cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Drinking from a Deep Well: The Public Trust Doctrine and Western Water Law

American water law reflects the diverse geography and population patterns of our country. The arid western states provide fertile ground to consider the burdens of a rapidly growing region on scarce water resources. This Article's thesis is that the public trust doctrine is being underutilized by those western states to address their water scarcity dilemma. I recommend extending the geographical scope of the public trust doctrine to encompass all bodies of water that serve the public welfare, even minimally. In the Article, I compare an expanded public trust doctrine against a more aggressive application of the prior appropriation doctrine. I discuss why the prior appropriation doctrine and its commodification of water rights is a lesser alternative to rethinking the public trust doctrine. Additionally, I discuss the problem of vested rights and takings challenges that may arise in the wake of an expanded public trust concept. I use the recent United States Supreme Court case Kelo v. Town of New London to illustrate the similarities between the Court's "traditionally broad understanding of public purpose" in the context of takings jurisprudence and the historically dynamic nature of the public trust doctrine. My Article explores the proper role of the public trust doctrine in responding to historic mistakes in this country's approach to water use and conservation in the arid west.
The Federalist Dimension of Regulatory Takings Jurisprudence

Conventional wisdom teaches that the Supreme Court's takings doctrine is a muddle. Appearances, however, are deceiving. The "property" protected by the Takings Clause is defined not by a single sovereign, but by the legislative enactments and judicial pronouncements of fifty separate states. As a result, federalism concerns - underappreciated in the takings literature - do and should play an important role in shaping the Court's takings doctrine. In particular, these concerns make it inappropriate for the Court to use the Takings Clause as a vehicle for articulating a comprehensive theory of the limits on government power to regulate land. This Article focuses on the ways in which federalism concerns (together with related institutional concerns) shape takings jurisprudence.
Technology Diffusion through Trade with Heterogeneous Firms

I investigate the long-run implications of trade and technology diffusion through trade, when firms are heterogeneous and trade is costly. This paper integrates firm heterogeneity and trade into a product innovation growth model from endogenous growth theory. I find that although exposure to trade increases average productivity, it has an ambiguous effect on economic growth and consumer welfare.
Reference Dependence and Conjoint Analysis

Although there is enormous evidence that reference levels influence preferences, conjoint models, one of the most successful marketing research tools, assume that preferences depend on the absolute levels of attributes. In this paper we investigate the relevance of reference effects in two settings, compositional or self-explicated models in experimental studies 1 and 2, and decompositional or choice-based models in experimental study 3. In particular, we introduce a simple modification of the traditional self-explicated conjoint model which permits dependence of preference on reference levels. By eliciting gains and losses from expectations the model is adaptable to changes in respondents' reference points, which the traditional model is incapable of. Reference options are found to clearly affect subject choices in studies 1 and 2. In addition, the reference dependent self-explicated model is found to offer useful predictions when reference points are manipulated in study 1, and improve on predictions of its traditional counterpart when reference points are measured in study 2. In contrast, in study 3, the choice-based model’s diagnostics and predictions are found to be robust to reference point manipulations. Taken together, these results suggest that the self-explicated model is more suited than the choice-based model to understanding and predicting how respondents make judgments relative to reference points because reference points and gains and losses from reference levels are more salient in the self-explicated model. We discuss implications for managers constructing conjoint models in product-market settings wherein reference points are changing due to new product introductions or marketing efforts.
Adverse Selection in ACA Exchange Markets: Evidence from Colorado

This study tests for adverse selection in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance exchanges established in 2014 and quantifies the welfare consequences. Using a new statewide dataset of medical claims from Colorado, I use plausibly exogenous premium variation generated by geographic discontinuities to test for selection. Specifically, each $1 increase in monthly premiums causes a $0.85–0.95 increase in annual medical expenditures of the insured population in 2014, with attenuated effects in 2015. These estimates are consistent with the prevalence of chronic conditions and difference-in-differences estimates. The results offer the first quasi-experimental evidence of adverse selection in the ACA markets.
Making Diplomacy Work: Coercion and Conciliation in the First North Korean Nuclear Crisis

When is a two-track policy approach of coercion and conciliation more or less likely to achieve its target objective? The first North Korean nuclear crisis of 1993–94 reveals that a U.S. policy approach combining coercive and conciliatory diplomacy contributed to near-term U.S. policy objectives when conciliation was offered to North Korea in order to signal benign intent. This case also reveals two additional conditions that can hinder a two-track policy from achieving its policy aims: shifting how the objectives of coercive signals and actions are prioritized throughout the course of a crisis, and relying on international institutions and foreign governments for the implementation of a two-track policy.
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act: Making Consumer Product Warranty a Federal Case

