cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Partial Interests in Recreational Property

Changing demographics, growing real incomes, and friendly tax laws underlie the continuing growth in demand for recreational real estate in the US. The market for recreational property has undergone a major transformation over the past decades, with the refinement and deepening of markets for partial property ownership vehicles. This paper represents the first to analyze the factors underlying the demand for partial ownership interests. It develops a theory of partial ownership demand that focuses on the roles of familiarity and location-specific human capital in mediating the consumption uncertainty associated with particular recreation locations. Using private data from a survey of partial ownership participants, the empirical analysis yields results consistent with the theory: factors associated with greater site-specific recreation price, like distance between the primary residence and the recreation site and frequency of visits per week, reduce the share of ownership demanded, while factors associated with lower consumption risk tend to increase the share of ownership demanded.
Two Theories of Habeas Corpus

Determining the Writ of Habeas Corpus's appropriate role in the American criminal justice system has taken on new import because of controversy over the detention of accused terrorists. Unfortunately, the changes in habeas doctrine throughout the last century have mystified commentators. Without an understanding of where the writ has been, the courts are ill-equipped to chart its future. This article presents two unexplored theories that advance our understanding of habeas law. The first - the judicial-power theory - questions the accepted view that habeas guards individual liberty and interprets the writ as a device that the U.S. Supreme Court uses to enforce its right to proclaim the law. This interpretation of the writ explains each expansion and contraction of the doctrine more effectively than any existing theory. Despite its explanatory power, the judicial-power theory, like all prior theories, is incomplete because it assumes that habeas doctrine evolves in response to changing social attitudes external to the legal system. The second theory presented here explores how the ideology surrounding habeas has influenced those attitudes and legal doctrine. Habeas corpus embodies contradictory ideologies. A powerful liberty-supporting ideology has long helped to enable reformers to conceive of, and opponents to accept, new possibilities for expanding the rights of the accused. A counter-habeas ideology, however, sees the writ as a dangerous get-out-of-jail-free card that wrongly rewards those who deserve punishment. Ironically, this counter-habeas ideology has also advanced liberty interests by focusing law-enforcement-oriented attacks on the writ itself rather than on the substance of criminal procedure rights.
GoTaxMe: Crowdfunding and Gifts

In 2018, Peter Strzok was fired from the FBI, based on text messages that he sent denigrating President Trump. A week later, a group set up a GoFundMe page soliciting funds to help with his “legal costs” and to replace his “lost income.” As of early September, that fund had raised over $450,000. GoFundMe states on its website that donations made are usually considered to be “private gifts” and not taxable to the recipient. Using Strzok’s campaign as an example, this Article will discuss the current standards for determining whether a transfer qualifies as a nontaxable gift and the policy rationale for the exclusion of gifts. The Article argues that, contrary to the common conception of what qualifies as a gift for tax purposes, there are some circumstances in which the intention of the transferor should not control the characterization. Instead, in those circumstances, the role of the transferee should control. The Article concludes that GoFundMe’s positon is incorrect and funds collected using GoFundMe (and other crowdfunding websites) should be treated as income to the recipient.
On the (Fleeting) Existence of the Main Bank System and Other Japanese Economic Institutions

IntroductionIn the accompanying essay, Professors Miwa and Ramseyer (M&R) useeconomist Masahiko Aoki’s book as a springboard to argue, creatively and provocatively,that most of the comparative corporate governance academy has been chasing a myth.The myth, which M&R attribute largely to Aoki’s vast and influential scholarship, is theexistence of the “main bank system” and the related institutions of lifetime employmentand keiretsu groups that have figured prominently in academic and professional thinkingabout corporate Japan.M&R will never be accused of pursuing a timid research agenda. They mighthave limited their ambitions to showing that Japanese economic institutions are illdefined or aggrandized in popular and professional usage, or that these institutions haveceased to function as they did in their heyday. But others have trodden this path.
Adoption of New Technology

The contribution of new technology to economic growth can only be realized when and if the new technology is widely diffused and used. Diffusion itself results from a series of individual decisions to begin using the new technology, decisions which are often the result of a comparison of the uncertain benefits of the new invention with the uncertain costs of adopting it. An understanding of the factors affecting this choice is essential both for economists studying the determinants of growth and for the creators and producers of such technologies. Section II of this article discusses the modeling of diffusion and Sections III to V explore the determinants of diffusion and the evidence for their importance.
PRICING DERIVATIVES ON MULTISCALE DIFFUSIONS: AN EIGENFUNCTION EXPANSION APPROACH

