cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A parallel evolutionary multiple-try metropolis Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for sampling spatial partitions

We develop an Evolutionary Markov Chain Monte Carlo (EMCMC) algorithm for sampling spatial partitions that lie within a large, complex, and constrained spatial state space. Our algorithm combines the advantages of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) as optimization heuristics for state space traversal and the theoretical convergence properties of Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms for sampling from unknown distributions. Local optimality information that is identified via a directed search by our optimization heuristic is used to adaptively update a Markov chain in a promising direction within the framework of a Multiple-Try Metropolis Markov Chain model that incorporates a generalized Metropolis-Hastings ratio. We further expand the reach of our EMCMC algorithm by harnessing the computational power afforded by massively parallel computing architecture through the integration of a parallel EA framework that guides Markov chains running in parallel.
Learn like a Pathologist: Curriculum Learning by Annotator Agreement for Histopathology Image Classification

Applying curriculum learning requires both a range of difficulty in data and a method for determining the difficulty of examples. In many tasks, however, satisfying these requirements can be a formidable challenge.In this paper, we contend that histopathology image classification is a compelling use case for curriculum learning. Based on the nature of histopathology images, a range of difficulty inherently exists among examples, and, since medical datasets are often labeled by multiple annotators, annotator agreement can be used as a natural proxy for the difficulty of a given example. Hence, we propose a simple curriculum learning method that trains on progressively-harder images as determined by annotator agreement.We evaluate our hypothesis on the challenging and clinically-important task of colorectal polyp classification. Whereas vanilla training achieves an AUC of 83.7% for this task, a model trained with our proposed curriculum learning approach achieves an AUC of 88.2%, an improvement of 4.5%. Our work aims to inspire researchers to think more creatively and rigorously when choosing contexts for applying curriculum learning.
Eigen-stratified models

Stratified models depend in an arbitrary way on a selected categorical feature that takes K values, and depend linearly on the other n features. Laplacian regularization with respect to a graph on the feature values can greatly improve the performance of a stratified model, especially in the low-data regime. A significant issue with Laplacian-regularized stratified models is that the model is K times the size of the base model, which can be quite large. We address this issue by formulating eigen-stratified models, which are stratified models with an additional constraint that the model parameters are linear combinations of some modest number m of bottom eigenvectors of the graph Laplacian, i.e., those associated with the m smallest eigenvalues. With eigen-stratified models, we only need to store the m bottom eigenvectors and the corresponding coefficients as the stratified model parameters. This leads to a reduction, sometimes large, of model size when $$m\le n$$ and $$m \ll K$$ . In some cases, the additional regularization implicit in eigen-stratified models can improve out-of-sample performance over standard Laplacian regularized stratified models.
Generalized neural decoders for transfer learning across participants and recording modalities.

Objective Advances in neural decoding have enabled brain-computer interfaces to perform increasingly complex and clinically-relevant tasks. However, such decoders are often tailored to specific participants, days, and recording sites, limiting their practical long-term usage. Therefore, a fundamental challenge is to develop neural decoders that can robustly train on pooled, multi-participant data and generalize to new participants. Approach We introduce a new decoder, HTNet, which uses a convolutional neural network with two innovations: (1) a Hilbert transform that computes spectral power at data-driven frequencies and (2) a layer that projects electrode-level data onto predefined brain regions. The projection layer critically enables applications with intracranial electrocorticography (ECoG), where electrode locations are not standardized and vary widely across participants. We trained HTNet to decode arm movements using pooled ECoG data from 11 of 12 participants and tested performance on unseen ECoG or electroencephalography (EEG) participants; these pretrained models were also subsequently fine-tuned to each test participant. Main results HTNet outperformed state-of-the-art decoders when tested on unseen participants, even when a different recording modality was used. By fine-tuning these generalized HTNet decoders, we achieved performance approaching the best tailored decoders with as few as 50 ECoG or 20 EEG events. We were also able to interpret HTNet's trained weights and demonstrate its ability to extract physiologically-relevant features. Significance By generalizing to new participants and recording modalities, robustly handling variations in electrode placement, and allowing participant-specific fine-tuning with minimal data, HTNet is applicable across a broader range of neural decoding applications compared to current state-of-the-art decoders.
DYNAMIC MODE DECOMPOSITION FOR CONSTRUCTION OF REDUCED-ORDER MODELS OF HYPERBOLIC PROBLEMS WITH SHOCKS

