cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Reflections on Tort and the Administrative State

This essay is my contribution to a festschrift dedicated to my scholarship on tort and the administrative state. The essay aims at identifying the central themes in my work and providing supporting commentary. I mark off for discussion three discrete areas that identify pathways to which I have returned repeatedly, although not chronologically, to explore different features of the landscape. I begin with historical perspectives on the evolution of tort and the administrative state — essays in which I have been animated by an effort to better understand the underpinnings of common law doctrine and regulatory reform in earlier eras and to explore how those norms came to be transformed over time. As a second identifiable area, I turn to scholarship in which I have analyzed the comparative institutional efficacy of tort and regulation. Some of this writing has been aimed at exploring the regulatory limits that have been imposed (or proposed) on tort; in particular, through defense claims of regulatory compliance and tort preemption. Still other scholarly work of mine in this area has focused on the design of tort and administrative compensation/benefit schemes, particularly by examining, on various occasions, the ramifications of legislative no-fault plans. As a third discrete area, I address a set of concerns that thematically cluster in my scholarship: digging beneath the surface of tort doctrine. Here, my work comes from two quite different perspectives, one of which explores the tort system from a process vantage point and the other through a social policy prism. Closely related to this work, in a traditional vein of legal scholarship, I have at times pursued doctrinal analysis as an end in itself. Both the tort system and the administrative state have grown by leaps and bounds over the past century. Correspondingly, the opportunities for scholarship evaluating these developments, as well as tracing their roots in earlier eras, know virtually no limits. This essay is meant to indicate some of the issues that have struck me as especially worthy of thematic exploration.
IPOs versus Acquisitions and the Valuation Premium Puzzle: A Theory of Exit Choice by Entrepreneurs and Venture Capitalists

We analyze a private firm’s choice of exit mechanism between initial public offerings (IPOs) and acquisitions, and we provide a resolution to the “IPO valuation premium puzzle.” The private firm is run by an entrepreneur and a venture capitalist (VC) (insiders) who desire to exit partially from the firm. A crucial factor driving their exit choice is competition in the product market: While a stand-alone firm has to fend for itself after going public, an acquirer is able to provide considerable support to the firm in product market competition. A second factor is the difference in information asymmetry characterizing the two exit mechanisms. Finally, the private benefits of control accruing to the entrepreneur post-exit and the bargaining power of outside investors versus firm insiders are also different across the two mechanisms. We analyze two situations: the first, where the entrepreneur can make the exit choice alone (independent of the VC), and the second, where the entrepreneur can make the exit choice only with the concurrence of the VC. We derive a number of testable implications regarding insiders’ exit choice between IPOs and acquisitions and about the IPO valuation premium puzzle.
A New Specification Test for the Validity of Instrumental Variables

We develop a new specification test for IV estimators adopting a particular second order approximation of Bekker. The new specification test compares the difference of the forward (conventional) 2SLS estimator of the coefficient of the right-hand side endogenous variable with the reverse 2SLS estimator of the same unknown parameter when the normalization is changed. Under the null hypothesis that conventional first order asymptotics provide a reliable guide to inference, the two estimates should be very similar. Our test sees whether the resulting difference in the two estimates satisfies the results of second order asymptotic theory. Essentially the same idea is applied to develop another new specification test using second-order unbiased estimators of the type first proposed by Nagar. If the forward and reverse Nagar-type estimators are not significantly different we recommend estimation by LIML, which we demonstrate is the optimal linear combination of the Nagar-type estimators (to second order). We also demonstrate the high degree of similarity for k-class estimators between the approach of Bekker and the Edgeworth expansion approach of Rothenberg. An empirical example and Monte Carlo evidence demonstrate the operation of the new specification test.
Credit Line Availability and Utilization in REITs

Analysis of real estate investment trust (REIT) credit line availability and use under normal conditions and during the recent financial crisis are provided. Descriptive statistics indicate REIT cr...
A new high-throughput method using additive manufacturing for alloy design and heat treatment optimization

Abstract Alloys made by Additive Manufacturing (AM) require careful design of post-heat treatment as an indispensable step of microstructure engineering to enhance performance. We developed a high-throughput approach to accelerate the heat treatment optimization for AM alloys by fabricating a long-bar sample heat-treated under a monitored gradient temperature zone for phase transformation study. This approach has been proven efficient in determining the aging temperature with peak hardness. We observed that precipitation strengthening is the predominant strengthening mechanism for the studied superalloy made by laser powder bed fusion, and the grain size variation is insensitive to temperatures between 605 and 825°C. This new approach can be applied to post-heat treatment optimization of other materials made by AM, and further assist new alloy development.
The Grounds of Welfare

