cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Correcting for Truncation Bias Caused by a Latent Truncation Variable

Abstract We discuss estimation of the model Y i = X i b Y + e Yi , T i = X i b T + e Ti , when data on the continuous dependent variable Y and on the independent variables X are observed iff the ‘truncation variable’ T >0 and when T is latent. This case is distinct from both (i) the‘censored sample’ case, in which Y data are available iff T >0, T is latent and X data are available for all observations, and (ii) the ‘observed truncation variable’ case, in which both Y and X are observed iff T >0 and in which the actual value of T is observed whenever T >0. We derive a maximum-likelihood procedure for estimating this model and discuss identification and estimation.
Outsourcing Competition and Information Sharing with Asymmetrically Informed Suppliers

This paper studies an outsourcing problem where two service providers (suppliers) compete for the service contract from a client. The suppliers face uncertain cost for providing the service because they do not have perfect information about the client's type. The suppliers receive differential private signals about the client type and thus compete under asymmetric information. We first characterize the equilibrium of the supplier competition. Then we investigate two of the client's information sharing decisions. It is shown that less information asymmetry between the suppliers may dampen their competition. Therefore, the client does not necessarily have the incentive to reduce information asymmetry between the suppliers. We characterize the conditions under which leveling the informational ground is beneficial to the client. We also find that under the presence of information asymmetry (e.g., when the suppliers have different learning abilities), sharing more information with both suppliers may enhance the advantage of one supplier over the other and at the same time increase the upper bound of the suppliers' quotes in equilibrium. Consequently, the suppliers compete less aggressively and the client's payoff decreases in the amount of shared information. The findings from this study provide useful managerial implications on information management for outsourcing firms.
The Cyclical Behavior of Unemployment and Vacancies with Loss of Skills during Unemployment

This paper studies the cyclical fluctuations in unemployment and vacancies in a search and matching model in which workers lose skills during periods of unemployment. Firms' profits fluctuate more because aggregate productivity affects the economy's average human capital. Moreover, wages for workers with lower levels of human capital are closer to the value of nonmarket time, leading to more rigid wages. Fluctuations in the vacancy--unemployment ratio are larger than those in the baseline search and matching model and similar to those we observe in the data.
What Factors Affect the Persistence of an Innovation Advantage

type="main"> Factors that affect a firm's ability to achieve an advantage may differ from those that affect its ability to sustain that advantage. Moreover, if advantage is a relative concept then studies that relate resource stocks to ‘absolute’ outcomes say little about how resources contribute to enduring differences among firms. We explore these issues in the global semiconductor industry by analyzing how a firm's resource stocks contribute to the persistence of an innovation advantage (a relative outcome). The findings demonstrate that a firm's own production experience and the experience held by its partners contribute to temporary innovation advantages. The results also show that a firm's own production experience yields a more durable innovation advantage as compared to the experience held by a firm's partners and that the experience held by a firm's partners provides a more enduring advantage than a firm's patent stock.
The microeconomics of the developmental paradox: on the political economy of food price policy

Abstract A longstanding puzzle in comparative economics is the `developmental paradox', the tendency for government support for agriculture to increase with national income and to decrease with the proportion of economic activity and of the population in agriculture. This paper offers a microeconomic explanation for that puzzle. It establishes analytically the microeconomic basis for coalition alignments with respect to food price policy, then numerically simulates the comparative static effects of alternative food policies on coalition structure. A parsimonious household model applied to a heterogeneously endowed society demonstrates how variation in individual welfare effects might beget distinct coalitions in the debate over food price policy and how those policies are inextricably linked to land, population, and technology policies in food agriculture. Moreover, coalition alignments on particular policy debates are path-dependent. In particular, food price policy creates its own political support.
PORTFOLIO ALLOCATION FOR PUBLIC PENSION FUNDS

This paper presents a model of a public pension fund's choice of portfolio risk. Optimal portfolio allocations are derived when pension fund management maximize the utility of wealth of a representative taxpayer or when pension fund management maximize their own utility of compensation. The model's implications are examined using annual data on the portfolio allocations and plan characteristics of 125 state pension funds over the 2000–2009 period. Consistent with agency behavior by public pension fund management, we find evidence that funds chose greater overall asset – liability portfolio risk following periods of relatively poor investment performance. In addition, pension plans that select a relatively high rate with which to discount their liabilities tend to choose riskier portfolios. Moreover, consistent with a desire to gamble for higher benefits, pension plans take more risk when they have greater representation by plan participants on their Boards of Trustees.
The Role of the Beneficiary in Willingness to Pay for Socially Responsible Products: A Meta-analysis

