cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
PROACTIVE POLICING AND ROBBERY RATES ACROSS U.S. CITIES

In recent years, criminologists, as well as journalists, have devoted considerable attention to the potential deterrent effect of what is sometimes referred to as “proactive” policing. This policing style entails the vigorous enforcement of laws against relatively minor offenses to prevent more serious crime. The current study examines the effect of proactive policing on robbery rates for a sample of large U.S. cities using an innovative measure developed by Sampson and Cohen (1988). We replicate their cross-sectional analyses using data from 2000 to 2003, which is a period that proactive policing is likely to have become more common than that of the original study—the early 1980s. We also extend their analyses by estimating a more comprehensive regression model that incorporates additional theoretically relevant predictors. Finally, we advance previous research in this area by using panel data, The cross-sectional analyses replicate prior findings of a negative relationship between proactive policing and robbery rates. In addition, our dynamic models suggest that proactive policing is endogenous to changes in robbery rates. When this feedback between robbery and proactive policing is eliminated, we find more evidence to support our finding that proactive policing reduces robbery rates.
The Costs of Shareholder Activism: Evidence from a Sequential Decision Model

Abstract This paper provides benchmarks for monitoring costs and evaluates the net returns to shareholder activism. I model activism as a sequential decision process consisting of demand negotiations, board representation, and proxy contest and estimate the costs of each activism stage. A campaign ending in a proxy fight has average costs of $10.71 million. I find that the estimated monitoring costs reduce activist returns by more than two-thirds. The mean net activist return is close to zero but the top quartile of activists earns higher returns on their activist holdings than on their non-activist investments. The large-sample evidence presented in this paper aids in understanding the nature and evolution of activist engagements.
The post-1990 rebirth of the US machine tool industry: a temporary recovery?

Abstract After several decades of decline, the US machine tool (MT) industry entered a modest period of recovery in the mid-1990s. With the slowdown of the global economy in the early 2000s, however, this recovery has stalled. By now, there are clear signs that rates of firm exit are increasing. This paper compares the results of a survey of MT producers (conducted in 2000) with more recent industry data (2004). Four years after the optimistic findings of the 2000 survey were reported, we find that many of the small-to-medium sized producers have either ceased operations or have downscaled substantially. While virtually every US manufacturer of MT products has been negatively affected by the global economic downswing, adverse business conditions have had a disproportionately severe impact upon firms that cater primarily to local markets. MT manufacturers located within the nation's traditional industrial heartland have been the hardest hit, notably as a result of rising import competition. In contrast to locally-oriented producers, our findings suggest that a small number of innovative MT companies have been faring quite well as a result of continued export development. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of several futures for the domestic MT sector.
The personality of the Greek state

Were the poleis of Classical Greece state-based or stateless communities? Do their political structures meet standard criteria for full statehood? Conventional wisdom maintains that they do noto According to a broad consensus, the Classical polis was neither state-based nor stateless as such, but something somewhere in between: a unique, category-defying formation that was somehow both 'state' and 'society' simultaneously, a kind of inseparable fusion of the two. The current paper offers an alternative perspective on this complex but fundamental issue. It questions prevailing views on theoretical grounds, suggesting that the consensus 'fusionist' position rests ultimately upon a misunderstanding of what Thomas Hobbes would call the 'personality' of polis political structures. Focusing on the case of Classical Athens, it then proceeds to present a new account of the Greek 'state', an account that aims to be both .theoretically satisfying and heuristically use fuI. Even if all those who performed state functions were simultaneously constituents of polis 'society', the state was nevertheless perceived to function as an autonomous agency, possessing a corporate personality that was quite distinct from the individual personalities of the living, breathing citizens who happened to instantiate it at any particular time.
Putting dollars before scholars? Evidence from for-profit charter schools in Florida

This paper compares for- and non-profit management of charter schools in Florida using a unique dataset combining enrollment and student proficiency data with the annual independent financial audits filed by all charter schools. Comparisons reveal that independent for- and non-profit charter schools locate in similar markets and serve similar student bodies, whereas for-profits belonging to a network locate in lower income, denser, and more Hispanic areas. Bearing out the concerns of parents and policymakers, regression estimates indicate that, among independent charters, for-profits spend less per pupil on instruction and achieve lower student proficiency gains. By contrast, among charter schools belonging to a network, for-profits spend approximately 11% less per pupil, but expenses on student instruction are not being cut. The estimates, which control for differences across schools in student composition and other characteristics, imply that an equivalent level of per pupil expenses purchases about 0.03σ higher student proficiency at network for-profit charter schools.
Home, Home on the Web and Other Fourth Amendment Implications of Technosocial Change

The rapidly changing social role of the Internet and other digital media requires a rethinking of the scope of Fourth Amendment protection. The social role of the Internet and related technologies goes far beyond serving as a new means of communication, analogous to the telephone and postal mail. To preserve Fourth Amendment protections in the face of changing technology, courts must focus not only on the potential for increasing intrusion into time-honored private realms, as the Supreme Court did in Kyllo, but also on the privacy implications of technology-mediated social change that were recognized in Katz. First, courts should recognize that an aggressive form of third party doctrine suggesting that any exposure of private data to an intermediary destroys reasonable expectations of privacy is inconsistent with Fourth Amendment doctrine relating to shared social spaces. Second, courts should adopt an approach of technosocial continuity, acknowledging both the increasing intrusiveness that technology makes possible and the intertwined and changing social structure of the physical and digital worlds. Viewed from a technosocial perspective, much cloud computing is an extension of the home or office. Similarly, social networking platforms sometimes serve as technosocial extensions of the home, connecting people with their friends, families, and intimates and aggregating the varied pieces of private life in ways that mirror the home's valued social role. To maintain technosocial continuity with Fourth Amendment protection of traditional bastions of privacy, such as the home, courts should zoom out from a focus on translating the Fourth Amendment’s protections to cyberspace and see digitally-mediated social behavior for what it frequently is - an inextricable part of social and private life. To maintain a space for private life away from government scrutiny, the Fourth Amendment’s protections must reflect the technosocial reality of citizens' private lives.
Information and Communications Technology in Developing, Emerging and Transition Economies: An Assessment of Research

Information and communications technology (ICT) is a crucial driving force in economic globalization and the principal enabler in building a highly connected world. However, despite the ever-increasing importance of ICT in developing economies, the mainstream information system research remains focused on ICT in the limited number of highly developed countries. Comparatively little research is being reported that specifically addresses the issues that arise from using ICT in developing, emerging and transition economies. In this paper, we review twenty-five papers in this topic area that have been published in past proceedings of the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). Based on this review, trends and shortcomings in the existing research are discussed and new research opportunities are proposed.
Graduate Education and Federal Career Success: How Well Does the MPA Stack Up?

Using a 1% sample of federal personnel records for 1983 through 2003, we compare the career success of employees with masters degrees in public administration (MPA) to those with bachelor's degrees or graduate degrees in other fields especially law, business administration, and the social sciences, the degrees most likely to compete for our students. Federal employees with master's degrees in any field tend to be one grade higher and earn 13 to 16% more than comparable employees with bachelor's degrees. Although federal employees with law degrees earn substantially more than other graduate degree-holders, those with a master's in public administration have salaries, grades, and supervisory authority comparable to those who have a master's in business administration (MBA) and those with master's degrees in the social sciences. Do master of public administration programs offer practical as well as intellectual rewards? Can we tell prospective students that MPA degrees will not only help them understand how government works, but help them get interesting, rewarding jobs that allow them to put their skills to use? This paper examines the practical value of the MPA degree in the largest single employer of MPAs, the federal civil service. Using a 1% sample of federal personnel records for 1983-2003, we compare the salaries, hierarchical status, and supervisory authority of graduate degree-holders in public administration, law, business administration, the social sciences, and other fields to those with bachelor's degrees. We first JPAE I4(3):463^f74 Journal of Public Affairs Education 463 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.176 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 05:33:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Graduate Education and Federal Career Success: How Well Does the MPA Stack Up? examine trends in the number of federal employees with graduate degrees and their distribution by field. We then compare mean salaries and grade levels and the percentage with supervisory authority across fields of graduate study. Next, we examine characteristics of MPAs that might be impeding their career success. Finally, we assess the impact of the MPA degree on salaries, grades, and supervisory status after controlling for those individual differences.
Asset Quality Cycles

Abstract Systemic risk builds up during booms in an economy featuring asymmetric information in asset markets, where investors’ hidden effort choices endogenously determine asset quality distribution. Higher asset prices during booms induce more investors to sell their assets, which lowers their incentive to improve quality. This quality deterioration in turn makes the economy vulnerable to future exogenous shocks because market breakdowns become more likely. Private agents do not internalize that their effort choices worsen future adverse selection problems, and thus the planner may improve welfare by taxing trade and thereby lowering asset prices.
“The Pursuit of Happiness” Comes Home to Roost? Same-Sex Union, the Summum Bonum, and Equality

John Locke understood human happiness to amount to the removal of “uneasiness.” This paper argues that,to the extent that the United States is a nation dedicated to ”the pursuit of happiness” understood as the removal of ”uneasiness,” same-sex unions or marriages should be given legal recognition. While Locke defended a variation on traditional marriage on the grounds of progenitiveness and care for dependent offspring, his more foundational commitment to the importance of the removal of uneasiness precludes, on pain of inconsistency, limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. This paper argues, furthermore, that conservatives and neo-conservatives who celebrate this nation’s being ”the first creedal nation” in history are, when they come to oppose same-sex marriage, hoist of their own creedal petard; ”the pursuit of happiness” leads, for some people, to same-sex union. Locke followed his own logic to a defense of polygamy, and the same logic leads to same-sex unions. The paper concludes that truly principled opposition to same-sex marriage requires the embrace of politics rooted in man’s summum bonum, the very project modernity has been out to eradicate. The Catholic Church would be a help to the state in leading man to achieve his summum bonum, but Locke’s tolerance does not extend to the liberty of the Church (libertas Ecclesiae), nor, not accidentally, does the U.S. Constitution recognize the liberty of the Church per se. This paper originated as an invited contribution to a symposium on ”Whether Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage is Constitutionally Required,” held at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark School of Law in November, 2012. The Lockean logic of Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in United States v. Windsor is unmistakable (if unnamed), even if the Court stopped slightly short of taking that logic for all that it is worth. Given Justice Kennedy’s Lockean principles, there is no principled basis for not announcing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, as Justice Scalia recognized in dissent.
Will Increased Disclosure Help? Evaluating the Recommendations of the ALI's "Principles of the Law of Software Contracts"

The aim of the American Law Institute’s new Principles of the Law of Software Contracts is to improve online contracting practices. Instead of regulating terms directly to reduce the possibility of unfair or biased terms, the Principles emphasize increased contract disclosure to encourage readership and comparison shopping. In this Article, I test whether increasing disclosure in the proposed manner is likely to increase readership in the setting of end user license agreements (EULAs) of software sold online. I follow the clickstreams of 47,399 households to 81 Internet software retailers and find that EULAs are approximately 0.36 percent more likely to be viewed when they are presented as clickwraps that explicitly require assent, as suggested by the Principles, than when they are presented as browsewraps. The results indicate that mandating disclosure will not by itself change readership or contracting practices to a meaningful degree. I briefly review other approaches to reform that may be more effective but come with their own limitations.
Horizontal Equity as a Principle of Tax Theory

The principle of horizontal equity is usually accepted on intuitive grounds. Whereas the other major principles of tax theory - vertical equity and economic efficiency - have been the subject of vast literature, the theoretical underpinnings of horizontal equity are rarely if ever challenged. The question raised by this article is whether horizontal equity has a theoretical basis and, if so, what that basis is. The article first considers the possibility of deriving horizontal equity from economic efficiency, from vertical equity and from the principle of equal protection or equality before the law. None of these, however, proves successful. A deeper analysis of horizontal equity shows that it is fundamentally an anti-redistributionary principle. This would seem to indicate that the normative basis of horizontal equity should perhaps be sought within the framework of social theories which attach moral justification to the market distribution. The problem here is that those theories tend to undermine the State's moral authority to lay taxes in the first place. The article therefore examines attempts by social philosophers to design a tax structure which recognizes as inviolable the moral obligation to respect the market distribution, and the place of horizontal equity therein. The conclusion reached is that horizontal equity cannot at present be normatively justified. However, anticipating possible future developments in social philosophy, a more moderate conclusion would be that any normative grounding of horizontal equity would be in direct conflict with that of vertical equity.
HOW SUCCESSFUL HAVE TRADE UNIONS BEEN? A UTILITY-BASED INDICATOR OF UNION WELL-BEING

Can conventional economic analysis help in defining and measuring the success of labor unions? In this paper, a general indicator of union welfare is proposed and par ticular expressions for the wage and employment objectives of unions are rearranged to derive measures of union success or welfare. These indicators combine two measures: union density and the relative union-nonunion wage gap. The indicators are applied to describe the movement of union welfare in the United States over the past eighty years, the differences in union success among groups of U.S. workers, and the varia tion in union well-being across countries. The results suggest that U.S. unions' success peaked in the 1950s and 1960s; they have tended to benefit black workers, especially black men, more than other groups; and in recent decades a very low unionization rate has contributed to make them less successful, overall, than unions in other countries with similar labor markets. r I ^ he conventional model of trade union -* behavior endows the union with an objective function that is maximized subject to bargaining constraints.1 In some respects, this model bears a formal resemblance to the model of consumer behavior in which the consumer is furnished with a utility func tion that is maximized subject to a budget and perhaps other constraints. Given this apparent partial correspondence, are there features of the theory of consumer behav ior that might be exploited to enhance the analysis of unionism? In particular, the constrained utility-maxi mizing model of the consumer gives rise to
Bankruptcy risk, costs and corporate diversification

Abstract This paper studies the impact of diversification on firms that file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Prior research suggests that diversification affects both the probability and costs of distress. Treating bankruptcy as a special case of distress, we find that diversification reduces the likelihood of bankruptcy and liquidation in Chapter 11, which is consistent with the coinsurance hypothesis. However, we observe higher bankruptcy costs as measured by time spent in Chapter 11 and inefficient segment investment for diversified firms. Our evidence is consistent with the idea that diversification provides benefits to managers in terms of job security rather than to firms. Our findings may help firms to make diversification decisions and creditors determine lending policies toward different forms of organizations.
Regulatory pressure and fire sales in the corporate bond market.

Abstract This paper investigates fire sales of downgraded corporate bonds induced by regulatory constraints imposed on insurance companies. As insurance companies hold over one-third of investment-grade corporate bonds, the collective need to divest downgraded issues may be limited by a scarcity of counterparties. Using insurance company transaction data, we find that insurance companies that are relatively more constrained by regulation are more likely to sell downgraded bonds. Bonds subject to a high probability of regulatory-induced selling exhibit price declines and subsequent reversals. These price effects appear larger during periods when the insurance industry is relatively distressed and other potential buyers' carpital is scarce.
Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India

Resource misallocation can lower aggregate total factor productivity (TFP).We use microdata on manufacturing establishments to quantify the potential extent of misallocation in China and India versus the United States. We measure sizable gaps in marginal products of labor and capital across plants within narrowly defined industries in China and India compared with the United States. When capital and labor are hypothetically reallocated to equalize marginal products to the extent observed in the United States, we calculate manufacturing TFP gains of 30%–50% in China and 40%–60% in India.
The Costs and Benefits of American Policy‐Making Venues

Many law and policy scholars consider judges inimical to good public policymaking, and the criticisms they level on the judiciary implicitly reflect some of the concerns raised by Alexander Bickel and other critics. Despite the charge by critics that judges are institutionally ill equipped to participate in the policy-making process and that legal processes are costly, there are reasons to believe otherwise. This article uses field interviews and three case studies of an environmental dispute in the Pacific Northwest to show that the judiciary can be an institutional venue that enhances public input, can be more inclusive than other venues, and produces positive-sum outcomes when other venues cannot. The findings also suggest that legislative and agency policymaking are just as contentious and costly as judicial policy-making processes.
Topological Phases on Non-orientable Surfaces: Twisting by Parity Symmetry

We discuss (2 + 1)D topological phases on non-orientable spatial surfaces, such as Mobius strip, real projective plane and Klein bottle, etc, which are obtained by twisting the parent topological phases by their underlying parity symmetries through introducing parity defects. We construct the ground states on arbitrary non-orientable closed manifolds and calculate the ground state degeneracy (GSD). Such degeneracy is shown to be robust against continuous deformation of the underlying manifold. We also study the action of the mapping class group on the multiplet of ground states on the Klein bottle. The physical properties of the topological states on non-orientable surfaces are deeply related to the parity symmetric anyons which do not have a notion of orientation in their statistics. For example, the number of ground states on the real projective plane equals the root of the number of distinguishable parity symmetric anyons, while the GSD on the Klein bottle equals the total number of parity symmetric anyons; in deforming the Klein bottle, the Dehn twist encodes the topological spins whereas the Y-homeomorphism tells the particle–hole relation of the parity symmetric anyons.
The University's Role in Credentialing the Public Finance Officer

Three main issues related to the certification of public finance officers are reviewed in this article: (1) the evolutionary development of the Government Finance Officers Association of Texas (GFOAT) through the last fifteen years; (2) the advantages of national versus state-based certification; and (3) the role of universities in the credentialing process. The beneficial role of the last one is pointed out as regard to both the profession and the academy. The authors advocate the idea that the involvement of universities enhances the credibility of certification programs. The advantages are based on the greater pool of expertise and the increased variety of opportunities for continuing education for public officials without university education.
Full Faith and Republican Guarantees: Gay Marriage, FMPA, and the Courts

"What difference does it make to your heterosexual marriage if I enter into a homosexual marriage?" Such is the frequent rejoinder to claims that traditional marriage needs to be protected by state or federal law or even by a federal constitutional amendment. Here I explore answers to that rejoinder. Marriage may be an individual bond, but it is fostered by society because it also fulfills fundamental societal functions. Indeed, we have an unbelievably important example of unintended consequences from another profound change to this important societal institution: no-fault divorce. The United States did not embrace no-fault divorce until 1969, and the move to no-fault divorce has fundamentally changed the nature of marriage in the short time since it was made. There were a significant number of people who, at the time it was proposed, argued against no-fault divorce because it would change the nature of marriage. No-fault divorce, it was argued, would undermine the institution of marriage and the understanding of family, which has been an important foundation for civilized society. Feminist theorists, in particular, expressed concern about the economic consequences of no-fault divorce to women and their custodial children. The response then was much the same as it is now-it was what Justice Scalia described in the related context of nude dancing as the "Thoreauvian 'you-may-do-what-you-like-so-Iong-as-it-does-not-injure-someone-else' beau ideal: How did the availability of no-fault divorce that might be utilized by others hurt your marriage? The move to no-fault divorce fundamentally changed the nature of marriage. The consequences of that change have been profound, even if not perfectly understood. The consequences of the latest push to disconnect marriage from either its procreative or parenting functions will, I predict, be equally profound, even if the full extent of those consequences cannot be predicted with any degree of scientific certainty.
Evaluating Mergers and Divestitures: A Casino Case Study

Despite frequent use in practice, merger remedies receive little attention in the economics literature. We analyze the 2013 merger of two casino operators and the subsequent divestiture of one St. Louis casino. Using public data from the Missouri Gaming Commission, we employ a difference-in-difference framework with other Missouri casinos as the control group to estimate separate effects of the merger and divestiture on each St. Louis casino. Results indicate the merged firm benefited from efficiencies, resulting in lower prices and higher quantity; however, the divested casino performed worse than before the merger. Synthetic control estimates confirm these results. This study raises questions about whether to assess remedies by the performance of the divested asset or the consumer welfare of the entire merger. It also raises questions regarding remedy endogeneity: do firms face incentives to offer declining assets? Both have applicability beyond this case, supporting the need for further research. (JEL L1, L4)
Financial Moral Panic! Sarbanes-Oxley, Financier Folk Devils, and Off-Balance-Sheet Arrangements

INTRODUCTION 782 I. FINANCIAL MORAL PANIC: FINANCIERS AS PREDATORS 790 A. Moral Panic and Moral Panic Analysis 790 B. Financial Moral Panic: When Financiers Become “Folk Devils” 794 II. FROM MORALIZING TO FINANCIAL TRUTH: CORRECTING THE MYOPIA OF THE BALANCE SHEET 810 A. The Discrete Charm of Off-Balance-Sheet Arrangements 810 B. Cash Flow Games 816 C. The Materiality of Effective Capital Structure 820 III. SLOUCHING TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY IN SARBANES-OXLEY........828 A. Retreating to Accounting in Law 828 B. Persistent Opacity in the Off-Balance-Sheet Sector 837 IV. CONFORMING FINANCIAL REPORTING LAW TO FUNDING VERITE 841 A. Reducing the Public Information Gap with a Financial Transparency Ratio 842 B. Using Cash Flow Reporting to Further Disaggregate the Firm 844
Are you too young for the Nobel Prize

Abstract Although age is not supposed to be a criterion for the award of the Nobel Prize, it is commonly believed that it does play a role. Indeed, econometric evidence in this paper also suggests such a role. However, the paper finds that, if there is a preference for older Nobel candidates, this is introduced during the nomination process. The paper actually finds that the Nobel Committee does not favor older nominees and that, if anything, it seems to partially offset the age premium introduced by the nominators.
Reflections on the Future of Class Actions

INTRODUCTION In a forthcoming, full-length article,1 I describe how federal courts in recent years have cut back on the availability of class action lawsuits. These courts have tightened the requirements for almost every element of class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. This case law undermines the compensation, deterrence, and efficiency functions of the class action device. In this Essay, I discuss the major conclusions of my forthcoming article.
Does bank supervision impact bank loan growth

Abstract We estimate the impact of a poor bank examination rating on the growth rates of individual bank loan portfolios. We use a novel approach to control for loan demand variation and estimate a fixed-effect model using an unbalanced panel with over 381,000 bank-quarter observations from the period 1994–2011. Our estimates show that a poor examination rating has a large negative impact on bank loan growth, even after controlling for the impact of monetary policy, bank capital and liquidity conditions, and any voluntary reduction in lending triggered by weak legacy loan portfolio performance or other bank losses. This previously unidentified effect is consistent with the hypothesis that the bank supervision process successfully constrains the lending activities of banks operating in an unsafe and unsound manner.
Testing for Change in Procedural Standards, with Application to Bell Atlantic v. Twombly