In Fairness versus Welfare, Kaplow and Shavell argue that legal practice and calls for its reform ought to be assessed exclusively by their expected impact on welfare. In particular, they argue that insofar as considerations of fairness are not aspects of an individual's welfare, they have no place to play in the evaluation of the law. In this review essay, I show that this claim is not only inadequately defended in the book, but in fact indefensible. In particular, I argue: (1) whereas the central claim of the book requires a normative argument, all Kaplow and Shavell offer is an empty tautological claim; (2) that in addition they offer an evolutionary argument that is either a non-sequitor or is so strong as to undermine their own thesis; (3) that the arguments they purport to offer work as well to defend fairness as against welfare as they work to defend welfare as against fairness - that in either case they do not work at all; (4) that they offer an inadequate conception of human welfare, one that makes the claim that the law should be evaluated exclusively in the light of its impact on welfare, not merely implausible, but altogether mysterious; and (5) that any more plausible account of welfare that would be adequate to explain why the law ought to be assessed by its impact on welfare is also sufficient to explain why the law ought to be assessed by its impact on fairness.
Mutual fund investments in private firms

Abstract Historically, a key advantage of being a public firm was broader access to capital, from a disperse group of shareholders. In recent years, such capital has increasingly become available to private firms as well. We document a dramatic increase over the past twenty years in the number of mutual funds participating in private markets and in the dollar value of these private firm investments. We evaluate several factors that potentially contribute to this trend: firms seeking extra capital to postpone public listing, mutual funds seeking higher risk-adjusted returns and initial public offering (IPO) allocations, and venture capitalists (VCs) seeking new investors to substantiate higher valuations. Results indicate that the first two factors play a significant role.
The Process of European Integration and the Determinants of Entry by non–EU Multinationals in UK Manufacturing

I seek to evaluate the influence of the European Internal Market Programme on the relative significance of the determinants of entry (via acquisitions and start–ups) by non–EU multinationals in some 102 UK manufacturing sectors. The occurrence of foreign direct investment (FDI) is modelled as a two–step process in which factors affecting whether a sector gets any entry by foreign plants are first considered, and the determinants of the count of entries for those sectors that attract positive flow of FDI are then investigated. The empirical estimates point to the conclusion that the parameters of the FDI functions have changed in response to the challenges and opportunities created by increasing economic integration, but with some interesting contrasts between the two types of entries. Acquisition FDI appears to have become more responsive to the size of the European market and unit labour costs relative to the rest of the EU, and less sensitive to the local market size. It is also increasingly being concentrated in sectors with higher intra–EU export propensity, consistent with the predominance of vertical FDI. By contrast, the significance of the size of the UK market has not diminished in the greenfield investment model, and the importance of agglomeration economies has more than doubled during the process of integration. Since the FDI consequences of European integration vary according to the mode of foreign entry, the policy implications of our findings also depend on the type of FDI under consideration.
Expected Shortfall estimation and Gaussian inference for infinite variance time series

We develop methods of nonparametric estimation for the Expected Shortfall of possibly heavy tailed asset returns that leads to asymptotically standard inference. We use a tail-trimming indicator to dampen extremes negligibly, ensuring standard Gaussian inference, and a higher rate of convergence than without trimming when the variance is infinite. Trimming, however, causes bias in small samples and possibly asymptotically when the variance is infinite, so we exploit a rarely used remedy to estimate and utilize the tail mean that is removed by trimming. Since estimating the tail mean involves estimation of tail parameters and therefore an added arbitrary choice of the number of included extreme values, we present weak limit theory for an ES estimator that optimally selects the number of tail observations by making our estimator arbitrarily close to the untrimmed estimator, yet still asymptotically normal. Finally, we apply the new estimators to financial returns data.
An examination of the impact of rent control on mobile home prices in California

Abstract This study examines the impact of rent control of mobile home parks in seven counties of California between 1983 and 2003. We assembled an extensive and timely data set and, thus, were able to test more carefully specified econometric models than had been employed in prior studies of California mobile home rent control. We find that the nature of the rent control regime differentially impacts mobile home prices: the imposition of rigid rent control, rent control without vacancy decontrol, leads to higher growth rates in resale prices. While a flexible regime, or rent control with vacancy decontrol, results in lower growth rates in resale prices. This is consistent with economic theory, suggesting that the imposition of rigid rent control will lead to the capitalization of future rent savings when a coach is sold. That is, the buyer will not only pay for the coach but also for the net present value of the expected savings associated with the future legally constrained pad rent obligations to the landlord.
The Separation of Technology and Ethics in Business Ethics

