cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Recovering from Research: A No-Fault Proposal to Compensate Injured Research Participants

National advisory committees have considered the obligations owed to research participants in the event of research-related injuries. These committees have repeatedly concluded that injured research participants are entitled to compensation for their injuries, that the tort system provides inadequate remedies, and that the United States should adopt no-fault compensation. But because the advisory committees have made no concrete proposals and have taken no steps toward implementing no-fault compensation, the United States continues to rely on the tort system to compensate injured research participants. This Article argues that recent legal developments and a transformation in the global research landscape make maintaining the status quo morally indefensible and practically unsustainable. Recent legal developments exacerbate the longstanding difficulties associated with the tort system as a method of compensation; nearly every injured research participant will have difficulty recovering damages, and certain classes of injured research participants--those in federal research and those abroad--are prevented from recovering altogether, resulting in substantial unfairness. In the past ten years, many of the countries substantially involved in research have mandated systematic compensation. By not mandating compensation, the United States has become a moral outlier and risks having its noncompliant research embargoed by foreign ethics committees, thereby delaying important biomedical advances. This Article examines alternative compensation mechanisms and offers a concrete no-fault compensation proposal built on systems already in place. The proposed system can be implemented in the United States and countries around the world to help harmonize various national compensation systems and to more equitably and effectively make those injured by research whole.
Emphasis on Pro Forma versus GAAP Earnings in Quarterly Press Releases: Determinants, SEC Intervention, and Market Reactions

Earnings press releases provide managers a forum to present their firm's quarterly financial information and perhaps influence perceptions of the firm's stakeholders. We explore the use of managerial emphasis as a disclosure tool and contribute to the debate over pro forma earnings. We examine (1) the determinants of emphasis placed on pro forma and GAAP earnings within quarterly earnings press releases, (2) whether there has been a shift away from emphasizing pro forma earnings toward GAAP earnings, and (3) whether stock market reactions to earnings news were influenced by emphasis placed on metrics within the press release. We find that firms emphasize metrics that are more value‐relevant and portray more favorable firm performance. We also find that the extent of a firm's media coverage affects managers' emphasis decisions. Further, our results indicate a highly significant shift toward GAAP emphasis and away from pro forma emphasis in 2002 relative to 2001. Finally, our stock market tests suggest that...
NRSRO Nullification: Why Ratings Reform May Be in Peril

NRSROs (or nationally recognized statistical rating organizations) are those ten credit rating agencies, such as Moody’s, S&P and Fitch (the Big Three), that are registered with and regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, Congress found that one of the root causes of the crisis was inaccurate NRSRO credit ratings on structured finance products. While Congress sought to address this problem in July 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, it omitted to close a significant loophole: the right of the NRSROs to opt out of the regulatory regime at will. This voluntary withdrawal right threatens to undermine, if not completely nullify, ratings reform. This poses a serious problem because its exercise by the seven smallest NRSROs would return the regulated club to only the Big Three while its exercise by the whole group would precipitate de facto deregulation. Either result would deprive society of a regulatory mechanism to effectively promote accurate and reliable ratings. I refer to the exercise of this right as “NRSRO Nullification.” This Article identifies and discusses the financial and reputational implications that today’s most critical unresolved items – the Franken Proposal and the new standards of creditworthiness – and existing distinctions based on NRSRO status will have on the exercise of this right. It also assesses the legal implications of NRSRO Nullification. To promote accurate and reliable ratings and prevent NRSRO Nullification, I argue for the creation of an investor-controlled “rater” of the NRSROs without the power to allocate ratings business. I theorize that rating the NRSROs will cause investment fiduciaries to demand an interest rate premium from issuers who hire NRSROs that the "rater" deems to be poor performers. I also suggest a rule that investment fiduciaries certify agreement with the rater's methodology for rating the NRSROs or publicly explain their reasons for disagreeing. The intent is to motivate issuers to hire those NRSROs that the investment community believes are the best performers. Under this proposal, it would not be necessary to close the voluntary withdrawal loophole through a mandatory registration requirement, though this possibility is also considered.
On the construction of weakly Ulrich bundles

