The Law of Demand in Tiebout Economies

We consider a general equilibrium local public goods economy in which agents have two distinguishing characteristics. The first is 'crowding type', which is publicly observable and provides direct costs or benefits to the jurisdiction (coalition or firms) the agent joins. The second is taste type, which is not publicly observable, has no direct effects on others and is defined over private good, public goods and the crowding profile of the jurisdiction the agent joins. The law of demand suggests that as the quantity of a given crowding type (plummers, lawers, smart people, tall people, nonsmokers, for example) increases, the compensation that agents of that type receive should go down. We provide counterexamples, however, that show that some agents of a given crowding type might actually benefit when the proportion of agents with the same crowding type increases. This reversal of the law of demand seems to have to do with interaction effect between tastes and skills, something difficult to study without making these classes of characteristics distinct. We argue that this reversal seems to relate to the degree of difference between various patterns of tastes. In particular, if tastes are homogeneous, the law of demand holds.

An introduction to the english law of contracts

El presente estudio tendrá por objeto dar una perspectiva general del Derecho de contratos en el Ordenamiento Jurídico inglés. Se hará especial énfasis en los principios generales del Derecho de contratos inglés, particularmente en lo que respecta a aquellos aspectos en los que existan mayores diferencias (teóricas y/o prácticas) entre el Derecho inglés y los sistemas jurídicos de Derecho continental tales como el español'.This study aims to give an overview of the English Law of Contracts. Special emphasis is placed on the general principies which inspire the English Law of Contracts, particularly with respect to those aspects which differentiate the latter (in theory and/or in practice) from the Civil Law legal systems (such as the Spanish legal system)

‘In my life antidepressants have been…’: a qualitative analysis of users’ diverse experiences with antidepressants

BACKGROUND: While mental health professionals have focused on concerns about whether antidepressants work on a neurochemical level it is important to understand the meaning this medication holds in the lives of people who use it. This study explores diversity in the experience of antidepressant users. METHODS: One thousand seven hundred forty-seven New Zealand antidepressant users responded to an open-ended question about their experience of antidepressants. This was analysed using content and thematic analysis. RESULTS: There was considerable diversity in participants’ responses including positive (54 %), negative (16 %) and mixed (28 %) experiences with antidepressants. Those with positive experiences saw antidepressants as a necessary treatment for a ‘disease’, a life saver, a way of meeting social obligations, dealing with difficult circumstances or a stepping stone to further help. Negative themes described antidepressants as being ineffective, having unbearable side effects, undermining emotional authenticity, masking real problems and reducing the experience of control. Mixed experience themes showed how participants weighed up the unpleasant side effects against the benefits, felt calmer but less like themselves, struggled to find the one or dosage and felt stuck with continuing on antidepressants when they wished to stop. CONCLUSIONS: Mental health professions need to recognize that antidepressants are not a ‘one size fits all’ solution

Polarization Observations with the Cosmic Background Imager

We describe polarization observations of the CMBR with the Cosmic Background Imager, a 13 element interferometer which operates in the 26-36 GHz band from Llano de Chajnantour in northern Chile. The array consists of 90-cm Cassegrain antennas mounted on a steerable platform which can be rotated about the optical axis to facilitate polarization observations. The CBI employs single mode circularly polarized receivers which sample multipoles from ℓ~400 to ℓ~4250. The instrumental polarization of the CBI was calibrated with 3C279, a bright polarized point source which was monitored with the VLA

An incomplete correlation between pre-salt topography, top reservoir erosion, and salt deformation in deep-water Santos Basin (SE Brazil)

In deep-water Santos Basin, SE Brazil, hypersaline conditions during the Aptian resulted in the accumulation of halite and carnallite over which stratified evaporites, carbonates and shales were folded, translated downslope and thrusted above syn-rift structures. As a result, high-quality 3D seismic data reveal an incomplete relationship between pre-salt topography and the development of folds and thrusts in Aptian salt and younger units. In the study area, three characteristics contrast with known postulates on passive margins’ fold-and-thrust belts: a) the largest thrusts do not necessarily occur where the salt is thicker, b) synthetic-to-antithetic fault ratios are atypically high on the distal margin, and c) regions of intense folding do not necessarily coincide with the position of the larger syn-rift horsts and ramps below the salt. Regions marked by important erosion and truncation of pre-salt strata, uplifted and exposed sub-aerially before the deposition of Aptian salt, can form structural lows at present or be part of horsts uplifted after the Aptian. This is an observation that suggests significant intra-salt shear drag above pre-salt structural highs during Aptian-Late Cretaceous gravitational gliding, but not on younger horsts and ramps reactivated after the main phase of salt movement. Either formed by drag or sub-aerial erosion, strata truncation below the Aptian salt does not correlate with the present-day pre-salt structure in terms of its magnitude and distribution. In addition, there is a marked increase in deformation towards the distal margin, where low-angle thrusts are ubiquitous on seismic data. The geometry and large synthetic-to-antithetic fault ratios of post-salt strata on the distal margin lead us to consider a combination of gravitational gliding of salt from the northwest and ridge push from the east as responsible for the observed styles of salt deformation

Institutional Experience with Academic Reform: A Panel Discussion

This paper consists of the transcripts of a panel discussion focusing on athletic directors’, chancellors’, and presidents’ experiences with academic reform. The panel participants discuss a number of topics, including recent and past academic reform efforts, the process of implementing those initiatives, and the effects of those policies on student athletes and intercollegiate sport

Indels, structural variation, and recombination drive genomic diversity inPlasmodium falciparum

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum has a great capacity for evolutionary adaptation to evade host immunity and develop drug resistance. Current understanding of parasite evolution is impeded by the fact that a large fraction of the genome is either highly repetitive or highly variable and thus difficult to analyze using short-read sequencing technologies. Here, we describe a resource of deep sequencing data on parents and progeny from genetic crosses, which has enabled us to perform the first genome-wide, integrated analysis of SNP, indel and complex polymorphisms, using Mendelian error rates as an indicator of genotypic accuracy. These data reveal that indels are exceptionally abundant, being more common than SNPs and thus the dominant mode of polymorphism within the core genome. We use the high density of SNP and indel markers to analyze patterns of meiotic recombination, confirming a high rate of crossover events and providing the first estimates for the rate of non-crossover events and the length of conversion tracts. We observe several instances of meiotic recombination within copy number variants associated with drug resistance, demonstrating a mechanism whereby fitness costs associated with resistance mutations could be compensated and greater phenotypic plasticity could be acquired

An Absolute Flux Density Measurement of the Supernova Remnant Casseopia A at 32 GHz

We report 32 GHz absolute flux density measurements of the supernova remnant Cas A, with an accuracy of 2.5%. The measurements were made with the 1.5-meter telescope at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. The antenna gain had been measured by NIST in May 1990 to be $0.505 \pm 0.007 \frac{{\rm mK}}{{\rm Jy}}$. Our observations of Cas A in May 1998 yield $S_{cas,1998} = 194 \pm 5 {\rm Jy}$. We also report absolute flux density measurements of 3C48, 3C147, 3C286, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication by AJ. Revised systematic error budget, corrected typos, and added reference

Harmonisation projects: Lessons from the European experience

In recent years a number of different projects of harmonisation of private law, and in particular contract law, have been developed at both the regional level and the international level. In Europe for twenty-five years efforts were made to work out a possible model for the harmonisation of contract law: by the end of 2014 this appeared not to have succeeded, but there are lasting results of the process which had a significant influence in the process of the reform of the law of contract in France in 2016. This illustrates the value which such projects can have, and can provide a lesson for other regions such as Latin America