The purpose of this paper is to draw out and make explicit the assumptions made in the treatment of technology within business ethics. Drawing on the work of Freeman (1994, 2000) on the assumed separation between business and ethics, we propose a similar sepa- ration exists in the current analysis of technology and ethics. After first identifying and describing the separation thesis assumed in the analysis of technology, we will ex- plore how this assumption manifests itself in the current literature. A different stream of analysis, that of science and technology studies (STS), provides a starting point in understanding the interconnectedness of technology and society. As we will demonstrate, business ethicists are uniquely positioned to analyze the relationship between business, technology, and society. The implications of a more complex and rich definition of 'technology' ripple through the analysis of business ethics. Finally, we pro- pose a pragmatic approach to understanding technology and explore the implications of such an approach to technology. This new approach captures the broader understanding of technology advocated by those in STS and allows business ethicists to analyze a broader array of dilemmas and decisions.
An Effort to Articulate a Catholic Realist Approach to Abortion

In an effort to try to move the abortion debate forward by trying to find common ground between very polarized positions, the Article explores what options exist for a political and legal system’s treatment of abortion that might be consistent with a Catholic realist approach. The article begins by identifying three conditions that are required for a position to be labeled a Catholic realist position: factual accuracy, viability and consistency with Catholic moral teaching. It then explores five questions as a means of articulating what a Catholic realist approach to abortion might look like, including the question whether there is a dignity interest in a woman not being forced to carry a pregnancy to term and the extent to which broad societal consensus about the moral status of abortion might impact our views of the role of law in addressing abortion.
Encouraging Insurers to Regulate: The Role (If Any) for Tort Law

Insurance companies are financially responsible for a substantial portion of the losses associated with many risky activities, and those losses get mostly distributed among participating insureds through the premiums that are charged. The more they can lower the risks posed by their insureds, the more competitively they can price their policies, and the more customers they can attract. Thus, competition forces insurers to be private regulators of risk. To that end, insurers deploy a range of techniques to encourage their insureds to reduce the risks of their insured activities, from charging experience-rated premiums to giving special premium discounts to insureds who make specific behavioral changes designed to reduce risk. Somewhat paradoxically, however, tort law discourages insurers from engaging in the direct regulation of their insureds’ behavior. Under longstanding tort principles, if an insurer “undertakes” to provide serious risk-reduction services to an insured, the insurer can be found to have a duty of reasonable care and, they breach that duty, held liable for any harms caused to third parties. This application of tort principles to insurance companies could be contributing to the moral hazard problem often associated with insurance—the tendency of insurance to cause risk to increase rather than decrease. This Article explores this problem and analyzes a number of ways to encourage insurers to regulate—from insurer-specific Good Samaritan statutes (which we might call a “carrot”) to the expansion of tort principles to create an affirmative duty on the part of insurers to regulate (which would definitely be a “stick”). What combination of carrots and sticks produces the optimal insurer incentives to regulate their insureds’ behavior? That is the question the Article addresses.
Credible Fears, Unaccompanied Minors, and the Causes of the Southwestern Border Surge

INTRODUCTION 338 I. THE CREDIBLE FEAR PROCESS 341 A. Expedited Removal 341 B. Fear of Persecution or Torture 342 C. The Credible Fear Interview 344 D. Credible Fear Determinations and Detention ....... 346 1. Parole for Arriving Aliens 347 2. Release for Aliens Not Apprehended at a Port of Entry 348 E. Credible Fear Statistics 348 II. UNACCOMPANIED MINORS 350 A. The Law Regarding UACs 350 B. UAC Statistical Information 352 III. POTENTIAL CAUSES OF THE SURGE 352 A. Regional Instability in the Northern Triangle ....... 353 B. Word of Mouth 363 1. Credible Fear Claims 364 a. Credible Fear Grant Rates 364 b. The Morton Memo and Detention Rates 366 c. The Implications of Credible Fear Grants ........ 370 d. Asylum Grant Rates 370 2. UAC Border Crossings 371 a. Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act 371 b. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 372
Unification of the Law Governing Secured Transactions: Progress and Prospects for Reform

This article was published in connection with UNIDROIT's 75th anniversary conference on worldwide harmonization of private law and regional economic integration. It begins by addressing the commercial need for harmonization in the area of secured transactions, discussing both traditional conflicts analysis in that field and particular obstacles to reform. It then outlines the specific reform initiatives that have been implemented to date, grouping them into sectoral instruments and regional instruments. It concludes by speculating on the future of harmonization efforts in security law.
Aggregate implications of indivisible labor, incomplete markets, and labor market frictions

