cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Re-Claiming Disability: Identity, Procedural Justice, and the Disability Determination Process

This research highlights the crucial role of an intimate link between a disabled person's self-identity and the perceived fairness of legal procedures. In doing so, it brings to the foreground a wholly ignored aspect of procedural justice. Earlier researchers have failed to delve into the role identity politics plays in the relationship between the institutions and the beneficiaries of their services, and the way different members of a group understand and define themselves. This research explores the way people with disabilities in the United States, with different kinds of disability identities, experience and evaluate the procedure of claiming Social Security benefits. The findings suggest that disabled people who identified with the social model of disability (as opposed to the medical-individual models) hold a critical view of the procedure for retaining benefits. They felt they had no control over it, could not voice their opinions, were mistreated by representatives, and had to present an image that was not necessarily true of their disability. They also saw the procedure as discouraging them from participating fully in the labor market, and consequently integrating better in society, an idea that was not present among disabled people who identify with medical-individual models. Exposing this relationship between the way people perceive themselves and the way they experience and evaluate legal procedures can contribute to the creation of better policies, while improving communication between the state and members of the disability community, along with other marginalized groups.
FINANCIERS VS. ENGINEERS: SHOULD THE FINANCIAL SECTOR BE TAXED OR SUBSIDIZED?

* / study the allocation of human capital in an economy with production externalities, financial constraints, and career choices. Agents choose to become entrepreneurs, workers, or financiers. Entrepreneurship has positive externalities but requires the services of financiers. In the sec ond best solution, the financial sector should be taxed in exactly the same way as the nonfinancial sector. When direct subsidies to invest ment and scientific education are not feasible, subsidizing the financial sector increases growth if externalities are driven by physical capital as in Paul M. Romer (1986), and decreases growth if externalities are driven by human capital as in Robert E. Lucas, Jr. (1988). (JEL E44,
On the Comparative Study of Corruption

This essay has two ambitions. The first is to show that a transnational comparative perspective can be of value in identifying topics worth studying in criminology and criminal law as well as an important method of conducting such studies. The second aim is to use the comparative perspective and method to explore the topic of corruption, a pervasively important and distinctive behavioral phenomenon that is of critical importance in both developing and developed nations. A comparative perspective on corruption provides insight about the role of this peculiar form of crime in various cultures and stages of development (p. 809). Moreover, we also believe that a focus on corruption as a special category of crime helps to explain the passions and politics that have been involved in discourse on white-collar crime.
Voter Knowledge of Candidates' Judicial Philosophies

Judicial elections are typical “down ballot” contests, rarely capturing the interest of most voters. To help distinguish themselves at the polls, judicial candidates have begun to publish their decision-making philosophies with the apparent hope of informing voters. Using survey data collected during the 2012 elections, we explore how well individuals understand such philosophies. In general, we find that voters have very little understanding of various types of judicial philosophies and thus we question whether the enormous time and expenditure invested in broadcasting such philosophies is advantageous to voters.
Subjective Survival Probabilities in the Health and Retirement Study: Systematic Biases and Predictive Validity

Recent research has demonstrated that retirement planning and well-being are closely tied to probabilistic forecasts about future events. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, I show that individuals’ subjective survival forecasts exhibit systematic biases relative to life table data. In particular, many respondents fail to account for increases in yearly mortality rates with age, both longitudinally and in crosssection. Additionally, successive cohorts of the near elderly do not appear to revise survival forecasts to match increases in longevity. Forecasting bias may merely be due to the framing of questions designed to elicit expectations, but real biases may result in suboptimal savings rates and timing of retirement. Cross-sectional variation in subjective survival forecasts also appears to reflect differences in cognitive ability across respondents, suggesting that subjective information is more relevant for some individuals than others. Despite these shortcomings, subjective mortality probabilities predict actual mortality and portfolio choice, and they contain information not found in selfreported health status or objective measures of health limitations.
A framework for teaching the fundamentals of additive manufacturing and enabling rapid innovation

Abstract The importance of additive manufacturing (AM) to the future of product design and manufacturing infrastructure demands educational programs tailored to embrace its fundamental principles and its innovative potential. Moreover, the breadth and depth of AM spans several traditional disciplines, presenting a challenge to instructors, along with the opportunity to integrate knowledge via creative and demanding projects. This paper presents our approach to teaching AM at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level, in the form of a 14-week course developed and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lectures begin with in-depth technical analysis of the major AM processes and machine technologies, then focus on special topics including design methods, machine controls, applications of AM to major industry needs, and emerging processes and materials. In lab sessions, students operate and characterize desktop AM machines, and work in teams to design and fabricate a bridge having maximum strength per unit weight while conforming to geometric constraints. The class culminates in a semester-long team design-build project. In a single semester of the course, teams created prototype machines for 3D printing of molten glass, 3D printing of soft-serve ice cream, robotic deposition of biodegradable material, direct-write deposition of continuous carbon fiber composites, large-area parallel extrusion of polymers, and in situ optical scanning during 3D printing. Several of these projects led to patent applications, follow-on research, and peer-reviewed publications. We conclude that AM education, while arguably rooted in mechanical engineering, is truly multidisciplinary, and that education programs must embrace this context. We also comment on student feedback, our experience as instructional staff, and our adaptation of this course to a manufacturing-focused master’s degree program and a one-week professional short program.
A Career Choice Critique of Legal Ethics Theory

The article contends that legal ethics theory would benefit from incorporating an oft-overlooked reality of modern law practice: career choices often predetermine the clients that lawyers represent and the legal strategies that attorneys pursue. The problem with many existing ethics models is that they incorrectly assume that lawyers have sufficient autonomy to select their clients and legal strategies. In fact, most types of law practice place such significant restrictions on lawyers' freedom that career choices provide many attorneys with their main source of discretion. The article suggests that, in light of these client selection and strategy choice constraints, theorists need to explore the ethical dimensions of career choices but have repeatedly failed to do so. The piece ultimately suggests several ways in which existing models can incorporate the important constraining effects of career decisions and how they can consequently offer a richer vision of legal ethics.
Predicting Choice Shares under Conditions of Brand Interdependence

The authors discuss some shortcomings of probabilistic choice models which do not capture product interdependencies. When substitutional relationships are present in the marketplace, these models may lead to biased estimates for choice/market shares. A probabilistic choice model which accounts for the interdependence among choice alternatives is proposed. This model uses parsimonious parameterization and relies on parameters which are not related to specific alternatives in the choice set. The model is compared with two other probabilistic choice models in terms of goodness of fit and predictive ability.
Voting with their Feet or Activism? Institutional Investors' Impact on CEO Turnover

Abstract We examine the relation between institutional investors and management discipline over the last several decades to better understand how CEO turnover has increased. Using a sample of forced and voluntary turnovers, we investigate the changing roles of activism and exit among institutional investors between 1982–1994 and 1995–2006. We find evidence of activist investors throughout the sample period and their impact is consistently significant in multivariate analysis. In contrast, voting with their feet has declined to the point where it no longer affects turnover outcomes. Nonetheless, activism is fairly uncommon and does not explain the higher turnover observed over time. Block holdings of known activists have increased and are linked to improving target firms. However, other blocks merely reflect the increasing size of institutional money managers. Going forward, the increasing size of institutional investors seems likely to inhibit voting with their feet while activism remains an important vehicle for change.
PRICE BIASES IN A PREDICTION MARKET: NFL CONTRACTS ON TRADESPORTS

We examine deviations between the prices and values of binary options listed on Tradesports.com, an online prediction market. Our analysis shows that NFL sides contracts are overpriced on average, indicating that this market may be characterized by a shortage of sellers. We also find that overpricing is more pronounced immediately after information shocks occur, especially when the news is negative. Additionally, while prior research suggests that differences between asset prices and values should be symmetric around the market-price-midpoint of $50, we find that this divergence is instead larger for low-priced contracts. Finally, we demonstrate that a simple rule designed to exploit the identified biases enables a highly profitable trading strategy.
Chevron ’s Generality Principles

Chevron is surely one of the most influential doctrines of administrative law. Both in judicial opinions and the scholarly literature, its original insights and subsequent evolution have contributed much to our understanding of the roles of the “four” branches, especially as those roles relate to judicial review. But what does Chevron have to say about the many agency behaviors that are relatively insulated from review? The vast majority of agency policymaking decisions never reach court; for example, they might not be “final” or even “action,” or they may pose standing or ripeness difficulties for would-be petitioners. This Essay argues that Chevron’s impact might reach even these rarely reviewed types of agency behavior. Descriptively, this claim is supported by an analysis of judicial opinions applying Chevron principles to assess agency actions that are not interpretations of organic statutes. Normatively, this claim challenges administrative law to turn its focus to agencies’ unreviewable discretionary space, where a Chevron lens offers important insights about the extent to which agencies can construct their own legitimacy.
Redeploying Bayh-Dole: beyond Merely doing good to optimizing the potential in results of taxpayer-funded research

Opinions about the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and its implementation by US universities can depend on whether one views the Act as a series of tactics that are ends in themselves or as a policy declaration designed to protect the public against nonuse of taxpayer-funded discoveries and encourage their commercialization, utilization, and public availability. Those views appear to influence how universities and their leaders measure performance and define success, identify and allocate resources, approach transfer strategies, and negotiate terms and apportion risks relative to those terms. Those who view the Act as tactical tend to obscure the broader policy objectives which can result in substantial amounts of university research that is “never commercialized” (President’s Council of Advisors 2003), “restrained” (Schacht 2010b), and “left unused and unapplied” (Seipman in Univ Dayt Law Rev 30:209–243, 2004). Society then is deprived of the new products, services, approaches and experiences that can stimulate economic growth and advance human welfare. These and other consequences demand evaluations and assessments of university practices and behaviors and the extent to which they narrowly serve the Act’s tactics or more broadly serve its purposes of pursuing and maximizing the potential usefulness of the results of taxpayer-funded research. Too frequently, there seems to be a disconnect between federal policy and practices adopted or tolerated by universities and their leaders to implement that policy.
The Religion of a Skeptic: Frank H. Knight on Ethics, Spirituality, and Religion during His Iowa Years

Frank H. Knight's antagonism to religion is well known and features prominently in his writings from the 1930s on. But during the 1920s, when he was a professor at the University of Iowa and wrote some of his most important essays on the limitations of economics, Knight was an active participant in the Iowa City Unitarian Church. Drawing on research about his association with the Unitarian Church, and his unpublished writings from the period on religion, economics, and social organization, the essay argues that the Unitarian association provided a community open to discussing the multidimensionality of human experience, which assisted Knight in his investigation of ethics, economics, science, and liberal democracy. In the end, however, his association with the Unitarians ceased when he moved back to the University of Chicago in 1928.
Entrepreneurship education in Poland: Findings from the field

Poland has a rich entrepreneurial potential—a potential it is realizing on a large scale. At the same time, educational opportunities are opening up for enterprising business leaders seeking to start their own firms. Polish academics and business people understand that some aspects of entrepreneurship can be taught, and have taken steps to provide programs and short courses emphasizing start-ups. A series of interviews were undertaken in 1998 and 1999 with business people, academics, consultants, and government officials on the subject of entrepreneurship in Poland to determine what specific business tools and concepts were most important to aspiring and practicing Polish entrepreneurs, and how these subjects should be taught. The findings are summarized in this article. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 15: 93–98, 2005.
Category Pricing with State-Dependent Utility

There is substantial literature documenting the presence of state-dependent utility with packaged goods data. Typically, a form of brand loyalty is detected whereby there is a higher probability of purchasing the same brand as has been purchased in the recent past. The economic significance of the measured loyalty remains an open question. We consider the category pricing problem and demonstrate that the presence of loyalty materially affects optimal pricing. The prices of higher quality products decline relative to those of lower quality when loyalty is introduced into the model. Given the well-known problems with the confounding of state dependence and consumer heterogeneity, loyalty must be measured in a model which allows for an unknown and possibly highly nonnormal distribution of heterogeneity. We implement a highly flexible model of heterogeneity using multivariate mixtures of normals in a hierarchical choice model. We use an Euler equations approach to the solution of the dynamic pricing problem which allows us to consider a very large number of consumer types.
Capturing aggregate flexibility in Demand Response

Flexibility in electric power consumption can be leveraged by Demand Response (DR) programs. The goal of this paper is to systematically capture the inherent aggregate flexibility of a population of heterogenous small appliances in a reduced-order fashion. We do so by clustering individual loads based on their characteristics and service constraints. We highlight the challenges associated with learning the customer response to economic incentives while applying demand side management to heterogeneous appliances. We also develop a framework to quantify customer privacy in cluster-based direct load scheduling programs.
A mathematical approach to the study of the United States Code

Abstract The United States Code (Code) is a document containing over 22 million words that represents a large and important source of Federal statutory law. Scholars and policy advocates often discuss the direction and magnitude of changes in various aspects of the Code. However, few have mathematically formalized the notions behind these discussions or directly measured the resulting representations. This paper addresses the current state of the literature in two ways. First, we formalize a representation of the United States Code as the union of a hierarchical network and a citation network over vertices containing the language of the Code. This representation reflects the fact that the Code is a hierarchically organized document containing language and explicit citations between provisions. Second, we use this formalization to measure aspects of the Code as codified in October 2008, November 2009, and March 2010. These measurements allow for a characterization of the actual changes in the Code over time. Our findings indicate that in the recent past, the Code has grown in its amount of structure, interdependence, and language.
Hardness as a spectral peak estimator for gamma-ray bursts

Simple hardness ratios are found to be a good estimator for the spectral peak energy in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Specifically, a high correlation strength is found between the vF v peak in the spectrum of Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) GRBs, E p,obs and the hardness of GRBs, HR H , as defined by the fluences in channels 3 and 4, divided by the combined fluences in channels 1 and 2 of the BATSE Large Area Detectors (LADs). The correlation is independent of the type of the burst, whether long-duration GRB (LGRB) or short-duration (SGRB) and remains almost linear over the wide range of the BATSE energy window (20-2000 KeV). Based on Bayes theorem and Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques, we also present multivariate analyses of the observational data while accounting for data truncation and sample incompleteness. Prediction intervals for the proposed HR H -E p,obs relation are derived. Results and further simulations are used to compute E p,obs estimates for nearly the entire BATSE catalogue: 2130 GRBs. Based on these estimates, we also obtain for the first time the asymptotic E p,obs distribution of GRBs detectable by BATSE. The observed E p,obs distribution is well fit by the sum of two Gaussians, possibly representing the E p,obs distribution of BATSE LGRBs and SGRBs peaking at 140 and 520 KeV, respectively. These results may be useful for investigating the cosmological utility of the spectral peak energy in GRBs intrinsic luminosity estimates.
Achieving reconciliation through prosecution in the courts: Lessons from Rwanda

In the aftermath of innumerable genocides and civil wars, the Nuremburg promise of “never again” seems a fast-fading dream. Despite considerable resources being allocated toward prosecuting individuals for international crimes, there is a sense that there has been no justice for the victims and that they have provided no sense of deterrence. Are trials an effective method to bring about reconciliation postconflict, or are they simply a waste of precious resources better used to rehabilitate the victims? Studying the Rwandan postconflict prosecutions, this paper offers recommendations for maximizing available resources to provide an atmosphere in which reconciliation can become a reality.
Contagion around the October 1987 stock market crash

Abstract This study investigates financial contagion among seven international stock markets around the October 19, 1987 crash. Building on a recent advance in vector autoregression analysis by [Swanson, N., Granger, C.W.J., 1997. Impulse response functions based on a causal approach to residual orthogonalization in vector autoregression. Journal of the American Statistical Association 92, 357–367], data-determined historical decompositions are conducted to provide a day-by-day picture of price fluctuation transmission, which is crucial to explore the financial contagion pattern characterized by rich dynamics. The results clearly show that the crash originated in the US market and that an upward movement in the Japanese market after the crash helped the recovery in the US market, which has not yet been empirically documented in the literature.
Fiscal Policy Stabilization: Purchases or Transfers?

Both government purchases and transfers figure prominently in the use of fiscal policy for counteracting recessions. However, existing representative-agent models including the neoclassical and New Keynesian benchmark rule out transfers by assumption. This paper explains the factors that determine the size of fiscal multipliers in a variant of the Curdia and Woodford (2010) model where transfers now matter. I establish an equivalence between deficit-financed fiscal policy and balanced-budget fiscal policy with transfers. Absent wealth effects on labor supply, the transfer multiplier is zero when prices are flexible, and transfers are redundant to monetary policy when prices are sticky. The transfer multiplier is most relevant at the zero lower bound where the size of the multiplier is increasing in the debt elasticity of the credit spread and fiscal policy can influence the duration of a zero lower bound episode. These results are quantitatively unchanged after incorporating wealth effects on labor supply.
Judging Foreign States

