cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Topological Learning for Brain Networks

This paper proposes a novel topological learning framework that can integrate networks of different sizes and topology through persistent homology. This is possible through the introduction of a new topological loss function that enables such challenging task. The use of the proposed loss function bypasses the intrinsic computational bottleneck associated with matching networks. We validate the method in extensive statistical simulations with ground truth to assess the effectiveness of the topological loss in discriminating networks with different topology. The method is further applied to a twin brain imaging study in determining if the brain network is genetically heritable. The challenge is in overlaying the topologically different functional brain networks obtained from the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) onto the template structural brain network obtained through the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
A fully stochastic second-order trust region method

A stochastic second-order trust region method is proposed, which can be viewed as an extension of the trust-region-ish (TRish) algorithm proposed by Curtis et al. [A stochastic trust region algorit...
Untargeted metabolomics reveals sugar and homocysteine dysregulations in prodromal AD

Abstract Introduction Altered metabolism may occur early in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We used untargeted high-resolution metabolomics in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to identify these alterations. Methods CSF from 92 normal controls and 93 MCI underwent untargeted metabolomics using high-resolution mass spectrometry with liquid chromatography. Partial least squares discriminant analysis was used followed by metabolite annotation and pathway enrichment analysis (PES). Significant features were correlated with disease phenotypes using spearman correlation. Results We identified 294 features differentially expressed between the 2 groups and 94 were annotated. PES showed that pathways related to sugar regulation (N-Glycan, p=0.0007; sialic acid, p=0.0014; Aminosugars, p=0.0042; galactose, p=0.0054) homocysteine regulation (p=0.0081) were differentially activated and significant features within these pathways correlated with disease phenotypes. Conclusion We identified a metabolic signature characterized by impairments in sugar and homocysteine regulation in prodromal AD. Targeting these changes may offer new therapeutic approaches to AD Research in Context Systematic review: The authors searched PUBMED and Google Scholar for previous reports of metabolomics and Alzheimer’s disease. Search Terms included: mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease “AND” metabolism, metabolomics. This search identified multiple small studies that have conducted untargeted metabolomics in AD. This search resulted in the following findings: Prior studies have either included small samples, used targeted approaches, or focused on plasma profiling. In this study, we conducted a case-control untargeted high resolution metabolomic study on the CSF of a larger sample of normal cognition and mild cognitive impairment. Interpretation: We discovered that pathways in sugar metabolism, homocysteine and tyrosine were dysregulated in AD. Further, features that were significantly different between MCI and normal cognition had different patterns of association with cognitive, neuroimaging and Amyloid and tau biomarkers. Future direction: These pathways offer new potential targets for AD Highlights Metabolic signature is detectable in prodromal AD Multiple sugar metabolism pathways are dysregulated in prodromal AD. S-adenosylmethionine is under- and S-adenosylhomocysteine is overexpressed in AD
Block rigidity: Strong multiplayer parallel repetition implies super-linear lower bounds for turing machines

We prove that a sufficiently strong parallel repetition theorem for a special case of multiplayer (multiprover) games implies super-linear lower bounds for multi-tape Turing machines with advice. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first connection between parallel repetition and lower bounds for time complexity and the first major potential implication of a parallel repetition theorem with more than two players. Along the way to proving this result, we define and initiate a study of block rigidity, a weakening of Valiant's notion of rigidity. While rigidity was originally defined for matrices, or, equivalently, for (multi-output) linear functions, we extend and study both rigidity and block rigidity for general (multi-output) functions. Using techniques of Paul, Pippenger, Szemeredi and Trotter, we show that a block-rigid function cannot be computed by multi-tape Turing machines that run in linear (or slightly super-linear) time, even in the non-uniform setting, where the machine gets an arbitrary advice tape. We then describe a class of multiplayer games, such that, a sufficiently strong parallel repetition theorem for that class of games implies an explicit block-rigid function. The games in that class have the following property that may be of independent interest: for every random string for the verifier (which, in particular, determines the vector of queries to the players), there is a unique correct answer for each of the players, and the verifier accepts if and only if all answers are correct. We refer to such games as independent games. The theorem that we need is that parallel repetition reduces the value of games in this class from $v$ to $v^{\Omega(n)}$, where $n$ is the number of repetitions. As another application of block rigidity, we show conditional size-depth tradeoffs for boolean circuits, where the gates compute arbitrary functions over large sets.
Frozen Mode in Three-Way Periodic Microstrip Coupled Waveguide

