumption utility from one option but choosing another option. Study 3 shows that the prediction-decision inconsistency could be created even by “illusory” (as opposed to truly monetary) values and that the inconsistency could be turned on or off through empirical manipulation.
Initial evidence on the market impact of the XBRL mandate

In 2009, the SEC mandated that financial statements be filed using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The SEC contends that this new search-facilitating technology will reduce informational barriers that separate smaller, less-sophisticated investors from larger, more-sophisticated investors, thereby reducing information asymmetry. However, if some larger investors can leverage their superior resources and abilities to garner greater benefits from XBRL than smaller investors, information asymmetry is likely to increase. Using a difference-in-difference design, we find evidence of higher abnormal bid-ask spreads for XBRL adopting firms around 10-K filings in the year after the mandate, consistent with increased concerns of adverse selection. We also find a reduction in abnormal liquidity and a decrease in abnormal trading volume, particularly for small trades. Additional analyses suggest, however, that these effects may be declining somewhat in more recent years. Collectively, our evidence suggests that a reduction in investors’ data aggregation costs may not have served its intended purpose of leveling the informational playing field, at least during the initial years after mandatory adoption.
Conceptions of Law in the Civil Rights Movement

This Article unfolds in three main Parts. In Part II, I begin my examination of the way law was conceptualized during the civil rights movement with a consideration of three efforts to sharpen the boundaries of the law. First, I look at the vision of law put forth by defenders of Jim Crow as they mobilized against federal civil rights intervention - a vision based on the assumption that law should reflect norms and customs that had evolved outside the law. I then consider the ways in which civil rights advocates in the lead-up to Brown v. Board of Education challenged the segregationist conception of the law by pressing the case for the capacity of law to undermine discriminatory behavior and attitudes. Third, I examine the efforts of the sit-in protesters to define themselves in opposition to lawyers and legal reform tactics. As these episodes demonstrate, the various demands of the civil rights movement created incentives to clarify the boundary around the law. In each of these instances, the essential characteristic of law was its perceived separateness from something else.In Part III, I then examine two individuals who articulated an alternative approach to categorizing law, an approach that sought to break down the separateness of law and society. The civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Yale law professor Alexander Bickel both argued for a definition of law that was more capacious than one based on the formal pronouncements of recognized governmental institutions. Each in his own way sought to reconceptualize law so as to recognize processes of cultural change, social disorder, and political agitation as integral to the legal process. Their effort to break down the law-society division, like the efforts of those who sought to emphasize this same division, came in response to the pressures and demands of the civil rights movement.Finally, in Part IV, I consider the possible implications of this account of the law-society divide in the civil rights movement for legal historians. One of the challenges in moving scholarship of the civil rights movement beyond a dichotomous law-and-society framework, I suggest, will be to remain attentive to the conceptions of law drawn upon by the historical actors themselves, including the value they often placed upon the differentiation of law from society.
Offshoring in the New Global Political Economy

 This essay challenges claims by economists and management scholars that ‘offshoring’ is simply another form of trade with mutual benefits. I argue that reducing wages through offshoring leads to wealth creation for shareholders but not necessarily for countries and employees, and that many displaced workers have difficulty ‘trading up’ to higher skilled jobs. Offshoring is a new phenomenon that entails the organizational and technological ability to relocate specific tasks and coordinate a geographically dispersed network of activities. It decouples the linkages between economic value creation and geographic location. The result is the creation of global commodity markets for particular skills and a shift in the balance of market power among firms, workers, and countries.
Policymaking for Posterity

Policymaking for posterity involves current decisions with distant consequences. Contrary to conventional prescriptions, we conclude that the greater wealth of future generations may strengthen the case for preserving environmental amenities; lower discount rates should be applied to the far future, and special effort should be made to avoid actions that impose costs on future generations. Posterity brings great uncertainties. Even massive losses, such as human extinction, however, do not merit infinite negative utility. Given learning, greater uncertainties about damages could increase or decrease the optimal level of current mitigation activities. Policies for posterity should anticipate effects on: alternative investments, both public and private; the actions of other nations; and the behaviors of future generations. Such effects may surprise. This analysis blends traditional public finance and behavioral economics with a number of hypothetical choice problems.
Democratizing Entry: Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints, and Entrepreneurship

Abstract We examine entrepreneurship and creative destruction following US banking deregulations using US Census Bureau data. US banking reforms brought about exceptional growth in both entrepreneurship and business closures. Most of the closures, however, were the new ventures themselves. Although we find evidence for the standard story of creative destruction, the most pronounced impact was a massive increase in churning among new entrants. We argue that creative destruction requires many business failures along with the few great successes. The successes are difficult to identify ex ante, which is why democratizing entry is an important trait of well-functioning capital markets.
Explaining unrestricted giving by charitable foundations: A transaction cost approach

