cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Product Liability and the Politics of Corporate Presence: Identity and Accountability in Macpherson v. Buick

This article examines how conceptions of corporate identity are constructed in product liability law. The Article goes back to the early twentieth century to consider how the legal processes and institutions cam to endow corporations with attributes that gave it a specific type of identity. The Article focuses, in particular, on the emergence of the law of product liability and Benjamin Cardozo's path-breaking opinion in MacPherson v. Buick to illustrate how the determination of corporate responsibility and liability in tort rules implicitly, located, shaped, and bounded corporate identity and power in society. The Article further considers how the way tort law invokes concepts of agency, will, and responsiblity may work to establish the identity of a corporation as present in a product as it travels through the national market and thereby serve as a basis for imposing liability upon the corporation.
The Paradox of Personality: Mental Illness, Employment Discrimination, and The Americans With Disabilities Act

Both medicine and the law devote considerable concern to drawing lines, that is, to classifying and making distinctions. In medicine, such line-drawing occurs when a person is designated healthy or ill, normal or disordered. In the law, such line-drawing determines who does and does not bear legal responsibility for a given situation. This Article reviews the demarcation drawn by psychiatry and the courts between disfavored personality and mental illness, a dichotomy not based upon empirical science and therefore, wholly susceptible to social construction and implementation. While society may pathologize noxious personalities, thus making them disabilities, it is loath to extend disability-based legal protections to people with such personalities. Specifically, the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act (the ADA) to persons with impaired personalities is regarded by some as improperly removing or excusing their responsibility for their own behavior, while improperly assigning responsibility to the people who must interact with them, notably employers. Thus the invocation of personality in disability discrimination claims implicates a collision between societal and psychiatric attitudes towards certain psychological conditions and the law. In the case law developed under the ADA, courts have erred on the side of a restrictive view of the meaning of mental illness by employing approaches that ensure that personality issues are eliminated from ADA analyses. This trend has swept so broadly, the Article argues, as to render the ADA a limited tool both for remedying past discrimination and for compelling society to examine the place of people of with mental illness in the workplace.
Synthetic commodity money

Abstract The conventional dichotomy of “commodity” and “fiat” base monies overlooks a third possibility that shares some features of each. This third type, which I call “synthetic commodity money,” resembles fiat money in having no nonmonetary value; but it resembles commodity money in being not just contingently but absolutely scarce. I discuss some actual examples of synthetic commodity monies, and then argue that special characteristics of synthetic commodity money are such as might allow such a money, if properly designed, to supply the foundation for a monetary regime that does not require oversight by any monetary authority, yet is able to provide for a high degree of macroeconomic stability.
The intriguing relation between adult minimum wage and child labor

Because most parents send their children to work when compelled by poverty, one would expect a rise in adult wage to lower child labor. However, if the rise in wage is achieved by a minimum wage law, its impact can be intriguing. It can, for instance, cause some adults to be unemployed, and send their children to work, which in turn displaces more adult labor, and sends more children to work. The paper solves this process, and predicts the incidence of child labor. It shows that, for appropriate parametric configurations, child labor may fall, or rise as the adult minimum wage is raised.
In the Eye of a Storm: Manhattan's Money Center Banks During the International Financial Crisis of 1931

Abstract In the summer of 1931, a financial crisis began in Austria, spread to Germany, forced Britain to abandon the gold standard, crossed the Atlantic, and afflicted financial institutions in the United States. This article describes how banks in New York City, the central money market of the United States, reacted to this trans-Atlantic trauma. New York's money-center banks anticipated the onset of a financial crisis, prepared for it by accumulating substantial reserves, and during the European crisis, continued business as usual. New York's leading bankers deliberately and collectively decided on the business-as-usual policy in order to minimize the impact of the panic in the United States. New York banks’ behavior changed only after the Federal Reserve raised discount rates to stem gold outflows in the fall of 1931.
Issuer Choice After Morrison

In June 2010, the Supreme Court handed down a sweeping decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd. that dramatically limited the geographic reach of U.S. securities fraud laws. Reversing four decades of circuit court jurisprudence, the Morrison majority held that § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act applies only to “transactions in securities listed on domestic exchanges” and “domestic transactions in other securities.” At the time, the Morrison majority’s “transactional test” was widely praised for its “clarity.” However, in the months since Morrison, a vibrant debate has emerged in courtrooms, blogs, and academic journals regarding the application of Morrison’s transactional test. Judges, lawyers, and commentators alike have acknowledged that if taken at face value, the Morrison majority opinion seems to suggest that § 10(b) still applies to all transactions in securities that are listed on U.S. exchanges - whether or not the transaction itself occurs in the United States. Yet the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has consistently rejected that reading of Morrison because (according to the Southern District judges) it would conflict with the policy thrust of the Morrison majority opinion. Contrary to the Southern District’s conclusion, this Comment argues that the plain text of Morrison’s transactional test should be given full effect. It draws on modern finance theory to show why applying § 10(b) to transactions in all securities that are listed on U.S. exchanges - even transactions that themselves occur on foreign markets - may lead to large gains in shareholder value. It demonstrates that the Morrison majority opinion, if followed faithfully, creates an environment in which foreign firms can choose the legal regime that minimizes their capital-raising costs. Enabling foreign firms to opt into § 10(b) through cross-listing will also yield clear advantages for the U.S. financial sector. By integrating modern finance theory into the analysis of Morrison, this Comment shows how the majority’s transactional test can best advance widely shared policy objectives.
Dual Class Ownership and Tax Avoidance

ABSTRACT: This study investigates whether the agency conflicts inherent in a dual class ownership structure are associated with the level of firms' tax avoidance. Dual class ownership presents a unique agency problem because insiders control a majority of the votes of a firm despite having claims to a minority of the firm's cash flows. We examine the level of tax avoidance for a sample of dual class firms and find that the extent of tax avoidance declines as the difference between voting rights and cash flow rights increases. We also compare the level of tax avoidance of dual class firms to a sample of propensity matched single class firms and find that dual class firms engage in less tax avoidance as the wedge between insiders' voting rights and cash flow rights increases. These findings are consistent with dual class ownership entrenching managers and allowing them to perform at a suboptimal level. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the paper.
For Whom the Taco Bells Toll: Popular responses to NAFTA south of the border

■ This article explores recent forms of Mexican popular nationalism in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Drawing on ethno graphic research in a colonia popular of Mexico City, I maintain that analyses of nationalism and class, including within critical theory, should re-examine cul tural questions pertaining to national sovereignty within contemporary globaliz ation. Responses to the Free Trade Agreement among the urban poor in Mexico, for instance, indicate a growing disparity between elite and popular perceptions regarding issues such as democracy and nationalism. Although grassroots leftist politics in the last two decades have been successful in overcoming a previous neglect of daily needs and realities for the poor, the article also argues that recent popular social movements have too often ignored debate on questions of trans nationalism and nationalism.
Competition between Specialized Candidates

Opposing candidates for a political office often differ in their professional backgrounds and previous political experience, leading to both real and perceived differences in political capabilities. We analyze a formal model in which candidates with different productivities in two policy areas compete for voters by choosing how much money or effort they would allocate to each area if elected. The model has a unique equilibrium that differs substantially from the standard median voter model. Although candidates compete for the support of a moderate voter type, this cutoff voter differs from the expected median voter. Moreover, no voter type except the cutoff voter is indifferent between the candidates in equilibrium. The model also predicts that candidates respond to changes in the preferences of voters in a very rigid way. From a welfare perspective, candidates are “excessively moderate”: almost certainly, a majority of voters would prefer that the winning candidate focus more on his or her strength.
The effect of director experience on acquisition performance

Abstract Prior research finds that firms hire directors for their acquisition experience, regardless of acquisition quality (whether their prior acquisitions earned positive or negative announcement returns). Using several short- and long-run measures, we examine the effects of directors’ acquisition experience on the acquisition performance of firms hiring them. We find that board acquisition experience is positively related to subsequent acquisition performance, demonstrating that firms appropriately value experience. Beyond experience itself, however, the quality of directors’ prior acquisitions is also important. Our results suggest that firms may be better served to select directors based upon both past acquisition experience and acquisition performance.
Biased sampling designs to improve research efficiency: Factors influencing pulmonary function over time in children with asthma

Substudies of the Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP Research Group, 1999, 2000) seek to identify patient characteristics associated with asthma symptoms and lung function. To determine if genetic measures are associated with trajectories of lung function as measured by forced vital capacity (FVC), children in the primary cohort study retrospectively had candidate loci evaluated. Given participant burden and constraints on financial resources, it is often desirable to target a sub-sample for ascertainment of costly measures. Methods that can leverage the longitudinal outcome on the full cohort to selectively measure informative individuals have been promising, but have been restricted in their use to analysis of the targeted sub-sample. In this paper we detail two multiple imputation analysis strategies that exploit outcome and partially observed covariate data on the non-sampled subjects, and we characterize alternative design and analysis combinations that could be used for future studies of pulmonary function and other outcomes. Candidate predictor (e.g. IL10 cytokine polymorphisms) associations obtained from targeted sampling designs can be estimated with very high efficiency compared to standard designs. Further, even though multiple imputation can dramatically improve estimation efficiency for covariates available on all subjects (e.g., gender and baseline age), only modest efficiency gains were observed in parameters associated with predictors that are exclusive to the targeted sample. Our results suggest that future studies of longitudinal trajectories can be efficiently conducted by use of outcome-dependent designs and associated full cohort analysis.
Board Independence in Light of the Murdoch News Corporation Scandal

