cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control

Online social networks are used by hundreds of millions of people every day, but little is known about their effect on behavior. In five experiments, the authors demonstrate that social network use enhances self-esteem in users who are focused on close friends (i.e., strong ties) while browsing their social network. This momentary increase in self-esteem reduces self-control, leading those focused on strong ties to display less self-control after browsing a social network. Additionally, the authors present evidence suggesting that greater social network use is associated with a higher body mass index and higher levels of credit card debt for individuals with strong ties to their social network. This research extends previous findings by demonstrating that social networks primarily enhance self-esteem for those focused on strong ties during social network use. Additionally, this research has implications for policy makers because self-control is an important mechanism for maintaining social order and well-being.
Constituency Congruency and Candidate Competition in Primary Elections for the U.S. House

Previous research has largely concluded that House elections have become less competitive in the modern era. Our research examines one area where we expect to observe more competition—namely, primary elections. In this article, we investigate when and where a state legislator will emerge to run in a congressional primary. All else equal, we expect that state legislators who can carry a large portion of their old state reelection constituency to the “geographic” congressional constituency will be more likely to emerge and receive a higher vote share in the election. Using geographic information systems (GIS) techniques, we are able to derive a measure of constituency congruency by focusing on the degree of intersection between state legislative and congressional districts. Our results indicate that state legislators are more likely to emerge in a primary if constituency congruency is high, especially in open seat contests. Congruency does not appear to provide an electoral advantage at the polls.
An Experimental Investigation of Self‐Serving Biases in an Auditing Trust Game: The Effect of Group Affiliation

I report the results of an experiment designed to investigate the influence of noncredible communications and group affiliation on auditors' formation of self‐serving bias. I find that manager‐subjects use noncredible communications to induce auditors to develop an unwarranted trust of managers (i.e., a biased judgment). However, the bias is neutralized when auditor‐subjects belong to groups that create social pressure to conform to group norms. Thus, my finding calls into question the Bazerman et al. (1997) conclusion that auditors cannot conduct impartial audits due to self‐serving biases resulting from repeated interactions between auditors and their clients.
Hayek, Keynes, and modern macroeconomics

The Great Recession seems to be creating a change in the trend of macroeconomic thinking. Prior to the financial crisis of 2008, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models dominated the macroeconomics literature without any apparent challengers on the horizon. Since then, however, we have seen an increasing interest in macroeconomic models that address the state of confidence (“animal spirits”), complexity, cognition, and radical uncertainty. Most of the renewed interest in animal spirits, complexity, cognition, and radical uncertainty has come from a more or less “Keynesian” perspective. We discuss the potential to emphasize these elements from a more “Hayekian” perspective and argue that Austrian approaches to macroeconomics along these lines are more likely to resonate with mainstream economists than in years past.
Introducing SU(3) color charge in undergraduate quantum mechanics

We present a framework for investigating effective dynamics of SU(3) color charge. Two- and three-body effective interaction terms inspired by the Heisenberg spin model are considered. In particular, a toy model for a three-source “baryon” is constructed and investigated analytically and numerically for various choices of interactions. vpython is used to visualize the nontrivial color charge dynamics. The treatment should be accessible to undergraduate students who have taken a first course in quantum mechanics, and suggestions for independent student projects are proposed.
Risk Reduction in Large Portfolios: Why Imposing the Wrong Constraints Helps

Green and Hollifield (1992) argue that the presence of a dominant factor would result in extreme negative weights in mean-variance efficient portfolios even in the absence of estimation errors. In that case, imposing no-short-sale constraints should hurt, whereas empirical evidence is often to the contrary. We reconcile this apparent contradiction. We explain why constraining portfolio weights to be nonnegative can reduce the risk in estimated optimal portfolios even when the constraints are wrong. Surprisingly, with no-short-sale constraints in place, the sample covariance matrix performs as well as covariance matrix estimates based on factor models, shrinkage estimators, and daily data. MARKOWITZ'S (1952, 1959) PORTFOLIO THEORY is one of the most important theoretical developments in finance. Mean-variance efficient portfolios play an important role in this theory. Such portfolios constructed using sample moments often involve large negative weights in a number of assets. Since negative portfolio weights (short positions) are difficult to implement in practice, most investors impose the constraint that portfolio weights should be nonnegative when constructing mean-variance efficient portfolios. Green and Hollifield (1992) argue that because a single factor dominates the covariance structure, it would be difficult to dismiss the observed extreme negative and positive weights as being entirely due to the imprecise estimation of the inputs. They consider the global minimum variance portfolio to avoid the effect of estimation error in the mean on portfolio weights. They note that when returns are generated by a single factor model, minimum variance portfolios can be constructed in two steps. First, naively diversify over the set of high beta stocks and
Microbiome Signatures in a Fast- and Slow-Progressing Gastric Cancer Murine Model and Their Contribution to Gastric Carcinogenesis.

