Ayuda, Inc. v. Thornburgh: Did Congress Give the Executive Branch Free Rein to Define the Scope of Legislation

The Note argues that the Ayuda decision is inconsistent with the congressional intent behind IRCA and prior case law. The Note further argues that the purposes underlying IRCA will best be served by prompt judicial resolution of policy disputes about legalization

Optimal Power Flow in Stand-alone DC Microgrids

Direct-current microgrids (DC-MGs) can operate in either grid-connected or stand-alone mode. In particular, stand-alone DC-MG has many distinct applications. However, the optimal power flow problem of a stand-alone DC-MG is inherently non-convex. In this paper, the optimal power flow (OPF) problem of DC-MG is investigated considering convex relaxation based on second-order cone programming (SOCP). Mild assumptions are proposed to guarantee the exactness of relaxation, which only require uniform nodal voltage upper bounds and positive network loss. Furthermore, it is revealed that the exactness of SOCP relaxation of DC-MGs does not rely on either topology or operating mode of DC-MGs, and an optimal solution must be unique if it exists. If line constraints are considered, the exactness of SOCP relaxation may not hold. In this regard, two heuristic methods are proposed to give approximate solutions. Simulations are conducted to confirm the theoretic results

The Predictability of Returns on Equity REITs and Their Co-Movement with Other Assets

Recent evidence suggests that the variation in the expected excess returns is predictable and arises from changes in business conditions. Using a multifactor latent variable model with time-varying risk premiums, we decompose excess returns into expected and unexpected excess returns to examine what determines movements in expected excess returns for equity REITs are more predictable than all other assets examined, due in part to cap rates which contain useful information about the general risk condition in the economy. We also find that the conditional risk premiums (expected excess returns) on EREITs move very closely with those of small cap stocks and much less with those of bonds

The Predictability of Real Estate Returns and Market Timing

Recent evidence suggests that all asset returns are predictable to some extent with excess returns on real estate relatively easier to forecast. This raises the issue of whether we can successfully exploit this level of predictability using various market timing strategies to realize superior performance over a buy-and-hold strategy. We find that the level of predictability associated with real estate leads to moderate success in market timing, although this is not necessarily the case for the other asset classes examined in general. Besides this, real estate stocks typically have higher trading profits and higher mean risk-adjusted excess returns when compared to small stocks as well as large stocks and bonds even though most real estate stocks are small stocks

An Energy Sharing Game with Generalized Demand Bidding: Model and Properties

This paper proposes a novel energy sharing mechanism for prosumers who can produce and consume. Different from most existing works, the role of individual prosumer as a seller or buyer in our model is endogenously determined. Several desirable properties of the proposed mechanism are proved based on a generalized game-theoretic model. We show that the Nash equilibrium exists and is the unique solution of an equivalent convex optimization problem. The sharing price at the Nash equilibrium equals to the average marginal disutility of all prosumers. We also prove that every prosumer has the incentive to participate in the sharing market, and prosumers' total cost decreases with increasing absolute value of price sensitivity. Furthermore, the Nash equilibrium approaches the social optimal as the number of prosumers grows, and competition can improve social welfare.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure