cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Public Takings of Private Contracts

This Article, part of a larger project analyzing how far public and private contracting arrangements should go in constraining democratic decisionmaking, examines whether the United States should be liable under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment when its actions have the effect of destroying or impairing private contract rights. In the Omnia Commercial case, decided ninety years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that private contract rights represent “property” within the meaning of the Takings Clause, and that the courts should resolve the issue of whether such property has been “taken” by assessing whether the government has “appropriated” the contract interest (resulting in a taking), or merely “frustrated” it (not resulting in a taking). While Omnia Commercial reflects a sound intuition that private contract rightss deserve special treatment under the Takings Clause, the appropriation versus frustration standard has no principled foundation and is irreconcilable with modern takings standards. In place of the Omnia Commercial standard, this Article suggests that the Supreme Court should adopt a two-part analysis. First, rather than treat all private contract rights as a form of “property,” the Court should only treat the direct contractual commitments between the parties as property. Accordingly, only when the government has inserted itself into the parties’ contractual relations, by taking over the contract benefits of one of the parties, or by transferring the benefits to some new party, should the government be regarded as having impinged on “property” in a fashion that could potentially support a taking claim. Second, the Court should conclude that a government action impinging on contract-based property generally results in a taking only when the action imposes a net economic burden on the contracting parties, considered together as a single unit. On the other hand, a taking claim should fail if the government action does not impose a net economic burden on the parties. This standard will avoid conferring a taxpayer-financed windfall on private contracting parties and preserve democratic prerogatives, while placing on the parties the responsibility to negotiate ex ante over how to allocate between themselves the risk of an
Rethinking the Homeownership Society: Rental Stability Alternative

This paper radically challenges two of the dominant theories about housing policy: (a) that promoting homeownership is the best way to achieve household and neighborhood stability; and (b) that rent regulation has no place in competitive and thriving rental markets. I argue that our national housing policy has failed by overemphasizing and over-subsidizing homeownership and by neglecting the rental market. These policies have not served the purported goals of individual and community stability. Indeed, over-subsidizing homeownership and home borrowing incentivized millions of households to overstretch their budgets in order to purchase homes, thereby contributing to the foreclosure crisis. The resulting housing instability has been further exacerbated by the failure of the rental markets to provide affordable and stable housing for low- and moderate-income households. To address this increasingly untenable situation, I propose a rental stability program that would offer tenants an option for longer lease terms, rights to lease renewal, temporary regulation of rents, and federal rental subsidies to cover rent increases for rent-burdened low- and moderate-income households, while maintaining market-based incentives for owners to create new rental housing units and maintain existing ones. While my program takes pains to avoid many of the pitfalls of some “strict” rent regulation schemes, I do not shy away from the need to regulate rents for some finite period. While they are not as dire as predicted by economists, I acknowledge that there are costs to rent regulation and my program is designed to minimize those costs. The specific consequences of rent regulation that often result, and that my proposal seeks to minimize, include: (i) the emergence of a “shadow” or “black” market for rental units; and (ii) incentives for landlords and tenants to litigate. My program would mitigate these and other unintended consequences by making the rent regulation time limited and subjecting all units in a jurisdiction to its purview. In the final assessment, states and localities considering my program would likely accept any small costs in market inefficiencies because of the gains achieved by increasing tenant stability.
Forecasting Macroeconomic Variables Under Model Instability

We compare different approaches to accounting for parameter instability in the context of macroeconomic forecasting models that assume either small, frequent changes versus models whose parameters exhibit large, rare changes. An empirical out-of-sample forecasting exercise for U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth and inflation suggests that models that allow for parameter instability generate more accurate density forecasts than constant-parameter models although they fail to produce better point forecasts. Model combinations deliver similar gains in predictive performance although they fail to improve on the predictive accuracy of the single best model, which is a specification that allows for time-varying parameters and stochastic volatility. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
The Supreme Court and Recusals: A Response to Professor Lubet

This essay is a response to Professor Steven Lubet's 2012 lecture at the annual Tabor Institute on Legal Ethics lecture series at Valparaiso University Law School and his corresponding article entitled “Stonewalling, Leaks and Counter-Leaks: SCOTUS Ethics in the Wake of NFIB v. Sebelius.” In his article, Professor Lubet discusses the U.S. Supreme Court's failure to adopt a comprehensive code of conduct that would, among other areas, address recusals. Lubet’s article proposes that the full Supreme Court review recusal decisions. This essay briefly explores some of the concerns about the public's perception of the Supreme Court that Lubet’s proposal on recusal review would raise. Specifically, the essay addresses the standards for recusal, the lack of transparency related to such recusal procedures, and the potential that a full Supreme Court review of recusal decisions would create the public perception of partisanship on the part of the Justices.
Financial Statement Recasting and Credit Risk Assessment

