cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The hidden demography of new media ethics

The early years of the twenty-first century have been characterized by an explosion of new ‘configurable’ cultural forms and practices, such as mashups, remixes and machinima, enabled by rapidly proliferating global digital network technologies. These new cultural forms blur the distinctions between traditional production and consumption and have come increasingly into contrast with the letter of copyright law. In the absence of functionally relevant economic and legal frameworks, communities around the globe have developed their own ethical criteria to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate configurable practices. In the present article, the authors share data from surveys fielded in 2006 and 2010, suggesting that as these practices have become more prevalent, the ethical frameworks people employ to make sense of them have continued to proliferate and mature. Finally, we analyze the demographic profiles of respondents applying each ethical framework, revealing hidden national, class and ethnic d...
What’s Right About Knowing?

In Sperm donor anonymity and compensation: an experiment with American sperm donors, the authors contribute to our knowledge about the impact of moving toward a system of known sperm donation in the USA by surveying a population of active and inactive actual sperm donors. Their conclusions — slightly more than a quarter would refuse to contribute, while the remaining donors would require an additional $60 per donation — are interesting and useful in modeling the implications of moving towards a new regime that allows for limited disclosure. Yet this study must be placed in a larger context that considers not just the market for sperm donors but also the implications of anonymity and disclosure for family formation. A number of developments call into question the ethics of anonymity and, indeed, the ability to ‘promise’ anonymity itself: (i) donor-conceived offspring increasingly advocating for additional information about their donors; (ii) growing numbers of families that cannot ‘cover’ their use of a donor; (iii) improved searching techniques available from genetic testing and the internet; (iv) claims that lack of access to information violates offsprings’ right under the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and (v) more technological means for using the intending parents’ own gametes (through, for example, in vitro gametogenesis). Providing information on the financial implications of ending complete anonymity is thus a useful exercise in assessing the consequences of changing the current US system, and the authors’ thoughtful caveats on both the ‘underground’ market and fertility tourism provide even more grounding for assessment. This brief comment summarizes these contextual issues as a way of adding depth to the article’s implications.
Fundamental Theorems of Asset Pricing for Good Deal Bounds

We prove fundamental theorems of asset pricing for good deal bounds in incomplete markets. These theorems relate arbitrage-freedom and uniqueness of prices for over-the-counter derivatives to existence and uniqueness of a pricing kernel that is consistent with market prices and the acceptance set of good deals. They are proved using duality of convex optimization in locally convex linear topological spaces. The concepts investigated are closely related to convex and coherent risk measures, exact functionals, and coherent lower previsions in the theory of imprecise probabilities.
Latinas in Legal Education- Through the Doors of Opportunity: Assimilation, Marginalization, Cooptation or Transformation?

Introduction 110 I. The Personal Costs: How a Woman of Color Could Perceive the Path to Success Differently from a Man of Color 112 A. Assimilation—Changing to Suit the Larger Dominant Society 112 B. Marginalization—Remaining Outside: Being a Member but Having No Voice in the Professional Community 116 C. Cooptation—Losing Self, Erasing Past, Identifying with Values at Odds with Community Interest 118 D. Transformation—Changing Paradigms, Growing, Change, and Fusion 118 II. What Comes After “Transformation”? 121 Conclusion 122
The Pennsylvania Delegation and the Peculiar Institution: The Two Faces of the Keystone State

Randolph (or Virginia) Plan on the fourth day of the Con vention until the last day of debate on September 15, questions involving slavery plagued the Convention. Slavery affected the res olution of a variety of issues, including representation, taxation, do mestic security, congressional regulation of commerce, the executive function, and interstate rendition of fugitives.1 Two Pennsylvania delegates, James Wilson and Gouverneur Mor ris, took a leading role in these debates. More than any other north erners, they helped shape the relationship between slavery and the Constitution. As the most active members of the largest and most important northern delegation, their positions and actions reveal much about why the Convention chose to protect slavery in so many ways. Although they were the only Pennsylvanians to have spoken on the subject, Wilson and Morris nevertheless reflected the tensions that slavery caused for Pennsylvanians and other northerners. Also im portant to this analysis are the Pennsylvanians who might have spoken out on slavery but did not. Jared Ingersoll apparently drafted?but never gave?a speech in which he acknowledged the difficulties that
A New Era for Desegregation

