Symmetry and uniqueness of minimizers of Hartree type equations with external Coulomb potential

In the present article we study the radial symmetry of minimizers of the energy functional, corresponding to the repulsive Hartree equation in external Coulomb potential. To overcome the difficulties, resulting from the "bad" sign of the nonlocal term, we modify the reflection method and then, by using Pohozaev integral identities we get the symmetry result

The SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rule: Critiquing the Critics

Climate change is an existential phenomenon, which entails a wide variety of physical risks as well as sizeable but underappreciated economic risks. In March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moved to address some of the information gaps related to the effects of climate change on firms by proposing a rule that requires public companies to report detailed and standardized information about important climate-related matters for the benefit of investors and markets. Though the rule proposal was welcomed by many market participants, it was also met with a level of opposition that was unusual in both its intensity and consistency. Instead of following standard practice and engaging with the specific policy judgments made by the SEC in an effort to improve the final rule through constructive notice-and-comment rulemaking, many critics chose to attack every aspect of the rule proposal and the SEC’s very decision to pursue a climate disclosure rule. The critics disputed the SEC’s statutory authority and motivations, questioned the materiality of information about the economic impacts of climate change, and advanced certain novel administrative and constitutional law theories that had gained traction in other, unrelated contexts. Unless the SEC yields to pressure and abandons the climate disclosure project, these same arguments will serve as the basis for the widely predicted litigation against the final rule.This Article presents an original analysis of some of the principal challenges to the SEC’s climate disclosure rule and, ultimately, finds them unpersuasive. A close review of the features of the traditional disclosure regime, many of them long forgotten, and of the features of the SEC’s rule, many of them distorted by the critics, suggests that the rule is in keeping with longstanding regulatory practice. In short, the SEC has the statutory authority to act, its motivations are neither improper nor novel, materiality, when properly understood, does not present an obstacle, and theories pertaining to “major questions” and “compelled speech” are misplaced in this context.The Article contributes to the debate on climate-related disclosure in two ways. First, it draws attention to the flawed legal and policy arguments against the SEC’s climate disclosure initiative and the distracting rhetoric that has accompanied them. And, second, it highlights the rule’s core function, which is to put in place an information-generating framework to help capital markets and capital market participants—the primary intended beneficiaries of SEC regulation—with the climate-related economic challenges that lie ahead

The Market-Essential Role of Corporate Climate Disclosure

This Article focuses on capital market efficiency as an often-downplayed legal rationale for mandating corporate climate disclosure, and explores it alongside the notion of investor demand, which has assumed a prominent and, increasingly, contested role in debates on climate disclosure. Because market efficiency (encompassing both securities price accuracy and overall capital market allocative efficiency) is generally unobservable, many commentators have instead emphasized the highly visible investor demand for climate-related disclosure as evidenced by shareholder proposals, voting behavior, stewardship policies, and public statements. Unfortunately, investor demand can be disputed, fairly or unfairly, because investor preferences are heterogeneous, dynamic, and difficult to aggregate. This Article argues that while investor demand can be a helpful datapoint, a proper and sufficient legal justification for mandating climate-related disclosure lies in the need to ensure that firms’ securities prices accurately reflect relevant information, which, in turn, will help maintain the overall integrity of the capital markets. This argument is supported by the statutory text, legislative history, SEC rulemaking practice, and judicial doctrine. In short, the role of corporate climate disclosure is “market-essential” and need not hinge on evidence of investor demand. The Article’s analysis has implications for ongoing debates about regulatory efforts on corporate climate disclosure, including the propriety of the SEC’s climate disclosure project, the viability of an “investor-optional” approach to disclosure, and objections based on “major questions” theories. Indeed, once it becomes clear that the SEC’s disclosure rule is about basic market efficiency—and not about “regulating climate change”—such objections begin to fall away. More broadly, the Article also highlights the enduring importance of market efficiency as an objective justification for mandatory disclosure in an era of highly visible and sometimes controversial stewardship by asset managers and other investors

Is Public Company Still a Viable Regulatory Category?

This Article suggests that the ubiquitous “public company” regulatory category, as currently constructed, has outlived its effectiveness in fulfilling core goals of the modern administrative state. An ever-expanding array of federal economic regulation hinges on public company status, but “public company” differs from most other regulatory categories in that it requires an affirmative opt-in by the subject entity. In practice, firms today become subject to public company regulation only if they need access to the public capital markets, which is much less of a business imperative than it once was due to the proliferation of private financing options. Paradoxically, then, public company regulation is both more important than ever and easier than ever to avoid. This new state of affairs raises a foundational question of regulatory design: Can and should the applicability of an important part of federal law depend on self-elective public company status? The Article answers this question through an original analysis of the genesis, idiosyncrasies, persistence, and ultimate erosion of the public company regulatory category. It draws on a detailed review of the historical record and over 50 federal corporate governance proposals between 1903 and 2023. This includes a hand-collected sample of recent proposed bills tied to public company status—highlighting both the ongoing demand for new economic regulation and the prevailing inertia in conditioning regulation on public company status. The Article also applies an assessment framework adapted from the literature on regulatory review in administrative law and inquires into factors such as fidelity to statutory objectives, changes in relevant conditions, the regulatory treatment of similar cases, the rate of regulatory complexity, and the incidence of regulatory divergence. Ultimately, there is serious cause for skepticism about the viability of the current model, both with respect to the traditional goals of public company regulation (investor protection, capital formation, and capital market efficiency) and with respect to newer economic governance goals (accountability, transparency, voice, and aggregate efficiency). The Article responds to these findings by outlining several alternative regulatory approaches. Among other takeaways, shifting the frame away from the entrenched public company category suggests that in certain important aspects of economic governance, regulation should cover significant firms irrespective of their financing choices and, potentially, non-profit entities engaging in significant economic activity. Short of wholesale reform, this Article has one immediate message for legislators and policy advocates: when designing new bills that touch on any aspect of economic governance, think carefully before conditioning those bills’ applicability on public company status

Securities Disclosure As Soundbite: The Case of CEO Pay Ratios

This Article analyzes the history, design, and effectiveness of the highly controversial CEO pay ratio disclosure rule, which went into effect in 2018. Based on a regulatory mandate contained in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the rule requires public companies to disclose the ratio between CEO pay and median worker pay as part of their annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The seven-year rulemaking process was politically contentious and generated a level of public engagement that was virtually unprecedented in the long history of the SEC disclosure regime. The SEC sought to minimize compliance costs by providing firms with maximum methodological flexibility, expressly foregoing any effort to ensure data comparability across firms. The sizable pay gaps highlighted by the newly reported pay ratios attracted extensive attention from the media and various non-corporate constituencies, fueling public outrage, motivating new proposed legislation, and reinforcing concerns over pay inequity and economic inequality. At the same time, the pay ratio’s role in investor decisionmaking remains uncertain. We suggest that the pay ratio disclosure rule represents a unique approach to disclosure, which we term disclosure-as-soundbite. This approach is characterized by (1) high public salience—the pay ratio is superficially intuitive and resonates with the public to an extent much greater than other disclosure, and (2) low informational integrity—the pay ratio is a relative outlier in terms of certain baseline characteristics of disclosure, meaning that the information is lacking in accuracy, difficult to interpret, and incomplete. We find that in its current formulation, the rule is ineffectual and potentially counterproductive when viewed as a means of generating useful and reliable information for investors, or influencing firm behavior on matters of worker and executive compensation. The pay ratio is more successful in fomenting or contributing to public discourse on broader societal matters relating to pay inequity and economic inequality, though the quality of the underlying information likely limits the quality of the discourse. Given the low probability of legislative action in this area in the near term, we propose that the SEC should seek to improve the rule’s informational integrity by mandating a narrative disclosure approach that provides information about median worker pay and the resulting pay ratio with more context, nuance, and explanation. This would be consistent with the format of existing disclosure requirements relating to executive compensation, and it would represent a positive move away from the disclosure-as-soundbite approach. A related and broader question about the need for disclosure of non-executive compensation and human capital management practices deserves further academic study

Cell adhesion molecules in pleural effusions with different etiology

The pleura, including the mesothelial and underlying mesenchymal cells and extracellular matrix, is often involved in pathological processes of not completely defined mechanisms. Pleural cells are specialized in performing barrier and secretory functions and require careful study to gather a meaningful clinical information.Biomedical Reviews 1996; 6: 121-123