cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Optimal Control of Urban Intersection Scheduling for Connected Automated Vehicles

We propose a novel urban congestion-aware intersection scheduling model based on vehicle to infrastructure communication (V2I) for automated and connected vehicles. In this model, a combinational optimized model which combines passing order and vehicular motion control together is proposed. In order to resolve the intersection conflict issue and improve traffic capacity, driving tube and potential conflict matrix is applied in the schedule optimization model. Take the global average waiting time as optimized object, we propose state encoding approach to collect all the vehicle's information in the intersection. Then Deep Q Network (DQN) method is applied to resolve the scheduling problem, which outputs the driving tubes enable vector and subsequently 7th polynomial based motion planning trajectory planning is exploited to generate the most comfortable and most efficient trajectory for active vehicles. The optimal time cost profile will be feed back to intersection manager via V2I channel for next time scheduling decision. The performance of this framework is evaluated based on a typical Chinese complicated urban scenario with extensive simulation, our framework achieves encouraging results in terms of average waiting time and peak traffic throughput.
Principled moral sentiment and the flexibility of moral judgment and decision making

Abstract Three studies test eight hypotheses about (1) how judgment differs between people who ascribe greater vs. less moral relevance to choices, (2) how moral judgment is subject to task constraints that shift evaluative focus (to moral rules vs. to consequences), and (3) how differences in the propensity to rely on intuitive reactions affect judgment. In Study 1, judgments were affected by rated agreement with moral rules proscribing harm, whether the dilemma under consideration made moral rules versus consequences of choice salient, and by thinking styles (intuitive vs. deliberative). In Studies 2 and 3, participants evaluated policy decisions to knowingly do harm to a resource to mitigate greater harm or to merely allow the greater harm to happen. When evaluated in isolation, approval for decisions to harm was affected by endorsement of moral rules and by thinking style. When both choices were evaluated simultaneously, total harm – but not the do/allow distinction – influenced rated approval. These studies suggest that moral rules play an important, but context-sensitive role in moral cognition, and offer an account of when emotional reactions to perceived moral violations receive less weight than consideration of costs and benefits in moral judgment and decision making.
The Congressional budget process, aggregate spending, and statutory budget rules

Abstract This paper compares the Congressional budget process (instituted in 1974) and the piecemeal appropriations process that preceded it. Previous theoretical analysis using spatial models of legislator preferences finds no systematic difference in relative spending levels under the two regimes. This paper instead uses a model of interest group lobbying. A legislature determines spending on a national public good and on subsidies to sector-specific interest groups. In the “appropriations process,” the Appropriations Committee proposes a budget that, because of interest group influence, involves overspending on subsidies. In the “budget process,” the Budget Committee proposes an aggregate level of spending (the budget resolution); then, the Appropriations Committee proposes a budget. A free rider problem among the interest groups inhibits the lobbying of the Budget Committee to increase the aggregate budget. If each group is sufficiently small, it takes the budget resolution as given, and lobbies the Appropriations Committee. Aggregate spending is lower and social welfare is higher under the budget process; however, provision of the national public good is suboptimal. The paper also analyzes statutory budget rules that limit spending levels, but can be revised by a simple majority vote. Here, the free rider problem prevents the groups from securing the required changes to budget rules.
Liquidity Provision and the Cross Section of Hedge Fund Returns

I investigate whether hedge funds that supply liquidity earn superior returns. Using transaction data, I find that hedge funds following short-term contrarian strategies (i.e., liquidity suppliers) earn significantly higher returns on their equity trades and holdings. Similarly, using commercial databases, I find that hedge funds with greater exposure to a liquidity provision factor earn significantly higher excess returns and Sharpe ratios. The superior performance of liquidity-supplying hedge funds arises from strategies that are more complex than mechanical short-term reversal strategies. For example, among stocks with similar past returns, liquidity-supplying funds are more likely to trade against stocks heavily traded by constrained mutual funds and less likely to trade against stocks heavily traded by unconstrained mutual funds. The outperformance of liquidity-supplying funds is also concentrated in periods of low funding liquidity, suggesting that less-binding financial constraints contribute to th...
Domestic Water Pricing with Household Surveys : A Study of Acceptability and Willingness to Pay in Chongqing, China