This paper analyzes a model that features frictions, an operative labor supply margin, and incomplete markets. We flrst provide analytic solutions to a benchmark model that includes indivisible labor and incomplete markets in the absence of trading frictions. We show that the steady state levels of aggregate hours and aggregate capital stock are identical to those obtained in the economy with employment lotteries, while individual employment and asset dynamics can be difierent. Second, we introduce labor market frictions to the benchmark model. We flnd that the efiect of the frictions on the response of aggregate hours to a permanent tax change is highly non-linear. We also flnd that there is considerable scope for substitution between \voluntary" and \frictional" nonemployment in some situations.
Measuring the probability of financial covenant violation in private debt contracts

We measure the probability that a borrower will violate financial covenants in private debt contracts. We analyze hand-coded data and specify standard covenant definitions using Compustat data that minimize measurement error for all individual Dealscan covenants. We use these definitions to create a measure of aggregate probability of violation, which can be used across all covenants in a loan or among covenant subsets of interest. We provide evidence that our aggregate probability measure is superior to alternatives used in prior literature.
Auditor Fees and Fraud Firms

The issue of whether auditor fees affect auditor independence has been extensively debated by regulators, investors, investment professionals, auditors, and researchers. The revised Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements that resulted from the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) limit nonaudit services (NAS) and mandate NAS fee disclosure. The SEC's requirements are based on the argument that auditor independence could be impaired�and hence audit quality may be reduced�when auditors become economically dependent on their clients or audit their own work. Economic bonding leads to reduced independence, which can lead to reduced audit quality. We study a sample of firms sanctioned by the SEC for fraudulent financial reporting in Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (SEC-sanctioned fraud firms) and examine whether there is a relationship between auditor fee variables and the likelihood of being sanctioned by the SEC for fraud. We use SEC sanction as a measure of audit quality that has not previously been used in the auditor fee literature and is more precise than some of the other proxies used for flawed financial/auditor reporting. We find, in univariate tests, that fraud firms paid significantly higher (total, audit, and NAS) fees. However, in multivariate tests, when controlling for other fraud determinants and endogeneity among the fraud, NAS, and audit fee variables, we find that while NAS fees and total fees are positively and significantly related to the likelihood of being sanctioned by the SEC for fraud, audit fees are not. These findings suggest that higher NAS fees may cause economic bonding, thereby leading to reduced audit quality. Our findings of significantly higher NAS fees and total fees in fraud firms hold after controlling for latent size effects and other rigorous testing. These results contribute to the literature that examines the SEC's concerns regarding NAS and can be used by policy makers for additional consideration.
How does labor mobility affect income convergence

Abstract Labor mobility is introduced into the neoclassical growth model. For a small open economy with capital intensity below its steady-state level, outmigration directly contributes to faster income convergence but also creates a disincentive for gross capital investment. At low relative income levels, the latter disincentive effect tends to dominate so that labor mobility can actually slow the speed of income convergence.
Sources of Law and Modes of Governance: Ethnography and Theory in Second Life

Belgian police began patrolling Second Life, the virtual world, in early 2007, responding to a claim of virtual rape. [1] Few crimes evoke as much social revulsion and emotional harm as the powerful forcing themselves on the weak. But does it make sense to talk about an avatar-on-avatar sexual misconduct in familiar terms (i.e., sexual assault and rape)? Is it punishable? Who should take care of the punishing? [1] Benjamin Duranske, Reader Roundtable: “Virtual Rape” Claim Brings Belgian Police to Second Life , Virtually Blind , Apr. 24, 2007, http://virtuallyblind.com/2007/04/24/open-roundtable-allegations-of-virtual-rape-bring-belgian-police-to-second-life/.
Labor market dynamics with endogenous labor force participation and on-the-job search

Abstract Studies that incorporate endogenous labor force participation and search and matching frictions in a real business cycle model report that the model generates counterfactual dynamics: (1) Labor force participation is very volatile and strongly procyclical; (2) Unemployment is weakly procyclical or acyclical; (3) Unemployment and vacancies are positively correlated. To improve the model׳s performance, I enrich the model with on-the-job search as a mechanism to dampen the movements of participation and keep vacancy creation high for longer periods. The proposed model successfully generates weakly procyclical participation, strongly countercyclical unemployment, and the Beveridge Curve. The model also succeeds in matching the statistics for labor force participation and job-to-job flows.
Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer and Roadmap

