Recessions and Local Labor Market Hysteresis

This paper studies the effects of each U.S. recession since 1973 on local labor markets. We find that recession-induced declines in employment are permanent, suggesting that local areas experience permanent declines in labor demand relative to less-affected areas. Population also falls, primarily due to reduced in-migration, but by less than employment. As a result, recessions generate long-lasting hysteresis: persistent decreases in the employment-to-population ratio and earnings per capita. Changes in the composition of workers explain less than half of local hysteresis. We further show that finite sample bias in vector autoregressions leads to artificial convergence, which can explain why some previous work finds no evidence of hysteresis in employment rates

Place-Based Consequences of Person-Based Transfers: Evidence from Recessions

This paper studies how government transfers respond to changes in local economic activity that emerge during recessions. Local labor markets that experience greater employment losses during recessions face persistent relative decreases in earnings per capita. However, these areas also experience persistent increases in transfers per capita, which offset 16 percent of the earnings loss on average. The increase in transfers is driven by unemployment insurance in the short run, and medical, retirement, and disability transfers in the long run. Our results show that nominally place-neutral transfer programs redistribute considerable sums of money to places with depressed economic conditions

The Status of Clinical Faculty in the Legal Academy: Report of the Task Force on the Status of Clinicians and the Legal Academy

In the midst of ongoing debates within the legal academy and the American Bar Association on the need for practice-ready law school graduates through enhanced attention to law clinics and externships and on the status of faculty teaching in those courses, this report identifies and evaluates the most appropriate modes for clinical faculty appointments. Drawing on data collected through a survey of clinical program directors and faculty, the report analyzes the five most identifiable clinical faculty models: unitary tenure track; clinical tenure track; long-term contract; short-term contract; and clinical fellowships. It determines that, despite great strides in the growth of clinical legal education in the last 30 years, equality between clinical and non-clinical faculty remains elusive. Clinical faculty still lag behind non-clinical faculty in security of position and governance rights at most law schools. The report then identifies four core principles that should guide decisions about clinical faculty appointments: 1) clinical education is a foundational and essential component of legal education; 2) the legal academy and profession benefit from full inclusion of clinical faculty on all matters affecting the mission, function, and direction of law schools; 3) there is no justification for creating hierarchies between clinical and non-clinical faculty; and 4) the standards for hiring, retention, and promotion of clinical faculty must recognize and value the responsibilities and methodologies of clinical teaching. The report concludes that these core principles are best realized when full-time clinical faculty are appointed to a unitary tenure track. This conclusion does not ignore the imperfections of a tenure system. However, to the extent that tenure remains the strongest measure of the legal academy\u27s investment in its faculty and is the surest guarantee of academic freedom, inclusion in faculty governance and job security, the report recommends that law schools predominantly place their clinical faculty on dedicated tenure lines. In addition, it recommends that schools implement standards for hiring, promotion, and retention that reflect the teaching responsibilities and methodologies, as well as practice and service obligations, unique to their clinical faculty. To facilitate the development of such standards, the report suggests good practices for the appointment of clinical faculty on a unitary tenure track

Blaming the Ref: Understanding the Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Family Violence

Domestic violence generates long-term effects on offenders, victims, and other household members. Insight into triggers of family violence can inform policy and improve services aimed at reducing abusive behavior. We investigate potential domestic violence triggers by analyzing unexpected losses in National Basketball Association games. The literature identifies increasing in-home violence after unexpected losses in the National Football League. Combining information on referee accuracy and fatigue, we develop a unique identification strategy to explore the impact of human error on family violence following unexpected losses. Results indicate that as referees are more accurate (more rested) in unexpected losses, family violence decreases, suggesting that the ability to place blame for a loss on referees increases the likelihood of violent outbursts. Further investigation shows that these results concentrate in games where referees are less rested and betting markets were less certain of the game outcome

Readiness of Quantum Optimization Machines for Industrial Applications

There have been multiple attempts to demonstrate that quantum annealing and, in particular, quantum annealing on quantum annealing machines, has the potential to outperform current classical optimization algorithms implemented on CMOS technologies. The benchmarking of these devices has been controversial. Initially, random spin-glass problems were used, however, these were quickly shown to be not well suited to detect any quantum speedup. Subsequently, benchmarking shifted to carefully crafted synthetic problems designed to highlight the quantum nature of the hardware while (often) ensuring that classical optimization techniques do not perform well on them. Even worse, to date a true sign of improved scaling with the number of problem variables remains elusive when compared to classical optimization techniques. Here, we analyze the readiness of quantum annealing machines for real-world application problems. These are typically not random and have an underlying structure that is hard to capture in synthetic benchmarks, thus posing unexpected challenges for optimization techniques, both classical and quantum alike. We present a comprehensive computational scaling analysis of fault diagnosis in digital circuits, considering architectures beyond D-wave quantum annealers. We find that the instances generated from real data in multiplier circuits are harder than other representative random spin-glass benchmarks with a comparable number of variables. Although our results show that transverse-field quantum annealing is outperformed by state-of-the-art classical optimization algorithms, these benchmark instances are hard and small in the size of the input, therefore representing the first industrial application ideally suited for testing near-term quantum annealers and other quantum algorithmic strategies for optimization problems.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures. Content updated according to Phys. Rev. Applied versio

Maternal nutrient restriction in guinea pigs as an animal model for studying growth-restricted offspring with postnatal catch-up growth

We determined the impact of moderate maternal nutrient restriction (MNR) in guinea pigs with fetal growth restriction (FGR) on offspring body and organ weights, hypothesizing that FGR-MNR animals will show catch-up growth but with organ-specific differences. Guinea pig sows were fed ad libitum (Control) or 70% of the control diet from 4 weeks preconception, switching to 90% at midpregnancy (MNR). Control newborns \u3e95 g [appropriate for gestational age (AGA); n = 37] and MNR newborns \u3c85 g (FGR; n = 37) were monitored until neonatal (~25 days) or adult (~110 days) necropsy. Birth weights and body/organ weights at necropsy were used to calculate absolute and fractional growth rates (FRs). FGR-MNR birth weights were decreased ~32% compared with the AGA-Controls. FGR-MNR neonatal whole body FRs were increased ~36% compared with Controls indicating catch-up growth, with values negatively correlated to birth weights indicating the degree of FGR leads to greater catch-up growth. However, the increase in organ FRs in the FGR-MNR neonates compared with Controls was variable, being similar for the brain and kidneys indicating comparable catch-up growth to that of the whole body and twofold increased for the liver but negligible for the heart indicating markedly increased and absent catch-up growth, respectively. While FGR-MNR body and organ weights were unchanged from the AGA-Controls by adulthood, whole body growth rates were increased. These findings confirm early catch-up growth in FGR-MNR guinea pigs but with organ-specific differences and enhanced growth rates by adulthood, which are likely to have implications for structural alterations and disease risk in later life

Maternal nutrient restriction in Guinea pigs leads to fetal growth restriction with evidence for chronic hypoxia

BackgroundWe determined whether maternal nutrient restriction (MNR) in Guinea pigs leading to fetal growth restriction (FGR) impacts markers for tissue hypoxia, implicating a mechanistic role for chronic hypoxia.MethodsGuinea pigs were fed ad libitum (Control) or 70% of the control diet before pregnancy, switching to 90% at mid-pregnancy (MNR). Near term, hypoxyprobe-1 (HP-1), a marker of tissue hypoxia, was injected into pregnant sows. Fetuses were then necropsied and liver, kidney, and placental tissues were processed for erythropoietin (EPO), EPO-receptor (EPOR), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein levels, and for HP-1 immunoreactivity (IR).ResultsFGR-MNR fetuses were 36% smaller with asymmetrical growth restriction compared to controls. EPO and VEGF protein levels were increased in the female FGR-MNR fetuses, providing support for hypoxic stimulus and linkage to increased erythropoiesis, but not in the male FGR-MNR fetuses, possibly reflecting a weaker link between oxygenation and erythropoiesis. HP-1 IR was increased in the liver and kidneys of both male and female FGR-MNR fetuses as an index of local tissue hypoxia, but with no changes in the placenta.ConclusionChronic hypoxia is likely to be an important signaling mechanism for the decreased fetal growth seen with maternal undernutrition and appears to be post-placental in nature