This Article argues that traditional desegregation cases should be seen as one important tool in the continuing struggle by many parents, students, and civil rights advocates to achieve racial and socioeconomic integration in our public schools. While it is unlikely that any new desegregation cases will be filed and the overwhelming majority of the approximately 16,000 school districts in the United States are not under desegregation orders, these orders are still powerful tools in the school districts where they remain. For decades legal scholars and civil rights litigators have anticipated the end of desegregation, and most have begun to focus on other aspects of education reform such as accountability, school choice, and school finance reform. But until the last school district is declared unitary, civil rights advocates should examine these cases and take a proactive approach to insuring that states and school districts have fulfilled every aspect of desegregation orders. A vigilant and proactive approach to the remaining desegregation cases can potentially influence racial integration and student achievement in the directly affected school districts and the broader landscape of American schools.
Environmental Law/Environmental Literature

What, is truly “environmental” about environmental law? This Article is the first attempt to answer this question by integrating Law & Literature scholarship with the study of environmental law. I argue that competing narratives of nature and culture common to the American environmental imagination play a more significant role in environmental law and litigation than previously acknowledged. These competing narratives, communicated through a known set of environmental stories and tropes, are used by attorneys to establish, frame, narrate and argue their cases, and they are absorbed, reimagined, reframed and retold by judges in their written opinions, making environmental law a kind of expressive, literary event. To illustrate this process, the Article examines two important and highly visible case studies: the reintroduction of gray wolves into the Northern Rocky Mountains and the public nuisance climate change lawsuit that culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision in Connecticut v. American Electric Power. A close reading of the pleadings, legal briefs and judicial opinions in these case studies demonstrates that courts respond to and reinforce traditional environmental stories, such as wilderness tales and the environmental apocalyptic, but evince a strong preference for a less well-known story, which I call the Progressive Management Machine. The Progressive Management Machine promises reconciliation of competing environmental narratives through administrative process and science-driven decision making, but, in so doing, masks its own contravention of those same narratives. The approach developed here launches a larger project exploring the dynamic relationship between environmental law, literature and narrative. This Article, like the larger project, seeks to elucidate not only various litigators’ and judges’ rhetorical strategies but also the purposes, content and significance of environmental law.
Limited attention in residential energy markets: a regression discontinuity approach

It is well known that limited attention affects consumption decisions, in particular, when the decision environment is complex. The objective of this study is to determine whether or not, and to what extent, limited attention is prevalent in residential energy markets. We use data on more than 10,000 randomly selected customers of a California-based utility company and examine consumption responses as measured by changes in kilowatt-hours after a bill has crossed a salient threshold. The results of a sharp regression discontinuity design indicate that consumers use significantly less electricity in a month following the receipt of a bill that crossed a given threshold, such as $50 for lower-income households, who then show a 2–4% reduction in the consumption. We find that even at the threshold, the degree of inattention is roughly 0.75, consumers still tend to ignore the actual (i.e., full) cost of energy use. As previous studies have found inattention to be related to income, we focus primarily on lower-income households. However, there is some evidence that higher-income households have a similar response at higher thresholds. Considering the urgent need to reduce greenhouse emissions and increase energy savings, our results may contribute to the design of more effective billing and feedback mechanisms for energy-end-users.
Taking Eugenics Seriously: Three Generations of ??? Are Enough?

I. GENETICS/EUGENICS IN THE PRESS 192 II. WHY EUGENICS IS ONE OF HISTORY’S DIRTY WORDS 202 III. LUCIEN HOWE AND THE CAMPAIGN TO ERADICATE “HEREDITARY BLINDNESS” 205 IV. POPULARITY OF THE EUGENICS MOVEMENT 208 V. CONCLUSION: THREE GENERATIONS OF ??? ARE ENOUGH? 214
The effect of poison pill adoptions and court rulings on firm entrenchment

Abstract We challenge a common presumption that poison pills and two Delaware case rulings in 1995 validating such pills materially entrench firms. Based on unsolicited takeover attempts from 1985 to 2009, we find that poison pills enhance takeover premiums, but do not reduce completion rates. Furthermore, the 1995 Delaware rulings affected neither the use of poison pills among the targets, the effectiveness of the pills that were used, the completion rate of the takeover attempts, nor the takeover premiums.
The Trade-Agreement Embarrassment