Gastric cancer is the third most common cause of death from cancer in the world and infection with Helicobacterpylori (H. pylori) is the main cause of gastric cancer. In addition to Helicobacter infection, the overall stomach microbiota has recently emerged as a potential factor in gastric cancer progression. Previously we had established that mice deficient in myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88 (MyD88, Myd88−/−) rapidly progressed to neoplasia when infected with H. felis. Thus, in order to assess the role of the microbiota in this fast-progressing gastric cancer model we investigated changes of the gastric microbiome in mice with different genotypic backgrounds: wild type (WT), MyD88-deficient (Myd88−/−), mice deficient in the Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain-containing adaptor-inducing interferon-β (TRIF, TrifLps2), and MyD88- and TRIF-deficient (Myd88−/−/TrifLps2, double knockout (DKO)) mice. We compared changes in alpha diversity, beta diversity, relative abundance, and log-fold differential of relative abundance ratios in uninfected and Helicobacter infected mice and studied their correlations with disease progression to gastric cancer in situ. We observed an overall reduction in microbial diversity post-infection with H. felis across all genotypes. Campylobacterales were observed in all infected mice, with marked reduction in abundance at 3 and 6 months in Myd88−/− mice. A sharp increase in Lactobacillales in infected Myd88−/− and DKO mice at 3 and 6 months was observed as compared to TrifLps2 and WT mice, hinting at a possible role of these bacteria in gastric cancer progression. This was further reinforced upon comparison of Lactobacillales log-fold differentials with histological data, indicating that Lactobacillales are closely associated with Helicobacter infection and gastric cancer progression. Our study suggests that differences in genotypes could influence the stomach microbiome and make it more susceptible to the development of gastric cancer upon Helicobacter infection. Additionally, increase in Lactobacillales could contribute to faster development of gastric cancer and might serve as a potential biomarker for the fast progressing form of gastric cancer.
Governance and State-Owned Enterprises: How Costly is Corruption?

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are present in key sectors of the economies around the world. While they can provide an important public service, there is widespread concern that their activities are negatively affected by corruption. However, there is limited cross-country analysis on the costs of corruption for SOEs. We present new evidence on how corruption affects the performance of SOEs using firm level data across a large number of countries. One striking result is that SOEs perform as well as private firms in core sectors when corruption is low. Taking advantage of a novel database reforms, we also show that SOE governance reforms can generate significant performance gains.
Expatriates and corporate‐level international strategy: governing with the knowledge contract

Purpose – This paper proposes a methodology for governing expatriate assignments in the context of corporate‐level objectives.Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken is to envisage expatriate managerial assignments within the theoretical framework of agency theory and the knowledge‐based view of the firm. The paper begins with the view that knowledge acquisition and integration is a primary goal for most expatriate assignments. The relationship between expatriate managers and multinational corporation (MNC) headquarters from an agency perspective are considered and the notion of a “knowledge contract” as a means of governing that relationship is discussed. Four corporate‐level international strategies available to MNCs (global, international, transnational, and multidomestic) are then examined and the extent of agency problems under each strategy is discussed.Findings – The paper makes specific predictions about the type of knowledge contract that is most likely to address agency problems for eac...
Should Charitable Trust Enforcement Rights Be Assignable

In recent years, scholars have given much attention to the problem of charitable trust enforcement. Departing from the common law, section 405(c) of the Uniform Trust Code provides that “[t]he settlor of a charitable trust, among others, may maintain a proceeding to enforce the trust.” This Article addresses the question of whether, and to what extent, a settlor’s right to enforce a charitable trust should be assignable to third parties. Should the law permit the settlor of a charitable trust to assign her enforcement rights after the creation of the trust, or should assignments be recognized only if they are spelled out in the trust instrument? How many potential assignees may the settlor properly select? Once the right has been assigned to a third party, should that third party also retain the right of assignment, so that the right can potentially be passed from one individual to the next in perpetuity? What would be the ramifications of granting a right of assignment to the settlor’s personal representative? Any resolution of these issues must protect the interests of charitable beneficiaries, but also be fair to trustees and not overwhelm the courts with frivolous litigation.
Financial Constraints Risk

We construct an index of firms’ external finance constraints via generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation of an investment Euler equation. Unlike the commonly used KZ index, ours is consistent with firm characteristics associated with external finance constraints. Constrained firms’ returns move together, suggesting the existence of a financial constraints factor. This factor earns a positive but insignificant average return. Much of the variation in this factor cannot be explained by the Fama–French and momentum factors. Cross-sectional regressions of returns on our index and other firm characteristics show that constrained firms earn higher returns and that the financial-constraints effect dominates the size effect. We explore the impact of firms’ external finance constraints on their stock returns. Motivation for this inquiry starts with a large body of microeconometric studies that have provided some evidence of an impact of external finance constraints on investment. For example, Whited (1992), Bond and Meghir (1994), and Love (2003) show that augmentations of an investment Euler equation that account for financial constraints improve its fit. The question remains whether these effects are priced in asset markets. In other words, do financial constraints affect asset returns; and if so, is this risk diversifiable? To tackle this question, we construct an index of financial constraints based on a standard intertemporal investment model augmented to account for financial frictions. The model predicts that external finance constraints affect the intertemporal substitution of investment today for investment tomorrow via the shadow value of scarce external funds. This shadow value in turn depends on observable variables. Generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation of the model provides fitted values of the shadow value, which we then use as our index. The most important advantage of this approach is its avoidance of serious sample selection, simultaneity, and measurement-error problems via structural
How do differing standards increase trade costs? The case of pallets

The pallet is a platform used for storing, handling, and transporting products. There are hundreds of different pallet sizes around the world. The case of pallets is examined to illustrate the impact of multiplicity of standards on trade costs. We select this case because pallets are used all around the world, pallet standards are not too sophisticated, and data on the impact of pallet standards are to some extent available. The paper examines why there are so many different pallet sizes, the associated trade costs and the reasons why countries have not harmonized pallet sizes to eliminate such costs. It then presents options for exporters to mitigate the adverse effects of standards multiplicity while complying with destination markets' standard requirements. The range of options is limited in the case of exporters from less developed countries because of the lack of rental and exchange pallet markets. To mitigate the costs of this multiplicity of standards, the World Bank's strategy should be divided in two directions: to develop awareness of costs related to the multiplicity of standards and to support actively harmonization at the global level (within International Organization for Standardization) and at the regional level (within regional cooperation agreements).
The Constitutional Law of Agenda Control

Constitutional scholarship is preoccupied with questions of how state power should be constrained. The Constitution, however, not only sets bounds to state action, it also structures the range of policy options and the rules for making legally effective choices. This Article analyzes the ensuing constitutional law of agenda control, focusing on the distribution of such powers between the three federal branches. This analysis generates two central claims. First, the Framers incorporated an array of heterogeneous agenda control devices across the three branches in order to calibrate intragovernmental relations. These make up a hitherto ignored constitutional law of agenda control. Second, a surprising number of these constitutional agenda-setting rules have been ignored or even circumvented. Political actors have tended to negotiate alternate distributions of agenda control power at odds with the original constitutional design. While the ensuing transformation of the constitutional processes for governance has ambiguous distributive consequences, there is reason to treat the historical transformation of constitutional agenda control as on balance a desirable development. * Professor of law, University of Chicago Law School. Thanks to Kent Barnett, Saul Levmore, and Nick Stephanopoulos for helpful conversations and comments. All errors are mine alone.
Galactic chemical evolution and the oxygen isotopic composition of the solar system

We review current observational and theoretical constraints on the galactic chemical evolution (GCE) of oxygen isotopes to explore whether GCE plays a role in explaining the lower 17 O ⁄ 18 O ratio of the Sun, relative to the present-day interstellar medium, or the existence of distinct 16 O-rich and 16 O-poor reservoirs in the solar system. Although the production of both 17 O and 18 O are related to the metallicity of progenitor stars, 17 O is most likely produced in stars that evolve on longer timescales than those that produce 18 O. Therefore, the 17 O ⁄ 18 O ratio need not have remained constant over time, contrary to preconceptions and the simplest models of GCE. An apparent linear, slope-one correlation between d 17 O and d 18 O in the ISM need not necessarily reflect an O isotopic gradient, and any slope-one galactocentric gradient need not correspond to evolution in time. Instead, increasing 17 O ⁄ 18 O is consistent both with observational data from molecular clouds and with modeling of the compositions of presolar grains. Models in which the rate of star formation has decelerated over the past few Gyr or in which an enhanced period of star formation occurred shortly before solar birth (''starburst'') can explain the solar-ISM O-isotopic difference without requiring a local input of supernova ejecta into the protosolar cloud. ''Cosmic chemical memory'' models in which interstellar dust is on average older than interstellar gas predict that primordial solar system solids should be 16 O-rich, relative to the Sun, in conflict with observations. However, scenarios can be constructed in which the 16 O- rich contribution of very massive stars could lead to 16 O-poor solids and a 16 O-rich bulk Sun, if the solar system formed shortly after a starburst, independent of the popular scenario of photochemical self-shielding of CO.
Optical and infrared light curves of the eclipsing X-ray binary V395 Car = 2S 0921−630

We present results of optical and infrared photometric monitoring of the eclipsing low-mass X-ray binary V395 Car (2S 0921−630). Our observations reveal a clear, repeating orbital modulation with an amplitude of about 1 mag in B and V, and a little less in J. Combining our data with archival observations spanning about 20 years, we derive an updated ephemeris with orbital period 9.0026 ± 0.0001 d. We attribute the modulation to a combination of the changing aspect of the irradiated face of the companion star and eclipses of the accretion disc around the neutron star. Both appear to be necessary as a secondary eclipse of the companion star is clearly seen. We model the B, V and J light curves using a simple model of an accretion disc and companion star and find a good fit is possible for binary inclinations of 82.°2 ± 1.°0. We estimate the irradiating luminosity to be about 8 × 10 35 erg s −1 , in good agreement with X-ray constraints.
On Cosmopolitan Self-Determination

In order to arrive at an adequate understanding of the changing Westphalian world, it is necessary to distinguish political self-determination from its cosmopolitan counterpart. While political self-determination has its place in a familiar and common space, cosmopolitan self-determination stands for unbounded collective self-determination among strangers. Two forms can be distinguished. In its mixed form, it is tied in with political self-determination, adopting the latter as a medium for realizing common autonomy among those who are foreign to one another. Virtual representation is essential to understanding how cosmopolitans are connected to bounded political spaces. In its pure form, by contrast, cosmopolitan self-determination detaches itself from political judgement and finds its major role in authorizing risk management and crisis intervention. It lends expression to the impoverishment suffered by collective freedom in an administered world. Any calibration of the relationship between political and cosmopolitan self-determination must examine the general social conditions enabling an autonomous life.
Special-interest groups and growth

This paper explores empirically the relation between special-interest groups and economic growth. Our analysis exploits new data on the number of groups observed across countries and time, in order to mitigate the identification problems associated with earlier studies. Also in contrast to earlier work, we examine the impact of groups on two sources of growth—capital accumulation and technological change—in addition to the impact of groups on output growth. The findings are consistent with Olson’s (The rise and decline of nations: the political economy of economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities. New Haven, Yale, 1982) claim that societies with greater numbers of interest groups grow slower, accumulate less capital, and experience reduced productivity growth relative to others.
Conservation Easements: Design Flaws, Enforcement Challenges, and Reform

The conservation easement is exceptional. As a property right, it is a creature of modern invention, a curiosity not recognized at common law. Initially, courts were reluctant to validate this negative, in-gross easement. It hinders alienability, may be perpetual, and is owned in absentia, not appurtenant to the restricted land. In part for these reasons, the Uniform Conservation Easement Act was needed to rescue the conservation easement from an uncertain future and give it legitimacy. Still, the conservation easement might have been merely a limited development in the law of real property but for the federal income tax laws.
Does Market Liberalisation Reduce Gender Discrimination? Econometric Evidence from Hungary, 1986—1998

Abstract An alleged achievement of socialism was gender equality in the labour market. Has its collapse shattered this accomplishment? The theoretical literature and attendant empirical evidence are inconclusive. Using data for 2.9 million wage earners in Hungary, we find that the male–female difference in log wages declined from 0.31 to 0.19 between 1986 and 1998 and that this is largely explained by a matching decline in “Oaxaca's discrimination,” suggesting extraordinary improvement of women's relative situation. Further, we find that variation over time in the wage gaps is associated with public and large firms having progressively smaller gaps than their counterparts.
An Examination of Long‐Lived Asset Impairments

Prior research reveals that write‐offs of long‐lived assets are both large in magnitude and frequent in occurrence. Responding to calls for enhanced reporting of these items, the FASB issued SFAS No. 121, Accounting for the Impairment of Long‐Lived Assets. However, its effect on the characteristics of reported write‐offs remains unclear, as implementation requires inherently subjective estimates. Further, critics (including dissenting FASB board members and the SEC) question the standard's guidance. Motivated in part by this debate, this paper contrasts the characteristics of write‐offs reported prior versus subsequent to the issuance of SFAS No. 121. Empirical results reveal that economic factors have a weaker association with write‐offs reported after SFAS No. 121. This is consistent across macro, industry, and firm‐specific variables. Results also indicate a higher association between write‐offs and “big bath” reporting behavior after the standard's implementation, and that this “big bath” behavior mor...
The Impact of Post-9/11 Visa Policies on Travel to the United States

Abstract American and foreign businesses, politicians, and media have all pointed to post-9/11 changes in visa policies as being responsible for the sharp decline in travel to the United States following the attacks. Using an empirical model which distinguishes the impact of visa policy from economic and country-specific factors, we find that changes in visa policy were not important contributors to the decrease in travel to the United States. Rather, the reduction in entries was largest among travelers who were not required to obtain a visa.
PRICING COVARIANCE SWAPS FOR BARNDORFF–NIELSEN AND SHEPHARD PROCESS DRIVEN FINANCIAL MARKETS

The objective of this paper is to study the arbitrage free pricing of the covariance swap for Barndorff–Nielsen and Shephard (BN–S) type Levy process driven financial markets. One of the major challenges in arbitrage free pricing of swap is to obtain an accurate pricing expression which can be used with good computational accuracy. In this paper, we obtain analytic expressions for the pricing of the covariance swap. We show that with the analytic expressions obtained from the BN–S model, the error estimation in fitting the delivery price is much less than the existing models with comparable parameters. The models and pricing formulas proposed in this paper are computable in real time and hence can be efficiently used in practical applications.
Employer-provided health insurance and job mobility: Did the affordable care act reduce job lock?

Many have argued that concerns over health insurance reduce labor market mobility in the United States, causing a “job lock” effect. We take advantage of the novel natural experiment created by the Affordable Care Act's dependent coverage mandate to estimate the magnitude of the job lock effect for young adults. Using the 2008–2013 Current Population Survey and a difference-in-difference research design, we find that the expansion of dependent coverage did not increase job mobility, suggesting that job lock is not a major concern for young adults. (JEL J62, I13, I18)
Mediator Tactics and Sources of Conflict: Facilitating and Inhibiting Effects

Sometimes mismatches between tactics used by mediators and causes of the dispute may reduce the likelihood of achieving a settlement. Data from collective-bargaining disputes suggest that when party inflexibility was a source of the dispute, added mediator pressure increased the likelihood of a settlement, but discussing alternatives reduced the likelihood of a settlement. However, mediation success improved in cases where there is a high level of interparty hostility and mediators focused on negotiation processes.
How would information disclosure influence organizations’ outbound spam volume? Evidence from a field experiment

Cyber-insecurity is a serious threat in the digital world. In the present paper, we argue that a suboptimal cybersecurity environment is partly due to organizations’ underinvestment and a lack of suitable policies. The motivation for this paper stems from a related policy question: how to design policies for governments and other organizations that can ensure a sufficient level of cybersecurity. We address the question by exploring a policy devised to alleviate information asymmetry and to achieve transparency in cybersecurity information sharing practice. We introduce a cybersecurity evaluation agency along with regulations on information disclosure. To empirically evaluate the effectiveness of such an institution, we conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment on 7,919 U.S. organizations. Specifically, we generate organizations’ security reports based on their outbound spam relative to the industry peers, then share the reports with the subjects in either private or public ways. Using models for heterogeneous treatment effects and machine learning techniques, we find evidence that the security information sharing combined with publicity treatment has significant effects on spam reduction for original large spammers. Moreover, significant peer effects are observed among industry peers after the experiment.
Crime and punishment again: The economic approach with a psychological twist

Abstract Akerlof and Dickens (1982) suggested that in a model of criminal behavior which considered the effects of cognitive dissonance, increasing the severity of punishment could increase the crime rate. This paper demonstrates that that conjecture was correct. With cognitive dissonance, people may have to rationalize not committing crimes under normal circumstances if punishment is not severe. The rationalization may lead them to underestimate the expected utility of committing crimes when opportunities present themselves. If punishment is severe, then rationalization may not be necessary and people may be more likely to commit crimes when opportunities arise.
Morality rebooted: Exploring simple fixes to our moral bugs

Abstract Ethics research developed partly in response to calls from organizations to understand and solve unethical behavior. We examine two approaches to mitigating unethical behavior: (1) values-oriented approaches that broadly appeal to individuals’ preferences to be more moral, and (2) structure-oriented approaches that redesign specific incentives, tasks, and decisions to reduce temptations to cheat in the environment. This paper explores how these approaches can change behavior. We argue that integrating both approaches while avoiding incompatible strategies can reduce the risk of adverse effects that arise from taking a single approach and leverage the strengths of both approaches.
Implicit Attitude Measures