Abstract A well-known conjecture of Eisenbud, Schreyer and Weyman suggests that any projective variety carries an Ulrich (and hence also weakly Ulrich) bundle. This is known only in a handful of cases. In this paper I provide weakly Ulrich bundles on a class of surfaces and threefolds. I construct a weakly Ulrich bundle of large rank on any smooth complete surface in P 3 over fields of characteristic p > 0 and also for some classes of surfaces of general type in P n . I also construct intrinsic weakly Ulrich bundles on any Frobenius split variety of dimension at most three. The bundles constructed here are in fact ACM and weakly Ulrich bundles and so I call them almost Ulrich bundles. Frobenius split varieties in dimension three include as special cases: (1) smooth hypersurfaces in P 4 of degree at most four, (2) more generally, Frobenius split Fano varieties of dimension at most three, (3) Frobenius split, smooth quintics in P 4 (4) more generally, Frobenius split Calabi-Yau varieties of dimension at most three (5) Frobenius split (i.e. ordinary) abelian varieties of dimension at most three. These results also imply that Chow form of these varieties is the support of a single intrinsic determinantal equation.
Caution! Men Not at Work: Gender-Specific Labor Market Conditions and Child Maltreatment

Abstract This paper examines the effect of labor market conditions—measured through unemployment, mass layoffs and predicted employment—on child maltreatment using county-level data from California. Using these indicators, we separately estimate the effects of overall and gender-specific economic shocks. We find only modest evidence of a link between overall economic conditions and child maltreatment. However, analysis by gender reveals robust evidence that maltreatment decreases with indicators for male employment and increases with indicators for female employment. These opposite-signed effects are consistent with a theoretical framework that builds on household-time-use models and is supported by an analysis of time-use data, though we discuss other mechanisms that may also play important roles.
Comparative statics and dynamics of optimal choice models in Hilbert spaces

We study properties of the solutions to a parametrized constrained optimization problem in Hilbert spaces. A special operator is studied which is of importance in economic theory; sufficient conditions are given for its existence, symmetry, and negative semidefiniteness. The techniques used are calculus and non linear functional analysis on Hilbert spaces.
Agent Models of Political Interactions

Uses agent based artificial intelligence to model political interactions of states in the international system. AGENT MODELS OF POLITICAL INTERACTIONS 1INTRODUCTION 1I. SOCIAL SCIENCE 1A. Emergence in Social Sciences 1B. The contemporary international system 5II. COMPUTER SCIENCE 5A. AI in Game Theory 51. Game Theory 52. Coalitions 63. Coalitional Game Theory 64. Opponent Modeling 7B. Existing Research 91. Scenarios 102. Technologies 113. Implementations 11RISK 11DIPLOMACY 12BALANCE OF POWER 12CONSIM 12Critique 14III. IMPLEMENTATION 15A. Agent Strategies 16B. Agent Intentions 17C. Learning Functions 17D. Results 17E. Paths for future research 17CONCLUSIONS 18BIBLIOGRAPHY 20
The Rhetorical Possibilities of “Home” in Homeland Security

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security introduced “homeland” as a new concept into American political rhetoric. Using common language, literature, and philological analysis, this article uncovers the wide array of meanings that the metaphor home generates. These meanings can expand and constrain the policy focus of an institution dedicated to “home”-land security. They define home as: a place of refuge and peace; a place of intimacy and nurture; a community beyond multiple bloodlines with guest obligations; an intergenerational place to be preserved and handed on; and a sense of integrity that resides in a person. The article argues that public leaders can deploy the concept of home to expand the moral and policy range derived from concern for home far beyond an emphasis upon physical security.
Myth of the Industrial Scrap Heap: A Revisionist View of Turn-of-the-Century American Retirement

Using the census survival method to calculate net flows across employment states between 1900 and 1910, we find that approximately one-fifth of all men who reached the age of 55 eventually retired before death. Many of these retirees appear to have planned their withdrawal from paid employment by accumulating assets, becoming self-employed, and then liquidating their assets to provide a stream of income to finance consumption in old age. This “modern” retirement behavior has important implications for the economic history of capital and labor markets, of saving and investment, of insurance and pensions, and of the family economy.
Effects of using specific versus general data in social program research

We present a comparison of results of similar analyses of a particular social program using two sources of data: one representative of the general population, and one representative of the population that actually is eligible for the social program. To do this, we focus on a particular public assistance program as implemented in Florida as our public policy program of choice. We compare the results of an analysis of the program's participation rates using US Census data for the general population of Florida to the results of the exact same model using a dataset that includes only the population of Florida that is actually eligible for the program. We find that while generally signs of effects remain the same, they do not always remain the same; moreover, significance differs, and the marginal effects of various demographic and socio-economic factors on program participation rates vary greatly. We submit that such differences are important for policymakers to recognize so that they can effectively target p...
Market Economies and Concurrent Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Remedies