The dominant academic literature about trade agreements maintains that they are only about national terms-of-trade manipulation and not at all about purely political concerns. Non-academic economists, commentators, and diplomats by contrast think that trade agreements are all about political concerns. There are two substantive and important distinctions between the two views. i Practitioners maintain that policymakers care virtually not at all about the terms of trade or about trade-tax revenue. ii Practitioners, unlike academics, maintain that trade-agreement negotiations themselves change the underlying political economy. Observation of actual trade policy measures, though not conclusive, suggests that the practitioners are right and that the academics are wrong.
All Things Equal: Unintended Consequences And Allegedly Misrepresented Statistics

This paper describes the current class action lawsuits against law schools on grounds of misrepresented statistics (schools' self-reported job employment rates, salary data, etc.). It argues that these suits are merely the visible tip of a veiled iceberg; that these misrepresented statistics may themselves be a contributor to our legal economy's current woes.It addresses why students choose to attend law school in the first place, and observes that the industry that is legal education is, at bottom, a business. It analyzes economics and the economy, with a particular focus on labor market economics, and the likely distorted supply and demand curve in the market for legal employment. It suggests that the misrepresented statistics being hurled at potential law students prevents the labor market from reaching its true equilibrium -- it obscures demand and prevents all things from being equal.It concludes by turning toward the causes of recession as a point for comparison, and argues that the starting point for recovery in the legal market is in law schools' disseminating -- as mandated by the American Bar Association -- accurate and non-misleading statistics about their programs.
Defining the Field of Public Health Law

This article sets forth a proposed definition of public health law and provides the first comprehensive examination of whether it is now time to recognize public health law as a distinct field of legal academia. Although the amount of scholarship relating to public health law has increased significantly over the past decade, public health law remains largely unrecognized as a legal field, hidden under the shadow of health law. Yet the perspective of public health law is quite distinct from – and in some ways the direct opposite of – the perspective typically employed by scholars of health law. This article argues that public health law meets the tests of 'commonality and distinctiveness' required for a field of law. Public health law applies a mode of legal analysis derived from the science of public health that focuses on prevention and populations. This perspective not only provides a coherent focus to the field, it also provides a distinct lens of analysis that could enrich the study of numerous other fields of law. As legal analysis often operates through categories (cases are conceptualized as contracts cases, torts cases, an environmental cases, etc.), bringing public health law to the forefront as its own discipline could powerfully reshape the way in which cases with substantial health-related implications are approached. Thus, recognition of public health law as a discrete field could lead both academics and courts to reconceptualize legal issues where the public health dimensions have previously been ignored or undervalued.
Real Options Signaling Games with Applications to Corporate Finance

W e study games in which the decision to exercise an option is a signal of private information to outsiders, whose beliefs affect the utility of the decision-maker. Signaling incentives distort the timing of exercise, and the direction of distortion depends on whether the decision-maker’s utility increases or decreases in outsiders’ belief about the payoff from exercise. In the former case, signaling incentives erode the value of the option to wait and speed up option exercise, while in the latter case option exercise is delayed. We demonstrate the model’s implications through four corporate finance settings: investment under managerial myopia, venture capital grandstanding, investment under cash flow diversion, and product market competition. (JEL G31, D82) The real options approach to investment and other corporate finance decisions has become an increasingly important area of research in financial economics. The main underlying concept is that an investment opportunity is valuable not only because of associated cash flows but also because the decision to invest can be postponed. As a result, when making the investment decision, one must take into account both the direct costs of investment and the indirect costs of foregoing the option to invest in the future. The applications of the real options framework have become quite broad. 1
Is time inconsistency primarily a male problem

We conduct a simple experiment, using real money, that tests whether men and woman differ in time consistency. The experiment provides strong evidence of time inconsistency among males, but no evidence of such behaviour among females. Furthermore, the difference between males and females is statistically significant. This result could have important implications in marketing and in efforts to improve intertemporal decision-marking.
Interpreting Degree Effects in the Returns to Education

Researchers often identify degree effects by including degree attainment (D) and years of schooling (S) in a wage model, yet the source of independent variation in these measures is not well understood. We argue that S is negatively correlated with ability among degree-holders because the most able graduate the fastest, but positively correlated among dropouts because the most able benefit from increased schooling. Using NLSY79 data, we find support for this argument; our findings also suggest that highest grade completed is the preferred measure of S for dropouts, while age at school exit is a more informative measure for degree-holders.
Law, Focal Points, and Fiscal Discipline in the United States and the European Union

Many studies suggest that strict balanced budget rules can restrain sovereign debt and lower sovereign borrowing costs, even if those rules are never enforced in court. Why might public officials adhere to a rule that is practically never enforced in court? Existing literature points to a legal deterrence logic in which the threat of judicial enforcement deters sovereigns from violating the rules in the first place. By contrast, we argue that balanced budget rules work by coordinating decentralized punishment of sovereigns by bond markets, rather than by posing a credible threat of judicial enforcement. Therefore, the clarity of the focal point provided by the rule, rather than the strength of its judicial enforcement mechanisms, determines its effectiveness. We develop a formal model that captures the logic of our argument, and we assess this model using data on U.S. states. We then consider implications of our argument for the impact of the balanced budget rules recently imposed on eurozone states in the Fiscal Compact Treaty.
Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer

After years in which she and her children were physically abused by her adulterous husband, a woman in Talladega County, Alabama, arranged to have him killed. Tragically, murders of abusive spouses are not rare in our violent society, but seldom are they punished by the death penalty. Yet this woman was sentenced to death. Why? It may have been in part because one of her court-appointed lawyers was so drunk that the trial had to be delayed for a day after he was held in contempt and sent to jail. The next morning, he and his client were both produced from jail, the trial resumed, and the death penalty was imposed a few days later. It may also have been in part because this lawyer failed to find hospital records documenting injuries received by the woman and her daughter, which would have corroborated their testimony about abuse. And it may also have been because her lawyers did not bring their expert witness on domestic abuse to see the defendant until 8 p.m. on the night before he testified at trial. Poor people accused of capital crimes are often defended by lawyers who lack the skills, resources, and commitment to handle such serious matters. This fact is confirmed in case after case. It is not the facts of the crime, but the quality of legal representation, that distinguishes this case, where the death
Incorporating inventories into supply and demand analysis

In the microeconomic portions of principles and intermediate macroeconomics, supply and demand analysis is presented as “the truth.” However, the simple Keynesian macroeconomic model virtually ignores market clearing, while the standard microeconomic model of supply and demand assumes perfect market clearing. Since hidden assumptions are a major source of confusion and misunderstanding between economists and the general public, students should be exposed to stock-flow analysis at the intermediate level as a separate or integrated chapter on supply and demand.
Subsidiary debt, capital structure and internal capital markets.

Abstract I study external debt issued by operating subsidiaries of diversified firms. Consistent with Kahn and Winton's [2004. Moral hazard and optimal subsidiary structure for financial institutions. Journal of Finance 59, 2537–2575] model, where subsidiary debt mitigates asset substitution, I find firms are more likely to use subsidiary debt when their divisions vary more in risk. Consistent with subsidiary debt mitigating the free cash flow problem, I find that subsidiaries are more likely to have their own external debt when they have fewer growth options and higher cash flow than the rest of the firm. Finally, I find that subsidiary debt mitigates the “corporate socialism” and “poaching” problems modeled in theories of internal capital markets.
On the Feasibility of a Liberal Welfare State: Agency and Exit Costs in Income Security Clubs

This paper investigates whether individuals might voluntarily join and remain members of a state in which high levels of social insurance are provided. That is to say, are there plausible circumstances in which a social welfare state can be regarded as “liberal” in the sense that it has the universal support of its citizens? As a point of departure, the paper demonstrates that risk-averse individuals in a setting of substantial income or health uncertainty will voluntarily join private income-security clubs. Private income-security clubs, however, cannot be entirely voluntary because they must solve the problem of adverse selection, as with entry or exit fees. The paper demonstrates that individuals may opt for governmental provision of income security services, when there is uncertainty about the quality of private club services, because naturally high exit costs allow national governments to economically address the problem of adverse selection. The analysis also suggests that liberal income security programs may have constitutional or quasi-constitutional status because of the nature of the long-term nature of the insurance contract.
Asymmetric Information, Portfolio Managers, and Home Bias

We propose a model of delegated asset management that can explain the following empirical regularities in international markets: the presence of home bias, the lower proportion of mutual funds investing domestically, and the higher market value of mutual funds investing domestically. In the model, fund managers choose whether to specialize in domestic or foreign assets. Individual investors are uncertain about managers' abilities, and they are more informed about domestic markets. This makes domestic investments less risky and generates home bias. Home bias is magnified because higher-ability managers specialize in domestic assets, making them even more attractive to the investors. The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.
Leave Vacant or Rent: The Optimal Decision for Absentee Home Sellers

Home-sellers may not occupy their property when listed for sale. While previous research has analyzed the effect of a vacancy on the sales price of residential properties, no research to date has q...
The Rights of Divorced Lesbians: Interstate Recognition of Child Custody Judgments in the Context of Same-Sex Divorce

Kathryn J. Harvey* This Note explores the issue of interstate recognition of child custody, which arises in the context of same-sex divorce. The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA) requires states to grant full faith and credit to all child custody orders; on the other hand, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) allows states to deny full faith and credit to judgments “arising out of” same-sex marriage. This Note argues that DOMA partially repeals the PKPA, such that states need not grant full faith and credit to divorce and child custody decrees in the context of same-sex marriage. Further, this Note argues that because same-sex divorce does not raise the same concerns as same-sex marriage, sister states should recognize same-sex divorce and custody orders as doing so is in the best interest of the child and supports interstate comity.
The Real Problem with Carried Interests

The recent proposals to reform the tax treatment of private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund managers are misguided. Policymakers and commentators often take industry-focused, results-oriented approaches to the “carried interest” debate, thereby obscuring the real source of the policy objection to carried interests. Instead of starting with a result that is objectionable and trying to find a way to change the law to avoid the objectionable result, this Article begins with the law and facts relevant to carried interests and systematically unpacks the tax rules that combine to produce the current tax treatment of carried interests. As a consequence, this Article provides structure to the voluminous discourse about carried interests, identifies the key features of the tax law that are most likely to cause hostility toward carried interests, and analyzes how to design reform proposals that are most responsive to each objection. More generally, this Article redirects attention away from the narrow carried interest issue and toward the more fundamental aspects of the tax system that need reform.
Federalism and the Rise of Renewable Energy: Preserving State and Local Voices in the Green Energy Revolution

The rise of renewable energy has disrupted the traditional regulatory structure governing electricity. Unlike traditional fossil fuel power plants, wind and solar facilities are geographically constrained: they exist where the wind blows and the sun shines. Large-scale renewable energy is more likely to flow interstate, from resource-rich prairie and Southwestern states to energy-hungry population centers elsewhere. The difficulties of coordinating interstate electricity policies have led some to call for greater preemption of the states’ traditional duties as chief regulators of the electricity industry. But while preemption would eliminate some state-level roadblocks to interstate cooperation, it would sacrifice many of the benefits of local knowledge and experimentation in a diverse and innovative new marketplace. This paper examines the benefits of a cooperative federalism approach to electricity regulation. The challenges facing renewable energy are regional in scope, and there is value in preserving state and local voices in policymaking decisions. It examines three aspects of the renewable energy debate — siting generation facilities, building transmission lines, and adopting demand-side renewable energy standards — and, for each, explores governance structures that would promote greater regional cooperation without sacrificing the benefits of decentralized government.
Psychosocial Stages Of Symbolic Action In Social Media

This paper applies theories of developmental psychology, specifically Erikson’s (1959) stages of psychosocial development, as a lens for understanding how people will use social media in considerably different ways at different stages of life. We conclude that people of different ages and developmental stages will use social media in very different ways and to meet very different psychosocial needs. This research suggests that studies that focus only on the use of social media by university students may be limited and not generalizable to other groups of users. Conversely, it opens opportunity for new empirical research for understanding how different groups of users employ social media differently and what types of features may be missing in current platforms that could help meet those needs. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Toward an Entrepreneurial Society: Why Measurement Matters

Entrepreneurship and innovation are everywhere. Even in the world’s most remote and impoverished places, the fabric of daily life is today continually being rewoven by gradual improvements in existing goods and services and by radically new inventions, unimaginable but a few years or even months before their sudden appearance. From “Moore’s Law” to gene therapies, technological advance combined with entrepreneurial initiative continues to deliver on the promise of “better, faster, cheaper.” Such changes enhance the human experience directly, and also drive sustained economic growth that improves lives further. Given the importance of innovation to individuals and societies everywhere, the global inadequacy of tools—even a rigorous vocabulary—to measure innovation and trace its effects is striking. Yet, considered in a historical context, the shortcomings of current systems of measurement are also not surprising. The puzzle of sustained growth, and its relationship to entrepreneurship and innovation, is a fairly new one. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, growth was an unknown dimension of human experience. For millennia, mankind experienced little substantive change in the flow of goods and services; accordingly, centuries came and went with lives changing little. Even more importantly, global wealth remained stagnant—few people became richer and few poorer. If there appeared to be an expansion of wealth in one locale, it usually entailed armed conflict in which static goods or precious metals were wrested away from another family, city, or nation. The dominant tools for understanding economic life—those associated directly with the “marginalist revolution” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries—are
Peer effects in corporate disclosure decisions

Abstract This study examines peer effects in corporate disclosure decisions. Peer effects suggest that the average behavior of a group influences the behavior of individual group members. Consistent with peer effects, I find that disclosures made by industry peers induce firm disclosure. Peer effects in disclosure are more pronounced when a firm's strategic uncertainty is higher, indicating that peer firm disclosure reduces the external uncertainty arising from the firm's interaction with its industry peers and thus increases the precision of managerial private information. I also find that peer effects are stronger when a firm's dependence on external financing is greater, suggesting that peer firm disclosure increases the costs on firm visibility and reputation in capital markets. Overall, these findings suggest that peer firm disclosure shapes a firm's information environment.
Pricing in position auctions and online advertising

Can search engines increase revenues by changing their position auctions? In this paper, I analyze position auctions with general pricing rules to answer this question. In these auctions, there are several items that are commonly ranked by bidders with unit demand. I show that revenues remain the same for position auctions with regular pricing rules where the price for an item depends on the bids of agents who win lower-ranked items. In addition, all of the bidders have the same ex post payoffs. I also show that regularity is a necessary condition to get ex post payoff equivalence.
Copyright Harm, Foreseeability, and Fair Use

Copyright law needs a theory of harm that can give effect to its constitutional purpose. In order to Promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, copyrights must strike a balance between owners and users. Historically, copyright law struck this balance by granting limited copyrights, protecting only against copying that was likely to cause the copyright owner to lose sales of the copyrighted work. When the defendant used the work in a less foreseeable way, perhaps changing its meaning or purpose, the fair use doctrine was invoked. If the use was not foreseeable, it could hardly harm a copyright owner's reasonably expected sales. The fair use doctrine's harm requirement encouraged innovation by limiting infringement to uses that would likely affect a copyright owner's decision to create or distribute the work.Over time, however, the scope of copyright protection has increased dramatically. This expansion leads to circularity in determining when a use is fair, as the copyright owner can nearly always argue that the defendant could have paid a license fee for the challenged use. This Article argues that current approaches to fair use, including the market failure and balancing theories, do not strike the balance necessary to achieve copyright's purpose, and that to do so, fair use must make liability turn on proof of harm. Further, the Article shows that courts have developed a harm-based approach to fair use. This approach avoids circularity by requiring proof or a meaningful likelihood of lost profits that would be likely to have a material effect on a reasonable copyright owner's ex ante decision to create or distribute the work. Accordingly, it rejects the theory of copyright dilution, under which some courts have found harm where the defendant's use of a copyrighted work impairs the image of a work without causing any provable lost profits. It also argues that courts should allow defendants to mitigate evidence of harm to plaintiffs' sales by showing that their use also increased sales.
Developing U.S. Oversight Strategies for Nanobiotechnology: Learning from Past Oversight Experiences

The emergence of nanotechnology, and specifically nanobiotechnology, raises major oversight challenges. In the United States, government, industry, and researchers are debating what oversight approaches are most appropriate. Among the federal agencies already embroiled in discussion of oversight approaches are the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Agriculture (USDA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and National Institutes of Health (NIH). All can learn from assessment of the successes and failures of past oversight efforts aimed at emerging technologies. This article reports on work funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) aimed at learning the lessons of past oversight efforts. The article offers insights that emerge from comparing five oversight case studies that examine oversight of genetically engineered organisms (GEOs) in the food supply, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, chemicals in the workplace, and gene therapy. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, the authors present a new way of evaluating oversight.
Florida Board of Medicine Resists Change

In a rapidly changing health care industry, providers are constatntly seeking new sources of revenue and new ways to expand their patient base. From time to time, providers request the Florida Board of Medicine to issue a Declaratory Statement as to whether a particular economic arrangement is in compliance with applicable Florida law. In several orders issued by the Board of Medicine during the past few years, the Board has taken an extremely conservative view of the applicable statutes and has ruled that certain innovative financial arrangements between providers or between providers and other parties violated applicable laws. The thrust of the article is that the Board of Medicine should recognize the health care industry is changing rapidly, and in reviewing various new economic arrangements, the Board should weigh the benefits which may accrue to patients and to physicians from such arrangements against the possibilities of abuse which may be inherent in such relationships.
Economic Crises and Trade Policy Competition

How do crises affect trade policy? This article reconciles starkly diverging accounts in the literature by showing that economic adversity generates endogenous incentives not only for protection, but also for liberalization. It first formally develops the mechanisms by which two features of shocks – intensity and duration – influence the resources and political strategies of distressed firms. The central insight is that policy adjustments to resuscitate afflicted industries typically generate ‘knock-on’ effects on the profitability and political maneuverings of other firms in the economy. The study incorporates these countervailing pressures in its analysis of trade policy competition. In the wake of crises, protection initially increases when affected firms lobby for assistance, but then decreases as industries run low on resources to expend on lobbying and as firms in other industries mobilize to counter-lobby. The theoretical predictions are tested using sub-national and cross-national data, and real-world illustrations are presented to highlight the mechanisms driving the results.
Rambus v. F.T.C. in the Context of Standard-Setting Organizations, Antitrust, and the Patent Hold-Up Problem

This article examines the patent hold-up problem through the lens of recent litigation involving alleged abuses within standard-setting organizations (SSOs). In Rambus v. Federal Trade Commission, a case addressing antitrust liability for failing to disclose relevant patents to an SSO, the D.C. Circuit held that an SSO member should not face liability unless there is affirmative proof that the SSO would have certainly chosen another standard absent deception. This article argues that the D.C. Circuit's analysis was incompatible with its prior en banc ruling in United States v. Microsoft. Next, this article explores measures SSOs may take to avoid the patent hold-up problem. Finally, this article examines the possibility of expanding the use of equitable defenses by defendants sued by firms that attempt to engage in hold-up.
Four Neglected Prescriptions of Hartian Legal Philosophy

This paper seeks to uncover and rationally reconstruct four theoretical prescriptions that H. L. A. Hart urged philosophers to observe and follow when investigating and theorizing about the nature of law. The four prescriptions may appear meager and insignificant when each is seen in isolation, but together as an inter-connected set they have substantial implications. In effect, they constitute a central part of Hart's campaign to put philosophical investigations about the nature of law onto a path to a genuine research program. The paper takes note of certain prevalent and robust trends in contemporary legal philosophy that detract its practitioners from the four prescriptions, and that have them revert to the some older modes of thinking from which Hart sought a decisive break. A number of contemporary legal philosophers' views and commitments are taken up and assessed, and in particular those of John Gardner and Leslie Green. ‘Yet the answer is a prosaic one: don’t ask what time is but how the ‘time’ is being used’. Friedrich Waismann. I miss the future. Jaron Lanier.
The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short- and Long-Run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe

The 1930’s American Dust Bowl was an environmental catastrophe that greatly eroded sections of the Plains. Analyzing new data collected to identify low-, medium-, and high-erosion counties, the Dust Bowl is estimated to have immediately, substantially, and persistently reduced agricultural land values and revenues. During the Depression and through at least the 1950’s, there was limited reallocation of farmland from activities that became relatively less productive. Agricultural adjustments, such as reallocating land from crops to livestock, recovered only 14% to 28% of the initial agricultural cost. The economy adjusted predominately through migration, rather than through capital inows and increased industry.
The assignment and division of the tax base in a system of hierarchical governments

Vertical externalities, changes in one level of government’s policies that affect the budget of another level of government, may lead to non-optimal government policies. These externalities are associated with tax bases that are shared or “co-occupied” by two levels of government. Here I consider whether co-occupancy of tax bases is desirable. I examine the optimal extent of the tax bases of a lower level of government (local) and a higher level (state). I find that it is optimal to have co-occupancy in the absence of other corrective policies if commodities in the tax bases are substitutes. Further, if the state government can differentially tax the co-occupied segment of the tax base and the segment it alone taxes it will obtain the (second-best) outcome obtained with other policy instruments such as intergovernmental grants.
No one true path: uncovering the interplay between geography, institutions, and fractionalization in economic development

Do institutions rule when explaining cross-country divergence? By employing regression tree analysis to uncover the existence and nature of multiple development clubs and growth regimes, this paper finds that to a large extent they do. However, the role of ethnic fractionalization cannot be dismissed. The findings suggest that sufficiently high-quality institutions may be necessary for the negative impact on development from high levels of ethnic fractionalization to be mitigated. Interestingly, I find no role for geographic factors—neither those associated with climate nor physical isolation—in explaining divergence. There is also no evidence to suggest a role for religious fractionalization. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Terrorism and Asylum Seekers: Why the Real ID Act Is a False Promise

The Real ID Act, passed on May 11, 2005, is the first post-September 11 antiterrorism legislation specifically to target a group of vulnerable individuals to whom the United States has historically granted protection: asylum seekers. The passage of the Real ID Act led asylum advocates to wring their hands in despair and immigration restrictionists to clap their hands in glee. This Article argues that both sides of the debate may have been justified in their reactions, but not because of the immediate chilling impact on asylum that they seem to expect. With regard to requirements for establishing asylum eligibility, the Real ID Act, rather than imposing new, onerous restrictions on asylum, codifies case law upon which adjudicators, advocates, and government attorneys have been relying for decades. However, several areas of poor drafting, combined with legislative history mischaracterizing the asylum system as a haven for terrorists and suicide bombers, may result in the denial of bona fide asylum applications. This Article provides concrete guidance for adjudicators, advocates, and government attorneys applying the Real ID Act to asylum cases. It examines the case law upon which some of the provisions are based and offers interpretations for unclear provisions. Overall, this Article emphasizes that it is the duty of adjudicators, advocates, and government attorneys to protect victims of persecution.
ACCOUNTING FOR INCOMPLETE PASS-THROUGH

Recent theoretical work has suggested a number of potentially important factors in causing incomplete pass-through of exchange rates to prices, including markup adjustment, local costs and barriers to price adjustment. We empirically analyze the determinants of incomplete passthrough in the coee industry. The observed pass-through in this industry replicates key features of pass-through documented in aggregate data: prices respond sluggishly and incompletely to changes in costs. We use microdata on sales and prices to uncover the role of markup adjustment, local costs, and barriers to price adjustment in determining incomplete pass-through using a structural oligopoly model that nests all three potential factors. The implied pricing model explains the main dynamic features of short and long-run pass-through. Local costs reduce long-run pass-through by a factor of 59% relative to a CES benchmark. Markup adjustment reduces pass-through by an additional factor of 33%, where the extent of markup adjustment depends on the estimated \super-elasticity" of demand. The estimated menu costs are small (0:23% of revenue) and have a negligible eect on long-run pass-through, but are quantitatively successful in explaining the delayed response of prices to costs. We nd that delayed passthrough in the coee industry occurs almost entirely at the wholesale rather than the retail level.
Other-regarding preferences: Egalitarian warm glow, empathy, and group size

Abstract An abundance of experimental evidence in recent years has demonstrated the existence of other-regarding behavior in the laboratory. In a series of dictator experiments, we investigate the effects of warm-glow egalitarianism, empathy, and their interaction with group size. We find that the random-payoff method may distort incentives in favor of egalitarian behavior by allowing for path-dependent egalitarian warm glow to outweigh monetary payoffs. Though we find some evidence for empathy, it nevertheless appears that a group size of six or more neutralizes most other-regarding behavior in many-recipient dictator games.
Optimal monetary policy in a currency area

Abstract This paper investigates how monetary policy should be conducted in a two-region general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and price stickiness. This framework delivers a simple welfare criterion based on the utility of the consumers that can be used to evaluate monetary policy in a currency area. If the two regions share the same degree of nominal rigidity, the terms of trade are completely insulated from monetary policy and the optimal outcome is obtained by targeting a weighted average of the regional inflation rates. These weights coincide with the economic sizes of the region. If the degrees of rigidity are different, the optimal plan implies a high degree of inertia in the inflation rate. But an inflation targeting policy in which higher weight is given to the inflation in the region with higher degree of nominal rigidity is nearly optimal.
Managing globalization of R&D: Organizing for offshoring innovation

This article analyzes the challenges brought about by the globalization of innovative activity to the science and practice of management. The task of matching organization structure and management practices to the needs of R&D offshoring is analyzed through a set of dichotomous pairs of concepts: (1) Drastic vs. Gradual and Systemic vs. Autonomous Innovation, (2) High vs. Low Skill Specificity, (3) Input Markets vs. Output Markets, (4) Intra-Firm vs. Arms Length Offshoring. In the trade-off between markets and hierarchies, the firms often come down on the side of the latter when it comes to the setting up of R&D facilities abroad. Organizational directives and internalization, i.e., intra-firm offshoring can trump market incentives and foreign outsourcing, when it comes to the uncertain returns from innovative activity, particularly in the case of drastic innovations and high skill specificity. Globalization has led to dispersed markets and firms have responded with dispersed locations of core assets, creating competence clusters all over the world, and the innovative firm of the future will restructure each individual cell, the basic building block of the firm consisting of an occupation devoted to a product, and redeploy and relocate them globally, where it is most advantageous.