Abstract This paper extends a transaction costs framework to the nonprofit sector where information asymmetries are typically acute. I explore the decision of charitable foundations to place material restrictions on grants to nonprofits. Foundations often place constraints on grant use to limit cross-subsidy of projects or ex-post opportunism by nonprofit managers. In contrast, nonprofits prefer fewer restrictions to smooth income across revenue streams or compensate for shifts in demand. The paper utilizes a pseudo panel of 6000 grant contracts to examine the relationship between the various costs of those restrictions and the observed characteristics of grant contracts. Empirical results confirm received theory that high contracting costs will reduce the probability of grant restrictions.
Civic Republicanism, Public Choice Theory, and Neighborhood Councils: A New Model for Civic Engagement

This Article analyzes the lack of civic engagement in local government decision-making and the problems that result from it. Public choice theory offers one explanation: dominant special interest groups capture local governments for their own private interests. Thus, average citizens are not only alienated from their local government, but they also find the barriers to entry into local politics too high for collective action and participation. While at first glance this account seems accurate, public choice theory’s explanation of local governments has normative limitations because it fails to recognize these features of the local political process as problematic—much less to offer any solutions.
Who incentivizes the mutual fund manager, new or old shareholders?

Abstract This study tests whether mutual fund shareholders continue to trade in response to fund returns after they make their initial investment in fund shares. It decomposes the relationship between fund returns and shareholder flow in a large, proprietary panel of all shareholder transactions in one midsize no-load mutual fund family. Results show that both new and old shareholders buy shares during periods of good returns; however, shareholder outflow is essentially unrelated to fund returns. This lack of a return-sell relationship is not driven by locked-in pension assets, shareholders’ ignorance of ongoing fund returns, or embedded capital gains. However, there is evidence that exchanges between equity funds in the family are related more strongly to returns of the destination fund than to returns of the origination fund. This may indicate that flow between equity mutual funds is driven by shareholders buying new funds rather than selling old funds. Supermarket shareholders are smart insofar as they exchange into funds that subsequently outperform their prior funds during their individual holding periods.
A Behavioral Justification for Escalating Punishment Schemes

Abstract The standard two-period law enforcement model is considered in a setting where individuals usually, but not exclusively, commit crimes only after comparing expected costs and benefits. Where escalating punishment schemes are present, there is an inherent value in keeping a clean criminal record; a person with a record may unintentionally become a repeat offender if he fails to exert self-control, and be punished more severely. If the punishment for repeat offenders is sufficiently high, one may rationally forgo the opportunity of committing a profitable crime today to avoid being sanctioned as a repeat offender in the future. Therefore, partial deterrence can be achieved at a very low cost through the use of escalating penalties, providing a behavioral justification for punishing repeat offenders more severely.
How the content of online pornography depicts expressed consent for insemination

Insemination is a sex act that requires consent. Legally, expressed consent eliminates any doubt that consent was absent, especially because the absence of objection does not imply consent. The researcher examined how the content of online pornography depicts expressed consent for insemination. The hypothesis accurately predicted that some films would express consent, some would ambiguously discuss ejaculation or consent, and some would remain silent on the subject. This research is important because it offers insight into how pornographic film actors appear to express consent. This research opens the door to future research on the subjects of nonconsensual insemination, expressed consent, and pornographic depictions of these themes.
Power or Plenty? Economic Interests, Security Concerns, and American Intervention

This paper evaluates the effect of economic interests and security concerns on American intervention in civil and international conflict. Generalizations about the relative importance of these considerations have played critical role in the historiography of American foreign relations. Although statistical analysis is well suited for evaluating such generalizations, quantitative researchers have devoted relatively little attention to the issue. Existing large-n research has generally found that security concerns matter more, but has not considered how the economic and security concerns thought to affect intervention might also influence each other. These subsidiary relationships complicate efforts to assess the relative importance of these two influences on intervention. Evidence concerning intervention in international crises and civil wars indicates that, while alliance commitments and rival behavior have a greater immediate impact on American intervention, exports have an important indirect effect by shaping alliance commitments in the long run.
"Warm with Sunny Skies": Disclosure Statement Forecasts

This Article examines the quality of forecasts in bankruptcy disclosure statements. Required by the Bankruptcy Code, disclosure statements seek to provide creditors with adequate information to cast an informed vote on a chapter 11 plan of reorganization. In addition, disclosure statements are theoretically important devices to narrow some of the information asymmetries that a bankruptcy proceeding exacerbates. We find that chapter 11 debtors forecast postbankruptcy business earnings capability with significant error and that bankruptcy disclosure statements are systematically over-optimistic in their forecasts of postbankruptcy performance. Furthermore, we find negative relations between the forecast error and the size of the firm as well as the firm's capital intensity. We do not find significant relationships between forecast error and changes in corporate governance, at either the CEO or board level.
Patent Protection, Complementary Assets, and Firms Incentives for Technology Licensing