Using tools from spectral analysis, singular and regular perturbation theory, we develop a systematic method for analytically computing the approximate price of a large class of derivative-assets. The payoff of the derivative-assets may be path-dependent. In addition, the process underlying the derivatives may exhibit killing (i.e., jump to default) as well as combined local/nonlocal stochastic volatility. The nonlocal component of volatility may be multiscale, in the sense that it may be driven by one fast-varying and one slow-varying factor. The flexibility of our modeling framework is contrasted by the simplicity of our method. We reduce the derivative pricing problem to that of solving a single eigenvalue equation. Once the eigenvalue equation is solved, the approximate price of a derivative can be calculated formulaically. To illustrate our method, we calculate the approximate price of three derivative-assets: a vanilla option on a defaultable stock, a path-dependent option on a nondefaultable stock, and a bond in a short-rate model.
X-Ray Polarimetry: Historical Remarks and Other Considerations

We briefly discuss the history of X-ray polarimetry for astronomical applications including a guide to the appropriate statistics. We also provide an introduction to some of the new techniques discussed in more detail elsewhere in these proceedings. We conclude our discussion with our concerns over adequate ground calibration, especially with respect to unpolarized beams, and at the system level.
Why the Pakistan army is here to stay: prospects for civilian governance

This article explores the prospects for civilian governance over Pakistan's military in the policy-relevant future. After reviewing the Pakistan army's past interference in the country's judicial and political affairs, it turns to the ongoing political maneuvering of the current Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, despite Pakistan's ostensible democratic dispensation. The article dilates on the impact of US engagement on the robustness of the Pakistan army's dominance and questions the newfound US commitment to promoting democratization and civilian control. The article argues that while conventional wisdom places the onus disproportionately upon the military's penchant for interventionism, the army has intervened only with the active assistance of civilian institutions, which are subsequently further eroded with every military takeover. It concludes with a consideration of whether or not genuine civilian control would result in a significant change in Pakistan's foreign and domestic policies, particularly Pakistan's well-known utilization of Islamist militants in India and Afghanistan.
Digesting Anomalies: An Investment Approach

An empirical q-factor model consisting of the market factor, a size factor, an investment factor, and a profitability factor largely summarizes the cross section of average stock returns. A comprehensive examination of nearly 80 anomalies reveals that about one-half of the anomalies are insignificant in the broad cross section. More importantly, with a few exceptions, the q-factor model's performance is at least comparable to, and in many cases better than that of the Fama-French (1993) 3-factor model and the Carhart (1997) 4-factor model in capturing the remaining significant anomalies.
Probability and Mode of Acquisition Effects on Choices Between Hedonic and Utilitarian Options

We examine the effects of probability and mode of acquisition on choices between hedonic and utilitarian alternatives. The results suggest that the lower the probability of receiving the selected item, the more likely individuals will be to choose the more hedonic alternative in a choice set. Mode of acquisition (i.e., whether subjects are choosing in a windfall or a standard purchase situation) is also found to affect preferences, even when probability of acquisition is held constant. Hedonic options appear to be more popular as prizes than as purchases, whereas utilitarian options appear to be more popular as purchases than as prizes.
Performance Perceptions of Organizational Citizenship Behaviours at Work: a Bi-Level Study among Managers and Employees

Organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) are ‘extra-role’, work-directed actions theorized to contribute to organizational effectiveness. However, the link between OCB and performance is not firmly based on empirical study. First, we argue that managers and employees may have different perceptions of OCB. The level of OCB will be perceived to be higher by managers than by employees. Second, we suggest that ‘best’ performing employees will have higher levels of OCB, and a stronger OCB– performance linkage than ‘worst’ performers. Using a sample of unionized workers and their managers, we investigated perceptions of OCB and the magnitude of OCB performance relationships from two hierarchical levels: managers and employees. ‘Best’ performing employees scored higher on OCB, and had a stronger OCB–performance linkage than the ‘worst’ performing group for helping-type OCBs. Managers scored employees lower on OCB than employees scored their peers. In addition, managers perceived a stronger OCB–performance link than employee respondents. The results provide new and pragmatic implications of the OCB construct, including managerial clarification of ‘extra’ versus expected behaviours, review of job descriptions, moving valuable OCBs from ‘extra-role’ to expected, and enhancing OCB by providing rewards. We suggest further causal studies to determine the specific contributions of various OCBs, identification and management of workplace antecedents of OCB, and determination of the reasons for the bi-level differences in perceptions. Organizations comprise individuals whose behaviours range from the minimalists, who contribute the least possible to maintain membership, to others who go the ‘extra mile’, discretionarily engaging in extra-role behaviours advantageous to the organization. These ‘extra’ work-related behaviours, which are beyond those prescribed by job descriptions and measured by formal evaluations, are named organizational citizenship behaviours, or OCB (Bateman and Organ, 1983). Because OCBs are ‘extra’ and beyond the requirements that are specified in advance for a particular job (Bateman and Organ, 1983), they
The impact of patent rights on international trade: evidence from Canada

