cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Taxation, Political Accountability and Foreign Aid: Lessons from Somaliland

For years, studies of state formation in early and medieval Europe have argued that the modern, representative state emerged as the result of negotiations between autocratic governments in need of tax revenues and citizens who were only willing to consent to taxation in exchange for greater government accountability. This article presents evidence that similar dynamics shaped the formation of Somaliland's democratic government. In particular, it shows that government dependency on local tax revenues – which resulted from its ineligibility for foreign assistance – provided those outside the government with the leverage needed to force the development of inclusive, representative and accountable political institutions.
Democracy and the Variability of Economic Performance

Sah (1991) conjectured that more centralized societies should have more volatile economic performances than less centralized ones. We show in this paper that this is true both for cross–country and within–country variability in growth rates. It is also true for some measures of policies. Finally, we show that both the best and worst performers in terms of growth rates are more likely to be autocracies. We argue that the evidence in the paper is consistent with the theoretical implications in Sah and Stiglitz (1991) and Rodrik (1999a).
Leadership Development in Business Schools: An Agenda for Change

Business schools see themselves as being in the business of producing leaders for both public and private sector organizations. For example, Harvard Business School’s mission, frequently articulated by the former dean, Kim Clark, is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. Clark would begin presentations to the school’s visiting committee with examples of people who had graduated from HBS and held major leadership positions in organizations of all types and sizes. Many, perhaps most, other business schools have similar aspirations and take pride in their graduates who have gone on to hold significant leadership positions. This focus on educating leaders pervades not just business schools but is part of the mission of US colleges and universities more generally. Some observers have noted that educating leaders who could guide a new nation was one of the founding tenets of America’s first institutions of higher education (Gomez, 2007).
New lists: Fundamentals and survival rates

Abstract The class of firms that obtain public equity financing expands dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. The number of new firms listed on major U.S. stock markets jumps from 156 per year for 1973–1979 to 549 per year for 1980–2001. The characteristics of new lists also change. The cross section of profitability becomes progressively more left skewed, and growth becomes more right skewed. The result is a sharp decline in survival rates. We suggest that the changes in the characteristics of new lists are due to a decline in the cost of equity that allows weaker firms and firms with more distant expected payoffs to issue public equity.
Auditing Complex Estimates: How Do Construal Level and Evidence Formatting Impact Auditors' Consideration of Inconsistent Evidence?

Recent inspection findings from audit regulators around the world suggest that auditors fail to use sufficient professional skepticism when auditing complex estimates. In an experiment using audit managers and partners as participants, we examine factors that influence auditors’ deficiencies in this area. We find that the presentation format of management-provided evidence significantly affects auditors’ skepticism. In particular, auditors are less skeptical of aggressive assumptions underlying complex estimates when reviewing evidence presented in a text format rather than a graph format. However, we find that priming auditors to consider how management derived its assumptions effectively enhances auditors’ skepticism by encouraging them to consider the often ignored information that is inconsistent with management’s assumptions. Further, auditors are most skeptical when this simple intervention is combined with evidence that is presented graphically. These results should be important to practitioners, regulators, and researchers, as they provide insight into how two factors affect a significant deficiency noted in the audits of complex estimates.
The Effect of Industry Co-Location on Analysts' Information Acquisition Costs

ABSTRACT: We examine how the co-location of firms in the same industry affects analysts' cost of gathering and processing information. We find that when the firms in an analyst's portfolio are loca...
The Global Land Rush: Markets, Rights, and the Politics of Food