Talk of artificial intelligence is everywhere. People marvel at the capacity of machines to translate any language and master any game. Others condemn the use of secret algorithms to sentence criminal defendants or recoil at the prospect of machines gunning for blue, pink, and white-collar jobs. Some worry aloud that artificial intelligence will be humankind’s “final invention.” This essay, prepared in connection with UC Davis Law Review's 50th anniversary symposium, explains why AI is suddenly on everyone's mind and provides a roadmap to the major policy questions AI raises. The essay is designed to help policymakers, investors, technologists, scholars, and students understand the contemporary policy environment around AI at least well enough to initiate their own exploration. Topics covered include: justice and equity, use of force, safety and certification, privacy (including data parity) and taxation and displacement of labor. In addition to these topics, the essay will touch briefly on a selection of broader systemic questions: institutional configuration and expertise, investment and procurement, removing hurdles to accountability and correcting mental models of AI.
TOWARD A NOTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL BIOETHICS

In her review essay, Toward a Notion of Environmental Bioethics, Professor Robin Kundis Craig reviews Eric A. Davidson's recent book, YOU CAN'T EAT GNP: ECONOMICS AS IF ECOLOGY MATTERED (2000), as a means of exploring the potential for bioethical concepts such as personal autonomy and bodily integrity to expand protections for the environment without turning the environment into property. The essay discusses the ecological reality that human life and productivity depends upon the environment and argues that a species of ecotorts could recognize this dependence by expanding the concept of person to include those ecosystems and ecosystem services upon which a person's life depends.
Zirconia and hafnia polymorphs: Ground-state structural properties from diffusion Monte Carlo

Zirconia (zirconium dioxide) and hafnia (hafnium dioxide) are binary oxides used in a range of applications. Because zirconium and hafnium are chemically equivalent, they have three similar polymorphs, and it is important to understand the properties and energetics of these polymorphs. However, while density functional theory calculations can get the correct energetic ordering, the energy differences between polymorphs depend very much on the specific density functional theory approach, as do other quantities such as lattice constants and bulk modulus. We have used highly accurate quantum Monte Carlo simulations to model the three zirconia and hafnia polymorphs. We compare our results for structural parameters, bulk modulus, and cohesive energy with results obtained from density functional theory calculations. We also discuss comparisons of our results with existing experimental data, in particular for structural parameters where extrapolation to zero temperature can be attempted. We hope our results of structural parameters as well as for cohesive energy and bulk modulus can serve as benchmarks for density-functional theory based calculations and as a guidance for future experiments.
Risk-taking dynamics in tournaments: Evidence from professional golf

Abstract We use a unique dataset comprised of observations from ten years of professional golf tournaments to analyze golfers’ risk-taking strategies. We focus on analyzing the decisions golfers made when hitting their second shots on par five holes, a shot that often forces golfers to play daringly or conservatively, with little in between. Successful gambles often lead to profitable outcomes when executed well but leave golfers open to tail-end risks for poorly struck shots. Our analysis yields three interesting findings, all of which are closely related to previous studies of strategic risk. First, the strategies golfers adopt hew closely to the way economic agents in other settings cope with uncertainty. Second, golfers’ decisions are dynamic throughout tournaments, especially when playing relatively well early in a tournament and near the halfway mark of a tournament when the worst-performing half of the field is cut. We use regression discontinuity tools to show meaningful differences between the decisions made by golfers on either side of the cut score. Last, we argue golfers’ willingness to take risks was affected by Superstar Tiger Woods, a finding that suggests a strategic component of the Superstar Effect needs to be considered alongside the effort component, as discussed in Brown (2011).
Comparison of POD reduced order strategies for the nonlinear 2D shallow water equations

SUMMARY This paper introduces tensorial calculus techniques in the framework of POD to reduce the computational complexity of the reduced nonlinear terms. The resulting method, named tensorial POD, can be applied to polynomial nonlinearities of any degree p. Such nonlinear terms have an online complexity of O(kp+1), where k is the dimension of POD basis and therefore is independent of full space dimension. However, it is efficient only for quadratic nonlinear terms because for higher nonlinearities, POD model proves to be less time consuming once the POD basis dimension k is increased. Numerical experiments are carried out with a two-dimensional SWE test problem to compare the performance of tensorial POD, POD, and POD/discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM). Numerical results show that tensorial POD decreases by 76× the computational cost of the online stage of POD model for configurations using more than 300,000 model variables. The tensorial POD SWE model was only 2 to 8× slower than the POD/DEIM SWE model but the implementation effort is considerably increased. Tensorial calculus was again employed to construct a new algorithm allowing POD/DEIM SWE model to compute its offline stage faster than POD and tensorial POD approaches. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Replacement Decisions for Potentially Hazardous Substances

