cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Glad Tidings and Grave Warnings: The Role of Advice on Cooperation in Public Goods Dilemmas With Value Uncertainty

We investigate how third-party advice on the estimated value of a public good acts as a dual-uncertainty reducing mechanism to encourage cooperation in a trust social dilemma. Experiment 1 finds that the valence of an advisor's estimate affects cooperation behavior and that this advice effect is mediated by the level of trust that an individual has in fellow group members. Experiment 2 finds that when estimates about the value of the public good are mixed, trust in experts declines, and trust in other group members also declines. Experiment 3 finds that mixed valence estimates do not affect cooperation behavior when the majority of advisors are in consensus. In merging the social dilemma and advice-giving literatures, we show one way to navigate the dual-uncertainty problem when producing public goods and how independent, third-party advice can influence interpersonal relations among group members. This article benefited from the helpful comments of action editor Randy Sleeth and two anonymous reviewers. ...
Outside Directors, Litigation Environment, and Management Earnings Forecasts

This study examines whether outside directors factor in litigation costs for the firm while monitoring optimal disclosure policy. It investigates the association of management earnings forecast disclosure and the proportion of outside directors across two regimes with unequal litigation costs, the United States and Canada. I find that the positive association between forecast frequency/ precision and the proportion of outside directors is stronger in Canada. This suggests that outside directors are more likely to encourage disclosure in less litigious Canada. I also find that firm-level governance mechanisms such as outside directors and country-level litigation environment act as governance substitutes in determining unbiased forecasts. Specifically, the negative association between forecast bias and the proportion of outside directors is stronger in Canada. I also revisit the effect of legal regime on forecast disclosure in a non-U.S. context. Recent legislation has increased the likelihood of class-action lawsuits in Canada. The passage of these laws has decreased the precision in forecasts by Canadian firms. Administrateurs externes, contexte en matiere de litiges et previsions de resultats de la direction Resume L'auteur se demande si les administrateurs externes tiennent compte des couts des litiges pour l'entreprise dans la determination de la politique d'information optimale. Il analyse le lien entre la communication des previsions de resultats de la direction et la proportion d'administrateurs externes dans le contexte de deux regimes ou les couts des litiges different, celui des Etats-Unis et celui du Canada. Il constate que le lien positif entre la frequence et la precision des previsions, d'une part, et la proportion d'administrateurs externes, d'autre part, est plus fort au Canada. Cette observation semble indiquer que les administrateurs externes sont davantage susceptibles d'encourager la communication d'information au Canada, moins enclin aux litiges. L'auteur constate aussi que les mecanismes de gouvernance a l’echelle de l'entreprise, comme celui de la proportion d'administrateurs externes, et le degre de propension nationale aux litiges servent de substituts a la gouvernance dans l’elaboration de previsions sans biais. Plus precisement, le lien negatif entre le biais previsionnel et la proportion d'administrateurs externes est plus marque au Canada. L'auteur reetudie egalement l'incidence du regime juridique sur la presentation des previsions hors des Etats-Unis. La legislation recente a augmente la probabilite de poursuites en recours collectif au Canada. L'adoption de ces lois a reduit la precision des previsions des entreprises canadiennes.
Bitcoin and the Uniform Commercial Code

Much of the discussion of bitcoin in the popular press has concentrated on its status as a currency. Putting aside a vocal minority of radical libertarians and anarchists, however, many bitcoin enthusiasts are concentrating on how its underlying technology – the blockchain – can be put to use for wide variety of uses. For example, economists at the Fed and other central banks have suggested that they should encourage the evolution of bitcoin’s blockchain protocol which might allow financial transactions to clear much efficiently than under our current systems. As such, it also holds out the possibility of becoming that holy grail of commerce – a payment system that would eliminate or minimize the roles of third party intermediaries. In addition, the NASDAQ and a number of issuers are experimenting with using the blockchain to record the issuing and trading of investments securities.In this Article, I examine the implications for bitcoin under the Uniform Commercial Code (the “U.C.C.”). Specifically, I consider three issues. In Part 1, I discuss the characterization of bitcoin – which I am using generically to refer to any virtual or cryptocurrency – under Article 9. The bad news is that it does not, and cannot be made to fit into, the U.C.C.’s definition of “money”. If held directly by the owner, bitcoin constitutes a “general intangible”. Unfortunately, general intangibles are non-negotiable. This could greatly impinge on bitcoin’s liquidity and, therefore, its utility as a payment system.In Part 2, I show how this may be mitigated by the rules of Article 8 governing investment securities. If the owner of bitcoin were to choose to hold it indirectly through a financial intermediary, then she and the intermediary could elect to have it treated as a “financial asset” which is super-negotiable. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of eliminating one of the primary attractions of cryptocurrency, namely the ability to engage in financial transactions directly without a third-party intermediary. However, Article 8, may already provide a legal regime for another contemplated use for the blockchain – namely as a readily searchable means of recording the ownership and transfer of property generally.In Part 3, I explain how cryptosecurities fall squarely within Article 8's definition of “uncertificated securities.” Ironically, therefore, the creation of bitcoin securities may finally breathe life to little used provisions that were invented almost 40 years ago in a failed attempt to solve a completely different problem.
Trade policy under endogenous credibility

In a dynamic setting, if agents are skeptical of the government's motive, a benevolent government (one that maximizes utility of the representative individual) in a small country may choose to impose a tariff even though there are no other distortions in the economy. The lack of perfect information about the government's motives introduces a distortion that might require a tariff as an optimal response by the government. However, if individuals are Bayesian learners, the likelihood of a tariff is reduced when the government acts optimally. In a finite amount of time, free trade becomes optimal.
Institutional Tax Clienteles and Payout Policy

This paper employs heterogeneity in institutional shareholder tax characteristics to identify the relation between firm payout policy and tax incentives. Analysis of a panel of firms matched with the tax characteristics of the clients of their institutional shareholders indicates that “dividend-averse” institutions are significantly less likely to hold shares in firms with larger dividend payouts. This relation between the tax preferences of institutional shareholders and firm payout policy may reflect dividend-averse institutions gravitating towards low dividend paying firms or managers adapting their payout policies to the interests of their institutional shareholders. Evidence is provided that both effects are operative. Plausibly exogenous changes in payout policy result in shifting institutional ownership patterns. Similarly, exogenous changes in the tax cost of institutional investors receiving dividends results in changes in firm dividend policy.
Two birds, one stone? Local pollution regulation and greenhouse gas emissions

Abstract In most countries, environmental regulation focuses on local pollution, which causes damages near the emission source, while regulation on global pollutants such as greenhouse gases (GHGs) has been slow. Theoretically, local and global pollutants can either be substitutes or complements in production. A firm's response to local pollution regulation can lead greenhouse gas emissions to decrease if the firm switches energy source from oil to natural gas, or to increase if it reduces the temperature of a natural gas-fired boiler, which causes NOx emissions to fall but CO2 emissions to rise. Consequently, local pollution regulation may either intensify or reduce global warming concerns. We exploit new data on US GHG emissions and variation in local pollution regulation across US counties to estimate this relationship. We find no evidence that more stringent local pollution regulation changes GHG emissions from the non-energy sectors. The lack of a statistically detectable effect cannot be explained by a decrease in production or by firms switching production to less regulated countries, and it is true on aggregate as well as for individual polluting industries, though in some instances the coefficients are not precisely estimated. Therefore, local pollution regulation is unlikely to suffice to address global warming.
A Negative Proof of International Law

Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner's "The Limits of International Law" shrugs in the face of undeniable advances in the rule of international law. Their primary strategy is to source those advances to something other than international law itself, or, more specifically, to something other than conduct undertaken out of a state's sense of legal obligation. This review essay, a contribution to a symposium issue on the book, first argues that international law is not demoted insofar as it reflects the rational interests of states. Other forms of law are also more or less grounded in the rational action of their target actors, and most of what Goldsmith and Posner say about international law can be said of ordinary domestic law. As corporate actors, states by and large comply with international law where it is in their interest to do so; the same can be said of corporations vis a vis domestic law and indeed in many cases of individuals as they calculate their own conduct. The essay then highlights the book's bracketing of actors other than states. By omitting any serious consideration of non-state actors from their analysis, Goldsmith and Posner are left with a partial understanding, at best, of the new international law dynamic. This bracketing is understandable from the authors' game-theory premises, as it would be difficult to model the interaction of polymorphic actors that results. But NGO's and corporations are now independently consequential actors in the dynamic of international law, as an empirical matter, and so international law models must move to take account of them. Insofar as Goldsmith and Posner brush them aside, their analysis is at least incomplete.
Silent Dissent? Tacitus Against the Lawyers

This piece offers a close reading of Tacitus's Dialogus de Oratoribus in order to explore the relationship between the writing of history and the rule of law. At the same time, it attempts to bring lawyers into dialogue with historians over their common question: how to live the life of an active citizen and a professional where the life of the citizen requires the sort of engagement that professional existence decries. For historians the question is framed as a debate between engagement with society and having a critical distance from society's follies. For lawyers the tension centers on how effectively to advocate while acting as an officer of the legal system and attempting to defend the law more broadly. These questions come to the fore in the recent case of American Historical Association v. National Archives and Records Administration, in which access to historical records and the wishes of the Executive branch come into direct conflict.
The Study of Secularism and Religion in the Constitution and Contemporary Politics of Turkey: The Rise of Interdisciplinarity and the Decline of Methodology?

Using the experience of Islamist parties in Turkey as a comparative example, this article explores whether political parties with deeply held religious ideologies can integrate themselves into liberal democracies, paying particular attention to the nature and role of legal secularism (the mechanism states use to insulate themselves from religious influence). This is an extension of the query whether the rise of illiberal political groups eventually leads to the end of liberal society. These queries engage the assumption that illiberal religious ideology is incapable of tolerating dissent or pluralism. I examine Turkish constitutional secularism as well as the “Islamist” Justice and Development Party (“AKP”) and its electoral victories in 2002 and 2007 in order to explain the AKP’s ability to shift away from dogmatic ideology to conservative, yet democratic, positions.
CIGARETTE ADVERTISING REGULATION: A META-ANALYSIS

Abstract This paper presents a synthesis of cigarette advertising elasticities derived from econometric studies for the US and other countries. Summaries are presented using fixed- and random-effects weighted means and weighted regressions. The regressions account for heteroscedasticity, non-homogeneity, independence, and random effects. After accounting for random effects, the meta-analysis indicates that advertising elasticities are very small and not statistically significant regardless of the time period. The paper also reviews 50 years of regulation of cigarettes by the Federal Trade Commission and conducts a meta-analysis of four important regulatory events: the 1953 health scare; 1964 Surgeon General's Report; 1967–1970 Fairness Doctrine; and the 1971 ban of broadcast advertising. The effect of the 1971 broadcast ban, which directly affected advertising, is not statistically significant.
Leveraged Buyouts and Financial Distress

Abstract Do leveraged buyout transactions increase the chance of bankruptcy? While corporate finance theory predicts that such sharp changes in capital structure increase financial distress costs by raising the probability of bankruptcy, previous studies fail to measure the effect. In this letter, we provide evidence that is consistent with the prediction of the theory. Tracking a sample of 484 leveraged buyouts and propensity score matched control firms for 10 years, we find that these transaction increase the probability of bankruptcy for the target firm by approximately 18%.
Contracts with (Social) benefits: The implementation of impact investing

Abstract We draw on new data and theory to examine how private market contracts adapt to serve multiple goals, particularly the social-benefit goals that impact funds add to their financial goals. Counter to the intuition from multitasking models (Holmstrom and Milgrom, 1991), few impact funds tie compensation directly to impact, and most retain traditional financial incentives. However, funds contract directly on impact in other ways and adjust aspects of the contracts such as governance. In the cross-section of impact funds, those with higher profit goals contract more tightly around both goals.
A Religious Right to Discriminate: Hobby Lobby and “Religious Freedom” as a Threat to the LGBT Community

The Supreme Court in its 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby broadly expanded so-called religious freedom protections in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) by striking down a provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring employers to provide health insurance coverage for certain methods of contraception. In doing so, the Court opened the floodgates for employers to claim an exemption based upon any “sincerely held” religious belief. Without inquiry into the sincerity of that belief, businesses and corporations are free to adopt or assert beliefs that could lead to increased discrimination against employees. This is especially troublesome for marginalized groups like the LGBT community, which is already on the receiving end of discrimination under the pretext of religious exemptions. To correct any future misuse of these exemptions, Congress should amend RFRA to permit courts to assess the belief being asserted and contrast it with the potential harm if an exemption is allowed. The purpose of RFRA is to ease the burden faced by people of faith forced to go against their religious beliefs if they obey a certain statute. Easing this burden should focus on heady moral dilemmas, not mere inconveniences. Amending RFRA can ensure it maintains its initial purpose of protecting religious freedom, while not being used as a tool to perpetuate discrimination.
Dividend-Price Ratios and Stock Returns: International Evidence