We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that a simple periodic fully planar three-way microstrip coupled waveguide exhibits a stationary inflection point (SIP). The SIP is a third-order exceptional point of degeneracy where three eigenmodes of the guiding system coalesce to form a stationary frozen mode with zero group velocity. Here, the frozen mode is shown in a reciprocal three-way waveguide supporting three modes in each direction. We illustrate the occurrence of the frozen mode regime by observing the dispersion diagram and by the coalescence parameter that is a measure of the separation of the three coalescing eigenvectors. Results based on full-wave simulations and measurements demonstrate the coalescence of three modes and how this coalescence is not perfect due to the presence of losses in the microstrip structure at 2 GHz. The coalescence parameter is used to determine how close the three-way system is to the ideal frozen mode condition.
Fine-grained Information Status Classification Using Discourse Context-Aware BERT.

Previous work on bridging anaphora recognition (Hou et al., 2013) casts the problem as a subtask of learning fine-grained information status (IS). However, these systems heavily depend on many hand-crafted linguistic features. In this paper, we propose a simple discourse context-aware BERT model for fine-grained IS classification. On the ISNotes corpus (Markert et al., 2012), our model achieves new state-of-the-art performances on fine-grained IS classification, obtaining a 4.8 absolute overall accuracy improvement compared to Hou et al. (2013). More importantly, we also show an improvement of 10.5 F1 points for bridging anaphora recognition without using any complex hand-crafted semantic features designed for capturing the bridging phenomenon. We further analyze the trained model and find that the most attended signals for each IS category correspond well to linguistic notions of information status.
Unified Multisensory Perception: Weakly-Supervised Audio-Visual Video Parsing

In this paper, we introduce a new problem, named audio-visual video parsing, which aims to parse a video into temporal event segments and label them as either audible, visible, or both. Such a problem is essential for a complete understanding of the scene depicted inside a video. To facilitate exploration, we collect a Look, Listen, and Parse (LLP) dataset to investigate audio-visual video parsing in a weakly-supervised manner. This task can be naturally formulated as a Multimodal Multiple Instance Learning (MMIL) problem. Concretely, we propose a novel hybrid attention network to explore unimodal and cross-modal temporal contexts simultaneously. We develop an attentive MMIL pooling method to adaptively explore useful audio and visual content from different temporal extent and modalities. Furthermore, we discover and mitigate modality bias and noisy label issues with an individual-guided learning mechanism and label smoothing technique, respectively. Experimental results show that the challenging audio-visual video parsing can be achieved even with only video-level weak labels. Our proposed framework can effectively leverage unimodal and cross-modal temporal contexts and alleviate modality bias and noisy labels problems.
Characterizing Stability Properties in Games with Strategic Substitutes

In games with strategic substitutes (GSS), convergence of the best response dynamic starting from the inf (or sup) of the strategy space is equivalent to global stability (convergence of every adaptive dynamic to the same pure strategy Nash equilibrium). Consequently, in GSS, global stability can be analyzed using a single best response dynamic. Moreover, in GSS, global stability is equivalent to dominance solvability, showing that in this class of games, two different foundations for robustness of predicted outcomes are equivalent, and both can be checked using a single best response dynamic. These equivalences are useful to study stability of equilibria in a variety of applications. Furthermore, in parameterized GSS, under natural conditions, dynamically stable equilibrium selections can be viewed in terms of monotone selections of equilibria. Several examples are provided.
Single osteoblast chemical sensor via non-invasive bio-electronic interface

The broad-spectrum sensitivity of cell based biosensors offers the capability for detecting known and unknown chemical/biological agents. One cellular parameter that is often measured is the extracellular potential of electrically active cells. Membrane excitability in osteoblasts plays a key role in modulating the electrical activity in the presence of chemical agents. However, the complexity of this signal makes interpretation of the cellular response to a chemical agent difficult to interpret. By analyzing shifts in the signal’s power spectrum, it is possible to determine a frequency spectrum also known as Signature Pattern Vectors (SPV) specific to a chemical. We used a 5x5 multiple microelectrode array system to spatially position osteoblast cells, by using a gradient AC field. Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) analyses were used to extract information pertaining to the frequency of firing from the extracellular potential.
Liquidity Management During the Covid-19 Pandemic*