The extent to which Canadian manufacturing exports are sensitive to national differences in patent rights are examined. The conclusion is that, overall, Canadians tend to export more to those countries where their patent rights are highly safeguarded. Stronger patent protection induces Canadians to export relatively more to high-income countries than to low-income countries. In addition, the effect of stronger patent rights is to increase exports to those countries that pose a strong threat of imitation and to reduce exports to those countries that pose the weakest threat of imitation. JEL Classification: F13; O34 Impact de la propriete des brevets sur le commerce international: resultats pour le Canada. Ce memoire examine jusqu’a quel point les exportations manufacturieres canadiennes sont sensibles aux differences dans la propriete des brevets entre pays. L’etude conclut que les Canadiens tendent a exporter davantage vers les pays ou la propriete des brevets est hautement protegee.Il appert que la plus forte protection de la propriete des brevets tend a faire que les Canadiens exportent relativement plus vers les pays a hauts revenus que vers ceux a plus faibles revenus. De plus, il appert que l’effet de la plus forte protection des brevets est d’accroitre les exportations vers les pays qui posent une forte menace d’imitation et de reduire les exportations vers les pays qui posent la plus faible menace d’imitation.
A short survey on switching costs and dynamic competition

Abstract When consumers have switching costs of changing the product that they purchase from period to period firms may compete aggressively to attract them, to potentially take advantage of the consumers' future inertia. Similarly, consumers may foresee that they may be held up, and adjust their choices. This paper considers these market forces in the literature on switching costs, while focusing on the effects of (1) firms being forward-looking, (2) consumers being forward-looking, (3) degree of stability of consumer preferences, and (4) market time horizon.
Inside Debt and the Design of Corporate Debt Contracts

Theory posits that managerial holdings of debt “inside debt” align managers' incentives with those of outside debtholders. Executive pensions, consisting of rank-and-file RAF plans and supplemental executive retirement plans SERPs, and other deferred compensation ODC have debt-like payoffs, and could therefore function as inside debt. However, whereas SERPs are often unfunded and unsecured, RAF plans are funded and secured to some extent, and ODC may be invested in equity and withdrawn flexibly before retirement. Special arrangements in executive debt-like compensation could hence weaken or even nullify any incentive-alignment effect. We find that higher CEO debt-like compensation leads to lower promised yield and fewer covenants in a sample of loans originated in 2006--2008. This effect is driven entirely by benefits accrued under SERPs, consistent with SERPs more closely resembling risky corporate debt; balances accrued under RAF and ODC plans do not provide similar effects. Furthermore, promised yields are lower when debt-like compensation claims can be withdrawn only after outside debt claims are expected to settle. Our findings persist after accounting for endogeneity using state personal income tax rates as an instrument for CEOs' willingness to defer compensation. Overall, the evidence suggests that executive debt-like compensation is only effective at resolving stockholder--debtholder conflicts when its payoffs are truly debt-like and that lenders' perceptions are affected not only by the magnitude of debt-like compensation but also by its seniority. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1813 . This paper was accepted by Wei Jiang, finance.
Triage in the Trenches of the Legal Writing Course: The Theory and Methodology of Analytical Critique

Providing feedback to written work is one of the most important and challenging aspects of teaching legal writing. Legal writing professors spend a great deal of time and energy critiquing and grading student work. However, few legal writing professionals begin teaching with any formal training on providing feedback to novice legal writers. Fortunately, giving useful comments on student writing is a skill that can be learned. To begin, teachers must learn to prioritize feedback on the most important analytical problems on draft assignments. Focusing on analytical deficiencies helps students understand that substantive problems must be corrected before writing and stylistic problems can be effectively addressed. The best way to become proficient at prioritizing feedback is to understand the theory of analytical critique and consider a variety of critiquing methods.This article explores the theory of analytical critique and provides concrete suggestions on how to put the theory into practice when giving feedback on student writing. After discussing the theory and methodology of analytical critique, the article provides a hand-on, workshop-type experience. The article includes a complete student assignment to illustrate the techniques necessary to comment on analytical problems in novice legal writing. The assignment includes client facts, the relevant authority and a student draft memorandum analyzing the legal issues. The article closes with a thorough explanation of sample feedback to the draft memorandum to illustrate the theoretical ideas and critiquing methods discussed in the article.
Government Data Mining: The Need for a Legal Framework

The United States government has long sought data about individuals for a wide variety of important public purposes. The process of collecting this information was often time-consuming and expensive and resulted in data that were difficult to use because of the form in which they were captured. The Supreme Court described the effect as “practical obscurity.”1 Much of the “privacy” Americans have enjoyed results from the fact that it was simply too expensive or laborious to find out intimate data about them. In the twenty-first century, technology and law have combined to erode the protection for personal privacy previously afforded by practical obscurity. Advances in digital technologies have greatly expanded the volume of personal data created as individuals engage in everyday activities. “Today, our biographies are etched in the ones and zeros we leave behind in daily digital transactions,”2 Professor Kathleen Sullivan has written. Moreover, technology has contributed to an explosion not only in the ubiquity of data, but also in the range of parties with physical access to those data and in the practical and economic ability of those parties to collect, store, share, and use those digital footprints. At the same time, the Supreme Court has refused to extend the Fourth Amendment to restrict the government’s access to data held by third parties. In the 1976 decision United States v. Miller, the Court held that because there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in information held by a
Physical and Electronic Wholesale Markets: An Empirical Analysis of Product Sorting and Market Function

Markets can yield significant economic benefits by improving transaction efficiency, but effective design is necessary to achieve these benefits. We compare a physical market to a discrete electronic market in the wholesale used vehicle industry to evaluate how their different designs work for different types of transactions. We find that buyers and sellers balance adverse selection costs and other transaction costs when using the two markets, with the physical market serving as the general exchange and the electronic market serving as a spot market for vehicles with low adverse selection risk. These findings increase our understanding of how sellers and buyers distribute supply and demand between physical and electronic markets in industries in which they coexist. They also increase our understanding of how information technology can improve market function in wholesale environments.
The effects of protected area systems on ecosystem restoration: a quasi‐experimental design to estimate the impact of Costa Rica's protected area system on forest regrowth

Global efforts to protect forest biodiversity and ecosystem services rely heavily on protected areas. Although these areas primarily aim to prevent losses from deforestation and degradation, they can also contribute to restoration. Previous evaluations of protected area impacts focus on avoided deforestation and fires. In contrast, we focus on the additional regrowth induced by Costa Rica's renowned system of parks and reserves. We use a quasi-experimental empirical design to control for confounding baseline characteristics that affect both regrowth and the assignment of protection. Between 1960 and 1997, an estimated 13.5% of previously unforested lands inside protected areas reforested because they were afforded protection. The level of additional regrowth does not vary by the strictness of protection. As in previous studies of protected area impacts on avoided deforestation, estimators that do not account for nonrandom assignment of protection can overstate protected areas’ impacts on regrowth by nearly double.
Politicizing the End of Life: Lessons from the Schiavo Controversy

The case of Theresa Marie Schiavo raises challenging legal and ethical issues, although the events of the case are not entirely novel. It is a well-settled principle under Florida law that individuals have a right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. After years of litigation, numerous courts have confirmed that removal of life support is legally appropriate under the facts of this case. Nevertheless, six days after Theresa's feeding tube was removed, the Florida legislature opted to intervene in the final judicial decision by granting the Governor the authority to overrule the court's decision and to order the tube reinserted. These actions violate numerous Florida constitutional provisions, including the requirement of separation of powers, the provision guaranteeing individuals a right of privacy, and the due process clause. Apart from the legal issues, the ethical implications of such interventions present a frightening prospect for the future of patient autonomy. This is not the first time that a government has interfered in a dispute over end-of-life care, and it will not be the last. In view of this reality, it is essential that individual choice remain the touchstone in end-of-life decision-making, and that courts, legislatures, and individuals do everything possible to prevent this very precious choice from being held hostage to the vicissitudes of political or moral change. In politics, an absurdity is not a handicap. -Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
Robo‐advisors and the growth of index‐fund governance

The votes that come with equities barely figure in retail investment decisions, especially the decisions aided by robo‐advisors. This low profile is consistent with the tiny effect a retail investor's votes would have, if she took them seriously. But despite this disinterest in voting implications, or possibly because of it, recent trends in retail investment decisions are reshaping the corporate‐governance landscape by creating new and different blocks of voting power. In this paper I review the relevant trends and consider the implications for public corporations. Full Text Available Here: https://doi.org/10.1002/cfp2.1105
Generational Accounting and the Saving Rate Decline, 1960–2000