This paper analyzes the relationship between technology licensing and the effectiveness of patent protection. Using the 1994 Carnegie Mellon survey on industrial research and development (R&D) in the United States, we develop and test a simple structural model in which the patenting and licensing decisions are jointly determined. We find that increases in the effectiveness of patent protection increases licensing propensity, but only when the firm lacks specialized complementary assets required to commercialize new technologies. In contrast, for firms with specialized complementary assets, increases in patent effectiveness increase patenting propensity but reduce the propensity to license. We present systematic cross-industry empirical support for the proposition that intellectual property protection is a key determinant of the vertical boundaries of the firm and the market for technology but that its impact is mediated by a firms ownership of specialized complementary assets.
Reputation in a model of monetary policy with incomplete information

Abstract Previous models of rules versus discretion are extended to include uncertainty about the policymaker's ‘type’. When people observe low inflation, they raise the possibility that the policymaker is committed to low inflation (type 1). This enhancement of reputation gives the uncommitted policymaker (type 2) an incentive to masquerade as the committed type. In the equilibrium the policymaker of type 1 delivers surprisingly low inflation — with corresponding costs to the economy — over an extended interval. The type 2 person mimics this outcome for awhile, but shifts eventually to high inflation. This high inflation is surprising initially, but subsequently becomes anticipated.
Change at the Checkout: Tracing the Impact of a Process Innovation

Barcode scanners, introduced in the early 1970s, were a foundational process innovation in the grocery supply chain. By 1984 scanners had been installed in 10% of food stores in the U.S. Dierence-in-dier ence analysis of city-level price data shows that scanners reduced prices of groceries by about 1.4% in their rst decade. The results are consistent with prior estimates of labor saving by scanners and better information available to stores. Early adopters and adopters in states that imposed fewer restrictions on complementary process innovations contributed disproportionately to the price decreases.
Tidal dissipation in planet‐hosting stars: damping of spin–orbit misalignment and survival of hot Jupiters

Observations of hot Jupiters around solar-type stars with very short orbital periods (∼1 d) suggest that tidal dissipation in such stars is not too efficient so that these planets can survive against rapid orbital decay. This is consistent with recent theoretical works, which indicate that the tidal quality factor, Q★, of planet-hosting stars can indeed be much larger than the values inferred from the circularization of stellar binaries. On the other hand, recent measurements of Rossiter–McLaughlin effects in transiting hot Jupiter systems not only reveal that many such systems have misaligned stellar spin with respect to the orbital angular momentum axis, but also show that systems with cooler host stars tend to have aligned spin and orbital axes. Winn et al. suggested that this obliquity–temperature correlation may be explained by efficient damping of stellar obliquity due to tidal dissipation in the convection zone of the star. This explanation, however, is in apparent contradiction with the survival of these short-period hot Jupiters. We show that in the solar-type parent stars of close-in exoplanetary systems, the effective tidal Q★ governing the damping of stellar obliquity can be much smaller than that governing orbital decay. This is because, for misaligned systems, the tidal potential contains a Fourier component with frequency equal to the stellar spin frequency (in the rotating frame of the star) and rotating opposite to the stellar spin. This component can excite inertial waves in the convective envelope of the star, and the dissipation of inertial waves then leads to a spin–orbit alignment torque and a spin-down torque, but not orbital decay. By contrast, for aligned systems, such inertial wave excitation is forbidden since the tidal forcing frequency is much larger than the stellar spin frequency. We derive a general effective tidal evolution theory for misaligned binaries, taking account of different tidal responses and dissipation rates for different tidal forcing components.
George W. Bush in Political Time: The Janus Presidency

This essay places George W. Bush's presidency and the Bush administration in some historical context by applying the model of “political time” developed in recent books by Stephen Skowronek (2008) and Keith Whittington (2007). My thesis is that Bush's political failure during his second term was largely the result of structural tensions created by the attacks of September 11, 2001, that no leader could have overcome. This argument is an extension of Skowronek's and Whittington's views that the executive branch's relationship to other governing institutions is shaped primarily by the president's relative position in the party system. In essence, 9/11 undermined the coalition forged by Ronald Reagan by pushing President George W. Bush to pursue radical change. These actions could not be squared with his need, as the leader of the majority party, to maintain electoral stability. A presidency divided against itself in this way cannot, and did not, stand.
Can Foreign Aid Accelerate Stabilization