As public awareness of environmental hazards increases, a growing concern for corporations is the potential negative environmental impact of their products and the chemicals these products contain. In this study, we analyze the optimal decisions of a firm when a substance within its product is identified as potentially hazardous. Although the substance is not currently regulated, regulation may occur in the future. Therefore, the firm must devise a strategy for the development and implementation of a replacement substance. In an environment where replacement costs can be millions of dollars, regulation is uncertain, and both consumer and non-governmental organization pressures exist, a carefully developed plan that balances costs and risks is critical for a firm. Our results demonstrate that as long as a threat of regulation exists, a firm should always dedicate resources toward developing a replacement substance. However, it is not always optimal for a firm to implement a developed replacement. Regarding competitive dynamics, we find that competition between firms can offset a low chance of a shift in consumer perception about a substance and compel firms to replace; however, competition can lead to inefficient outcomes in which firms incur avoidable costs to implement ahead of potential regulation.
Managed Care Liability, ERISA Preemption, and State "Right to Sue" Legislation in Aetna Health, Inc. v. Davila

An in-depth analysis of the history, background, and holding of Aetna Health, Inc. v. Davila, 124 S. Ct. 2488 (2004), as well as its potential future implications.
Respect and Resistance in Punishment Theory

As convicted criminals go, Socrates could hardly have been more accommodating. When his wealthy friend Crito offered to help him escape on the eve of his execution, Socrates firmly declined.1 After he had failed in his defense against the charges of corrupting Athenian youth, and had suggested to no avail an alternative penalty (free meals for life, at public expense), Socrates decided to accept his death sentence without further resistance. Indeed, he was so helpful as to carry out the execution himself: when the jailer arrived with a cup of hemlock, Socrates solicited advice on the most efficacious way to ingest the poison, then obligingly drank to the last drop. At the other extreme in his attitude toward punishment?though perhaps equally suicidal?was Clyde Barrow, the more violent half of the Bonnie and Clyde criminal team that wreaked havoc across the United States in the early 1930s.3 Barrow famously vowed that he would never be taken alive; he promised to resist every effort to apprehend him and, if injured and unable to escape, to take his own life before allowing lawmen to capture him. Barrow escaped from jail once, and killed a number of law enforcement officers on
FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING EFFECTS OF SPRING LOAD RESTRICTIONS

Spring load restrictions (SLR) impose restrictions on heavy trucks during the spring thaw period. Although the policies have been implemented for many years, their economic effects on truckers remain uncertain. This study provides an overview of practices around the world and sets up a framework to estimate the benefit-cost of the SLR policy. A freight demand model in Minnesota was built to estimate the impacts of SLR on the freight transportation pattern. The model allows various policy scenarios to be tested before being put into practice. A preliminary result of the freight demand model indicates the SLR policy increased truck vehicle kilometers of travel in Lyon County, Minnesota, by about 13%.
Optimal debt contracts and product market competition with exit and entry

Abstract We show how competition in oligopolies, with the possibility of failure and exit of a levered incumbent, affects the ex-ante design of optimal debt contracts. When a levered firm's profits are unobservable, a debt contract imposes the threat of nonrenewal to induce truthful revelation. Because nonrenewal impacts the future profitability of the surviving competitor, the contract influences the competitor's pricing strategy and the equilibrium profits of both firms. The optimal contract is quite different from a standard debt contract, and induces the competitor to be less aggressive, resulting in higher equilibrium prices and profits, and higher returns for investors.
The social cost of foreign exchange reserves

There has been a very rapid rise since the early 1990s in foreign reserves held by developing countries. These reserves have climbed to almost 30% of developing countries' GDP and 8 months of imports. Assuming reasonable spreads between the yield on reserve assets and the cost of foreign borrowing, the income loss to these countries amounts to close to 1% of GDP. Conditional on existing levels of short-term foreign borrowing, this does not seem too steep a price as an insurance premium against financial crises. But why developing countries have not tried harder to reduce short-term foreign liabilities in order to achieve the same level of liquidity (thereby paying a smaller cost in terms of reserve accumulation) remains an important puzzle.
Commentary: Textualism and Tax Cases

This 1993 article uses tax cases to explore the rhetoric surrounding "textualism" in statutory interpretation.
What Do We Owe Future Generations

