How Panels Affect Judges: Evidence From United States District Courts

Recent research has shown that judges on panels decide cases differently than they do individually. Understanding these panel effects is essential to understanding and predicting judicial behavior. This Article uses a unique naturalexperiment, and interviewsof United States district court judges who participatedin this ex-periment, to empirically investigate panel effects. Specifically, in fourteen district courts the judges chose to sit in an en banc panelto decide the constitutionalityof the FederalSentencing Guide- lines; in fifty-three other districts, the judges decided the issue in- dividually instead. This Article compares the decisions and the characteristicsof these districts to study how panels affect judicialdecision making and to answer the related question of why federal judges who have the authority to decide a case individually would choose to do so as part of a panel instead. Among the panel effects the Article finds is that judges in dis- tricts that sat en banc were much more likely to be unanimous intheir voting and also were more likely to find the Guidelines un-constitutional than were judges in other districts. In addition, it appears that a primary purpose of sitting en banc was to obtain these panel effects. Finally, the Article provides evidence of the ef-fects of court structure and composition on judicial collegiality and the propensity to sit en banc. Among the issues the Article ex-amines are how the number of judges and the geographic dis-tances betweenjudges on a court affect judicialcollegiality and thelikelihood that a court sits en banc

Exploiting Pre-Existing Beliefs

Advertisements and product labels for a wide range of consumer and investment products have highlighted product characteristics that some people erroneously believe make them superior to competitor goods and services. This article argues that these advertisements and labels are deceptive because they imply that those erroneous beliefs are accurate even if they don’t mention the erroneous beliefs. Moreover, these advertisements and labels can deceive even those individuals who have no pre-existing beliefs regarding the highlighted characteristics. This deception distorts purchasing and investing decisions, causing consumers and investors financial loss, reduced satisfaction, and sometimes even physical harm. Because these advertisements and labels are used for many different products, they are regulated by a number of federal agencies, whose regulatory approach often requires the advertisement or label to include a disclaimer of the erroneous belief. This article examines the effectiveness of such disclaimers and other possible regulatory approaches. It argues that often a stronger approach is justified: a prohibition against highlighting a product characteristic about which consumers or investors have an erroneous belief

Mutual Fund Performance Advertising: Inherently and Materially Misleading?

Mutual fund companies routinely advertise the pastreturns of their strong-performing, actively-managedequity funds. These performance advertisements implythat the advertised high past returns are likely tocontinue. Indeed, investors flock to these funds despitehigh past returns being a poor predictor of high futurereturns. Thus, fund performance advertising is inherentlyand materially misleading and violates federal securitiesantifraud standards. In addition, the SEC-mandatedwarning in these advertisements that past performancedoes not guarantee future results fails to temper investors\u27focus on past returns.The SEC should do more to prevent investors from beingmisled by fund performance advertisements. It should atleast require a stronger warning that makes clear thathigh returns by actively-managed mutual funds generallydo not persist. The SEC should also seriously considerreinstating its prior prohibition of performanceadvertisements. Such a ban would help investors focus onmore important fund characteristics,such a fund\u27s costs,risk, and the extent to which the fund\u27s investmentobjective matches that of the investor

Productivity of date palm as affected by irrigation in a sandy soil

A field experiment was conducted on drip irrigated date palm trees (Barhi var.) in a private farm during the 2020 and 2021 seasons to evaluate the effect of five irrigation treatments (120, 100, 80, and 60% ETo and farmer practice) on amounts of applied irrigation water (AIW), consumptive use (CU), date yield and its components, fruit quality, water use efficiency (WUE), water productivity (WP), consumed electric energy, net income, a local date crop coefficient (Kc) and yield response factor (Ky). Results revealed that, average ETo values varied between 1.26 mm/day in December and 9.85 mm/day in July. The 2–year average AIW values were 17 377, 14 546, 11 715, 8 885 and 24 680 m3/ha for the 120, 100, 80 and 60% ETo treatments and farmer practice, respectively. Highest and lowest fruit yields of 39.2 and 15.2 t/ha were recorded for the 120% and 60% ETo treatments, respectively. The WP values of the same treatments were 2.27 and 1.23 kg fruits/m3. Seasonal average Kc value of 0.74 is obtained for the 120% ETo treatment. The Ky value of 1.187 is obtained for the Barhi variety. The lowest consumed energy (64.7%) and highest net income (31.8%) were recorded for 60% and 120% ETo treatments compared with farmer practice.  Keywords: Applied water, water consumption, water use efficiency, water productivity, crop coefficient, yield response factor, energy saving, net incom

Polyorchidism: case report and literature review

Polyorchidism is a rare congenital anomaly frequently associated with maldescent testis, hernia, and torsion. Reports in the literature show an increased risk of testicular malignancy in the presence of polyorchidism. This entity has characteristic sonographic features and the diagnosis is often made on the basis of sonography. A conservative approach is the treatment of choice in uncomplicated cases. We report a male of 26-years old with 2 testicles in right side diagnosed by ultrasound. A brief history and review of the literature is also presente

National Cultures and Capital Structure: Evidence from the Emerging Markets

This paper identifies the combinations between Hofstede’s six cultural aspects and four selected firm-specific factors, which have a significant impact on the choice of capital structure, in 15,821 listed companies from 34 countries in the emerging market, for the period 2012 – 2014. Thirty seven independent variables and one dependent variable have been tested using regression analysis. It has been concluded that the combinations that have a significant impact on the choice of capital structure (leverage) in the emerging markets were [Cultural – Firm-specific]: Power distance – cash flows, cost of debt Individualism – cash flows, cost of debt Masculinity – interest coverage ratio, cost of debt Uncertainty avoidance – cash flows, cost of debt Long-term orientation – intangibility, cash flows, cost of debt Indulgence – intangibility, cash flows, interest coverage rati