Efficiency and the Division of Marital Assets

This paper examines the incentives that property division laws can have for divorce and investment in marital assets. This paper considers an environment in which spouses have multiple inputs, such as time and money, to a marital asset but the choices a spouse makes with regards to one input, say time, are not observable to the courts. In such an environment, it is demonstrated that when spouses specialize, as in a traditional family structure, the common-law rule may be efficiency enhancing. However, when both spouses work and strong consumption complementarities are present, equal division leads to more efficient investment in the marital asset. Further, sufficient conditions are found for which the community rule leads to a lower divorce rate than the common-law rule.divorce, efficiency, marital property

What You Don't See Can't Hurt You: An Economic Analysis of Morality Laws

This paper provides an efficiency explanation for regulation of sex, drugs and gambling (the so-called ``morality laws''). The argument is motivated by the observation that the design an enforcement of these laws often promotes discretion by the people engaging in such activities. We propose that morality laws can be best explained by considering the proscribed activities to impose a negative externality on others when the activity is observed. In such a case, efficiency requires discretion by the individual who engages in such activities. When discretion is difficult to regulate directly, the activities can instead be proscribed thereby giving individuals incentive to hide their actions from others. We find conditions for the first-best levels of consumption and hiding to be implementable. In addition, since some level of activity is efficient, this paper provides another environment in which the optimal sanctions are not maximal.Crime; Externality; Laws; Morality; Enforcement

Deterrence in Rank-Order Tournaments

In a tournament, competitors may engage in undesirable activities, or 'cheating', in order to gain an advantage. Examples of such activities include the taking of steroids, plagiarism, and 'creative accounting'. This paper considers the problem of deterrence of these activities and finds that there exist special considerations that are not present in a traditional model of law enforcement. For example, an agent's returns to cheating depend on the cheating decisions of others, and so there may exist multiple equilibria. The problem of multiple equilibria can be reduced when the first-place prize is awarded to the person that performed best without cheating. Moreover, we show that re-awarding prizes reduces the amount of monitoring required to ensure compliance. We also demonstrate that monitoring costs can be further reduced by monitoring the winner of the tournament more than the loser, and by manipulating prizes, including through the introduction of prizes for non-winners.Enforcement; Cheating; Tournament

Turbulence and angular momentum transport in a global accretion disk simulation

The global development of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in an accretion disk is studied within a simplified disk model that omits vertical stratification. Starting with a weak vertical seed field, a saturated state is obtained after a few tens of orbits in which the energy in the predominantly toroidal magnetic field is still subthermal. The efficiency of angular momentum transport, parameterized by the Shakura-Sunyaev alpha parameter, is of the order of 0.1. The dominant contribution to alpha comes from magnetic stresses, which are enhanced by the presence of weak net vertical fields. The power spectra of the magnetic fields are flat or decline only slowly towards the largest scales accessible in the calculation, suggesting that the viscosity arising from MHD turbulence may not be a locally determined quantity. I discuss how these results compare with observationally inferred values of alpha, and possible implications for models of jet formation.Comment: ApJ Letters, in press. The paper and additional visualizations are available at http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~armitage/global_abs.htm

The metric tide: report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. The review was chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, supported by an independent and multidisciplinary group of experts in scientometrics, research funding, research policy, publishing, university management and administration. This review has gone beyond earlier studies to take a deeper look at potential uses and limitations of research metrics and indicators. It has explored the use of metrics across different disciplines, and assessed their potential contribution to the development of research excellence and impact. It has analysed their role in processes of research assessment, including the next cycle of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). It has considered the changing ways in which universities are using quantitative indicators in their management systems, and the growing power of league tables and rankings. And it has considered the negative or unintended effects of metrics on various aspects of research culture. The report starts by tracing the history of metrics in research management and assessment, in the UK and internationally. It looks at the applicability of metrics within different research cultures, compares the peer review system with metric-based alternatives, and considers what balance might be struck between the two. It charts the development of research management systems within institutions, and examines the effects of the growing use of quantitative indicators on different aspects of research culture, including performance management, equality, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and the ‘gaming’ of assessment systems. The review looks at how different funders are using quantitative indicators, and considers their potential role in research and innovation policy. Finally, it examines the role that metrics played in REF2014, and outlines scenarios for their contribution to future exercises

Mechanical circulatory support for refractory cardiogenic shock post-acute myocardial infarction-a decade of lessons.

There are 0.9 catheterization labs per 100,000 inhabitants in Scotland for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), which are much less accessible to patients in remote and rural areas. An uncommon but sinister sequalae following AMI is cardiogenic shock (CS) that could be refractory to inotropic support. CS complicates 5-15% of AMIs occurring in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions (STEMIs). Outcomes of CS are poor with mortalities of up to 90% reported in the literature in the absence of experienced care. We report our experience as the tertiary referral centre in Scotland for MCS and heart transplantation over 8 years. A retrospective review of prospectively collected data was undertaken on all patients registered to the MCS service. The database was interrogated for patient demographics, type of mechanical circulatory support (MCS) and duration of MCS support, PCI-outcomes and survival to 30 days. A time-to-event analysis was performed using patient survival as the primary outcome measure. Twenty-three patients (16 male, 7 females) were included. The median age of the patients as 50 years (range, 45-56 years). VA-ECMO was the initial MCS of choice in 17 (73.9%) patients with BIVAD for 4 (17.4%) patients and LVAD for 2 (8.7%) patients. Thirty-day mortality was 21.8% in this cohort, however survival to discharge was 52.2%. Eleven (47.8%) patients recovered without the need for any further support, however only 9 (81.8%) patients in this subgroup survived to discharge. Three (13.0%) patients received a durable LVAD. In this subgroup, one patient was transplanted whereas two patients died due to complications while on support. The median length of in-hospital MCS support was 4 days. Median in-hospital stay was 27 days. Long-term follow up of up to 8 years demonstrates a high mortality beyond 30-day up to the first 6-month post MCS support. MCS usage in these patients carries a high mortality in the early post-implantation period. However, there is a significant benefit to patients who survive the initial bridging period to recovery or destination therapy

Mechanical circulatory support for refractory cardiogenic shock post-acute myocardial infarction-a decade of lessons.

There are 0.9 catheterization labs per 100,000 inhabitants in Scotland for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), which are much less accessible to patients in remote and rural areas. An uncommon but sinister sequalae following AMI is cardiogenic shock (CS) that could be refractory to inotropic support. CS complicates 5-15% of AMIs occurring in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions (STEMIs). Outcomes of CS are poor with mortalities of up to 90% reported in the literature in the absence of experienced care. We report our experience as the tertiary referral centre in Scotland for MCS and heart transplantation over 8 years. A retrospective review of prospectively collected data was undertaken on all patients registered to the MCS service. The database was interrogated for patient demographics, type of mechanical circulatory support (MCS) and duration of MCS support, PCI-outcomes and survival to 30 days. A time-to-event analysis was performed using patient survival as the primary outcome measure. Twenty-three patients (16 male, 7 females) were included. The median age of the patients as 50 years (range, 45-56 years). VA-ECMO was the initial MCS of choice in 17 (73.9%) patients with BIVAD for 4 (17.4%) patients and LVAD for 2 (8.7%) patients. Thirty-day mortality was 21.8% in this cohort, however survival to discharge was 52.2%. Eleven (47.8%) patients recovered without the need for any further support, however only 9 (81.8%) patients in this subgroup survived to discharge. Three (13.0%) patients received a durable LVAD. In this subgroup, one patient was transplanted whereas two patients died due to complications while on support. The median length of in-hospital MCS support was 4 days. Median in-hospital stay was 27 days. Long-term follow up of up to 8 years demonstrates a high mortality beyond 30-day up to the first 6-month post MCS support. MCS usage in these patients carries a high mortality in the early post-implantation period. However, there is a significant benefit to patients who survive the initial bridging period to recovery or destination therapy

A novel method to quantify fibrin-fibrin and fibrin-α2AP cross-links in thrombi formed from human trauma patient plasma.

The widespread use of the anti-fibrinolytic agent, tranexamic acid (TXA), interferes with the quantification of fibrinolysis by dynamic laboratory assays such as clot lysis, making it difficult to measure fibrinolysis in many trauma patients. At the final stage of coagulation, Factor XIIIa (FXIIIa) catalyses the formation of fibrin-fibrin and fibrin-α2-antiplasmin (α2AP) cross-links which increases clot mechanical strength and resistance to fibrinolysis. Here, we develop a method to quantify fibrin-fibrin and fibrin-α2AP cross-links that avoids the challenges posed by TXA in determining fibrinolytic resistance in conventional assays. Fibrinogen alpha chain (FGA-FGA), fibrinogen gamma chain (FGG-FGG) and FGA-α2AP cross-links were quantified using liquid-chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) in paired plasma samples from trauma patients pre- and post-fibrinogen replacement. Differences in the abundance of cross-links in trauma patients receiving cryoprecipitate (cryo) or fibrinogen concentrate (Fg-C) were analysed. The study found that the abundance of cross-links was significantly increased in trauma patients post-cryo, but not Fg-C, transfusion (p < 0.0001). The abundance of cross-links was positively correlated with the toughness of individual fibrin fibres, the peak thrombin concentration and FXIII antigen (p < 0.05). We have developed a novel method that allows us to quantify fibrin cross-links in trauma patients who have received TXA, providing an indirect measure of fibrinolytic resistance. Using this novel approach we have avoided the effect of TXA and shown that cryo increases fibrin-fibrin and fibrin-α2AP cross-linking when compared to Fg-C, highlighting the importance of FXIII in clot formation and stability in trauma patients