This article examines the importance of adjustments to corporate financial statements for credit risk assessment. Prior research has tended to examine individual adjustments one at a time. As correlations among adjustments and control variables may bias inferences when researchers examine a single adjustment and ignore other adjustments, our results provide important new information about previous research by documenting whether or not such bias exists. We find that financial statement recasting adjustments – which aim to better reflect firms' indebtedness, financing costs and recurring earnings than reported financial numbers – are reflected in bond yield spreads and have an economically significant impact on credit pricing and loss forecasting. Among individual adjustment categories, we find that those for off-balance-sheet leases, defined benefit pensions and securitized debt have an economically significant impact on credit pricing and loss forecasting.
A Proposed Fat-Tail Risk Metric: Disclosures, Derivatives, and the Measurement of Financial Risk

Accurately and precisely modeling financial risk is something of a Holy Grail for financial theorists, regulators, and market participants. But like the Holy Grail, the location of a comprehensive model of risk remains unknown; some have even suggested that such a model is a figment of financial theorists’ imaginations. Nowhere has that disaster been more fully evident than in the recent failure of risk models to adequately prepare the marketplace for the collapse of the market for mortgage-backed securities and credit derivatives, and the financial crisis that followed. Because of the mistaken assumptions associated with some risk models, otherwise vigilant market participants were blinded to the risks that brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse. One of the modeling critics’ primary targets is the Value-at-Risk (VaR). In the 1980s, practitioners created a model to focus on the risk exposure experienced by a single firm. VaR is meant to give traders— and, eventually, investors and regulators—a snapshot of how much money a firm might lose in a single day. That dollar figure is easy to comprehend and straightforward in its application; if a firm is uncomfortable with that exposure, the firm can make appropriate adjustments to its trading strategies and positions. As VaR continued to develop, traders and academics weren’t the only ones paying attention. Soon, regulators from
Regulators as Change Agents

the purview of inventors, investors, and entrepreneurs, who search constantly for a competitive edge, pushing boundaries and taking risks. Regulators, on the other hand, are most concerned with controlling risks. They strive to preserve stability and set the conditions within which market participants compete. In specific industries, regulators may also address the allocation of scarce resources or consumer protection. In the financial sector, regulators focus primarily on stability, predictability, and avoiding shocks. The recent financial crisis led many commentators to speak out on the difficulty, if not the failure, regulators had in controlling innovation, which had damaging consequences not only for the financial services industry but the world. This debate, which has taken place in developed countries, may have overshadowed another discussion—that of how regulators, working alongside entrepreneurs and investors, can and must enable innovation. This second debate is currently growing in the global South, where innovation in the financial services sector is unfolding as a positive force that has the potential to improve the quality of life of many individuals. This is one paradox of financial services: while the North worries about whether the new rules for the provision of financial services are tight enough, the South is thinking about whether a new regulatory regime might restrict access to financial services. In developing countries, 70 percent of the population relies on cash, physical assets, and informal services to make their modest means serve their most important needs. Where investment in infrastructure has been increased, the focus is usually on water, electricity, or roads; little attention has been given to the infrastructure needed in the financial services sphere. In the last 10 years, the develop-
Financing vs. Forgiving a Debt Overhang

Abstract This paper examines the tradeoffs facing creditors of a country whose debt is large enough that the country cannot attract voluntary new lending. If the country is unable to meet its debt service requirements out of current income, the creditors have two choices. They can finance the country, lending at an expected loss in the hope that the country will eventually be able to repay its debt after all; or they can forgive, reducing the debt level to one that the country can repay. The post-1983 debt strategy of the IMF and the US has relied on financing, but many current calls for debt reform call for forgiveness instead. The paper shows that the choice between financing and forgiveness represents a tradeoff. Financing gives the creditors an option value: if the country turns out to do relatively well, creditors will not have written down their claims unnecessarily. However, the burden of debt distorts the country's incentives, since the benefits of good performance go largely to creditors rather than itself. The paper also shows that the tradeoff itself can be improved if both financing and forgiveness are made contingent on states of nature that the country cannot affect, such as oil prices, world interest rates, etc.
The Scottish Independence Referendum and the Principles of Democratic Secession

On September 18, 2014, Scottish voters decided whether to sever the 307 years of unity between Scotland and the United Kingdom in an independence referendum. While the voters ultimately rejected independence, the process by which the Scots accomplished this historic exercise will inform further democratic secession movements.This Note examines the significant implications of Scotland’s independence referendum by assessing the history of independence referendums and the present scope of relevant international law. The formative history of the independence referendum and modern precedential examples established the requirements for democratic secession. In turn, the Scottish independence referendum, in the context of evolving law and state practice, can provide a powerful rubric for future attempts at secession by independence referendum.
Wyeth v. Levine and Agency Preemption: More Muddle, or Creeping to Clarity

In its 2009 Wyeth v. Levine decision, the Supreme Court held that a decision by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to approve the marketing and label for a drug called Phenergan did not preempt a state-law failure-to-warn tort suit against the drug’s manufacturer. The Court so held despite the fact that in 2006 the FDA issued a regulatory preamble expressing its view that state failure-to-warn tort suits interfered with the FDA’s regulation of drug labeling, and so should be preempted. After summarizing the holding of Wyeth and the academic debate surrounding agency preemption, this article argues that Wyeth, or at least the majority opinion in Wyeth, did little to dispel the continuing muddle that is agency preemption law. While the Wyeth majority did not defer to the FDA’s views on preemption, it did not establish any clear principles for when deference is or is not due an agency, nor did it effectively distinguish earlier decisions where the Court had deferred to agencies on preemption issues. The Court also did not provide much guidance on the hotly debated topic of when agencies should be permitted to themselves adopt regulations preempting state law. Clarity is thus sorely needed here.Turning to the underlying issues, the article argues that arguments favoring agency preemptive authority are based on a misunderstanding of federalism. The basic purpose of our federal system of dual sovereigns is not to advance utilitarian goals such as efficiency and experimentation, it is to retain competing loci of governmental authority to the federal government, as a protection against tyranny. Seem in this light, it is precisely the efficiency of agencies that poses the greatest threat to federalism, because of the vast practical ability of agencies to preempt important areas of state law. In this light, Congress should be the preferred institution from which preemption should flow both because state interests are better represented in Congress, and, frankly, because of congressional inefficiency and inertia. Ultimately, however, it must be conceded that since the New Deal no federal institution, whether it be agencies, Congress, the President, or even the courts, has demonstrated any serious commitment to maintaining state authority. Given this reality, the article concludes by suggesting that if the vitality of federalism is to be preserved, perhaps the Court as a whole should take seriously Justice Thomas’s suggestion, advanced in a concurring opinion in Wyeth, that the Court reconsider the part of its modern preemption doctrine which invalidates any state law which “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.”
The Market for Financial Adviser Misconduct

We document the economywide extent of misconduct among financial advisers and the associated labor market consequences. Seven percent of advisers have misconduct records, and this share reaches mor...
Erratum to: Birationally rigid hypersurfaces

This note points out a gap in the proof of the main theorem of the article “Birationally rigid hypersurfaces” published in Invent.Math.192 (2013), 533– 566, and provides a new proof of the theorem. The statements of Lemma 9.1 and Lemma 9.2 in the original article are incorrect (see the remarks at the end of this note for further comments on the errors). The two lemmas are used in the proof of Theorem A, which is the main theorem of the original article; more precisely, they are used in the proof of Theorem 7.4 from which Theorem A is deduced. The error in Lemma 9.2 was brought to our attention by Janos Kollar. While Lemma 9.2 is not essential for the proof and can be circumvented, the gap left by the error in Lemma 9.1 appears to be more substantial because of the key role that Lemma 9.1 plays in the application of Theorem B in the proof of Theorem A. In this note, we give a new argument to prove TheoremAwhich does not use TheoremB.This does not fix, however, the proof of Theorem7.4,which should
The trust paradox: a survey of economic inquiries into the nature of trust and trustworthiness

Abstract This paper examines the concepts of trust and trustworthiness in the context of a one-sided variation of the prisoner’s dilemma, and it evaluates four different categories of solutions to the PD problem: changing player preferences, enforcing explicit contracts, establishing implicit contracts, and repeating the interaction of the players. Because these solutions rely on the creation of incentives to induce cooperation, this paper articulates a paradox of trust in that if one trusts another, because there are incentives for the other to be trustworthy, then the vulnerability to exploitation is removed which gives trust its very meaning. The paper explores the implications of trust when understood to exist at two levels—one in which there are incentives to trust, and the other in which appropriate incentives are absent.
Gonzales v. Oregon and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Ethical and Policy Issues