Government agencies in 26 countries construct generational accounts, defined as the present value of remaining lifetime net taxes that a generation can expect to pay. This paper calculates generational accounts for the United States, 1960–2000, and finds that generational account changes do not coincide with the abrupt decline in the saving rate that began in the mid-1980s. First, transfers to the elderly, as reflected in changes to the generational accounts, increased gradually after 1960. Second, the fiscal burden placed on future generations, measured both in real terms and relative to newborns, was no higher in 2000 than in 1960.
A Stochastic Model for Order Book Dynamics

We propose a continuous-time stochastic model for the dynamics of a limit order book. The model strikes a balance between three desirable features: it can be estimated easily from data, it captures key empirical properties of order book dynamics, and its analytical tractability allows for fast computation of various quantities of interest without resorting to simulation. We describe a simple parameter estimation procedure based on high-frequency observations of the order book and illustrate the results on data from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Using simple matrix computations and Laplace transform methods, we are able to efficiently compute probabilities of various events, conditional on the state of the order book: an increase in the midprice, execution of an order at the bid before the ask quote moves, and execution of both a buy and a sell order at the best quotes before the price moves. Using high-frequency data, we show that our model can effectively capture the short-term dynamics of a limit order book. We also evaluate the performance of a simple trading strategy based on our results.
Crisis dynamics of implied default recovery ratios: Evidence from Russia and Argentina

Abstract This paper extracts both the implied default recovery ratio and the risk-neutral default probability term structure for Russian Federation and Republic of Argentina US dollar Eurobonds during the 1998 Russian default crisis. This crisis provides a unique window into the impact of changing default probabilities and recovery ratio assumptions on credit-sensitive sovereign bond prices. For the Russian Eurobonds, the sample paths suggest a two-phase crisis revaluation. Shifts in default probabilities account for most of the initial price collapse. Marked decreases in the implied default recovery ratio dominate the second phase. Investors never cut their recovery value assumptions for Argentine debt.
Reconceptualizing the Expert Witness: Social Costs, Current Controls and Proposed Responses

The underlying thesis of this Article is that much of the conduct of experts and the distrust to which it gives rise can be traced to the fact that the expert witness system is treated differently than other businesses. In fact, expert witnesses completely escape many of the controlling effects of contract and tort law. Yet there is no reason to believe that those who sell expert testimony are any less responsive to revenues, costs, and market demand than other businesses.
Corporate Governance Reforms: Redefined Expectations of Audit Committee Responsibilities and Effectiveness

Comprehensive regulatory changes brought on by recent corporate governance reforms have broadly redefined and re-emphasized the roles and responsibilities of all the participants in a public company’s financial reporting process. Most notably, these reforms have intensified scrutiny of corporate audit committees, whose role as protectors of investors’ interests now attracts substantially higher visibility and expectations. As a result, audit committees face the formidable challenge of effectively overseeing the company’s financial reporting process in a dramatically changed – and highly charged – corporate governance environment. This paper discusses the new expectations of audit committee responsibilities and effectiveness in the wake of corporate governance reforms, key challenges, “whistleblower” provisions and shortcomings, and provides some directions for future research.
At a cost: The real effects of thin capitalization rules

Abstract Thin capitalization rules (TCRs) aim to mitigate profit shifting by multinational corporations (MNCs) but, by raising the cost of capital for affected affiliates, can also negatively affect real investment. Exploiting unique panel data on multinational companies in 34 countries during 2006–2014, we estimate that the size of this adverse investment effect can be large, and dependent on the statutory corporate tax rate and the tightness of the safe-haven ratio. Negative investment effects are more pronounced for highly-levered firms for which TCRs are more likely to be binding.
Clear But Unconvincing: The Federal Circuit's Invalidity Standard

The Federal Circuit’s standard for proving invalidity of patent claims is clear. The Federal Circuit always requires clear and convincing evidence to prove that a patent claim is invalid. The rationale behind this standard, however, is unconvincing. There are significant reasons to believe that the Patent Office rarely considers the most relevant prior art and that, instead, alleged infringers often find prior art that is more relevant than the prior art considered by the Patent Office. It defies logic to apply the clear and convincing burden where the Patent Office considered only prior art that is less relevant than the prior art asserted in litigation. And while the Federal Circuit relies upon 35 U.S.C. §282 as dictating the clear and convincing burden of proof, the statute includes no such burden. Indeed, every other circuit court of appeals has indicated that the statutory presumption of validity only requires a presumption that the Patent Office correctly ruled upon the evidence in front of it not that the Patent Office considered the most relevant prior art or that it illogically correctly ruled upon evidence that it did not even consider. To encourage the disclosure of relevant prior art to the Patent Office, to increase patent quality, to ensure that patents serve their Constitutional purpose of rewarding inventors for disclosing discoveries, and to reduce transaction costs associated with ultimately invalid patents, the clear and convincing burden of proving invalidity should be replaced with a preponderance burden when litigation involves unconsidered,
Is It Race, Class, or Gender? The Sources of Perceived Discrimination in Brazil