Owing to concerns about the willingness and ability of people to report their attitudes accurately in response to direct inquiries, psychologists have developed a number of unobtrusive, or implicit, measures of attitudes. The most popular contemporary implicit measures equate spontaneous responses to stimuli with attitudes about those stimuli. Although these measures have been used to open important new lines of inquiry, they suffer from reliability and construct validity problems and administration limitations. Researchers conducting basic research on attitudes may fruitfully utilize implicit measures as part of a multipronged measurement strategy, but researchers seeking to predict behavior from attitudes should continue to rely on explicit measures of attitudes, taking care to minimize reactive bias and to formulate the attitude questions at the same level of specificity as the behavior to be predicted. Keywords: attitudes; implicit measures; unobtrusive measures; Implicit Association Test; evaluative priming; affect misattribution procedure; reactive bias; social desirability bias; limits of introspection; attitude-behavior relations
"Money Is a Sterile Thing": Martin Luther on the Immorality of Usury Reconsidered

In the history of economic thought, Martin Luther is frequently identified with medieval Scholastic doctrine. His belief that “money is sterile” is offered in support of this assessment. However, this obscures the fact that Luther rarely invokes this line of reasoning in his writings on usury and that his argument for its immorality is not dependent upon the proposition. These facts, which differentiate Luther from the Scholastic writers, are consistent with his opposition to Aristotelian natural philosophy and the influence of nominalism on his thought. In order to establish the immorality of the census contract, condoned by the German Scholastic theologians, Luther reconstitutes the argument. The unappreciated significance of Luther's thought is therefore twofold: (1) there exists a burgeoning degree of independence between the positive analysis of usury and the reasons for its immorality; and (2) individual conscience and personal interpretation are left the arbiters in determining ethical practice.
Measures of globalization based on cross-correlations of world financial indices

Abstract The cross-correlation matrix of daily returns of stock market indices in a diverse set of 37 countries worldwide was analyzed. Comparison of the spectrum of this matrix with predictions of random matrix theory provides an empirical evidence of strong interactions between individual economies, as manifested by three largest eigenvalues and the corresponding set of stable, non-random eigenvectors. The observed correlation structure is robust with respect to changes in the time horizon of returns ranging from 1 to 10 trading days, and to replacing individual returns with just their signs. This last observation confirms that it is correlations between signs and not absolute values of fluctuations, which are mostly responsible for the observed effect. Negative changes in the index are somewhat more correlated than the positive ones. Also, in our data set the reaction of Asian stock indices to changes in European and American ones persists for about 3 days.
To Be White, Black, or Brown? South Asian Americans and the Race-Color Distinction

People often use race and color terminology interchangeably in common parlance. Within the United States, color terminology often dominates racial discourse due to common use of color-based racial designations such as “Black” and “White.” Color is thus often used as a synonym for race, but while the two do overlap, color is also distinct from race as colorism is from racism.The relationship between race and color is complex: the two are intertwined, and it can be difficult to tease apart. However, one group that illuminates the distinction between the two is South Asian Americans — peoples in the United States whose ancestry derives from the Indian subcontinent. South Asian Americans are a group that does not fit neatly within the dominant racial categories of Black and White and have a racially ambiguous identity within the United States. Because South Asian Americans have been classified in various racial categories and vary significantly in skin tone, their experiences can uniquely relay how race is related to color. Part I of this article examines the relationship between race and color more generally, and asserts that skin color is the primary physical feature associated with race. Part II analyzes the role of skin color in the characterization of South Asian Americans as “White.” Part III considers skin color in relation to the characterization of South Asian Americans as “Black.” Similar to Whiteness, this Part concludes that, while skin color can play a role in characterizations of South Asian Americans as Black, other factors are more significant. Part IV considers other color and race-linked identities attributed to South Asian Americans–including “Brown.” This Part illustrates that, for all of these identities, there are facets that are much more significant than skin color. Finally, the Conclusion discusses implications of the above for understanding race and racism, and also colorism — one of the important aims of the Global Perspectives on Colorism conference.
The use of encompassing tests for forecast combinations

This paper proposes an algorithm that uses forecast encompassing tests for combining forecasts when there are a large number of forecasts that might enter the combination. The algorithm excludes a forecast from the combination if it is encompassed by another forecast. To assess the usefulness of this approach, an extensive empirical analysis is undertaken using a US macroeconomic dataset. The results are encouraging; the algorithm forecasts outperform benchmark model forecasts, in a mean square error (MSE) sense, in a majority of cases. The paper also compares the empirical performance of different approaches to forecast combination, and provides a rule-of-thumb cut-off point for the thick-modeling approach. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Costly Voluntary Disclosure with Negative Expected Value Suits