In July of 2011, news broke of a scandal, which involved hacking by the U.K. newspaper, News of the World, into the voicemails of a murder victim and of relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, among others. The UK’s top police official has resigned over the scandal, the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications has been arrested, and the newspaper itself has been shut down by James Murdoch, CEO of the U.K. subsidiary which owned the paper. Despite all of this, the board of directors of the publicly-traded U.S. parent corporation, News Corporation, has been “[s]tanding] by as the [s]candal [w]idens.” While no director has publicly denounced News Corporation, as New York Times corporate critic Andrew Ross Sorkin would have expected, Thomas J. Perkins, director since 1996, has, in fact, publicly defended News Corporation. (This is particularly curious because Perkins had also sat on the board of Hewlett-Packard, and resigned from that position, “[a]t the time[,] accus[ing] HP of [hacking] his personal cell- and home-phone records.” )This article explores the function of the board of directors in light of the Murdoch scandal, with the working hypothesis that there is a link between the board being beholden to the CEO (media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, in this case) and how the board handled the corporate crisis. After putting forth the various possibilities and factors, this article will seek either to confirm the hypothesis or else to put forth an alternative explanation.
Vertical Integration and Media Regulation in the New Economy

Recent mergers and academic commentary have placed renewed focus on what has long been one of the central issues in media policy: whether media conglomerates can use vertical integration to harm competition. This Article seeks to move past previous studies, which have explored limited aspects of this issue, and apply the full sweep of modern economic theory to evaluate the regulation of vertical integration in media-related industries. It does so initially by applying the basic static efficiency analyses of vertical integration developed under the Chicago and post-Chicago Schools of antitrust law and economics to three industries: broadcasting, cable television, and cable modem systems. An analysis of the market structure of these industries reveals that the preconditions recognized by both Schools as necessary for vertical integration to harm competition do not exist. In addition, the cost structure of these industries suggests that vertical integration may well lead to efficiencies sufficient to justify allowing such integration to occur. A dynamic efficiency analysis also suggests that attempts to regulate vertical integration in these industries are probably misguided. Growing reliance on compelled access to redress the problems purportedly caused by vertical integration threatens to dampen investment incentives in technologically dynamic industries in which such incentives are particularly important. Not only does forcing a monopolist to share an input deviate from the system of well-defined property rights needed to promote efficient levels of investment, it also deprives new entrants seeking to compete directly with the supposed monopoly bottleneck of their natural strategic partners. The Article also engages a complex web of arguments involving the extent to which technological innovation is affected by market concentration, standardization, and network externalities. A close review of the economic literature reveals that the relationship between these factors is too ambiguous to support the type of simple policy inference needed to prohibit vertical integration as a regulatory matter. The Article concludes with an analysis of the intellectual and institutional obstacles for adopting a more integrated economic approach to vertical integration in these industries.
Does Antitrust Enforcement in High Tech Markets Benefit Consumers? Stock Price Evidence from FTC v. Intel

Antitrust enforcement efforts in the United States and abroad have been ramped up in high-tech industries, which has rekindled older and largely unresolved debates concerning the appropriate role of antitrust enforcement in high-tech markets. This paper evaluates the likely competitive effects of Intel’s conduct through two approaches: The conventional approach focuses on traditional antitrust metrics in product markets: prices and output. The second, alternative approach involves turning to financial markets for valuable information. Under either approach, the available data do not support the theory that Intel’s behavior harmed consumers.
Forum Choice for Terrorism Suspects