Construction of reduced-order models (ROMs) for hyperbolic conservation laws is notoriously challenging mainly due to the translational property and nonlinearity of the governing equations. While the Lagrangian framework for ROM construction resolves the translational issue, it is valid only before a shock forms. Once that occurs, characteristic lines cross each other and projection from a high-fidelity model space onto a ROM space distorts a moving grid, resulting in numerical instabilities. We address this grid distortion issue by developing a physics-aware dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) method based on hodograph transformation. The latter provides a map between the original nonlinear system and its linear counterpart, which coincides with the Koopman operator. This strategy is consistent with the spirit of physics-aware DMDs in that it retains information about shock dynamics. Several numerical examples are presented to validate the proposed physics-aware DMD approach to constructing accurate ROMs.
The Ninth Circuit’s Treatment of Sexual Orientation: Defining “Rational Basis Review with Bite”

When the Ninth Circuit handed down Witt v. Department of the Air Force, President Obama and then-Solicitor General Kagan declined to take an appeal to the Supreme Court. At the time, it seemed that most advocates of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” believed that the administration made that decision because it was afraid the Supreme Court would reverse the Ninth Circuit. If that fear was perhaps well-founded in 2009, it is certainly less so now. In the wake of SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories, as well as recent District Court decisions, opponents of federal constitutional protection for gay people and same-sex couples must feel much less confident in their position. Circuit courts are now deeply split on the issue, and the prevailing winds are blowing west. The Ninth Circuit has not only made explicit what every reasonable observer already knew — that Romer, Lawrence, and Windsor each applied something more searching than traditional rational basis review — but it has also provided a standard with which to analyze sexual-orientation cases moving forward. To paraphrase the court, to justify intrusions into sexual privacy or disparate treatment of gay people, the state must demonstrate (1) that its actions are necessary to significantly further an important governmental interest; and (2) that no less burdensome approach is likely to achieve the same results. This seems like an eminently sensible test, and it is one that the justices would do well to adopt when this question inevitably makes its way back onto their docket.
Ownership structure and target returns

Contrary to past literature, ownership defined as “all officers and directors” of the target firm has no association with target returns. Rather, we find that inside (managerial) ownership has a positive relation with target returns, whereas active-outside (non-managing director) ownership has a negative relation with target returns. Using accounting-based versus market-based performance measures, we find that the relation between inside ownership and target returns is best explained by takeover anticipation. Using bidder and synergy returns we find that the relation between outside ownership and target returns is best explained by outsiders' willingness to share gains with the bidder. While the relations are more pronounced for non-tender deals, they also hold for tender offers when active-outside ownership is corporate rather than institutional.
Open Quantum Random Walks with Decoherence on Coins with n Degrees of Freedom

In this paper we define a new type of decoherent quantum random walk with parameter 0≤p≤1, which becomes a unitary quantum random walk (UQRW) when p=0 and an open quantum random walk (OQRW) when p=1, respectively. We call this process a partially open quantum random walk (POQRW). We study the limiting distribution of a POQRW on Z1 subject to decoherence on coins with n degrees of freedom. The limiting distribution of the POQRW converges to a convex combination of normal distributions, under an eigenvalue condition. A Perron-Frobenius type of theorem is established to determine whether or not a POQRW satisfies the eigenvalue condition. Moreover, we explicitly compute the limiting distributions of characteristic equations of the position probability functions when n=2 and 3.
Clarifying Cultural Property

Author Stephenie Meyer forever altered the cultural existence of Quileute Indians when she wrote them into her Twilight novels. Now a veritable global phenomenon complete with books, movies, and affiliated merchandise, the Twilight series depicts young, male members of the tribe as vampire-fighting werewolves who ferociously defend a peace and territorial treaty made with local bloodsuckers. In reality, the Quileute Tribe consists of approximately 700 Indians, many of whom live on a remote reservation in the pacific Northwest, a tiny parcel of the once vast Quileute territory. Since Twilight's unprecedented international success, the Quileute have been overwhelmed with fans and entrepreneurs, all grasping, quite literally in some cases, for their own piece of the Quileute.
Decentralization and Corruption : Evidence across Countries

The relationship between decentralization of government activities and the extent of rent extraction by private parties is an important element in the recent debate on institutional design. The theoretical literature makes ambiguous predictions about this relationship, and it has remained virtually unexamined by empiricists. The authors make a first attempt at examining the issue empirically, by looking at the cross-country relationship between fiscal decentralization and corruption as measured by a number of different indices. Their estimates suggest that fiscal decentralization in government spending is significantly associated with lower corruption. Moreover, they find that the origin of a country's legal system - for example, civil versus common legal code - performs extremely well as an instrument for decentralization. The estimated relationship between decentralization, when so instrumented, and corruption is even stronger. The evidence suggests a number of interesting areas for future work, including investigating whether there are specific services for which decentralized provision has a particularly strong impact on political rent extraction, and understanding the channels through which decentralization succeeds in keeping corruption in check.
Network Effects in Countries' Adoption of IFRS