Abstract Many companies have made significant investments in socially responsible production practices for their products. Environmentally safe cleaning products, fair trade coffee, and sustainable seafood are just a few examples. In this paper, we conduct a meta-analysis of over 80 published and unpublished research papers across a large number of product categories to better understand differences in willingness to pay (WTP) for socially responsible products. In particular, we are interested in whether the beneficiary of the social responsibility program—humans, animals, or the environment—affects WTP. We use two dependent variables: the percentage premium people are willing to pay and the proportion of respondents who are willing to pay a positive premium. We find that the mean percentage premium is 16.8 percent and that, on average, 60 percent of respondents are willing to pay a positive premium. Importantly, across both dependent measures, we find that WTP is greater for products where the socially responsible element benefits humans (e.g., labor practices) compared to those that benefit the environment. Implications for retailers, manufacturers, and future research are discussed.
Judicial Response to the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines

We study how the courts have responded to the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Looking at decided cases, we find that both the government and merging parties rely on the 2010 Guidelines in presenting their cases, each side respectively arguing that it should win if the court properly follows them . The 2010 Guidelines had the strongest effect on the case law in the area of unilateral effects, where a number of courts have embraced them in ways that clearly depart from earlier decisions. The case law now exhibits much greater receptivity to a government showing that the merger will lead to higher prices simply due to the loss of direct competition between the two merging firms. The courts also have followed the 2010 Guidelines by more willingly defining markets around targeted customers. We do not detect any effect on decided cases of the higher concentration thresholds found in the 2010 Guidelines. Both the average pre-merger level of market concentration and the average increase in market concentration alleged by the government in litigated cases to date declined after 2010 .
Business Cycles and the Exchange Rate System: Some International Evidence

This paper investigates the differences in time series behavior of key economic aggregates under alternative exchange-rate systems. We use a postwar sample of 49 countries to compare the behavior of output, consumption, trade flows, government consumption spending, and real exchange rates under alternative exchange-rate systems (pegged, floating, and cooperative systems such as the EMS). We then examine evidence from two particular episodes, involving Canada and Ireland, of changes in the exchange-rate system. Aside from greater variability of real exchange rates under flexible than under pegged nominal exchange-rate systems, we find little evidence of systematic differences in the behavior of macroeconomic aggregates or international trade flows under alternative exchange-rate systems. These results are of interest because a large class of theoretical models implies that the nominal exchange-rate system has important effects on a number of macroeconomic quantities.
Changing Household Behaviors to Curb Climate Change: How Hard Can it Be?

As part of a recent national survey on public perceptions of energy consumption and savings, we asked 505 participants to rate how difficult it would be for them to implement 15 of Gardner and Stern’s 27 actions. Our question, which was adapted from self-efficacy research in other domains.
PEAK COORDINATING BODIES AND INVASIVE ALIEN SPECIES: IS THE WHOLE WORTH MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS?

The development of regimes to regulate invasive alien species (IAS) has historically progressed in a fragmented and ad hoc manner. To remedy this situation the United States of America and Great Britain have introduced peak coordination bodies to draw their regimes together. However, in Australia, the Senate has expressed concern at the consequences of establishing such bodies, concluding that they merely duplicate regulation at the various levels of government; and, additionally, have the potential to destabilize Australia’s constitutional balance of powers. Using a comparative methodology based on the ‘functionalist’ approach, this paper undertakes a comparative study of IAS regulation in Australia, the United States of America and Great Britain to evaluate coordination mechanisms instituted by way of a peak coordinating body. It is argued that coordination is essential to the effective operation of IAS regimes and that peak coordinating bodies are well-placed to draw together initiatives established at different levels of government; making the whole worth more than the sum of its parts.
Doctors, Discipline, and the Death Penalty: Professional Implications of Safe Harbor Statutes