What forum should be used to adjudicate the status of persons suspected of involvement in terrorism? Recent clashes between Congress and the president as to whether the status of terrorism suspects should be determined via Article III courts or military commissions have revived the debate about this venue question. The problem is typically framed as a matter of legal doctrine, with statutory and doctrinal rules invoked as dispositive guides for sorting suspects into either civilian or military venues. This Article takes issue with the utility of that framing of the problem. It argues that the forum question can more profitably be analyzed through an institutionaldesign lens. A key institutional-design decision is whether and when to create jurisdictional redundancy. When, that is, should the existence of overlapping jurisdictions vest the government with a threshold choice of forums or an option to retry a suspect who has been acquitted in an initial process? Jurisdictional redundancy is pervasive. But conventional wisdom suggests that it is unwise. This Article demonstrates, however, that overlap among forums has complex direct and indirect effects on the accuracy and cost of terrorismrelated adjudication. The Article presents a comprehensive framework for analyzing redundancy by exploring how redundancy influences error rates, system-maintenance costs, externalities, information production, and incentives. Applying this framework, I contend that the conventional wisdom is flawed. Pervasive redundancy has surprising merit in contrast to two leading reform proposals that would eliminate most jurisdictional overlap. Copyright © 2012 by Aziz Z. Huq. † Assistant Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School. Many thanks to Daniel Abebe, Douglas Baird, Eric Biber, Liz Budnitz, Laura Donohue, Brandon Garrett, Jonathan Hafetz, William Hubbard, Saul Levmore, Jonathan Masur, Eric Posner, Naomi Schoenbaum, Matthew Waxman, and the participants in a University of Chicago work-in-progress lunch and a Stanford University CISAC Social Science and International Security Seminar for insightful comments and criticisms. Eileen Ho and Steve Donohue provided fabulous research assistance, and the editors of the Duke Law Journal did superlative editorial work. I am also pleased to acknowledge support from the Frank Cicero, Jr., Faculty Fund. All errors are mine alone. HUQ IN PRINTER PROOF (DO NOT DELETE) 3/20/2012 12:33 AM 1416 DUKE LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 61:1415
Agency and Optimal Investment Dynamics

Agency problems limit firms' access to capital markets, curbing investment. Firms and investors seek contractual ways to mitigate these problems. What are the implications for investment? We present a theory of a firm's investment dynamics in the presence of agency problems and optimal long-term financial contracts. We derive results relating firms' investment decisions, current and past cash flows, firm size, capital structure, and dividends. Among the results, optimal investment is increasing in current and past cash flow; and optimal investment is positively serially correlated over time (after controlling for investment opportunities). These results hold for a range of agency problems. (JEL G30, G31, G32, G35, D82, D86, D92) Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.
Face-ing the Other: An Ethics of Encounter and Solidarity in Legal Services Practice

In this article, the author proposes that those who work in any capacity with impoverished clients and embattled minority communities imagine practice from within Levinas' key images. First, that ethics is first philosophy - that knowledge of the self, the Other and the context in which ethical action is possible does not precede ethical understanding, decision-making and action, but that rather that we become human in the ethical encounter with the incommensurable Other. Second, that representing a client is in each moment an encounter with the face of the Other. We look up into the face of the Other calling to us, looming over us, vulnerable. In this ambivalent moment, we face both the draw of the Other and the temptation to encapsulate, reduce, diminish, totalize the Other, to erase the chasms of incommensurability that threaten our control of our world.
Do Better-Connected CEOs Innovate More?

We present evidence suggesting that chief executive officer (CEO) connections facilitate investments in corporate innovation. We find that firms with better-connected CEOs invest more in research and development and receive more and higher quality patents. Further tests suggest that this effect stems from two characteristics of personal networks that alleviate CEO risk aversion in investment decisions. First, personal connections increase the CEO’s access to relevant network information, which encourages innovation by helping to identify, evaluate, and exploit innovative ideas. Second, personal connections provide the CEO with labor market insurance that facilitates investments in risky innovation by mitigating the career concerns inherent in such investments.
The Mexican Peso Crisis: How Much Did We Know? When Did We Know It?

The Mexican crisis of 1994 raised throughout the world a number of questions about the sustainability -- and even the merits -- of the market oriented reform process in Latin America and other regions. Understanding how events unfolded in Mexico during the early 1990s continues to be fundamentally important to assess the mechanics of currency crises. More importantly, perhaps, the eruption of the East Asian currency crises in the summer and fall 1997 has raised the question of whether the lessons from Mexico have indeed been learned by policy makers, private sector analysts and international civil servants. More specifically, as a result of the recent events in South East Asia many observers have argued that the international financial organizations -- the IMF and the World Bank -- and the governments of the advanced countries have failed to revamp the early warning system that was supposed to prevent a repetition of a Mexico-style crisis. This paper analyzes the causes behind the Mexican crisis, emphasizing the role of capital inflows, inflationary inertia and real exchange rate overvaluation. I also ask a number of questions regarding the predictability of the crisis: Should Wall Street analysts have known that things were getting out of hand? And if they did, why didn't they alert their clients? And, how much did officials at the US Treasury know about the depth of the Mexican problems? And, what was the role of the media? I conclude that although the US Treasury was fully aware of what was going on, most private sector analysts were unaware of the seriousness of the situation.
Education Crowdfunding and Student Performance: An Empirical Study

Despite the growing popularity of online public funding for education (i.e., crowdfunding), controversy persists about whether teachers’ efforts to use this channel are justified and whether donati...
Risk of Collusion: Will Groups of 3 Ruin the FIFA World Cup?

In 2026, the FIFA World Cup will for the first time gather 48 men's national teams. It will consist of a group stage made of 16 groups of three, with the best two teams in each group advancing to the knockout stage. Using groups of three raises several fairness issues, including risk of match fixing and schedule imbalance. In this article we examine the risk of collusion. The two teams who play the last game in the group know exactly what results will let them advance to the knockout stage. Suspicion of match fixing occurs when a result qualifies both of them at the expense of the third team of the group, and can seriously tarnish the tournament. We quantify how often this is expected to happen and explain how to build the match schedule so as to minimize the risk of collusion. We also quantify how the risk of collusion depends on competitive balance. Moreover, we show that forbidding draws during the group stage (a rule considered by FIFA) does not eliminate the risk of match fixing, and that surprisingly when draws are forbidden the 3-2-1-0 point system does not do a better job at decreasing the risk of collusion than the 3-0 point system. Finally we describe alternate formats for a 48 team World Cup that would eliminate or strongly decrease the risk of collusion.
Freedom of Speech in the Public Workplace: A Comment on the Public Concern Requirement

In the twenty years since the Pickering test, the U.S. Supreme Court has done little to clarify what types of public employee speech constitute speech "of public concern" for the purpose of receiving constitutional protection. In this Comment, Cynthia Lee offers a reformulation of the Pickering test by focusing on three factors courts should examine when determining whether an employee who engages in disruptive speech should receive constitutional protection. Part One of this Comment traces the historical background of public employee free speech rights. Part Two examines the employee's initial hurdle of showing that his or her speech was of public concern, and exposes the Supreme Court's disproportionate concern for the government employer's interest in managing the workplace. Part Three explains how courts decide public employee speech cases. In Part Four, Lee presents a reformulation of the Pickering test. Lee argues first that the public concern inquiry should shift the burden from the employee to the employer, and, as a threshold matter, require the employer to prove that the employee's speech clearly impaired the ability of the government institution to function. If the employee's speech passes this threshold test, courts then should examine the following three factors to determine whether the employee spoke as an employee or as a citizen: (1) whether the speech took place within the office or outside in the public realm; (2) whether the speech was related to the employment; and (3) whether the speech was of public concern. Lee argues that if one of these factors support a finding that the employee spoke as a citizen, courts should independently review the case instead of deferring to the government employer.
Sample Selection Bias and Repeat-Sales Index Estimates

Analysis of variations in house values among localities requires reliable house value indices. Gatzlaff and Haurin (1994) indicate that traditional hedonic house value index estimates, using only information from a sample of sold homes to estimate value movements for the entire housing stock, may be subject to substantial bias. This article extends previous work by adapting the censored sample procedure to the repeat-sales index estimation model. Using data from Dade County, Florida, a house value index constructed from a sample of homes selling more than once, rather than all houses in a locality, is found to be biased. The bias is shown to be highly correlated with changes in economic conditions.
Partial adjustment toward target capital structures

Abstract The empirical literature provides conflicting assessments about how firms choose their capital structures. Distinguishing among the three main hypotheses (“tradeoff”, pecking order, and market timing) requires that we know whether firms have long-run leverage targets and (if so) how quickly they adjust toward them. Yet many previous researchers have applied empirical specifications that fail to recognize the potential for incomplete adjustment. A more general, partial-adjustment model of firm leverage indicates that firms do have target capital structures. The typical firm closes about one-third of the gap between its actual and its target debt ratios each year.
The Conundrum of Cameras in the Courtroom

Introduction 2 I. Traditional Arguments of Proponents and Opponents 6 A. Proponents’ Arguments and a Critique 6 1. Education 7 2. Accountability 10 3. Unobtrusiveness of Cameras 14 4. No Effect on Participants 17 B. Opponents’ Arguments and a Critique 19 1. Effects on Participants 21 2. Dignity of Court Proceedings 25 3. Practical Obscurity of Judges 28 4. Uneven Coverage--Too Little and Too Much 31 II. Underlying Motivations and Aspirations 33 A. Media Proponents' Underlying Motivations 34 1. Running a Business 34 2. Lobbying Congress 34 3. Protecting Access 36 B. Media and Other Proponents' Aspirations 37 1. Fostering Open Government 38 2. Taking a Public-Centered Perspective 38 3. Distrusting Judges 39 C. Judges' Underlying Motivations 40 1. Maintaining Control 40 2. Avoiding the Limelight 41 3. Viewing the Courtroom as a Workplace 42 D. Judges and Other Opponents' Aspirations 43
Nodding or Needling: Analyzing Delegate Responsiveness in an Authoritarian Parliament

Recent scholarship argues that one solution to ensure longevity and economic growth in an authoritarian regime is to co-opt potential opposition by offering them limited policy influence in a national legislature. Although cooptation theory generates a number of predictions for delegate behavior within an authoritarian parliament, the opacity of such regimes has made empirical confirmation difficult. We resolve this problem by exploiting the transcripts of query sessions in the Vietnamese National Assembly, where delegates question the prime minister and Cabinet members on important issues of the day. Using a content analysis of queries, we offer the first empirical test of delegate behavior in nondemocratic parliaments. We find that some delegates exhibit behavior consistent with cooptation theory by actively participating in sessions, demonstrating criticism of authorities, and responding to the needs of local constituents. Such responsiveness, however, is parameterized by regime rules for nominating, electing, and assigning parliamentary responsibilities to individual delegates.
The two sides of envy

The two sides of envy, destructive and constructive, give rise to qualitatively different equilibria, depending on the economic, institutional, and cultural environment. If investment opportunities are scarce, inequality is high, property rights are not secure, and social comparisons are strong, society is likely to be in the “fear equilibrium,” in which better endowed agents underinvest in order to avoid destructive envy of the relatively poor. Otherwise, the standard “keeping up with the Joneses” competition arises, and envy is satisfied through suboptimally high efforts. Economic growth expands the production possibilities frontier and triggers an endogenous transition from one equilibrium to the other causing a qualitative shift in the relationship between envy and economic performance: envy-avoidance behavior with its adverse effect on investment paves the way to creative emulation. From a welfare perspective, better institutions and wealth redistribution that move the society away from the low-output fear equilibrium need not be Pareto improving in the short run, as they unleash the negative consumption externality. In the long run, such policies contribute to an increase in social welfare due to enhanced productivity growth.
Playing in the Virtual Arena: Avatars, Publicity, and Identity Reconceptualized through Virtual Worlds and Computer Games

INTRODUCTION: LET THE GAMES BEGIN 466 I. CONTENT OWNERSHIP INSIDE COMPUTER GAMES AND VIRTUAL WORLDS 468 A. Origins 468 B. First Amendment Protection for Computer Games and Virtual Worlds 472 C. Copyright‘s First Amendment Accommodations through the Idea/Expression Dichotomy and Fair Use 477 D. Publicity Rights in Avatars 481 E. Publicity Rights: Accommodations for the First Amendment 485 F. Intersections with Trademark Fair Use and First Amendment Protection 493 G. Kirby‘s Ride through San Andreas: The State of Virtual World Protection 498
The economic origins of the evil eye belief

The evil eye belief is a widespread superstition according to which people can cause harm by a mere envious glance at coveted objects or their owners. This paper argues that such belief originated and persisted as a useful heuristic under conditions in which envy was likely to trigger destructive behavior and the avoidance of other people's envy, effectively prescribed by the evil eye belief, was a proper response to that threat. We hypothesize that in weakly institutionalized societies wealth differentiation and vulnerability of productive assets were the key factors enabling envy-induced destructive behavior and contributing to the emergence and spread of the evil eye belief as a cultural defense mechanism. Evidence from small-scale preindustrial societies shows that there is indeed a robust positive association between the incidence of the belief and measures of wealth inequality, controlling for potential confounding factors such as patterns of spatial and cross-cultural diffusion and various dimensions of early economic development. Furthermore, the evil eye belief is more prevalent in agro-pastoral societies that tend to sustain higher levels of inequality and where vulnerable material wealth plays a dominant role in the subsistence economy.
A production planning model for an unreliable production facility: Case of finite horizon and single demand

Abstract We study a two-level inventory system that is subject to failures and repairs. The objective is to minimize the expected total cost so as to determine the production plan for a single quantity demand. The expected total cost consists of the inventory carrying costs for finished and unfinished items, the backlog cost for not meeting the demand due-date, and the planning costs associated with the ordering schedule of unfinished items. The production plan consists of the optimal number of lot sizes, the optimal size for each lot, the optimal ordering schedule for unfinished items, and the optimal due-date to be assigned to the demand. To gain insight, we solve special cases and use their results to device an efficient solution approach for the main model. The models are solved to optimality and the solution is either obtained in closed form or through very efficient algorithms.
HOW MARKET FRAGMENTATION CAN FACILITATE COLLUSION