In determining domestic water prices, policy makers often need to use information about the demand side rather than only relying on information about the supply side. Household surveys have frequently been employed to collect demand-side information. This paper presents a multiple bounded discrete choice household survey model. It discusses how the model can be utilized to collect and analyze information about the acceptability of different water prices by different types of households, as well as households' willingness to pay for water service improvement. The results obtained from these surveys can be directly utilized in the development of water pricing and subsidy policies. The paper also presents an empirical multiple bounded discrete choice study conducted in Chongqing, China. In this case, domestic water service quality was seriously inadequate, but financial resources were insufficient to improve service quality. With a survey of about 1,500 households in five suburban districts in Chongqing Municipality, this study shows that a significant increase in the water price is feasible as long as the poorest households can be properly subsidized and certain public awareness and accountability campaigns can be conducted to make the price increase more acceptable to the public. The analysis also indicates that the order in which hypothetical prices are presented to respondents systematically affects their answers, and should be taken into account when designing survey instruments.
Surfacing the Submerged State: Operational Transparency Increases Trust in and Engagement with Government

Problem definition: As trust in government reaches historic lows, frustration with government performance approaches record highs. Academic/practical relevance: We propose that in coproductive sett...
Trade dimensions of logistics services : a proposal for trade agreements

Services have a direct impact on the competitiveness of the goods sector. This paper illustrates the importance of logistics services, their trade dimension, and how regulatory issues act as perhaps one of the most significant barriers to competitiveness. The paper discusses recent developments and the role and benefits of logistics services and argues that from a trade agreement standpoint, logistics is a network industry that ultimately provides one service to a final client. It analyzes logistics services from a services trade perspective and proposes that trade agreements should ensure access to and use of the infrastructure required to provide these services recognizing their interconnectedness. The paper offers suggestions on additional policies World Trade Organization members, and countries negotiating services agreements regionally or bilaterally, could follow in order to fully exploit the opportunities provided by logistics services. Local regulations and complementary policies in areas such as trade facilitation will always remain important.
The Dynamic Cycle of Legal Change

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously observed that the life of the law is not logic, but experience. Holmes’ observation, however, still leaves us with the task of figuring out how the legal system actually works. Although Holmes made his statement over 130 years ago, there is still no universally accepted analytical approach for describing how the American legal system creates and changes the law. This article proposes a "Dynamic Cycle of Legal Change" as a model for understanding the structure and operation of the American legal system. Part I first posits that we should consider the legal system from an "information systems" perspective. Part II then describes the proposed "Dynamic Cycle of Legal Change" (DCLC) as an information system model of the legal system. Part III illustrates the operation of the DCLC in three settings: common law, legislation and direct democracy. Illustrations include settings of gender equality, fame as a property asset, palimony claims, crime victims bills of rights, same-sex marriage statutes, solar acts, and the California coastal protection initiative and subsequent statute. Although the article is primarily descriptive of how the American legal system operates, it can perhaps serve as the foundation for the normative task of determining how the system should operate as well.
Contingency, Immanence, and Inevitability in the Law of Accidents

For well over a century now, the law of accidents has offered one of the great testing grounds for theories of legal history. This article draws out three competing theories of history, and in particular of legal history, embedded in narratives of accident law’s development. The first is immanence; the second is contingency; the third is inevitability. The immanence idea is that there is a deep inner logic to the development of the common law of torts. Contingency narratives, by contrast, tell the story of accident law’s development as being accidental: untethered to any deep logic or transhistorical coherence. Finally, inevitability narratives contend that tort and accident law are driven inexorably in one direction or another, not by forces that are immanent or instinct in tort doctrine, but by institutions and economic imperatives that impose strong constraints on the development of the law. The article elaborates further on these three themes, highlights their significance, and shows some of the ways they have animated (consciously or otherwise) important work in the literatures of law and history. Along the way, the article notes the deep tensions between immanence narratives and contingency narratives. ∗Professor of Law and History, Columbia University. Many thanks to Michael Grunfeld and Margaret Symuleski for research assistance in the preparation of this article. Thanks also to Tom Grey, Sam Issacharoff, Greg Keating, Cathy Sharkey, and especially to the gracious and learned John Goldberg for stimulating reactions to earlier versions of this article. The Columbia faculty lunch series run by the magnificent Ariela Dubler provided helpful feedback in the final stages of preparing the piece for publication.
Transnational Policing: Preemption and Deterrence against Elusive Perpetrators

Why does a state directly police certain kinds of transnational perpetrators by itself while indirectly policing other kinds through their host government? To address this question, we develop a fo...
Informational Robustness and Solution Concepts

We discuss four solution concepts for games with incomplete information. We show how each solution concept can be viewed as encoding informational robustness. For a given type space, we consider expansions of the type space that provide players with additional signals. We distinguish between expansions along two dimensions. First, the signals can
Cross-compartment signal propagation in the mitotic exit network

