1,537 research outputs found

    The Essays on the Structure of Property Rights to Natural Resources

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    In this dissertation I study how the structure of property rights is shaped by the benefits and costs of defining and enforcing rights along various dimensions to inform current policy debates by better understanding the economic structure of the resource problems we face and saying something about the opportunity costs of policy proposals to alter resource use. I do this by combining formal models of natural resource use with detailed econometric analysis of novel historic and modern data sets which I build using GIS.In Chapter 1, Gary Libecap and I analyze the economic determinants and effects of prior appropriation water rights that were voluntarily implemented across a vast area of the US West, replacing common-law riparian water rights. We model potential benefits and test hypotheses regarding search, coordination, and investment. Our novel dataset of 7,800 rights in Colorado, established between 1852 and 2013 includes location, date, size, infrastructure investment, irrigated acreage, crops, topography, stream flow, soil quality, and precipitation. Prior appropriation doubled infrastructure investment and raised the value of agricultural output beyond baseline riparian rights. The analysis reveals institutional innovation that informs contemporary water policy.In Chapter 2, Dominic Parker and I study how subdivision of land rights can affect natural resource use. Land contains multiple natural resources that are efficiently managed at different spatial scales, either concurrently or over time. We explain how subdividing the commons to promote one resource (agricultural land) inadvertently creates anticommons problems for another (shale oil). We provide empirical tests from a natural experiment on the Bakken, one of the world's largest booming oil fields. Before oil was discovered, U.S. land allotment policies created a mosaic of private, tribal, and fragmented ownership to shale on and around the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. We compare horizontal drilling patterns across over 40,000 parcels on and off the reservation. We find that subdivision has caused economically significant delays in compensation to shale owners, as parcels surrounded by tribal lands are more quickly and fully exploited. The evidence demonstrates how subdivision can inadvertently delay spatially coordinated resource use and reduce resource rents.In Chapter 3, Gary Libecap and I examine the emergence of spontaneous claims to inframarginal rents in open-access resources. Although early models of open-access in economics predicted full rent dissipation as homogeneous agents exploited the resource, later theory and empirical observations indicated persistence of inframarginal rents. The existence of inframarginal rents under open-access has been recognized in the literature, but agents’ incentives to invest in de facto institutions to protect rental streams from competitors has not been explored. These institutions include local property rights, specialized production, and restricted information sharing. Moreover, there has been no recognition of how these informal arrangements might contribute to observed resistance by inframarginal-rent earners to externally imposed schemes in order to reduce aggregate rent dissipation. Proponents are high-cost agents, who earn low or zero rents. High-cost agents ought to be able to compensate low-cost agents for a shift to a new property regime if the shift makes them better off than they were under open-access. Empirically, however, this appears not to happen and formal open-access persists. We develop a simple framework to show why ``willingness to pay'' and ``willingness to accept'' do not overlap and that institutional change is not Pareto-improving for those who have adjusted well to open-access. If agents are heterogeneous in search and production costs, and the resource is large and heterogeneous in quality, then low-cost parties search for the most productive locations and apply their superior skills and develop human and physical capital to earn inframarginal rents. We then apply this framework to historical experiences in oil and gas and fisheries

    The COVID-19 pandemic: a letter to G20 leaders

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    Targeting DNA Damage Response and Replication Stress in Pancreatic Cancer

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    Background and aims: Continuing recalcitrance to therapy cements pancreatic cancer (PC) as the most lethal malignancy, which is set to become the second leading cause of cancer death in our society. The study aim was to investigate the association between DNA damage response (DDR), replication stress and novel therapeutic response in PC to develop a biomarker driven therapeutic strategy targeting DDR and replication stress in PC. Methods: We interrogated the transcriptome, genome, proteome and functional characteristics of 61 novel PC patient-derived cell lines to define novel therapeutic strategies targeting DDR and replication stress. Validation was done in patient derived xenografts and human PC organoids. Results: Patient-derived cell lines faithfully recapitulate the epithelial component of pancreatic tumors including previously described molecular subtypes. Biomarkers of DDR deficiency, including a novel signature of homologous recombination deficiency, co-segregates with response to platinum (P < 0.001) and PARP inhibitor therapy (P < 0.001) in vitro and in vivo. We generated a novel signature of replication stress with which predicts response to ATR (P < 0.018) and WEE1 inhibitor (P < 0.029) treatment in both cell lines and human PC organoids. Replication stress was enriched in the squamous subtype of PC (P < 0.001) but not associated with DDR deficiency. Conclusions: Replication stress and DDR deficiency are independent of each other, creating opportunities for therapy in DDR proficient PC, and post-platinum therapy

    Genome-wide Analyses Identify KIF5A as a Novel ALS Gene

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    To identify novel genes associated with ALS, we undertook two lines of investigation. We carried out a genome-wide association study comparing 20,806 ALS cases and 59,804 controls. Independently, we performed a rare variant burden analysis comparing 1,138 index familial ALS cases and 19,494 controls. Through both approaches, we identified kinesin family member 5A (KIF5A) as a novel gene associated with ALS. Interestingly, mutations predominantly in the N-terminal motor domain of KIF5A are causative for two neurodegenerative diseases: hereditary spastic paraplegia (SPG10) and Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2 (CMT2). In contrast, ALS-associated mutations are primarily located at the C-terminal cargo-binding tail domain and patients harboring loss-of-function mutations displayed an extended survival relative to typical ALS cases. Taken together, these results broaden the phenotype spectrum resulting from mutations in KIF5A and strengthen the role of cytoskeletal defects in the pathogenesis of ALS.Peer reviewe

    Association of Variants in the SPTLC1 Gene With Juvenile Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

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    Importance: Juvenile amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare form of ALS characterized by age of symptom onset less than 25 years and a variable presentation.Objective: To identify the genetic variants associated with juvenile ALS.Design, Setting, and Participants: In this multicenter family-based genetic study, trio whole-exome sequencing was performed to identify the disease-associated gene in a case series of unrelated patients diagnosed with juvenile ALS and severe growth retardation. The patients and their family members were enrolled at academic hospitals and a government research facility between March 1, 2016, and March 13, 2020, and were observed until October 1, 2020. Whole-exome sequencing was also performed in a series of patients with juvenile ALS. A total of 66 patients with juvenile ALS and 6258 adult patients with ALS participated in the study. Patients were selected for the study based on their diagnosis, and all eligible participants were enrolled in the study. None of the participants had a family history of neurological disorders, suggesting de novo variants as the underlying genetic mechanism.Main Outcomes and Measures: De novo variants present only in the index case and not in unaffected family members.Results: Trio whole-exome sequencing was performed in 3 patients diagnosed with juvenile ALS and their parents. An additional 63 patients with juvenile ALS and 6258 adult patients with ALS were subsequently screened for variants in the SPTLC1 gene. De novo variants in SPTLC1 (p.Ala20Ser in 2 patients and p.Ser331Tyr in 1 patient) were identified in 3 unrelated patients diagnosed with juvenile ALS and failure to thrive. A fourth variant (p.Leu39del) was identified in a patient with juvenile ALS where parental DNA was unavailable. Variants in this gene have been previously shown to be associated with autosomal-dominant hereditary sensory autonomic neuropathy, type 1A, by disrupting an essential enzyme complex in the sphingolipid synthesis pathway.Conclusions and Relevance: These data broaden the phenotype associated with SPTLC1 and suggest that patients presenting with juvenile ALS should be screened for variants in this gene.</p

    Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

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    Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

    Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

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    This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

    Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

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    One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI
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