A widely replicated result, using U.S. data, is that dividend-price ratios predict future returns, not future dividend growth. This is evidence of stock-return predictability, and is contrary to the original interpretation of the efficient-market hypothesis. The author argues that this pre-dictability may be an artifact of the American economy’s remarkably stable real growth. This article examines the relation between dividend yields, future returns, and dividend growth, using current international data. It concludes that, in some countries, dividend-price ratios predict future returns; in other countries, they predict future dividend growth; and in still other countries, they predict a combination of the two. The variation, furthermore, is related to the volatility of real dividend growth.
Designing Redistricting Institutions

Recent movements to reform redistricting in the United States have focused almost exclusively on the possibility of replacing state legislatures with nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions. The nearly exclusive focus on who draws districts overlooks at least two other ways to reform redistricting: by altering the decision rules that constrain legislatures when they redistrict; or by changing the institutional structures available to review legislatures' initial decisions. This Article sketches the broader suite of options and introduces a novel decision-rule constraint - deferred redistricting implementation. The deferred implementation rule would leave legislatures with authority to craft redistricting plans after each census, but the rule would defer the implementation of those plans for a few election cycles. Deferred implementation creates a partial temporal veil of ignorance that would curtail egregious partisan gerrymanders. In addition, it would improve the incentives of legislators in charge of drawing district lines, making them less interested in using the redistricting process to pursue their political self interest.
Slack Resources and the Performance of Privately Held Firms

Empirical findings from publicly traded firms and behavioral arguments suggest a positive influence of resource slack on financial performance. While this area has remained unexplored in privately held firms, conceptual arguments indicate that resource constraints may enhance performance. Longitudinal data on 900 privately held firms confirm the differing influences of forms of slack on performance. Results indicate that a combination of behavioral and resource constraints arguments are necessary to explain the slack-performance relationship in privately held firms. The implications of these findings for theories of resources and entrepreneurship are discussed.
The research-publication complex and the construct shift in accounting research

Accounting research and publishing, tenure and promotion, elite journals, journal rankings, influential articles, faculty productivity and academics vs. practitioners have been critically studied for decades. Empirical support is absent in many of the critical studies on accounting research and publishing, however, or lack sufficient support to corroborate all the criticisms. Furthermore, these studies remain isolated for the most part, and lack a unifying theme which diminishes their contribution to understanding the fundamental nature of the accounting research-publication complex. This study reports the results of a recent survey that confirms what many already knew from experience or suspected anecdotally, and which some studies have shown empirically - that there exists a research-publication complex resulting from, and sustained by, a construct-shift in accounting research. Only academic researchers read and publish in academic accounting publications, merely reinforcing each other through mutual citation. This raises questions such as what is the purpose and ultimate goal of accounting research and publishing, and if research is intended to contribute to accounting knowledge, whose knowledge does it contribute to?
Forward-Looking Bidding in Online Auctions

Internet auction sites, such as eBay, are increasingly being used to sell mass-produced consumer durables. The largest eBay categories in terms of dollars are cars, consumer electronics, computers, clothing/accessories, and books/movies/music (according to eBay’s 2004 company report). Because the ending times of the individual auctions are not synchronized, each of these markets evolves as a sequence, allowing bidders to focus on the auction that will end first, while accounting for other, subsequent auctions. Because online auctions are usually listed for several days before concluding, detailed information about what will be sold and when it will be sold in the near future is available to bidders. Two important questions arise: How should rational consumers interested in buying just one unit of the good use such information in forming their bids? and Do eBay bidders actually use the information accordingly? To answer these questions, this article develops a new model of equilibrium bidding in a very long sequence of auctions and provides empirical evidence of the model’s relevance to actual behavior of eBay bidders. The model assumes that each product category is horizontally differentiated into several types of goods and that each bidder has a unit demand for only one type of good. For example, a consumer may be shopping for one DVD of his or her favorite movie or for one unit of a specific brand and model of an MP3 player. Therefore, each bidder faces a trade-off between winning now and winning later. This trade-off arises from individual desired units being perfect substitutes; that is, the winner of each auction exits the marketplace and thus forgoes the expected surplus from participating in future auctions that also sell the desired good, possibly for a lower price. The current winner’s forgone future surplus is an opportunity cost of winning now. Thus, rational, forward-looking bidders should reduce their bids relative to the myopic bidding strategy that would be optimal in the absence of future auctions selling their desired type of good.
Defining Domain: Higher Education's Battles for Cyberspace

Internet domain names in the .EDU extension are special because not just anyone can own one. Given higher education’s unique purpose and historical detachment from the market, early architects of the Internet deemed it important for colleges and universities to have their own online space, reflected in a domain-name extension that could at once convey authenticity and legitimacy. That space was the .EDU.Over the years, the closed .EDU extension has served as a source of status and pride for many in higher education, signifying involvement in or connection to an industry society often treats referentially. However, higher education as a whole certainly has not limited its online identity or presence to domain names in the .EDU extension, with institutions often choosing to register domain names ending in .COM, .NET, and .ORG, to meet the marketing and organizational needs of various groups and activities related to the institution. But as colleges and universities increasingly become similar to commercial actors, particularly with respect to their intellectual property acquisition and enforcement strategies, a critical empirical question has emerged: how do colleges and universities define their space online?This Article examines the legal battles institutions of higher education have waged to wrangle control of already-registered domain names from their original owners. Through mining records of disputes brought under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act — the primary legal vehicles used for adjudicating disputes over the ownership and use of domain names — this Article provides empirical data that advance understanding of the expanding metes and bounds of higher education’s cyber identity and the struggles institutions face to protect their intellectual property.The Article’s data provide footing for normative suggestions that universities wishing to manage their intellectual property in the public interest should consider. The data also offer a timely window into the evolving thinking of higher education institutions over complex questions of intellectual property decision-making, brand protection and expansion, free speech and institutional reputation, and commercial involvement.
Teaching Applied Sustainability: A Practicum Based on Drafting Ordinances

This article describes and explains a sustainability law practicum class that is now taught in only two law schools, but which has considerable teaching and practical value. It also explains how this class is consistent with, and furthers, the growing demand for experiential, skills-based legal education employing formative assessment. The class uses a realworld setting to provide students with skills they will need to help clients meet their sustainability goals. These skills include application of the principles of sustainable development in specific contexts; researching local government law; legislative/ordinance drafting; giving short presentations; and client counseling. These skills are developed in the course through a semester-long project involving drafting sustainability-related ordinances (e.g., green roofs, composting) for an actual municipality or municipal government trade association.
Multidimensional Signalling and Diversification

This article offers a new explanation of why firms diversify. I present a model in which a firm has private information about both its own cost and the demand function of the market on which it competes with another firm. I show that diversification can be used by the informed firm to signal private information in order to obtain competitive advantages. This provides an important motive for a firm to diversify. The signalling explanation of diversification is consistent with some empirical observations. A phenomenon called natural signalling is also studied in the model where both signals and private information are multidimensional.
How Viable are Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts? Simulation Results for Slovenia

Applying a methodology similar to Feldstein and Altman (1998) to Slovenia's unemployment insurance (UI) system, the paper shows that unemployment insurance savings accounts (UISAs) are a viable alternative to a modest, but not generous, UI system. Under the modest regime, only one quarter of workers end their working life with a negative cumulative balance and 43% ever experience a negative UISA balance; in contrast, under the generous regime, 49% of workers end their working life with a negative cumulative balance and 66% ever experience a negative balance. The simulations also show that the level of redistribution under UISAs lags behind the redistribution implied by the UI system.
Marital Sorting and Parental Wealth

The extent of marital sorting by socioeconomic background has implica- tions for the intergenerational transmission of inequality, the role of marriage as a mechanism for social mobility, and the extent of cross-group interactions within a society. However, studies of assortative mating have disproportionately focused on spouses' education, rather than their social origins. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and exploiting the unique genealogical design of the data set, we study the degree to which spouses sort on the basis of parental wealth. We find that the estimated correlation in parental wealth among married spouses, after controlling for race and age, is about .4. Importantly, we show that controlling for spousal education explains only one-quarter of sorting based on parental wealth. We show that our results are robust to accounting for measurement error in spousal reports of parental wealth and for selection into and out of marriage.
Asset pricing in the production economy subject to monetary shocks

Abstract This paper derives approximate analytical solutions for various financial assets in the production economy with monetary shocks. Both technology and monetary shocks drive the dynamics of various financial assets. Special cases of permanent and transitory shocks are considered. The solutions based on the loglinear approximation framework allow for a decomposition of risk that comes from real and monetary sides of the economy. Equity premium, volatility of the risk-free rate, Sharpe ratio, and inflation risk premium are calibrated to quarterly historical U.S. data. The model produces a realistic Sharpe ratio and inflation risk premium for empirically reasonable values of the relative risk aversion parameter, but results in the low equity premium. Overall, the results suggest that qualitatively the real business cycle model with monetary shocks has an advantage over the real business cycle model with respect to matching the key asset pricing facts.
Does Political Bias in the Judiciary Matter?: Implications of Judicial Bias Studies for Legal and Constitutional Reform

Recent empirical scholarship that shows that judges decide cases in a manner that is consistent with their political biases has motivated a stream of proposals for reform, including judicial term limits, limitations on judicial review of statutes and agency actions, revision of the judicial appointments process, and mandatory mixed party representation on judicial panels. However, these proposals incorrectly assume that judicial bias is necessarily harmful, and do not fully consider the costs to other values even when reduction of judicial bias is justified. To evaluate proposals for reform, one needs a theory of judicial review, one that explains how bias and other characteristics of judicial behavior result in socially good or bad outcomes. This paper supplies such a theory, drawing on rational-choice accounts of the role of the judiciary in the legislative process. It argues that judicial bias is not harmful in a broad range of circumstances, and that the merits of the reform proposals depend on many factors, including, among others, the degree of supermajoritarianism of the legislative process, the magnitude of legislative bargaining costs, judicial competence, and the extent to which the judicial appointments process and party competition result in an ideologically diverse judiciary.
Kiobel , Unilateralism, and the Retreat from Extraterritoriality

With the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the general mood among those in the human rights community is pessimistic. Because it curtails use of the Alien Tort Statute, viewing the Kiobel decision as a loss in an ongoing struggle is tempting. From this perspective, Kiobel is another indication that the Court continues to reinvent itself with a particular brand of conservative activism, the U.S. remains hostile to international law and its institutions, and corporate interests have won out over the protection of individuals. The first reaction of many academics concerned with protecting human rights will be to decry the result and paint the case as a setback.This article casts the Kiobel decision in a different light, and as one case in a line of cases involving unilateral, extraterritorial regulation. Viewed through a different lens, Kiobel is a case about whether the United States should privilege unilateralism over multilateralism, and whether it prefers international over pluralistic approaches to global governance. In this way, the case may signal the beginning of a modest retreat from a failed strategy of aggressive American unilateralism -- viewed by other countries as legal imperialism -- that has taken root in a number of public and private law contexts. The case could mark an opportunity to renew efforts to return to more vigorous international lawmaking based on multilateral consensus. In this way, to the extent Kiobel helps to inter unilateral regulation of foreigners for conduct occurring abroad, the case is not a setback for international law or human rights, but rather a vindication of them.This article describes the rise of extraterritoriality in American law and how extraterritoriality, in both the public and private law contexts, became a uniquely American way to build an empire. After describing extraterritoriality's rise, it explains how extraterritorial approaches came under sustained attack, and how those attacks replicated domestic political and culture war debates occurring in the United States. Lastly, it explains why the Kiobel decision has a brighter side for those committed to advancing human rights, and how unilateral, extraterritorial regulation (at least of the foreign-cubed kind) can undermine other longer-lasting, multilateral efforts to advance respect for human rights.The article was prepared for the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law's Annual International and Comparative Law Symposium. The symposium -- Extraterritoriality Post-Kiobel: International and Comparative Law Perspectives -- was hosted in November 2012 by the Maryland Journal of International Law.
Correlated equilibrium and higher order beliefs about play

Abstract We study a refinement of correlated equilibrium in which playersʼ actions are driven by their beliefs and higher order beliefs about the play of the game (beliefs over what other players will do, over what other players believe others will do, etc.). For any finite, complete-information game, we characterize the behavioral implications of this refinement with and without a common prior, and up to any a priori fixed depth of reasoning. In every finite game “most” correlated equilibrium distributions are consistent with this refinement; as a consequence, this refinement gives a classification of “most” correlated equilibrium distributions based on the maximum order of beliefs used by players in the equilibrium. On the other hand, in a generic two-player game any non-degenerate mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium is not consistent with this refinement.
Does Investing in School Capital Infrastructure Improve Student Achievement