State capital punishment statutes generally contemplate the involvement of medical providers, and courts have acknowledged that the qualifications of lethal injection personnel have a constitutionally relevant dimension. However, the American Medical Association has consistently voiced its opposition to any medical involvement in executions. In recent years, some states have responded to this conflict by adopting statutory mechanisms to encourage medical participation in lethal injections. Foremost among these are safe harbor policies, which prohibit state medical boards from taking disciplinary action against licensed medical personnel who participate in executions.This Article posits that safe harbor policies, as limitations on medical board autonomy, safe harbor policies must be viewed not merely as artifacts of the political discourse on capital punishment, but as part of the historical narrative of American medical regulation. As a matter of policy, safe harbors cannot be defended by reference to the three traditional justifications for regulating medical professionals -- they are not necessary to keep the profession from exceeding the scope of its delegated powers; they do not promote traditional medical goals; and they do not satisfy the criteria for promotion of important state goals unrelated to medicine. This Article suggests that safe harbors and other restrictions on board autonomy, if not adequately justified, may weaken public confidence in the authority and independence of the medical profession. Because the loss of systemic medical trust tends to have a corrosive effect on the medical profession's ability to promote patient interests and public health, policymakers should be wary of adopting safe harbors without first considering their trust implications in the professional sphere.[SSRN posted version is a pre-publication draft]
An Antitrust Analysis of Sports League Contracts With Cable Networks

This Article discusses the proper antitrust treatment of package sales to cable. Part I considers whether the antitrust laws apply at all to such sales; it concludes that section one of the Sherman Act does apply and that neither the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 not baseball's historic exemption from the antitrust laws prevents antitrust scrutiny of these contracts. Part II explains why cable package sales should be analyzed under a rule of reason test focused on the effect of a sale on fan viewership. Finally, Part III responds to several possible objections to the rule of reason standard proposed in Part II.
Using non–time–series to determine supply elasticity: how far do prices change the Hubbert curve?

An important concern of OPEC’s work is to be able to understand how much supply of oil exists in different countries, in order to help better conserve oil. This paper extends M. King Hubbert’s oil production and discovery forecasting model (Hubbert, 1962), using a non–time–series cumulative discovery and production quadratic Hubbert curve and structural shift variables to model technology and regulation changes. The model can be used to determine better world oil supplies. Price is tested, to see how powerful it is for increasing or decreasing oil supply. Using a trend of cumulative production, instead of time, will help to better fix the supply elasticity with respect to price, which is shown to be very inelastic. An interesting question is whether cumulative discovery or production constitutes an I(2) variable. This paper explains that they are not I(2) variables.
Comparative Jury Procedures: What a Small Island Nation Teaches the United States About Jury Reform

The literature considering various possible procedural reforms to United States jury trial practice suffers from a high dose of American Exceptionalism. The experience of other nations rarely is acknowledged, much less considered as possibly informative. This Article argues that as a British-derived system of roughly identical vintage as the United States, the jury practices of Malta can inform American practice in three respects: (1) the desirability of increased juror interaction – in particular allowing oral juror questions to witnesses and allowing deliberation during the trial, (2) the utility of eliminating voir dire in jury selection, and (3) the possibility of procedural reform such as modifying the verdict form to insulate jurors from external pressures on the verdict.
How Do Data Skills Affect Firm Productivity: Evidence from Process-driven vs. Innovation-driven Practices

As digitization of various economic and human behaviors become more prevalent, we examine whether data analysis capabilities can help with processand innovation-oriented firm practices. Using detailed, firm level data on employee data analysis capabilities combined with a survey of organizational practices for 330 large firms, we find that while neither data skills nor process-related practices affect productivity directly, they have a substantial positive interaction. Specifically, firms with process-related practices receive a greater marginal benefit for the presence of or acquisition of data-related skills in their workforce. However, we do not find the same complementarities between data-related skills and innovation-oriented practices and at times the interaction can even be negative. These results are also unique to data-related skills and not IT skills generally. Overall these results highlight the potential tradeoffs of using data analytics at firm, similar to the tradeoffs between exploitation and exploration. We show that value of analytics (at least over our 1987-2007 sample period) is in enabling the use of internal and external data to drive process improvement, but data analytics capability does not immediately translate to greater innovation.
Religion and Assimilation Among Turkish Muslim Immigrants: Comparing Practicing and Non-Practicing Muslims

In the literature on religion and assimilation, Muslims are usually categorized into one group without any reference to their differences in terms of religious practice and ethnicity. This paper sheds light on such differences by illustrating the case of Turkish immigrants in the USA, one of the least studied immigrant groups. Based on interviews with practicing and non-practicing Turkish Muslims in Houston, we address the issue of how practices of religion play its role in the assimilation of Turkish immigrants. Data reveal that while Turks in general are fairly well adapted into American society, there are some major differences between practicing and non-practicing Turkish Muslims, even though practically all Turks identify as Muslim.
Interactive marketing and the meganet: Networks of networks