ABSTRACT: If the differences in accounting standards across countries reflect relatively stable institutional differences, why did several countries rapidly adopt IFRS in the 2003–2008 period? We test the hypothesis that perceived network benefits from the extant worldwide adoption of IFRS can explain part of a country's shift away from local accounting standards. We find that perceived network benefits increase the degree of IFRS harmonization among countries and that smaller countries have a differentially higher response to these benefits. Further, economic ties with the European Union are a particularly important source of network effects. The results, robust to numerous alternative hypotheses and specifications, suggest IFRS adoption was self-reinforcing during the sample period, which, in turn, has implications for the consequences of IFRS adoption. Data Availability: Most data are available from public sources identified in the text; hand-collected data are available upon request.
Getting by with the Advice of Their Friends: CEOs' Advice Networks and Firms' Strategic Responses to Poor Performance

This paper theorizes that relatively poor firm performance can prompt chief executive officers (CEOs) to seek more advice from executives of other firms who are their friends or similar to them and...
Bitter Shade: Throwing Light on Politics and Ecology in Contemporary Pakistan

Farmers in the rainfed tracts of Pakistan’s Punjab and North-West Frontier Provinces interpret the on-farm interaction between annual crops and trees in terms of sayah, “tree shade.” Tree shade is conceived as an emission that is thought to have density, temperature, taste, and size (which itself is thought to have length, width, height, and duration). Farmers believe the character of shade and its impact upon their crops varies by tree species and also by season and land type. This complex system of beliefs attests to the commitment of farmers to on-farm tree cultivation and contradicts government foresters’ beliefs that farmers are hostile to the presence of trees on farms. The farmers’ belief system collapses a dichotomy between tree and crop, forest and farm, forest department and farmer, and indeed nature and culture, that serves the interests of the Forest Department. This analysis suggests that the most mundane, quotidian resource practices may have profound political implications, that environment...
Legal Research as a Fundamental Skill: A Lifeboat for Students and Law Schools

This article argues that current legal research education is dangerously deficient and demonstrates how it can be reconceptualized to become a synergistic first year course that supports the learning of doctrine and legal analysis, as well as necessary research skills in accordance with recent suggestions by the ABA, the authors of the Carnegie Report, and other legal commentators. Most law schools provide legal research instruction that is not only ineffective in teaching basic research skills but is potentially hazardous to students attempting to learn legal analysis. The ability to electronically search and access law has created a paradigm shift that has affected the very framework of the law as it has been understood and taught for the past one hundred and thirty years. The very act of accessing the law electronically restructures the law itself. It erodes the idea that one can learn the law from the scientific study of readily agreed upon precedent. As the historical understanding of law shifts, the ability to teach students to “think like lawyers” using the structured concepts of the legal system developed in the 1880s, but still relied on by law professors today, begins to collapse. Creating an excellent legal research course is not necessarily difficult. It requires that legal research be taught as both a fundamental legal skill, requiring analysis and doctrinal knowledge and as a fundamental lawyering skill, integrated into the entire first year curriculum, not merely linked to legal writing. In addition, it must teach information literacy skills and the teaching should be informed with adult learning methodologies. Such a course provides students not only with the necessary research skills for law practice, but assists them in building the conceptual framework necessary for legal analysis.
Popular Rule in Schumpeter’s Democracy:

In this article, it is argued that existing democracies might establish popular rule even if Joseph Schumpeter’s notoriously unflattering picture of ordinary citizens is accurate. Some degree of po...
Human Behavior and the Law of Work

The most fundamental issues in labor and employment law involve the choice among three alternatives: waivable employers’ rights, waivable employees’ rights, and nonwaivable employees’ rights. By combining standard contract analysis with a perspective informed by behavioral economics, it is possible to obtain a much better understanding of the underlying issues. Contrary to the conventional view: workers are especially averse to losses, and not so much concerned with obtaining gains; workers often do not know about legal rules, including key rules denying them rights; workers may well suffer from excessive optimism; workers care a great deal about fairness, and are willing to punish employers who have treated them unfairly, even at workers’ own expense; many workers greatly discount the future; and workers often care about relative economic position, not absolute economic position. These points suggest the advantages, in many cases, of relying on waivable employees’ rights, an approach designed to inform workers without providing the rigidity and inefficiency associated with nonwaivable terms. At the same time, these points suggest, though more ambiguously, the hazards of allowing workers to waive their rights in accordance with standard contract principles. Procedural constraints (e.g., cooling off periods) and substantive constraints (e.g., “floors”) on waiver may be appropriate. Norm change and preference change are also discussed. Applications include job security; parental leave; vacation time; health care; unionization; occupational safety and health; discrimination on the basis of age, race, and sex; waivers by unions; and workers’ compensation. The basic conclusion is that waivable employees’ rights are a promising and insufficiently explored option in many areas of labor and employment law.
All in the Family: Mental Health Spillover Effects between Working Spouses

It is well documented that mental health outcomes are correlated between spouses. There are several alternative hypotheses for this correlation, including both causal and non-causal pathways. In this paper, I use an instrumental variables/fixed effects approach to examine whether there is evidence that an individual's mental health status spills over on his or her spouse's mental health status. Results from the IV-FE specifications that use spousal job problems as an instrument are large in magnitude. In particular, spousal mental health status is estimated to have a greater influence on an individual's mental health status than his or her own mental health endowment and is similar in magnitude with his or her own physical health status. Although not conclusive, these findings suggest that within-family spillovers of mental illness could be economically important and that policies that reduce mental health problems for individuals likely have unmeasured benefits for their family members.
Inflation ambiguity and the term structure of U.S. Government bonds

Abstract Variations in trend inflation are the main driver for variations in the nominal yield curve. According to empirical data, investors observe a set of empirical models that could all have generated the time-series for trend inflation. This set has been large and volatile during the 1970s and early 1980s and small during the 1990s. I show that log utility together with Knightian uncertainty about trend inflation can explain the term premium in U.S. Treasury bonds. The equilibrium has two inflation premiums, an inflation risk premium and a Knightian inflation ambiguity premium.
Online Access to Court Records - From Documents to Data, Particulars to Patterns

For over a decade the public has had remote access to federal court records held in electronic format, including documents filed by litigants and judicial rulings. First available via dial-up connections, access migrated to the Web in 1998. That and a succession of other improvements to the federal "Public Access to Court Electronic Records" system or PACER prompted the Administrative Office of the United States Courts to proclaim in 2001 that "the advancement of technology has brought the citizen ever closer to the courthouse." Unquestionably, what the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and Judicial Conference of the United States have built offers citizens, businesses, journalists, and scholars unprecedented access to the details of individual court proceedings. But to hold PACER in that frame is to miss much of its impact. Moreover, some of the gains one might hope or expect to flow from enhanced judicial transparency remain largely untouched by this system. The article explores PACER's evolution, larger impact, and unrealized possibilities. It then proceeds to examine why state courts are, in general, approaching online access to court records so differently.
HOW LOYALTY DISCOUNTS CAN PERVERSELY DISCOURAGE DISCOUNTING

Loyalty discounts are agreements to sell at a lower price to buyers who buy all or most of their purchases from the seller. This article proves that loyalty discounts can create anticompetitive effects, not only because they can impair rival efficiency, but also because loyalty discounts can perversely discourage discounting even when they have no effect on rival efficiency. The essential reason, missed in prior work, is that firms using loyalty discounts have less incentive to compete for free buyers, because any price reduction to win sales to free buyers will, given the loyalty discount, also lower prices to loyal buyers. This in turn reduces the incentive of rivals to cut prices, because there will exist an above-cost price that rivals can charge to free buyers without being undercut by the firm using loyalty discounts. These anticompetitive effects occur even if buyers can breach or terminate commitments, and even if the loyalty conditions require no buyer commitments and less than 100 percent loyalty. These anticompetitive effects also differ from those created by most-favored-nation or price-matching clauses, neither of which requires the seller to commit to maintain a price difference between loyal and disloyal buyers. Further, I prove that these anticompetitive effects are exacerbated if multiple sellers use loyalty discounts. None of the results depend on switching costs, market differentiation, imperfect competition, or whether the loyalty discount bundles contestable and incontestable demand. Contrary to commonly held views, I prove that these anticompetitive effects exist even (1) when all prices are above seller or rival costs, (2) buyers voluntarily agree to the conditions, and (3) discount and foreclosure levels are low, although such low levels do lower the likelihood that buyers would agree to anticompetitive loyalty discounts. I also derive formulas for calculating the inflated price levels in each situation. However, because loyalty discounts can have efficiencies, rule of reason analysis remains appropriate.
Profiling the New Immigrant Worker: The Effects of Skin Color and Height