Across the developing world, ownership and use of agricultural land is changing hands at an astounding rate. Rural communities engaged in subsistence or pastoral farming are, in many cases, being pushed out in favor of large-scale investors. These investors are responding to a variety of global forces: some are securing their own food supply while others are capitalizing on land as an increasingly promising source of financial returns. Proponents argue that these investments can support economic development in host States while boosting global food production. But critics charge that these “land grabs” violate a number of human rights and will aggravate food and energy crises. Amidst mounting global protest, two dominant frameworks have emerged to assess and contest the global rush for agricultural land. This Article critically assesses both approaches. Part I provides an overview of the drivers and impacts of largescale land transfers, and the problematic land transactions involved. Part II sets out the contours of what I term the “market-plus” approach and of the rights-based approach—the frameworks assumed respectively by proponents and opponents of these deals. Part III analyzes key differences in each framework’s approach to rights and risks, and to land distribution. Part III also assesses the potential of each approach to effectively protect land users’ rights in light of the significant power dynamics at play. I argue that the market-plus approach tolerates and facilitates rights violations, whereas the rightsbased approach sets a normative baseline that repudiates impermissible rights impacts and addresses key distributive concerns. The rights-based approach, however, struggles to implement its normative terms. Part IV proposes concrete reforms to help empower affected communities and argues that international actors must be more involved in ensuring rights protections. Associate Professor of Clinical Law and Faculty Director, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York University School of Law. For their insightful comments and helpful discussions, the author thanks with great appreciation Philip Alston, Jose Alvarez, Kevin Davis, Ryan Goodman, Sally Merry, and Frank Upham. Any mistakes are the author’s own. For their invaluable research assistance, the author also thanks Abby Deshman, Chris deLaubenfels, Joe Edwards, Ruchira Goel, Vyoma Jha, Wendy Liu, Paul Mertenskoetter, Sunita Patel, Raquel Saavedra, Alex Sinha, Kinga Tibori Szabo, and Alyson Zureick. Work on this Article was supported by the Filomen D’Agostino Research Fund at NYU School of Law and the Louis B. Thalheimer and Juliet A. Eurich Philanthropic Fund, Inc. This work is dedicated to the life and memory of my father, Hans Raj Narula (1936 – 2010), who in his longstanding career in international development was an indefatigable advocate of the rights of the poor.
Momentum, Mean-Reversion, and Social Media: Evidence from StockTwits and Twitter

In this article, the authors analyze the relation between stock market liquidity and real-time measures of sentiment obtained from the social-media platforms StockTwits and Twitter. The authors find that extreme sentiment corresponds to higher demand for and lower supply of liquidity, with negative sentiment having a much larger effect on demand and supply than positive sentiment. Their intraday event study shows that booms and panics end when bullish and bearish sentiment reach extreme levels, respectively. After extreme sentiment, prices become more mean-reverting and spreads narrow. To quantify the magnitudes of these effects, the authors conduct a historical simulation of a market-neutral mean-reversion strategy that uses social-media information to determine its portfolio allocations. These results suggest that the demand for and supply of liquidity are influenced by investor sentiment and that market makers who can keep their transaction costs to a minimum are able to profit by using extreme bullish and bearish emotions in social media as a real-time barometer for the end of momentum and a return to mean reversion.
An Unintended Consequence of SFAS 133: Promoting Speculation

ABSTRACT: The Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 133 (SFAS 133) allows firms to apply hedge accounting only to qualified hedges that pass effectiveness tests. Unqualified hedges (speculations) are required to be marked to market, and the unrealized gains/losses are to be recognized in earnings immediately. The purpose of SFAS 133 is to improve the timeliness of the information about financial derivatives risk. This paper, however, shows through a specific agency model that the early recognition of the unqualified use of derivatives may change the risk allocation in the manager's compensation and motivate speculation. Speculation is modeled as engaging in high-risk, high-return derivatives contracts, while hedging activities are modeled as engaging in low-risk, low-return contracts (the low return is normalized to be zero for simplicity). The higher expected return from speculation makes it possible for the principal to offer a lower incentive in the early stage of derivative contracts. The lo...
Research and Development in Computable Production Functions

In this paper, transmissibility and replicability of blueprints confine production functions to computable processes. The immediate consequence is that research and development and the emergence of technological innovations are naturally embedded in computable production functions. There is no need to introduce ad hoc probability distributions to model the arrival of innovations as the uncertain result of research and development activity. Rather, in this approach, well-known results like the halting problem or Rice theorem harness production theory so as to encompass product and process innovation.
Feedback Loops of Attention in Peer Production

A significant percentage of online content is now published and consumed via the mechanism of crowdsourcing. While any user can contribute to these forums, a disproportionately large percentage of the content is submitted by very activeand devoted users, whose continuing participation is key to thesites’ success. As we show, people’s propensity to keep participating increases the more they contribute, suggesting motivating factors which increase over time. This paper demonstrates that submitters who stop receiving attention tend to stop contributing, while prolific contributors attract an ever increasing number offollowers and their attention in a feedback loop. We demonstrate that this mechanism leads to the observed power law in the number of contributions per user and support our assertions by an analysis of hundreds of millions of contributions to top content sharing websites Digg.com and Youtube.com.
An Empirical Examination of Call Option Values Implicit in U.S. Corporate Bonds

This study examines call option values implicit in U.S. corporate bonds from 1973 to 1994. The average call option value is 2.25% of par. Over time, call values remain close to zero until one year before the first call date, reach a maximum at the beginning of the callable period, and slowly decrease thereafter. The determinants of call values are examined. The results show that bonds of firms that have called aggressively in the past have larger call values. Additionally, lower interest rates, smaller slopes of the yield curve, and higher interest rate volatility lead to larger call values. The results also show that call values increase with time to maturity in the callable period but decrease with time to maturity in the call protection period. Lower rated, higher coupon bonds have larger call values. There is no evidence that the length of the call protection period affects call values.
Informal-sector entrepreneurs, development and formal law: A functional understanding of business law

The informal sector represents 40-60% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, and employs as much as 93% of non-agricultural workers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the importance of this sector, and given the understanding that formal law does not penetrate easily or predictably there, classic business law alone cannot create for informal-sector nano-entrepreneurs an environment comparable to that enjoyed by a business person in the global North.Reform of business law must focus on functionality: how to assist informal-sector businesses by increasing the predictability of transactions while limiting government abuse, all in connection with the formation, operation, and, ultimately, termination of businesses. The attack is two-pronged. Formal law can constrain formal-sector actors, such as some landlords transacting with informal-sector businesses, and mandate that formal-sector actors provide pro-business realities that Northern businesses enjoy, including sanitary work environments. With respect to the informal-sector nano-entrepreneurs, who tend not to be directly affected by formal business laws, but who do have a legal a quasi-traditional legal regime that affects businesses, formal laws that reinforce existing business norms will be the most effective in supporting North-style predictability. Further, a modern legal study focused on the formal sector suggests that, in Sub-Saharan Africa where the legal regimes tend to be highly centralized, formal law can be most effective for nano-entrepreneurs if it assists them in coordinating and, ultimately, in creating or negotiating for basic protections taken for granted by businesses in the global North.
The Limits of Control: The Market State, Divided Power, and the Response to 9/11

ABSTRACT The 9/11 attacks demanded a response from the U.S. government, but designing and executing that response was not easily done. The United States is an advanced market society in which power is highly dispersed. Federal policymakers were confronted with challenges that we now regard as typical of the network form of governance. Their ability to act decisively was constrained by public law, by the political influence and superior knowledge of private industry, and by widespread skepticism about the legitimacy of federal authority. While many commentators worried about the excessive concentration of power in the federal executive branch after 9/11, it might be more accurate to say that the post-9/11 period was typified by a prolonged, and often unsuccessful, effort to induce cooperation and coordination by a range of public and private actors.
State Lotteries and Consumer Behavior

Abstract This paper investigates two central issues regarding state lotteries. First, analyses of multiple sources of micro-level data demonstrate that household lottery spending is financed primarily by a reduction in non-gambling expenditures, not by a reduction in expenditures on other forms of gambling. The introduction of a state lottery is associated with an average decline of $46 per month, or 2.4 percent, in household non-gambling expenditures. Low-income households reduce non-gambling household expenditures by 2.5 percent on average, 3.1 percent when the state lottery includes instant games. These households experience statistically significant declines in expenditures on food and on rent, mortgage, and other bills. Second, consumer demand for lottery products responds positively to the expected value of the gamble, controlling for other statistical moments and product characteristics, including the nominal top prize amount. This finding is consistent with informed choice among consumers of lottery products, although other forms of irrational or misinformed choice cannot be ruled out.
Can a Code of Ethics Improve Manager Behavior and Investor Confidence? An Experimental Study

ABSTRACT: Policy makers and corporations have recently emphasized a code of ethics as an effective aspect of corporate governance. The corporate governance literature in accounting, however, provides little empirical or theoretical support for this emphasis. We address this gap between public policy and the literature by studying the effectiveness of a code of ethics in an experimental setting. Using Bicchieri's (2006) model of social norm activation, we predict that a code of ethics will improve manager return behavior and investor confidence to the extent that it activates social norms that control opportunistic behavior. Further, we predict that adding a certification choice whereby the manager can publicly certify that he will adhere to the code will enhance the potential for the code of ethics to activate such norms. We find that a code of ethics only improves manager return behavior and investor confidence when the code incorporates a public certification choice by the manager. When the code is pres...
A Prescription for Change: Citizens United's Implications for Regulation of Off-Label Promotion of Prescription Pharmaceuticals

This Note examines the complex regulatory structure that controls off-label promotion of prescription pharmaceuticals. Using the recent case of United States v. Caronia as an example of the unconstitutional shortcomings of this regulatory scheme, the Note analogizes the FDA's obstruse regulatory scheme to the corporate campaign contributions limitations struck down in Citizens United v. FEC, and argues that the same logic applied in Citizens United should be applied to the regulation of truthful speech regarding prescription pharmaceuticals.
Semiparametric Inference in Dynamic Binary Choice Models

We introduce an approach for semiparametric inference in dynamic binary choice models that does not impose distributional assumptions on the state variables unobserved by the econometrician. The proposed framework combines Bayesian inference with partial identification results. The method is applicable to models with finite space of observed states. We demonstrate the method on Rust's model of bus engine replacement. The estimation experiments show that the parametric assumptions about the distribution of the unobserved states can have a considerable effect on the estimates of per-period payoffs. At the same time, the effect of these assumptions on counterfactual conditional choice probabilities can be small for most of the observed states.
Outcomes Assessment and Legal Research Pedagogy

This article explores application of a taxonomic approach in legal research pedagogy to outcomes assessment based on Prof. Paul Callister's adaptation of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives which integrates instructional design and learning activities compatible with formative assessment during the learning process and summative assessment at its conclusion. It reviews the development of outcomes assessment initiatives by legal educators and the development of outcomes assessment standards by the American Bar Association for the accreditation of law schools.
The Enablement Pendulum Swings Back

Possibly in response to criticisms that the U.S. patent system affords too much legal protection to patent owners, the courts have begun to chip away at patent rights. Curiously enough, the Supreme Court has heard a relatively large number of patent cases over its last three terms, which suggests to several commentators and members of the patent bar that the Court is unhappy with the Federal Circuit's stewardship of the patent system and has, among other things, invited the court to rethink its approach to modulating patent rights. And it appears that the Federal Circuit has accepted the invitation. In this Article I examine the Federal Circuit's new enablement standard and explore its potential impact on patentees. In short, the enablement requirement ensures that the patent discloses the claimed invention in sufficient detail so that a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA) can make and use it without undue experimentation. I set the stage for the discussion by briefly exploring the contours of the enablement requirement. I then describe the two strands of enablement jurisprudence which have emerged over the past half-century and the limits of this dichotomy. Next, after exploring how the Supreme Court's lesson about the importance of the PHOSITA in KSR v. Teleflex may partially explain the Federal Circuit's adoption of the "full scope" enablement standard, I briefly discuss several recent cases where the court applies the new standard. Finally, I discuss the implications of full scope enablement by providing lessons for patentees and presenting thoughts on the future of claim drafting.
Sharing in spirit: Kopimism and the digital Eucharist

Kopimism, a new religion officially recognized by Sweden in 2012, is based on the principles that copying, disseminating and reconfiguring information are not only ethically right, but also are in themselves ‘sacred’ acts of devotion. Kopimist philosophy also holds that ‘the internet is holy’ and that ‘code is law’ (a phrase copied from legal scholar Lawrence Lessig). Kopimism has already raised some interesting questions and debates in both legal and religious circles. Some grumble that the Kopimists are a bunch of ‘pirates’ using religious protection to shield them from copyright liability. Others suggest that the religion is little more than a sophomoric rhetorical exercise, the predictable product of a precocious young philosopher. In this article, I suggest that, if we take Kopimist doctrine at its word, we can better understand it as the crystallization of an emerging value system centred around the proliferation of digital, networked information. Like copyright, and monastic Christianity before it,...
A Feature-Based Approach to Assessing Advertisement Similarity

Abstract This research presents a feature-based statistical model and subsequently explores the degree to which similarity perceptions between two advertisements can be decomposed and explained by a “weighted-and-summed” distance measure, computed on the advertisements' executional elements, after controlling for familiarity and viewers' attitudinal responses toward the advertisements. Furthermore, the authors obtain empirical findings in two major areas: First, variation in similarity ratings can be explained by the advertisements' features, a finding of potential importance for advertisement construction. Second, some, but not all, executional elements that have been shown (in the literature) to drive recall and persuasion are effective at driving perceptions of similarity. This is of practical importance because managers want their advertisements not only to be liked and remembered but also (possibly) to be perceived as similar (or dissimilar) to those for other products. In particular, an understandin...
A Propulsion Model of Creative Leadership

This article presents a propulsion model of creative leadership. First, it introduces some general issues in the nature of creative leadership. Then, it presents the propulsion model. Creative leadership can be of three general kinds—leadership that accepts existing ways of doing things, leadership that challenges existing ways of doing things, and leadership that synthesizes different existing ways of doing things. Within these three general kinds of leadership are eight specific types. Finally, the article draws some conclusions and notes other ways of dividing up types of creative leadership.
Risk Management, Capital Budgeting and Capital Structure Policy for Financial Institutions: An Integrated Approach

