Loss Aversion and the Law

According to the rational choice theory of human behavior-the predominant theory in economics and an influential theory in other disciplines, including law-people strive to enhance their own well- being. Among the available options, they rationally choose the one that would maximize their expected utility, determined in absolute terms

Seeing is Believing: The Anti-Inference Bias

A large body of studies suggests that people are reluctant to impose liability on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone, even when this evidence is more reliable than direct evidence. Current explanations for this pattern of behavior focus on factors such as the tendency of fact finders to assign low subjective probabilities to circumstantial evidence, the statistical nature of such evidence, and the fact that direct evidence can rule out with greater ease any competing factual theory regarding liability. This Article describes a set of four new experiments demonstrating that even when these factors are controlled for, the disinclination to impose liability based on indirect evidence remains. While these findings do not necessarily refute the existing theories, they indicate that these theories are incomplete and point to the existence of a deep-seated bias against basing liability on inferences—an antiinference bias. The Article discusses the potential policy implications of the new findings for procedural and substantive legal norms

Exponential Growth Bias and the Law: Why Do We Save Too Little, Borrow Too Much, and Fail to React on Time to Deadly Pandemics and Climate Change?

Many human decisions, ranging from the taking of loans with compound interest to fighting deadly pandemics, involve phenomena that entail exponential growth. Yet a wide and robust body of empirical studies demonstrates that people systematically underestimate exponential growth. This phenomenon, dubbed the exponential growth bias (“EGB”), has been documented in numerous contexts and across different populations, using both experimental and observational methods. Despite its centrality to human decisionmaking, legal scholarship has thus far failed to account for the EGB. This Article presents the first comprehensive study of the EGB and the law. Incorporating the EGB into legal analysis sheds a new light on a long list of policy debates and highlights new solutions to many problems that the legal scholarship has been grappling with. More concretely, in the sphere of policymaking, the EGB explains the systematically delayed legal response to novel exponential risks such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Building on this insight, this Article highlights new legal strategies that could improve officials’ ability to react promptly and effectively to such threats. In the sphere of individual decisionmaking, this Article shows that the EGB causes people to systematically err when making decisions that involve exponential phenomena. Consequently, people often borrow too much, save too little, and fall prey to sophisticated marketing tactics. In light of these findings, this Article presents a novel regulatory framework, which includes new disclosure duties that could assist people to grasp the long-term implications of their choices, and the imposition of mandatory rules that would minimize the exploitation of the EGB by savvy profit-maximizing entrepreneurs

hi2-1, A QTL which improves harvest index, earliness and alters metabolite accumulation of processing tomatoes

Harvest index, defined as the ratio of reproductive yield to total plant biomass, and early ripening are traits with important agronomic value in processing tomatoes. The Solanum pennellii introgression-line (IL) population shows variation for harvest index and earliness. Most of the QTL mapped for these traits display negative agronomic effects; however, hi2-1 is a unique QTL displaying improved harvest index and earliness. This introgression was tested over several years and under different genetic backgrounds. Thirty-one nearly isogenic sub-lines segregating for the 18 cM TG33–TG276 interval were used for fine mapping of this multi-phenotypic QTL. Based on this analysis the phenotypic effects for plant weight, Brix, total yield and earliness were co-mapped to the same region. In a different mapping experiment these sub-lines were tested as heterozygotes in order to map the harvest index QTL which were only expressed in the heterozygous state. These QTL mapped to the same candidate region, suggesting that hi2-1 is either a single gene with pleiotropic effects or represents linked genes independently affecting these traits. Metabolite profiling of the fruit pericarp revealed that a number of metabolic QTL co-segregate with the harvest index trait including those for important transport assimilates such as sugars and amino acids. Analysis of the flowering pattern of these lines revealed induced flowering at IL2-1 plants, suggest that hi2-1 may also affect harvest index and early ripening by changing plant architecture and flowering rate

Dynamic Analysis of Vascular Morphogenesis Using Transgenic Quail Embryos

Background: One of the least understood and most central questions confronting biologists is how initially simple clusters or sheet-like cell collectives can assemble into highly complex three-dimensional functional tissues and organs. Due to the limits of oxygen diffusion, blood vessels are an essential and ubiquitous presence in all amniote tissues and organs. Vasculogenesis, the de novo self-assembly of endothelial cell (EC) precursors into endothelial tubes, is the first step in blood vessel formation [1]. Static imaging and in vitro models are wholly inadequate to capture many aspects of vascular pattern formation in vivo, because vasculogenesis involves dynamic changes of the endothelial cells and of the forming blood vessels, in an embryo that is changing size and shape. Methodology/Principal Findings: We have generated Tie1 transgenic quail lines Tg(tie1:H2B-eYFP) that express H2B-eYFP in all of their endothelial cells which permit investigations into early embryonic vascular morphogenesis with unprecedented clarity and insight. By combining the power of molecular genetics with the elegance of dynamic imaging, we follow the precise patterning of endothelial cells in space and time. We show that during vasculogenesis within the vascular plexus, ECs move independently to form the rudiments of blood vessels, all while collectively moving with gastrulating tissues that flow toward the embryo midline. The aortae are a composite of somatic derived ECs forming its dorsal regions and the splanchnic derived ECs forming its ventral region. The ECs in the dorsal regions of the forming aortae exhibit variable mediolateral motions as they move rostrally; those in more ventral regions show significant lateral-to-medial movement as they course rostrally. Conclusions/Significance: The present results offer a powerful approach to the major challenge of studying the relative role(s) of the mechanical, molecular, and cellular mechanisms of vascular development. In past studies, the advantages of the molecular genetic tools available in mouse were counterbalanced by the limited experimental accessibility needed for imaging and perturbation studies. Avian embryos provide the needed accessibility, but few genetic resources. The creation of transgenic quail with labeled endothelia builds upon the important roles that avian embryos have played in previous studies of vascular development