Famed foreign relations law principles including the act of state doctrine, the public law taboo, and Zschernig’s foreign affairs preemption rely on the notion that U.S. courts should not sit in judgment on foreign states. Judges in these cases, as well as scholars writing in the area, frequently suggest that U.S. courts should sit out of important disputes due to invoke considerations of sovereign equality and international comity. Yet, in less attention-grabbing cases, U.S. courts routinely sit in judgment on foreign judgments, laws, legal systems, and interests, sometimes concluding that they do meet U.S. standards. The first goal of this project, therefore, is to identify and catalog those circumstances in which U.S. courts sit in judgment on foreign states. This extensive catalog should cast doubt on unsystematic objections to sitting in judgment: Were we to accept that sitting in judgment was per se impermissible, all sorts of current doctrines would need to be revisited. Such a categorical rule is not only radical but also unjustified — the doctrines in which courts sit in judgment are routine and unremarkable, they protect important institutional and individual concerns, and they have not sparked international incident. Nor is there a coherent explanation for the doctrines that call for courts to sit in judgment and those that do not.Identifying these issues does not determine a better approach, and recent scholarship on these and related cases have proposed changes to U.S. law that turn on external considerations such as foreign interests or international comity. But this literature, in my view, risks focusing too much on the transnational aspects of these cases to the exclusion of domestic institutional concerns. As a potential corrective, this Article imagines sitting-in-judgment doctrine that is responsive to those structural factors that govern institutional arrangements within the U.S. system. Applying the tools of comparative institutional analysis, cases could be divided into those bilateral, legal, and constrained adjudications for which the common-law courts were designed, versus those polycentric, systemic, political inquiries best left to the political branches. Federalism, with implications for both authority and capacity, would suggest further division of responsibilities among relevant institutions. And individual-rights considerations would offer guidance to courts about how to sit in judgment when called upon to do so. This analysis demonstrates that there is no per se reason that U.S. institutions should avoid sitting in judgment on foreign state acts, but also that current law may not be allocating responsibility for sitting in judgment consistent with domestic institutional considerations.
Constitutional Analogies in the International Legal System

This Article explores issues at the frontier of international law and constitutional law. It considers five key structural and systemic challenges that the international legal system now faces: (1) decentralization and disaggregation; (2) normative and institutional hierarchies; (3) compliance and enforcement; (4) exit and escape; and (5) democracy and legitimacy. Each of these issues raises questions of governance, institutional design, and allocation of authority paralleling the questions that domestic legal systems have answered in constitutional terms. For each of these issues, I survey the international legal landscape and consider the salience of potential analogies to domestic constitutions, drawing upon and extending the writings of international legal scholars and international relations theorists. I also offer some preliminary thoughts about why some treaties and institutions, but not others, more readily lend themselves to analysis in constitutional terms. And I distinguish those legal and political issues that may generate useful insights for scholars studying the growing intersections of international and constitutional law from other areas that may be more resistant to constitutional analogies.
Corporate divestitures: Spin-offs vs. sell-offs

Abstract We investigate the determinants of the choice between two forms of corporate divestitures—spin-offs versus sell-offs. We hypothesize that the choice is driven by the pre-divestiture market valuation of divesting firms relative to their intrinsic value, the pre-divestiture performance of the assets being divested relative to their full potential, and the prevailing degree of investor optimism or pessimism about the market at the time of divestiture. Our hypotheses generate testable predictions regarding the announcement effects of divestitures and the post-divestiture operating performance of divesting firms. Our empirical findings using a sample of 378 spin-offs and 4192 sell-offs from 1980 to 2011 are as follows. First, firms with lower market valuations relative to their intrinsic value are more likely to spin off their assets. Second, assets which underperform relative to their full potential are more likely to be sold off. Third, spin-offs are more likely during periods of investor optimism. Fourth, spin-offs are associated with more positive announcement effects than sell-offs. Finally, firms which sell off their assets exhibit better post-divesture long-term operating and stock return performance compared to those which spin off their assets.
Gender Role Attitudes, Labor Supply, and Human Capital Formation

This study examines the relationship between attitudes toward women's roles in the labor force and human capital acquisition. I analyze both educational attainment and post schooling training spells. Holding more traditional attitudes about gender roles is associated with both lower educational attainment and lower probability of participating in post schooling training episodes. Also, gender role attitudes appear to have significant indirect effects on human capital acquisition, operating through a lower probability of labor market participation.
Intertemporal Substitution in Macroeconomics

Modern neoclassical business cycle theories posit that the observed fluctuations in consumption and employment correspond to decisions of an optimizing representative individual. We estimate three first-order conditions that represent three tradeoffs faced by such an optimizing individual. He can trade off present for future consumption, present for future leisure, and present consumption for present leisure. The aggregate U. S. data lend no support to this model. The overidentifying restrictions are rejected, and the estimated utility function is often convex. Even when it is concave, the estimates imply that either consumption or leisure is an inferior good.
Investment Promotion as Progressive Realization of Economic and Social Rights