In budding yeast, the mitotic exit network (MEN), a GTPase signaling cascade, integrates spatial and temporal cues to promote exit from mitosis. This signal integration requires transmission of a signal generated on the cytoplasmic face of spindle pole bodies (SPBs; yeast equivalent of centrosomes) to the nucleolus, where the MEN effector protein Cdc14 resides. Here, we show that the MEN activating signal at SPBs is relayed to Cdc14 in the nucleolus through the dynamic localization of its terminal kinase complex Dbf2-Mob1. Cdc15, the protein kinase that activates Dbf2-Mob1 at SPBs, also regulates its nuclear access. Once in the nucleus, priming phosphorylation of Cfi1/Net1, the nucleolar anchor of Cdc14, by the Polo-like kinase Cdc5 targets Dbf2-Mob1 to the nucleolus. Nucleolar Dbf2-Mob1 then phosphorylates Cfi1/Net1 and Cdc14, activating Cdc14. The kinase-primed transmission of the MEN signal from the cytoplasm to the nucleolus exemplifies how signaling cascades can bridge distant inputs and responses.
Does Federal Student Aid Raise Tuition? New Evidence on For-Profit Colleges

Abstract We provide the first comprehensive estimates of the size of the for-profit higher education sector and evaluate whether for-profits increase tuition in response to federal subsidies. By us...
Engagement Planning, Bid Pricing, and Client Response in the Market for Initial Attest Engagements

This study examines how client risk factors and the provision of additional services affect engagement planning and bid pricing for a set of initial engagement proposals that a single firm submitted to its prospective clients in 1997–1998. We find little effect of risk on planned personnel hours, but show that the firm responds to fraud and error risk factors by applying engagement‐planning strategies such as assigning more high‐risk specialist personnel, assigning more industry expert personnel, applying more intensive testing, and/or performing additional review. Analyzing proposed fees while controlling for planned personnel hours, we find risk premia for both fraud and error risk factors. Supplemental analysis of accepted vs. rejected bids shows that the risk premia are detectable for bids accepted by clients (i.e., the engagements the firm will actually perform), implying that risk premia are not bid away in the market. We also find that for clients purchasing additional services, the firm plans more...
The Dividend Clientele Hypothesis: Evidence from the 2003 Tax Act

This paper provides evidence that dividend and capital gains tax rates importantly influence household portfolio choices. Using data from the Surveys of Consumer Finances around the 2003 dividend tax reductions, I estimate the relationship between taxes and household portfolio dividend yields. I find that a one percentage point decrease in the dividend tax rate relative to the long-term capital gains tax rate causes household portfolio dividend yields to increase by 0.04 percentage points. The results suggest that high income households significantly increased their portfolio dividend yields in response to the 2003 dividend tax rate reductions.
The Vegetation Red Edge Biosignature Through Time on Earth and Exoplanets.

Abstract The high reflection of land vegetation in the near-infrared, the vegetation red edge (VRE), is often cited as a spectral biosignature for surface vegetation on exoplanets. The VRE involves...
Private Copyright Reform

The government is not the only player in copyright reform, and perhaps not even the most important. Left to free market negotiation, risk averse licensors and licensees are contracting around the statutory license for certain types of copyright-protected content, and achieving greater efficiency via private ordering. This emerging phenomenon, herein termed “private copyright reform,” presents both adverse selection and distributive justice concerns: First, circumvention of the statutory license goes against legislative intent by allowing for the reduction, and even elimination, of statutorily mandated royalties owed to non-parties. In addition, when presented without full term disclosure, privately determined royalty rates can lead to industrial and statutory adoption of inaccurate “market” valuations. Finally, private copyright reform can exacerbate market inequalities by leaving smaller, less powerful parties with a weaker, less effective statutory regime. These concerns could be addressed by comprehensive copyright reform, an ambitious and lengthy process at best. The concerns might also be eliminated by making compliance with the statutory license mandatory, thereby eliminating private copyright reform as an option. Recognizing the efficiency-enhancing value of private copyright reform, however, this Article leaves the option to circumvent in place, and instead suggests two modest statutory amendments to alleviate the adverse selection and distributive justice concerns presented. Private copyright reform also challenges traditional intellectual property doctrine; specifically, it questions the efficiency of statutory licenses and collective rights organizations, while also raising questions of fairness around the ability of private parties to make law. While resolution of these doctrinal questions is outside the scope of this Article, the recent proliferation of private copyright reform suggests they are ripe for reconsideration.
Local happiness and firm behavior: Do firms in happy places invest more?