This paper studies the effect of foreign aid on economic stabilization. Following Alesina and Drazen (1991), we model the delay in stabilizing as the result of a distributional struggle: reforms are postponed because they are costly and each distributional faction hopes to reduce its share of the cost by outlasting its opponents in obstructing the required policies. Since the delay is used to signal each faction's strength, the effect of the transfer depends on the role it plays in the release of information. We show that this role depends on the timing of the transfer: foreign aid decided and transferred sufficiently early into the game leads to earlier stabilization; but aid decided or transferred too late is destabilizing and encourages further postponement of reforms.
Expectation Puzzles, Time-varying Risk Premia, and Dynamic Models of the Term Structure

Abstract Linear projections of returns on the slope of the yield curve have contradicted the implications of the traditional “expectations theory”. This paper shows that these findings are not puzzling relative to a large class of richer dynamic term structure models. Specifically, we match all the key empirical findings reported by Fama and Bliss ((1987) American Economic Review 77 (4), 680–692) and Campbell and Shiller ((1991) Review of Economic Studies 58, 495–514), among others, within large subclasses of affine and quadratic-Gaussian term structure models. Additionally, we show that certain “risk-premium adjusted” projections of changes in yields on the slope of the yield curve recover the coefficients of unity predicted by the models. Key to this matching are parameterizations of the market prices of risk that let the risk factors affect the market prices of risk directly, and not only through factor volatilities. The risk premiums have a simple form consistent with Fama's findings on the predictability of forward rates, and are also shown to be consistent with interest-rate feedback rules used by a monetary authority in setting monetary policy.
Manager-analyst conversations in earnings conference calls

Prior research finds that intraday stock prices move considerably during the discussion period of earnings conference calls. In this study, we explore what features of the manager-analyst dialogue during the discussion drive these price movements. We textually analyze the tone of managers and analysts and find that intraday prices react significantly to analyst tone, but not to management tone, for the full duration of the discussion. This effect strengthens when analyst tone is relatively negative. We then present intraday visual evidence that analysts are more neutral than managers over the call and that the tones of both parties drift downward as the call progresses. Overall, our findings illustrate how manager-analyst information exchanges evolve on earnings calls and indicate that analysts are the participants on earnings calls whose comments move stock prices during the discussion.
Transnational Rights Enforcement

A central debate among international law scholars revolves around the question of how, if at all, international human rights are enforced. Based on recent empirical research, the leading explanations for human rights enforcement are: 1) the democracy thesis; 2) the constitutional thesis; and 3) the international non-governmental organization (INGO) thesis. In order to gain better insight into the causal mechanisms involved and the interplay between these different factors in human rights enforcement, this article tests these competing theories through controlled comparisons and qualitative case studies focused on a single widely ratified right, the right to education. It identifies transnational rights enforcement as an alternative mechanism of human rights enforcement. In this model, transnational civil society actors contribute to human rights enforcement by overcoming international constraints, leveraging domestic commitments, and accelerating compliance with regional norms.
GORDON GEKKO TO THE RESCUE?: INSIDER TRADING AS A TOOL TO COMBAT ACCOUNTING FRAUD

This Article puts forward that, counter-intuitively, one way to help avoid future accounting scandals such as WorldCom would be the legalization of “fraud-inhibiting insider trading.” Fraud-inhibiting insider trading is the subcategory of insider trading where: (1) information is present that would have a price-decreasing effect on stock if made public; (2) the traded stock belongs to an individual who will likely suffer financial injury from a subsequent stock price reduction if the trading does not take place; (3) the individual on whose behalf the trading occurs would have the ability to prevent the release of the information or to release distorted information to the public; and (4) the individual in question did not commit any fraudulent activities prior to availing himself of the safe harbor. Arguing that prohibiting all insider trading incentivizes corporate fraud, this Article begins by giving examples from recent cases in which insider trading could have been used to avoid significant harm. Next, the Article briefly discusses both the history of insider trading and the philosophical and policy arguments against it. This Article particularly focuses on the two most prominent arguments raised against insider trading: (1) that it erodes confidence in the market; and (2) that it is similar to theft and should be prosecuted accordingly. Previously unexamined empirical evidence suggests that the confidence argument may be incorrect and does not suffice to justify a prohibition on fraud-inhibiting insider trading. This Article also shows that while the property rights rationale is the strongest position against general insider trading, it is an insufficient basis to outlaw fraud-inhibiting insider trading. The Article concludes with a proposal that the courts, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or Congress enact a safe harbor to legalize fraud-inhibiting insider trading and thus enable the insider trading laws to more effectively achieve their purported goal of protecting the securities market and investors.