204 research outputs found
Legal Institutions, Innovation and Growth
No full textWe build a stylized model of endogenous technological change and analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation and growth. Two legal systems are analyzed: a rigid system, where an uncontingent law is written ex ante (before knowing the current technology) and a flexible system where law-makers select the law ex post (after observing the current technology). We show that flexible legal systems dominate in terms of welfare, amount of innovation and output growth in economies at intermediate stages of technological development -- which are periods when legal change is more needed -- while rigid legal systems are preferable at early stages of technological development, when commitment problems are more severe. For mature technologies the two legal systems are shown to be equivalent. Surprisingly, we find that rigid legal systems may induce excessive (greater than first-best) R&D investment and output growth.Commitment, Flexibility, Innovation and Growth
Replication package for "Fiscal Rules as Bargaining Chips"
No full textThis file contains Matlab code and an Excel file to replicate all the figures in "Fiscal Rules as Bargaining Chips", by Facundo Piguillem and Alessandro Riboni. Paper accepted in Review of Economic Studies.
There is a readme word file inside describing the function and purpose of each file
Legal Institutions, Innovation and Growth
No full textWe analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation and growth. We compare a rigid (law set ex-ante) legal system and a flexible one (law set after observing current technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation and output growth at intermediate stages of technological development - periods when legal change is needed. The rigid system is preferable at early stages of technological development, when (lack of) commitment problems are severe. For mature technologies the two legal systems are equivalent. We find that rigid legal systems may induce excessive (greater than first-best) R&D investment and output growth.legal system, commitment, flexibility, innovation, growth
Statute Law or Case Law?
No full textIn a Case Law regime Courts have more flexibility than in a Statute Law regime. Since Statutes are inevitably incomplete, this confers an advantage to the Statute Law regime over the Case Law one. However, all Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are already taken. Therefore, the advantage of flexibility for Case Law is unavoidably paired with the potential for time-inconsistency. Under Case Law, Courts may be tempted to behave myopically and neglect ex-ante welfare because, ex-post, this may afford extra gains from trade for the parties currently in Court. The temptation to behave myopically is traded off against the effect of a Court's ruling, as a precedent, on the rulings of future Courts. When Case Law matures this temptation prevails and Case Law Courts succumb to the time-inconsistency problem. Statute Law, on the other hand pairs the lack of flexibility with the ability to commit in advance to a given (forward looking) rule. This solves the time-inconsistency problem afflicting the Case Law Courts. We conclude that when the nature of the legal environment is sufficiently heterogeneous and/or changes sufficiently often, the Case Law regime is superior: flexibility is the prevailing concern. By the same token, when the legal environment is sufficiently homogeneous and/or does not change very often, the Statute Law regime dominates: the ability to overcome the time-inconsistency problem is the dominant consideration.statute law, case law, flexibility, rigidity, time-inconsistency, precedents
Demonstration of a sensor-based app for self-monitoring of medicine intake
No full textAccurate adherence to prescribed medications is essential for the effectiveness of therapies, but several studies show that when patients are responsible for treatment administration, poor adherence is prevalent. Existing apps to support self-administration of drugs may interfere with the normal routine of patients by providing unnecessary reminders. More sophisticated solutions, including the use of smart packaging and ingestible sensors, are currently restricted to patients involved in a few clinical studies. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel app to support self-administration of drugs without interfering with the patient's routines. The system relies on cheap wireless sensors attached to medicine boxes to detect medicine intake. The app uses machine learning to detect intake events, and active learning to improve recognition based on the user's feedback. In the demonstration, we show a working prototype of the system, which includes a Web dashboard for physicians to monitor the rate of intakes. Copyright is held by the author/owner(s)
Context-aware pervasive interfaces
No full textThe proliferation of pervasive services requires advanced methods to adapt the service provision to the user's context. The author presents a hybrid statistical and semantic framework for interface selection and adaptation. The approach is to find the best compromise between urgency and privacy requirements, avoiding interference with the user's activities
Legal institutions, innovation and growth
No full textWe analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation, and growth. We compare a rigid legal system (the law is set before the technological innovation) and a flexible one (the law is set after observing the new technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation, and output growth at intermediate stages of technological development—periods when legal change is needed. The rigid system is preferable at early stages of technological development, when commitment problems are severe. For mature technologies, the two legal systems are equivalent. We find that rigid legal systems may induce excessive R&D investment
La metabolomica applicata allo studio sul tartaro di Alessandro Farnese e Maria D’Aviz
No full textThe analysis of dental calculus is a promising tool for providing evi dence for the lifestyle of ancient people. Although dental calculus is com posed mainly by inorganic constituents, embedded organic materials
deriving from different sources can be detected, including dietary and
dietary debris deriving from accidental ingestion. Being able to provide
a comprehensive fingerprinting of the investigated samples, mass spec trometry-based omics strategies are particularly challenging because of
their sensitivity, high-throughput and discriminating power.
High resolution mass spectrometry coupled to ultra-high-performance
liquid chromatography was used to study the dental calculus metabo lome of both Duke Alessandro Farnese and Duchess Maria D’Aviz al lowing the identification of more than 200 metabolites able to suggest
a different life-style between the Duke and his wife. The application of
Principal Component Analysis made it possible to discriminate data sets belonging to the dental calculus samples of the Duke and Duchess
Legal efficiency and consistency
No full textWe analyze the efficiency and consistency of court decisions under common and civil law. As a leading example, we study the enforcement of property rights. Judges are of two types: some are conservative and follow the precedent or the statute, while others maximize social welfare. When courts intervene ex-post, after the relevant economic choices have been made, welfare-maximizing courts face a “commitment problem.” Such an ex-post bias has implications on the relative “consistency” and efficiency of each legal system. Surprisingly, we find that court decisions are more consistent under common law than under civil law. The welfare comparison between the two systems is, instead, ambiguous. However, in changing economic environments, common law is more likely to dominate civil law because of its greater adaptability
Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry for untargeted metabolomic analysis of dental calculus from Duke Alessandro Farnese and his wife Maria D’Aviz
No full textDental calculus is a valuable resource for the reconstruction of dietary habits and oral microbiome of past populations. In 2020 the remains of Duke Alessandro Farnese and his wife Maria D’Aviz were exhumed to get novel insights into the causes of death. This study aimed to investigate the metabolome of the dental calculus of the noble couple by untargeted metabolomics. The pulverized samples were decalcified in a water-formic acid mixture, extracted using methanol/acetonitrile and analyzed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) using a reversed-phase separation followed by electrospray ionization and full scan in positive and negative ion mode. Waters Synapt-G2-Si High-Definition hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer was used. Significant features were then identified using MSE acquisition mode, recording information on exact mass precursor and fragment ions within the same run. This approach, together with data pre-treatment and multivariate statistical analysis allowed for the identification of compounds able to differentiate between the investigated samples. More than 200 metabolites were identified, being fatty acids, alcohols, aldehydes, phosphatidylcholines, phosphatidylglycerols, ceramides and phosphatidylserines the most abundant classes. Metabolites deriving from food, bacteria and fungi were also determined, providing information on the habits and oral health status of the couple
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