AbstractQuantifying change in legal standards—in the sense of change in the propensity of judges to decide cases a certain way—presents a vexing problem. In response to a change in the behavior of courts, plaintiffs and defendants will adjust their patterns of filing and settling cases. Models of the selection of disputes for litigation predict that when legal standards change, the rate at which plaintiffs prevail in litigation will not predictably change; if so, changes in legal standards cannot be measured with data on court outcomes. I consider both the Priest and Klein divergent-expectations model and the Bebchuk asymmetric-information model to develop a methodology for measuring changes in procedural standards in the presence of selection effects. I apply this methodology to Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, whose effects have been subject to speculation and debate. I find that Twombly precipitated no significant change in dismissal rates, even after accounting for selection effects.
The Once and Future Equal Protection Doctrine

This Essay is the third in a series of pieces exploring elements of the Court’s past and present equal protection jurisprudence. Here, we consider the concept of equality endorsed within the Fourteenth Amendment by looking to constitutional text and structure, and most importantly, the historical moment that produced the Reconstruction Amendments. We argue specifically that even though equality has previously been described as a nondescript or "empty" concept - capable of being interpreted as either a formalist mandate to treat all persons the same or as a means to ensure equal outcomes for certain historically disfavored groups - it should be read in light of the societal changes the Reconstruction Amendments ostensibly sought to achieve in the lives of freed slaves. We then consider what measure of equality can be ensured given the Court’s contemporary approach to adjudicating constitutional discrimination claims. We critique two of the Court’s jurisprudential innovations in the area of antidiscrimination law as particularly unhelpful: (1) reliance on a tiered-system of analysis for suspect classification claims; and (2) the requirement of the presence of purposeful governmental discrimination, rather than disparate impact, for proving constitutional discrimination claims. We argue that these approaches foreclose all but a very narrow scope of claims and undermine the type of protection the Fourteenth Amendment could and should guarantee, especially in light of its origins.
Asymptotic expansion of the variance of random zeros on complex manifolds

Linear statistics of random zero sets are integrals of smooth differential forms over the zero set and as such are smooth analogues of the volume of the random zero set inside a fixed domain. We derive an asymptotic expansion for the variance of linear statistics of the zero divisors of random holomorphic sections of powers of a positive line bundle on a compact Kahler manifold. This expansion extends the leading-order asymptotics (in the codimension one case) given by Shiffman–Zelditch in 2010.
On reading Hayek: Choice, consequences and The Road to Serfdom

Abstract The basic thesis in The Road to Serfdom is that the lure of socialist ideology has the unintended and undesirable consequence of economic depravation and political tyranny when countries follow its policy agenda. Socialist planning requires economic planners to assume a level of responsibility for economic life in a country which is both cumbersome to the point of impossible, and powerful beyond any reasonable limit that could be safely trusted to any one individual or group of individuals. The papers in this symposium provide a critical reading of the Hayek's thesis on socialism. While many strong points are made in the discussion, the critical reading of Hayek offered must ultimately be judged unsatisfactory. The issues of choice and consequences are not addressed, and as a result the basic argument presented in The Road to Serfdom is never adequately engaged.
Retail-Price Drivers and Retailer Profits

What are the drivers of retailer pricing tactics over time? Based on multivariate time-series analysis of two rich data sets, we quantify the relative importance of competitive retailer prices, pricing history, brand demand, wholesale prices, and retailer category-management considerations as drivers of retail prices. Interestingly, competitive retailer prices account for less than 10% of the over-time variation in retail prices. Instead, pricing history, wholesale price, and brand demand are the main drivers of retail-price variation over time. Moreover, the influence of these price drivers on retailer pricing tactics is linked to retailer category margin. We find that demand-based pricing and category-management considerations are associated with higher retailer margins. In contrast, dependence on pricing history and pricing based on store traffic considerations imply lower retailer margins.
What do trade negotiators negotiate about? Empirical evidence from the World Trade Organization

According to the terms-of-trade theory, governments use trade agreements to escape from a terms-of-trade-driven prisoner's dilemma. We use the terms-of-trade theory to develop a relationship that predicts negotiated tariff levels on the basis of pre-negotiation data: tariffs, import volumes and prices, and trade elasticities. We then confront this predicted relationship with data on the outcomes of tariff negotiations associated with the accession of new members to the World Trade Organization. We find strong and robust sup port for the central predictions of the terms-of-trade theory in the observed pattern of negotiated tariff cuts. (JEL F11, F13) {JEL F11, F13) What do trade negotiators negotiate about? Most of the theoretical literature on trade agreements can be seen as answering this question from the perspective of the terms-of-trade theory, which holds that trade agreements are useful to governments as a means of escape from a terms-of-trade-driven prisoner's dilemma.1 However, little empirical evidence exists to shed light on the relevance of this theory, and none of the evidence results from an investigation that confronts the central predictions of the terms-of-trade theory directly with the data. The purpose of this paper is to provide such an investigation. Any theory of trade agreements must identify a means by which the negotiating governments can enjoy mutual gains from the agreement. From the perspective of the terms-of-trade theory, these mutual gains are made possible by the elimination of inefficiencies that arise at the international level. These inefficiencies in turn can be traced to the international cost-shifting that occurs when foreign exporters pay
The New England Food System in 2060: Envisioning Tomorrow's Policy Through Today's Assessments

