Benevolence in Beijing

My brand new bicycle had been stolen! Disbelief. Anger! Disappointment... I had been riding it for only a day,and was as excited as a,well,a boy with a new bike. Even though I only paid what would be the equivalent of half a tank of gas for my truck back home,I was still sorely put out.     

友谊和相互理解的盛会——谈俄罗斯"中国年"

我的老朋友和同行冯绍雷教授请我谈一谈我对俄罗斯"中国年"的想法,对此我欣然应允。3月26日,俄罗斯"中国年"开幕式在克里姆林宫隆重举行。两国领导人——胡锦涛主席和普京总统在讲话中强调了中俄两国互办"国家年"的意义,强调了两国人民命运和两国主要发展目标上的历史共性。实际上,正是两国领导人自己提出了举办这种大规模活动的倡议。中国艺术家们在克里姆林宫剧院的大型演出,成为中国音乐、舞蹈和杂技艺术所取得的突出成就的真实展示。演员们的表演受到了     

Collective Bargaining during Times of Crisis: Recommendations from the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed employment across sectors in 2020. This Viewpoint essay examines public sector labor relations during the pandemic and describes the impact bargaining process that is used to protect public employees. The authors draw on their own experience with impact bargaining negotiations and the public labor relations, conflict management, and civil service reform literatures to develop recommendations for public union labor leaders during times of crisis. They suggest that public unions have an important role in crisis management but must act strategically to develop good working relationships with leadership and successfully negotiate employee protections in uncertain times.     

For Safety or Profit? How Science Serves the Strategic Interests of Private Actors

Science is central to the regulation of risk. But who provides the science on which risk regulations are based? Through an in-depth empirical analysis of domestic health and safety standards, this article shows how private actors use scientific information to acquire preferential outcomes. I develop a formal model delineating conditions under which firms will seek stricter standards on their own products, and I reveal how companies can acquire these outcomes through the strategic provision of information. To test the theory, I track changes to U.S. agrochemical standards over a two-decade period. I also introduce firm-level petition data and historical evidence to test the mechanism directly. My findings provide new insight into the strategies companies use to benefit from regulations, while also forcing us to reevaluate what it means for regulations to be based on science.     

Ideological Competition and Conflict in the Judicial Hierarchy

Circuit splits, or conflicting rules across multiple U.S. Courts of Appeals, have important policy implications and dramatic effects on Supreme Court case selection, yet we know little about the incentives ideological lower courts face when deciding whether to initiate conflict. This article develops a formal model of a judicial hierarchy where lower court judges are subject to review by a high court with distaste for unresolved conflict, termed “split-intolerance,” and with uncertain preferences over policy. Lower courts may compete by investing costly effort in legal quality to make their rules more attractive. In equilibrium, lower courts may initiate conflict even when the odds of success before the high court are remote. Surprisingly, lower courts grow more likely to create conflict as the high court's split-intolerance increases; however, split-intolerance can also incentivize greater lower court effort. I present qualitative evidence illustrating the model's explanatory power.     

Should algorithms be regulated by government?

There has been, and continues to be, an explosion in the use of algorithms across the economy and society. There are growing concerns about how algorithms are being used and whether they are accountable. This article reviews the literature on the issue of algorithms in several key areas, such as fairness, accountability, and transparency. The article examines arguments on why algorithms should be regulated, and it explores the available literature to identify how a potential Canadian regulatory framework may be developed.