cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
How Should We Assess Interviewing and Counseling Skills

The need to teach interviewing and counseling skills has long been established among clinical legal educators. Even among our non-clinical colleagues, these skills are recognized as integral to competent lawyering. While there remains considerable difference of opinion within the United States as to whether teaching such skills should be in a required course or simply be available as an elective, there is no doubt that a twenty-first century American law school must include the teaching of these skills in its curricular array. This paper first briefly describes the structure of legal education in the United States (insofar as clinical and skills teaching is concerned) and the almost total absence of any bar admission training or apprenticeship requirements. If the law schools are not required to fully train all future lawyers and the bar admission authorities likewise disavow responsibility for doing so, should clinical law professors assume the burden? I then go on to discuss the primary clinical evaluation technique of directly observing the student's performance, sometimes referred to as the gold standard method of assessment. Against the backdrop of the assertion that it is beneficial to use multiple methods of assessment, I then describe the several methods I have used to address the question of how best to assess interviewing and counseling skills. As an aside, it becomes clear that much more empirical analysis is in order.
How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata

The Arellano-Bond (1991) and Arellano-Bover (1995)/Blundell-Bond (1998) linear generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators are increasingly popular. Both are general estimators designed for situations with “small T, large N” panels, meaning few time periods and many individuals; with independent variables that are not strictly exogenous, meaning correlated with past and possibly current realizations of the error; with fixed effects; and with heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation within individuals. This pedagogic paper first introduces linear GMM. Then it shows how limited time span and the potential for fixed effects and endogenous regressors drive the design of the estimators of interest, offering Stata-based examples along the way. Next it shows how to apply these estimators with xtabond2. It also explains how to perform the Arellano-Bond test for autocorrelation in a panel after other Stata commands, using abar. The Center for Global Development is an independent think tank that works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community. Use and dissemination of this Working Paper is encouraged, however reproduced copies may not be used for commercial purposes. Further usage is permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons License. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the directors or funders of the Center for Global Development.
POLICY MAKING IN DEFLATIONARY JAPAN

The prolonged recession and deflation in Japan since 1990 presents novel problems to economists. The recession was certainly triggered by real factors such as the slowing down of capacity growth. At the same time, it was aggravated by the monetary contraction in the early 1990s and the inability of the monetary policy to cope with deflation, a fortiori a monetary phenomenon. With the zero-bound interest rate, traditional monetary policy is of limited effect, and unconventional monetary policy, such as inflation (or price-level) targeting, should be employed instead, in order to change the persistent deflationary expectations in the public.
Modeling Expected Return on Defaultable Bonds

The literature on credit risk focuses on fitting bond prices and explaining yield spreads, while largely skirting the issue of expected return. The unique feature of credit risk, however, implies that the expected return on defaultable bonds is not synonymous with the (pre-default) price process as in the case of default-free bonds. The author examines the expected return on defaultable bonds using intensity-based credit risk models. It is shown that a defaultable bond9s instantaneous expected return can be decomposed into three parts: a default-free component, a compensation for variations in default risk, and a compensation for investors9 risk aversion toward the default event. The methodology for estimating these components and the practical difficulties one might encounter in this estimation are discussed. Easily extended to include a non-default component, this decomposition can enrich our understanding of many empirical observations concerning credit risk.
The Case for eHearsay

On April 4, 2014, the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Evidence convened the Symposium on the Challenges of Electronic Evidence. The purpose of the symposium was “to consider the intersection of the evidence rules and emerging technologies” and explore what rule changes, if any, might be warranted in light of sweeping changes in the way people communicate.1 As an unapologetic advocate for changes to the hearsay rules, I thought it a happy coincidence that the symposium coincided with Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner’s call for sweeping hearsay reform.2 In a 2013 article, eHearsay,3 I proposed a hearsay exception for “Recorded Statements of Recent Perception” (RSRPs).4 The exception is designed to distinguish reliable from unreliable electronic communication (e.g., text messages and social media posts) and permit the former to be presented to fact-finders. The Advisory Committee invited me to present my RSRP exception at its symposium. After my presentation, a member of the Advisory Committee, Professor Paul Shechtman, provided formal comments on my proposal. Some of these comments resonated with a response Professor Colin Miller published to eHearsay, concurring in part and dissenting in part to my proposal.5 This Essay responds to the various concerns about my proposed hearsay reform raised by Professors Miller, Shechtman, and others. Change is never easy. Proponents of changes to the evidence rules fairly bear the burden of persuasion that any particular reform is preferable to the status quo. In this Essay, I aim to do just that, while also addressing Judge Posner’s suggestion for hearsay reform. While I agree with the judge’s call for a more permissive attitude toward the admission of hearsay, I believe
The firm as a subeconomy

