Radiation-Dominated Quantum Friedmann Models

Radiation-filled Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universes are quantized according to the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner formalism in the conformal-time gauge. Unlike previous treatments of this problem, here both closed and open models are studied, only square-integrable wave functions are allowed, and the boundary conditions to ensure self-adjointness of the Hamiltonian operator are consistent with the space of admissible wave functions. It turns out that the tunneling boundary condition on the universal wave function is in conflict with self-adjointness of the Hamiltonian. The evolution of wave packets obeying different boundary conditions is studied and it is generally proven that all models are nonsingular. Given an initial condition on the probability density under which the classical regime prevails, it is found that a closed universe is certain to have an infinite radius, a density parameter $\Omega = 1$ becoming a prediction of the theory. Quantum stationary geometries are shown to exist for the closed universe model, but oscillating coherent states are forbidden by the boundary conditions that enforce self-adjointness of the Hamiltonian operator.Comment: 18 pages, LaTex, to appear in J. Math. Phy

Policy variables as instruments for the minimum wage

The international literature on minimum wage greatly lacks empirical evidence from developing countries. In Brazil, not only are increases in the minimum wage large and frequent but also the minimum wage has been used as anti-inflation policy in addition to its social role. This paper estimates the effects of the minimum wage on employment using monthly household data from 1982 to 2000 aggregated at regional level. A number of conceptual and identification questions is discussed as tentative explanation of the non-negative estimates found in the literature, for example: (1) The use of political variables as excluded exogenous instruments for the minimum wage variable; (2) The superiority of “spike” over “fraction affected” and “Kaitz index” as a minimum wage variable; (3) The decomposition of the minimum wage employment effect into hours worked and number of jobs effects; (4) Robustness checks accounting for sorting into informal and public sectors. Robust results to various alternative specifications and instrumental variables indicate that an increase in the minimum wage has moderately small adverse effects on employment

The effect of minimum wages on prices in Brazil

There is very little evidence on the effects of the minimum wage on prices in the international literature and none whatsoever for developing countries. This paper analyzes the effects of the minimum wage on prices using monthly Brazilian household and price data from 1982 to 2000 aggregated at a regional level. A number of conceptual and identification questions are discussed, for example: (1) Empirical evidence on price effects might help to answer the question of who pays for the higher costs: firms, consumers, or unemployed. The answer to this question is important for the controversial recent minimum wage debate. Employment might not be affected if firms are able to pass through to prices the higher labour costs associated to a minimum wage increase. (2) If the poor are the consumers of minimum wage labour intensive goods, or if these goods represent a large proportion of their consumption bundle, then minimum wage increases might hurt rather than aid the poor. Furthermore, if minimum wage increases are passed on to consumer prices causing inflation, they might again hurt the poor, who disproportionately suffer from inflation. This is particularly so in the presence of hyperinflation; even more so if the minimum wage has been used as anti-inflation policy in addition to its social role, as in Brazil. Robustness checks on the price effects at a regional level, on low and high income consumers and under low inflation are performed. Robust results indicate that minimum wage increases raise overall prices in Brazil. The resulting inflation is the same for the poor and the rich, smaller in low inflation periods, and larger in poorer regions

The effects of the minimum wage on wages and employment in Brazil: a menu of minimum wage variables

The international literature on minimum wage strongly lacks empirical evidence from developing countries. In Brazil, not only are increases in the minimum wage large and frequent - unlike the typically small increases focused upon in most of the existing literature - but also the minimum wage plays a central and complex role. In addition to its social role the minimum wage has been used as anti-inflationary policy, confirming its importance to the Brazilian Economy. This paper analyzes the effects of the minimum wage on both wages and employment using monthly household-level data (similar to the US CPS) over a reasonably long time period. A number of conceptual and identification questions is here discussed. Various strategies on how to best measure the effect of a constant (national) minimum wage are summarized in a “menu” of minimum wage variables. Also, an employment decomposition that separately estimates the hours worked and the number of jobs effects is used. Robust results indicate that an increase in the minimum wage strongly compresses the wages distribution with moderately small adverse effects on employment

Privatizing Public Litigation

Government litigators increasingly use private resources—human and financial—to support their efforts in court. In some cases, government entities hire private lawyers to perform legal work on behalf of the government; in others, they draw on private donations to fund litigation; and in some cases they do both, relying on privately funded private lawyers to litigate cases in the government’s name. These mergers of public and private can be understood as part of broader trends toward the privatization of government services. This Article uses lessons from the privatization debates to illuminate the likely costs and benefits of bringing private actors into government litigation. It shows that privatization, often touted as a means of improving the efficiency of government services, may have the opposite effect in the context of litigation. Contracting with private lawyers may be more expensive than keeping the work in-house, and accepting private financing may encourage excessive, duplicative government litigation. Even where the advantages of privatization are most pronounced, significant costs remain. Private attorneys and financiers inject private interests and incentives into government litigation, transforming both the ends sought and the means used to achieve them. One cost of privatization, then, is that it can skew government litigation away from the public interest. That consequence is important in its own right, but it also suggests some of the longer-term risks of privatizing government litigation. Our law reflects the view that government litigation is—and should be—different from private litigation. In various ways, some subtle and others more overt, we privilege government litigation over equivalent suits by private parties. Privatization subverts those practices, allowing private attorneys and interest groups to take advantage of benefits typically reserved for government. While it empowers private interests, privatization simultaneously weakens government litigation, dulling its distinctive features and undermining the justifications for treating it differently. The stronger the resemblance between public and private actions, the harder it becomes to defend preferential treatment for government

The Commerce Power and Criminal Punishment: Presumption of Constitutionality or Presumption of Innocence?

The Constitution requires that the facts that expose an individual to criminal punishment be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In recent years, the Supreme Court has taken pains to ensure that legislatures cannot evade the requirements of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and jury presentation through artful statutory drafting. Yet current Commerce Clause jurisprudence permits Congress to do just that. Congress can avoid application of the reasonable-doubt and jury-trial rules with respect to certain critical facts-the facts that establish the basis for federal action by linking the prohibited conduct to interstate commerce-by finding those facts itself rather than providing for case-by-case proof to a jury. As the Court\u27s decision last Term in Gonzales v. Raich illustrates, such findings-based statutes are subject to a presumption of constitutionality and will be sustained so long as the underlying legislative judgment was rational. The conflict between legislative findings and the constitutional requirements for criminal prosecutions is ignored in the vast literature on the commerce power, which focuses overwhelmingly on whether Congress can reach certain activities (and whether courts can or should impose meaningful limits on Congress\u27s legislative authority) but pays scant attention to how Congress legislates. Commentators assume that since Congress\u27s power to act on the basis of its own findings regarding the connection between the regulated conduct and interstate commerce is well established in the civil sphere, it must be equally clear in the criminal context. As this Article demonstrates, however, findings-based statutes generate unique costs in criminal prosecutions by depriving defendants of procedural protections designed to make it harder for the government to send an individual to jail than to regulate her conduct by civil means. The common justifications for leaving questions of commerce largely to Congress\u27s discretion, moreover, ring hollow when considered in the context of criminal law. Given the considerable costs offindings-based criminal prohibitions and the absence of any countervailing benefits, I argue that legislative findings should not serve as the basis for criminal punishment. Instead, courts should require case-by-case proof of the facts that demonstrate the necessary connection between the defendant\u27s conduct and interstate commerce

Civil Challenges to the Use of Low-Bid Contracts for Indigent Defense

In recent years, increasing attention has been directed to the problem of adequate representation for indigent criminal defendants. While overwhelming caseloads and inadequate funding plague indigent defense systems of all types, there is a growing consensus in the legal community that low-bid contract systems-under which the state or locality\u27s indigent defense work is assigned to the attorney willing to accept the lowest fee-pose particularly serious obstacles to effective representation. In this Note, Margaret Lemos argues that the problems typical of indigent defense programs in general-and low-bid contract systems in particular-can and should be addressed through § 1983 civil actions alleging that systemic defects in the state or locality\u27s chosen method for providing indigent defense services constitute a violation of indigent defendants\u27 constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel Lemos concludes that, by addressing the causes of ineffective assistance, such an approach can achieve positive change in a way that case-by-case adjudication of postconviction claims of ineffective assistance cannot