Economists have recommended the fragmentation of capacities before regulated markets are liberalized because static oligopoly models imply that outcomes approximate perfect competition with a fragmented enough market structure. This intuition fails under collusion. When individual firms are capacity constrained relative to total demand, the fragmentation of capacity facilitates collusion and increases the highest sustainable collusive price. Collusive outcomes remain feasible even for arbitrarily fragmented capacity. These results can explain the finding in Sweeting (2007, Economic Journal, 117, 654–685), that dramatic fragmentation of generation capacity in the English electricity industry did not reduce price cost margins.
Mutual Fund Advisory Fee Litigation: Some Analytical Clarity

Households in the U.S. invest a large proportion of wealth in mutual funds. At the end of 2014, open-end mutual fund assets were $16 trillion and annual fees exceeded $100 billion. Mutual funds have a unique corporate structure that involves a conflict of interest with the investment management firm that creates and manages the fund. In 1970, Congress passed an amendment to the Investment Company Act of 1940 and made investment managers fiduciaries with respect to fees charged to captive mutual funds. In 1982, the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York, in Gartenberg v. Merrill Lynch Asset Mgmt. Inc., established a fiduciary standard to determine if fund sponsors violated their fiduciary duty with respect to fees. Since 1982, no plaintiff has received an award under the 1970 statute. A recent U.S. Supreme Court case, Jones v. Harris Assocs. L.P, confirmed the Gartenberg standard but noted that the Gartenberg case lacked “analytical clarity.” This paper examines the issues from a new and different perspective and uses micro economic analysis to clarify the ambiguities of the decision. The Gartenberg standard imposes a very high hurdle for plaintiffs in fee cases to overcome. However, in light of the evidence presented here, the ability to demonstrate that advisory fees are “so disproportionately large that they could not have been the product of arm’s length negotiation” is much enhanced.
The International Court of Justice and the Concept of State Practice

State practice is an important element of international law, both as a key component of customary international law and as a crucial tool for interpreting treaties. In this Article, the Author seeks to show that there are important flaws in the International Court of Justice’s application of state practice. The Court has relied on actual practice to determine the content of customary rules surprisingly rarely, instead frequently basing its conclusions instead on non-binding actions by international bodies or on its own decisions. In some cases, it has reached decisions clearly inconsistent with significant and relevant state practice; in others, it has proclaimed doctrines unsupported by state behavior as rules of law. The Court has been inconsistent in its treatment of the practice of parties to treaties in cases presenting interpretation questions, sometimes proclaiming the necessity of relying on such practice while on other occasions failing even to acknowledge the existence of practice contrary to the result it reaches. This behavior by the Court is problematic for a number of reasons and, paradoxically, makes the Court itself an impediment to wider reliance on international law.
Will U.S. Soccer be Forced to Adopt Promotion and Relegation

On August 3, 2017, Miami FC of the second division North American Soccer League and Kingston Stockade FC, an amateur side in the National Premier Soccer League, filed a claim with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) in Lausanne, Switzerland in an attempt to force U.S. Soccer to use promotion and relegation. This would require leagues to be organized in a strict pyramid in which the top teams each year are promoted to the next highest division and the bottom teams are relegated to the next lowest division. Their claim is that promotion and relegation, a longstanding feature of the “open” leagues dominant in Europe, but foreign in the “closed” leagues used in the United States, is mandatory under FIFA rules and Swiss law. This Essay evaluates the Request for Arbitration and concludes that there are procedural, substantive, and technical obstacles that make success at CAS unlikely.
Bankers on boards:: monitoring, conflicts of interest, and lender liability☆

Abstract We investigate the trade-off between the benefits from bank monitoring when a banker is represented on a firm's board and the costs from two sources: conflicts of interests between lenders and shareholders, and U.S. legal doctrines that generate lender liability for bankers on boards of firms in financial distress. Consistent with high costs of active involvement, bankers are on boards of large, stable firms with high proportions of collateralizable assets and low reliance on short-term financing. While permitting banks to own equity could mitigate conflicts, the protection of shareholder versus creditor rights could continue to reduce the role of U.S. banks in corporate governance.
Strategic revelation of differences in segment earnings growth

Abstract Prior studies have theoretically and empirically documented that incentives to disclose information involve a trade-off between the benefits to the corporation of reducing information asymmetry and the costs of revealing proprietary information. This study investigates the interplay of managers’ motives to conceal versus reveal cross-segment differences in earnings growth in multi-segment firms. We find that revealed segment earnings growth differences are negatively associated with proxies for proprietary costs and agency costs, and positively associated with firms’ reliance on external financing. We also find that SFAS No. 131 improved the quality of segment information by requiring or allowing revelation of greater cross-segment differences in earnings growth.
Installment Contracts and Material Breach

Default rules in contract law grant a buyer the right to terminate a contract over the recurrent delivery in multiple periods (i.e., an installment contract) and cancel future deliveries if, and on...
Welfare Receipt and Private Charity

In the wake of welfare reform efforts, alliances between governments and charities, and public preoccupation with “social capital,” it is useful to understand how welfare payments interact with charitable giving. Using Consumer Expenditure Survey data from the first quarter of 1999, this article estimates the impacts on charitable giving by individuals from receipt of welfare payments, as well as income, wealth, and a number of demographic variables. The data analysis suggests that charity is negatively associated with welfare receipt, while wealth, income, and age have positive impacts on giving. These findings have significant implications for public policy and nonprofit management.
The exercise and valuation of executive stock options

Abstract In theory, hedging restrictions faced by managers make executive stock options more difficult to value than ordinary options, because they imply that exercise policies of managers depend on their preferences and endowments. Using data on option exercises from 40 firms, this paper shows that a simple extension of the ordinary American option model which introduces random, exogenous exercise and forfeiture predicts actual exercise times and payoffs just as well as an elaborate utility-maximizing model that explicitly accounts for the nontransferability of options. The simpler model could therefore be more useful than the preference-based model for valuing executive options in practice.
'Tis Better To Receive: The Case for an Organ Donee's Cause of Action

For five years, Robert Colavito suffered from end-stage renal disease for which he was placed on a kidney transplant waiting list.1 On August 21, 2002, Colavito's longtime friend, Peter Lucia, died of intracranial bleeding. Lucia's widow decided to donate both of his kidneys to Colavito. Lucia's left kidney was air-lifted to a Miami hospital. But contrary to his widow's wishes, the right kidney remained in New York, in the custody of the New York Organ Donor Network (NYODN).2 On August 23, 2002, Colavito was fully prepared for surgery3 when Dr. George Burke, his surgeon, discovered that the donated left kidney was irreparably damaged, and therefore useless for transplantation. When a member of Burke 's staff called the NYODN to request the second kidney for Colavito's use, he was told that it already had been transplanted into another patient.4 Subsequent tests indicated that both of Lucia's kidneys were incompatible with Colavito's antibodies, so neither could have been transplanted successfully.5 Colavito filed suit in federal court against the NYODN and individual doctors involved in the kidney disposition. He claimed the defendants were liable for fraud, conversion, and violation of New York Public Health Law. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, dismissing Colavito's fraud claim on the merits, and finding that he could not sustain a common law action for conversion or a claim based on New York Public Health Law.6 Colavito appealed, and the Second Circuit affirmed with respect
Ownership, incentives, and the hold‐up problem

Vertical integration is often proposed as a way to resolve hold-up problems. This ignores the empirical fact that division managers tend to maximize divisional (not firmwide) profit when investing. I develop a model with asymmetric information at the bargaining stage and investment returns taking the form of cash and “empire benefits.” Owners of a vertically integrated firm will then provide division managers with low-powered incentives to induce them to bargain more cooperatively, resulting in higher investments and overall profit as compared with nonintegration. Vertical integration therefore mitigates hold-up problems even without profit sharing.
The burden of disclosure: increased compliance with distrusted advice.

Professionals often face conflicts of interest that give them an incentive to provide biased advice, and disclosure (informing advisees about the conflict) is frequently proposed as a solution to the problem. We present 6 experiments that reveal a previously unrecognized perverse effect of disclosure: Although disclosure can decrease advisees' trust in the advice, it can also increase pressure to comply with that advice if advisees feel obliged to satisfy their advisors' personal interests. Hence, disclosure can burden those it is ostensibly intended to protect. Beyond demonstrating the effect, we show that this increased pressure to comply with advice is reduced if (a) the disclosure is provided by an external source rather than from the advisor, (b) the disclosure is not common knowledge between the advisor and advisee, (c) the advisee has an opportunity to change his/her mind later, or (d) the advisee is able to make the decision in private. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
Dividend payments as a response to peer influence

Abstract I show dividend policies have peer effects. My estimates indicate that firms speed up the time taken to make a dividend change by about 1.5 quarters and increase payments by 16% in response to peer changes. The peer effects matter in increases but not decreases. In contrast to dividends, repurchases show no peer effects. In addition, announcement returns indicate that investors partially anticipate the consequences of peer effects. Overall, peer interdependencies account for 12% of total dividend payments.
To bundle or not to bundle

Commodity bundling is studied in an environment where the dispersion of valuations unambiguously decreases when two or more goods are sold as a bundle only. Bundling is more likely to dominate separately selling the goods if marginal costs are low relative to the average valuation, or if the distribution of valuations is very peaked around the mean.