This article explores the economic role of the firm in a market economy. The analysis begins with a discussion and critique of the property rights approach to the theory of the firm as exposited in the recent work by Hart and Moore (“Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm”). It is argued that the Hart–Moore model, taken literally, can only explain why individuals own assets, but not why firms own assets. In particular, the logic of the model suggests that each asset should be free standing in order to provide maximal flexibility for the design of individual incentives. These implications run counter to fact. One of the key features of the modern firm is that it owns essentially all the productive assets that it employs. Employees rarely own any assets; they only contribute human capital. Why is the ownership of assets clustered in firms? This article outlines an answer based on the notion that control over physical assets gives control over contracting rights to those assets. Metaphorically, the firm is viewed as a miniature economy, an “island” economy, in which asset ownership conveys the CEO the power to define the “rules of the game,” that is, the ability to restructure the incentives of those that accept to do business on (or with) the island. The desire to regulate trade in this fashion stems from contractual externalities characteristic of imperfect information environments. The inability to regulate all trade through a single firm stems from the value of exit rights as an incentive instrument and a tool to discipline the abuse of power.
A multibeta representation theorem for linear asset pricing theories

Abstract This paper derives a multibeta representation theorem for pricing assets using arbitrary reference variables that are not necessarily the true factors. Under this theorem, the upper bound on pricing deviations depends upon the correlations not only between the reference variables and the factors but also between the reference variables and the residual risks. A new concept of a well-diversified variable is introduced, which though free of residual risk, may be less than perfectly correlated with the true factors. Welldiversified variables correlated with the factors play a key role in the pricing of assets, since these variables can replace the factors without any loss in pricing accuracy under all linear asset pricing theories.
Selection Benefits of Stock-Based Compensation for the Rank-and-File

ABSTRACT: We investigate a potential selection benefit of stock-based compensation for rank-and-file employees, whose pay under this compensation form is insensitive to their individual efforts. We use a laboratory experiment to demonstrate that individuals with higher levels of dispositional optimism are more likely to choose compensation that is contingent on a company's future stock price than to choose fixed pay, even after controlling for the individual's risk preferences. Furthermore, compared to participants selecting fixed pay, those selecting stock-based compensation also perform better on a challenging problem-solving task, a result that we show is due to their higher levels of dispositional optimism. Collectively, we demonstrate that stock-based compensation can have productivity-enhancing effects, even if stock prices are completely insensitive to individual efforts. In doing so, we provide a partial explanation for the puzzling prevalence of stock-based compensation plans at the rank-and-file...
Information Asymmetry, Market Segmentation and the Pricing of Cross-listed Shares: Theory and Evidence from Chinese A and B Shares

JEL Classification numbers G12, G14, G15 In contrast to most other countries, Chinese foreign class B shares trade at an average discount of about 60 percent to the prices at which domestic A shares trade. We argue that one reason for the large price discount of B shares is because foreign investors have less information on Chinese stocks than domestic investors. We develop a model, incorporating both informational asymmetry and market segmentation, and derive a relative pricing equation for A shares and B shares. We show theoretically that an A share index security, tradable by foreigners, increases the liquidity of B shares. Our empirical study of Chinese stocks supports the predictions of our model. Specifically, we show that our model-based proxies for informational asymmetry explain a significant portion of the cross-sectional variation of the B share discounts.
Can learnability save new-Keynesian models?

Abstract McCallum (2009) argues that “learnability” can save new-Keynesian models from indeterminacies. He claims the unique bounded equilibrium is learnable, and the explosive equilibria are not. However, he assumes that agents can directly observe the monetary policy shock. Reversing this assumption, I find the opposite: the bounded equilibrium is not learnable and the unbounded equilibria are learnable. More generally, I argue that a threat by the Fed to move to an “unlearnable” equilibrium for all but one value of inflation is a poor foundation for choosing the bounded equilibrium of a new-Keynesian model.
Processing Civil Rights Summary Judgment and Consumer Discrimination Claims

This Article discusses the way in which the prevailing procedural standards undermine the ability of plaintiffs to pursue consumer discrimination claims. It raises the concern that premature dismissals of these claims unduly silence plaintiffs, hinder the ability of the Civil Rights Acts to fairly address issues of societal discrimination, and prevent a broader understanding of the subtle ways in which racism continues to be manifested.
Public Participation GIS: The Case of Redistricting

Recent technological advances have enabled greater public participation and transparency in the United States redistricting process. We review these advances, with particular attention to activities involving open-source redistricting software.
Dynamic Public Opinion: Communication Effects over Time

We develop an approach to studying public opinion that accounts for how people process competing messages received over the course of a political campaign or policy debate. Instead of focusing on the fixed impact of a message, we emphasize that a message can have variable effects depending on when it is received within a competitive context and how it is evaluated. We test hypotheses about the effect of information processing using data from two experiments that measure changes in public opinion in response to alternative sequences of information. As in past research, we find that competing messages received at the same time neutralize one another. However, when competing messages are separated by days or weeks, most individuals give disproportionate weight to the most recent communication because previous effects decay over time. There are exceptions, though, as people who engage in deliberate processing of information display attitude stability and give disproportionate weight to previous messages. These results show that people typically form significantly different opinions when they receive competing messages over time than when they receive the same messages simultaneously. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for understanding the power of communications in contemporary politics.
On Being Anti-Imperial: Consensus Building, Anarchism, and ADR

This article examines the reach and possible limits of “imperial legality” by comparing two kinds of practices intended to enable actors to resolve conflicts and make collective decisions without the force of sovereign impositions: contemporary anarchism, which has become an influential part of the anti-neoliberal globalization movement, on the one hand, and professional consensus building, which is rapidly emerging as part of the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement, on the other hand. Although both sets of practices are intensely focused on generating consensus, this comparison highlights the different conceptions of process that they employ. Professional consensus building’s capacity to render itself “merely” procedure – a means to further another set of ends – makes it remarkably easy to scale up to imperial proportions. By contrast, anarchism’s vision of process aspires to collapse distinctions between means and ends, refuses to constrain anyone who does not participate, and seeks transforma...
Pricing of mall services in the presence of sales leakage

Abstract For a shopping mall, sales leakage occurs when consumer purchases facilitated by the mall are finalized outside it. These sales include, for example, catalog orders filled at the leased premises in a physical mall; For an Internet mall, they include the ones consumers make on an on-line store’s website after learning about the store from an Internet mall website. While these sales are difficult to track in the physical mall, Internet malls like Yahoo can track them by placing cookies on consumers when they visit the mall. The challenge for a mall owner then is to design an appropriate pricing model which takes sales leakage into account. In fact, Yahoo currently uses an All-Revenue-Share Fee with Yahoo collecting from on-line stores a share of all sales revenue, regardless of whether the purchase was made through the mall or directly from the store’s own URL. We explore this new All-Revenue-Share Fee model, compare it with the commonly used Fixed Fee model and the two-part tariff model, and identify the model with the highest profits for the mall under different conditions. We suggest that although an All-Revenue-Share Fee is appealing for Internet malls due to its ability to capture sales leakage directly, it may cause the stores to refrain from joining the mall in certain circumstances. Thus, in certain situations charging a fixed monthly fee can actually be more profitable for the mall versus the All-Revenue-Share Fee model. We also examine how mall and product category characteristics as well as market expansion affect the optimal pricing strategy. We show that a mall should price discriminate across product categories, not just by charging different amounts of fees, but by using different pricing models. Our research provides many managerial implications on how to price over time.
Moral Rights 2.0

In recent years, commentators have developed a renewed interest in moral rights. Although there remain significant differences between U.S. and European copyright laws, these differences are unlikely to present significant challenges to the future development of moral rights. Instead, challenges are likely to come from the changing socio-technological environment, due in no small part to the internet and the arrival of new media technologies. In the digital age, the protection of moral rights has raised four new sets of questions: (1) Are moral rights becoming obsolete? (2) Can the protection of these rights meet the demands of a growing semiotic democracy? (3) Would such protection threaten the development of a participatory democratic culture in countries with heavy information control? (4) Should moral rights be extended to cover a new ‘right to delete’ in the digital environment? This short essay examines each of these questions.
The Telling Trades of Mutual Funds

Under the assumption that mutual funds trade at quarter commencement, some funds exhibit and exploit persistent stock selection talent; that is, the stocks purchased consistently outperform the stocks sold, and the higher turnover of these funds indicates that managers are capitalizing on their forecasting abilities. However, any evidence of sustained stock selection skill disappears when alternate trade-timing assumptions are considered, suggesting that some skilled managers are electing to trade earlier than previously assumed. Overall, the results question the appropriateness of the quarter-end trading assumption and the validity of existing studies that employ it.
WHY DO INCREASED ARREST RATES APPEAR TO REDUCE CRIME: DETERRENCE, INCAPACITATION, OR MEASUREMENT ERROR?