Abstract We examine a previously unexplored relationship between local happiness and firm investment. We looked at investment in general and R&D intensity in particular, as the relatively intangible nature of the latter may make it more subject to the effects of sentiment and affect. We find that average local happiness is positively correlated with both R&D intensity and firm investment, after controlling for firm and local area characteristics. This positive relationship may be due to the optimism and longer term perspectives that are typically associated with higher levels of life satisfaction/happiness. We also look at inequality in happiness levels and find that the effect of local happiness is stronger in places with more equal happiness distributions. Younger firms’ investment behavior is also more strongly correlated with local happiness levels. The results remain robust to a battery of robustness tests including the use of residual and hedonic measures of happiness, analysis of a sample of relocated firms, and a test for reverse causality.
Strategic Resource Extraction, Capital Accumulation and Overlapping Generations ?

Abstract The standard resource extraction framework assumes infinitely lived agents and yields an overfishing result. For some applications, a finite time horizon may be more appropriate. A direct extension of the Levhari–Mirman model to overlapping generations yields an extreme overfishing result. Alternatively, we assume young and old specialize, and respectively fish and supply capital. In this model, under some circumstances there may well be under-utilization of natural resources. However, for a given production technology, if there are a sufficiently large number of agents, overfishing always results.
Estimating the arbitrage pricing theory with observed macro factors

Abstract Analytical results are presented that drastically simplify joint estimation of the APT by Non-linear SUR and maximum likelihood when the factors are measured. Four alternative analytical expressions for calculating standard errors are also presented. © 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.
Fun with matched firm-employee data: Progress and road maps

Abstract With a worldwide burgeoning development of matched firm-employee data now underway, it is worthwhile to examine the possibilities for using these data. This essay discusses a variety of areas in which some progress has been made and presents ideas for future research in a number of others, including the study of labor demand, search and unemployment, wage determination and time use. It concludes that such data could be as important for labor economics, and for generating new knowledge about labor markets, as have been longitudinal household datasets, but with existing restrictions on access this kind of success will be difficult to achieve.
Assessing the ILO's Efforts to Develop Migration Law

The world community has increasingly recognized the movement of people as an issue of global policy rather than an exclusive sovereign preserve of individual governments. In considering whether a good case exists for establishing a World Migration Organization, policymakers and stakeholders should look at whether existing international organizations can be better used to enhance international cooperation on migration policy. One such organization may be the International Labour Organization (“ILO”), a UN specialized agency that has worked on migrant issues from its beginning. This article analyzes the work of the ILO in international migration as prolegomena to assessing whether its role could be expanded or whether it could serve as a model for a new agency. This article first provides a brief survey of what the ILO has done on the issue of migration since 1919. Then, the article discusses the implications of the ILO experience for the idea of promoting transborder migration through an international organization.
Stability of Monetary Unit and Informativeness of Corporate Financial Reporting

Monetary unit is a basic element of accounting used to manage, report, govern and tax organizations in all sectors of the economy. Instability of monetary unit introduces noise, weakening the effectiveness of accounting in performing its important economic roles in society. We model the impact of monetary instability on the accuracy of accounting valuation and consequently on the economics of managing organizations. We also examine some empirically testable implications of the theory. Though the magnitude of this effect remains to be estimated, it may be significant enough to deserve explicit consideration in selection of monetary policy.
Florida Water Management Districts and the Florida Water Resources Act: The Challenges of Basin-Level Management

Florida's plentiful freshwater resources are indispensable to the state's municipal, agricultural, and environmental interests. As such, decision makers presiding over complex water management decisions wield extraordinary powers. The Water Resources Act of Florida vests these powers in five water management districts drawn according to hydrological, not political, boundaries. The water management districts have robust technical, financial, and regulatory powers, and hold the key to Florida's sustainable development. With the stakes so high, Florida's water management districts are at the center of a broad fight for control of water resources. In particular, transboundary water conflicts, political pressure, and ecological needs show that while the water management districts are institutionally mature, external forces can exert significant influence on basin-level water management.
E-Discovery Beyond the Federal Rules

Those who work on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Federal Rules) are sometimes tempted to think that the world revolves around them. With e-discovery, that temptation has been particularly strong because the federal rulemakers began addressing it before most others did, and because the amendments to the Federal Rules have received a great deal of attention. As one who spent about a decade considering those issues, I am peculiarly tempted to this sort of self-absorption. Now, the federal rulemaking process is over, and it is time to reflect on the other forces that will affect e-discovery in the future, in particular the other sources of rules that may govern this form of discovery. This symposium is an occasion for that sort of evaluation, particularly important here because Maryland has leading examples of two other sources of direction on e-discovery -- district court guidance and state court rulemaking -- that will be addressed by those experienced with those activities. I intend to set the scene for that evaluation in four steps. First, I will stress the broad impact of e-discovery. Second, I will indulge in a bit of a travelogue to chronicle and summarize the federal rulemaking experience, because that experience should be a useful touchstone for others considering similar efforts. Third, I will identify three sources of e-discovery regulation or guidance from beyond the Federal Rules. And fourth, I will reflect on the perennial rulemaking question -- are rules better? I will then offer some concluding thoughts.
Financial Aid Packages and College Enrollment Decisions: An Econometric Case Study

We study the effects of a change in financial aid policy introduced by an anonymous university in 1998. Prior to that time, the university's financial aid packages for low-income students consisted...
Goods production, learning by doing, and growth in a region with creative and physical capital ☆

Abstract We study the effects of learning by doing resulting from the production of a final good on economic growth in a region that is creative in the sense of Richard Florida. Firms in this region use creative and physical capital to produce output. We model learning by doing formally and our analysis of the working of this creative region leads to four results. First, we derive analytic expressions for the growth rates of physical capital and technology. Second, we draw phase diagrams and show that in the steady state, the preceding two growth rates must be equal. Third, we show that the economy of our creative region converges to a balanced growth path (BGP) in which the growth rates of physical capital, technology, and the output of the final good are identical. Finally, we investigate the impact that an increase in the savings rate has on the economic growth of our creative region in the long run.
A Bayesian Theory of Change Detection in Statistically Periodic Random Processes

A new class of stochastic processes called independent and periodically identically distributed (i.p.i.d.) processes is defined to capture periodically varying statistical behavior. A novel Bayesian theory is developed for detecting a change in the distribution of an i.p.i.d. process. It is shown that the Bayesian change point problem can be expressed as an optimal control problem of a Markov decision process (MDP) with periodic transition and cost structures. An optimal control theory is developed for periodic MDPs for discounted and undiscounted total cost criteria. A fixed-point equation is obtained that is satisfied by the optimal cost function. It is shown that a nonstationary but periodic policy is optimal. A value iteration algorithm is obtained to compute the optimal cost function. The results from the MDP theory are then applied to detect a change in the distribution of an i.p.i.d. process. It is shown that while a stopping rule based on a periodic sequence of thresholds is exactly optimal, a single-threshold policy is asymptotically optimal, as the probability of false alarm goes to zero. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate that the asymptotically optimal policy is not strictly optimal.
Constitutional Thematics and the Peculiar Federal Marriage Amendment

These sympsium remarks are a discussion of themes running through the Constitution, how the FMA, if adopted, might affect those themes, and why we ought to care. I first demonstrate that our Constitution is a thematic document, filled with broad, recognizable, and (mostly) coherent concepts. Separation of powers, representative democracy, federalism, individual liberty, and equality come readily to mind. I then explain that the thematic nature and the inter-coherence of these themes is critical in two ways: to identify those values held to be fundamental in our society, and to assist in the interpretation of the Constitution. The themes in the Constitution give life and meaning to its words and phrases. Next, I show how the FMA would be a rather peculiar amendment to the Constitution because it runs contrary to three existing constitutional themes (federalism, individual liberty, and equality) while furthering no other identifiable theme in the document. I explore what impact the FMA might have on the development of new constitutional themes and what adverse effects the FMA's abridgment of existing themes might have. For example, could the FMA's restriction of state power over marriage, coupled with its emphasis on traditional marriage, lend support for an expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause that would allow Congress to outlaw divorce? Or for a requirement that any candidate for federal office be married? I conclude by suggesting that these questions and risks counsel strongly against adoption of the FMA as proposed.
On Finnis's Way In

This essay, based on a speech presented at Villanova University School of Law on the occasion of the sixth Annual John F. Scarpa Conference, honoring the work of Professor John Finnis, concerns methodological issues in general jurisprudence and comments on the work of Professor Finnis, John Gardner, Joseph Raz and Julie Dickson. Professor Finnis’ response is available at 57(5) Villanova Law Review 925 (2012).
Stock Volatility and the Crash of ’87

This article analyzes the behavior of stock return volatility using daily data from 1885 through 1988. The October 1987 stock market crash was unusual in many ways. October 19 was the largest percentage change in market value in over 29,000 days. Stock volatility jumped dramatically during and after the crash. Nevertheless, it returned to lower, more normal levels more quickly than past experience predicted. The author uses data on implied volatilities from call option prices and estimates of volatility from futures contracts on stock indexes to confirm this result. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
Selfishness and altruism in the distribution of travel time and income