On July 4, 1975, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act went into effect. A supporter described the Act as "one of the most important pieces of consumer protection legislation considered by the Congress since the Federal Trade Commission Act itself was passed in 1914." This characterization should not be dismissed as mere partisan rhetoric. The Act will have a significant effect on the respective rights and responsibilities of those who buy, sell, and manufacture consumer products. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act represents the first comprehensive attempt to deal with the issue of consumer product warranties on the federal level, but its scope is ill-defined and its relationship to existing state law remains perplexing despite protracted efforts at explication. In addition, since the Act does not compel the use of written warranties or require that those offered meet standards of a "full" warranty, the whole enterprise relies heavily on competitive pressure. Success is possible only if economic forces are sufficient to dissuade manufacturers and retailers from reducing their use of written warranties in the face of tightened controls or abandoning "full" warranties in favor of "limited" coverage. In the end, however, the combination of toughened disclosure standards, increased regulation of warranty content, and improved remedial mechanisms may overcome the shortcomings of the Act. This Article will examine the provisions of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, with particular emphasis on its interaction with existing state warranty law.
Do Firms Use Tax Reserves to Meet Analysts' Forecasts? Evidence from the Pre- and Post- FIN 48 Periods.

We examine whether firms decrease tax reserves to meet analysts' quarterly earnings forecasts in the period prior to FIN 48, and whether that behavior changed following FIN 48. We use analysts' forecasts of pretax and after-tax income to impute premanaged earnings, or earnings before any tax manipulation. Pre- FIN 48, we observe that firms reduce their tax reserves (i.e., increase income) when premanaged earnings are below analysts' forecasts. Specifically, 78 percent of firm-quarters that would have missed the analyst forecast if not for the tax reserve decrease, meet that target when the decrease is included. Furthermore, we find a significant positive association between the decrease in tax reserves and the deviation of premanaged earnings from analysts' forecasts. In contrast, post- FIN 48, we find no evidence that firms use changes in tax reserves to manage earnings to meet analysts' forecasts. Thus, our results suggest that FIN 48 has, at least initially, curtailed firms' use of tax reserves to manage earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
A Model of an Optimum Currency Area

This paper develops a model of the circumstances under which it is beneficial to participate in a currency area. The proposed two-country monetary model of trade with nominal rigidities encompasses the real and monetary arguments suggested by the optimum currency area literature: correlation of real and monetary shocks, international factor mobility, fiscal adjustment, openness, difference in national inflationary biases, and transactions costs. The effect of openness on the net benefits is ambiguous, contrary to the usual argument that more open economies are better candidates for a currency area. Also, prospective member countries do not necessarily agree on whether a given currency union should be created.
Substituted judgment, best interests, and the need for best respect.

Perhaps the most troublesome medical decisionmaking cases facing state courts concern serious healthcare decisions involving patients with severe or profound retardation. The courts who face this issue encounter a difficult dilemma. A decision to terminate a medical treatment of a dependent, vulnerable person requires considerable solicitude. Allowing a helpless person to die sooner than is medically possible directly conflicts with that person's most basic right – the right to live. However, continuing treatment in the face of terminal illness may not only prolong but also increase intense mental and physical suffering. Perpetuating near torture in the name of protecting a person's life may be equally worrisome.
Kyiv's Nontraditional Immigrants

Two American specialists, one on urban issues and the other on Ukraine, examine the changing character of migration into Kyiv, Ukraine's capital and largest city, during the post-Soviet period. The analysis, based on field work, interviews, and local media sources, demonstrates the increasingly global character of immigration patterns, characterized by changes in points of origin of incoming migrants, percentage of legal versus illegal immigrants, the mix between temporary and permanent migration, motives for relocatipn, and mode of entry, impacts of the new wave of immigration on Ukrainian tolerance for foreigners and on the operation of neighborhood schools in Kyiv are investigated. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I20, J61, O15. 46 references.
Acquisition profitability and timely loss recognition

Abstract We investigate if timely loss recognition is associated with acquisition-investment decisions. Using a Basu (1997) piece-wise linear regression model, we find that firms with more timely incorporation of economic losses into earnings make more profitable acquisitions, measured by the bidder's announcement returns and by changes in post-acquisition operating performance. These firms are also less likely to make post-acquisition divestitures (consistent with better ex ante investment decisions), but act more quickly to divest. We also find that the positive association between timely loss recognition and acquisition profitability is more pronounced for firms with higher ex ante agency costs.
Autonomy and Morality in DRM and Anti-Circumvention Law