Abstract We develop a framework for analyzing the capital allocation and capital structure decisions facing financial institutions. Our model incorporates two key features: (i) value-maximizing banks have a well-founded concern with risk management; and (ii) not all the risks they face can be frictionlessly hedged in the capital market. This approach allows us to show how bank-level risk management considerations should factor into the pricing of those risks that cannot be easily hedged. We examine several applications, including: the evaluation of proprietary trading operations, and the pricing of unhedgeable derivatives positions. We also compare our approach to the RAROC methodology that has been adopted by a number of banks.
Investor Protections and Economic Growth

Abstract Using objective measures of investor protections in 170 countries, I establish that the level of investor protection matters for cross-country differences in GDP growth: countries with stronger protections tend to grow faster than those with poor investor protections.
COIN: A study of strategic illusion

Has the US military become a learning institution, one able to transition from relying on a conventional war model to fighting against irregular adversaries such as insurgents and terrorists? This article examines the United States' interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan in an effort to respond to this question. It shows that there are two major ways for a military to fail to be a ‘learning’ institution: It may stick to its old dogma or – adopt a flawed new one. Those who saw counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine as the best way to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan made the US military into a learning organization – but taught it the wrong lesson. They failed to take into account the absence of the sociological conditions that make a post-conflict environment amenable to nation-building, which is an integral part of the main variants of counterinsurgency. The article closes by outlining the foremost reasons the US military continues to be a poorly adaptive organization.
Fair Use and the Fairer Sex: Gender, Feminism, and Copyright Law

Introduction 551 I. Gender and Copyright Law 554 II. Fair Use, Fairness, and Gender 559 III. Feminism and Copyright Law 564 A. Should the Explicit Substantive Coverage of Copyright Law be Expanded? 565 B. Should The Application of Existing Copyright Law Be Altered? 566 C. Should Women Increasingly “Commodify” Their Creative Output Through Current Copyright Law? 569 IV. Injecting Gender and Feminism into the Cultural Copyright Discourse 569 A. Women as Authors 570 B. Women as Intermediaries 578 C. Women as Consumers 580 Conclusion 583
Wisconsin's Antitrust Law: Outsourcing the Legal Standard

Since its first commentary about the Wisconsin Antitrust Act (Pulp Wood Co. v. Green Bay Paper & Fiber Co., 157 Wis. 604, 147 N.W. 1058 ((1914)) the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has regularly reiterated its policy that interpretations of the Act must follow absolutely, “federal [antitrust] decisions.” This policy is driven neither by federal preemption nor by state legislative enactment or pronouncement. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin’s commentaries on this policy for almost a century since the Pulp Wood decision have provided very little counsel to state courts much less businesspersons and their legal advisors. Indeed, one may still reasonably ask whether, “federal decisions,” includes judicial decisions by all federal courts wherever situated and all federal agencies deciding cases, administering rules and providing, “guidelines,” applying, “federal [antitrust] law.” Moreover, the Court has not even provided guidance as to how to resolve conflicts in the application of, “federal decisions.” In an age of, “activist,” federal courts and administrative agencies that have upended traditional concepts and decisions of federal antitrust law, it is very important that generalized policies applying lockstep application of, “federal decisions,” be jettisoned and replaced by reasoned judicial decisions applying Wisconsin antitrust law. Of course, where appropriate, Wisconsin courts may choose to follow federal decisions (whatever that term means) and thereby assure that Wisconsin antitrust law comports with an overall federal antitrust design. Yet, by replacing the current inflexible policy with legal analysis that best suits the interests and needs of Wisconsin’s citizenry Wisconsin courts may effectively steer a course that avoids the antitrust activism that roils the federal courts and federal administrative agencies and thereby provide security in long term judicial interpretations.
Ethics Programs and The Paradox of Control

We analyze corporate ethics programs as control systems, arguing that how control is exercised may have pernicious consequences and be morally problematic. In particular, the control cultivated by ethics programs may weaken employees’ ability and motivation to exercise their own moral judgment, especially in novel situations. We develop this argument first by examining how organization theorists analyze control as an instrument of management coordination, and by addressing the political implications of control. We discuss coercive and enabling control as variations that help account for the distinction between compliance-based ethics programs and values-based ethics programs. We then explore three potential drawbacks of ethics programs: the specter of indoctrination, a politicization of ethics, and an atrophy of competence. Ethics programs that rely on coercive control may undermine their own effectiveness at stemming misbehavior.
Constructions in Ramsey theory