Trade authorities often use surrogates for normal value in antidumping proceedings, most famously in the case of nonmarket economies (NMEs). When an authority pursues simultaneous antidumping and countervailing duty investigations against a NME, the use of surrogate normal value creates the potential for a doubled remedy; this has been the subject of much litigation and analysis. But surrogates for normal value are also widely used in cases against market economies. There has been little recognition that this can also create an excessive remedy and has done so in important instances. Consequently, the current double-count issues will not end if NMEs graduate to the ranks of market economies under their Accession Protocols. Further, the recent Appellate Body (AB) attempt to redress the problem in NME cases and consequent US legislation have created a new divergence between the treatments of NMEs and market economies in combined antidumping and countervailing duty cases, which can lead to relatively worse outcomes for market economy respondents. The relevant WTO agreements permit solutions to this problem, but those solutions will have to abandon the method suggested by the AB for NMEs.
Trade costs and location of foreign firms in China

The authors examine the determinants of entry by foreign firms using information on 515 Chinese industries at the provincial level during 1998-2001. The analysis, rooted in the new economic geography, focuses on market and supplier access within and outside the province of entry, as well as production and trade costs. The results indicate that market and supplier access are the most important factors affecting foreign entry. Access to markets and suppliers in the province of entry matters more than access to the rest of China, which is consistent with market fragmentation due to underdeveloped transport infrastructure and informal trade barriers.
Predicting returns with financial ratios

Abstract This article studies whether financial ratios like dividend yield can predict aggregate stock returns. Predictive regressions are subject to small-sample biases, but the correction used by prior studies can substantially understate forecasting power. I show that dividend yield predicts market returns during the period 1946–2000, as well as in various subsamples. Book-to-market and the earnings-price ratio predict returns during the shorter sample 1963–2000. The evidence remains strong despite the unusual price run-up in recent years.
Are Babies Efficient

This two-page essay is an empirical study of a one-year-old child, observed within the frame of the question asked by the title. Although unlarded with citation to published authority, the essay effectively encompasses some of the most cited economically oriented tests for tort liability. Concluding that the answer to the question in the title is yes, the writer poses a final, philosophical issue. FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY Copr. © 2004 West. No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works. 83 ORLR 287 83 Or. L. Rev. 287 (Cite as: 83 Or. L. Rev. 287) Oregon Law Review 2004
Preclusion, Due Process, and the Right to Opt Out of Class Actions

Among the current controversies in class action law is the question of when cases are properly classified as (b)(2) as opposed to (b)(3) class actions. Much rides on the distinction, particularly since the manageability requirement of Rule 23(b)(3) may frustrate the certifiability of claims. Even the classic forms of class actions, such as the employment discrimination disparate impact claim, may be caught up in these debates, as evident from the split between the Fifth Circuit in Allison and the Second Circuit in Robinson. This Article attempts to redirect the inquiry by focusing on the preclusive effect of class actions. The key focus is on the constitutional implication of the right to opt out, with a focus not so much on the high value cases, such as the mass tort, but on class actions in which the bulk of the class has claims that are unlikely to merit individual prosecution. I want to suggest that the right to opt out may be of considerable significance in this context, although not necessarily because of a meaningful exit strategy from the class. Rather, the right of exit may be thought of as significant not because of the prospect of individual removal from any particular case, but instead, because of its impact on the preclusive effect of class action litigation. The argument proceeds in two parts. First, I want to examine the case law surrounding the right to opt out of a class action as a determinant of the future preclusive effects of a judgment on absent class members. The key case here is the Ninth Circuit's decision in Brown v. Ticor Title Insurance Co. and the key insight is the inability to preclude future individual claims unless class members have been afforded an opportunity to opt out in the initial class action. I then apply the rationale of Ticor to the current dispute over the scope of Rule 23(b)(2) certification in the employment discrimination context. Second, I want to look at the emerging cause of action for medical monitoring to show a direct application of the limitations on the preclusive effects of class actions that do not afford an individual right of exit. The conclusion will then focus on the nature of the class action certification as determining its future preclusive effects on absent class members.
Creating Majorana modes from segmented Fermi surface

Majorana bound states provide a fertile ground for both investigation of fundamental phenomena as well as for applications in quantum computation. However, despite enormous experimental and theoretical efforts, the currently available Majorana platforms suffer from a multitude of issues that prevent full realization of their potential. Therefore, improved Majorana systems are still highly sought after. Here we present a platform for creating Majorana bound states from 2D gapless superconducting state in spin-helical systems under the in-plane magnetic or Zeeman field. Topological 1D channels are formed by quantum confinement of quasiparticles via Andreev reflection from the surrounding fully gapped superconducting region. Our proposal can be realized using narrow strips of magnetic insulators on top of proximitized 3D topological insulators. This setup has key advantages that include: small required fields, no necessity of fine-tuning of chemical potential, removal of the low-energy detrimental states, and large attainable topological gap.
Standard Clauses in State-Tribal Agreements: The Navajo Nation Experience