The euthanasia literature typically discusses the difference between “active” and “passive” means of ending a patient’s life. Physician-assisted suicide differs from both active and passive forms of euthanasia insofar as the physician does not administer the means of suicide to the patient. Instead, she merely prescribes and dispenses them to the patient and lets the patient “do the rest” – if and when the patient chooses. One supposed advantage of this process is that it maximizes the patient’s autonomy with respect to both her decision to die and the dying process itself. Still, despite this supposed advantage, Oregon is the only state to have legalized physician-assisted suicide. After summarizing the most important Supreme Court opinions on euthanasia (namely, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dep’t of Health; Vacco v. Quill; Washington v. Glucksberg; and Gonzales v. Oregon), this paper argues that while there are no strong ethical reasons against legalizing physician-assisted suicide, there are some very strong policy reasons for keeping it criminal in the other forty-nine states.
Legal but Unethical: Interrogation and Military Health Professionals

United States military health professionals who have served at military detention facilities in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (Guantanamo), and Iraq, have been labeled by some as "torturers" or war criminals for their interrogation-related activities. In portraying such professionals in this light, some commentators erroneously suggest that law proscribes health professionals’ interrogation-related conduct and holds them to a different standard than others involved in interrogation. This article demonstrates there is a significant gap between what law and professional ethics require, and concludes with an argument that this divide is harmful to detainees, national security, and health professionals.
Foreign Direct Investment, Endogenous Tariffs, and Preferential Trade Agreements

This paper examines the complementarity between international trade and investment policies, and argues that preferential trade agreements may be a particularly effective means for harnessing the tariff liberalizing potential of foreign direct investment. A simple two country model demonstrates that export-platform foreign investment induces unilateral tariff liberalization by the investment-source country, suggesting that international capital mobility may substitute partially for multilateral forums such as the WTO in achieving efficient tariffs. A multi-country extension of the model in which countries can compete for foreign investors via subsidies then develops an efficiency argument in favor of discriminatory tariff allowances such as Article XXIV of the GATT or the Generalized System of Preferences. When small countries can earn preferential tariff treatment from a large trading counterpart by encouraging local export-platform investment (or by discouraging import competing investment), the equilibrium tariff level will be lower when discriminatory tariffs are possible rather than when they are not.
Physician payments and infant mortality: evidence from Medicaid fee policy.

While efforts to improve the health of the uninsured have focused on demand side policies such as increasing insurance coverage, supply side changes may be equally important. Yet there is little direct evidence on the effect of policies designed to increase the supply of Medicaid services to the poor. We provide such evidence by examining the relationship between infant mortality and the ratio of Medicaid fees to private fees for obstetrician/gynecologists. We build a state and year specific index of the fee ratio for 1979-1992, a period of substantial variation in relative Medicaid fees. We find that increases in fee ratios are associated with significant declines in the infant mortality rate. We also find that higher fees raise payments made to physicians and clinics under the Medicaid program, but reduce payments to hospitals. Finally, we compare the cost effectiveness of reducing infant mortality by increasing fee ratios to the efficacy of reducing mortality by expanding the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women. Although our results are sensitive to the time period used, we conclude that raising fee ratios is at least as cost effective as increasing eligibility.
How the Obama Administration Should Regulate the Financial Sector

The Obama Administration will be looking to the financial regulatory apparatus to prevent future economic crises like the one the country is experiencing right now. This is a very ambitious objective to impose on any regulator. Much ink has been spilled in addressing how the financial regulatory apparatus should be constructed going forward. The focus has been on consolidating the multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdictions that oversee the financial services industry. Whatever their final form, we can identify certain key attributes these ultimate financial regulators should have to give them at least some hope of doing the proactive, forward-looking thinking the Administration will need them to perform: the right people at the agencies, enough access to the institutions they regulate, enough information from those institutions to know what is happening, an internal brain trust to analyze and assess that information, and a rapid reaction team to respond to financial emergencies.
Trademark Extortion Revisited: A Response to Vogel and Schachter