We provide several constructions for problems in Ramsey theory. First, we prove a superexponential lower bound for the classical 4-uniform Ramsey number r4(5, n), and the same for the iterated (k−4)-fold logarithm of the k-uniform version rk(k+1, n). This is the first improvement of the original exponential lower bound for r4(5, n) implicit in work of Erdős and Hajnal from 1972 and also improves the current best known bounds for larger k due to the authors. Second, we prove an upper bound for the hypergraph Erdős-Rogers function f k+1,k+2(N) that is an iterated (k− 13)-fold logarithm in N . This improves the previous upper bounds that were only logarithmic and addresses a question of Dudek and the first author that was reiterated by Conlon, Fox and Sudakov. Third, we generalize the results of Erdős and Hajnal about the 3-uniform Ramsey number of K4 minus an edge versus a clique to k-uniform hypergraphs. Finally, we observe that Ramsey graphs can be transformed to tournaments with no large transitive subtournament, and this gives explicit constructions of superpolynomial size for the Erdős-Moser problem about tournaments with no large transitive subtournament.
What determine financial analysts’ career outcomes during mergers?

Abstract We investigate the effects of mergers on the career outcomes of financial analysts. We hypothesize and find that analysts with good earnings forecast performance experience higher turnover during mergers, target analysts are more likely to turnover and the existence of a competing analyst in a merger counter party also increases analyst turnover. We analyze the promotion of analysts to research executive positions and find that analysts with greater experience and especially experienced stars are more likely to be promoted. Finally, we document that analyst turnover is associated with decreases in research quality at the merged firms post-merger.
Suppose the Schindlers Had Won the Schiavo Case

In this Article, I will identify and discuss the harms that would have occurred had the Schindlers won the Schiavo Case - the harms both to Terri Schiavo in the private case and the larger set of harms to public policy in the public case. The Schindlers fought Michael Schiavo on a variety of battlegrounds - the Florida courts, the Florida legislative and executive branches, the federal courts, and eventually Congress. Had they definitively prevailed in any of these forums, the consequences for end-of-life decisionmaking would have been largely the same. Had they prevailed in Congress or even in the state legislative and executive branches, however, the consequences would have implicated issues beyond end-of-life decisionmaking, potentially altering the balance among legislative, executive, and judicial power and between federal and state power. Separation of powers and federalism, however, are not the topics I will address. Had the Schindlers won the Schiavo case, the legal consensus about end-of-life decisionmaking would have suffered serious setbacks, if it had not been sent into total disarray. From a legal perspective, the Schiavo case is pure anticlimax because after all the litigation and legislation - not to mention fighting, and shouting, and even shoving - it did not work any changes in the law. History will view it as another in a series of high profile cases in which the consensus - the legal consensus, the clinical-professional consensus, indeed the societal consensus - about end-of-life decisionmaking further solidified.
Legal Centralization and the Birth of the Secular State

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between the historical process of legal central- ization and increased religious toleration by the state. We develop a model based on the mathematics of mixture distributions which delineates the conditions under which legal centralization raises the costs faced by states of setting a narrow standard of orthodox belief. We compare the results of the model with historical evidence drawn from two important cases in which religious diversity and state centralization collided in France: the Albigensian crusades of the thirteenth century and the rise of Protestant belief in the sixteenth century.
An Empirical Analysis of Agricultural Preservation Statutes in New York, Nebraska, and Minnesota

States passed agricultural preservation statutes in part to protect their agricultural heritage. Some scholars worry that right-to-farm statutes have not succeeded in achieving this goal. The agricultural preservation statutes of New York, Nebraska, and Minnesota show three different strategies toward agricultural preservation, all of which take different stances on the protections extended to small and large farms. Despite the structural differences among the states’ statutory approach to agricultural preservation, all three experienced similar agricultural demographic shifts since the 1980s—the number of large and small farms has increased while the number of medium-sized farms has decreased. The similarity in demographic trends suggests that none of the statutes are effective. Legislatures may be able to redirect their agricultural preservation statutes by empowering agricultural advisory boards to consider not only the soundness of farming practices but also the cultural and environmental value of individual farms.
A search model of centralized and decentralized trade

This paper presents a search model of centralized and decentralized trade. In a centralized market, trades are intermediated by market makers at publicly posted bid–ask prices. In a decentralized market, traders search counterparties. Prices are negotiated and transactions are conducted in private meetings among traders. Traders can choose which market to enter. The determinants of bid–ask spreads and liquidity are analyzed. The welfare consequence of the market fragmentation is also analyzed. It is shown that compared to the competitive market-making, monopolistic market-making may improve social welfare.
Partial facial reduction: simplified, equivalent SDPs via approximations of the PSD cone

