The morality of political liberalism

The paper discusses two ways to understand political liberalism. On the one hand, political liberalism may rely on the existence of an overlapping consensus among all reasonable comprehensive views present in our society. On the other hand, we may ground political liberalism on the moral value of equal respect for everyone. The dilemma between a factual identification of an overlapping consensus and a normative appeal to moral values arises at two levels. First, when we fill the content of our political conception of justice. And second, when we require impartiality to fill that content. In the former case, we may argue for a particular conception of justice through normative argument with moral premises, or our political conception of justice might be the area where all reasona-ble comprehensive views overlap. Similarly, we require that citizens offer impartial public reasons because this is what people holding different comprehensive views do think ap-propriate, or because they should consider it so. The author argues that we should define our political conception of justice through impartial normative argument, and that we should ground the demand of impartiality on the moral value of equal respect

Consumer Search on the Internet

This paper uses consumer search data to explain search frictions in online markets, within the context of an equilibrium search model. I use a novel dataset of consumer online browsing and purchasing behavior, which tracks all consumer search prior to each transaction. Using observed search intensities from the online book industry, I estimate search cost distributions that allow for asymmetric consumer sampling. Research on consumer search often assumes a symmetric sampling rule for analytical convenience despite its lack of realism. Search behavior in the online book industry is quite limited: in only 25 percen of the transactions did consumers visit more than one bookstore's website. The industry is characterized by a strong consumer preference for certain retailers. Accounting for unequal consumer sampling halves the search cost estimates from 1.8 to 0.9 dollars per search in the online book industry. Analysis of time spent online suggests substitution between the time consumers spend searching and the relative opportunity cost of their time. Retired people, those with lower education levels, and minorities (with the exception of Hispanics) spent significantly more time searching for a book online. There is a negative relationship between income levels and time spent searching.consumer search, internet, search costs

Relations between the diffusion anomaly and cooperative rearranging regions in a hydrophobically nanoconfined water monolayer

We simulate liquid water between hydrophobic walls separated by 0.5 nm, to study how the diffusion constant D_\parallel parallel to the walls depends on the microscopic structure of water. At low temperature T, water diffusion can be associated with the number of defects in the hydrogen bonds network. However, the number of defects solely does not account for the peculiar diffusion of water, with maxima and minima along isotherms. Here, we calculate a relation that quantitatively reproduces the behavior of D_\parallel, focusing on the high-T regime. We clarify how the interplay between breaking of hydrogen bonds and cooperative rearranging regions of 1-nm size gives rise to the diffusion extrema, possibly relevant for both bulk and nanoconfined water.Comment: Published version; extended references, 5 pages, 3 figure

English Language Minority Students and Education Policy: A Focus on the Latinx Population

Our federal government allows states to pass and ratify new laws every year. Over the last thirty years, America has experienced a polarized fight over the expansion or reduction of government involvement. In terms of education policy, local districts and governments can play an essential role in the implementation, evaluation, and development of equitable educational opportunities. This paper examines federal and state level policies in the context of English Language Learners’ (EL) educational opportunities. In particular, I focus on Mt. Diablo High School, which is located in the Mount Diablo District. According to the California State Department of Education, the percentage of English Language Learners at this school is 33.5%. Out of this percentage, a majority of English Language Learner students at Mt. Diablo High School are Latinx (84.98%). These statistics help to demonstrate that state and district level policies lack inclusivity, student awareness on academic resources, accessibility to career center programs, and a lack of parent and teacher participation. Due to these shortcomings, these policies primarily feed into the undereducation and retention of EL students. By analyzing existing Student Site Council meetings and state-level data sets, I argue that there is a higher need for accountability and support relative to the number of EL students attending Mt. Diablo High School