This paper attempts to discriminate between deterrence, incapacitation, and measurement error as explanations for the negative empirical relationship between arrest rates and crime. Measurement error cannot explain the observed patterns in the data. Incapacitation suggests that an increase in the arrest rate for one crime will reduces all crime rates; deterrence predicts that an increase in the arrest rate for one crime will lead to a rise in other crimes as criminals substitute away from the first crime. Empirically, deterrence appears to be the more important factor, particularly for property crimes. (JEL K42)
The Value of an Heir Apparent in Succession Planning

This study examines whether the equity markets value firms that have a succession plan in place. We find that firms with an heir apparent already designated upon the death of the CEO have significantly higher cumulative abnormal returns on the date of death than firms that have not identified an heir apparent. This study contributes to the existing governance/succession planning literature by providing empirical evidence that succession planning appears to be valuable to companies engaged in succession transitions.
Natural and Quasi- Experiments in Economics

Using research designs patterned after randomized experiments, many recent economic studies examine outcome measures for treatment groups and comparison groups that are not randomly assigned. By using variation in explanatory variables generated by changes in state laws, government draft mechanisms, or other means, these studies obtain variation that is readily examined and is plausibly exogenous. This article describes the advantages of these studies and suggests how they can be improved. It also provides aids in judging the validity of inferences that they draw. Design complications such as multiple treatment and comparison groups and multiple preintervention or postintervention observations are advocated.
On sufficient conditions for the existence of stable matchings with contracts

We introduce two new sufficient conditions for the existence of stable outcomes in many-to-one matching with contracts. The conditions subsume the observable substitutability of Hatfield et al. (2015) and the substitutable completability of Hatfield and Kominers (2016) as special cases. We also prove that unilaterally substitutability and irrelevance of rejected contracts imply substitutable completability.
Trade‐related Job Loss and Wage Insurance: a Synthetic Review

The paper seeks to promote further integration of empirical and theoretical discussions of trade and worker adjustment. From the author’s recent studies of the costs of job loss, she develops a set of stylized facts of trade-related job loss, with a focus on worker characteristics and labor market consequences. These stylized facts are relevant to any (credible) model of trade liberalization and adjustment costs. The author discusses the basic ideas of wage insurance and summarizes the few data known about how a program might work if implemented in the United States. A final section provides a list of issues for a model of trade that will be consistent with the empirical stylized facts, and sets out questions for future research.
Tradeoffs from Integrating Diagnosis and Treatment in Markets for Health Care

Anyone who has consulted a doctor, plumber, or auto mechanic has experienced the tradeoffs in consulting a single expert to both diagnose and treat a problem in the presence of asymmetric information. On one hand, integrated diagnosticians—those who also sell treatments—may have the incentive to give advice that is not in the buyer’s best interests. As the theoretical models in Curtis R. Taylor (1995) and Asher Wolinsky (1993) point out, because the buyer has imperfect information on the scope of the problem (if he did not, he would not have needed to consult a diagnostician in the first place), the diagnostician inevitably has the incentive to recommend treatments that are more profitable, even if they are more costly, of lower quality, or less appropriate. On the other hand, joint production of diagnosis and treatment may be more efficient. The diagnostician may have better information about how to treat the problem than he could (or would) provide to an independent third party. Or, the diagnostician may be able to treat the problem himself less expensively or more effectively (“half the cost is opening the engine block”). We examine an important special case of this problem: the costs and quality of care of a random sample of Medicare beneficiaries with coronary artery disease. We compare patients who were diagnosed by an “integrated” cardiologist—one who also provides surgical treatment—to patients who were diagnosed by a nonintegrated cardiologist. We decompose the total effect of diagnosis by an integrated cardiologist into the parts due to the change in the type of treatment and the parts due to the relative efficiency of each type of treatment. With this information, we quantify the potential upsides and downsides to diagnosis by an integrated expert. We identify these effects based on differences across geographic areas in the number of integrated cardiologists per capita. Our estimates are consistent under the assumption that unobserved patient characteristics and other determinants of spending are similar across areas with many versus few integrated cardiologists; we explore the validity of this assumption below. The paper proceeds in four sections. Section I reviews the previous empirical literature on the problems of obtaining diagnosis and treatment from a single expert when that expert has better information than the buyer on the source of the buyer’s problem. Section II discusses the details of the problem that we study and presents our models. Section III describes our data. Section IV presents our results, and Section V concludes with the implications of our results for economic theory and health policy.
Bank Loan Supply, Lender Choice, and Corporate Capital Structure

This paper explores the relevance of capital market supply frictions for corporate capital structure decisions. To identify this relationship, I study the effect on firms' financial structures of two changes in bank funding constraints: the 1961 emergence of the market for certificates of deposit, and the 1966 Credit Crunch. Following an expansion (contraction) in the availability of bank loans, leverage ratios of bank-dependent firms significantly increase (decrease) relative to firms with bond market access. Concurrent changes in the composition of financing sources lend further support to the role of credit supply and debt market segmentation in capital structure choice.
Pointing the Finger: Civilian Casualties of NATO Bombing in the Kosovo Conflict

The conduct of NATO's bombing campaign against FRY in early 1999 entailed several breaches of the laws of armed conflict with respect to civilians. While these breaches may not necessarily be of a kind suitable for prosecution by the Tribunal, whether due to an absence of evidence, an absence of identifiable individuals who can be properly held accountable, or for jurisdictional reasons, they should not be forgotten. A key factor leading to the breaches was that NATO was conducting a war on humanitarian grounds, sanctioned not by the United Nations but by the public in NATO member countries. As "public support for intervention was conditioned on the prospect of minimal casualties" for members, in too many cases NATO appeared to give absolute precedence to the lives of its forces over those of the civilian population, including the Kosovar Albanians it was fighting to protect. Thus, in several incidents the primary beneficiaries of NATO's precision weapons technology were the aircrew, who were able to direct attacks from higher altitudes at lower risk to themselves, rather than the civilians. At a broader international level, the civilian casualties of the NATO bombing reveal the critical need for development of the laws of armed conflict in the context of humanitarian intervention.
The Impact of the Entry of Biosimilars: Evidence from Europe

Biologics represent a substantial and growing share of the U.S. drug market. Traditional “small molecule” generics quickly erode the price and share of the branded product upon entry, however only a few biosimilars have been approved in the US since 2015, thereby largely preserving biologics from competition. We analyze European markets, which have had biosimilar competition since 2006. Using our own survey, we analyze how market features and public policies predict biosimilar entry, price, and penetration, finding significant heterogeneity across countries and products. Effective buyer institutions are associated with increased biosimilar penetration. Our estimates can inform ongoing policy discussions.
Regulating Digital Trade

Under Section 337 of the Tariff Act, the International Trade Commission (ITC) has jurisdiction over articles that enter the country and infringe intellectual property rights. Recently, the ITC vastly expanded its powers, asserting jurisdiction over imported digital files that infringe intellectual property rights. This Article examines the limits of the ITC’s authority, arguing that it lacks jurisdiction over digital information, because information in the abstract cannot be controlled by a court or an agency. It maintains that the ITC has misconstrued the breadth of its statutory authority under the Tariff Act and that the traditional tools of statutory interpretation show that Congress intended for the term “articles” to be limited to tangible personal property. Finally, this Article discusses how interest groups including the Motion Picture Association of America are attempting to use the ITC to block information at the U.S. border, and considers the significant risks that this poses to the public welfare.
The three faces of retainer care: crafting a tailored regulatory response.

Retainer care arrangements allow patients to pay a retainer directly to a physician's office in order to obtain special access to care.' Practices usually convert to retainer status by focusing their attention on those willing to pay a retainer fee, and dropping the majority of their patients, who are left to be absorbed by other practices.2 Also known as "boutique medicine," "concierge care," or "innovative practice design," retainer practices have drawn thousands of enthusiastic patients.3
Selection Bias, Demographic Effects, and Ability Effects in Common Value Auction Experiments

Inexperienced women, along with economics and business majors, are much more susceptible to the winner’s curse, as are subjects with lower SAT/ACT scores. There are strong selection effects in bid function estimates for inexperienced and experienced subjects due to bankruptcies and bidders who have lower earnings returning less frequently as experienced subjects. These selection effects are not identified using standard econometric techniques but are identified through experimental treatment effects. Ignoring these selection effects leads to misleading estimates of learning.
Exhaustion of State Administrative Remedies in Section 1983 Cases

This comment focuses on exhaustion in section 1983 cases to determine whether a relaxed requirement is necessary or appropriate in terms of federalism, sound judicial administration, and the purposes of section 1983. The comment first examines the nature of the exhaustion requirement and the rationale for its application to state administrative rather than judicial remedies. Next, it considers relaxation of the exhaustion requirement in section 1983 cases, and examines the purposes of section 1983 in light of the rationale for exhaustion. The comment concludes that relaxation of the exhaustion requirement in section 1983 cases is not necessary to satisfy considerations of federalism or the purposes of section 1983, and suggests an alternative exhaustion requirement for section 1983 cases modeled on section 704 of the Administrative Procedures Act.
Beyond China’s Human Rights Exceptionalism in Africa: Leveraging Science, Technology and Engineering for Long-Term Growth