Abstract In this paper, we consider properties of interactive marketing and how network methods might be useful diagnostic tools of such interactive systems. Four content properties of interactive marketing are defined: technology, intrinsic motivation, the use of the resultant interactive marketing information, and the real-time aspect of the interaction. Four structural properties are also defined: customization, responsiveness, interactions among relevant groups, and a structure of networked networks—the meganet. Network methods are then integrated with the concerns of the interactive marketing manager. Network analysis at the individual node, subgroup, and network levels is considered a diagnostic tool for structural properties.
High-Profile Prosecutors &(and) High-Profile Conflicts

Prosecutors, to a greater extent than all lawyers, must meet high ethical standards. In her Article, Professor Levenson argues that an examination of high-profile prosecutions illustrates their potential for conflicts-of-interest, even with diligent prosecutors. Three conflict pitfalls are likely to arise in the course of high-profile prosecutions: overly-personal involvement of the prosecutor; improper disclosures to news and entertainment media; and perceived conflicts based on prosecutor's prior cases or affiliations. Professor Levenson concludes that the responsibility falls on prosecutors to confront tough ethical decision in high-profile cases because it is from these cases that the public learns about the nature and integrity of its legal process.
Stressed Out on Four Continents: Time Crunch or Yuppie Kvetch?

Social commentators have pointed to the “problems” of citizens of industrialized countries, especially working women, who face “time stress”—an absence of sufficient time to accomplish all their tasks. An economic theory views time stress as an increasing function of the shadow price of time and suggests it will be more prevalent in households with higher incomes and whose members work longer in the market or on “required” homework. Evidence from microeconomic data sets for Australia, Germany, Korea and the United States corroborates this view. Adults in higher-income households perceive more time stress. In the United States a move from the 25 th to the 75 th percentile of the income distribution raises time stress by half as much as an interquartile change in weekly market work. The relative effects of increased income compared to increased market work are larger in Germany, smaller in Australia, and roughly the same in Korea. Time stress is part “time crunch,” but much is also part “yuppie kvetch.”
On Investor Preferences and Mutual Fund Separation

Abstract We extend Cass and Stiglitz's analysis of preference-based mutual fund separation. We provide a complete characterization of the general K-fund separation. We show that some instances of separation with many funds can be constructed by adding inverse marginal utility functions having separation with one or a few funds. We also show that there is money separation (in which we can choose the riskless asset as one of the funds) if and only if there is a fund (which may or may not be the riskless asset) with a constant allocation as wealth changes. In general, we do not know how to write the separating utility functions in closed form, but we can do so in the special case of SAHARA utility defined by Chen et al. and for a new class of GOBI preferences introduced here.
Modeling model uncertainty

Recently there has been a great deal of interest in studying monetary policy under model uncertainty. We develop new methods to analyze dierent sources of uncertainty in one coherent structure, which is useful for policy decisions. We show how to estimate the size of the uncertainty based on time series data, and how to incorporate this uncertainty in choosing policy. In particular, we develop a new approach for modeling uncertainty called model error modeling. The approach imposes additional structure on the errors of an estimated model, and builds a statistical description of the uncertainty around the model. We develop both parametric and nonparametric specifications of this approach, and use them to estimate uncertainty in a small model of the US economy. We then use our estimates to compute Bayesian and minimax robust policy rules, which are designed to perform well in the face of uncertainty.
Taxes and the quality of capital

Abstract This paper shows that tax policy toward investment, by changing the relative prices of capital varieties even within narrow classes of equipment, can have a direct effect on the quality composition of capital goods that firms purchase. Detailed data on farming, mining, and construction machinery suggest that this impact is economically important. Firms significantly shift investment toward higher quality varieties when they receive investment subsidies (and do not do so when investment is high for other reasons). In the aggregate, all of the new investment generated by tax subsidies appears to come from firms shifting to higher quality capital goods rather than buying a larger number of their existing capital types. The paper also applies a methodology for calculating the implied deadweight loss from the quality distortion and shows that its magnitude may represent a substantial efficiency cost from capital taxation that is neglected in conventional work.
Entrepreneurship in Developing Economies: The Bottom Billions and Business Creation