Using data from the New Immigrant Survey 2003, this article shows that skin color and height affect wages among new lawful immigrants to the United States, controlling for education, English language proficiency, occupation in source country, family background, ethnicity, race, and country of birth. Immigrants with the lightest skin color earn on average 17% more than comparable immigrants with the darkest skin color. Taller immigrants have higher wages, but weight does not affect wages. Controls for extensive current labor market characteristics that may be influenced by discrimination do not eliminate the negative effect of darker skin color on wages.
The devaluation of life

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the target of two recent controversies involving the devaluation of life: the 2003 use of a senior discount for the value of statistical life for people over age 65, and the 2008 downward reassessment of the value of statistical life by the EPA Air Office. Even though these new values of statistical life were still among the highest used in the Federal government, there was a strong negative public reaction to each. The public outcry over the EPA policies appears to have stemmed from an irrational response to decreases in the value of statistical life. Proposed Congressional legislation that purportedly seeks to reform the valuations would politicize benefit assessments. A sounder approach is to establish a peer-reviewed scientific advisory panel to advise agencies on the value of statistical life.
Limit orders and the bid–ask spread

Abstract We examine the role of limit-order traders and specialists in the market-making process. We find that a large portion of posted bid–ask quotes originates from the limit-order book without direct participation by specialists, and that competition between traders and specialists has a significant impact on the bid–ask spread. Specialists’ spreads are widest at the open, narrow until late morning, and then level off. The U-shaped intraday pattern of spreads largely reflects the intraday variation in spreads established by limit-order traders. Lastly, the intraday variation in limit-order spreads is significantly related to the intraday variation in limit-order placements and executions.
Exploitation of the internal capital market and the avoidance of outside monitoring

Abstract Internal capital markets (ICMs) provide firms an alternative to costly external financing; however, they also provide an avenue to avoid the monitoring associated with issuing external capital. We argue that firms operating inefficient internal capital markets will avoid outside financing. Consistent with this view, conglomerates that cross-subsidize divisions or engage in value-destroying investment avoid external capital market oversight by refraining from issuing both debt and equity. We further show that firms issuing bonds while engaging in value-destroying investment experience yield spreads that are, on average, 46 basis points higher than those of other diversified firms. They similarly experience yield spreads that are 18 basis points higher when they issue syndicated loans. Value-destroying conglomerates also witness SEO announcement returns that are, on average, 1% more negative than firms operating more efficient internal capital markets.
Systemic risk measurement: Multivariate GARCH estimation of CoVaR.

Abstract We modify Adrian and Brunnermeier’s (2011) CoVaR, the VaR of the financial system conditional on an institution being in financial distress. We change the definition of financial distress from an institution being exactly at its VaR to being at most at its VaR. This change allows us to consider more severe distress events, to backtest CoVaR, and to improve its consistency (monotonicity) with respect to the dependence parameter. We define the systemic risk contribution of an institution as the change from its CoVaR in its benchmark state (defined as a one-standard deviation event) to its CoVaR under financial distress. We estimate the systemic risk contributions of four financial industry groups consisting of a large number of institutions for the sample period June 2000 to February 2008 and the 12 months prior to the beginning of the crisis. We also investigate the link between institutions’ contributions to systemic risk and their characteristics.
Comparing the stock recommendation performance of investment banks and independent research firms.

Abstract From January 1996 through June 2003, the average daily abnormal return to independent research firm buy recommendations exceeds that of investment bank buy recommendations by 3.1 basis points (almost 8 percentage points annualized). Investment bank buy recommendation underperformance is more pronounced following the NASDAQ market peak (March 10, 2000) and strikingly so for buy recommendations on firms that recently conducted equity offerings. In contrast, investment bank hold and sell recommendations outperform those of independent research firms by 1.8 basis points daily ( 4 1 2 percentage points annualized). These results suggest reluctance by investment banks to downgrade stocks whose prospects dimmed during the bear market of the early 2000s, as claimed in the SEC's Global Research Analyst Settlement.
Law of Cyber Warfare

When conflicts arise between countries, these conflicts may be addressed by application of international law. This entry focuses on international law in the modern age, especially as it has been affected by modern communication technologies that increase the danger of cyberwar. First, we provide some general background information about agreements between states under international law, such as treaties. While there are many ways that international law can develop, treaties may be especially effective at addressing new technologies. Next, we turn to the main focus of this entry: applying international law to the modern communication environment, especially given the threat of cyber warfare. The threats are real and the technology is developing rapidly, but formal legal positions are still being debated. Though it is unclear how international law will apply to cyberwar, this topic is a high priority in the area of international relations and diplomacy. Keywords: communication and public policy; cyberattacks; cyber intrusion; cyberlaw; cyberterrorism; cyberwar; hacking; Stuxnet
Do dynamic provisions enhance bank solvency and reduce credit procyclicality? A study of the Chilean Banking system