Most economic models assume that individuals act out their preferences based on self-interest alone. However, there have also been other paradigms in economics that aim to capture aspects of behavior that include fairness, reciprocity, and altruism. In this study we empirically examine preferences of travel time and income distributions with and without the respondent knowing their own position in each distribution. The data comes from a Stated Preference experiment where subjects were presented paired alternative distributions of travel time and income. The alternatives require a tradeoff between distributional concerns and the respondent’s own position. Choices also do not penalize or reward any particular choice. Overall, choices show individuals are willing forgo alternatives where they would be individually well off in the interest of distributional concerns in both the travel time and income cases. Exclusively self-interested choices are seen more in the income questions, where nearly 25 % of respondents express such preferences, than in the travel time case, where only 5 % of respondents make such choices. The results also suggest that respondents prioritize their own position differently relative to regional distributions of travel time and income. Estimated choice models show that when it comes to travel time, individuals are more concerned with societal average travel time followed by the standard deviation in the region and finally their own travel time, while in the case of income they are more concerned with their own income, followed by a desire for more variability, and finally increasing the minimum income in their region. When individuals do not know their fate after a policy change that affects regional travel time, their choices appear to be mainly motivated by risk averse behavior and aim to reduce variability in outcomes. On the other hand, in the income context, the expected value appears to drive choices. In all cases, population-wide tastes are also estimated and reported.
An Application of Rule-based Forecasting to a Situation Lacking Domain Knowledge

Abstract Rule-based forecasting (RBF) uses rules to combine forecasts from simple extrapolation methods. Weights for combining the rules use statistical and domain-based features of time series. RBF was originally developed, tested, and validated only on annual data. For the M3-Competition, three major modifications were made to RBF. First, due to the absence of much in the way of domain knowledge, we prepared the forecasts under the assumption that no domain knowledge was available. This removes what we believe is one of RBF’s primary advantages. We had to re-calibrate some of the rules relating to causal forces to allow for this lack of domain knowledge. Second, automatic identification procedures were used for six time-series features that had previously been identified using judgment. This was done to reduce cost and improve reliability. Third, we simplified the rule-base by removing one method from the four that were used in the original implementation. Although this resulted in some loss in accuracy, it reduced the number of rules in the rule-base from 99 to 64. This version of RBF still benefits from the use of prior findings on extrapolation, so we expected that it would be substantially more accurate than the random walk and somewhat more accurate than equal weights combining. Because most of the previous work on RBF was done using annual data, we especially expected it to perform well with annual data.
Functional Landscape of SARS-CoV-2 Cellular Restriction

A deficient interferon response to SARS-CoV-2 infection has been implicated as a determinant of severe COVID-19. To identify the molecular effectors that govern interferon control of SARS-CoV-2 infection, we conducted a large-scale gain-of-function analysis that evaluated the impact of human interferon stimulated genes (ISGs) on viral replication. A limited subset of ISGs were found to control viral infection, including endosomal factors that inhibited viral entry, nucleic acid binding proteins that suppressed viral RNA synthesis, and a highly enriched cluster of ER and Golgi-resident ISGs that inhibited viral translation and egress. These included the type II integral membrane protein BST2/tetherin, which was found to impede viral release, and is targeted for immune evasion by SARS-CoV-2 Orf7a protein. Overall, these data define the molecular basis of early innate immune control of viral infection, which will facilitate the understanding of host determinants that impact disease severity and offer potential therapeutic strategies for COVID-19. Funding: This work was supported by the following grants to the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the Icahn School of medicine at Mount Sinai: DoD: W81XWH-20-10270; DHIPC: U19 AI118610; Fluomics/NOSI: U19 AI135972. This work was also supported by generous philanthropic donations from Dinah Ruch and Susan & James Blair, from the JPB Foundation, the Open Philanthropy Project (research grant 2020-215611 (5384)) and anonymous donors. Additional support has been provided by DARPA grant HR0011-19-2-0020 and by CRIP (Center for research on Influenza Pathogenesis), a NIAID-funded Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS, contract # HHSN272201400008C). This work was additionally supported by the following grants to Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine: a CTSA supplement to NCATS: UL1 TR002389; a CTSA supplement to NUCATS with the generous support of the Dixon family: UL1 TR001422; and a Cancer Center supplement: P30 CA060553, and the following grant to JG at UC San Diego: NIH grant R37AI081668. This work was also supported by a generous grant from the James B. Pendleton Charitable Trust. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical Approval: All experiments involving live SARS-CoV-2 followed the approved standard operating procedures of the Biosafety Level 3 facility at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.
Puerto Rico: Act III