Trademark bullying (a.k.a. trademark extortion) is a very controversial notion in trademark litigation in the United States. There, for sure, is a lot of illegitimate trademark infringement happening. Anecdotally, we also know that trademark holders often overstep in the assertion of their otherwise legitimate rights. For the first time, this article documents how large a problem trademark bullying is and how often it happens. Trademark bullying occurs when there is evidence that a trademark holder asserts a non-famous mark against a noncompeting entity on or in connection with goods or services into which the plaintiff has no reasonable expectation of expanding. Trademark bully occurs in at least 5.5% of the reported cases. This is the same rate that plaintiffs recover any money damages. In the reported cases, trademark bullying is as statistically significant and relevant as cases where the plaintiff recovers money damages. Also, 5.5% is a floor. Trademark bullying happens at least 5.5% of the time. As there is no reporting or recording requirement in the United States, trademark bullying, if it happens at all, can only be found if we use deductive reasoning. This article is based on the deductive notion that cases where summary judgment was granted for the defendants are likely to manifest trademark bullying and it is appropriate to label them as such. In trademark bullying cases, the quality of the plaintiff ’s claim is declining. This conclusion is supported by regression analysis that indicates that it is accurate to over 99% certainty. That is, plaintiffs are bringing claims that are less and less likely to succeed on the merits if tried. As no data (just suppositions) was provided by Vogel and Schachter, it is difficult to claim they are wrong in their analysis. Of course, Rule 11 and the other potential sanctions do exist. With this study, we now know that no Rule 11 sanctions were ever applied to any trademark bullying case. Further, no data is relied on by the various trade organizations (simply outdated dicta from now ancient cases). The data here is the first attempt to prove or disproved trademark bullying. It is provided in the spirit of an academic inquiry. To me, the data here supports the idea that trademark bullying deserves the scrutiny that would be brought to bear if Congress elected to get involved. Clearly, the existing “safeguards” have been proven here to be anything but safe. If nonpracticing entities is a matter worth the time and energy of States and Congress, then trademark bullying is as well as both involve entities which upset natural markets for and with intellectual property. As such, Congress should act. Congress could go a long way in stopping trademark bullying if it amended Section 1117 of the Lanham to make it explicit that trademark infringement defendants as well as plaintiffs should be awarded its attorney’s fees when the opposing party acts egregiously. Attorney’s fees should be liberally awarded in cases where the defendant moves for summary judgment and prevails as these cases are the clearest manifestation of trademark bullying.
Litigation with judgment proof defendants

Abstract We consider a model of litigation in which some defendants have insufficient assets to pay a judgment at trial. Because the defendant’s assets are not observable, this serves as a source of asymmetric information which leads to trials in the equilibrium of the model. Unlike many other types of informational asymmetry, the defendant’s assets are not generally subject to discovery and it may be difficult to credibly establish a lack of assets in a voluntary disclosure. Thus, this is a source of asymmetry between the parties which is likely to persist in the presence of these institutions. This suggests that this particular asymmetry is a potentially important explanation for settlement failure, at least in a subset of cases. We describe three possible equilibria in the model with asset constrained defendants. The constrained equilibrium is consistent with high dispute rates between the plaintiff and defendant. The model suggests that fee shifting will either have no effect on the incidence of trial or will increase it.
Defending the sex discrimination argument for lesbian and gay rights: A reply to Edward Stein

Edward Stein’s is only the latest and most systematic of a growing number of criticisms of the sex discrimination argument, from the left and the right. Stein’s doctrinal objections to the argument misconceive the reach of present doctrine, which treats all sex-based classifications with deep suspicion. His empirical doubts misapprehend both the argument’s claims and the enduring connections between heterosexism and sexism. His only persuasive claim is his moral objection, which argues that the sex discrimination argument ignores, and may render invisible, a central moral wrong of anti-gay discrimination. This is a profound moral difficulty, but it is one that is present in almost any legal argument, and perhaps in language as such. It therefore cannot be an objection against any particular argument.
Exercising power in a prisoner's dilemma: transnational collective bargaining in an era of corporate globalisation?

The extraordinary growth in foreign direct investment coupled with the widespread declination of union penetration has increasingly allowed multinationals to pit unions across borders as competitors for investment and jobs. Based on a theoretical analysis of the exercise of power in a prisoner's dilemma game, the essential conditions and incentives for cooperation among unions across borders for the purpose of collective bargaining with multinationals are identified and practical, strategic-level implications for transnational interunion partnerships are addressed.
Irrational Exuberance About Babies: The Taste for Heterosexuality and Its Conspicuous Reproduction

This article targets a flying buttress of normative heterosexuality: its physical reproduction via procreation and its symbolic propagation through parents’ pre-natal preferences for heterosexuality in future children. While the parental “taste for heterosexuality” is often asserted for the sake of future children themselves, this justification overlooks the role of parental self-interest, including anticipated social gains to parents from heterosexuality in children. Hence the taste sets the stage both for sexual orientation-based abuse of future children and the devaluation of sexual minority adults. Courts too have a taste for heterosexuality, shown here in two state court cases denying gays and lesbians the right to marry. These courts hold that homosexuals reproduce deliberately while heterosexuals may do so recklessly, leading the courts to conclude that only heterosexuals require marriage to ensure stable homes for children. These decisions “subsidize” normative heterosexuality and its reproduction by conferring symbolic capital on both. Apart from the burdens it places on sexual minorities, this symbolic privilege comes at a cost to heterosexuals and children alike. By privileging the reproduction of normative heterosexuality, this symbolic economy discourages heterosexuals from fully appreciating the long-term consequences of reproduction. This economy also gives them a pretext for avoiding lifestyle competition with homosexual parents, to the detriment of children who might benefit from the improved parenting technique that such competition would encourage. * © 2008, Jose Gabilondo, Associate Professor, Rafael Diaz-Balart Hall, College of Law, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, Jose.Gabilondo@fiu.edu. B.A., Harvard College, 1987, J.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1991. Feedback I received at the University of Jvaskala’s (Helsinki) conference on the philosophy of gender and at Georgetown Law Center’s Socioeconomics Conference improved these arguments, as did readers who helped with mortification of the text: iSchlegel!, Tom Gallanis, Ruthann Robson, Penny Pether, Larry Cata Backer, Nan Hunter, Bill Turner, Heather Hughes, Hannibal Travis, Tim Canova, Adele Morrison, Natalia Gerodetti, Joe Dayball, and, in particular, Diane Klein, John Gordon, Jorge Esquirol, and Bob Chang. I dedicate this article to the integrity of Chief Judge Kaye’s dissent in Hernandez v. Robles. 2 Boston College Third World Law Journal [Vol. 28:1
Litigation and the Evolution of Legal Remedies: A Dynamic Model

In this paper we build uponexisting literature on the evolution of thecommon law. We consider a model of legalevolution in which judges have varyingideologies and propensities to extend thedomain of legal remedies and causes ofaction. Parties have symmetric stakes andare rational. Plaintiffs bring a case tocourt if the expected net return from thecase is positive. The net expected value ofthe case depends on the objective merits ofthe case, the state of the law, and theideological propensity of the judge.Plaintiffs have full control over whetherto bring a case to court. In our model, thecombined presence of differences in judges'ideology and plaintiff's case selectiongenerate a monotonic upward trend in theevolution of legal rules and remedies. This may explain the stylized fact underwhich certain areas of the law have beengranting increasing levels of remedialprotection and recognition of plaintiffs'actions.
Using Samples of Unequal Length in Generalized Method of Moments Estimation

Many applications in financial economics use data series with dierent starting or ending dates. This paper describes estimation methods, based on the generalized method of moments (GMM), which make use of all available data for each moment condition. We introduce two asymptotically equivalent estimators that are consistent, asymptotically normal, and more ecient asymptotically than standard GMM. We apply these methods to estimating predictive regressions in international data and show that the use of the full sample aects point estimates and standard errors for both assets with data available for the full period and assets with data available for a subset of the period. Monte Carlo experiments demonstrate that reductions hold for small-sample standard errors as well as asymptotic ones. These methods are extended to more general patterns of missing data, and are shown to be more ecient than estimators that ignore intervals of the data, and thus more ecient
Reasoning about Temporal Context using Ontology and Abductive Constraint Logic Programming

The underlying assumptions for interpreting the meaning of data often change over time, which further complicates the problem of semantic heterogeneities among autonomous data sources. As an extension to the Context Interchange (COIN) framework, this paper introduces the notion of temporal context as a formalization of the problem. We represent temporal context as a multi-valued method in F-Logic; however, only one value is valid at any point in time, the determination of which is constrained by temporal relations. This representation is then mapped to an abductive constraint logic programming framework with temporal relations being treated as constraints. A mediation engine that implements the framework automatically detects and reconciles se-mantic differences at different times. We articulate that this extended COIN framework is suitable for reasoning on the Semantic Web.
Redemptive and Rejectionist Frames: Framing Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights for Advocacy and Mobilization in the United States

“Rights talk” can combine with “law talk” in a myriad of ways, just as advocacy and mobilization strategies can adopt a multitude of attitudes towards law. Within the United States, and across the world, the economic, social, and cultural rights frame is neither fixed nor uniform. This article examines how framing claims to material interests as rights - such as the rights to access food, water, health care, housing, and education - can coexist with multiple stances towards law and towards the state. Applying the constitutional theory of Robert Cover to current legal arrangements, it describes two such orientations: the “redemptive” frame and what I term its “rejectionist” alternative. The alternative frames of redemption and rejection may be observed in comparative and international advocacy around economic, social, and cultural rights. This article examines their applicability in the United States. Part I describes the common features of the economic, social, and cultural rights frame and demonstrates the normative openness that remains in the use of rights discourse. Part II provides a summary of the elements of redemption and rejection that may accompany claims of economic, social, and cultural rights, extending Cover’s constitutional theory to sub-constitutional and international legal domains. Part III applies the redemptive/rejectionist distinction to current movements within the United States, including the Occupy Wall Street movement. It reveals the tensions between the agendas of redemption and rejection and the potential challenges of each for advocacy and mobilization around economic, social, and cultural rights.
External debt and economic reform: does a pain reliever delay the necessary treatment?

Recent literature argues that conflict in shifting adjustment costs between different socioeconomic groups delays necessary reforms and finds that such reforms often follow economic crises. This paper expands these models by including external borrowing by the private sector and shows that this may lead to a further delay in economic reform. Empirical evidence based on a large panel of developing and emerging economies supports this argument and shows that the result is slower economic growth. External financing sometimes acts like a “pain reliever”, postponing the much needed “treatment” of a “sick” economy by reform.
Differentiated interchange fees

Abstract Payment networks typically differentiate interchange fees across different merchant sectors. This paper shows that it is generally efficient for a regulator to leave the decision on the structure of interchange fees to payment networks.
Firm service rate selection when service rates are not observable and service value is unknown to the market

We study how a high quality service firm selects a service rate differently than a low quality service firm when the firm cannot communicate its service value or service rate to its customer base. As a result, potential customers may take the queue length upon arrival into account when assessing the service value before joining the queue for service. We show that customer queue joining behavior may not be of the threshold type, which is a typical equilibrium structure under observable service value and rate. Furthermore, we find differentiating equilibria in which the high quality service firm selects a slower service rate than the low quality service firm, even if the cost of speeding up is the same for both firms. We also find that both firm's profit rates under such a differentiating equilibrium may be higher than in equilibria in which both firms select the same service rate. Our research thus provides a rational explanation for often-quoted suspicions that some firms deliberately slow down service to signal quality.
Nonlinear limiting dynamics of a shrinking interface in a Hele-Shaw cell

The flow in a Hele-Shaw cell with a time-increasing gap poses a unique shrinking interface problem. When the upper plate of the cell is lifted perpendicularly at a prescribed speed, the exterior less viscous fluid penetrates the interior more viscous fluid, which generates complex, time-dependent interfacial patterns through the Saffman–Taylor instability. The pattern formation process sensitively depends on the lifting speed and is still not fully understood. For some lifting speeds, such as linear or exponential speed, the instability is transient and the interface eventually shrinks as a circle. However, linear stability analysis suggests there exist shape invariant shrinking patterns if the gap .
Vice Crimes and Preventive Justice

This symposium contribution offers a reconsideration of a range of “vice crime” legislation from late nineteenth and early twentieth century American law, criminalizing matters such as prostitution, the use of opiates, illegal gambling, and polygamy. According to the standard account, the original justification for these offenses was purely moralistic (in the sense that they criminalize conduct solely or primarily because it is intrinsically wrong or sinful and not because of its negative effect on anyone) and paternalistic (in the sense that they limit persons’ liberty or autonomy supposedly for their own good); and it was only later, in the late twentieth century, that those who supported such legislative initiatives sought to justify them in terms of their ability to prevent harms. This piece argues that the rationale for these vice crimes laws was much more complicated than has traditionally been thought, encompassing not just moralistic justifications but also a wide range of harm-based rationales—similar to those that underlie modern, technocratic, “preventive justice” legislation involving matters such as anti-social behavior orders, sex offender registration, stop-and-frisk policing, and the fight against terrorism.
ULTRAHIGH ENERGY COSMIC RAYS: THE STATE OF THE ART BEFORE THE AUGER OBSERVATORY