The paper discusses the attempts by the Navajo Nation and the States of Arizona and New Mexico to create standard contract clauses for agreements between the Nation and those states. The Nation and the States have numerous contractual relationships, primarily concerning funding for Nation programs, but also concerning law enforcement, rights-of-way grants, and other issues. Sovereignty issues on both sides have complicated the contracting process, as the Nation and the states have legislatively-mandated contract clauses that each must include in their agreements. Further, dispute resolution issues have caused friction, as each side possesses sovereign immunity but allows arbitration if enforcement of an award is brought in its own court system. In an attempt to resolve these issues, the Nation and the states recently have established standard contract clauses that apply generally to agreements between the sovereigns. The standard clauses allow for arbitration of disputes, with enforcement against the states in state court, and against the Nation in Navajo Nation court. In the case of Arizona, the standard clauses also cover discrimination, citizenship verification, and other issues. Though all issues have not been resolved by these clauses, and it remains to be seen how such clauses will be implemented, the standard contract clause model can be useful to other tribes and states who seek efficient and consistent methods of contracting without sacrificing core principles of tribal and state sovereignty.
Liquidity and valuation in an uncertain world

Abstract During the 2007–2009 financial crisis there was little or no trading in a variety of financial assets, even though bid and ask prices existed for many of these assets. We develop a model in which this illiquidity arises from uncertainty, and we argue that this new form of illiquidity makes bid and ask prices unsuitable as metrics for establishing “fair value” for these assets. We show how the extreme uncertainty that traders face can be characterized by incomplete preferences over portfolios, and we use Bewley's (2002) model of decision making under uncertainty to derive equilibrium quotes and the nonexistence of trading at these quotes. We then suggest alternatives for valuing assets in illiquid markets.
The effects of network groups on minority employee turnover intentions

Companies in the United States are concerned with retaining minority employees to maintain or increase the diversity of their workforce. Here we assess the value of one approach companies have used to retain minority employees: “network” groups. Based on data obtained from a large company with extensive network groups, this study compares the turnover intentions of minority employees who have joined one of the company's network groups to those who have not joined one of the company's network groups. The data show that employee network groups can be useful in helping companies retain managerial-level minority employees. Extensive recommendations are provided to help organizations maximize the effectiveness of network groups. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Regulating Investors Not Issuers: A Market Based Proposal

The present securities regulatory regime in the United States focuses on the protection investors. Investor protection, in turn, leads to a robust capital market. The federal government accomplishes its goal of investor protection through the registration and direct regulatory control of issuers, intermediaries, and self-regulatory organizations in the securities markets. The Article contends that this regulatory approach is ill advised. Rather, the Article argues that regulators should instead regulate investors. Al-though against current wisdom, a securities regime that regulated investors would allow regulators to take a more market-driven approach toward in-vestor protection, resulting in a less paternalistic regime. For those inves-tors with good information on issuers in the market, for example, no mandatory regulations are necessary. Rather investors will contract for desired protections; those market participants failing to provide valued protections will receive less for their securities or services. As a result, market participants will voluntarily provide desired protections. The pa-per, therefore, proposes to classify investors based on their informational resources. Such classification frees those investors able to protect them-selves to engage in a wide variety of investments while allowing regulators to focus their resources on investors less well equipped.
I Am/I Am Not: On Angela Harris's Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory

In 1990, Angela Harris wrote an article that interrogated the limitations of feminist legal theory. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the insights and challenges Harris offered in "Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory" continue to reverberate. The influence of her ideas can be seen in the fractured and passionate conversations about gender, race, and solidarity occurring both inside and outside of academia. In recent years, we have witnessed an explosion of debate of these topics in social media forums such as Twitter and Facebook. Far from being trivial, the intensity and persistence of these conversations suggest a welcome expansion of popular political and social consciousness. Harris’s work provides important context, depth, and insight to contemporary reflections on the nature and practice of feminism.
How Can Significance Tests Be Deinstitutionalized

The purpose of this article is to propose possible solutions to the methodological problem of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), which is framed as deeply embedded in the institutional structure of the social and organizational sciences. The core argument is that, for the deinstitutionalization of statistical significance tests, minor methodological changes within an unreformed epistemology will be as unhelpful as emotive exaggerations of the ill effects of NHST. Instead, several institutional-epistemological reforms affecting cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative processes and structures in the social sciences are necessary and proposed in this article. In the conclusion, the suggested research reforms, ranging from greater emphasis on inductive and abductive reasoning to statistical modeling and Bayesian epistemology, are classified according to their practical importance and the time horizon expected for their implementation. Individual-level change in researchers' use of NHST is unli...
The Economic Value of Air-Pollution-Related Health Risks in China: A Contingent Valuation Study