We develop a practical semidefinite programming (SDP) facial reduction procedure that utilizes computationally efficient approximations of the positive semidefinite cone. The proposed method simplifies SDPs with no strictly feasible solution (a frequent output of parsers) by solving a sequence of easier optimization problems and could be a useful pre-processing technique for SDP solvers. We demonstrate effectiveness of the method on SDPs arising in practice, and describe our publicly-available software implementation. We also show how to find maximum rank matrices in our PSD cone approximations (which helps us find maximal simplifications), and we give a post-processing procedure for dual solution recovery that generally applies to facial-reduction-based pre-processing techniques. Finally, we show how approximations can be chosen to preserve problem sparsity.
Nuclear Stiffness Decreases with Disruption of the Extracellular Matrix in Living Tissues

Reciprocal interactions between the cell nucleus and the extracellular matrix lead to macroscale tissue phenotype changes. However, little is known about how the extracellular matrix environment affects gene expression and cellular phenotype in the native tissue environment. Here, it is hypothesized that enzymatic disruption of the tissue matrix results in a softer tissue, affecting the stiffness of embedded cell and nuclear structures. The aim is to directly measure nuclear mechanics without perturbing the native tissue structure to better understand nuclear interplay with the cell and tissue microenvironments. To accomplish this, an atomic force microscopy needle-tip probe technique that probes nuclear stiffness in cultured cells to measure the nuclear envelope and cell membrane stiffness within native tissue is expanded. This technique is validated by imaging needle penetration and subsequent repair of the plasma and nuclear membranes of HeLa cells stably expressing the membrane repair protein CHMP4B-GFP. In the native tissue environment ex vivo, it is found that while enzymatic degradation of viable cartilage tissues with collagenase 3 (MMP-13) and aggrecanase-1 (ADAMTS-4) decreased tissue matrix stiffness, cell and nuclear membrane stiffness is also decreased. Finally, the capability for cell and nucleus elastography using the AFM needle-tip technique is demonstrated. These results demonstrate disruption of the native tissue environment that propagates to the plasma membrane and interior nuclear envelope structures of viable cells.
Thinking Out Cloud: California State Sales and Use Taxability of Cloud Computing Transactions

INTRODUCTION Confronted with growing budget deficits and decreasing tax bases, states are necessarily looking for new ways to generate revenue.2 In recent years, states have sought to expand sales tax laws to capture revenue from sales of digital products, a complicated and relatively nascent subject of taxation.3 Just as states have begun to impose such taxes, however, the shift from downloaded products to cloud-based data and applications poses new challenges to the states’ abilities to reach such transactions with their taxing powers.
Learning by doing: Cross-border mergers and acquisitions

Abstract We rely on organizational learning theory and strategic momentum research to examine the international merger and acquisition (M&A) activities of a sample of S&P 500 firms. We hypothesize that the learning associated with a firm's prior acquisition experience increases the likelihood the firm will engage in subsequent international acquisitions. Results from a sample including company–country level data indicate that both prior domestic acquisitions and international acquisitions influence the likelihood of acquisitions in foreign markets by U.S.-based firms. We also find that prior experience with international acquisitions is more predictive of subsequent international acquisitions than prior domestic acquisition experience. Moreover, we find that the acquisition experience within a host country had a stronger influence on subsequent acquisitions within that country than other prior non-host country international acquisition experiences.
A Model of Consumer Inertia with Applications to Dynamic Pricing

This paper introduces a decision model of consumer inertia. Consumers exhibit inertia when they have an inherent bias to delay purchases. Inertia may induce consumers to wait even when it is optimal to buy immediately. We embed our decision model within a dynamic pricing context. There is a firm that sells a fixed capacity over two time periods to an uncertain number of both rational and inertial consumers. We find that consumer inertia has both positive and negative effects on profits: it decreases demand (in period one) but intensifies competition among consumers for the product (in period two). We show that our model of inertia is consistent with well-established behavioral regularities, such as loss aversion and probability weighting in the sense of prospect theory, and hyperbolic time preferences. We offer practical recommendations for firms to influence the level of consumer inertia. These include offering returns policies (to mitigate potential consumer losses), providing decision aids (to avoid perception errors), and offering flexible payment options (to lower transaction costs).
Abatement, Care, and Compliance by Firms in Financial Distress

We examine precautionary behavior, specifically compliance with environmental regulations, pollution abatement, and care spending, by firms facing two sources of insolvency risk. If poor profit or a liability triggers insolvency, then the firm forgoes a profitable future. The behavioral implications of this survival motive vary across firms. Firms for whom the principal insolvency risk is liability-related now choose precaution above the level chosen by the solvent firm. For firms whose primary insolvency risk is profit-related, the survival motive reinforces incentives for care below the solvent benchmark arising from the familiar judgment-proof effect. We also characterize how insolvency risks affect incentives to conceal adverse events linked to these choices, such as an accident or a regulatory violation. An understanding of these incentives is particularly important during recessionary periods when firms struggle to survive the downturn.
Me Too!: Social modelling influences on early autobiographical memories