Every decision that we make today can either directly or indirectly affect the interests of future generations, both those generations already born and those to be born in the decades and centuries after we are gone. Even if it is unlikely that many of our decisions (especially the smaller ones) will affect the general course of history, the possibility of doing so imposes a profound obligation on us at least to consider how our policy choices might affect our children, our grandchildren, and those who will follow. Not every policy choice must elevate the concerns of future generations over those of current generations, of course, but a conscious acknowledgement that we are making decisions for people who cannot speak for their own interests creates a moral imperative to give voice to the voiceless. This Article explores the content of that moral imperative, finding that we currently fall well short of our responsibilities in many areas but—surprisingly—that we might well be overemphasizing the interests of future generations in others. The fundamental problem that we face is not a future with too little prosperity but a future (and a present) in which prosperity is concentrated in far too few hands. This Article thus emphasizes that an obligation to consider future people’s needs and desires can fit within well-known conceptions of distributive justice.
Financial Evolution and Central Bank Credit: Ethics, Morals, Taxation, Stagnation and Bank Holidays

Since the credit crisis of 2007-8 the global economy has been in a stagnant condition, with little growth, little wage increase (Gordon, 2014), but a division in asset devaluation, with oil collapsing in recent years and many other commodities, likewise losing ground while gold and stocks rising or holding steady. Fearing a repeat of the Great Depression, economists, led by Ben Bernanke, a scholar of the Great Depression, acted to save the finance industry and create sufficient liquidity to reverse a catastrophic drop in the stock market (Bernanke, 2015a; 2015b). The strategy since 2009-10 has been to continue this liquidity, while attempting to stabilize banks. While no Great Depression-like destruction of value or massive unemployment took place (or only a short temporary one in some views), little success in overcoming stagnation has taken place with only very low growth. This article discusses the importance of destruction, especially in banking and finance, and identifies the central problem as a lack of opportunity for capitalist evolution strangulated by central bank and government action and the American form of anacyclosis, yet mediated by what can be identified as Durkheim’s social condensation process.
Breaking news: How local TV news and real-world conditions affect fear of crime

Many Americans report that they are fearful of crime. One frequently cited source of this fear is the mass media. The media, and local television news in particular, often report on incidents of cr...
Allying to Kill Terrorist Intergroup Cooperation and the Consequences for Lethality

Terrorist organizations do not operate in isolation. Instead, they forge alliances with one another, which generate a tight network of intergroup relationships. We argue that these relationships se...
Managing foreign exchange risk with derivatives

Abstract This study investigates the foreign exchange risk management program of HDG Inc. (pseudonym), a US-based manufacturer of durable equipment. Precise examination of factors affecting why and how the firm manages its foreign exchange exposure are explored through the use of internal firm documents, discussions with managers, and data on3,110 foreign-exchange derivative transactions. Informational asymmetries, facilitation of internal contracting, and competitive pricing concerns appear to motivate why the firm hedges. How HDG hedges depends on accounting treatment, derivative market liquidity, exchange rate volatility, exposure volatility, and recent hedging outcomes.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF AGNOSTIC DISCRIMINATION LAW

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Discrimination law that is agnostic about the frequency of discrimination is simply not possible. Where the occurrence of discrimination is at issue, an assumption about the frequency of similar events is psychologically and logically unavoidable, and will always be implicit in any conclusion about whether discrimination occurred. Courts cannot be faulted for basing discrimination doctrine on their background assumptions about the frequency of discrimination. Less defensible is the Supreme Court's apparent retreat from attempting to construct rules under which certain evidence can be found, as a matter of law, to imply certain consequences. Discrimination doctrine today implicitly delegates to triers of fact the duty of assessing the societal pattern of discrimination. This delegation has led to hopelessly inconsistent determinations that give little guidance to employees and employers about their rights and duties. The inconsistency that results from delegation serves no substantive goal, since it results not from sensitivity to context but from the brute luck of which judge hears a case. Social framework evidence of the societal pattern of discrimination offers some hope for improving the consistency of judgments. Such evidence is neither irrelevant nor intrinsically prejudicial, but it does raise special challenges. Social framework evidence is almost unknown outside of class subjective practice cases, and its wider use would constitute a major change in the law. Relitigating the societal pattern of discrimination in every discrimination case would create enormously inefficient duplication of effort. Most importantly, the general nature of social frameworks suggests that appellate review of this evidence should be more extensive than that normally accorded to fact. Devising mechanisms for appellate review of social frameworks has proven difficult, and perhaps no general approach is possible for all areas of law. A system of evidentiary devices could move discrimination law towards the best that can be hoped for, a system in which background assumptions are incorporated in a way that tends to produce consistency among adjudications.
Foreign Investment in Kazakhstan's Minerals Industries

An American natural resource economist assesses the post-Soviet history of foreign investment in the minerals industries of Kazakhstan, drawing upon a variety of sources, including in-country interviews and contacts, industry and U.S. government publications, Internet postings, and Kazakh newspapers. She focuses on the means by which foreign firms obtained shares in Kazakh enterprises, the effects to date of foreign ownership on enterprise performance and activities, obstacles confronting foreign firms seeking to invest in Kazakhstan's minerals industries, and shifts in opinion in Kazakhstan regarding the efficacy of such investments in promoting economic development. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F21, G34, L70. 2 tables, 38 references.
Tanzania's Cotton Sector: Reforms, Constraints and Challenges