The economic value of preventing adverse health effects related to air pollution is estimated using contingent valuation in three diverse locations in China. Values are estimated for three health endpoints: cold, chronic bronchitis, and fatality. Alternative statistical models are tested to study their impact on estimated willingness to pay (WTP) and on the relationship between WTP and respondent characteristics. Using the official exchange rate, the sample-average median WTP to prevent an episode of cold ranges between US$3 and US$6, the WTP to prevent a statistical case of chronic bronchitis ranges between US$500 and US$1,000, and the value per statistical life ranges between US$4,000 and US$17,000. Estimated mean values are between two and thirteen times larger. Our estimates are between about 10 and 1,000 times smaller than estimates for the US and Taiwan using official exchange rates. Indoor air quality, measured for a subset of respondents, shows no consistent relationship with WTP.
Sovereignty, Compliance, and the World Trade Organization: Lessons from the History of Supreme Court Review

This article explores an episode of American constitutional history and discusses its implications for today's debate on dispute settlement in the World Trade Organization. Just as today's Americans debate the authority of the WTO to declare national laws "invalid" under provisions of international trade treaties, nineteenth-century Americans debated the authority of the Supreme Court to declare state laws invalid under provisions of the United States Constitution. I argue that the nineteenth-century history suggests that today's debate exaggerates the likely impact that WTO rulings will have on member states.
The substance of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurship of substances

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify the distinctions and complementary of William Baumol and Israel Kirzner’s classifications of and insights into entrepreneurship, and thus providing a more complete taxonomy of the substance of entrepreneurial activity. This paper also attempts to clarify distinctions between unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – This paper illustrates a more complete taxonomy of the substance of entrepreneurial activity by examining entrepreneurial innovation in drug markets both legal and illegal, identifying cases of productive, unproductive, superfluous, erroneous, destructive, and protective entrepreneurship. Findings – This paper finds that the classifications of entrepreneurship (productive, superfluous, unproductive, erroneous, protective and destructive) put forth by Baumol, Kirzner, and the institutional entrepreneurship literature are complementary. While Baumol seeks to explain the disequilibrating tendencies of entrepreneu...
The Wealth Dynamics of Entrepreneurship for Black and White Families in the U.S.

Among black and white families, entrepreneurs hold disproportionately more wealth than workers. Black entrepreneurs hold a lower fraction of black family wealth than white entrepreneurs hold of white family wealth, because black families have a lower rate of entrepreneurship. Black and white entrepreneurs have more upward and less downward mobility in the wealth distribution than black and white workers, respectively. The black entrepreneurs and white entrepreneurs have similar upward mobility and black entrepreneurs less downward mobility in the wealth distribution. The entrepreneurs save at higher rates than workers, and the saving rates of black entrepreneurs and white entrepreneurs are not found to differ.
An Embedded Options Theory of Indefinite Contracts

Option theory is beginning to generate robust insights in the legal literature, and it is particularly well-suited to contract law. This Article develops an embedded options theory of indefinite contracts, focusing on the proper scope of the indefiniteness doctrine - a core principle of contract law invalidating contracts that are too vague. This approach offers answers to two puzzling questions. First, why do parties write deliberately vague contracts, especially when they can contract with precise, verifiable metrics at a low cost? Second, what should a court do when confronted with an indefinite contract? Should it throw out the entire contract, impose a popular term, or do something else? This Article shows how the use of indefinite terms plus active judicial gap-filling can create an embedded option - the valuable opportunity to take action in the future based on outcomes that are uncertain today. It then argues that these embedded options can be problematic from an economic point of view because they are unlikely to be fully appreciated by both parties to the contract. This means that embedded interpretative options will sometimes distort efficient trade and investment decisions. In short, there are under-explored costs to contractual gap-filling. Ultimately, then, courts should resist the temptation to instinctively plug gaps and recognize that the indefiniteness doctrine has a meaningful role to play in contract law.
Comparing Securitized and Balance Sheet Loans: Size Matters

We assemble a unique data set of commercial mortgages with information on loan characteristics at origination and subsequent performance. The most significant difference between securitized and balance sheet loans is the size of the loan. The loans in the highest loan size decile have a 43% chance of securitization, whereas the ones in the lowest decile have only a 1% chance. This result is consistent with diversification being a key motivation for securitization. We also find that loans that require substantial monitoring are less likely to be securitized. Finally, securitized loans get resolved less quickly after defaulting. This paper was accepted by Neng Wang, finance.
The Origins of Felony Jury Sentencing in the United States

