The Competitive Effects of Resale Price Maintenance

The competitive effects of resale price maintenance (RPM) are theoretically diverse. RPM can cause allocation distortions or promote productive efficiencies in the distribution process. Moreover, extant cross-sectional empirical evidence is incapable of distinguishing among the potentially disparate effects of RPM. This paper conducts hypothesis tests of the alternative theories of RPM. The empirical framework relates estimates of the effects of RPM for a cross-section of observations to necessary conditions of the alternative models. This analysis indicates that RPM is used both to foster cartels and promote efficiencies in the distribution process. This result is consistent with the growing body of case study analysis that suggests that RPM is used for a variety of reasons. This result also questions the current per se illegal status of RPM in the antitrust laws. Evidence is also provided concerning the strategic interaction between manufacturers and dealers in the distribution process and the use of financial data in analyzing propositions in industrial organization

Collective Decision-Making and Standing Committees: An Informational Rationale for Restrictive Amendment Procedures

[No abstract

Rules, Subjurisdictional Choice, and Congressional Outcomes: An Event Study of Energy Taxation Legislation

Formal models in political science are increasingly attentive to institutional features that ostensibly play a crucial part in shaping political outcomes. Propositions yielded by these models have proven difficult to test, however. This study has two aims. Its substantive objective is to extend the spatial model of legislatures to illuminate the mechanisms of influence by committees on congressional outcomes. A broader methodological purpose is to introduce to political science a new and promising technique for testing formal models. Event studies are based on the belief that many political outcomes affect the economic welfare of nongovernmental actors and that, accordingly, actors with a vested interest in public policies respond rationally to changing political expectations. The technique is illustrated by testing formally derived propositions about the effects of rules and of subjurisdictional choice (the Ways and Means Committee's decision about the dimensions of its jurisdiction in which to propose legislation) on Congress's 1974 decision regarding taxation of oil and gas firms. The strong empirical results not only support the theory but also offer promising implications for continued development and testing of formal models of politics and political economy

Joyce\u27s A Little Cloud

Although criticism of Joyce\u27s work has reached mammoth proportions, not enough has been written about Dubliners in general, and particularly A Little Cloud. The fact that A Little Cloud is the 8th and central story in Dubliners is significant

First demonstration of effective spatial training for near-transfer to spatial performance and far-transfer to a range of mathematics skills at 8 years

There is evidence that spatial thinking is malleable, and that spatial and mathematical skills are associated (Mix et al. [2016] Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 1206; Mix et al. [2017] Journal of Cognition and Development, 18, 465; Uttal et al. [2013] Psychological Bulletin, 139, 352). However, few studies have investigated transfer of spatial training gains to mathematics outcomes in children, and no known studies have compared different modes of spatial instruction (explicit vs. implicit instruction). Based on a sample of 250 participants, this study compared the effectiveness of explicit and implicit spatial instruction in eliciting near transfer (to the specific spatial skills trained), intermediate transfer (to untrained spatial skills) and far transfer (to mathematics domains) at age 8. Spatial scaling and mental rotation skills were chosen as training targets as previous studies have found, and proposed explanations for, associations between these skills and mathematics in children of this age (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 2016 and 1206). In this study, spatial training led to near, intermediate and far transfer of gains. Mental visualization and proportional reasoning were proposed to explain far transfer from mental rotation and spatial scaling skills respectively. For most outcomes, except for geometry, there was no difference in the effectiveness of implicit (practice with feedback) compared to explicit instruction (instructional videos). From a theoretical perspective, the study identified a specific causal effect of spatial skills on mathematics skills in children. Practically, the results also highlight the potential of instructional videos as a method of introducing spatial thinking into the classroom

The Economic Incidence of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Short-haul Pricing Constraint

The public and private interest hypotheses permeate contemporary regulatory analyses. Both theories are used to explain the inception of the first major federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). According to the public and private interest hypotheses, the regulations promulgated by the ICC benefited either railroads or shippers. This paper presents an alternative view consistent with the multiple interest theory of regulation. It is demonstrated that the major regulatory instrument of the ICC, the short-haul pricing constraint (SHPC), altered the equilibria of railroad markets in a way which benefitted the class of shippers (short-haul shippers) facing monopolistic railroad markets. The SHPC also benefitted some railroads by increasing the correspondence between unregulated, cooperative and regulated, noncooperative levels of long-haul shipments. The proposition that the ICC benefited short-haul shippers and railroads is supported by an empirical analysis of the effects of the inception of federal regulation and implementation of the SHPC on stock prices. The results of the paper indicate that the public and private interest interpretations of the ICC are neither contradictory nor complete, but instead are complementary. A theoretical and empirical analysis of the chief regulatory mechanism of the ICC provides this synthesis

Regulation and the Theory of Legislative Choice: The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887

This article concerns the economic incidence of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (ICA). Our focus is the short-haul pricing constraint, a provision of the ICA that prohibited railroads from charging higher rates to isolated, primarily agrarian shippers than it charged to intercity shippers of similar commodities. Utilizing the event study methodology, we find that the impending passage of the ICA generated a distribution of abnormal returns to railroads and shipping firms that is consistent with the theoretical implications of our analysis of the short- haul pricing constraint (SHPC). However, early interpretations of the SHPC by the Interstate Commerce Commission reduced some of the abnormal returns to railroads in a manner that is inconsistent with the hypothesis that the short-haul pricing constraint was an important mechanism of early railroad regulation. The analysis does support a multiple-interest interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Act and has implications for the positive theory of regulation

The Competitive Effects of Resale Price Maintenance

The competitive effects of resale price maintenance (RPM) are theoretically diverse. RPM can cause allocation distortions or promote productive efficiencies in the distribution process. Moreover, extant cross-sectional empirical evidence is incapable of distinguishing among the potentially disparate effects of RPM. This paper conducts hypothesis tests of the alternative theories of RPM. The empirical framework relates estimates of the effects of RPM for a cross-section of observations to necessary conditions of the alternative models. This analysis indicates that RPM is used both to foster cartels and promote efficiencies in the distribution process. This result is consistent with the growing body of case study analysis that suggests that RPM is used for a variety of reasons. This result also questions the current per se illegal status of RPM in the antitrust laws. Evidence is also provided concerning the strategic interaction between manufacturers and dealers in the distribution process and the use of financial data in analyzing propositions in industrial organization

Regulation and the theory of legislative choice: The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887

The economic effects of federal regulation cannot be explained from congressional institutions. Two factors determine the specific pattern. The first is how interests are represented in the Congress, especially in the relevant committees. Committees matter because their members can veto proposals made by others. The second factor is bicameralism. The need to build majority support in two chambers matters when interest groups are not distributed identically across both houses. Specific interests win in the legislative process because of their representation within the political institutions. We examine the first major regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), founded in 1887. The inception of the ICC was not solely a cartel mechanism for the railroads (as the pure capture view asserts) nor solely a mechanism to correct market abuses by the railroads (as the public interest theory maintains). The ICC provided an benefits, some to railroads and some to nonrailroad interests, notably shorthaul shippers

Photophysical Exploration of Rigidly Coupled Dimers for Singlet Fission and Triplet-Triplet Annihilation Upconversion

The Sun is a nearly unlimited source of energy that can be used on Earth to power society without substantial impact to the broader environment that humanity depends on. Decades of work by the scientific community have gone into understanding the science of solar energy and engineering it for useful application. Fundamental limits prevent taking full advantage of available solar energy. Exciton downconversion/upconversion in organic systems, also known as singlet fission (SF) and triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA), are photophysical processes that can potentially overcome these limits. The acene series are a group of organic chromophores that fulfill the strict energetic requirements to perform SF and TTA via there singlet (S1) and triplet (T1) states. A series of rigidly coupled acene dimers were photo physically characterized to probe fundamental aspects of SF and TTA. Tetracene and pentacene based dimers were both shown to undergo SF on the ultrafast timescale based on the observed rate constant (kSF). While the pentacene dimer measured a unity SF yield the tetracene dimer was only ~50 % due to differences in the SF driving force (&Delta;G). Studies of the tetracene dimer were also performed in a polar solvent environment to measure the impact of the charge-transfer (CT) state, an important intermediate state in the SF process. They showed that CT state formation to be parasitic to productive SF.&nbsp; Another tetracene dimer paired with a metal phthalocyanine sensitizer were used to generate anti-Stokes emission to study TTA upconversion (TTA-UC). Compared to a monomer reference the dimer demonstrated increased upconversion photoluminescence. Kinetic modeling of upconversion system showed this result to be due to enhancement of the TTA rate constant (kTTA).&nbsp;</p