Observers have long noted Brazil's distinctive racial politics: the coexistence of relatively integrated race relations and a national ideology of “racial democracy” with deep social inequalities along color lines. Those defending a vision of a nonracist Brazil attribute such inequalities to mechanisms perpetuating class distinctions. This article examines how members of disadvantaged groups perceive their disadvantage and what determines self-reports of discriminatory experiences, using 2010 AmericasBarometer data. About a third of respondents reported experiencing discrimination. Consistent with Brazilian national myths, respondents were much more likely to report discrimination due to their class than to their race. Nonetheless, the respondent's skin color, as coded by the interviewer, was a strong determinant of reporting class as well as race and gender discrimination. Race is more strongly associated with perceived “class” discrimination than is household wealth, education, or region of residence; female gender intensifies the association between color and discrimination.
Supreme Court Appointments as a Move‐the‐Median Game

A three-stage model isolates conditions under which an executive appointment to a collective choice body, such as a court or a regulatory agency, has an immediate bearing on policy. The model strikes a balance between previous formal models that predict either excessive gridlock or excessive policy responsiveness as a consequence of the politics of appointments. I test the model using approximately four decades of data on U.S. Supreme Court appointments. Two hypotheses summarize the unique predictions of the model and are strongly corroborated. A third, less distinctive hypothesis about strategic judicial retirements is weakly supported.
Business Groups, Bank Control, and Large Shareholders: An Analysis of German Takeovers☆

Abstract To analyze the consequences of concentrated ownership and bank control for the performance of acquiring firms, I employ a unique data set of 715 German takeovers. First, I find that takeovers increase bidder value, but majority owners provide no clear benefit. Second, bank control is beneficial only if it is counterbalanced by another large shareholder. Third, the worst takeovers are completed by firms that are majority-controlled by financial institutions. I conclude that majority control, whether exercised by a bank or another shareholder, increases the likelihood of decisions that do not maximize shareholder value. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G34, G32, G21.
Factor-Eliminating Technical Change*

Endogenous growth requires that non-reproducible factors of production be either augmented or eliminated. Attention heretofore has focused almost exclusively on augmentation. In contrast, we study factor elimination. Maximizing agents decide when to reduce the importance of non-reproducible factors. We use a Cobb-Douglas production function with two factors of production, one reproducible ("capital") and one not ("labor"). There is no augmenting progress of any kind, thus excluding the standard engine of growth. What is new is the possibility of changing factor intensities endogenously by spending resources on R&D. The economy starts with no capital and no knowledge of how to use it. By conducting R&D, the economy learns new technologies that use capital, which then is built. There are two possible ultimate outcomes: the economy may achieve perpetual growth, or it may stagnate with no growth. The …rst outcome is an asymptotic version of the AK model of endogenous growth, and the second outcome is the standard Solow model in the absence of any exogenous sources of growth. Which outcome is achieved depends on parameter values of saving and production, and there always is a feasible saving rate that will give the perpetual growth outcome. The model thus provides a theory of the endogenous emergence of a production technology with constant returns to the reproducible factors, that is, one that is capable of supporting perpetual economic growth. The model also allows derivation of the full transition dynamics, which have interesting properties. One especially notable feature is that the origin is not a steady state. An economy that starts with pure
Partisanship, Ideology, and Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees

Ideological concerns play a major role in determining whether a senator will vote to confirm or reject a Supreme Court nominee. Much less is understood, however, about the effects of partisanship on confirmation votes. This study investigates two aspects of partisanship: first, whether confirmation voting has become more partisan over time, even when controlling for other factors, including ideology; and second, whether partisanship modifies the influence of ideology. The results demonstrate that partisanship has played an increasing role over time and that the effects of ideology are contingent on partisanship.
Patent Aggregation: Models, Harms, and the Limited Role of Antitrust