This article traces the development of jury sentencing in non-capital felony cases in Virginia and Kentucky, as well as the rejection of jury sentencing in Pennsylvania, in the late 18th Century. Several of the explanations that modern commentators on jury sentencing have offered for the adoption of jury sentencing are questioned. In Virginia, where party politics may have affected the choice of jury over judge, pockets of judicial sentencing power remained, inconsistent with a strong preference for the democratic judgment of a jury in punishment over the professional decisions of the judiciary. Kentucky's experience suggests that settlement patterns and legal heritage, as well as distrust of judges, were prime determinants of that state's sentencing policy. An appendix listing early sentencing law for several states is included.
Risk Quantification in Stochastic Simulation under Input Uncertainty

When simulating a complex stochastic system, the behavior of output response depends on input parameters estimated from finite real-world data, and the finiteness of data brings input uncertainty into the system. The quantification of the impact of input uncertainty on output response has been extensively studied. Most of the existing literature focuses on providing inferences on the mean response at the true but unknown input parameter, including point estimation and confidence interval construction. Risk quantification of mean response under input uncertainty often plays an important role in system evaluation and control, because it provides inferences on extreme scenarios of mean response in all possible input models. To the best of our knowledge, it has rarely been systematically studied in the literature. In this article, first we introduce risk measures of mean response under input uncertainty and propose a nested Monte Carlo simulation approach to estimate them. Then we develop asymptotical properties such as consistency and asymptotic normality for the proposed nested risk estimators. We further study the associated budget allocation problem for efficient nested risk simulation and finally use a sharing economy example to illustrate the importance of accessing and controlling risk due to input uncertainty.
Reputational Injury Without a Reputational Attack: Addressing Negligence Claims for Pure Reputational Harm

This Note examines the unsettled relationship between defamation and negligence. The law of defamation, through the torts of libel and slander, constitutes a well-developed and complex body of state common law and constitutional considerations. However, some claims for reputational harm may fall outside of this framework, as the law of defamation does not account for all of the ways that an individual’s reputation may be injured. Thus, plaintiffs sometimes bring negligence claims to seek redress for damage to reputation. When a plaintiff brings a negligence claim for pure reputational harm, the court is faced with a variety of options for handling the claim. This Note argues that courts should adopt a multistep approach to handling such claims. The court should first determine whether the claim is communication-based or not. If it is a noncommunicative claim, it should be allowed to stand as a simple negligence claim. If, however, the claim is communication-based, it should be presumptively displaced by the torts of libel and slander.
On the Dividing Line Between Natural Law Theory and Legal Positivism

The nature and location of the disagreement(s) between legal positivism and natural law theory has often been unclear, in large part because of the way each approach has been misunderstood by advocates for the other side. Many commentators assume that the two approaches disagree about whether immoral rules can have the status of law, but there is little evidence to support this view. Natural law theorists from Aquinas to Finnis have allowed that immoral rules are law (can have legal status), only that they are not law in its fullest sense (because such laws do not create moral obligations to obey them). The article concludes that the debate between natural law and legal positivism is joined elsewhere: regarding the meta-theoretical question of whether it is possible and valuable to have a morally neutral theory of law. Legal positivists advocate morally neutral theories, while natural law theorists like Finnis expressly or implicitly argue for a pervasively moral-evaluative theory of law, arguing that one can only understand a reason-giving practice like law against the background of what it would mean to give a good (legitimate, moral-obligation-creating) reason for action. A variation of the same argument is that one can only understand law within a (teleological) theory that gives a place for the moral ideal (justice) to which law strives.
Tilting the evidence: the role of firm-level earnings attributes in the relation between aggregated earnings and gross domestic product

We examine whether the contribution of firm-level accounting earnings to the informativeness of the aggregate is tilted towards earnings with specific financial reporting characteristics. Specifically, we investigate whether considering the smoothness of firm-level earnings increases the informativeness of aggregate earnings for future real GDP, and if so, whether macroeconomic forecasters use this information efficiently. Using recently-developed mixed data sampling methods, we find that the aggregate is tilted towards firms with smoother earnings and that this composition of aggregate earnings outperforms traditional weighting schemes. Further, this tilted aggregate has a stronger positive association with forecast revisions; in fact, analysts who utilize earnings the most in their forecasts appear to fully impound the informativeness of earnings smoothness. Our results synthesize and span parallel yet distinct streams of research on the role of accounting earnings in firm-level and macroeconomic outcomes and suggest an important role for financial reporting characteristics in the aggregate.
Valuing the First Negotiated Repurchase of the TARP Warrants