A standard result in the litigation literature is that the informed party will not make a costly voluntary disclosure in a screening game. We develop a screening game in which an uninformed plaintiff makes an offer to an informed defendant. Under the American rule for the allocation of trial costs, we find that the defendant will make a costly voluntary disclosure if he can demonstrate to the plaintiff that she has a negative expected value suit. By doing so, the defendant can induce the plaintiff to drop the lawsuit. This assumes that the cost of a voluntary disclosure is less than the cost of a full trial to the defendant. As a result of the information disclosure, the model will never exhibit the type of constrained equilibrium described by Nalebuff (1987, “Credible Pretrial Negotiation,” 18 RAND Journal of Economics 198–210).
Financial Constraints, R&D Investment, and Stock Returns

Through the interaction between financial constraints and R&D, I study two asset-pricing puzzles: mixed evidence on the financial constraints--return relation and the positive R&D-return relation. Unlike capital investment, R&D is more inflexible. A financially constrained R&D-intensive firm is more likely to suspend/discontinue R&D projects. Therefore, R&D-intensive firms' risk increases with their financial constraints. Conversely, constrained firms' risk increases with their R&D intensity. I find a robust empirical relation between financial constraints and stock returns, primarily among R&D-intensive firms. Moreover, R&D predicts returns only among financially constrained firms. This evidence suggests that financial constraints potentially drive the positive R&D-return relation. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.
GHG Targets as Insurance Against Catastrophic Climate Damages

A critical issue in climate change economics is the specification of the so-called “damages function” and its interaction with the unknown uncertainty of catastrophic outcomes. This paper asks how much we might be misled by our economic assessment of climate change when we employ a conventional quadratic damages function and/or a thin-tailed probability distribution for extreme temperatures. The paper gives some numerical examples of the indirect value of various greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration targets as insurance against catastrophic climate change temperatures and damages. These numerical exercises suggest that we might be underestimating considerably the welfare losses from uncertainty by using a quadratic damages function and/or a thin-tailed temperature distribution. In these examples, the primary reason for keeping GHG levels down is to insure against high-temperature catastrophic climate risks.
Density of Gabor Systems Via the Short Time Fourier Transform

We apply a new approach to the study of the density of Gabor systems, and obtain a simple and straightforward proof to Ramanathan and Steger’s well-known result regarding the density of Gabor frames and Gabor Riesz sequences. Moreover, this point of view allows us to extend this result in several directions. The approach we use was first observed by Olevskii and the third author in their study of exponential systems, here we develop and simplify it further.
How the Filed Rate Doctrine Wreaks Havoc with Energy Market Development and Policy … And What Courts Can Do about It

As we implement competition policy for electric power markets, judicial enforcement of remedies for market abuses based on violations of antitrust, tort, and contract law can play an important role in protecting public welfare. To the extent the filed rate doctrine privileges private choice over assessment of the public interest in choosing the mechanism for enforcement, courts should refuse to apply it automatically to preclude judicial enforcement.
Massachusetts in the Federal Courts: The Constitutionality of the Vietnam War

One of the most singular pieces of legislation in American constitutional history passed the Massachusetts legislature in 1970, and was signed into law. It provided that, except for an emergency, no inhabitant of Massachusetts inducted into or serving in the armed forces "shall be required to serve" abroad in an armed hostility that has not been declared a war by Congress under Article I, Section 8, clause 11 of the US Constitution. A conflict between state law and national policy was created. Tags: Constitutionality of Vietnam War, US Constitution Clause 11, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, Massachusetts
The Irrelevance of Sincerity: Deliberative Democracy in the Supreme Court

Insincerity is regarded as a roguish intruder in democratic discourse where people are expected to speak their minds freely yet with a measure of sincere concern for their fellow citizens. This general cultural response has found formal articulation in the prominent scholarly movement which in recent years has assembled under the heading of "deliberative democracy". Its advocates - who include a diverse mix of some of the most prominent law professors, philosophers and political theorists - argue that people should frame their justifications in terms of the common good or the public generally, and that such justifications, at least sometimes, should be sincere. Against such insistence on sincerity, I argue that sincerity is both logically and practically irrelevant in contributing to a meaningful realm of free speech that can help generate diverse options for an audience to consider in its search for provisional political "truths".
Persistence of dollarization after price stabilization

Credit contracts in developing countries are often denominated in foreign currencies, even after many of these economies succeeded in controlling inflation. This paper proposes a new interpretation of this apparent puzzle based on the demand for insurance against real shocks: the fact that devaluations occur more frequently in adverse states of the world provides a motive for holding dollar assets. This approach implies a complementarity between the optimal monetary policy and the currency denomination of contracts. When a large proportion of liabilities is denominated in a foreign currency, the optimal exchange rate volatility is low, which reinforces the demand for dollar assets.
Use of a Markov decision process model for treatment selection in an asymptomatic disease with consideration of risk sensitivity

Abstract Some potentially dangerous diseases are completely asymptomatic. Their diagnosis as incidental findings of ever-more-sensitive medical imaging can leave patients and physicians in something of a quandary. The patient feels well, and potential interventions to stave off long-term deterioration or death bring with them immediate risks. We discuss the use of a Markov Decision Process (MDP) model (rather than Monte Carlo simulation of a Markov Model) to create a tool for analyzing individual treatment decisions for asymptomatic chronic diseases where a patient’s condition cannot improve. We formulate a finite-horizon MDP model to determine optimal treatment plans and discuss three distinct optimality criteria: (a) maximizing expected quality-adjusted-life years with and without discounting, (b) maximizing the expected number of life years in good health, and (c) maximizing the expected utility for number of years in good health. In (c) we assume exponential utility and consider different risk aversion factors reported in the medical literature. We illustrate the model’s use by considering asymptomatic intracranial aneurysm. Our model builds on a simulation model [19] created to examine treatment recommendations based on cost-effectiveness. We demonstrate that incorporating risk aversion leads to “no treatment” recommendations for some types of aneurysm. Furthermore, the use of alternate patient-selected criteria leads to recommendations that vary from [19] in several scenarios. We also discuss the use of the software as a decision support tool to help make individualized treatment recommendations and demonstrate that the computational performance of the algorithm makes its use feasible during a short office visit.
Internal Capital Market and Dividend Policies: Evidence From Business Groups

We argue that internal capital market imperatives of business groups i.e., reallocation of capital across group firms, influences an affiliated firm's dividend policy. Intuition is developed in a model in which business group insiders distribute dividends from cash-rich firms and use their share of payout to invest in other affiliated firms. Employing multi-country panel-data, we find support for this channel: Dividends by a group firm are positively related with equity-financed investments by its affiliated firms. Results are corroborated by exploiting variation in a firm's investment opportunity generated by changes in import tariff policy: a shock to investment opportunity of an affiliated firm is propagated to dividend policies of other firms in its group.
Relation between Audit Effort and Financial Report Misstatements: Evidence from Quarterly and Annual Restatements

ABSTRACT : We identify two research design issues that explain the inconsistency between the theoretically predicted negative relation between audit effort and misstatements (measured using restatements) and empirical findings. First, auditor risk adjustment behavior induces an upward bias in the association between audit effort and restatements. Second, the theoretical prediction applies only to audited financial reports (i.e., annual reports) and not to unaudited reports (i.e., interim quarterly reports). Comingling restatements of audited with unaudited reports introduces an additional upward bias in the association between audit effort and restatements. After correcting for these two sources of bias, we find a robust negative association between audit effort and annual report restatements. JEL Classification: M49. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources.
Quantifying the benefits of new products: The case of the minivan

This paper proposes a technique for obtaining more precise estimates of demand and supply curves when one is constrained to market‐level data. The technique allows one to augment market share data with information relating consumer demographics to the characteristics of the products they purchase. This extra information plays the same role as consumer‐level data, allowing estimated substitution patterns and (thus) welfare to directly reflect demographic‐driven differences in tastes for observed characteristics. I apply the technique to the automobile market, estimating the economic effects of the introduction of the minivan. I show that models estimated without micro data yield much larger welfare numbers than the model using them, primarily because the micro data appear to free the model from a heavy dependence on the idiosyncratic logit “taste” error. I complete the welfare picture by measuring the extent of first‐mover advantage and profit cannibalization both initially by the innovator and later by th...
Sex Hormones and Competitive Bidding

We correlate competitive bidding and profits in symmetric independent private value first-price auctions with salivary testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, and cortisol in more than 200 subjects. Bids are significantly positively correlated and profits are significantly negatively correlated with basal salivary progesterone, but only for females who do not use hormonal contraceptives. Surprisingly, we have null findings for basal testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol for both males and females. We show that our finding for progesterone is not mediated by risk aversion or bidding mistakes. No hormone responds to total profits in the auctions except for a small positive response of the stress hormone cortisol in males. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1959 . This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.