This article considers the type of evidence that an overseer (e.g., a court) should require before allowing a government agent to take some proposed action. The court can increase agency research incentives by prohibiting actions unless the agent produces supporting evidence, and/or by permitting action even when the agent uncovers adverse evidence. The court thus faces a trade-off between an e...

Among environmental economists instrument choice has tended to come down to the task of ’getting the prices right’. Command-and-control interventions were viewed with suspicion. Recently, behavioral economics has revealed undesired interactions between price regulation and intrinsic motivation. We contribute by experimentally testing direct and persistence effects of taxes and command-and-contr...

Comparative causation is the only tort regime that allows parties to share an accident loss in equilibrium. The sharing of an accident loss between a nonnegligent injurer and his nonnegligent victim spreads activity level and R&D incentives between prospective tortfeasors and their victims. This is an effect that is never observed under the other negligence and strict liability based regimes. I...

We synthesize and review retrospective analyses of federal air quality regulations to examine the contributions Clean Air Act (CAA) vast improvements seen since 1970. Geographic heterogeneity in stringency affects emissions, public health, compliance costs, employment. Cap-and-trade has delivered greater emission reductions at lower cost than conventional mandates, yet fallen short textbook ide...

Reaction enthalpies and reaction volumes of proton-transfer reactions in aqueous solutions of 3-hydroxypyridine have been estimated by measuring UV-visible absorption spectra at different temperatures, pressures, and pH values. Using these results together with published thermodynamic and kinetic data, we have simulated the relaxation spectrum of the proton-transfer reactions of 3-hydroxypyridi...

Homotetrameric R67 dihydrofolate reductase possesses 222 symmetry and a single active site pore. This situation results in a promiscuous binding site that accommodates either the substrate, dihydrofolate (DHF), or the cofactor, NADPH. NADPH interacts more directly with the protein as it is larger than the substrate. In contrast, the p-aminobenzoyl-glutamate tail of DHF, as monitored by nuclear ...

This project links administrative census microdata to spatially continuous measures of particulate pollution (PM2.5) first document and then decompose the key drivers convergence in black-white exposure differences. We use quantile regression show that a significant portion Black-White is attributable differential impacts Clean Air Act (CAA) Black White communities. Areas with larger population...

The effects of lysine peptide lengths on DNA and siRNA packaging and delivery were studied using four linear oligolysine peptides with 8 (K8), 16 (K16), 24 (K24) and 32 (K32) lysines. Oligolysine peptides with 16 lysines or longer were effective for stable monodisperse particle formation and optimal transfection efficiency with plasmid DNA (pDNA), but K8 formulations were less stable under anio...