This brief response to Timothy Webster’s article, “China’s Human Rights Footprint in Africa,” also forthcoming in 51 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law (2013) critically appraises China’s disavowal of human rights, the rule of law and democracy in its African relations. China has argued its African relations are based on the principles of political equality and reciprocity, mutual trust and benefit, common prosperity, sincerity and friendship. I critically evaluate this effort to redraw the boundaries between political and economic interventionism. In so doing, I make two major claims.First, viewing China’s involvement in Africa as purely or primarily economic, (and therefore non-interventionist and non-imperial), is inaccurate. China’s economic involvement in Africa is not apolitical, or any different than that of Western countries which condition certain forms of economic support to human rights or goals such as free and fair elections, and free market reforms. Economic interventionism is no less objectionable than human rights interventionism. It is inaccurate to think of the private realm of economics as apolitical or neutral – it is precisely such views of the economic sphere that have been invoked to put brakes on the goals of social justice in the economy and presumptions such as that the non-intervention norm does not extend into the economic realm Second, I argue that to address Africa’s development and human rights challenges, African countries must capitalize on the trade and investment opportunities China and other countries provide by taking concerted measures to transform their dependency on primary products by developing a productive base upon which competitive industries could emerge to promote the kind of growth that would inure positively for human rights. China can best help human rights in the long term by ensuring its investments in Africa are poverty reducing and productivity increasing. This is exactly what China did at at home with strategies such as joint-ventures with foreign firms that transferred technology and skills. In July 2012 at the last China-Africa forum, Chinese leaders promised that a new chapter in which China would seek to help Africa improve its productive capacity by “scaling up personnel training and technology transfer” was beginning. This commitment will be crucial to assuring that China’s contact with Africa goes towards promoting human rights in the long-term. African governments must work closely with the Chinese governments as well as Chinese firms to make this happen. China’s Africa human rights policy must take into account that the same rights China has invoked to defend itself in the global trading system should apply equally in its relations with African countries. Under China’s policy of mutual benefit, African countries can and should be entitled like China has to make the claim they are entitled to freely dispose its natural resources as a matter of international human rights law.
Bayesian Juries and The Limits to Deterrence

We consider a model of crime with rational Bayesian Jurors. We find that if jurors are not perfectly informed, even when there is no limit to the size of the punishment that can be imposed, it is not possible to deter all crime. There is a finite lower bound on the crime rate which results from the difficulties in achieving a conviction with imperfect evidence and very low crime rates. Crime can not be reduced below this rate by increasing the penalty, but the lower bound can be decreased by improving the quality of evidence presented to jurors, or by increasing the threshold of evidence necessary for prosecution. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.
A Renewed Role for Conservation in Environmental Policy

Environmental issues loom large for both candidates in the current presidential campaign. High-profile issues such as the regulation of greenhouse gases and the development of alternative fuels take center stage in the national debate. The next presidential administration should highlight the importance of individuals taking action in their homes and communities in order to decrease the unsustainable demand for natural resources.
The role of commitment in dynamic contracts: Evidence from life insurance

We use data on life insurance contracts to study the properties of long-term contracts in a world where buyers cannot commit to a contract. The data are especially suited to test a theory of dynamic contracting since they include information on the entire proele of future premiums. All the patterns in the data et the theoretical predictions of a model with symmetric learning and one-sided com
The role of dynamic renegotiation and asymmetric information in financial contracting

Abstract Using data from Securities and Exchange Commission filings, I show that the typical bank loan is renegotiated five times, or every nine months. The pricing, maturity, amount, and covenants are all significantly modified during each renegotiation, whose timing is governed by the financial health of the contracting parties and uncertainty regarding the borrowers’ credit quality. The relative importance of these factors depends on the duration of the lending relationship. I interpret these results in light of financial contracting theories and emphasize that renegotiation is an important mechanism for dynamically completing contracts and for allocating control rights ex post.
Disproportionality and Business Cycle from Tugan-Baranovskij to Spiethoff