In this review we discuss the important progress made in recent years towards understanding the experimental data on cosmic rays with energies ≳ 1019 eV. We begin with a brief survey of the available data, including a description of the energy spectrum, mass composition, and arrival directions. At this point we also give a short overview of experimental techniques. After that, we introduce the fundamentals of acceleration and propagation in order to discuss the conjectured nearby cosmic ray sources. We then turn to theoretical notions of physics beyond the Standard Model where we consider both exotic primaries and exotic physical laws. Particular attention is given to the role that TeV-scale gravity could play in addressing the origin of the highest energy cosmic rays. In the final part of the review we discuss the potential of future cosmic ray experiments for the discovery of tiny black holes that should be produced in the earth's atmosphere if TeV-scale gravity is realized in Nature.
Subjective Well-being

The literature on subjective well-being (SWB), including happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect, is reviewed in three areas: measurement, causal factors, and theory. Psychometric data on single-item and multi-item subjective well-being scales are presented, and the measures are compared. Measuring various components of subjective well-being is discussed. In terms of causal influences, research findings on the demographic correlates of SWB are evaluated, as well as the findings on other influences such as health, social contact, activity, and personality. A number of theoretical approaches to happiness are presented and discussed: telic theories, associationistic models, activity theories, judgment approaches, and top-down versus bottom-up conceptions.
Indefinitely Renewable Copyright

In this Article we raise questions concerning the widely accepted proposition that economic efficiency requires that copyright protection should be limited in its duration The Constitution authorizes Congress to create copyright and patent protection "for limited Times." The first federal copyright act was enacted in 1790 and provided for an initial term of fourteen years plus a renewal term of the same length, provided the author was still living at the end of the initial term. The initial term was lengthened to twenty-eight years in 1831, and the renewal term to twenty-eight years in 1909, to fortyseven years beginning in 1962, and to sixty-seven years beginning in
Functional Itô calculus

We extend some results of the Ito calculus to functionals of the current path of a process to reflect the fact that often the impact of randomness is cumulative and depends on the history of the pr...
China's Pattern of Growth: Moving to Sustainability and Reducing Inequality

The authors study the sources and pattern of China's impressive economic growth over the past 25 years and show that key issues currently of concern to policymakers-widening inequality, rural poverty, and resource intensity-are to a large extent rooted in China's growth strategy, and resolving them requires a rebalancing of policies. Using both macroeconomic level and sector data and analyses, the authors extend the growth accounting framework to decompose the sources of labor productivity growth. They find that growth of industrial production, led by a massive investment effort that boosted the capital/labor ratio, has been the single most important factor driving GDP and overall labor productivity growth since the early 1990s. The shift of labor from low-productivity agriculture has been limited, and, hence, contributed only marginally to overall labor productivity growth. The productivity gap between agriculture and the rest of the economy has continued to widen, leading to increased rural-urban income inequality. Looking ahead, the authors calibrate two alternative scenarios. They show that continuing with the current growth pattern would further increase already high investment and saving needs to unsustainable levels, lower urban employment growth, and widen the rural-urban income gap. Instead, reducing subsidies to industry and investment, encouraging the development of the services industry, and reducing barriers to labor mobility would result in a more balanced growth with an investment-to-GDP ratio that is consistent with the medium-term saving trend, faster growth in urban employment, and a substantial reduction in the income gap between rural and urban residents.
EVENT STUDIES AND THE LAW: Part I: Technique and Corporate Litigation

Event studies are among the most successful uses of econometrics in policy analysis. By providing an anchor for measuring the impact of events on investor wealth, the methodology offers a fruitful means for evaluating the welfare implications of private and government actions. This article is the first in a set of two that review the use and impact of the event study methodology in the legal domain. This article begins by briefly reviewing the event study methodology and its strengths and limitations for policy analysis. It then reviews in detail how event studies have been used to evaluate the wealth effects of corporate litigation: defendants experience economically meaningful and statistically significant wealth losses upon the filing of the suit, whereas plaintiff firms experience no significant wealth effects upon filing a lawsuit. Also, there is a significant wealth increase for defendant firms when they settle a suit with another firm, in contrast to other types of plaintiffs, and in contrast to the settling plaintiff firms. These findings suggest that, at a minimum, lawsuits are not a value-enhancing way for corporations to settle their disagreements with other corporations. In addition, the market appears to impose a higher sanction on firms than actual criminal sanctions, and reputational losses are of equal magnitude for civil fines as for criminal ones. The article concludes with some recommendations for researchers: the standards for conducting an event study are well established; researchers can increase the power of an event study by increasing the sample size, and by narrowing the public announcement period to as short a time frame as possible. The companion article reviews the use of event studies in corporate law and regulation. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.