To investigate the malleability of early memories, 200 participants were asked to describe their earliest memories. Before doing so, approximately half were exposed to confederates who described very early memories such as their first steps or a second birthday party, while others were asked only to think about their earliest memories for two minutes before beginning writing. Participants who were exposed to confederate very early memories produced memories that were nearly a year younger on average than the memories reported by controls (2.99 years vs. 3.96 years). Additionally, when participants in the memory discussion condition were asked about an early event that a confederate had recounted they were more confident than controls that they could recall the event in their own lives. These results indicate that autobiographical memories for early events are quite susceptible to social influence and that simply hearing the very early memories of others can alter autobiographical memory. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An Analysis of “Little r” Restatements

SYNOPSIS: “Little r” restatements occur when a firm's immaterial errors accumulate to a material error in a given year. Unlike “Big R” restatements that must be reported through an SEC 8-K material event filing, little r restatements do not require an 8-K form or a withdrawal of the auditor opinion. This paper documents this previously unexamined form of restatement and analyzes the characteristics of the firms that have used this method of correcting accounting errors over the period 2009 through 2012. Contrary to concerns voiced by regulators and research agencies we find, in multivariate tests, that little r firms are generally more profitable, less complex, and show some evidence of stronger corporate governance and higher audit quality than Big R firms. Compared to non-revising or restating firms, little r firms have lower free cash flows, higher board expertise, higher CFO tenure, are less likely to use a specialist auditor, and less likely to have material weaknesses in their internal controls. We...
What Do We Know About Base Erosion and Profit Shifting? A Review of the Empirical Literature

The issue of tax-motivated income shifting within multinational firms – or ‘base erosion and profit shifting’ (BEPS) – has attracted increasing global attention in recent years. This paper provides a survey of the empirical literature on this topic. Its emphasis is on reviewing and elucidating what is known about the magnitude of BEPS. The paper discusses different empirical approaches to identifying income shifting, describes existing data sources, and summarises the findings of the empirical literature. A major theme that emerges from this survey is that in the more recent empirical literature, which uses new and richer sources of data, the estimated magnitude of BEPS is typically much smaller than that found in earlier studies. The paper seeks to provide a framework within which to conceptualise this magnitude and its implications for policy. It concludes by highlighting the importance of existing legal and economic frictions as constraints on BEPS and by discussing possible ways in which future research might model these frictions more precisely.
Benefits and costs of international financial integration : theory and facts

The author provides a selective review of the recent analytical and empirical literature on the benefits and costs of international financial integration. He discusses the impact of financial openness on consumption, investment, and growth, and the impact of foreign bank entry on the domestic financial system. Consistent with some recent studies, the author argues that financial integration must be carefully prepared and managed to ensure that the benefits outweigh the short-run risks. Prudent macroeconomic management, adequate supervision and prudential regulation of the financial system, greater transparency, and improved capacity to manage risk in the private sector are important requirements for coping with potentially abrupt reversals in pro-cyclical, short-term capital flows. The author adopts a more skeptical view than some assessments in two areas, however. First, only foreign direct investment appears to provide dynamic gains and improved prospects for growth; the evidence on the benefits of other types of capital flows remains weak. Second, empirical research on the net benefits associated with foreign bank penetration is far from conclusive; in particular, the possibility that such penetration may lead to adverse changes in the allocation of credit among domestic firms cannot be dismissed on the basis of the existing evidence.
Radical or Incremental Innovations R&D Investment Around CEO Retirement

We study the impact retirement has on how CEOs spend R&D funds. Consistent with retiring CEOs� short horizons and growing conservatism, we find evidence that CEOs tend to prefer incremental innovations as they approach retirement. Using patent data to measure firms� innovation outputs, we find that firms receive fewer patent grants for applications filed toward the end of CEO tenures, and these patent grants receive fewer subsequent citations. Moreover, we find that large amounts of vested, in-the-money option holdings exacerbate retiring CEOs� preference for incremental innovations, and founder CEOs pursue incremental innovations to a greater extent than non-founder CEOs close to retirement. However, a normal �relay process� of managerial succession and higher stock ownership by independent directors mitigate retiring CEOs� preference for incremental innovations. We find no evidence that the documented incremental innovations before retirement are driven by either poor firm performance or a general shift from innovation to stability as CEO tenures increase or as CEOs age. Overall, the study identifies a new type of myopic behavior related to CEO retirement and highlights the importance of looking beyond R&D spending in future studies on the managerial investment myopia.