Plato's Republic and liberal economic education for the twenty-first century

Much of the insight economists would like to share with non-economists derives from two fundamental concepts: division of labor and intrinsic versus extrinsic incentives. As Plato's Republic offers concise treatment of both concepts, it provides an excellent complement to standard principles of economics texts. Indeed, utilizing Republic enables a richer understanding of these two central economic concepts, in the process of promoting the importance of liberal education in general, and the ethical dimensions of economic policy design in particular.Division of Labor

On the consideration of potential harm in the award of punitive damages

Multiple empirical studies find that juries/courts take account of potential harm in the determination of punitive damages. The received view in economic theory, however, is that punitive damages should not depend on potential harm. The purpose of this note is to provide an efficiency rationale for the courts'' behavior. Our particular result is that when the punitive damage multiplier decreases as the actual harm increases, the optimal multiplier does depend on the potential harm.Compensatory damages, potential harm, punitive damages

Characterizing regulation and negligence rule uncertainty in solid waste management

We propose a model of municipal waste management that combines waste quality monitoring with leachate control. These inputs modulate two types of uncertainty. First, waste quality is uncertain, as it arrives from several nonpoint sources and may contain hazardous waste. Second, while U.S. federal law requires landfill operators to employ these specific inputs, the rates at which they should be employed to avoid culpable negligence for environmental damages are uncertain. We extend the economic literature regarding the management of these types of uncertainty to this municipal waste context.

Competing impure public goods and the sustainability of the theater arts

The general purpose of this paper is to extend the literature regarding public good provision when consumers may contribute via consumption of an impure public good and/or by donating directly to the public good. Standard models pose consumer utility as a function of one impure public good and one or more private goods. Our model features two competing impure public goods and two private goods: one that is a conventional substitute good and one that is a numeraire. We build most directly upon Kotchen's (2005) model of “green†consumption of impure public goods. We propose national and local live theater arts as an example of competing impure public goods. Our model shows that if local and national live theater are substitutes, and the national live theater (such as the Met) is strengthened via technological change (for instance, via simulcasts into local venues), the overall sustainability of the live theater arts may be diminished.donation, impure public goods, simulcast, sustainability, theater arts

Capturing moral economic context

Multiple economic experiments suggest that the moral context of consumption and/or production influences willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept. Precisely how this influence should be modeled from a theoretical perspective, however, remains understudied. The prevailing view is that moral context can be captured using an extended utility approach in which “morality†enters the utility function as any other attribute of value. However, in our view the literature does not yet suggest practical modeling strategies that yield testable hypotheses. We show herein that the state-dependent preference approach quite naturally enables modeling of the moral concerns registered in experimental settings.

Point-Defect Optical Transitions and Thermal Ionization Energies from Quantum Monte Carlo Methods: Application to F-center Defect in MgO

We present an approach to calculation of point defect optical and thermal ionization energies based on the highly accurate quantum Monte Carlo methods. The use of an inherently many-body theory that directly treats electron correlation offers many improvements over the typically-employed density functional theory Kohn-Sham description. In particular, the use of quantum Monte Carlo methods can help overcome the band gap problem and obviate the need for ad-hoc corrections. We demonstrate our approach to the calculation of the optical and thermal ionization energies of the F-center defect in magnesium oxide, and obtain excellent agreement with experimental and/or other high-accuracy computational results

Quantum Monte Carlo for minimum energy structures

We present an efficient method to find minimum energy structures using energy estimates from accurate quantum Monte Carlo calculations. This method involves a stochastic process formed from the stochastic energy estimates from Monte Carlo that can be averaged to find precise structural minima while using inexpensive calculations with moderate statistical uncertainty. We demonstrate the applicability of the algorithm by minimizing the energy of the H2O-OH- complex and showing that the structural minima from quantum Monte Carlo calculations affect the qualitative behavior of the potential energy surface substantially.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Atlas of reflectance spectra of terrestrial, lunar and meteoritic powders and frosts from 92 to 1800 nm

The reflectance spectra of powdered samples of selected minerals, meteorites, lunar materials and frosts are presented as an aid in the interpretation of present and future remote sensing data of solar system objects. Spectra obtained in separate wavelength regions have been combined and normalized, yielding coverage from 92 to 1800 nm. Spectral features include reflectance maxima in the far UV region produced by valence-conduction interband transitions, and reflectance minima in the near UV, visible and near IR regions, produced by charge transfer and crystal field transitions. Specific maxima and minima are diagnostic of mineral type and composition; additionally, the minerals present in mixtures such as meteorites and lunar samples can be determined

A Survey of Twelve Factors Influencing Covering Power

A statistical screening design was used to test 12 emulsion and processing variables said to influence covering power in silver halide emulsions. Emulsion grain size was found to be the only statistically significant factor at an alpha risk of .10

A Prototype for Distributed Computing Platform

As mobile devices continue to grow in power and number, their combined computing capacity has grown as well. Much of this capacity sits unused, smartphones often sit idle throughout the day and while charging at night. This project explores the possibility of harnessing that otherwise unused computing power through the implementation of a mobile-based distributed system designed to tackle large computing tasks. To demonstrate the capabilities of the system, an example challenge is borrowed from the medical field: identification of genes associated with the development of renal cancer. The system is set to work identifying such genes using only the processing power of smartphones and a central server to coordinate them. Finally, the performance of the system is compared to a similar system that is adapted to run on desktop computer hardware