Over 100 million of the 1.8 billion midlife adults living on less than $15 a day are attempting to create new firms. Another 110 million are managing new ventures. This is almost half of the global total of 450 million individuals involved with 350 million start-ups and new ventures. They are responsible for almost half of all new firms and onethird of new firm jobs. For the poor, business creation provides more social and personal benefits than illegal and dangerous migration, criminal endeavors, or terrorism. Almost all of the business creation by the bottom billions occurs in developing countries, half are in Asia. The ventures initiated by the bottom billion are a significant proportion of all firms expecting growth, exports, an impact on their markets, and in high tech sectors. Assessments based on multi-level modeling suggest that young adults, whether they are rich or poor, in countries with access to informal financing and an emphasis on traditional, rather than secular-rational, and self-expressive values are more likely to identify business opportunities and feel confident about their capacity to implement a new firm. Such entrepreneurial readiness is, in turn, associated with more business creation. Compared to the strong associations of informal institutions with business creation, formal institutions have very modest and idiosyncratic relationships. Expansion of access to secondary education and early stage financing may be the most effective routes to more firm creation among the bottom billion.
The Power of Caretaking

In this Article, I explore how the roles of women at home are related to their roles at work. By explaining the dynamics of household changes, this Article provides an additional understanding of the need for women's home and workplace equality. I argue that the power that women have gained from their role as a caretaker within the home is a double-edged sword: acting as the primary caretaker, while extremely rewarding, is simultaneously a “confining” position. Until both men and women see themselves as nurturers and workers, neither the workplace nor the family will undergo fundamental change.This Article examines the historical derivation of the mother as the primary caretaker as well as the contemporary mechanisms that reinforce this role. I discuss the parameters, costs, and benefits of women's power within the home, and I argue that women must relinquish some of this power in order to ensure more participation from men. I conclude by suggesting family and workplace changes to facilitate this transition.
Wisdom: Exploring the Pinnacle of Human Virtues as a Central Link from Micromarketing to Macromarketing

The macromarketing system is largely the function of many micromarketing decisions made each day. But this connection has not been probed thoroughly in the macromarketing literature, and there is a need for conceptual frameworks that can successfully link the challenges of effective micromarketing with the laudable goals of the macromarketing field, which focuses on the interdependencies between marketing and society. To this end, we explore wisdom, the zenith of human virtues, through pertinent literature and in-depth interviews with executives nominated for their wise decision making. We discovered that wisdom in marketing is characterized by the recognition and management of five central paradoxes (e.g., the need for expertise versus the need to admit knowledge limitations and the need to enact authority and accountability versus the need for ego control). We discuss the implications of these findings for the theory, practice, and teaching of macromarketing and for basic wisdom theory.
The Applicability of the Principle of Prevention to Climate Change: A Response to Zahar

This is a response to Alexander Zahar’s article in the previous issue of Climate Law . Zahar argued that ‘the principle of prevention is neither applicable nor of relevance to the problem of climate change.’ 1 Firstly, I discuss Zahar’s scepticism toward state responsibility in the context of climate change. Secondly, I engage critically with Zahar’s claim that the preventive principle only applies to the type of environmental damage that occurs in a short timeframe and in a confined space. I show that some sources of international law do recognize the applicability of the preventive principle to damage to the global environment. Lastly, I dissent with Zahar’s qualification of the climate regime as a derogation to the principle of prevention. I argue that the principle of prevention is a necessary corollary of the rights of states to territorial integrity, although the modalities of application of the principle need to be refined.
Employer of Last Resort Policy and Feminist Economics: Social Provisioning and Socialization of Investment

The paper discusses the Employment of Last Resort (ELR) policy proposal that has emerged from Post Keynesian theory as an embodiment of what Keynes called “socialization of investment,” as well as an avenue for a social provisioning approach towards socialization of unpaid care labor. Intersections between Post Keynesian and feminist economics are delineated. The paper proposes avenues for input from feminist economics into formulation of an ELR policy, and raises questions about transformation of gender relations.
Convexity, Risk, and Returns

This paper tests empirically whether convexity is return enhancing (the traditional view based upon parallel term structure shifts), or return diminishing (the equilibrium view suggesting convexity is priced). Results of empirical tests over different time periods show bond convexity to be either insignificantly or negatively related to ex-ante bond returns. These results are consistent with the critique of the traditional duration model by Ingersoll, Skelton, and Weil [1978] and suggest that bond convexity may be priced. Further, the magnitude of bond convexity is shown to be related directly to the immunization risk inherent in a bond portfolio, consistent with the implications of Fong and Vasicek's [1983, 1984] M-Square model.
CEO compensation and bank mergers

