OFFSHORE ASSEMBLY FROM THE UNITED STATES: PRODUCTION CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 9802 PROGRAM

We study outsourcing from the United States under the offshore assembly program (OAP). Formerly called the 806/807 provision of the U.S. tariff code, and now renamed the 9802 provision of the Harmonized System code, this program allows U.S. firms to export component parts and have them assembled overseas. When the finished product is imported back into the United States, duties are paid only on the foreign value-added. We estimate the production characteristics of the U.S. OAP activity, and in particular, whether this activity is intensive in the use of non-production labor as compared to the overseas production. We also examine the sensitivity of OAP imports to real exchange rate movements.

The prevalence, communicability and co-occurrence of inverted hallucinations: an overlooked global public health concern

While scientific understanding concerning the role of biological pathogenic agents in the transmission of communicable diseases has increased markedly in recent decades, the possibility of a psychological pathogenic agent that underlies the transmission of a number of key global public health concerns has largely been overlooked. The present paper identifies inverted hallucinations as a novel category of hallucination that not only reflect a key public health concern in their own right, but also appear to play an active role in the gradual transmission of diseases traditionally deemed to be non-communicable, such as mental health problems, obesity, and social media addiction. More specifically, the present paper delineates the assumptions and indicative empirical support underlying inverted hallucination theory as well as the characteristic features, functional consequences, prevalence, communicability, and co-occurrence of inverted hallucinations in the general population. Inverted hallucinations appear to be both globally prevalent and communicable, and are estimated to affect the average person on at least an occasional basis. Inverted hallucinations cause individuals to succumb to states of mind wandering that distorts their perception of what is happening in the present moment and increases their susceptibility to other deleterious health conditions. Moreover, inverted hallucinations appear to reflect a key overlooked public health need that not only stunt human potential and quality of life but also pose a risk to the wellbeing of the population globally.N

Interactions with combined chemical cues inform harvester ant foragers' decisions to leave the nest in search of food.

Social insect colonies operate without central control or any global assessment of what needs to be done by workers. Colony organization arises from the responses of individuals to local cues. Red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) regulate foraging using interactions between returning and outgoing foragers. The rate at which foragers return with seeds, a measure of food availability, sets the rate at which outgoing foragers leave the nest on foraging trips. We used mimics to test whether outgoing foragers inside the nest respond to the odor of food, oleic acid, the odor of the forager itself, cuticular hydrocarbons, or a combination of both with increased foraging activity. We compared foraging activity, the rate at which foragers passed a line on a trail, before and after the addition of mimics. The combination of both odors, those of food and of foragers, is required to stimulate foraging. The addition of blank mimics, mimics coated with food odor alone, or mimics coated with forager odor alone did not increase foraging activity. We compared the rates at which foragers inside the nest interacted with other ants, blank mimics, and mimics coated with a combination of food and forager odor. Foragers inside the nest interacted more with mimics coated with combined forager/seed odors than with blank mimics, and these interactions had the same effect as those with other foragers. Outgoing foragers inside the nest entrance are stimulated to leave the nest in search of food by interacting with foragers returning with seeds. By using the combined odors of forager cuticular hydrocarbons and of seeds, the colony captures precise information, on the timescale of seconds, about the current availability of food

Forfeiting Trust

Over the past two years, a significant number of appellate courts in jurisdictions throughout the country have faced trust provisions that purport to disinherit any beneficiaries who challenge a trustee’s decision making. Such provisions to “secure compliance ... with dispositions of property”—known as “forfeiture,” “no-contest,” “anticontest,” or “penalty” clauses—have appeared in wills for well more than a century. But the trust clauses differ from their testamentary counterparts and thus deserve serious scrutiny in their own right, especially because the abundance of recent cases has led to increasingly inconsistent and haphazard approaches. This Article exposes the problems that trust forfeiture clauses pose, in comparison to will forfeiture clauses, and proposes some solutions. Trusts, rather than wills, have become the primary vehicle for property owners to distribute their valuables at death. Courts and legislatures profess to treat trust and will forfeiture clauses identically, but doing so has resulted in significant confusion because this approach ignores that the two donative vehicles, and the most common challenges to them, differ in fundamental ways. Indeed, wills are most frequently contested by beneficiaries who claim the document itself is invalid, either because it was executed without the requisite formalities or because the testator lacked capacity, was induced to sign the instrument against her free will, or revoked it in favor of some alternative disposition. Typical testamentary forfeiture clauses seeking to prevent these types of claims therefore provide that anyone who challenges the will forfeits any interests received under it; if the contestant is successful, the court invalidates both the will and the forfeiture clause. In contrast, the majority of trust litigation arises from disagreements between the beneficiaries and the trustees over how the latter invest, manage, and distribute property. Seeking to incentivize beneficiaries to go along with trustee decision making, some settlors and their advisors have purposely broadened the scope of forfeiture clauses so that they apply not only to contests that challenge the validity of the trust agreement but also to claims of fiduciary misconduct or mismanagement. But a provision that discourages breach of duty claims against trustees by dictating that anyone who files such a claim forfeits her beneficial interest allows fiduciaries to escape oversight, thereby forfeiting the very qualities that define trust law in the first place. This Article exposes the conflicting ways that courts and legislatures have been grappling with these clauses that pit settlor intent not against a general distaste for forfeiture, but instead against fiduciary accountability. After examining the roots of this confusion, the Article proposes a more coherent approach to trust forfeiture clauses that recognizes property owners’ interests in facilitating smooth relationships between their trustees and beneficiaries without forfeiting the precious oversight that allows trusts and the parties to a trust relationship to function properly

Trusting Trust

This is the published version

Mor[t]ality and Identity: Wills, Narratives, and Cherished Possessions

Franz Kafka is credited with observing that the meaning of life is that it stops. This recognition-that life\u27s one certainty is certain death-has been the source of great inspiration. Indeed, much of what we do and create depends on our very human desire to make a mark on this world that will outlast our sentient selves

Letters Non-Testamentary

This is the published version

Reflecting on the Language of Death

For centuries, wills scholars have lamented the difficulty of discerning intent from testamentary documents but have failed to examine how these documents might be written differently. A will can reflect and reinforce the decedent’s relationships with friends and family, can express support for institutions and causes in which the decedent believes, and can establish the decedent’s lasting legacy. And even if the will is simple and mundane, dealing only with the decedent’s personal possessions or naming her fiduciaries, its terminal nature imbues the will with talismanic power. Often the final significant written communication by its author, a will has the potential to be a monument—or indeed a testament—to the decedent’s loved ones, to express her vision for the future or her version of the past. More often than not, however, today’s will is written in an insider’s private language, so that testator after testator exclaims at her will execution ceremony about the formal, dry, and sometimes archaic, legalistic writing. Is this necessary? This Article explores the advantages and pitfalls of infusing wills with expressive language. Legal scholars have widely acknowledged the power and resonance that personal narratives bring to briefs, judicial opinions, and other persuasive legal writing. This scholarship has suggested the critical role of narratives in giving meaning beyond mere rules and doctrine. Remarkably, given the intense emotional aspects of death, scholars have largely ignored the role of expressive and individualized language in wills. This Article takes seriously the ways in which such language might enhance the meaning and significance of transactional documents, such as wills. After exploring the costs and benefits to testators, beneficiaries, fiduciaries, courts and society of expressive will drafting, this Article argues that encouraging a testator to use richer, more varied language can actually help the testator focus on her own intentions and then communicate those intentions to the people she leaves behind. Moreover, this Article rejects the argument that including apparently “unnecessary” language in a will inherently result in more litigation. Rather, it suggests that expressive language has the potential to avert litigation and, when contests do occur, facilitate the court’s analysis of the challenged instrument. Far from “unnecessary,” the inclusion of expressive language in a testator’s final will and testament can strengthen the testator’s connection to her personal identity and her community, an important step in furthering the ultimate goal of having her property pass effectively as she intends and desires

Reflecting on the Language of Death

For centuries, wills scholars have lamented the difficulty of discerning intent from testamentary documents but have failed to examine how these documents might be written differently. A will can reflect and reinforce the decedent’s relationships with friends and family, can express support for institutions and causes in which the decedent believes, and can establish the decedent’s lasting legacy. And even if the will is simple and mundane, dealing only with the decedent’s personal possessions or naming her fiduciaries, its terminal nature imbues the will with talismanic power. Often the final significant written communication by its author, a will has the potential to be a monument—or indeed a testament—to the decedent’s loved ones, to express her vision for the future or her version of the past. More often than not, however, today’s will is written in an insider’s private language, so that testator after testator exclaims at her will execution ceremony about the formal, dry, and sometimes archaic, legalistic writing. Is this necessary? This Article explores the advantages and pitfalls of infusing wills with expressive language. Legal scholars have widely acknowledged the power and resonance that personal narratives bring to briefs, judicial opinions, and other persuasive legal writing. This scholarship has suggested the critical role of narratives in giving meaning beyond mere rules and doctrine. Remarkably, given the intense emotional aspects of death, scholars have largely ignored the role of expressive and individualized language in wills. This Article takes seriously the ways in which such language might enhance the meaning and significance of transactional documents, such as wills. After exploring the costs and benefits to testators, beneficiaries, fiduciaries, courts and society of expressive will drafting, this Article argues that encouraging a testator to use richer, more varied language can actually help the testator focus on her own intentions and then communicate those intentions to the people she leaves behind. Moreover, this Article rejects the argument that including apparently “unnecessary” language in a will inherently result in more litigation. Rather, it suggests that expressive language has the potential to avert litigation and, when contests do occur, facilitate the court’s analysis of the challenged instrument. Far from “unnecessary,” the inclusion of expressive language in a testator’s final will and testament can strengthen the testator’s connection to her personal identity and her community, an important step in furthering the ultimate goal of having her property pass effectively as she intends and desires