Practicing and non-practicing entities alike are aggregating enormous portfolios of patents. In July 2011 a consortium of technology companies including Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and RIM outbid Google for Nortel Networks’ portfolio of 6,000 patents for $4.5 billion. One month later, Google bought Motorola along with its 17,000 patents and 7,500 pending patent applications. Intellectual Ventures, a patent asserting NPE, has accumulated more than 70,000 patents. This Note first explores how the patent universe currently facilitates and encourages patent aggregation. It then describes the different aggregation models and strategies that practicing entities and NPEs use for defense or to generate revenue, and considers the harms and benefits that those activities impose on innovation and competition. Finally, the Note analyzes how antitrust law might address the harms associated with patent aggregation. It concludes that although antitrust may address some anticompetitive activity, many antitrust-based solutions would chill both beneficial and harmful activity, and are thus unlikely to be adopted in ways that could cure deeper problems in the patent system related to aggregation.
Banks as lenders and shareholders: Evidence from Japan

Abstract This paper examines the effects of the main bank's equity–debt structure, (i.e., equity stakes and debt claims) on firm performance and financial policies in Japan over the period 1977–1987. Results show that firms with main bank equity stakes have lower performance than those without. However, among firms with main bank equity stakes, the equity–debt structure of claims has a positive effect on firm performance. The positive effect of the main bank's equity–debt structure is found to be greater in group-affiliated firms than in independent firms. The main bank maximizes its own interests by charging a higher interest rate when its equity stakes are relatively less than its debt claims and by prompting firms to pay more dividends when its equity stakes are relatively high.
Selective Classification Can Magnify Disparities Across Groups

Selective classification, in which models are allowed to abstain on uncertain predictions, is a natural approach to improving accuracy in settings where errors are costly but abstentions are manageable. In this paper, we find that while selective classification can improve average accuracies, it can simultaneously magnify existing accuracy disparities between various groups within a population, especially in the presence of spurious correlations. We observe this behavior consistently across five datasets from computer vision and NLP. Surprisingly, increasing the abstention rate can even decrease accuracies on some groups. To better understand when selective classification improves or worsens accuracy on a group, we study its margin distribution, which captures the model’s confidences over all predictions. For example, when the margin distribution is symmetric, we prove that whether selective classification monotonically improves or worsens accuracy is fully determined by the accuracy at full coverage (i.e., without any abstentions) and whether the distribution satisfies a property we term left-log-concavity. Our analysis also shows that selective classification tends to magnify accuracy disparities that are present at full coverage. Fortunately, we find that it uniformly improves each group when applied to distributionally-robust models that achieve similar full-coverage accuracies across groups. Altogether, our results imply selective classification should be used with care and underscore the importance of models that perform equally well across groups at full coverage.
A Progressive Conditional Generative Adversarial Network for Generating Dense and Colored 3D Point Clouds

In this paper, we introduce a novel conditional generative adversarial network that creates dense 3D point clouds, with color, for assorted classes of objects in an unsupervised manner. To overcome the difficulty of capturing intricate details at high resolutions, we propose a point transformer that progressively grows the network through the use of graph convolutions. The network is composed of a leaf output layer and an initial set of branches. Every training iteration evolves a point vector into a point cloud of increasing resolution. After a fixed number of iterations, the number of branches is increased by replicating the last branch. Experimental results show that our network is capable of learning and mimicking a 3D data distribution, and produces colored point clouds with fine details at multiple resolutions.
Model-Based Reinforcement Learning via Latent-Space Collocation

The ability to construct and execute long-term plans enables intelligent agents to solve complex multi-step tasks and prevents myopic behavior only seeking the short-term reward. Recent work has achieved significant progress on building agents that can predict and plan from raw visual observations. However, existing visual planning methods still require a densely shaped reward that provides the algorithm with a short-term signal that is always easy to optimize. These algorithms fail when the shaped reward is not available as they use simplistic planning methods such as sampling-based random shooting and are unable to plan for a distant goal. Instead, to achieve long-horizon visual control, we propose to use collocation-based planning, a powerful optimal control technique that plans forward a sequence of states while constraining the transitions to be physical. We propose a planning algorithm that adapts collocation to visual planning by leveraging probabilistic latent variable models. A model-based reinforcement learning agent equipped with our planning algorithm significantly outperforms prior model-based agents on challenging visual control tasks with sparse rewards and long-term goals.
Adaptive Inference for Change Points in High-Dimensional Data

In this article, we propose a class of test statistics for a change point in the mean of high-dimensional independent data. Our test integrates the U-statistic based approach in a recent work by Wa...
Machine-learning enhanced dark soliton detection in Bose–Einstein condensates

Most data in cold-atom experiments comes from images, the analysis of which is limited by our preconceptions of the patterns that could be present in the data. We focus on the well-defined case of detecting dark solitons -- appearing as local density depletions in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) -- using a methodology that is extensible to the general task of pattern recognition in images of cold atoms. Studying soliton dynamics over a wide range of parameters requires the analysis of large datasets, making the existing human-inspection-based methodology a significant bottleneck. Here we describe an automated classification and positioning system for identifying localized excitations in atomic BECs utilizing deep convolutional neural networks to eliminate the need for human image examination. Furthermore, we openly publish our labeled dataset of dark solitons, the first of its kind, for further machine learning research.
Relativistic corrections to the rotation curves of disk galaxies

We present a method to investigate relativistic effects arising from large masses. The method is non-perturbative and employs a mean-field approximation and gravitational lensing. Using this method and a basic model of disk galaxy, we find that relativistic corrections to the rotation curves of disk galaxies are significant at large galactic radii. The model predicts a strong correlation between the inferred galactic dark mass and the galactic disk thickness, which we verified using two separate sets of observational data.
Filters and Matrix Factorization

We give a number of explicit matrix-algorithms for analysis/synthesis in multi-phase filtering; i.e., the operation on discrete-time signals which allow a separation into frequency-band components, one for each of the ranges of bands, say N, starting with low-pass, and then corresponding filtering in the other band-ranges. If there are N bands, the individual filters will be combined into a single matrix action; so a representation of the combined operation on all N bands by an N × N matrix, where the corresponding matrix-entries are periodic functions; or their extensions to functions of a complex variable. Hence our setting entails a fixed N × N matrix over a prescribed algebra of functions of a complex variable. In the case of polynomial filters, the factorizations will always be finite. A novelty here is that we allow for a wide family of non-polynomial filter-banks. Working modulo N in the time domain, our approach also allows for a natural matrix-representation of both down-sampling and up-sampling. The implementation encompasses the combined operation on input, filtering, down-sampling, transmission, up-sampling, an action by dual filters, and synthesis, merges into a single matrix operation. Hence our matrix-factorizations break down the global filtering-process into elementary steps. To accomplish this, we offer a number of adapted matrix factorization-algorithms, such that each factor in our product representation implements in a succession of steps the filtering across pairs of frequency-bands; and so it is of practical significance in implementing signal processing, including filtering of digitized images. Our matrix-factorizations are especially useful in the case of the processing a fixed, but large, number of bands.
Cockroach exposure and perceived stress interact to predict clinical outcomes in childhood asthma

Nonpharmacologic interventions for asthma management rely on identification and mitigation of important asthma triggers. Cockroach exposure is strongly associated with asthma morbidity. It is also associated with stress, another risk factor for asthma. Despite high prevalence of both in vulnerable populations, the impact of joint exposure has not been examined. Participants included 173 children with asthma in New Orleans, Louisiana. Cockroach exposure was based on visual inspection using standard protocols. Caregiver stress was measured using Cohen’s 4-item Perceived Stress Scale. Outcomes included unscheduled clinic or emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalization, and pulmonary function. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to assess independent effects of the exposure on the outcome and effect modification was examined in stratified analysis based on stress. Path analysis to explore the mediation effect by stress was performed using a probit link with parameters based on Bayes’ method with non-informative priors. Adjusting for stress and other covariates, cockroach exposure was associated with unscheduled clinic/ED visits (aOR = 6.2; 95% CI 1.8, 21.7). Positive associations were also found for hospitalization and FEV1 < 80%. High stress modified the relationship with unscheduled clinic/ED visits (high aOR = 7.7 95% CI 1.0, 60.2, versus normal aOR = 4.1 95% CI 0.8, 21.9). Path models identified direct and indirect effects (p = 0.05) indicating that a majority of the total effect on unscheduled clinic/ED visits is attributed directly to cockroach exposure. The strong association between cockroach exposure and asthma morbidity is not due to uncontrolled confounding by stress. The combination of cockroach exposure and high stress, common in urban homes, are modifiable factors associated with poor asthma outcomes.
Subxiphoid Endoscopic Epicardial Ventricular Tachycardia Ablation

Abstract Ventricular tachycardia refractory to traditional therapies such as medical management and endocardial catheter ablation poses risk for sudden cardiac death and poor quality of life. We describe a patient who was successfully treated for refractory symptomatic ventricular tachycardia using hybrid endocardial and minimally invasive epicardial ablation via subxiphoid approach.