Digital rights management technology, or DRM, provides self-enforcing technical exclusion from pre-determined uses of informational works. Such technical exclusion may supplement or even supplant intellectual property laws. The deployment of DRM has been subsidized by laws prohibiting both disabling of technical controls and assisting others to disable technical controls. To date the public debate over deployment of DRM, has been almost entirely dominated by utilitarian arguments regarding the social costs and benefits of this technology. In this paper, we examine the moral propriety of laws endorsing and encouraging the deployment of DRM. We argue that a deontological analysis, focusing on the autonomy of information users, deserves consideration. Because DRM shifts the determination of information use from users to producers, users are denied the choice whether to engage in use or misuse of the technically protected work. State sponsorship of DRM in effect treats information users as moral incompetents, incapable of deciding the proper use of information products. This analysis militates in favor of legal penalties that recognize and encourage the exercise of autonomous choice, even by punishment of blameworthy choices, rather than the encouragement of technology that limits the autonomous choices of information users.
A Theory of Current Account and Exchange Rate Determinations

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to construct a two-period, two-country model that derives the current account, the exchange rate, the terms of trade, and real interest rates from optimal behavior principles. This is done by constructing a model that uses money mainly as a means of exchange, where the technology of exchange is flexible due to potential substitutability of time and real balances as a means of coordinating transactions. The discussion results in a framework that integrates elements of net saving theories and the monetary approach into a unified structure, in which the two approaches are complementary viewpoints.
Bank deregulation, accounting systems of exchange, and the unit of account: A critical review

This paper reviews a specific group of recent publications by Black, Fama, Hall, and Greenfield and Yeager that (i) encourage the relaxation of government controls on the banking industry, (ii) emphasize the possibility of an economy in which most transactions are carried out through an accounting system rather than any tangible medium of exchange, and (iii)suggest that improved monetary performance could be induced by separating the unit of account from the medium of exchange.The main substantive conclusions are as follows. First, a system with an unregulated banking sector and a government-issued currency would be viable and might reduce inefficiencies resulting from reserve requirements, a point that has been recognized by neoclassical monetary economists.The second main class of systems discussed in the reviewed papers -- one with a composite-commodity medium of account and no convertibility provision -- is quite different. If there were literally no medium of exchange, the non-coercive government designation of the unit of account would encounter no inconsistency but would be extremely fragile. More realistically, with some circulating private currency the latter would tend to become the medium of account as well as the medium of exchange and would tend to be issued in excess, thereby separating the unit of account from the officially-designated bundle of commodities. Several conclusions regarding analytical approach are also developed.
Foreign Policy and the Chinese Constitutions During the Hu Jintao Administration

This Article is a close examination of how China’s dual constitution system—that is, the nexus of governing power as outlined between the State Constitution and the Communist Party Constitution—provides both jurisdictional and substantive guidance to Chinese foreign policy makers. It especially focuses on the Hu Jintao administration (2002–2012) as the foremost example of grounding foreign policy in the dual constitutions of China. With the success of the Hu administration, the Chinese constitutional law of foreign policy has become theoretically a unique extraterritorial projection of “the rule of law with Chinese characteristics,” with room for future development by both liberals and realists. Part I of this Article begins by introducing the jurisdictional and substantive bases of the Chinese constitutional law of foreign policy. Part II sets out the specific contributions of the Hu Administration, and explains the linkage between the Scientific Development Outlook, the Socialist Harmonious Society platform, and the Peaceful Development strategy. Part III posits how the Chinese constitutions may have informed foreign policy decision-making regarding some of the biggest challenges of the Hu Jintao era. Finally, this Article predicts that the principal constitutional challenge that China will face in the foreseeable future is securing the vast amount of resources it needs to maintain its domestic development while maintaining harmonious relations with the rest of the developing world.
An Intertemporal Equilibrium Beta Pricing Model

implications of this model under various restrictions on investor preferences and on the dynamic behavior ofdividends. We describe conditions under which the econometric techniques typically usedfor estimating and testing the APT can be shown to be consistent with our economic model. We relate our intertemporal version of the APT to the static APT and to Merton's intertemporal capital asset pricing model. We develop an intertemporal, discrete-time, competitive equilibrium version of Ross's arbitrage pricing theory (APT) and discuss the econometric content of this model under various restrictions on investor preferences and on the multivariate stochastic process determining dividends. We also discuss the distinctions between this model, the static APT, and the intertemporal capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) of Merton (1973). The key distinction from the static APT is that corporate dividends, rather than equity returns, are assumed to obey an approximate factor model. The factor model on equity returns as well as the APT restriction on asset expected returns is derived endogenously.
Who Wants to Privatize Social Security? Understanding Why the Poor Are Wary of Private Accounts

The poor are less likely than others to support the privatization of Social Security. What accounts for this income-based difference in public opinion? This article uses a new survey to explore attitudes toward privatization. The poor tend to believe the government will manage Social Security responsibly, expect that they will rely on Social Security as a primary source of income, and prefer to keep their money in the current system rather than save or invest it. Together, these expectations and beliefs explain much of the income gap in support of privatization.
Public perception of the risks of floods: implications for communication.

Floods in the U.S. kill an average of 162 people each year and cause $3.4 billion in property damage. Flood control programs have been successful in lowering, but not eliminating, the risks to lives and property. Since the late 1960s, the federal government has emphasized flood insurance as a primary tool for improving location and flood-proofing decisions, as well as for reimbursing flood losses. Since only 12.7% of houses in flood plain areas are covered by flood insurance, the program has been ineffective. We interviewed people living in three communities that had recently been flooded. Most people had little knowledge of the cause of floods or what could be done to prevent damage. People who work and who are better educated know more and are more likely to have flood insurance. Current government publications about flood risks are not likely to be understood by those at risk. There is little effective communication about the nature and magnitude of the risks and what individuals can do to protect their lives and property and lower their financial risks. The risk management program should both emphasize communication and enforcement of the current law requiring people at risk who hold federally funded loans to be insured.
Evidence of the effect of trust building technology in electronic markets: price premiums and buyer behavior

Despite the wide use of reputational mechanisms such as eBay's Feedback Forum to promote trust, empirical studies have shown conflicting results as to whether online feedback mechanisms induce trust and lead to higher auction prices. This study examines the extent to which trust can be induced by proper feedback mechanisms in electronic markets, and how some risk factors play a role in trust formation. Drawing from economic, sociological, and marketing theories and using data from both an online experiment and an online auction market, we demonstrate that appropriate feedback mechanisms can induce calculus-based credibility trust without repeated interactions between two transacting parties. Trust can mitigate information asymmetry by reducing transaction-specific risks, therefore generating price premiums for reputable sellers. In addition, the research also examines the role that trust plays in mitigating the risks inherent in transactions that involve very expensive products.
Deliberation, Responsibility, and Excusing Mistakes of Law

In ‘Excusing Mistakes of Law’, Gideon Yaffe sets out to ‘vindicate’ the claim ‘that mistakes of law never excuse’ by ‘identifying the truth that is groped for but not grasped by those who assert that ignorance of law is no excuse’.1 Yaffe does not offer a defence of the claim that mistakes of law never excuse. that claim, Yaffe argues, is false. Yaffe’s article is, rather, an effort to assess what plausible thought might be behind the idea that mistakes of law often should not excuse. (Yaffe is interested in more than just the descriptive claim that in Anglo-American legal jurisdictions mistakes of law routinely do not, in fact, excuse.) More particularly, Yaffe is interested in what plausible normative justification there might be for this asymmetric pattern:
EXCHANGE RATE EXPOSURE

Abstract In this paper we examine the relationship between exchange rate movements and firm value. We estimate the exchange rate exposure of publicly listed firms in a sample of eight (non-US) industrialized and emerging markets. We find that exchange rate movements do matter for a significant fraction of firms, though which firms are affected and the direction of exposure depends on the specific exchange rate and varies over time, suggesting that firms dynamically adjust their behavior in response to exchange rate risk. Exposure is correlated with firm size, multinational status, foreign sales, international assets, and competitiveness and trade at the industry level.
Evaluating Behaviorally Motivated Policy: Experimental Evidence from the Lightbulb Market †

Imperfect information and inattention to energy costs are important potential motivations for energy efficiency standards and subsidies. We evaluate these motivations in the lightbulb market using a theoretical model and two randomized experiments. We derive welfare effects as functions of reduced-form sufficient statistics capturing economic and psychological parameters, which we estimate using a novel within-subject information disclosure experiment. The main results suggest that moderate subsidies for energy-efficient lightbulbs may increase welfare, but informational and attentional biases alone do not justify a ban on incandescent lightbulbs. Our results and techniques generate broader methodological insights into welfare analysis with misoptimizing consumers. (JEL D12, D83, H21, H31, L67, Q41, Q48) A fundamental assumption in traditional policy analysis is that people’s choices identify their true preferences. In practice, however, many policies are at least partially predicated on the idea that consumers’ choices may not maximize their own welfare. Examples include consumer financial protection, taxes and bans on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and unhealthy foods, and subsidies and mandates for energy-efficient products. To evaluate such policies, it is necessary to extend traditional public finance analysis to allow for the possibility of consumer mistakes and to design empirical strategies that identify the necessary economic and psychological parameters. This paper carries this out in the context of energy efficiency policy.
Not so cheap talk: a model of advice with communication costs

We model an interaction between an informed sender and uninformed receiver, as in the relationship between academic advisor and advisee. Like the classic cheap talk setup, the informed player sends information to an uninformed receiver who is to take an action which affects the payoffs of both players. However, unlike the classic cheap talk setup, the sender incurs a communication cost which is increasing in the complexity of the message sent. We characterize the resulting equilibria. Under an additional out-of-equilibrium condition (Condition L), if preferences for the receiver's actions are identical then the only equilibria are the most informative, feasible ones. A similar result appears in Chen, Kartik and Sobel (2008) when their No Incentive to Separate (NITS) condition is applied to the case where communication is costless but preferences diverge. When the preferences between players diverge and when there are communication costs, we show that Condition L does not guarantee uniqueness and we provide an example where an increase in communication costs can improve communication.
Apparent Dichotomies, Covert Similarities: A Response to Joost Pauwelyn

In his thoughtful article,1 Joost Pauwelyn poses a perplexing question: How can it be that trade and investment are converging in their substantive “legal orders,” but diverging in terms of perceived legitimacy? InvestorState Dispute Settlement (ISDS), he argues, is in a “state of crisis” whereas World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement is generally regarded as “successful.” Pauwelyn’s provocative and counter-intuitive explanation for this paradox focuses on the apparent differences between the pool of decision-makers in each regime: WTO disputes are resolved by nameless, faceless, panel-inexperienced bureaucrats who often lack legal training, whereas “investment arbitrators are typically high-powered, elite jurists” with more expertise and experience than their WTO counterparts.2 From this starting premise, Pauwelyn offers the (for some) appealing hypothesis that international legal regimes might be more effective and successful without lawyers—a rule of law without lawyers! For those who revel in lawyer jokes, this thesis may seem like a fantastic punch-line. But deeper investigation of the underlying data and structures of WTO dispute resolution and ISDS suggests we should not yet kill all the lawyers. In this essay, I challenge some of Pauwelyn’s characterizations of WTO and ISDS decision-making and his related conclusions. I then offer alternative possible explanations for the legitimacy gap between WTO and ISDS decision-making, and conclude with some reasons why lawyers and legal expertise are essential attributes for the adjudicators we entrust with development of an international rule of law.
Transfers of Governmental Power: The Meaning of Time Dependence

King, Alt, Burns, and Laver (1990) proposed and estimated a unified model in which cabinet durations depended on seven explanatory variables reflecting features of the cabinets and the bargaining environments in which they formed, along with a stochastic component in which the risk of a cabinet falling was treated as a constant across its tenure. Two recent research reports take issue with one aspect of this model. Warwick and Easton replicate the earlier findings for explanatory variables but claim that the stochastic risk should be seen as rising, and at a rate which varies, across the life of a cabinet. Bienen and van de Walle, using data on the duration of leaders, allege that random risk is falling. We continue in our goal of unifying this literature by providing further estimates with both cabinet and leader duration data that confirm the original explanatory variables' effects, showing that leaders' durations are affected by many of the same factors that affect the durability of the cabinets they l...
The Cost of Financing Education: Can Student Debt Hinder Entrepreneurship?

We find that student debt is negatively related to the propensity to start a firm, particularly larger and more successful ventures. An exogenous change due to the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, which made student debt completely nondischargeable through personal bankruptcy, reduced the likelihood of entrepreneurship by student loan borrowers that were already in four-year college at the time of this regulation. Moreover, an exogenous shock to the level of student debt due to the Higher Education Amendments of 1992 negatively impacts entrepreneurship rates for students already in four-year college at the time of this regulation. Entrepreneurs with more student debt are more likely to fall behind on their student debt payments, and this relation is mitigated when their ventures are successful. Our evidence indicates that student debt inhibits entrepreneurship by exacerbating the effect of negative business outcomes on the individual. Data and the internet appendix are available at https://doi.org/10....
Experiences with Macroprudential Policy — Five Case Studies

This paper presents case studies of macroprudential policy in five jurisdictions (Hong Kong SAR, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and Sweden). The case studies describe the institutional framework, its evolution, the use of macroprudential tools, and the circumstances under which the tools have been used. The paper shows how macroprudential policy is conducted under a heterogeneous set of institutional frameworks. In all cases, macroprudential tools have been used to address risks in the housing market. In addition, some of them have moved to enhance the resilience of their banks to more general cyclical and structural risks.
The Use of Full-Line Forcing Contracts in the Video Rental Industry †

Bundling is at the forefront of many policy debates as new technologies allow firms to implement more complex bundling arrangements. Realistic analyses of bundling—particularly between suppliers and retailers—require detailed data on both supply arrangements and consumer demand. We analyze firms’ use of bundling as a vertical restraint (known as full-line forcing) using extensive supply and demand data from the video rental industry. Our model captures key details of the market that determine firms’ contractual choices, and sheds light on the implications of these decisions. The empirical approach provides a model for how to analyze bundling when detailed data are available. (JEL D86, L14, L81, L82)
Political Failure, Judicial Opportunity: The Supreme Court of Canada and Aboriginal and Treaty Rights

What role do courts play in public policymaking? This article finds that the Supreme Court of Canada revitalized the making of Aboriginal and treaty rights policy from 1990 to 2007. It offers an explanation of the Court’s engagement in this area and suggests that the standard Charter narrative about court power does not explain fully the role of the Court in Aboriginal and treaty rights policymaking. The account highlights how politics affect the Court and how the Court affects politics. The Court emerged as a significant and influential player in policymaking as the political process failed to accommodate Aboriginal and treaty rights, Aboriginal peoples mobilized legally, and the institutional power of the Court grew. The article’s emphasis on political failure provides a more nuanced view of the Court and how it exercises power vis-a-vis political elites and interest groups.
Acceptance sampling, imperfect production, and the optimality of zero defects

Acceptance sampling is often used to monitor the quality of raw materials and components when product testing is destructive, time-consuming, or expensive. In this paper we consider the effect of a buyer-imposed acceptance sampling policy on the optimal batch size and optimal quality level delivered by an expected cost minimizing supplier. We define quality as the supplier's process capability, i.e., the probability that a unit conforms to all product specifications, and we assume that unit cost is an increasing function of the quality level. We also assume that the supplier faces a known and constant “pass-through” cost, i.e., a fixed cost per defective unit passed on to the buyer. We show that the acceptance sampling plan has a significant impact on the supplier's optimal quality level, and we derive the conditions under which zero defects (100% conformance) is the policy that minimizes the supplier's expected annual cost. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 44: 515–530, 1997
New York's "Unfortunate Event" Test: Its Application Prior to the Events of 9/11

This Comment discusses how New York State and federal district courts previously applied the “unfortunate event” test where the number of occurrences was an issue. Part II begins with a brief summary of the three tests used in the United States to determine the number of occurrences. The first application of the “unfortunate event” test in connection with the term “accident” was in 1959. Fourteen years later, courts applied the “unfortunate event” test in connection with the term “occurrence.” Part III discusses the application of New York’s “unfortunate event” test in different insurance and reinsurance contexts. It appears that courts apply New York’s “unfortunate event” test less consistently in third-party contexts than in first-party contexts. However, there were only a few first-party cases before New York State and federal courts prior to September 11, 2001. Since September 11, 2001, the Court of Appeals of New York decided two reinsurance cases where the number of occurrences was an issue. Those cases could have a considerable impact on future judicial decisions affecting the companies that sold reinsurance policies to the insurers of the World Trade Center complex. Finally, Part IV concludes with an approach which may result in a more consistent application of New York’s “unfortunate event” test in the aftermath of the attack(s) on the World Trade Center’s twin towers.
Truth Tales and Trial Films

Investigations into law and popular culture preoccupy themselves with understanding how law and popular cultural forms work together to challenge or sustain community structures, identity and power. It is inevitable at this point in our cultural history that law and popular culture are intertwined. There are too many television shows, films, popular novels and web-based entertainment to withdraw "the law" (whatever that is) from the domain of popular culture. This article takes as a given the intermixing of law and popular culture, embracing it as a new feature of our popular legal consciousness. I suggest that one result of this mixing -- what I call truth tales, which are fictionalized films that are nonetheless based on true stories about law -- is to enhance our critical capacity to engage the law as a hopeful and evolving web of social, civic and political codes that shape our expectations for justice in contemporary society. This article proceeds in five parts. Part I outlines a brief history of interdisciplinary legal studies, in particular law and cultural studies. Part II discusses the subfield within law and cultural studies of law and film, as a way to set the stage for a longer discussion in Parts IV and V of two truth tales, "Compulsion" and "Swoon." Part III more specifically describes the parameters of the "truth tale" as a subgenre of courtroom drama that affects a particular kind of popular legal consciousness, one that accepts as futile law's presumed search for unconditional truth and embraces instead the legal system's promise of due process as based on normative values of fairness. Parts IV and V are close readings of the two films by way of application of the interpretive methodology and conceptual framework outlined in Parts II and III.
Regulation of Technology Transfer to Developing Countries: The Relevance of Institutional Capacity*

This article revisits the debate over appropriate approaches to the regulation of technology transfer to developing countries. It begins by contrasting two stylized approaches, labeled for convenience the “New International Economic Order” model and the “Globalization” model, which have historically struggled for acceptance. It then explores the implications for the choice between these or alternative models of the fact that many developing countries presently lack the institutional capacity required to provide optimal regulation of technology transfer. Existing discussions appear either to assume that developing countries possess sufficient institutional capacity to design and implement sophisticated regulatory regimes, or to take the opposite approach and assume a drastic shortage of institutional capacity. Both approaches ignore the intermediate category of countries that do face constraints upon institutional capacity but are striving to overcome them. The analysis here is intended to demonstrate the general point that a country's present and future institutional capacity ought to be considered highly relevant to the design of central aspects of the regime that it uses to regulate technology transfer. The analysis is also designed to highlight the specific need for attention to the distinctive questions of regulatory design which arise in countries that are in the process of enhancing their institutional capacity in this and other regulatory contexts.
March Market Madness: The Impact of Value‐Irrelevant Events on the Market Pricing of Earnings News

Each year, the NCAA basketball tournament (March Madness) is a daytime distraction for millions of people, providing a largely exogenous shock to investor attention. We investigate whether March Madness influences the market response to earnings by diverting investor attention away from earnings news. We find that the price reaction to earnings news released during March Madness is muted. This result generally holds across several samples and additional analyses. We also find that the result is more muted for low institutional ownership firms, consistent with the effect being driven by less-sophisticated investors. Furthermore, we find that it takes the market 30 to 60 days to correct for the distraction effect. Overall, we provide a unique test of the theory of limited attention by documenting that extraneous events can have a significant impact on the pricing of earnings.
Option market making under inventory risk

We propose a mean-variance framework to analyze the optimal quoting policy of an option market maker. The market maker’s profits come from the bid-ask spreads received over the course of a trading day, while the risk comes from uncertainty in the value of his portfolio, or inventory. Within this framework, we study the impact of liquidity and market incompleteness on the optimal bid and ask prices of the option. First, we consider a market maker in a complete market, where continuous trading in a perfectly liquid underlying stock is allowed. In this setting, the market maker may remove all risk by Delta hedging, and the optimal quotes will depend on the option’s liquidity, but not on the inventory. Second, we model a market maker who may not trade continuously in the underlying stock, but rather sets bid and ask quotes in the option and this illiquid stock. We find that the optimal stock and option quotes depend on the relative liquidity of both instruments as well as on the net Delta of the inventory. Third, we consider an incomplete market with residual risks due to stochastic volatility and large overnight moves in the stock price. In this setting, the optimal quotes depend on the liquidity of the option and on the net Vega and Gamma of the inventory.
the middle class consensus and economic development

A middle class consensus is defined as a high share of income for the middle class and a low degree of ethnic divisons. The paper links a middle class consensus to resource endowments, along the lines of the provocative thesis of Engerman and Sokoloff (1997 and 2000). This paper exploits this association using tropical resource endowments as instruments for inequality. A higher share of income for the middle class and lower ethnic divisions are associated with higher income and higher growth, as well as with more education, better health, better infrastructure, better economic policies, less political instability, less civil war and ethnic minorities at risk, more social “modernization” and more democracy.
Atrocity Crimes Litigation: 2008 Year-In-Review

This article - prepared in connection with the annual review of atrocity crimes litigation conference hosted at Northwestern University School of Law - surveys important developments in the field of international criminal law in 2008. Although the article does feature certain key procedural developments, it primarily addresses developments in substantive law concerning the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and gender-based violence, as well as applicable forms of responsibility, including conspiracy, incitement, co-perpetration, and joint criminal enterprise. The survey identifies several trends in the jurisprudence toward better delineating the interfaces between international crimes and forms of responsibility and identifies cases with immediate relevance to the “war on terror” proceedings in the United States addressed to such issues as when acts of terrorism contribute to triggering international humanitarian law (the law of war), what conduct constitutes direct participation in hostilities, and when acts of terrorism may constitute war crimes within the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals.
Ranking inequality: Applications of multivariate subset selection

Inequality measures are often presented in the form of a rank ordering to highlight their relative magnitudes. However, a rank ordering may produce misleading inference, because the inequality measures themselves are statistical estimators with different standard errors, and because a rank ordering necessarily implies multiple comparisons across all measures. Within this setting, if differences between several inequality measures are simultaneously and statistically insignificant, the interpretation of the ranking is changed. This study uses a multivariate subset selection procedure to make simultaneous distinctions across inequality measures at a pre-specified confidence level. Three applications of this procedure are explored using country-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study. The findings show that simultaneous precision plays an important role in relative inequality comparisons and should not be ignored.
Health and the household

We underscore the close link between the economics of the household and health economics in a framework in which consumers produce their fundamental objects of choice. Health is produced with inputs of market goods and services and the own time of the consumer. Health is demanded not only because it is an argument in the utility function but also because it determines the amount of time available for market and nonmarket production. The latter motive points to health capital as one component of the stock of human capital. The economics of the household has much to say about the determinants of investment in this type of capital. The five health economics papers in this issue of Review of Economics of the Household are connected by an emphasis on the role of time in the production of two aspects of health: obesity and the general health of elderly persons.
What drives gold returns? A decision tree analysis

Abstract The behavior of gold as an investment asset has been researched extensively. For the very long run, that is several decades, gold does not outperform equities. However, for shorter periods, gold responds to fears of inflation, stock market corrections, currency crises and financial instabilities very vigorously. In this paper we follow a decision tree methodology to investigate the behavior of gold prices using both traditional financial variables such as equity returns, equity volatility, oil prices, and the euro. We also use the new Cleveland Financial Stress Index to investigate its effectiveness in explaining changes in gold prices. We find that gold returns depend on different determinants across various regimes.
The Problem of Social Cost in a Genetically Modified Age

Genetically modified pollen drifting onto the field of a neighboring farm may cause substantial harm. If the bystanding farmer is growing non-genetically modified crops, she may suffer a pecuniary loss due to genetic pollution. If the pollen is patented, the patentee may also claim harm stemming from the unauthorized distribution of its proprietary genetic material. Disputes arising from pollen drift present classic legal questions arising under the law of neighbors and classic economic questions broached most famously by Ronald Coase in his essay on The Problem of Social Cost. The application of the Coase Theorem and its most applicable corollary strongly suggest that: 1) balancing rules under nuisance law should be applied on a case-by-case basis to determine whether any particular genetic polluter should be liable for damages caused by pollen drift; and 2) most bystanding farmers should have viable defenses to patent infringement. Venerable legal principles applied to this new problem suggest the same two conclusions. Proving both propositions provides a textbook demonstration for the usefulness of economic analysis and solves a world-wide multi-billion dollar legal problem.
Centralized and Competitive Inventory Models with Demand Substitution

A standard problem in operations literature is optimal stocking of substitutable products. We consider a consumer-driven substitution problem with an arbitrary number of products under both centralized inventory management and competition. Substitution is modeled by letting the unsatisfied demand for a product flow to other products in deterministic proportions. We obtain analytically tractable solutions that facilitate comparisons between centralized and competitive inventory management under substitution. For the centralized problem we show that, when demand is multivariate normal, the total profit is decreasing in demand correlation.
Rationalizing the Allocative/Distributive Relationship in Copyright

The language of the 1976 Copyright Act providing protection of “original works of authorship” contains words that should and could very well mean something. After all, it is with these words that Congress permits individuals to create property and to internalize its benefits. One need not look very far to determine how trivial these requirements actually are. In Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., a 1991 case, Justice O’Connor addressed the issue of originality for a unanimous Court and described the requirement as “minimal,” “slight,” and satisfied by a “modicum of creativity.” The requirement of authorship has been similarly treated. Thus, in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, Justice Marshall tackled the concept of “author” with the pithy observation that an “author is the party who actually creates the work.”