5033 research outputs found
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Bilateral Treaties and Foreign Policy Convergence: Evidence from Bilateral Investment Treaties (forthcoming)
Full text linkOne potential reason for a country to sign a bilateral treaty is that it could result in their new treaty partners having more similar foreign policy preferences. But although commentators have argued that countries often sign treaties for this reason, there is not any empirical research directly testing whether this kind of convergence in foreign policy preferences occurs. We investigate this question by testing whether countries that sign Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) subsequently vote more similarly at the United Nations (UN). Using a stacked event study research design and a sample of BITs signed between 1946 and 2015, we find that signing a BIT is associated with a 4 percent convergence in UN Ideal Points in the following five years. These results are consistent for BITs regardless of their likely economic impact. We further show that the convergence is driven by developing countries aligning their UN voting more closely with their more developed treaty partners and that the largest effects occurred during the decade following the end of the Cold War
Measuring Lawyer Mental Illness: Evidence from Two National Surveys
Full text linkThe American Bar Association declared a “well-being crisis” among lawyers, but the empirical basis for this claim has been contested in recent years. This study systematically compares two high-quality, nationally representative surveys —the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)—to measure the prevalence of mental illness and alcohol misuse among lawyers. In both surveys, lawyers report elevated rates of alcohol misuse compared to the general public and similarly educated peers. The NHIS finds that lawyers experience psychological distress at rates lower than the general public and similar to, or moderately higher than, similarly educated peers. But the NSDUH paints a different picture: over 40% report moderate or serious psychological distress in the past year. A rate significantly higher than those reported by the general public, similarly educated peers, and the rate found in the NHIS. While we are unable to explain fully all of the differences across the two national surveys, we resolve some of these differences by studying sensitivity to instrument validation and calibration and precisely aligning the measurements used in both surveys. To assess the remaining differences, we highlight several advantages of the NSDUH, including the privacy of data-gathering methods, additional clinically validated mental illness measures, and results that are more consistent with other national surveys. The persistent divergent findings from the NHIS and NSDUH underscore specific challenges in measuring mental illness and the importance of continued work on survey implementation, validation, analysis, and interpretation
Is the Patent System Sensitive to Incorrect Information?
Full text linkWe investigate whether participants in the patent system are sensitive to information quality by examining how they treat inaccurate information. We use a novel approach to identify patents with inaccurate information: patent-paper pairs where the paper has been retracted and the corresponding patent contains the retracted material. Despite containing inaccurate information, we find that these patents are prosecuted and maintained by many applicants, are not rejected by examiners, and continue to be cited by some downstream readers after retraction. Insensitivity to inaccurate information may lead to erroneous decisions during examination and has implications for patent quality, disclosure, and knowledge flows
Unveiling Influence: Lobbying and the First Amendment in Postwar America
No full texthttps://scholarship.law.bu.edu/clark_speakers/1123/thumbnail.jp
Quasi-Judicial: A History and Tradition
No full texthttps://scholarship.law.bu.edu/clark_speakers/1120/thumbnail.jp
Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution
No full texthttps://scholarship.law.bu.edu/clark_speakers/1118/thumbnail.jp
Unlocking the benefits of transparent and reusable science for climate risk management
No full textPeople around the world seek climate risk information to guide their decisions. For instance, projections about future flood risk inform where households choose to live, how lenders manage credit risks, and which communities receive federal funding. Yet data limitations and fundamental validation challenges raise important concerns about the reliability of such projections. The principles of transparency and reusability help address these concerns by enabling scrutiny of assumptions and methods, development of foundational data and tools, and consistent application of evaluation standards. While there is ongoing debate about how much transparency commercial climate risk services should provide, many expect noncommercial actors to lead the way on operationalizing transparency and reusability to fulfill their knowledge-building role in the climate risk ecosystem. However, despite prominent success stories, we find a substantial gap between principles and practice: Only four percent of the most-cited peer-reviewed climate risk studies in recent years fully share their data and code although this is a widely accepted minimum standard for transparency. We highlight low-cost measures that noncommercial researchers can take now to improve transparency and reusability. We also emphasize that transformative progress requires substantial investment, cross-sector collaboration, and careful consideration of tradeoffs, data rights, and multiple perspectives on equity. We hope this perspective accelerates both immediate actions and longer-term conversations to improve the ability of science to effectively support timely, evidence-based, and sound climate risk management
Unexplained Pauses in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Surveillance: Erosion of the Public Evidence Base for Health Policy
No full textReal-time federal surveillance of diseases and health care delivery informs clinical guidance and public health policy. However, in 2025, some U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) databases seemed to have “unexplained pauses” and ceased or delayed updates. The CDC public data catalog was audited to identify paused databases that had previously been updated at least monthly and evaluated their characteristics. Of 1359 catalog records examined on 28 October 2025, eighty-two were previously updated at least monthly. On the basis of each database’s stated periodicity, allowing for an additional 30-day grace period, their status was classified as either current or paused as of 28 October 2025. Forty-four databases (54%) were current, and 38 (46%) were paused. Thirty-four of the 38 databases (89%) had no data entries dated within 6 months of the date of analysis, whereas 4 (11%) paused more recently. Of the 38 paused databases, 33 (87%) were vaccination-related topics compared with none of the 44 current databases. Of the 5 paused databases on other topics, 4 addressed respiratory diseases, including disease burden and nonvaccine prevention measures, whereas 1 addressed public health (drug overdose deaths). The persistence of pauses as of 2 December 2025 was examined. Only 1 of the 38 paused databases had been updated. Such long pauses may have compromised evidence for decision making and policies by clinicians, administrators, professional organizations, and policymakers. Federal databases should adopt minimum transparency standards, including displaying the current update status, with a rationale if paused, and next expected update with criteria for resumption. Without such standards, unexplained pauses in surveillance risk undermining evidence-based medicine and public trust
Colonial Criminal Procedure and the Watered-Down Constitution
No full texthttps://scholarship.law.bu.edu/clark_speakers/1119/thumbnail.jp
Social science contributions to the global action plan on antimicrobial resistance
No full textSocial science research on antimicrobial resistance has gained traction in the last decade, employing a diverse set of theoretical perspectives to better understand topics ranging from antimicrobial stewardship to political coordination.4 As the action plan commitments will be updated in 2026, an opportunity exists to employ a broader social science scope to accelerate national antimicrobial resistance interventions.
In January 2025, the Global strategy lab convened leading antimicrobial resistance social scientists from a variety of disciplines to determine which new ways of understanding antimicrobial resistance could catalyse and incentivize action. Three conceptions stood out as important to revisions of the action plan:2 antimicrobial resistance as socio-ecological dynamics;3 antimicrobials as essential infrastructure;4 and antimicrobial resistance as collective action problems.5
In this article, we propose that these three social sciences conceptions can be applied to global action plan revisions to improve how problems are defined and their solutions implemented. These three concepts can also engage important new partners to ensure antimicrobial resistance policies are sufficiently equitable, sustainable and multisectoral