Human Worth as Collateral

Human worth has taken on a surprising new role: that of market asset. Specifically, lenders in radically different contexts are using their borrowers’ human worth as collateral in loan transactions. The two examples of this new collateralization that I examine are credit card lending in the United States and microlending programs in the Third World. I conclude that the use of human worth in these two contexts is too similar to be coincidental. Rather, this new collateralization is a product of globalization. For those interested in the effect of law on globalization, this convergence in the market for credit teaches important lessons. In both the contexts I examine, the laws governing secured and unsecured lending fail to recognize human worth as collateral. For this reason, the new collateralization serves as a counter-example to the claimed centrality of the rule of law in economic development

Studies of beauty baryon decays to D0ph− and Λ+ch− final states

Decays of beauty baryons to the D0ph− and Λ+ch− final states (where h indicates a pion or a kaon) are studied using a data sample of pp collisions, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0  fb−1, collected by the LHCb detector. The Cabibbo-suppressed decays Λ0b→D0pK− and Λ0b→Λ+cK− are observed, and their branching fractions are measured with respect to the decays Λ0b→D0pπ− and Λ0b→Λ+cπ−. In addition, the first observation is reported of the decay of the neutral beauty-strange baryon Ξ0b to the D0pK− final state, and a measurement of the Ξ0b mass is performed. Evidence of the Ξ0b→Λ+cK− decay is also reported