Abstract Within the research community, there is a vigorous debate over whether additional educational expenditures will lead to improved performance of schools. Some of the debate is an outgrowth of the lack of causal knowledge of the impacts of expenditures on student outcomes. To help fill this void, we examine the causal impact of capital expenditures on school district proficiency rates in Michigan. For the analysis, we employ a regression discontinuity design where we use the outcomes of bond elections as the forcing variable. Our results provide some evidence that capital expenditures can have positive effects on student proficiency levels.
The Effects of Auditor Rotation, Professional Skepticism, and Interactions with Managers on Audit Quality

ABSTRACT: We examine whether the effect of mandatory auditor rotation on audit quality depends on the mental frame auditors adopt in evaluating management representations. In practice, auditors can...
Justice, interrupted: The effect of gender, ideology, and seniority at supreme court oral arguments

Oral arguments at the Supreme Court are important — they affect case outcomes and constitute the only opportunity for outsiders to directly witness the behavior of the justices of the highest court. This Article studies how the justices compete to have influence at oral argument, by examining the extent to which the Justices interrupt each other; it also scrutinizes how advocates interrupt the Justices, contrary to the rules of the Court. We find that judicial interactions at oral argument are highly gendered, with women being interrupted at disproportionate rates by their male colleagues, as well as by male advocates. Oral argument interruptions are also highly ideological, not only because ideological foes interrupt each other far more than ideological allies do, but we show that conservatives interrupt liberals more frequently than vice versa. Seniority also has some influence on oral arguments, but primarily through the female justices learning over time how to behave more like male justices, avoiding traditionally female linguistic framing in order to reduce the extent to which they are dominated by the men. We use two separate databases to examine how robust these findings are: a publicly available database of Roberts Court oral arguments, and another that we created, providing in-depth analysis of the 1990, 2002, and 2015 Terms. This latter data allows us to see whether the same patterns held when there were one, two, and three female justices on the Court, respectively. These two sets of analyses allow us to show that the effects of gender, ideology, and seniority on interruptions have occurred fairly consistently over time. It also reveals that the increase in interruptions over time is not a product of Justice Scalia’s particularly disruptive style, as some have theorized, nor of the political polarization in the country generally arising from the 1994 Republican Revolution. We also find some evidence that judicial divisions based on legal methodology, as well as ideology, lead to greater interruptions.
Sovereign Debt Buybacks Can Lower Bargaining Costs

Abstract I consider models were bargaining costs between debtors and creditors are large when debts are large. The reason is that creditors are willing to spend more resources convincing the debtor that they are tough when they have more at stake. Also, the sanctions which are sometimes triggered when bargaining fails to produce an agreement are larger when debts are larger. In both cases debt repurchases by highly indebted sovereign nations can be advantageous for all parties. Moreover, donors who subsidize buybacks can increase overall welfare more than donors who make direct gifts.
The Abuse of Executive Power: Getting Beyond the Streetlight Effect .

While administrative law scholarship continues to focus on Chevron and related doctrines of judicial deference, the executive branch is increasingly undertaking significant but illegal, or at least extra-legal, actions that seem to leave little if any scope for judicial review, even if the Supreme Court desired to be far more aggressive about policing executive action. In this Article, I discuss several categories of such actions, while providing examples from the Obama administration. Part I discusses regulations disguised as “guidance,” with specific reference to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights’ “Dear Colleague” letter regarding sexual assault on campus. Part II discusses measures taken during an economic emergency despite an absence of statutory authority for those measures, with specific reference to the government officials surreptitiously making day-to-day decisions for General Motors after the 2008 financial crisis. Finally, Part III discusses the refusal to implement existing law, with specific reference to the Obama administration’s delays and postponements in enforcing various provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
Environmental Free Riding in State Water Pollution Enforcement

Interjurisdictional pollution spillovers are a critical issue in U.S. environmental policy. When policy responsibility is decentralized, state governmental agencies have incentives to promote these externalities in order to capture the benefits of economic activity within their borders while compelling neighbors to shoulder the resultant environmental costs. To test this free riding hypothesis, prior studies have relied on crude proxies to delineate a regulated entity's proximity to a neighboring state. In this article, we develop a more refined set of measures using newly available data on facility location to isolate the conditions under which free riding is theoretically more likely to occur. We then assess state enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act directed at major water polluters under these conditions to determine the extent to which U.S. states engage in environmental free riding behavior. Our empirical results are mixed, but in general they fail to support theoretical expectations generated by the free rider argument.
Asymmetric Information in Consumer Contracts: The Challenge That Is Yet to Be Met

The interdisciplinary contribution to the field of consumer standard form contracts is dominated by economics. Prominent law and economics scholars argue that economic analysis of consumer contracts leads to the conclusion that, by and large, there is no need to intervene in the market for contract terms as long as these contracts are offered in competitive markets. Yet, this Article seeks to demonstrate that the model which is employed to justify this anti-intervention approach is seriously flawed. Accordingly, relying on such a model can lead policy makers to reach unjust decisions. In light of the inadequacy of market forces to reach equilibrium where efficient consumer form contracts are being drafted, it becomes clear that some intervention in the market for consumer contract terms is necessary. However, this inference should not imply that current main paths - regulation by legislatures and judicial control over the substance of consumer form contracts - provide cost-effective avenues. Unfortunately, as this Article illustrates, sometimes they are, but more often they are not. Thus, this Article establishes that current approaches to consumer contracts do not provide a satisfactory solution to the problems that such contracts pose to traditional contract law. The immediate result of this failure is that sellers frequently incorporate inefficient and unjust contract terms in their form contracts. Consumers, therefore, are left without adequate protection.
The Fertility Transition in Bavaria

The fertility transitions that took place in Europe and North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries constitute one of the most significant changes in human history. For centuries European women regulated fertility primarily by postponing or avoiding marriage. The fertility transition marks the point when marriage ceased being the primary regulator of fertility; couples began to decide when to bear children and how many children to bear. This decline has continued to the point where in some industrialized societies today fertility is at below-replacement levels. Despite long-standing interest in the historical as well as modern aspects of the fertility decline this aspect of human history remains poorly-understood. This paper contributes to our understanding of Europe’s historical fertility transition by close study of a neglected type of fertility history and by a (mostly implicit) methodological critique of earlier approaches. Bavaria was overwhelmingly Catholic and industrialized later than much of the rest of Germany. As such the historiography would suggest that its late and modest fertility transition is unsurprising. Detailed empirical study confirms some of the basic outlines of this kind of story but also demonstrates the importance of factors this story overlooks. Our methodology is not quite novel but marks an improvement over much of what has been done in the past. Similar methods can be used -- to good effect -- in other European historical contexts. While the focus on Bavaria and its history this paper can be read more broadly as a demonstration of reservations about earlier research. (excerpt)
The Supreme Court as Prometheus: Breathing Life into the Corporate Supercitizen

This article examines the legal status of the corporation in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations have political free speech rights equivalent to natural persons. In Citizens United, Justice Kennedy wrote that corporations were disadvantaged persons because the government had intruded upon their freedom of speech. The Citizens United majority portrays a misleading image of corporations. It is true most corporations are owned by small groups of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size and revenues. But what the Citizens United majority conveniently ignores is one particular attribute which has existed for at least one hundred years — that exceptionally large corporations, controlled by a handful of individuals, have amassed great quantities of wealth and power which dwarf the resources of the individual electorate, as well as the corporations’ own minority shareholders, ultimately diluting individuals’ political voice. We conclude that with its newly acquired constitutional rights, the corporation is perhaps now ready to dominate not just commerce, but the political system as well.
Evolving views on monetary policy in the thought of Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan

Attempting to find the technically optimal monetary policy is futile if the Federal Reserve’s independence is undermined by political influences. F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan each sought ways to improve the performance of the Federal Reserve. They each ended up rejecting the possibility that technical refinement or minor reforms might be sufficient. After properly accounting for the concerns of robust political economy, each concluded that a fundamental restructuring of our monetary system was necessary. Friedman turned to binding rules, Buchanan to constitutionalism, and Hayek to competing private currencies. We synthesize their contributions to make a case for applying the concepts of robust political economy to the Federal Reserve through the adoption of professional humility, creative thinking, and an emphasis on the politically possible, not the politically acceptable.
FDI and trade : two way linkages?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intertemporal linkages between FDI and disaggregated measures of international trade. We outline a model exemplifying some of these linkages, describe several methods for investigating two-way feedbacks between various categories of trade, and apply them to the recent experience of developing countries. After controlling for other macroeconomic and institutional effects, we find that the strongest feedback between the sub-accounts is between FDI and manufacturing trade. More precisely, applying Geweke (1982)’s decomposition method, we find that most of the linear feedback between trade and FDI (81%) can be accounted for by Granger-causality from FDI gross flows to trade openness (50%) and from trade to FDI (31%). The rest of the total linear feedback is attributable to simultaneous correlation between the two annual series.