Snap Judgment: Recognizing the Propriety and Pitfalls of Direct Judicial Review of Audiovisual Evidence at Summary Judgment

Conflicting results in two recent police excessive force decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court—Tolan v. Cotton and Plumhoff v. Rickard—have sown confusion about the standards for summary judgment. This Note shows how the two decisions are consistent with each other and with longstanding summary judgment precedents. The key insight is that since the Second Circuit’s iconic 1946 decision in Arnstein v. Porter, appellate judges, including Supreme Court Justices, have listened to audio recordings, scrutinized artwork, and—as in the case of Plumhoff—watched video footage in order to decide for themselves whether there is a genuine issue of material fact for trial. These “objective” components of the record are considered vitally important to the decisions. When no objective evidence is available, appellate judges are left with “he said, she said” testimonial evidence in which demeanor evidence looms larger and are therefore more likely to allow the cases to proceed to trial. The presumed propriety of appellate judicial review of audiovisual evidence not only explains the different results in Tolan (no audiovisual evidence of police shooting and vacating the lower court’s finding for the defendant officer) and Plumhoff (video evidence of a police car chase resulting in the Court finding for the officer), but it also will have greater significance in current police excessive force cases given the omnipresence of smartphones and police recordings. At the same time, it is worth questioning whether appellate judges should continue to exercise limitless, de novo review of present-day audiovisual evidence, which may require as much understanding of context as traditional demeanor evidence

PREMIUM RATE DETERMINATION IN THE FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE PROGRAM: WHAT DO AVERAGES HAVE TO SAY ABOUT RISK?

This article reviews actuarial procedures used to calculate premium rates in the federal crop insurance program. Average yields are used as an important indicator of risk under current rating practices. The strength and validity of this relationship is examined using historical yield data drawn from a large sample of Kansas farms. The results indicate that assumed relationships between average yields and yield variation are tenuous and imply that rating procedures that rely on average yields may induce adverse selection.Risk and Uncertainty,

INSTABILITY AND RISK IN U.S. AGRICULTURE

The U.S. government has been extensively involved in providing income support and risk management policies for U.S. farmers over the last 65 years. Risk management policies have included crop insurance, disaster relief, and in recent years, revenue insurance. Recent policy changes signaled an intention on the part of policy makers, at least in principle, to move U.S. agriculture toward the free market. Low commodity prices and localized droughts, however, have brought about renewed calls for direct income assistance. In this paper, we discuss the role of the government in providing policies to address income shortfalls and risk in agriculture. Problems and inconsistencies with policies are identified and discussed. Implications for international markets are also highlighted.agriculture, crop insurance, government policy, risk management, Agricultural and Food Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

FORECASTING CATTLE PRICES IN THE PRESENCE OF STRUCTURAL CHANGE

Recent empirical research and development in the cattle industry suggest several reasons to suspect structural change in economic relationships determining cattle prices. Standard forecasting models may ignore structural change and may produce biased and misleading forecasts. Vector autoregressive (VAR) models that allow parameters to vary with time are used to forecast quarterly cattle prices. The VAR procedures are flexible in that they allow the identification of structural change that begins at an a priori unknown point and occurs gradually. The results indicate that the lowest RMSE for out-of-sample forecasts of cattle prices is obtained using a gradually switching VAR model. However, differences between the gradually switching VAR model and a univeriate ARIMA model are not strongly significant. Impulse response functions indicate that adjustments of cattle prices to new information have become faster in recent years.Demand and Price Analysis,

Does the Stock Market\u27s Equity Risk Premium Respond to Consumer Confidence or Is It the Other Way Around?

The increase in the equity risk premium during the 2007- 2009 Great Recession and the aging of the baby boomers in the United States have led analysts and financial industry experts to believe that risk aversion among stock investors has moved to a more-permanently higher range. If so, stocks would cease being an attractive asset class to be investing in for the future. In the past few years private investors have by and large shunned equities, just when stocks have become attractively priced and offer long-term potential for superior above-historical-average returns. Our empirical findings show that the recent increase in the equity risk premium (ERP) primarily reflects a temporary collapse in consumer confidence and that the ERP will mean revert once confidence returns. As long as consumer confidence in the sustainability of the economic recovery remains low, today\u27s elevated risk premium will persist. Once confidence starts to recover- as it has done after every recession since the 1960s- the required return premium among stock market investors also should diminish

(WP 2013-09) Virtual Currency and the Financial System: The Case of Bitcoin

Technological development and the increased use of the internet have led to the proliferation of virtual communities. Some of these communities have created and circulated their own currency for exchanging goods and services. Bitcoin is currently the most popular among these virtual or digital currencies and has been in news recently because of the wild fluctuations in its ‘value’ and also significant venture capital investment in entities associated with it.1 Bitcoin is relevant in several areas of the financial system and is therefore of interest to central banks, consumers and investors. Digital currencies are part of a broader group of virtual currencies that include credit card points, air miles, loyalty points and coupons (Chart 1). With the advent of the Internet, mobile devices and detailed consumer information, companies are increasingly using digital currencies as a marketing tool. As a result, there has been a sharp increase in the use of digital currencies, particularly for app-based coins and tokens, mobile coupons, and personal data exchanged for digital content. As these trends evolve, digital currencies have the potential to become more popular and compete with traditional currencies. This paper aims to provide some clarity in particular on Bitcoin, its role and potential future use in the financial system and the risks associated with this form of digital currency.. It will begin by providing a short introduction to the Bitcoin network as well as describe the benefits of allowing the Bitcoin network to develop and innovate. It will highlight concerns for consumers, policymakers and financial regulators. Next it will analyze the role that Bitcoin could play in the financial system. The paper will conclude by providing recommendations to address policymakers’ concerns while allowing for further innovation within the Bitcoin network. An initial comprehensive overview of this kind is absent from the existing literature. This paper intends to fill that gap in the literature