On May 11, 2009, Old National Bancorp was the first publicly traded bank to buy back its Capital Purchase Program warrants. It paid $1.2 million, which is below the low-end of this note’s estimates of the fair market value of the warrants. This note estimates the warrants are worth between $1.5 and $6.9 million. This low negotiated price from the perspective of taxpayers indicates that the U.S. Treasury would probably get a better price marketing the CPP warrants to third party investors.
Is the "Surge" Working? Some New Facts

There is a paucity of facts about the effects of the recent military "Surge" on conditions in Iraq and whether it is paving the way for a stable Iraq. Selective, anecdotal and incomplete analyses abound. Policy makers and defense planners must decide which measures of success or failure are most important, but until now few, if any, systematic analyses were available on which to base those decisions. This paper applies modern statistical techniques to a new data file derived from more than a dozen of the most reliable and widely-cited sources to assess the Surge's impact on three key dimensions: the functioning of the Iraqi state (including violent civilian casualties); military casualties; and financial markets' assessment of Iraq's future. The new and unusually rigorous findings presented here should help inform current evaluations of the Surge and provide a basis for better decision making about future strategy. The analysis reveals mixed evidence on the Surge's effect on key trends in Iraq. The security situation has improved insofar as violent civilian fatalities have declined without any concurrent increase in casualties among coalition and Iraqi troops. However, other areas, such as oil production and the number of trained Iraqi Security Forces have shown no improvement or declined. Evaluating such conflicting indicators is challenging. There is, however, another way to assess the Surge. This paper shows how data from world financial markets can be used to shed light on the central question of whether the Surge has increased or diminished the prospect of today's Iraq surviving into the future. In particular, I examine the price of Iraqi state bonds, which the Iraqi government is currently servicing, on world financial markets. After the Surge, there was a sharp decline in the price of those bonds, relative to alternative bonds. This decline signals a 40% increase in the market's expectation that Iraq will default. This finding suggests that, to date, the Surge is failing to pave the way toward a stable Iraq and may in fact be undermining it.
Arithmetic representations of fundamental groups, II: Finiteness

Let X be a smooth curve over a finitely generated field k, and let l be a prime different from the characteristic of k. We analyze the dynamics of the Galois action on the deformation rings of mod l representations of the geometric fundamental group of X. Using this analysis, we prove several finiteness results for function fields over algebraically closed fields in arbitrary characteristic, and a weak variant of the Frey–Mazur conjecture for function fields in characteristic 0. For example, we show that if X is a normal, connected variety over C, then the (typically infinite) set of representations of π1(Xan) into GLn(Ql‾), which come from geometry, has no limit points. As a corollary, we deduce that if L is a finite extension of Ql, then the set of representations of π1(Xan) into GLn(L), which arise from geometry, is finite.
DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY AND ECONOMIC LIBERTY

Libertarians and classical liberals typically defend private economic liberty as a requirement of self-ownership or on the basis of consequentialist arguments of various sorts. By contrast, this paper defends private economic liberty as a requirement of democratic legitimacy. In recent decades, many philosophers have converged upon a certain view about political justification. If a set of social institutions is to be just and legitimate, those institutions must be acceptable in principle to the citizens who are to lead their lives within them. This deliberative or democratic approach to justification is traditionally associated with thinkers on the left who are skeptical of the importance of private economic liberty. This article shows how the protection of private economic liberty is a requirement of citizens' developing and exercising the moral powers they have as democratic citizens. Democratic legitimacy does not require the affirmation of absolute economic liberty rights as sometimes defended by libertarians. But democratic legitimacy does require that a wide range of private economic liberties be meriting constitutional protection on a par with the civil and political liberties of democratic citizens. This opens the way for a wider defense of classical liberalism based upon the idea of democratic legitimacy.
AN AUTOREGRESSIVE SPECTRAL DENSITY ESTIMATOR AT FREQUENCY ZERO FOR NONSTATIONARITY TESTS