Dynamic provisions could help to enhance the solvency of individual banks and reduce procyclicality. Accomplishing these objectives depends on country-specific features of the banking system, business practices and the calibration of the dynamic provisions scheme. In the case of Chile, a simulation analysis suggests Spanish dynamic provisions would improve banks’ resilience to adverse shocks but would not reduce procyclicality. To address the latter, other countercyclical measures should be considered.
Institutional networks and adaptive water governance in the Klamath River Basin, USA

Abstract Polycentric networks of formal organizations and informal stakeholder groups, as opposed to centralized institutional hierarchies, can be critically important for strengthening the capacity of governance systems to adapt to unexpected social and biophysical change. Adaptive governance is one type of environmental governance characterized by the emergence of networks that stimulate adaptive capacity through increases in social-learning, communication, trust, public participation and adaptive management. However, detecting and analyzing adaptive governance networks remains elusive, especially given contexts of highly contested resource governance such as large-scale negotiations over water use. Research methods such as social network analysis (SNA) are often infeasible as they necessitate collecting in-depth and politically sensitive personal data from a near-complete set of actors or organizations in a network. Here we present a method for resolving this problem by describing the results of an institutional SNA aimed at characterizing the changing governance network in the Klamath River Basin, USA during a period of contested negotiations over water. Through this research, we forward a method of institutional SNA useful when an individual or egocentric approach to SNA is problematic for political, logistical or financial reasons. We focus our analysis on publically available data signaling changes in formal relationships (statutory, regulatory, contractual) between organizations and stakeholder groups. We find that employing this type of SNA is useful for describing potential and actual transitions in governance that yield increases in adaptive capacity to respond to social and biophysical surprises such as increasing water scarcity and changes in water distribution.
Randomness and Complexity in Social Explanation: Evidence from Finance and Bankruptcy Law

This Article examines randomness as a mechanism of social explanation, and compares randomness to alternative explanations emerging from the science of complex systems. The Article establishes definitions of randomness and examines the uses of randomness in the quantitative modeling of social phenomena. Using examples from ecology, finance (especially Mandelbrot's critique of standard financial models), and bankruptcy law, the Article argues that complexity alternatives to randomness are explanatory and may be a rich field for further research in legal systems.
Demand for the truth in principal–agent relationships

Consider the following puzzle: If earnings management is harmful to shareholders, why don’t they design contracts that induce managers to reveal the truth? To answer this question, we model the shareholders–manager relationship as a principal–agent game in which the agent (the manager) alone observes the economic outcome. We show that the limited liability (LL) of the agent, defined as the agent’s feasible minimum payment, might explain the demand for earnings management by the principal. Specifically, when the LL level is high (low), a contract that induces earnings management may be less (more) costly than a truth-revealing contract. This finding offers a new explanation of the demand for earnings management.
On Estimating the Expected Rate of Return in Diffusion Price Models with Application to Estimating the Expected Return on the Market

This paper derives and numerically simulates maximum likelihood estimators for the drift in several important diffusion price models. The time series convergence properties of these estimators are compared to those of standard estimators including the geometric and arithmetic means. Merton (1980) demonstrated that it is difficult to efficiently estimate the drift in a log-normal diffusion model. We qualify and strengthen his result by noting that his estimator is the maximum likelihood estimator and by applying our simulation results. However, we also demonstrate that it is possible to efficiently estimate the drift in other useful diffusion price models. In particular, by asking just how much time is needed in order for the maximum likelihood estimators ofthe drift in different diffusion processes to converge, these results qualify and quantify Black's (1993) statement that "we need such a long period to estimate the average that we have little hope of seeing changes in expected return."
The effects of progressive income taxation on job turnover

Abstract We examine whether the level of the income tax rate and the convexity of the income tax schedule affect job mobility, as measured by moving to a better job. While the predicted effect of the level of the tax rate is ambiguous, we predict that an increase in the convexity of the tax schedule decreases job search activity by taxing away some of the benefits of a successful job search. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we estimate that both higher tax rates and increased tax rate progressivity decrease the probability that a head of household will move to a better job during the coming year. Our estimates imply that a five-percentage-point reduction in the marginal tax rate increases the average probability of moving to a better job by 0.79 percentage points (a 8.0% increase in the turnover propensity) and that a one-standard-deviation decrease in our measure of tax progressivity would increase this probability by 0.86 percentage points (a 8.7% increase in the turnover propensity). This estimate is robust to sensitivity analysis examining the importance of different sources of identification and variation in estimated effects across subgroups in the population. Our estimated importance of tax policy for job turnover suggests a potential role in explaining the responsiveness of taxable income to marginal tax rates.
Organizational Linkages for Surviving Technological Change: Complementary Assets, Middle Management, and Ambidexterity

