Government Failure and Market Failure: On the Inefficiency of Environmental and Energy Policy

In this essay, we describe some important themes in energy and environmental policy. There are two main reasons for our interest in these policies. First, such policies will likely be important in the coming decades as issues related to climate change and energy security come to the fore. Second, there are important lessons to be learned from a careful review of the actual performance of energy and environmental policies. We undertake a selective survey of the literature to highlight what is known about the efficiency of particular kinds of policies, laws and regulations in these areas.

Distribution of squarefree values of sequences associated with elliptic curves

Let E be a non-CM elliptic curve defined over Q. For each prime p of good reduction, E reduces to a curve E_p over the finite field F_p. For a given squarefree polynomial f(x,y), we examine the sequences f_p(E) := f(a_p(E), p), whose values are associated with the reduction of E over F_p. We are particularly interested in two sequences: f_p(E) =p + 1 - a_p(E) and f_p(E) = a_p(E)^2 - 4p. We present two results towards the goal of determining how often the values in a given sequence are squarefree. First, for any fixed curve E, we give an upper bound for the number of primes p up to X for which f_p(E) is squarefree. Moreover, we show that the conjectural asymptotic for the prime counting function \pi_{E,f}^{SF}(X) := #{p \leq X: f_p(E) is squarefree} is consistent with the asymptotic for the average over curves E in a suitable box

Euclidean Sunrise

The purpose of this design is twofold. First, the designer wanted to create a woven fabric surface inspired by the floral pattern created when eight tangentially connected circles are symmetrically intersected. Second, the designer wanted to create an engineered digital textile print with a hand weaving technique. Several other designs have been created by the designer using hand weaving techniques previously, but this is the first time that the designer developed engineered garment patterns with a digitally textile pattern designed from a software rendered pre-visualization

Archimedean Flare

The purpose of this design was to create a contemporary garment inspired by the colors of nature that blends hand crafted weaving techniques with digital pattern making technology. Using both hand weaving and digital textile print technology, an optical illusion is formed from the expressed juxtaposition of gradient colors and the resulting patterns arising from the woven spiraling concentric curved strips. This design is unique and original using both engineered digital textile printing and hand weaving techniques to weave curved semi-circular strips of decreasing widths to create a distinctive spiral radial woven pattern. The quilted jacket showcasing the original textile pattern also adds a one of a kind look. This collaborative design project was able to integrate technology and hand craft techniques that was inspired by the radial geometric growth patterns and colors found in nature creating a contemporary garment that can be worn in a versatile ways

When Bankruptcy Meets Antitrust: The Case for Non-Cash Auctions in Concentrated Banking Markets

One of the most heated debates in bankruptcy law scholarship has been the optimal design of corporate bankruptcy law. While traditionalist scholars defended the actual practice of Chapter 11 of the Bakruptcy Code, the law-and-economics movement has by and large heavily crticized Chapter 11 and called for its replacement. Several models of corporate bankruptcy have been offered in the literature as imporved alternatives thereto. In this article, I examine the various models offered in the literature, as well as the basic model of Chapter 11, against a certain realistic background: that of an economy characterized by the concentrated dominance of a few banks. Concentrated banking has been a subject of economic research in recent years. However, what has been lacking is a clear analysis of the ramifications of concentrated banking on corporate bankruptcy. This paper fills this gap by presenting such an analysis. In the paper, I show the anticompetitive measures which the banks, as senior lenders of the corporate debtor on one hand and the financers of any cash-driven resolution of bankruptcy on the other hand, might impose. Such measures cast doubt whether the various bankruptcy substitute models previously porposed, all of which rely on the use of cash money in the resolution of the debtor\u27s financial distress, are applicable to concnetrated banking markets. As a result, this paper calls for implementing a market-based bankruptcy regime which allows the acquisition of the debtor firm through the use of non-cash payment instruments. The article shows how such a regime would encourage a healthy competition over the control of the corportae debtor and enhance the return to its prebankruptcy creditors