Rule 10b-5: Birth of the Concept of Market Insider and Its Application in a Criminal Case - United States v. Chiarella

This Note examines the necessity of the expansion of the market insider by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Chairella. It goes on to analyze whether or not the criminal conviction under Rule 10b-5 of Chiarella was appropriate given the lack of notice

A Laboratory Investigation of Compliance Behavior under Tradable Emissions Rights: Implications for Targeted Enforcement

This paper uses laboratory experiments to test the theoretical observations that both the violations of competitive risk-neutral firms and the marginal effectiveness of increased enforcement across firms are independent of differences in their abatement costs and their initial allocations of permits. This conclusion has important implications for enforcing emissions trading programs because it suggests that regulators have no justification for targeting their enforcement effort based on firm-level characteristics. Consistent with the theory, we find that subjects’ violations were independent of parametric differences in their abatement costs. However, those subjects that were predicted to buy permits tended to have higher violation levels than those who were predicted to sell permits. Despite this, we find no statistically significant evidence that the marginal effectiveness of enforcement depends on any firmspecific characteristic. We also examine the determinants of compliance behavior under fixed emissions standards. As expected, we find significant differences between compliance behavior under fixed standards and emissions trading programs.enforcement, compliance, emissions trading, permit markets, standards, commandand- control

An Investigation of Voluntary Discovery and Disclosure of Environmental Violations Using Laboratory Experiments

This paper uses laboratory experiments to test individual responses to policies that seek to encourage firms to voluntarily discover and disclose violations of environmental standards. We find that while it is possible to motivate a significant number of voluntary disclosures without adversely affecting environmental quality, this result is sensitive to both the fine for disclosed violations and the assumption that firms know their compliance status without cost. When firms have to expend resources to determine their compliance status, motivating a significant number of violation disclosures yields worse environmental quality. Finally, relative to conventional enforcement, disclosure polices will result in more violations being sanctioned, but fewer of these sanctions are for violations that are uncovered by the government.enforcement, compliance, environmental standards, self-reporting, self-auditing voluntary disclosure

AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF COMPLIANCE BEHAVIOR IN EMISSIONS TRADING PROGRAMS: SOME PRELIMINARY RESULTS

While there is a substantial body of economic theory about compliance and enforcement in emissions trading programs, and readily available information about how existing emissions trading programs are enforced, there are no empirical analyses of the determinants of compliance decisions in emissions trading programs. This paper contains preliminary results from laboratory experiments designed to examine compliance behavior in emissions trading programs.Environmental Economics and Policy,

An Experimental Analysis of Compliance in Dynamic Emissions Markets

Two important design elements for emission trading programs are whether and to what extent firms are able to bank emissions permits, and how these programs are to be enforced. In this paper we present results from laboratory emissions markets designed to investigate enforcement and compliance when these markets allow permit banking. Banking is motivated by a decrease in the aggregate permit supply in the middle of multi-period trading sessions. Consistent with theoretical insights, our experiments suggest that high permit violation penalties have little deterrence value in dynamic emissions markets, and that the main challenge of enforcing these programs is to motivate truthful self-reports of emissions.compliance, enforcement, emissions trading, laboratory experiments, permit markets, permit banking

Imperfect Enforcement of Emissions Trading and Industry Welfare: A Laboratory Investigation

This paper uses laboratory experiments to investigate the performance of emission permit markets when compliance is imperfectly enforced. In particular we examine deviations in observed aggregate payoffs and expected penalties from those derived from a model of risk-neutral payoff-maximizing firms. We find that the experimental emissions markets were reasonably efficient at allocating individual emission control choices despite imperfect enforcement and significant noncompliance. However, violations and expected penalties were lower than predicted when these are predicted to be high, but were about the same as predicted values when these values were predicted to be low. Thus, although a standard model of compliance with emissions trading programs tends to predict significantly higher violations than we observe when subjects have strong incentives to violate their emissions permits, individual emissions control responsibilities are distributed among firms as predicted.enforcement, compliance, emissions trading, permit markets, pollution, laboratory experiments

Studies in Synthesis and Organocatalysis: (i) The Design and Synthesis of Novel Electron Deficient Dienes and their Application in the First Enamine Activated Organocatalytic 1,6-Conjugate Addition. (ii) The Development of a New Organocatalytic Methodology through the Combination of DNA-Based Catalysis and Organocatalysis

A novel approach to substrate design led to the development of charge de-localized extended Michael acceptors. Using this methodology a family of both alkyl and aryl bis-phenylsulfonyl butadienes were synthesised and characterised. The first enamine activated organocatalytic 1,6- conjugate addition was performed on the sulfonyl acceptors, using aldehydic enamines, giving excellent yields and selectivities (up to 98% yield, uniformly 99% ee). The mechanism of this reaction was explored in detail. The products of these additions were fully characterised and were subsequently used as substrates for the conjugate addition of methyllithium (52% yield, 12 : 1 d.r.) and an organocatalysed inverse electron demand Diels-Alder reaction (DAINV) (76% yield, 3.1 : 1 : 1.5 d.r.). Combining the 1,6-addition and DAINV methodology let to the development of an enamine/iminium ion organocatalytic cascade reaction which delivered a product with 5 contiguous stereocenters (75% yield, 3.1 : 1 : 1.5 d.r.). We attempted to apply our 1,6-conjuagate addition methodology to the synthesis of Sildenafil analogues. Several steps of this challenging synthesis were completed. The step involving the oxidation of a homo-allylic alcohol remains to be solved. Interestingly a DMSO-based oxidation generated a sulfur ylide in high yield (90%), a possible explanation is provided. A second class of butadienes, bis-cyano butadienes, that are suitable substrates for 1,6-conjugate additions, were prepared and characterised. Addition of aldehydic enamines to these acceptors also yielded a regioselective 1,6-adduct in high yield and selectivity (up to 75% yield, up to 99% ee). An experimental investigation was performed into the synthesis of suitable trienes for 1,8-conugate additions. A 1,3-bis-phenylsulfonyl hexatriene was synthesised and characterised which did not undergo a selective 1,8-conjugate addition with aldehydic enamines. Upon heating, this triene was found to undergo an electrocyclisation reaction to give a biphenyl with a near zero twist angle. Synthesis of α,γ,ε-tris activated triene led to the isolation of a bis-phenylsulfonyl-cyano-arene and not the desired triene. A final experimental study was undertaken exploring the use of DNA and a suitable intercalating organocatalyst in asymmetric transformations. The design, synthesis and characterization of a novel achiral DNA-intercalating imidazolidinone was realized in high yield (40% yield over 4 steps). Several synthetic routes to the intercalating imidazolidinone were explored. The catalyst was found to still retain the ability to generate a reactive iminium ion and participate in a Diels-Alder reaction without DNA, albeit in reduced potency (24% yield). Future work will entail the application of the intercalating catalyst with salmon testes DNA