The corporate governance of banks

The study argues that commercial banks pose unique corporate governance problems for managers and regulators as well as for claimants on the banks' cash flows, such as investors and depositors. The authors support the general principle that fiduciary duties should be owed exclusively to shareholders. However, in the special case of banks, they contend that the scope of the fiduciary duties and obligations of officers and directors should be broadened to include creditors. In particular, the authors call on bank directors to take solvency risk explicitly and systematically into account when making decisions or else face personal liability for failure to do so.Bank management ; Bank supervision ; Corporate governance ; Stockholders

The Consequences of Couples’ Pregnancy Intentions for Early Parental Behaviors and Infant Health: Does It Matter Who Is Asked?

Previous research has found that pregnancy intentions are predictive of some early parental behaviors and infant health outcomes. However, most studies have relied on mothers’ reports of pregnancy intentions and have examined only maternal behaviors which may affect children’s health. This analysis draws on baseline data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a 20-city study of unmarried parents and their children, to examine the relationship between pregnancy intentions and early parental and child outcomes. The study takes advantage of data collected from fathers and mothers to look at an alternate measure of pregnancy intention whether either parent considered abortion at the time they learned of the pregnancy and whether it is associated with maternal and paternal behaviors during the pregnancy and with infant birth weight. Results from regression analyses show that mothers are less likely to initiate early prenatal care and fathers are less likely to make cash or in-kind contributions during the pregnancy when one or both parents considered abortion. Which parents’ intentions are influential varies by outcome as well as by which parent reported it. Having both parents or the mother only consider abortion is also negatively associated with mothers’ reports of all parental behaviors, while having both parents or the father only consider abortion is negatively associated with fathers’ reports of their in-kind contributions and both parents’ reports of fathers’ cash contributions. Parents’ considerations are not significantly associated with infant birth weight. For early initiation of prenatal care, mothers’ reports of having considered abortion are consequential but fathers’ reports are not. Fathers’ considerations matter for their reports of their own contributions, but these outcomes are even worse when both parents considered abortion. Because findings differ by each parent’s intentions and by which parent reported paternal contributions, future research examining the consequences of pregnancy intention should examine measures of pregnancy intention and paternal behaviors reported by both parents.

Modified ES / OP9 co-culture protocol provides enhanced characterization of hematopoietic progeny.

The in vitro differentiation of ES cells towards a hematopoietic cell fate is useful when studying cell populations that are difficult to access in vivo and for characterizing the earliest genes involved in hematopoiesis, without having to deal with embryonic lethalities. The ES/OP9 co-culture system was originally designed to produce hematopoietic progeny, without the over production of macrophages, as the OP9 stromal cell line is derived from the calvaria of osteopetrosis mutant mice that lack functional M-CSF. The in vitro ES/OP9 co-culture system can be used in order to recapitulate early hematopoietic development. When cultured on OP9 stromal cells, ES cells differentiate into Flk-1+ hemangioblasts, hematopoietic progenitors, and finally mature, terminally differentiated lineages. The standard ES/OP9 co-culture protocol entails the placement of ES cells onto a confluent layer of OP9 cells; as well as, periodic replating steps in order to remove old, contaminating OP9 cells. Furthermore, current protocols involve evaluating only the hematopoietic cells found in suspension and are not optimized for evaluation of ES-derived progeny at each day of differentiation. However, with replating steps and the harvesting of only suspension cells one potentially misses a large portion of ES-derived progeny and developing hematopoietic cells. This issue becomes important to address when trying to characterize hematopoietic defects associated with knockout ES lines. Here we describe a modified ES/mStrawberry OP9 co-culture, which allows for the elimination of contaminating OP9 cells from downstream assays. This method allows for the complete evaluation of all ES-derived progeny at all days of co-culture, resulting in a hematopoietic differentiation pattern, which more directly corresponds to the hematopoietic differentiation pattern observed within the embryo

Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) - Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) - Ratification - Tender Back

The Supreme Court of the United States held that an employee\u27s ADEA claim is not barred when a waiver thereof does not comply with the specific requirements of OWBPA, even if the employee does not return or offer to return the consideration received for releasing claims against an employer. Oubre v. Entergy Operations, Inc., 118 S. Ct. 838 (1998)

Sweet Beginning but Unsavoury End : The Change in Popularity of Shakespeare\u27s Poetry

William Shakespeare is arguably the most famous and influential author in modern history. His plays make up a literary canon that has been translated into every language, is constantly being reproduced on the stage and on film and has persisted in popularity for centuries. Yet, Shakespeare’s first and most popular text is not a play, but the narrative poem, Venus and Adonis. The text that launched Shakespeare into popularity and gave rise to this cultural icon was a poem, rather than a play. But despite its initial success, Venus and Adonis is not a central feature of the modern literary canon and Shakespeare’s original role as a poet has been overshadowed by his achievements in theatre. This paper sets out to explore what happened to Shakespeare’s legacy in poetry by examining the commercial history and aesthetic form of two of Shakespeare’s poems: Venus and Adonis and the sonnets. I will address how the dramatic literary canon was created and why it revolves around Shakespeare as solely a playwright

Measuring the Economic Costs of Workplace Sexual Harassment on Women

Workplace sexual harassment costs the government and companies millions of dollars a year. Women who experience sexual harassment in the workplace suffer from negative mental and physical health problems, lower career attainment, decreased productivity, and a higher rate of job turnover. Sexual harassment is both costly and unjust, however the exact cost to women who experience sexual harassment is unknown. This thesis will measure the impact of workplace sexual harassment on wages in different industries. Using data on claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, I calculate and analyze the impact of sexual harassment on wages, age, sex, and industry. I find that industries with high rates of women reporting sexual harassment have lower wages

Cobb-Douglas Utility - Eventually!

Consider the following two opinions, both of which can be found in the literature of consumer demand systems: (a) As the real income of a consumer becomes indefinitely large, re-mixing the consumption bundle becomes irrelevant: having chosen the ultimately satisfying budget shares at any given set of relative prices, the superlatively wealthy continue to allocate additional income in the same proportions. With very large and increasing per capita income, ultimately the utility function becomes indistinguishable from Cobb-Douglas. (b) Consumer demand systems in which the income elasticities monotonically approach one (from above, in the case of luxuries; from below, in the case of necessities) are unsatisfactory both theoretically and empirically. For instance, a necessity with a low (consumer demand system; applied general equilibrium; separability; implicitly directly additive preferences; effectively global regularity; Cobb-Douglas, calibration; AIDADS.