Abstract Recent bank mergers generally did not improve relative operating performance or produce positive abnormal returns to acquiring bank shareholders. We examine the relationship between mergers and CEO compensation during 1986–1995, a period marked by overcapacity and frequent mergers. We find that mergers have a net positive effect on compensation, mainly via the effect of size on compensation. Compensation generally increases even if mergers cause the acquiring bank's stock price to decline, as is typical after a merger announcement. The form of compensation affects merger decisions, since CEOs with more stock-based compensation were less likely to make an acquisition.
DNA and Due Process

The Supreme Court in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne confronted novel and complex constitutional questions regarding the postconviction protections offered to potentially innocent convicts. Two decades after DNA testing exonerated the first inmate in the U.S. the Court heard its first claim by a convict seeking DNA testing that could prove innocence. I argue that contrary to early accounts, the Court did not reject a constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing. Despite language suggesting the Court would not “constitutionalize the issue” by announcing an unqualified freestanding right, Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion proceeded to carefully fashion an important, but qualified and derivative procedural due process right. While denying relief to Osborne for narrow factual and procedural reasons, the Court’s ruling swept more broadly. The Court held that states with post-conviction discovery rules, as almost all have enacted, may not arbitrarily deny access to post-conviction DNA testing, and then pointed to the generous provisions of the federal Innocence Protection Act as a model for an adequate statute. The Court also continued to assume that litigants may assert constitutional claims of actual innocence in habeas proceedings. In this Essay, I explore the contours of the Osborne due process right, its larger implications for constitutional interpretation, and more specifically, whether the decision has the potential to create pressure on the States to provide meaningful avenues to for convicts to litigate their innocence.
The demand for and supply of assurance

Consumers want products and services that are safe and of good quality. Corresponding to such demand is the demand for assurance, before the fact, that the quality and safety will be as promised. his demand for assurance creates opportunities for entrepreneurs to profit by providing assurance - and they do so in a wide and largely unappreciated variety of ways. The essential dialectic of the free enterprise system does apply to assurance. Governments’quality and safety restrictions on the freedom of contract, known to be so costly, are, therefore, unredeemed and should be repealed.
Airline Pricing, Price Dispersion and Ticket Characteristics On and Off the Internet

*This paper uses transaction data to investigate the effects of Internet purchase on airline fares. Our data include ticket characteristics, restrictions, flight load factors, and dates and channel of purchase. Controlling for ticket and flight characteristics, online purchasers pay about 11 percent less than offline purchasers, which seems rooted in more efficient shopping. The results do not support a spillover in terms of reduced fares or dispersion from greater Internet shopping. The paper also uses the data to reevaluate the relationship between market concentration and fares, but fails to identify any statistically significant, robust relationship. (JEL D83, L11, L86, L93)
The changing economic geography of large U.S. law firms

The number of lawyers working for large U.S. law firms has increased dramatically. One important manifestation of this is the growing network of branch offices. Informed by three theories of spatial change—law firms (i) following the geographic expansion of their clients, relying on (ii) traditional agglomeration economies and relying on (iii) agglomeration benefits emerging from a location’s connectivity to other important geographies—we analyze longitudinal data on large U.S. law firms and the global urban network in which they are embedded. We find that, after the late 2000s, geographic expansion was less connected to organic market growth in U.S. domestic markets and London, a plausible explanation being the global financial crisis. At the same time, growth has continued in key foreign markets. We demonstrate how network analysis and a relational approach to organizations and organizational fields can yield insights into the structure and dynamics of industries.
Measuring the Value of Strategic Alliances in the Wake of a Financial Implosion: Evidence from Japan's Financial Services Sector

Abstract This paper examines the wealth effects of financial-institution strategic alliances on the shareholders of the newly allied firms. Our paper is different from most previous studies, in that we focus on financial institutions, we employ Japanese data for the late 1990s, and we study whether different types of alliances result in differing magnitudes of stock market responses. We find that a strategic alliance, on average, increases the value of the partner firms. Second, the gains from the alliance are spread more widely among the partners than would be suggested by a random alternative. Third, smaller partners tend to experience larger percentage gains. Fourth, the market values inter-group alliance announcements more than intra-group alliance announcements. Fifth, we do not find a significant difference in the abnormal returns shown by domestic–foreign alliances and domestic–domestic alliances.
Does Asymmetric Information Drive Capital Structure Decisions

Using an information asymmetry index based on measures of adverse selection developed by the market microstructure literature, we test if information asymmetry is the sole determinant of capital structure decisions as suggested by the pecking order theory. Our tests rely exclusively on measures of the market's assessment of adverse selection risk rather than on ex-ante firm characteristics. We find that information asymmetry does affect capital structure decisions of U.S. firms over the period 1973-2002, especially when firms' financing needs are low and when firms are financially constrained. We also find a significant degree of intertemporal variability in firms' degree of information asymmetry, as well as in its impact on firms' debt issuance decisions. Our findings based on the information asymmetry index are robust to sorting firms based on size and firm insiders' trading activity, two popular alternative proxies for the severity of adverse selection. Overall, this evidence explains why the pecking order theory is only partially successful in explaining all of firms' capital structure decisions. It also suggests that the theory finds support when its basic assumptions hold in the data, as it should reasonably be expected of any theory.
Do Transparent Firms Pay out More Cash to Shareholders? Evidence from International Cross-Listings

This paper examines the relation between agency costs and payout policy using a sample of 755 firms that cross-list shares abroad. Firms increase cash payouts to shareholders by about 9% of earnings after cross-listing on exchanges with high standards of transparency and shareholder protection. The shift in payout policy is more pronounced in firms controlled by management. No shift is observed if shareholder protection in the country of incorporation is already strong, or if the host exchange does not mandate additional disclosure. The findings support the theory that high corporate payouts are the outcome of transparency and shareholder protection.
Samuel Roth: Discourteous Reprinter

This article offers an in-depth view of the lawful piracy of foreign works in the United states in the early twentieth century, a practice that was made possible by protectionist features of U.S. copyright law in that period. The focus is the New York publisher Samuel Roth, a “pirate” who, paradoxically, abided by U.S. copyright law while filling his magazines with unauthorized foreign material. Roth built his career on the resources of this unusual feature of the American public domain. U.S. copyright law in 1925 was isolationist and protectionist; its technicalities were a constant worry to foreign-domiciled authors like James Joyce who could not always satisfy the rigid statutory conditions for copyright protection. Among those conditions was the requirement that English-language books be typeset, printed, and bound on American soil within a fixed number of months after publication abroad, on pain of loss of U.S. copyright forever. Confronted with these legal hurdles and shadowed by a reputation for indecency, Joyce made no attempt to secure U.S. copyright for the book version of Ulysses or for the early published extracts of what eventually became Finnegans Wake. These works lay in the American public domain, where Roth found them.Even though Roth’s publishing activities were lawful in the United States, he was called a “pirate” during his lifetime and probably always will be. This is because he violated the principles of what had been known since the nineteenth century as “the courtesy of the trade,” an informal, norms-based practice voluntarily engaged in by American publishers which restored a precarious order to the publishing scene by imitating the main features of copyright law and permitting both publishers and authors to benefit, though inconsistently, from the wholly informal exclusive rights that trade courtesy recognized. In its simplest form, courtesy awarded informal rights to the first publisher that announced plans to reprint an unprotected foreign work — a kind of makeshift copyright grounded on tacit trade agreements and community-based norms. According to this communal fiction, competitors were required to resist the temptation to exploit a free literary resource once it was claimed by the first comer. Participating publishers often paid foreign authors an honorarium or royalty and sought their permission for reprinting works — all in the name of self-interested honor. But courtesy was always threatened at the margins by upstarts or renegades in the trade who saw no reason to observe a code that could bring them no immediate, tangible benefits. Deviants from courtesy were called “pirates” by the reputable houses. Samuel Roth was one of those deviants. This article tells part of his story.
Obfuscation, Learning, and the Evolution of Investor Sophistication

Investor sophistication has lagged behind the growing complexity of retail financial markets. To explore this, we develop a dynamic model to study the interaction between obfuscation and investor sophistication in mutual fund markets. Taking into account different learning mechanisms within the investor population, we characterize the optimal timing of obfuscation for financial institutions who offer retail products. We show that educational initiatives that are directed to facilitate learning by investors may induce providers to increase wasteful obfuscation, further disorienting investors and decreasing overall welfare. Obfuscation decreases with competition among firms, since the information rents from obfuscation dissipate as each institution attracts a smaller market share. The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.
Ethical Money: Financial Growth in the Muslim World

Money is a moral issue, and ethical considerations pervade the Islamic financial services industry through Shariah law. Islamic finance and finance in the Muslim world is growing quickly, and conventional financial institutions will continue to accommodate demand for Shariah compliant banking and investment services. As a growing and globalizing field, Islamic finance and the relation between Shariah compliant financial products and conventional financial products deserve more consideration as an area of law on the international stage. At the nexus between legal, financial, and religious issues, scholarly research in this area is ripe for development and presents an opportunity for cultural dialogue.
Corporate Real Estate Holdings and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

This paper explores the link between the composition of firm’s capital holdings and stock returns. I develop a general equilibrium production economy where firms use two factors, real estate capital and other capital, and investment is subject to asymmetric adjustment costs that make cutting the capital stock costlier than expanding it. Because real estate depreciates slowly, real estate investment is riskier than investment in other capital, and fi rms with high real estate holdings are extremely vulnerable to bad productivity shocks. In equilibrium, investors demand a premium to hold these firms. This prediction is supported empirically. I find that the returns of firms with a high share of real estate capital compared to other firms in their industry exceed that for low real estate firms by 3-6% annually, adjusted for exposures to the market return, size, value, and momentum factors. The model also predicts countercyclical variation in the aggregate share of real estate in total capital, which is a state variable in the model economy. A cross sectional investigation of the conditional CAPM, where the change in aggregate share of real estate in total capital is used as the conditioning variable, delivers substantially improved results over its unconditional version.
Four revolutions in physics and the second quantum revolution -- a unification of force and matter by quantum information

Newton’s mechanical revolution unifies the motion of planets in the sky and the falling of apples on Earth. Maxwell’s electromagnetic revolution unifies electricity, magnetism, and light. Einstein’...
Tailoring Legal Protection for Computer Software

It became evident by the mid-1970s that intellectual work embodied in new technologies-in particular, computer software-did not fit neatly within the traditional forms of legal protection for intellectual property.' Because of the complexity of these issues, Congress created the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) for the purpose of recommending a national policy that would provide adequate legal protection for the intellectual work embodied in new technologies while ensuring public access to those technologies.2 The Commission conducted hearings and received expert reports beginning in May 1976. On July 31, 1978, CONTU recommended that full copyright protection be extended to all forms of computer software.3 Congress implemented this recommendation in amendments to federal copyright law enacted in 1980.4 The computer industry has undergone dramatic change in the nine years since CONTU issued its recommendations.5 In 1978, fewer than 200,000 microcomputers (each costing more than $1000) were in use in the United States.6 By the end of 1986, this number had increased to
A Separate Peace? The Politics of Localized Law in the Post‐Revolutionary Era

Law is often seen as peripheral to Southern life before the Civil War, and the South as an outlier in the American legal history of that era. In The People and Their Peace (2009), Laura Edwards demonstrates the profoundly legal nature of Southern society and takes an important step toward integrating the legal history of the South with that of the nation. Edwards identifies two dueling legal cultures in North and South Carolina between 1787 and 1840—the law of local courts, which she terms localized law, and the state law of professionalized lawyers and reformers. She argues that white women, slaves, and the poor fared better in localized law—which was based on notions of popular sovereignty and the flexible rubric of restoring “the peace”—than in state courts, which were steeped in a national culture of individual rights that led to more restrictive results. This essay questions Edwards's dichotomy between local law and state law and her depiction of the popular content of localized law, while building on Edwards's innovations to suggest a new direction for Southern legal history.
The Founding of the French Third Republic

How France became a consolidated democracy after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 has received little attention from students of comparative democratization. Contrary to earlier structural theories, the French case shows that in periods of high social uncertainty, political elites with clear ideological visions of the future have a strategic advantage over their more “pragmatic” opponents. Clear and consistent ideologies can solve the collective action dilemma facing initial party activists by artificially elongating the time horizons of those who embrace them. Successful party ideologies have the character of self-fulfilling prophecies: By portraying the future polity as one serving the interests of those loyal to specific ideological principles, they help to bring political organizations centered on these principles into being. In the early Third Republic, ideologically consistent republicans and legitimists built effective networks of party activists, whereas ideologically inconsistent Orleanists and Bo...
Identifying Social Influence in Networks Using Randomized Experiments

The recent availability of massive amounts of networked data generated by email, instant messaging, mobile phone communications, micro blogs, and online social networks is enabling studies of population-level human interaction on scales orders of magnitude greater than what was previ ously possible.1'2 One important goal of applying statistical inference techniques to large networked datasets is to understand how behavioral conta gions spread in human social networks. More pre cisely, understanding how people influence or are influenced by their peers can help us understand the ebb and flow of market trends, product adoption and diffusion, the spread of health behaviors such as smoking and exercise, the productivity of information workers, and whether particular indi viduals in a social network have a disproportion ate amount of influence on the system.