This article contributes to the liberalisation debate in Africa by assessing the policy reforms in the Tanzanian cotton sector, the outcome of which has been mixed. The grower's share in the fob price has increased; the growers receive payments promptly; the ginning capacity has increased considerably. However, supply response did not take place; the input distribution system collapsed, while the mixing of cotton varieties constitutes a threat to the viability of the sector. The co-operative unions figure prominently in the sector, although for all practical purposes they are bankrupt enterprises. Taxation is excessive, the tax code is complicated and tax evasion is pervasive. The cotton board and the ministries still overregulate the sector. The quality of statistics remains poor.
Do accountants make better chief financial officers

We examine whether chief financial officers (CFOs) with accounting backgrounds (accountant CFOs) are associated with more conservative corporate outcomes. We find that, in high-growth industries, firms with accountant CFOs invest less in research and development and capital expenditures and are less likely to engage in external financing. In low-growth industries, we find that firms with accountant CFOs exhibit greater cost efficiency. Our results are consistent with risk aversion on the part of accountant CFOs. We further document that accountant CFOs are negatively associated with firm value in high-growth industries and positively associated with firm value in low-growth industries.
Estimating the Union Earnings Effect Using a Sample of Displaced Workers

This paper improves on past longitudinal estimates of the union earnings effect by using a sample of workers for whom the error in measuring changes in union status is minimized. The author uses a sample of workers displaced by plant closings from the 1994 and 1996 Current Population Survey Displaced Workers Supplement files to estimate the effects of union membership on weekly earnings. When models are estimated using the entire sample of displaced workers, longitudinal estimates of the union earnings effect are quite similar in magnitude to estimates from cross-sectional regressions. In models estimated separately by skill group, the author finds some evidence of positive selection into unions among workers with low observed skills and negative selection into unions among workers with high observed skills.
Innocent Threats, Concealed Consent, and the Necessary Presence of Strict Liability in Traditional Fault-Based Tort Law

This article identifies and carefully analyzes the use in tort law of what is termed unilateral and bilateral legal analysis. Unilateral, or one-party, analysis involves the design of legal doctrine that is focused on the characteristics or status of a single legal person. It is traditionally associated with criminal law, where the doctrinal attention is tightly focused on the criminal defendant. Inquiry may be made regarding the nature and degree of harm suffered by the victim, or whether the victim agreed to the harm producing act, but these considerations are generally relevant only to the degree that they shed light on the culpability of the criminal defendant. Tort law employs this classic one-party analysis when it determines whether the intent element is satisfied for any of the intentional torts, and when it examines whether or not the defendant in a negligence action has breached the duty of care.As useful as it is in some critical areas of tort law, unilateral analysis fails to generate doctrine that handles properly other important tort law issues. One such area is the privilege of consent. Another is the privilege of self-defense. Both of these tort law problems require for their satisfactory resolution the deployment of classic bilateral, or two-party, analysis of the sort that is traditionally associated with contract law.After fully exploring the necessary blending of unilateral and bilateral analysis, the article goes on to identify a second kind of bilateral analysis that is present in tort law. This type of two-party analysis must deal with situations in which the normally harmonious goals of compensation and deterrence come into conflict. The nature of this problem and its resolution is illustrated across a number of recurring factual situations in torts, including the problem of subjective consent in the absence of objective consent and the problem of reasonable self-defense in response to an innocently generated threat.In the final section of the article, the conflict between compensation and deterrence is shown to shape a bilateral analysis that does not always withhold liability but that instead sometimes results in liability being imposed on a defendant who has not acted in an undesirable, antisocial manner. This element of strict liability is shown to exist within the very heart of what is thought to be traditional, fault-based intentional tort law.
The effect of monetary policy shocks on stock prices accounting for endogeneity and omitted variable biases

Abstract A new high frequency data set is used to estimate the impact of the Fed on the level and volatility of stock prices while accounting for endogeneity and omitted variable biases and potential asymmetries. Results show that after addressing these issues, the effect of policy shocks on the level and volatility of stock returns is higher than previously reported. GARCH findings indicate that the volatility impact is tent-shaped, spiking during policy announcements and declining before and after the release. The level and conditional volatility of stock returns is found to respond asymmetrically to the type of policy shocks (timing versus future path of monetary policy) and the type of policy action (easing versus tightening).