Technological innovation sometimes requires industry incumbents to shift to a completely new core technology. To successfully navigate a technological transition, firms often face the ambidextrous challenge of “exploiting” existing complementary assets to support the new “exploratory” core technology. We argue that an industry incumbent attempting to make a transition to a new technology requires linkages between organizational units responsible for developing the new technology and units in charge of complementary assets needed to commercialize the innovation. These linkages are critical but overlooked elements of organizational ambidexterity. This paper develops a conceptual framework in which the ability to build and leverage organizational linkages involving the new technology and its complementary assets is essential for a successful technological transition. The framework also highlights the importance of middle management in creating and maintaining these linkages, which are critical to dynamic capabilities in technological transitions. We identify four critical influences---economic, structural, social, and cognitive---on managerial linking activity that enable firms to transition to a new technology while utilizing valuable preexisting capabilities. The technological transitions of IBM and NCR illustrate the importance of organizational linkages and managerial linking activity.
The Dynamic Efficiency Cost of Not taxing Housing

Traditional welfare cost estimates of tax subsidies for owner-occupied housing are less than 0.5% of GNP in the United States and Canada. This paper argues that these static measures understate the true cost of the tax subsidy. Increasing the capital income tax makes untaxed housing more valuable, delivering a windfall bonus to existing homeowners at the expense of future generations. This intergenerational transfer has real efficiency effects in the presence of pre-existing tax distortions. When housing is in fixed supply, the dynamic efficiency cost of preferential tax treatment for housing is as much as 2.2% of GNP, or $120 billion dollars in 1990.
Justice Thomas's Kelo Dissent: The Perilous and Political Nature of Public Purpose

The exercise of eminent domain in the United States has victimized politically disadvantaged groups like minorities and the poor the most. As Professor Ilya Somin aptly noted in his recent book, The Grasping Hand, "[w}ealthy and politically connected property owners rarely suffer from economic development ... takings, because politicians and developers are usually savvy enough to avoid targeting them." Whether it is government taking private property for highways, roads, or schools, the common thread that weaves through all of these examples -- from the beginning of the country until now -- is that political actors have always decided whose property was to be taken. Since the beginning of time, the least powerful groups have always had the least political influence. And, people with the least political power are the people who pay the price of eminent domain.
Comparative historical political economy

Investigations of a society's competitiveness aim to trace the causal mechanisms behind patterns in wealth and poverty across societies. This paper argues that to be productive such investigations must be comparative, historical, and political economic in nature. Comparative historical political economy is how social scientists generate useful knowledge about the wealth and poverty of nations. Our contribution is a methodology - or rather a collection of methodologies - for understanding national competitiveness and attempts to improve it: one focuses on political-economic analysis, another on historical analysis, and a third on comparative analysis. 1. Introduction The study of national competitiveness was born in an exercise in comparative historical political economy. In 1776, Adam Smith famously asked: Why are some nations rich and others poor? Smith's answer was that increased productive capabilities - the result of an expanding division of labor and exchange - create improvements in man's material conditions. Some nations historically developed institutional environments - namely those rooted in private property rights - that facilitate productivity increases by incentivizing specialization and exchange. These nations are wealthy. Other nations historically developed institutionalenvironmentsthatneglectprivatepropertyrights.Theirinstitutional
Expounding the Law: Law and Judicial Duty

Written as a comment on Philip Hamburger's book, Law and Judicial Duty, this essay explains why the history of judicial review remains a difficult area for scholarship. American judicial tradition espoused that judges had an obligation to declare as void laws repugnant to the constitution. The essay suggests that the source of this duty, as well as the meaning of both the constitution and laws of the land, changed over time. The essay proposes that scholars perceived American judicial review as problematic only when this tradition conflicted with an increasingly rigid belief in separation of powers. The essay concludes by suggesting that Marbury's significance derives from its status as the last time an American judge could declare that striking down a law as repugnant to a constitution was the simple consequence of expounding the law. The comment ultimately argues for recovering the time-honored meaning of "expounding" as applied to the work of judges.
The Financialization of Storable Commodities

I solve a dynamic equilibrium model of commodity spot and futures prices, incorporating an active futures market, heterogeneous risk-averse participants, and storage. When calibrated to data from t...
Endorsements on Social Media: An Empirical Study of Affiliate Marketing Disclosures on YouTube and Pinterest

Online advertisements that masquerade as non-advertising content pose numerous risks to users. Such hidden advertisements appear on social media platforms when content creators or "influencers" endorse products and brands in their content. While the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires content creators to disclose their endorsements in order to prevent deception and harm to users, we do not know whether and how content creators comply with the FTC's guidelines. In this paper, we studied disclosures within affiliate marketing, an endorsement-based advertising strategy used by social media content creators. We examined whether content creators follow the FTC's disclosure guidelines, how they word the disclosures, and whether these disclosures help users identify affiliate marketing content as advertisements. To do so, we first measured the prevalence of and identified the types of disclosures in over 500,000 YouTube videos and 2.1 million Pinterest pins. We then conducted a user study with 1,791 participants to test the efficacy of these disclosures. Our findings reveal that only about 10% of affiliate marketing content on both platforms contains any disclosures at all. Further, users fail to understand shorter, non-explanatory disclosures. Based on our findings, we make various design and policy suggestions to help improve advertising disclosure practices on social media platforms.
Does return dispersion explain the accrual and investment anomalies

Abstract Recent research shows that high return dispersion (RD) is associated with economic conditions characterized by high discount rates, which are not conducive to growth and investment. We propose that RD risk can explain the accrual and investment anomalies. We conduct asset-pricing tests that include RD as a potential risk factor and show that low-accrual and low-investment firms have significantly higher exposure to the risk captured by RD. RD significantly explains future returns and the excess returns to accrual and investment hedge portfolios shrink in magnitude and become insignificant during periods of low RD. We conclude that risk explains the accrual and investment anomalies.
The Next Innocence Project: Shaken Baby Syndrome and the Criminal Courts

Every year in this country, hundreds of people are convicted of having shaken a baby, most often to death. In a prosecution paradigm without precedent, expert medical testimony is used to establish that a crime occurred, that the defendant caused the infant's death by shaking, and that the shaking was sufficiently forceful to constitute depraved indifference to human life. Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is, in essence, a medical diagnosis of murder, one based solely on the presence of a diagnostic triad: retinal bleeding, bleeding in the protective layer of the brain, and brain swelling. New scientific research has cast doubt on the forensic significance of this triad, thereby undermining the foundations of thousands of SBS convictions. Outside the United States, this scientific evolution has prompted systemic reevaluations of the prosecutorial paradigm. Most recently, after a seventeen-month investigation costing $8.3 million, a Canadian commission recommended that all SBS cases be reviewed. In contrast, our criminal justice system has failed to absorb the latest scientific knowledge. This is beginning to change: for the first time, an SBS conviction was overturned last year because "newly discovered" scientific evidence would likely create a reasonable doubt about the defendant's guilt; also for the first time, a state Supreme Court is considering whether a trial judge erred in excluding as unreliable the prosecution's expert testimony regarding SBS; and the U.S. Supreme Court is now reviewing a petition seeking review of a habeas grant in an SBS case. Yet the response has been halting and inconsistent. To this day, triad-based convictions continue to be affirmed, and new prosecutions commenced, as a matter of course. These developments have not attracted the attention of legal scholars. In the face of this void, this article identifies a criminal justice crisis and begins a conversation about its proper resolution. The conceptual implications of the inquiry - for scientific engagement in law's shadow, for future systemic reform, and for our understanding of innocence in a post-DNA world - should assist in the task of righting past wrongs and averting further injustice.
Neutral Principles: Rethinking the Legal History of Civil Rights, 1934-1964

“[T]he question posed by state-enforced segregation is not one of discrimination at all.”1 So proclaimed Columbia law professor Herbert Wechsler to a surprised audience at Harvard Law School in April 1959. Hardly a southern segregationist, Wechsler’s words suggested a shocking indifference to the plight of African Americans in the South, not to mention a puzzling rejection of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.2 “I find it hard to think,” Wechsler exclaimed, “that [Brown] really turned upon the facts.”3 “Suppose,” he posited, “that more Negroes in a community preferred separation than opposed it?”4 What if, he pondered even more bizarrely, blacks were “hurt” by integration?5 Wechsler’s doubts about integration, and the fact that he chose to express them just as massive resistance to Brown was entering a decline, have puzzled scholars for almost five decades.6 Yet, they