Ernst Freund as Precursor of the Rational Study of Corporate Law

Gindis, David, Ernst Freund as Precursor of the Rational Study of Corporate Law (October 27, 2017). Journal of Institutional Economics, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2905547, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2905547The rise of large business corporations in the late 19th century compelled many American observers to admit that the nature of the corporation had yet to be understood. Published in this context, Ernst Freund's little-known The Legal Nature of Corporations (1897) was an original attempt to come to terms with a new legal and economic reality. But it can also be described, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, as the earliest example of the rational study of corporate law. The paper shows that Freund had the intuitions of an institutional economist, and engaged in what today would be called comparative institutional analysis. Remarkably, his argument that the corporate form secures property against insider defection and against outsiders anticipated recent work on entity shielding and capital lock-in, and can be read as an early contribution to what today would be called the theory of the firm.Peer reviewe

Cohort profile: seek, test, treat and retain United States criminal justice cohort

Abstract Background The STTR treatment cascade provides a framework for research aimed at improving the delivery of services, care and outcomes of PLWH. The development of effective approaches to increase HIV diagnoses and engage PLWH in subsequent steps of the treatment cascade could lead to earlier and sustained ART treatment resulting in viral suppression. There is an unmet need for research applying the treatment cascade to improve outcomes for those with criminal justice involvement. Methods The Seek, Test, Treat, and Retain (STTR) criminal justice (CJ) cohort combines data from 11 studies across the HIV treatment cascade that focused on persons involved in the criminal justice system, often but not exclusively for reasons related to substance use. The studies were conducted in a variety of CJ settings and collected information across 11 pre-selected domains: demographic characteristics, CJ involvement, HIV risk behaviors, HIV and/or Hepatitis C infections, laboratory measures of CD4 T-cell count (CD4) and HIV RNA viral load (VL), mental illness, health related quality of life (QoL), socioeconomic status, health care access, substance use, and social support. Results The STTR CJ cohort includes data on 11,070 individuals with and without HIV infection who range in age from 18 to 77 years, with a median age at baseline of 37 years. The cohort reflects racial, ethnic and gender distributions in the U.S. CJ system, and 64% of participants are African-American, 12% are Hispanic and 83% are men. Cohort members reported a wide range of HIV risk behaviors including history of injection drug use and, among those who reported on pre-incarceration sexual behaviors, the prevalence of unprotected sexual intercourse ranged across studies from 4% to 79%. Across all studies, 53% percent of the STTR CJ cohort reported recent polysubstance use. Conclusions The STTR CJ cohort is comprised of participants from a wide range of CJ settings including jail, prison, and community supervision who report considerable diversity in their characteristics and behavioral practices. We have developed harmonized measures, where feasible, to improve the integration of these studies together to answer questions that cannot otherwise be addressed

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Field science in the Railroad Era: the tools of knowledge empire in the American West, 1869-1916 Pesquisas de campo na era das ferrovias: os instrumentos do império dos conhecimentos no Oeste dos Estados Unidos, 1869-1916

Focusing on the field sciences during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this paper analyzes how railroads served as tools of knowledge empire in the American West. The political economy of this region, shaped by the rise of Populism and capitalist development with federal and state government support, provided the context for cooperation between field scientists and railroad companies. Early on, the displacement of American Indians and their concentration on reservations was intertwined with the research of the Bureau of Ethnology under John Wesley Powell. Later, railroad companies became important patrons of field research, primarily through their provision of free or reduced-fare passes for travel. This research ranged from state universities undertaking research in horticulture and irrigation engineering to metropolitan natural history museums whose field work in paleontology had cultural or symbolic value.<br>Ao analisar pesquisas de campo realizadas no final do século XIX e início do XX, o artigo mostra como as estradas de ferro foram instrumentos do império dos conhecimentos no Oeste dos Estados Unidos. A economia política da região foi modelada pela ascensão do populismo e pelo desenvolvimento do capitalismo com o apoio dos governos estaduais e federal. Criaram-se assim as condições para a cooperação entre cientistas e companhias ferroviárias. Num primeiro momento, o deslocamento dos índios e sua concentração em reservas estiveram relacionados às pesquisas do Escritório de Etnologia, então dirigido por John Wesley Powell. As companhias ferroviárias tornaram-se importantes patrocinadoras de pesquisas de campo fornecendo passagens gratuitas ou a custos reduzidos para as viagens dos cientistas, desde aqueles ligados a universidades públicas que promoviam estudos sobre horticultura e engenharia da irrigação, até museus metropolitanos de história natural, cujos trabalhos de campo em paleontologia tinham valor simbólico ou cultural

Criminal justice measures for economic data harmonization in substance use disorder research

Abstract Background The consequences of substance use disorders (SUDs) are varied and broad, affecting many sectors of society and the economy. Economic evaluation translates these consequences into dollars to examine the net economic impact of interventions for SUD, and associated conditions such as HCV and HIV. The nexus between substance use and crime makes criminal justice outcomes particularly significant for estimating the economic impact of SUD interventions, and important for data harmonization. Methods We compared baseline data collected in six NIDA-funded Seek, Test, Treat and Retain (STTR) intervention studies that enrolled HIV-infected/at-risk individuals with SUDs (total n = 3415). Criminal justice measures included contacts with the criminal justice system (e.g., arrests) and criminal offenses. The objective was to develop a list of recommended measures and methods supporting economic data harmonization opportunities in HIV and SUD research, with an initial focus on crime-related outcomes. Results Criminal justice contacts and criminal offenses were highly variable across studies. When measures grouped by offense classifications were compared, consistencies across studies emerged. Most individuals report being arrested for property or public order crimes (> 50%); the most commonly reported offenses were prostitution/pimping, larceny/shoplifting, robbery, and household burglary. Conclusions We identified four measures that are feasible and appropriate for estimating the economic consequences of SUDs/HIV/HCV: number of arrests, number of convictions, days of incarceration, and times committing criminal offenses, by type of offense. To account for extreme variation, grouping crimes by offense classification or calculating monthly averages per event allows for more meaningful comparisons across studies