Abstract With the help of the United States Government and committed funding from bank credit lines, the United States corporate sector responded to the Covid-19 cash flow shock by issuing long-term debt to increase cash holdings I use a case study, evidence from recent research, and a theoretical model to explain the logic behind the changes in corporate financial policy that happened during 2020, and to discuss the importance of United States Government policies to support the market for long-term debt I also point to open research questions about liquidity management, in particular questions that were highlighted by how companies reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic
Machine learning modeling and predictive control of nonlinear processes using noisy data

Author(s): Luo, Junwei | Advisor(s): Christofides, Panagiotis D | Abstract: This work focuses on applying machine learning modeling on predictive control of nonlinear processes with noisy data. We use long short-term memory (LSTM) networks with training data from sensor measurements corrupted by two types of noise: Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise, to train the process model that will be used in a model predictive controller (MPC). We first discuss the LSTM training with noisy data following a Gaussian distribution, and demonstrate that the standard LSTM network is capable of capturing the underlying process dynamic behavior by reducing the impact of noise. Subsequently, given that the standard LSTM performs poorly on a noisy dataset from industrial operation (i.e., non-Gaussian noisy data), we propose an LSTM network using Monte Carlo dropout method to reduce the overfitting to noisy data. Furthermore, an LSTM network using co-teaching training method is proposed to further improve its approximation performance when noise-free data from a process model capturing the nominal process state evolution is available. A chemical process example is used throughout the study to illustrate the application of the proposed modeling approaches and demonstrate their open- and closed-loop performance under a Lyapunov-based model predictive controller with state measurements corrupted by industrial noise.
Reforming Tariffs and Subsidies in International Trade

This paper analyzes unilateral and multilateral reform of ad valorem tariffs and subsidies. The paper shows that under substitutability, extensive subsidization of exports is required for an increase in the lowest tariff rate to raise economic welfare. The paper derives also conditions for when a radial reduction of ad valorem tariffs and subsidies may fail to raise economic welfare.
Dissecting the Two-Handed Lawyer: Thinking Versus Action in Business Lawyering

Business clients sometimes refer derogatorily to their 'two-handed' lawyers, implicitly distinguishing between the thinking that leads up to a decision and the decision itself. A 'two-handed lawyer' is one who can analyze a problem on one hand and on the other hand, but tosses the actual decision back to the client. The observation invokes something fundamental about objective information, subjective judgment making, and the commitment to action. 'Thinking like a lawyer' is a prototype of the rationally analytical mindset residing at one end of the mental continuum, and the entrepreneur’s impatience with allocating the risk of failure is a prototype of the commitment to action residing at the opposite end. If leaping is the metaphor for the business decision, then the systematic and dispassionate 'two-handed' assimilation of data through rational analysis – the lawyer’s stock in trade – plays a crucial role. The leaper uses that analysis to assess distances and capabilities. But the decision to leap is something quite different. The leaper’s subjective experience of the “aha” moment of a business decision (or any decision, even when made by lawyers) defies scientific reduction. It is really only accessible through the subjective lived experience of the decision-maker. Deciding is more like action than thought. In his iconic The Reflective Practitioner, the late Donald Schon criticized a mode of thinking he called Technical Rationality. Prototypical legal analysis is an exemplar of Schon’s Technical Rationality, applied methodically and systematically as a means of helping others to understand their circumstances and to optimize their positions in light of risk and uncertainty. Prototypical entrepreneurs and investors, however, are obliged to decide and to act. The mental process that leads to action is deeply subjective, personal, intuitive, and often ad hoc. Understanding that in difficult cases it is possible to offer as many reasons for as against the proposed action, the most effective business lawyers do not merely analyze and offer 'two-handed' alternatives. Instead, they put themselves in the position of the decider and understand what it means to take the leap of a business decision. This article is a reflection on the reasons for lawyerly 'two-handedness' and some preliminary thoughts on overcoming it. The affective toolkit for getting beyond rational analysis to action includes attributes such as epistemic humility, epistemic courage, self-awareness, and the willingness to accept responsibility for the consequences of one’s decisions. The practical toolkit will follow in another essay.
Strategic Timing and Dynamic Pricing for Online Resource Allocation

This paper optimizes dynamic pricing and real-time resource allocation policies for a platform facing nontransferable capacity, stochastic demand-capacity imbalances, and strategic customers with h...
The Role of Audit Firm Expertise and Knowledge Spillover in Mitigating Earnings Management through the Tax Accounts

ABSTRACT: Tax-related accounts are complex and often the last accounts finalized in the financial reporting process. Accordingly, these accounts can be used as a “last-chance” earnings management t...
The role of utility interdependence in public good experiments

A popular approach to explain over-contribution in public good games is based on the assumption that people care (either positively or negatively) about the utility of other participants. Over-contribution then is an outcome of utility maximization where utility depends on subjects’ own payoffs as well as on the payoffs of other players. In this paper, I study to what extent this assumption of utility interdependence is responsible for over-contribution. I design three treatments where subjects’ decisions cannot affect opponents’ payoffs and thus utility interdependence cannot explain cooperative behavior. The main result is that while average contribution in these treatments is below the benchmark it nonetheless stays well above zero. Even when no one benefits from subjects’ generosity the average contributions are as high as one third of the endowment and are only 25% below those in the benchmark level. This suggests that utility interdependence is not the main factor responsible for over-contribution.
Asymptotics of Smoothed Wasserstein Distances

We investigate contraction of the Wasserstein distances on $\mathbb {R}^{d}$ under Gaussian smoothing. It is well known that the heat semigroup is exponentially contractive with respect to the Wasserstein distances on manifolds of positive curvature; however, on flat Euclidean space—where the heat semigroup corresponds to smoothing the measures by Gaussian convolution—the situation is more subtle. We prove precise asymptotics for the 2-Wasserstein distance under the action of the Euclidean heat semigroup, and show that, in contrast to the positively curved case, the contraction rate is always polynomial, with exponent depending on the moment sequences of the measures. We establish similar results for the p-Wasserstein distances for p≠ 2 as well as the χ2 divergence, relative entropy, and total variation distance. Together, these results establish the central role of moment matching arguments in the analysis of measures smoothed by Gaussian convolution.
How Much Will Firms Pay for Earnings That Do Not Exist? Evidence of Taxes Paid on Allegedly Fraudulent Earnings

We analyze a sample of firms accused of fraudulently overstating their earnings and examine the extent, if any, to which they paid additional income taxes on the allegedly fraudulent earnings. Based on restatements of current tax expense adjusted for the tax benefits of stock options, the evidence indicates that many firms included the overstated financial accounting income on their tax returns, thus over- paying their taxes in the process of inflating their accounting earnings. We estimate that the median firm sacrificed eight cents in additional income taxes per dollar of inflated pretax earnings. In aggregate, we estimate that the firms in our sample paid $320 million in taxes on overstated earnings of about $3.36 billion. These results in- dicate how far managers of firms are willing to go when allegedly inflating earnings.
The paradox of Alypius and the pursuit of unwanted information

Abstract Prior work has found that people occasionally seek useless information, a violation of strict rationality. The present work examined whether and why curiosity can also cause individuals to seek predictably harmful information. In four studies, participants were given the opportunity to gain knowledge of questionable personal value. In each case, participants focused on their curiosity about the information and underweighted its consequences. As a result, participants tended to seek knowledge that they themselves believed they would be better off without. Consistent with Loewenstein’s [Loewenstein, G. (1996). Out of control: Visceral influences on behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 65, 272–292] analysis of visceral factors in decision making, these effects diminished with a time delay and when deciding whether to expose someone else to unpleasant information. These results shed light on a common yet paradoxical aspect of human behavior that presents a counterpoint to traditional hedonistic models of human motivation.
Perceptions of services

Much recent research has examined the differences between goods and services, but less empirical work has been done investigating differences among services. In this paper, we focus solely on services: through the use of multidimensional scaling, subjects' perceptions are used to infer dimensions that are relevant to consumers in differentiating consumer services. Subjects rated the similarity between pairs of a variety of services, which ranged from simple services to professional services. Attributes of services discussed in the literature assisted interpretation of the dimensions. We suggest several theoretical conclusions, as well as managerial and educational implications.
Economic Growth and Equity Returns

It is widely believed that economic growth is good for stockholders. However, the cross-country correlation of real stock returns and per capita GDP growth over 1900–2002 is negative. Economic growth occurs from high personal savings rates and increased labor force participation, and from technological change. If increases in capital and labor inputs go into new corporations, these do not boost the present value of dividends on existing corporations. Technological change does not increase profits unless firms have lasting monopolies, a condition that rarely occurs. Countries with high growth potential do not offer good equity investment opportunities unless valuations are low.
Activity-Based Costing for Economic Value Added

Economic value added, which is the currently popular term for the traditional accounting concept of residual income (RI), subtracts from operating income an interest charge for invested capital. This paper provides an activity-based cost system that supports RI maximization. We construct a model of participative budgeting for a multi-activity firm in which the cost system allocates plant and equipment cost to products using a formula that includes the interest charge. The budget system we design enables decision makers to identify RI-improving opportunities for outsourcing and dropping unprofitable products. The budget system also has the “open-architecture” property that additional informal communication among activity managers can only serve to increase RI.
The Global Governance of Communicable Diseases: The Case for Vaccine R&D*

Fighting communicable diseases such HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB, and malaria has become a global endeavor, with international health authorities urging the development of effective vaccines for the eradication of these global pandemics. Yet, despite the acknowledged urgency, and given the feasibility of effective vaccine development, public and private research efforts have failed to address a response adequate to the magnitude of the crisis. Members of the academic community suggest bridging this gap by devising research pull mechanisms capable of stimulating private investments, confident that competition-based market devices are more effective than public intervention in shaping scientific breakthroughs. With reference to the economics of innovation, the paper argues that, whilst such an approach would lead to a socially suboptimal production of knowledge, direct public intervention in vaccine R&D activities would represent a far more socially desirable policy option. In recognition of the current financial and political fatigue affecting the international community towards communicable disease control, the paper resorts to the theories of global public goods (GPGs) to provide governments, both in the North and in the South, with a powerful rationale for committing to a cooperative approach for vaccine R&D. The paper encourages the creation of a Global Health Research Fund to manage such exercise and proposes enshrining countries’ commitments into an International Health Treaty. The paper ends by providing a number of policy recommendations.
The Future of Civil Codes in France and Louisiana

This paper is the text of the 33rd Tucker Lecture delivered at the Louisiana State University Law Center in 2006. The author describes the French experience of codification not as imprisoning the judge in a strait-jacket as commonly believed in the U.S. but a safeguard of citizen’s rights, with provisions drafted in general terms, leaving much room for interpretation. Several examples prove that judicial activism is quite common in such systems, the generality of code provisions offering an easy alibi to judges acting as law-makers, much as the open-textured wording of the U.S. Constitution. Opening the scope of the reflection to the Louisiana civil law system and developing a comparison with the common law system, the paper addresses the future of civil codes in a multicultural world. Four points are made: firstly, codification, under different forms, is a predominant technique to harmonize the laws in mixed jurisdictions; secondly, a true code may bring homogeneity only if linguistic problems are properly taken into account; thirdly, comparative law should help identify principles common to diverse human societies and identify the underlying value; and fourthly, the civilian method of interpretation may be promoted, even outside civil law jurisdictions.
Feminism and International Law: An Opportunity for Transformation

In this essay, the author wants to outline briefly both some of the ways in which the assumptions and categories of international law can be damaging to women, and also some of the ways in which creative feminists could use international law to transform both international policy and the domestic political and legal discourse. In the wake of September 11, a robust feminist engagement with international law and policy is more urgent than ever before.
SMALL BANDWIDTH ASYMPTOTICS FOR DENSITY-WEIGHTED AVERAGE DERIVATIVES

This paper proposes (apparently) novel standard error formulas for the density-weighted average derivative estimator of Powell, Stock, and Stoker (Econometrica 57, 1989). Asymptotic validity of the standard errors developed in this paper does not require the use of higher-order kernels, and the standard errors are robust in the sense that they accommodate (but do not require) bandwidths that are smaller than those for which conventional standard errors are valid. Moreover, the results of a Monte Carlo experiment suggest that the finite sample coverage rates of confidence intervals constructed using the standard errors developed in this papercoincide (approximately) with the nominal coverage rates across a nontrivial range of bandwidths. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 A .
Fixing the Facts: Editing of the 1880 U.S. Census of Occupations with Implications for Long-Term Trends and the Sociology of Official Statistics