This Essay analyzes how the New England states' planning processes are envisioning revitalized local, state, and regional food systems. This Essay has five parts. First, it begins with examining compelling reasons for promoting more sustainable food systems based on national and global trends, and identifies strategies for promoting regional food systems approaches with a brief introduction to the major influences on the national and New England food system. Second, it describes the states' planning efforts and their enabling legislation or source of authority.The Essay then introduces the New England Food Vision 2060 (the Vision) an emerging discussion of food system possibilities that models potential food production options for the region based on different food based scenarios. The Vision is not a plan or prescription for each state, but rather serves to generate critical thought regarding the direction and aspirations for regional food systems. Likewise, given the goal to have ongoing updates of the Vision, this project will likewise be influenced by individual state plans and strategies. Thus, the Vision represents an opportunity for continuous dynamic interchange among those committed to designing and developing a New England food system Learning Action Network. By applying “collective impact” strategies to food system advancement, the network will be poised to advance regional food justice, food policy access, and system sustainability (i.e., good food).Next, the Essay analyzes the key policy challenges that are presented by a desire for a more self-sufficient regional food system, such as local ordinances, land use and zoning laws, institutional procurement policy, and food access issues. This section offers a brief overview of how the Federal commerce clause (including the dormant commerce clause), and compact clause influence the scope of local, state, and regional policy. Finally, the paper concludes by identifying how the Vision can assist in identifying legal issues that researchers and scholars should focus on when engaging in food system planning now and in the future. This interdisciplinary Essay challenges readers to think critically, and across traditional doctrinal and disciplinary barriers, about the possibilities for New England's “good food” future.
Soft Power, Religion, and Anti-Americanism in the Middle East

This study presents the first systematic analysis of the public opinion dimension of soft power competition in the contemporary Middle East. Building on the scholarship on perceptions of foreign states and Arab public opinion, it proposes a series of hypotheses about sectarian identity, religious worldviews, and anti-Americanism as determinants of attitudes toward Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in the context of regional rivalry. It then presents multivariate probit estimations utilizing Pew Global Attitudes Survey to test these hypotheses. The findings suggest that religious identity and worldviews directly affect favorability ratings of these three powers in the Arab Middle East. While Sunnis favor Saudi Arabia and Turkey over Iran, religious individuals demanding Islamic law favor the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, anti-Americanism translates into lower support for Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but greater support for Iran. Democratic attitudes have no influence over perceptions of these three powers indicating the limits of democracy promotion as a foreign policy tool.
Who should take the garbage out? Public opinion on waste management in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract Across the developing world, rapid urbanization is creating new governance problems. This article investigates the challenge of municipal waste management in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We conducted a survey of 450 respondents across all three municipalities of Dar es Salaam to analyze the relationship between satisfaction with waste management services and preference for government leadership in the sector. We find that people who are dissatisfied with their current waste management service are twice as likely to prefer government leadership over alternatives, such as community organizations, than people who are satisfied. The finding is consistent with the hypothesis that, since the government is currently not active in waste management, citizens prefer more policy intervention if they consider their current situation unacceptable. To our understanding, this is the first article to use survey data to analyze the role of public opinion in waste management in a major city in a developing country.
Changes in Wage Structure in Urban India, 1983–2004: A Quantile Regression Decomposition

Summary This paper utilizes individual level earnings data from urban India to examine the evolution of wages during 1983–2004 across the entire wage distribution. Quantile regression analysis reveals that the effects of many covariates are not constant across distribution. Returns to secondary and tertiary education not only increased in the 1990s but also became more heterogeneous suggesting wage inequality may increase further in near future as more workers get higher education. Moreover, the quantile regression decomposition suggests that the increase in returns has been the driving force behind the increase in wages in both the 1980s and 1990s.
The declining value-relevance of accounting information and non-information-based trading: An empirical analysis

Recently, a growing body of literature has suggested that financial statements have lost their value-relevance because of a shift from a traditional capital-intensive economy to a high-technology, service-oriented economy. These conclusions are based on studies that find a temporal decline in the association between stock prices and accounting information (earnings and book values). This paper empirically tests a theoretical prediction arising from the noisy rational expectations equilibrium model that suggests that the decline could be driven by non-information-based (NIB) trading activity, because such trading reduces the ability of stock prices to reflect accounting information. Specifically, Dontoh, Radhakrishnan, and Ronen (2004) show that when NIB trading increases, the R2s of a regression of stock price on accounting information declines. Our empirical tests confirm this prediction; that is, the decline in the association between stock prices and accounting information as measured by R2s is driven by an increase in NIB trading.
Fracture Toughness of Silicate Glasses: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Understanding, predicting and eventually improving the resistance to fracture of silicate materials is of primary importance to design new glasses that would be tougher, while retaining their transparency. However, the atomic mechanism of the fracture in amorphous silicate materials is still a topic of debate. In particular, there is some controversy about the existence of ductility at the nano-scale during the crack propagation. Here, we present simulations of the fracture of three archetypical silicate glasses using molecular dynamics. We show that the methodology that is used provide realistic values of fracture energy and toughness. In addition, the simulations clearly suggest that silicate glasses can show different degrees of ductility, depending on their composition.
Humanitarian Intervention and Sovereignty Under the Umbrella of Geo-Politics

The events of the Arab Spring and subsequent developments in Libya and Egypt raise profound questions regarding the tension between international humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty in the context of geo-politics. In examining this tension, it is necessary to understand overarching geo-political considerations regarding issues critical to understanding international relations and international law in a paradigm best described as “murky.” This murkiness applies to facts on the ground and the legal and policy questions confronting decision makers, both regionally and globally. While the Arab Spring was widely perceived as the dawn of a new age in the Middle East, it is too early to fully assess its consequences. On the one hand, elections in Egypt reflect change while continued massacres in Syria, on the other hand, recall the actions of previous Middle Eastern regimes. The question regarding Syria is: when do humanitarian considerations justify intervention into a sovereign state? The question the international community would face regarding Egypt is: how should it respond if the Morsi government reneges on preexisting international obligations? While some would point to Egypt’s free and fair elections as a positive indicator, others would suggest that the outcome is troubling, for it potentially portends significant changes in Egyptian foreign policy. After all, the electoral successes of the Muslim Brotherhood suggest that changes are in the offing. Perhaps Bob Dylan’s oft-quoted phrase that “the times they are a-changin’”1 aptly captures the moment. But changing where and to what? Because of the uncertainty of the moment, international
Public Choice Theory and Legal Institutions

This article asks what public choice can teach about legal institutions and their governing framework of public law. The chapter begins with an overview and assessment of two important components of public choice: social choice theory (stemming from Arrow’s Theorem) and interest group theory. It then considers the use of public choice models to explain the behavior of legislatures, agencies, and courts. The core public choice insight is that institutional structures are responses to fundamental problems relating to collective action. The chapter concludes, however, that normative use of specific public choice models should be undertaken with caution. The models are likely to be most useful when (1) they are informed by deep familiarity with specific institutional contexts; (2) reforms are context-specific; and (3) proposed changes are at the margin rather than involving major structural changes.
Collateral Review of Remand Orders: Reasserting the Supervisory Role of the Supreme Court

INTRODUCTION 493 I. APPELLATE REVIEW OF REMAND ORDERS 501 II. SUPERVISORY OVERSIGHT OF REMAND ORDERS 509 A. The Freestanding Supervisory Power 511 B. Supervision of District Court Remand Orders 514 C. Predictable Concerns with the Use of Supervisory Power 518 1. Docket Control 518 2. Section 1447(d) 520 III. THE FUTURE OF APPELLATE JURISDICTIONAL LAW 532 CONCLUSION 541
Determinants of “Sticky Costs”: An Analysis of Cost Behavior using United States Air Transportation Industry Data

ABSTRACT: This paper examines determinants of sticky cost behavior, costs that increase faster than they decrease as demand fluctuates. The majority of the literature infers that sticky costs arise because managers retain idle capacity as demand falls, but add capacity as demand grows. I use United States Air Transportation industry data to confirm that managers do retain idle capacity when demand falls. However, I also find that sticky costs arise because managers lower selling prices to utilize existing capacity when demand falls, but add capacity (rather than raise selling prices) when demand grows. Finally, I find that sticky costs arise because managers incur more cost when adding capacity as demand grows than they incur when they add capacity as demand falls. Conversely, I find evidence of anti-sticky costs that occur because managers save more cost by removing capacity when demand falls than they save by removing capacity when demand grows. Data Availability: Data are available from the author upon...