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and certain of its affiliated entities have filed “bankruptcy” petitions under Title III of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act ("PROMESA"). This short paper provides a brief update on the current status of the restructuring process. As is well known, Puerto Rico’s economy was already deeply distressed, and then came hurricanes, earthquakes, and COVID-19. Given the poor state of the local economy, the island arguably needs extensive debt relief. Before COVID-19, the oversight board had proposed modest debt relief, and even that was deemed unacceptable by bondholders, who argued for cuts to local pensions equal to those being faced by bondholders. As a result, the restructuring process is apt to continue to be quite lengthy and contentious. Puerto Rico’s indeterminate legal status – as neither U.S. state nor independent nation – further complicates matters.
Local Industrial Conditions and Entrepreneurship: How Much of the Spatial Distribution Can We Explain?

Why are some places more entrepreneurial than others? We use Census Bureau data to study local determinants of manufacturing startups across cities and industries. Demographics have limited explanatory power. Overall levels of local customers and suppliers are only modestly important, but new entrants seem particularly drawn to areas with many smaller suppliers, as suggested by Chinitz (1961). Abundant workers in relevant occupations also strongly predict entry. These forces plus city and industry fixed effects explain between 60% and 80% of manufacturing entry. We use spatial distributions of natural cost advantages to address partially endogeneity concerns.
A Probabilistic Choice Model for Market Segmentation and Elasticity Structure

Marketing scholars commonly characterize market structure by studying the patterns of substitution implied by brand switching. Though the approach is useful, it typically ignores the destabilizing ...
TAX SHELTERS AND CORPORATE DEBT POLICY

Abstract We gather a unique sample of 44 tax shelter cases to investigate the magnitude of tax shelter activity and whether participating in a shelter is related to corporate debt policy. The average annual deduction produced by the shelters in our sample is very large, equaling approximately nine percent of asset value. These deductions are more than three times as large as interest deductions for comparable companies. The firms in our sample use less debt when they engage in tax sheltering. Compared to companies with similar pre-shelter debt ratios, the debt ratios of firms engaged in tax shelters fall by about 8%. The tax shelter firms in our sample appear underlevered if shelters are ignored but do not appear underlevered once shelters are considered.
Low Levels of Retirement Resources in the Near-Elderly Time Period and Future Participation in Means-Tested Programs

This article describes the de facto standards of low income and resources reflected in the eligibility standards of the largest means-tested programs that serve the elderly and then applies these standards to a near-elderly cohort. Through juxtaposing retirement resources in the near-elderly time period with program participation in the elderly time period, the author indirectly examines some of the changes between the two time periods that could affect program eligibility, including spend-down of resources and marital dissolution. Retirement resource levels are estimated using the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and subsequent participation in one of the means-tested programs--Supplemental Security Income (SSI)--is examined using matched administrative records. Although spend-down of resources is shown to occur for only 8.7 percent of eventual SSI program participants, it is more common in the part of the near-elderly population that faces the greatest incentive to decrease resource levels.
Information Aggregation in Overlapping Generations.

We study a model of social learning with overlapping generations, where agents meet others and share data about an underlying state over time. We examine under what conditions the society will produce individuals with precise knowledge about the state of the world. Under the full information sharing technology, individuals exchange the information about their point estimates of the underlying state, as well as the precision of their signals and update their beliefs accordingly. Under the limited information sharing technology, agents observe the point estimates but not precisions, and update their beliefs by taking a weighted average, where weights can depend on the sequence of meetings, as well as the ‘age’ and the number of previous meetings an agent has had. Our main result shows that, unlike static settings, using linear learning rules without access to the precision information will not guide the population (or even a fraction of its members) to converge to a unique belief, and having access to the precision of a source signal is essential for having an informed population.
Harmful Speech and the Culture of Indeterminacy