In the second half of the 19th century, German-speaking countries developed a very intense economic debate about crises. Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovskijâ€™s analysis may be considered as the point of transition between different crisis theories and the development of organic thinking about the business cycle. It was an integral part of the German debate and had a decisive influence on Arthur Spiethoffâ€™s elaboration â€“ perhaps the most organic analysis of the cycle developed within the German historical school. Arthurs Spiethoffâ€™s influence was recognized by important authors such as Friedrich A. von Hayek and Joseph A. Schumpeter. Both the Austrian economists admitted their debt toward the German scholar in elaborating their business cycle theories. The present paper aims to illustrate one of the important roots in Spiethoffâ€™s approach, an approach that in turn became a crucial reference for other important economists.
Sixteenths: direct evidence on institutional execution costs

Abstract In June 1997, the New York Stock Exchange lowered its minimum price increment on most stocks from eighths to sixteenths. We use a sample of institutional trades to directly measure the effect of this tick size reduction on execution costs. Though quoted and effective spreads decline, realized execution costs for these institutions increase after the change to sixteenths. Costs increase most for orders that aggressively demand liquidity, including large orders, orders placed by momentum traders, and orders not worked by the trading desk. These findings emphasize that spreads are not a sufficient statistic for market quality. Smaller tick sizes may actually reduce market liquidity.
Energy technology R&D portfolio management: Modeling uncertain returns and market diffusion

Abstract The allocation of research and development (R&D) funds across a portfolio of programs must simultaneously consider uncertainty from research outcomes and from market acceptance of the resulting technologies. We introduce a stochastic R&D portfolio management framework for addressing both sources of uncertainty and present numerical results for energy technology R&D strategy under uncertainties in climate policy and natural gas prices. Numerical experiments indicate that R&D may be more valuable in second-best planning environments where decision-makers use expected-value approaches, and recourse investments occur after R&D has reduced costs. We also find that deterministic R&D valuation approaches likely overestimate the expected value of R&D success but undervalue the optionality and hedging potential of technologies relative to sequential decision-making approaches under uncertainty. The results also highlight the role of R&D in second-best policy environments.
Properties of Community

The relationship between individuals and communities — all manner of communities, but especially the state — is a central preoccupation of property theory. Even though the relationship between individuals and community stands at the conceptual center of property theory, the theories of community underlying discussions of property are frequently left implicit. The dominant approaches to property in Anglophone scholarship, utilitarian and classical liberal theories, treat communities as agglomerations of individuals. Moreover, they eschew substantive accounts of justice, favoring what Charles Taylor has called "procedural" conceptions. In this Article, we offer an ontological conception of community that views the individual and community as mutually dependent. In contrast with the two competing theories we describe, we favor a substantive conception of justice built around the notion of human flourishing. Although we are reluctant to embrace any particular label for our view, it is broadly Aristotelian in its framework. Once we have sketched the outlines of our theory, we will describe how our ontological theory might operate, using State v. Shack and a prominent South African property case as our central examples.
Public information, public learning and public opinion: democratic accountability in education policy

Theories of political accountability assume citizens use information about the performance of government to hold public officials accountable, but whether citizens actually use information is difficult to directly examine. We take advantage of the importance of citizen-driven, performance-based accountability for education policy in Tennessee to conduct a survey experiment that identifies the effect of new information, mistaken beliefs and differing considerations on the evaluation of public officials and policy reforms using 1,500 Tennesseans. Despite an emphasis on reporting outcomes for school accountability policies in the state, mistaken beliefs are prevalent and produce overly optimistic assessments of the institutions responsible for statewide education policy. Moreover, individuals update their assessments of these institutions in an unbiased way when provided with objective performance data about overall student performance. Providing additional information about race-related performance differences does not alter this relationship, however. Finally, support for specific policies that are intended to improve student performance is unchanged by either type of performance information; opinions about policy reforms are instead most related to race and existing partisan commitments.
Offer and Acceptance in Modern Contract Law: A Needless Concept

The fundamental law of contract formation has retained the formalistic character of classical contract law. The offer-andacceptance paradigm fits poorly with modern contracting practice, and it obscures and complicates contract doctrine. More importantly, extending it threatens to produce undesirable results. Instead of the offer-and-acceptance paradigm, this Essay proposes that contract formation be analyzed using the same general interpretive inquiry that governs other questions concerning the intent of contracting parties.
Elections and Change under Voting with Dollars

Two important events occur in even-numbered years: federal elections and the Olympics. Each is marked by huge amounts of media spending, odd combinations of high ideals, jingoism, fierce competition in some events and preordained results in others, and, especially recently, accusations of partisan judging. If Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres's provocative new book, Voting with Dollars,' were an Olympic event, it would be the biathlon. The biathlon combines two sports that are usually quite distinct from one anothercross-country skiing and riflery. The biathlon's component events rely on very different skills and approaches. Yoking skiing and shooting together can reveal an athlete's strengths and weaknesses in a way that neither sport alone might do. The biathlon raises the questions of what should count as a sport and whether a streamlined and perhaps romanticized version of what it meant to be a soldier in nineteenth-century Scandinavia should be a model for athletic competition today. So too with Voting with Dollars. The book combines two originally distinct proposals-Bruce Ackerman's idea for decentralized public funding of political campaigns through "Patriot dollars"2 and Ian Ayres's idea for requiring anonymity in political contributions3-and uses them to offer a highly stylized vision of political life in twenty-first century America. Like the biathlon, the combination raises interesting questions, some about how we think about nineteenth-century history and some about how we
Freeriders and Diversity in the Legal Academy: A New Dirty Dozen List?

Latina and Latino student enrollment in U.S. law schools the last few decades has increased. This increase, however, has not resulted in a comparable increase in Latino and Latina law professors. To foster diversity in law school faculties and to increase Latina representation, the “Dirty Dozen List” was published. The List was comprised of the top twelve U.S. law schools located in high Latina populated areas but lacking a single Latina professor on the faculty. The List served to increase awareness of the lack of diversity at some of the nation’s top legal institutions, as well as “shame” these schools into remedying the dearth within their faculties. The Dirty Dozen List was last published in 2000 and unfortunately, in the years since, many of the more homogenous (in terms of faculty) law schools remain devoid of any Latina professors. This is despite the increasing numbers of qualified Latina students enrolling in and graduating from law school. This Article focuses on advocating for increased Latina diversity in the legal professoriate and to remind the professoriate of professional commitments to diversify, which have become an industry norm of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and the American Bar Association (ABA).
Appropriability, preemption, and firm performance

The impact of strategies used to appropriate innovation rents on firm performance is analyzed using a sample of U.S. public manufacturing firms. Stronger appropriability at the firm level, achieved through patent protection or the ownership of specialized complementary assets, leads to superior economic performance, as measured by the stock market valuation of a firm's R& D assets. Among commonly used ‘nonconventional’ patent strategies, preemptive patenting allows incumbents to strengthen their market power. Consistent with theory, such effect is higher for incumbents with higher ex ante market power and facing a higher threat of entry, and lower when R& D competition is characterized by the discovery of drastic innovations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Accounting for noise in the microfoundations of information aggregation

Abstract This paper shows that the basic unit of information aggregation described by the Geanakoplos and Polemarchakis (1982) posterior revision process does not always produce public statistics that are closer to the full information posterior than the common prior. I study this process of back and forth communication between two individuals with private signals by introducing white noise into payoff computations, defining the evolution of common knowledge, and providing conjectures on the resulting public statistics. I then develop a computational method to ex-ante rank information structures on their tolerance to noise. Subjects' behavior in a laboratory experiment is consistent with the model's prediction: though the posterior revision process do move reports towards each other and towards the full information posterior, noise persists and aggregation is incomplete. As predicted, aggregation attempts in the two least noise-tolerant information structures result in public statistics that perform worse than the common prior.
Can Banks Be Liable for Aiding and Abetting Terrorism?: A Closer Look into the Split on Secondary Liability Under the Antiterrorism Act

The Antiterrorism Act of 1990 (ATA) explicitly authorizes a private cause of action for U.S. nationals who suffer an injury “by reason of an act of international terrorism.” ATA civil litigation has increased dramatically following September 11, 2001—and banks, because of their deep pockets, have emerged as an increasingly popular target. Courts are divided concerning the scope of liability under the statute, specifically over whether the ATA authorizes a cause of action premised on secondary liability. Under a secondary liability theory, a plaintiff could argue that a bank, through providing financial services to a terrorist client, aided and abetted an act of international terrorism. This Note examines the conflict over secondary liability under the ATA, applies this conflict to banks specifically, and concludes that the legislative history of the ATA civil provision is not enough to support such a cause of action. This Note ultimately finds, however, that the absence of any kind of secondary liability route for plaintiffs diminishes the ATA‟s power as a deterrent against terrorism financing and also has interesting repercussions for primary liability cases. As a result, this Note argues that Congress should amend the ATA to explicitly permit secondary liability. However, in order to guard against excessive suits against innocent banks, courts should only permit claims premised upon secondary liability in extreme cases where the bank manifested intent or extreme recklessness in their dealings with terrorist clients.