We argue that the enumerators' occupational returns from the important census of 1880 were heavily edited prior to publication. The effect was to substantially reduce the number of individuals reported with an occupation. For youthful and older males and all women the editing was so substantial as to qualitatively affect the apparent trend in labor force participation for these groups over time. The stylized facts regarding labor market dynamics during the period of American industrialization and the historical stories constructed around them will now need to be reexamined. We contend that the editing was secretly authorized by Francis Amasa Walker, Superintendent of the Tenth Census of 1880 and one of the most prominent and decorated economists, statisticians, and public servants in America at this time. While other scholars have identified potential sources of bias in census figures, no one has heretofore suggested that the official statistics of the United States were covertly altered to present a picture different from information collected by census enumerators. If we are correct, the sociology of official nineteenth-century American statistics will require rethinking.
Expert evidence on trial: Social researchers in the international criminal courtroom

Social researchers often feature as expert witnesses in international criminal trials, and they can exert a strong influence on a court's understandings of mass atrocities. Analysis of over 400 expert appearances shows that, overall, international judges prefer experts who use scientific methods, but when social researchers are called, courts favor qualitative researchers over quantitative ones. In two international speech-crimes trials, a language expert was preferred to a quantitative sociologist because the former did not challenge the sovereignty of judges or the status hierarchy of the courtroom. When excluding quantitative experts, judges cite “common sense” as the basis of facticity and knowledge. The prevailing epistemological framework at international criminal tribunals results from the knowledge strategies of legal actors operating in a structurally fragile context.
How do firms respond to empty creditor holdout in distressed exchanges

Abstract Empty creditors—bondholders hedged with Credit Default Swaps (CDSs)—face incentives to holdout from “Distressed Exchanges” (DEs) of debt because the CDS hedge alters their payoffs to favor bankruptcy. We show using detailed data on DEs that firms respond to this holdout problem by targeting junior bondholders who are more likely to tender than senior bondholders. Furthermore, we show that doing so allows them to successfully reduce debt through the DE and avoid bankruptcy. Our evidence underscores the importance of the firm's response to the holdout problem in understanding the role of empty creditors in distress resolution.
Modeling hedge fund lifetimes: A dependent competing risks framework with latent exit types

Abstract Due to the voluntary nature of hedge funds reporting to databases, hedge funds may stop reporting and exit a database not only because of failure, but also as a result of success and reaching the optimal size of assets under management. The existing hedge fund databases do not seem to provide reliable and unambiguous information on the reasons of hedge fund exits. In this paper, we consider that the causes of hedge fund exits are latent, and develop a competing risks model with two exit specific hazard functions, one for each cause of exit. We further allow both exit specific hazard functions to depend on unobserved heterogeneity terms that can be mutually dependent. In this way, we investigate the interdependence between the exit specific hazard functions, and explore their determinants. We show that even without observability on causes of exit, the two sets of coefficients, one for each cause of exit, can be estimated. We find an evidence of strong dependence between the unobserved heterogeneities. We also find that the estimated coefficients of the observed covariates are generally similar whether unobserved heterogeneities or the dependence between them is taken into account or not. However, the estimated exit specific hazard functions are significantly different, due to the standard negative duration dependence in the case of omitted heterogeneity.
Dynamic risk management

Abstract Both financing and risk management involve promises to pay that need to be collateralized, resulting in a financing versus risk management trade-off. We study this trade-off in a dynamic model of commodity price risk management and show that risk management is limited and that more financially constrained firms hedge less or not at all. We show that these predictions are consistent with the evidence using panel data for fuel price risk management by airlines. More constrained airlines hedge less both in the cross section and within airlines over time. Risk management drops substantially as airlines approach distress and recovers only slowly after airlines enter distress.
Court of Public Opinion: Government Accountability and Judicial Independence

Using a simple model of policy making in a system characterized by formal separation of powers, judicial dependence on government support, asymmetric information between voters and the government, and political accountability of the policy branch, I show conditions under which rational voters force the government to cede power over legislative decisions to the courts. Specifically, the public uses its ability to hold the elected branches of government accountable to enforce a judicial veto when judicial opposition to legislation provides more reliable information to voters than government support for legislation does. The model thus provides a theoretical justification for, and suggests important limits to, the common assumption that disregard for judicial decisions is politically costly for elected politicians. The model also demonstrates how other observed patterns in judicial politics--including judicial rubber-stamping of government decisions and government "passing the buck" to courts-can arise as equilibria in the same simple framework.
Behavioral Drivers of Routing Decisions: Evidence from Restaurant Table Assignment