I advocate two propositions in this Essay: the constitutional law of at least one category of content regulation of free speech is indeterminate, and recognition of this indeterminacy has been and ought to continue to be the Supreme Court's decisional basis for protecting speech against content regulation. Milkovich is worth examining at some length, not only because of the Court's failure to come up with general guidelines (after all, pragmatic indeterminacy predicts that failure!), but also because what the Court did say cannot even guide the lower court on remand. Tags: Freedom of speech, Freedom of religion, First amendment, Pragmatic indeterminacy, Harmful speech, Tribe, Pragmatic indeterminacy, Pornography regulation, Obscene materials, Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., Miller vs. California, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, Roth vs. United States, Lower court decision-making, Supreme Court [pg329]** I advocate two propositions in this Essay: the constitutional law of at least one category of content regulation of free speech is indeterminate, and recognition of this indeterminacy has been and ought to continue to be the Supreme Court's decisional basis for protecting speech against content regulation. My claim that the Court has actually used the idea of indeterminacy as a decisional basis has probably not been made before, at least not explicitly. The category of speech I shall focus upon comes within the general area of "harmful speech." There is no doubt that some speech causes harm. According to Lawrence Tribe, One may not be privileged to mislead a blind man into thinking that a window is a door or to extort a sum for telling him the truth. Justice Holmes was surely right that the first amendment does not protect "a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." FN1 Another example might be a news reporter who happens to discover the present address of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. FN2 The Shiite government of Iran has called upon Iranians everywhere to track down and kill Rushdie. FN3 If the reporter willfully discloses Rushdie's address, and within hours of publication someone murders Rushdie, the reporter surely cannot claim a first amendment privilege. One might label the above examples Harmful Speech Type I. Such a category would also include speech used to effectuate fraud, misrepresentation, conspiracy, blackmail, and the like. What these examples have in common, and what distinguishes them from what I call Harmful Speech Type II, is that the factfinder [pg330] and/or decisionmaker—whoever is called upon to decide whether a first amendment privilege exists—does not need to make a judgment as to the harmfulness of the precise speech in question in order to reach a conclusion that the speech caused harm. Rushdie's particular street address is of no intrinsic consequence; all the factfinder and/or decisionmaker needs to know is that the disclosed address was Rushdie's. The harm in all these cases is provable independently from the content of the speech.
Optimal Financial Reporting and Equity Returns: Evidence from Commercial Banks

This study develops a hypothesis from asset pricing theory and optimization theory that in a diversified portfolio of equity securities there is no linear relationship between equilibrium equity returns and financial reporting variables subject to managerial discretion, only a nonlinear relationship. Alternatively stated, this study presents theory and evidence suggesting that linear conditional mean effects of discretionary financial reporting variables on equity returns for an industry portfolio of firms are zero, while the nonlinear conditional mean effects are nonzero.
Volatility and Sovereign Default

Over and over again, history shows that countries default on external debt when their economies experience a downturn. This paper presents a theoretical model of international lending that is consistent with this evidence. Productivity is stochastic and international capital markets are incomplete in two ways: the only internationally traded assets are non-contingent real bonds and borrowers cannot commit to repay loans. Low productivity realizations get carried forward through low investment that lower output and consumption and eventually result in self-fulfilling or solvency debt crises. When lenders are atomistic, self-fulfilling crises may arise for intermediate debt levels that would not trigger a default with a large lender. Alternative reforms to eliminate liquidity crises are analyzed. An international lender of last resort can eliminate liquidity crises provided it implements full bailouts via purchasing debt at its market price.
The Politics of International Investment Arbitrators

Arbitrators are the lightning rod for investment arbitration’s most contentious political debates. Investment arbitration was originally conceived as a means to depoliticize international investment law. The regime was designed to extricate investment disputes from national courts and gunboat diplomacy, entrusting them instead to a neutral law-bound process. According to its critics, however, investment arbitration is neither a neutral, nor a legitimate law-bound process. They lay most of the blame with international arbitrators. Critics contend that, instead of law and appropriate policy considerations, investment arbitrators’ decisions are often the product of extra-legal factors — from their own ideology, to the nature of disputants, to their personal self-interest For every hypothesis about what extra-legal factors affect investment arbitrators’ decisions, there seems to be an equal and opposite hypothesis. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of empirical research about investment arbitrators as a tool for developing a more comprehensive understanding of international adjudication. Through the lens of specific reform proposals that draw from empirical studies in the field, it analyzes the limitations and potential contributions of empirical research to the development of investment arbitration. Part I of this paper examines some of the methodological challenges raised by empirical research that seeks to prove or disprove these claims about investment arbitrators. Part II offers an evaluation of selected reforms that have been proposed for investment arbitration based, in part, on some findings in empirical research. In Section A, I examine Albert van den Berg’s study of dissenting opinions by party-appointed arbitrators, and related proposals to dramatically reduce if not eliminate dissenting opinions. Section B examines Gus Van Harten’s study of jurisdictional rulings, and related proposal for a permanent International Investment Court. Part III examines the risks of allowing substantive policy preferences to affect empirical analysis, and argues for integration of research about investment arbitrators into a comprehensive theory of international adjudication as a neutral and law-bound process. To that end, it proposes that future research be integrated into comparative institutional analysis with other forms of public international adjudication to develop a more comprehensive theory of international adjudication.