Many unit root and cointegration tests require an estimate of the spectral density function at frequency zero of some process. Commonly used are kernel estimators based on weighted sums of autocovariances constructed using estimated residuals from an AR(1) regression. However, it is known that with substantially correlated errors, the OLS estimate of the AR(1) parameter is severely biased. In this paper, we first show that this least-squares bias induces a significant increase in the bias and mean-squared error (MSE) of kernel-based estimators. We then consider a variant of the autoregressive spectral density estimator that does not share these shortcomings because it bypasses the use of the estimate from the AR(1) regression. Simulations and local asymptotic analyses show its bias and MSE to be much smaller than those of a kernel-based estimator when there is strong negative serial correlation. We also include a discussion about the appropriate choice of the truncation lag.
Spatial Dispersion of Retail Margins: Evidence from Turkish Agricultural Prices

The farmer share of retail prices is shown to be about 16 percent, corresponding to about 84 percent of a distribution share, on average across agricultural products and regions within Turkey. The share of transportation costs in retail prices is only about 7 percent, while the share of retail margins is about 77 percent of retail prices. The dispersion of retail prices across regions is shown to be mostly due to local wages and variable markups, while the contribution of traded-input prices is relatively small. Accordingly, the high dispersion of farmer prices across locations is not reflected in the dispersion of retail prices due to the high contribution of retail margins. These retail margins are also shown to account for about one third of the consumer welfare dispersion across regions and more than half of the consumer welfare dispersion across products.
Socio-dets and techno-dets: Determinants of diffusion and implementation patterns of automated machine tools

Abstract Typical of many cases of technology diffusion and implementation, machine tool automation has stimulated debate about the relative influence of social and technological factors. It is argued that reconciliation of these views requires (a) a realistic model of the firm in its environmental and managerial contexts, (b) a conceptual framework that incorporates technological, economic, political and symbolic forces in the processes of diffusion and implementation, and (c) a heuristic strategy that allows these forces to play relatively more and less important roles depending on the time-span and level of aggregation of analysis. Examination of the case of machine tool automation suggests that while social forces may play a central role in the analysis of specific plants, technology and economics assume relatively greater importance in the analysis of aggregate patterns and trends.
Culture, Cognition, and Consent: Who Perceives What, and Why, in "Acquaintance Rape" Cases.

This Article uses the theory of cultural cognition to examine the debate over rape-law reform. “Cultural cognition” refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their perceptions of legally consequential facts to their defining group commitments. Results of an original experimental study (N = 1500) confirmed the impact of cultural cognition on perceptions of fact in a controversial acquaintance-rape case. The major finding was that a hierarchical worldview, as opposed to an egalitarian one, inclined individuals to perceive that the defendant reasonably understood the complainant as consenting to sex despite her repeated verbal objections. The effect of hierarchy in inclining subjects to favor acquittal was greatest among women; this finding was consistent with the hypothesis that hierarchical women have a distinctive interest in stigmatizing rape complainants whose behavior deviates from hierarchical gender norms. The study also found that cultural predispositions have a much larger impact on outcome judgments than do legal definitions, variations in which had either a small or no impact on the likelihood that subjects would support or oppose conviction. This Article links conflict over rape-law reform to a class of controver-
Private Law and the New European Constitutional Settlement

The prospect of a constitution for Europe sheds a new light on, and transforms the parameters of, the debate over the future of European private law. Today, among many private lawyers and comparative lawyers, a consensus seems to prevail that ‘a serious effort must be undertaken to develop a common core of European legal principles and rules, to engage in the construction of a European legal lingua franca’. Here I propose a different perspective on the issue of the Europeanization of private law by addressing the following questions: How should private law and constitutional law be interrelated in the new European multi-level system? What should an ‘alignment’ of private law to constitutional principles recognised in Europe look like—in particular, does the integration of private law into the broader aspirations of the new Europe require a code? Start with the idea—familiar from domestic legal systems—that constitutional law not only gives rise to a ‘protective function of the state’ or ‘positive obligation of the state’ to develop private law with due regard constitutional values, but that it is also European Law Journal, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2004, pp. 766–786. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
A generalized model for reputational sanctions and the (ir)relevance of the interactions between legal and reputational sanctions

Abstract Reputational sanctions and stigmatization costs share many things in common. In particular, wage reductions in the labor market caused by stigmatization ( Rasmusen, 1996 ), and profit reductions in commercial markets caused by reputational losses due to a firm's previous wrong-doings ( Iacobucci, 2014 ) share many similarities. In this article, I construct a model in which Rasmusen (1996) and Iacobucci (2014) emerge as special cases. I use this model to show that increasing the legal sanction (or the probability of detection) cannot cause a reduction in reputational losses that off-sets the increase in expected total sanction. This clarifies ambiguities in the previous literature, and implies that, absent further considerations, deterrence is enhanced by an increase in legal sanctions and/or the probability of detection. Thus, standard Beckerian dynamics are preserved even when reputational sanctions interact with formal sanctions.