Faced with the reality of finite and scarce resources, and the fact that realization of most economic and social rights requires resources, can a State comply with its ICESCR obligations, particularly Article 2(1) thereof, when it engages in investment promotion activities? This paper examines the conditions under which the pursuit of foreign direct investment ( FDI ) can be deemed consistent with State obligation to fulfill socioeconomic rights. It is posited that investment promotion activities potentially augment the limited national income of many developing countries, thereby creating conditions that make more possible the enjoyment of socio-economic rights. This relationship is premised on the caveat that, as part of the State’s duty to protect, it should ensure the pre-existence of a set of institutions that sufficiently regulates the behavior of foreign businesses and a certain level of human capital and physical infrastructure conducive to knowledge and technology transfer.
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE NEW ORLEANS : SENSE OF PLACE AND COMMUNITY RECOVERY IN THE NINTH WARD AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA

This study contributes to the literature on the strength of place attachment, identity, and dependence in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. It also engages the literature concerning the role ...
Electoral Systems, District Magnitude and Corruption

The relationship between electoral systems and corruption in a large sample of contemporary democratic nations is analysed in this article. Whereas previous studies have shown that closed-list proportional representation is associated with greater (perceived) corruption than open-list PR, it is demonstrated here that this relationship fails to hold once district magnitude is considered. The theory underlying this study draws on work on ‘the personal vote’ that suggests that the incentives to amass resources – and perhaps even to do so illegally – increase with district magnitude in open-list settings but decrease in closed-list contexts. Extending this insight, it is shown that political corruption gets more (less) severe as district magnitude increases under open-list PR (closed-list PR) systems. In addition, once district magnitude exceeds a certain threshold – the estimates here are that this is as low as fifteen – corruption is greater under open lists than closed lists. Only at small district magnitudes (below fifteen) is closed-list PR associated with more corruption, as conventionally held. These results hold for alternative measures of corruption, for different sets of countries analysed, for different measures of district magnitude and regardless of whether the political system is presidential or parliamentary, and of the number of parties.Using an objective measure of corruption in public works contracting, corroborating evidence is also presented from Italian electoral districts. In Italy's open-list environment in the period prior to 1994, larger districts were more susceptible to corruption than smaller ones.
South Bend, Indiana: A Case Study of the Possibilities and Realities of Hospital Cooperation

South Bend, the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, is a city with a population of slightly more than 100,000. Located about 100 miles from Chicago, it serves many of the educational, financial and health care needs of a five county metropolitan area of over 700,000 people. South Bend and its "sister city," Mishawaka, are served by four general hospitals. The two largest each have about 40 percent of the available beds in the community. One of them, Memorial Hospital of South Bend, is a not-for-profit corporation which is unaffiliated with any other hospital; the other large hospital, St. Joseph's Medical Center, is a Catholic hospital which is part of the Holy Cross Health System Corp. The other two hospitals, Michiana Community Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital of Mishawaka, each have roughly 10 percent of the available beds in the community.
Law, Culture, and Family: The Transformative Power of Culture and the Limits of Law

Law inevitably is involved in the resolution of cultural conflicts. Nonintervention acts as powerfully as intervention; in either case, law is a powerful actor in its role as a part of cultural dialogue, as well as in its role as a coercive force. Law is never neutral in my view. If it “stays out” of a situation, then it is complicit in the status quo or in permitting the conflict to be resolved without legal intervention, which may weight the outcome in a particular direction. If law “comes in,” it similarly “sides” with a particular position because, in part, our adversarial, either/or, dichotomous orientation tends toward a winner and a loser, rather than a win-win situation.
The Local Whittle Estimator of Long-Memory Stochastic Volatility

We propose a new semiparametric estimator of the degree of persistence in volatility for long memory stochastic volatility (LMSV) models. The estimator uses the periodogram of the log squared returns in a local Whittle criterion which explicitly accounts for the noise term in the LMSV model. Finite-sample and asymptotic standard errors for the estimator are provided. An extensive simulation study reveals that the local Whittle estimator is much less biased and that the finite-sample standard errors yield more accurate confidence intervals than the widely-used GPH estimator. The estimator is also found to be robust against possible leverage effects. In an empirical analysis of the daily Deutsche Mark/US Dollar exchange rate, the new estimator indicates stronger persistence in volatility than the GPH estimator, provided that a large number of frequencies is used. , .
Sustainable social security: Four options

Abstract Four options to make the social security sustainable under the coming demographic shift are presented; increase payroll taxes by 6 percentage points, reduce replacement rates by one-third, raise the normal retirement age to 73, or means-test the benefits and reduce them in income. The paper accounts for labor supply at both intensive and extensive margins and analyzes welfare effects across agents that differ in age, wealth and cohorts. While the four policies all achieve the same goal, economic outcomes differ significantly. Options to curtail benefits encourage own savings and capital accumulation, while the payroll tax increase and the means-test reduce work effort. Future generations prefer options to reduce benefits, but current generations prefer to finance the transition with payroll taxes.
Bleeding-Heart Liberals and Hard-Hearted Conservatives: Subtle Political Dehumanization Through Differential Attributions of Human Nature and Human Uniqueness Traits

This research demonstrated that human nature (HN) and human uniqueness (HU) traits capture the content of Americans’ stereotypes about liberals and conservatives, respectively. Consistent with expectations derived from dehumanization theory, people more strongly associated HN traits with liberals than with conservatives, and more strongly associated HU traits with conservatives than with liberals. A trait × target ideology × perceiver ideology × trait valence interaction suggested that both liberals and conservatives more strongly associated their ingroup with stereotype-consistent positive traits, and their outgroup with stereotype-consistent negative traits. Mediation analyses revealed that outgroup antipathy, but not ingroup liking, explained the relationship between ideology and political outgroup dehumanization. Finally, humanness traits captured subtle differences in political stereotype content not captured with the warmth and competence dimensions derived from the stereotype content model. Together, these results indicate that differential attributions of HN and HU traits capture political stereotype content and function to subtly dehumanize one’s political opponents.
How Auditors’ Approach to Client Inquiry May Affect Skeptical Judgment: A Mixed-method Examination of Client Inquiry and Note Taking

Client inquiry is a foundational financial statement audit procedure. However, the literature offers little evidence regarding how auditors perform client inquiry and how note taking during client ...
Problems of Bank Lending in Bulgaria: Information Asymmetry and Institutional Learning

Why are there such severe problems in lending in the transition countries? This research took a microeconomic and institutional look at part of the problem. We conducted interviews in Bulgaria and Hungary and sought answers to two questions. First, how do banks making "normal" loans insure that they were making "good" loans? Second, how do banks get their money back on loans that have turned bad? Clearly, weaknesses at either stage could explain both past loan failures and present reluctance to lend. The bankers we spoke to reported significant difficulties at both stages of the credit process. First, the bankers reported difficulties in accumulating the information to evaluate borrowers and their projects. The bankers also reported problems with encouraging borrowers to repay and difficulties with seizing collateral, and using legal action in collecting bad debts. Although many of the problems are universal problems of bank lending, many seemed specific to transition economies in general and Bulgaria in particular. We identified specific problems with obtaining and using the evidence about borrowers that might have been available. Bulgarian bankers were often less than fully effective in collecting all available information, or in considering later how they could improve their methods of evaluating clients. One method that more banks might usefully adopt is systematic review of loan losses and the incorporation of lessons learned into the training of new loan officers. In addition, there were serious difficulties in sharing information about borrowers among bankers and between bankers and other firms. Some relaxation of bank secrecy would be appropriate. We also identified policy areas where improvement appears appropriate. Reputation can be effective in ensuring that borrowers fulfill their contracts. However, there is a general lack of credit reporting institutions to share information about credit-worthiness; this need to be remedied. The heavy reliance on collateral imposes high costs on borrowers and lenders. For collateral to work properly, banks must be able to perfect the collateral and to dispose of it quickly. Finally, fraud against banks was common, but typically went unpunished; prosecutors were apparently not interested in such cases. Bankers and prosecutors must make the prosecution of bank fraud a priority. We base our findings on the 24 banking interviews we conducted in Bulgaria. We also conducted 12 interviews in Hungary. Bankers were surprisingly candid in describing most of their problems.
Uniform prices for differentiated goods: The case of the movie-theater industry

Since the early 1970s, movie theaters in the United States have employed a pricing model of uniform prices for differentiated goods. At any given theater, one price is charged for all movies, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This pricing model is puzzling in light of the potential profitability of prices that vary with demand characteristics. Another unique aspect of the motion-picture industry is the legal regime that imposes certain constraints on vertical arrangements between distributors and retailers (exhibitors) and attempts to facilitate competitive bidding for films. We explore the justifications for uniform pricing in the industry and show their limitations. We conclude that exhibitors could increase profits by engaging in variable pricing and that they could do so more easily if the legal constraints on vertical arrangements are lifted. © 2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.
Inside the Refrigerator: Immigration Enforcement and Chilling Effects in Medicaid Participation

“Chilling effects” are a popular explanation for low program take-up rates among immigrants, but the effects of an icy policy climate are inherently hard to measure. This paper finds robust evidence that heightened federal immigration enforcement reduces Medicaid participation among children of noncitizens, even when children are themselves citizens. The decline in immigrant Medicaid participation around the time of welfare reform is largely explained by a contemporaneous spike in enforcement activity. The results imply that safety net participation is influenced not only by program design, but also by a broader set of seemingly unrelated policy choices. ( JEL I18, I38, J13, J15)
Moral hazard, asymmetric information and IPO lockups

Abstract Moral hazard and asymmetric information have both been proposed as the motive behind the use of IPO lockup provisions, with each receiving empirical support in the literature. Rather than consider them to be mutually exclusive motivations, we hypothesize that each is dominant for a different set of firms. We provide novel empirical support for the underwriter certification hypothesis then use this hypothesis to categorize the firms in our sample. Firms that are certified by a reputable underwriter see a reduction in the severity of asymmetric information relative to other firms and therefore will be more likely to see moral hazard as the friction that motivates the use of the lockup provision. For those firms that are unable to obtain high reputation underwriter certification it is relatively more likely that asymmetric information is the motivation for the use of the lockup provision. Based on this separation of firms we introduce and provide empirical support for a novel set of hypotheses concerning the lockup period.
Higher Law Secularism: Religious Symbols, Contested Secularisms, and the Limits of the Establishment Clause

This paper considers whether religious symbols on public property might serve a permissible role within the secular polity, and whether there is a way to understand such symbols as compatible with secular commitments. While some attention will be given to constitutional issues, it is proposed that the jurisprudential incoherence in this area is less the result of legal interpretation and technique than with the way in which law has framed the concept of the secular. We are not facing a crisis in the Establishment Clause so much as a crisis in the secular. The aim of the paper is thus to explore how achieving greater coherence in Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and thereby making law an agent of constructive political engagement rather than a fomenter of religious culture wars, will require a rethinking of the secular. The central claim of this paper is that a binary approach to the secular has created a sharp and irresolute cleavage within legal discourse about religious symbols. There are two dominant traditions of understanding the secular, both with long genealogical resonance in western thought: Christian secularity and secularism. Constitutional debate has commonly framed, both implicitly and explicitly, the issue of religious symbols as demanding resolution in favor of one of these traditions. Rather than offering a way to overcome the divide and the culture war it encourages, the Court’s jurisprudence has concretized the binary. Whatever the relative intellectual merits of these two traditions — and the purpose of this paper is not to advance a normative position on the matter — neither has proven able to attract adequate cultural buy-in. One links the secular with a theological narrative that, to many, is narrow, exclusionary and fundamentally incompatible with the basic precepts of an open liberal society. The other defines the secular as standing over and against religion in a manner that fails to resonate with historical practices and the religious convictions of many citizens. What is instead needed is a way of conceptualizing the secular that opens the Establishment Clause to new forms of meaning. The primary aim of this paper is to offer such an account, which will be described as higher law secularism.
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sharia? Awad v. Ziriax and the Question of Sharia Law in America

To hear many pundits, politicians, and bloggers tell it, the United States is facing an existential threat: the proliferation of so-called "creeping sharia" in American society, and, worse, the supposed infiltration of Islamic law into the US judicial system. In an effort to address this danger, some politicians - borrowing a page from European nations that have prohibited such things as full-face veils, or the construction of new mosque minarets - have proposed legislation to "ban" the application of sharia. In several states, this legislation has been passed, signed into law, and, in the case of Oklahoma, even ratified by the state's citizenry through the state ballot initiative process.But is sharia law truly a threat to the United States' constitutional order, or to the liberty and happiness of its citizens? And are segments of the Muslim-American community really a potential "fifth column," as many pundits, and, especially, bloggers, allege? Or are state legislative attempts to preemptively "ban" sharia misguided, redundant, and counter-productive?This comment addresses the topic of sharia law in the United States and, specifically, the question of whether States can, or should, attempt to "ban" the application of sharia law. The comment addresses this question by examining the recent case of Awad v. Ziriax, in which Muneer Awad, a Muslim citizen of Oklahoma, successfully challenged a state constitutional amendment banning the application of sharia that was approved by Oklahoma voters in November 2010. Using the Awad judgment as a guidepost, the comment discusses the legal obstacles to state laws attempting to ban the application of sharia; the reasons why sharia bans are likely redundant; and policy-oriented reasons why sharia bans likely do much more harm than good.