We first theoretically identify the factors that may impact individuals’ routing decisions before empirically examining a large operational dataset in a casual restaurant setting. Analytical models have identified various routing algorithms for service operations management. Although each model may offer advantages over others, they all make a key assumption ‐ decision makers will actually follow the algorithms, if implemented. However, in many settings routing is not done by a computer that is programmed, but instead by a human. People make routing decisions at their own discretion which may hurt or help system performance. We analyze granular transaction data to examine how hosts revise a given routing rule when seating customers. Thereafter, we empirically analyze the effect of the dispersion of table assignments on restaurant performance, and estimate the counterfactual sales impact of adopting an alternative routing priority. Our setting instructs its hosts to follow a round‐robin rule to assign tasks because it ensures fairness and smooths work flow. We find that hosts assign more incoming parties than the round‐robin rule suggests to those waiters who have low contemporaneous workload or high speed skills. The prioritization of high speed skill waiters increases with higher levels of demand. In addition, we show an inverted‐U‐shaped relationship between the inequality of table assignments (measured in terms of the Gini Coefficient of the numbers of tables assigned to each waiter during the same hour) and total sales. Our results suggest that properly adjusting the round‐robin rule is productive; however, too much deviation lowers performance. Our paper empirically highlights the value of routing decisions and front‐line personnel, such as the hosts in our context.
Fractional matching markets

Abstract I take a decentralized approach to fractional matching with and without money. For the model with money I define and show the existence of competitive equilibria. For the model without money, while competitive equilibria may not exist, I define a version of approximate equilibrium and show existence. From a welfare standpoint, I show that equilibrium allocations are in the core. Similarly, approximate equilibrium allocations are in the approximate version of the core.
Exact aggregation of consumer demand systems

Abstract This paper is divided into two parts which deal with closely connected issues. The first section of the paper explores the structure of consumer demand systems necessary and sufficient for exact aggregation. The second section addresses a related empirical question: what, if anything, do the restrictions imposed on exactly aggregable demand systems buy the econometrician engaged in estimating integrable consumer demands? In particular, if the objective of an empirical exercise is to estimate the demand systems of individual utility maximizing consumers and only aggregate expenditure information and information on the income and demographic composition of the population are available, then under what conditions can the parameters of the estimated aggregate expenditure system be used to uniquely identify the parameters of the underlying individual demand systems?
Philosophy and the practice of Bayesian statistics

A substantial school in the philosophy of science identies Bayesian inference with inductive inference and even rationality as such, and seems to be strengthened by the rise and practical success of Bayesian statistics. We argue that the most successful forms of Bayesian statistics do not actually support that particular philosophy but rather accord much better with sophisticated forms of hypothetico-deductivism. We examine the actual role played by prior distributions in Bayesian models, and the crucial aspects of model checking and model revision, which fall outside the scope of Bayesian
Considering Supply Chain Management's Professional Identity: The Beautiful Discipline (Or, “We Don't Cure Cancer, But We Do Make a Big Difference”)

In recent months, we have participated in various discussions on the future of logistics and supply chain management (SCM). As the newest business discipline, it is not surprising that SCM is going through growing pains and seeking to chart its future course and define a meaningful destiny. Considering professional identity—that is, who are we and what do we do—is a natural part of maturation. As JBL exists to help construct the discipline's identity, we address SCM's value-creation competence as a source of identity construction. As we explain, SCM's economic and social contributions are not just noteworthy but remarkable. Modern SCM makes a difference to the people of the world, driving economic growth and raising living standards. Truly, it is a good time to be a supply chain professional. Much research, however, needs to be conducted if we are to fulfill SCM's value-creation promise.
Income inequality: the aftermath of stock market liberalization in emerging markets

Abstract Early research has documented that the large-scale equity market liberalizations of the last decade led the subsequent rise in aggregate equity indices, investment booms, capital flows and economic growth. An important and unaddressed issue is the normative question of whether and how these reforms shifted the distribution of incomes in the aftermath of equity market liberalization. In careful empirical analysis, we find a pattern indicating that income share growth accrued almost wholly to the top quintile of the income distribution at the expense of a “middle class” that we define as the three middle quintiles of the income distribution. A surprising finding is that the lowest income share remained effectively unchanged in the event of liberalization. These patterns are robust to the inclusion of a wide variety of controls for global shocks, country-specific factors, and contemporaneously implemented privatization and stabilization policies.
Form of Compensation and Managerial Decision Horizon

This paper investigates the relation between the form of compensation and the manager's decision horizon. It finds that while all-cash contracts induce managers to underinvest in the long term, all-stock contracts induce overinvestment in the long term. It shows that compensation contracts consisting of both cash and restricted stock can produce efficient investment, thereby providing a rationale for the existence of both cash and stock incentive schemes in executive compensation packages. This explains why the adoption of either type of incentive scheme results in a positive stock price reaction. In addition, the paper derives the following testable hypotheses: i) the proportion of the stock compensation is decreasing in the precision of the manager's ability and increasing in the precision of the firm's cash flows; ii) firms compensate their managers with proportionately more stock in profitable years and proportionately more cash in leaner years; and iii) the greater the growth opportunities, the higher the proportion of stock compensation.
Knot traces and concordance

We give a method for constructing many pairs of distinct knots K0 and K1 such that the two 4-manifolds obtained by attaching a 2-handle to B4 along Ki with framing zero are diffeomorphic. We use the d-invariants of Heegaard Floer homology to obstruct the smooth concordance of some of these K0 and K1, thereby disproving a conjecture of Abe. As a consequence, we obtain a proof that there exist patterns P in solid tori such that P(K) is not always concordant to P(U)#K and yet whose action on the smooth concordance group is invertible.
Habit persistence and durability in aggregate consumption: Empirical tests

Abstract Habit persistence in preferences and durability of consumption goods both imply time-nonseparability in the derived utility for consumption expenditures. We study a simple model with both effects. Lagged consumption expenditures enter the Euler equation, where habit persistence implies that their coefficients are negative and durability implies positive coefficients. Estimating the sign of the coefficients addresses the question of which effect is dominant. Earlier empirical work on monthly data supports the durability of consumption expenditures. We find evidence in monthly, quarterly, and annual data that habit persistence dominates the effect of durability.
Understanding the prevalence and implications of homeowner money illusion

Abstract Money illusion, the tendency to favor nominal values over more economically relevant real values, is argued to be the source of real estate bubbles causing unnecessary instability in the economy. We examine the existence of money illusion in a residential real estate setting as well as its implications for forming future price expectations and subsequent home purchase and mortgage selection decisions. We find that while money illusion is quite prevalent, it can be mitigated by presenting an analysis in economic, as opposed to affective, terms.
Galilean Reflections on Milton Friedman’s "Methodology of Positive Economics", with Thoughts on Vernon Smith’s "Economics in the Laboratory"

The article examines in detail the argument of M. Friedman as expressed in his famous article «Methodology of Positive Economics». In considering the problem of interconnection of theoretical hypotheses with experimental evidence the author illustrates his thesis using the history of the Galilean law of free fall and its role in the development of theoretical physics. He also draws upon methodological ideas of the founder of experimental economics and Nobel prize winner V. Smith.
Symmetric Entrenchment: A Constitutional and Normative Theory

In this article, we defend the traditional rule that legislative entrenchment, the practice by which a legislature insulates ordinary statutes from repeal by a subsequent legislature, is both unconstitutional and normatively undesirable. A recent essay by Professors Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule disputes this rule against legislative entrenchment and provides the occasion for our review of the issue. First, we argue that legislative entrenchment is unconstitutional, offering the first comprehensive defense of the proposition that the original meaning of the Constitution prohibits legislative entrenchments. We show that a combination of textual, historical, and structural arguments make a very compelling case against the constitutionality of legislative entrenchment. In particular, the Framers incorporated into the Constitution the traditional Anglo-American practice against legislative entrenchment, as evidenced by early comments by James Madison comments that have not been previously discussed in this context. Moreover, legislative entrenchment essentially would allow Congress to use majority rule to pass constitutional amendments. On the normative issue, we offer a new theory of the appropriate scope of entrenchment: the theory of symmetric entrenchment. Under our theory, there is a strong presumption that only symmetric entrenchments entrenchments that are enacted under the same supermajority rule that is needed to repeal them are desirable. The presumption helps to distinguish desirable entrenchments that would improve upon government decisions from undesirable ones that simply involve legislatures protecting their existing preferences against future repeal. To be desirable entrenchments must generally be symmetric, because the supermajority rule that is applied to the enactment of entrenched measures would improve the quality of these measures and therefore compensate for the additional dangers that entrenchments pose. This theory steers a middle path between a strict majoritarian position, which would prohibit all legislative entrenchments, and a position that would allow legislative majorities to entrench measures.
Lay Judgments About Child Custody After Divorce

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people’s judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, AZ. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers’ groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today’s court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem.