Third-Party Bankruptcy Releases: An Analysis of Consent Through the Lenses of Due Process and Contract Law

Bankruptcy courts disagree on the use of third-party releases in Chapter 11 bankruptcy plans, the different factors that circuit courts consider when deciding whether to approve a third-party release, and the impact of the various consent definitions on whether a release is or should be binding on the creditor. Affirmative consent, “deemed consent,” and silence are important elements in this discussion. Both contract law and due process provide lenses to evaluate consent definitions to determine whether nondebtor third-party releases should bind certain creditor groups. This Note proposes a solution that follows an affirmative consent approach to protect against due process violations and promote consistency across bankruptcy courts

Translating Beyond Culture: My Study Abroad Experience in Chile

Latin American Studie

Observations of nonlinear run-up patterns on plane and rhythmic beach morphology

Application of non-linear forecasting and bispectral analysis to video observations of run-up over cuspate topography shows that these alongshore patterns in the morphology are accompanied by changes to the fundamental behaviour of the run-up timeseries. Nonlinear forecasting indicates that at beach cusp horns, the behaviour of swash flow is more predictable and global (meaning that characteristics of individual swash events are well represented by the behaviour of the timeseries as a whole). Conversely, at beach cusp bays, the behaviour of swash flow is less predictable and more local (meaning that the characteristics of individual swash events are best represented by the behaviour of a small fraction of the timeseries). Bispectral analysis indicates that there is a nonlinear transfer of energy from the incident wave frequency f to infragravity frequency ~f/2 which only occurs in the bay, suggesting that the local behaviour is caused by interactions between successive swash cycles which are magnified by channelling caused by the beach cusp geometry. The local behaviour and the bispectral signatures are not present in offshore measurements, and are not present in runup timeseries collected when the beach was planar. These results provide evidence that interactions between successive run-ups are a fundamental characteristic of beach cusp bays. Ultimately, these interactions could lead to the growth of an infragravity wave with an alongshore wavelength forced by the presence of beach cusps

Inequality of opportunity in the credit market

Credit market imperfections can prevent the poor from making pro table investments. Under asymmetric information observable features, such as wealth and collateral, play an important role in determining who gets credit, in violation of the Equality of Opportunity principle. We de ne equality of opportunity as the equal possibility of getting credit for a given aversion to e¤ort. We rst establish that, due to larger cross subsidization in high collateral classes of borrowers, richer individuals are more likely to get credit for a given aversion to e¤ort. Our second result is that Inequality of Opportunity is associated with an ine¢ cient allocation of resources among classes of borrowers. The marginal borrower in classes that post more collateral exerts less e¤ort in equilibrium (and therefore produces lower aggregate surplus) than the marginal borrower in lower collateral classes. This suggests that public credit policies should be targeted at poorer classes of would be borrowers both for equity and e¢ ciency reasons, which rarely occurs in practice.equality of opportunity; credit; moral hazard; cross subsidization; collateral.

Evaluating administrative burdens through SCM: some indications from the Italian experience

A methodology to measure administrative burdens, based on the Dutch Standard Cost Model (SCM), has been applied in a large number of European countries, coupled in most cases with the commitment to a reduction target. This paper compares the application of the method in different national context and discusses its weaknesses and strengths against more complete forms of evaluation of the adequacy of regulation. The paper also discusses some indication arisen during the measurement of administrative burdens through SCM in Italy. Our main conclusion is that the SCM is a potentially useful tool and could provide motivation for culture change in policymaking. Its major strength, which lies mainly in its pragmatic approach and the possibility of commitment on a quantitative target, may be at the same time a source of weakness and may deliver some misleading results. Also some basic concepts of the model need a more rigorous definition to be consistently applied in different countries.administrative burdens; better regulation; costs of regulation; European governance; standard cost model

Urban characteristics attributable to density-driven tie formation

Motivated by empirical evidence on the interplay between geography, population density and societal interaction, we propose a generative process for the evolution of social structure in cities. Our analytical and simulation results predict both super-linear scaling of social tie density and information flow as a function of the population. We demonstrate that our model provides a robust and accurate fit for the dependency of city characteristics with city size, ranging from individual-level dyadic interactions (number of acquaintances, volume of communication) to population-level variables (contagious disease rates, patenting activity, economic productivity and crime) without the need to appeal to modularity, specialization, or hierarchy.Comment: Early version of this paper was presented in NetSci 2012 as a contributed talk in June 2012. An improved version of this paper is published in Nature Communications in June 2013. It has 14 pages and 5 figure

Inequality of Opportunity in the Credit Market

Credit market imperfections can prevent the poor from making profitable investments. Under asymmetric information observable features, such as wealth and collateral, play an important role in determining who gets credit, in violation of the Equality of Opportunity principle. We define equality of opportunity as the equal possibility of getting credit for a given aversion to effort. We first establish that, due to larger cross subsidization in high collateral classes of borrow- ers, richer individuals are more likely to get credit for a given aversion to effort. Our second result is that Inequality of Opportunity is associated with an inefficient allocation of resources among classes of borrowers. The marginal borrower in classes that post more collateral exerts less effort in equilibrium (and therefore produces lower aggregate surplus) than the marginal borrower in lower collateral classes. This suggests that public credit policies should be targeted at poorer classes of would be borrowers both for equity and efficiency reasons, which rarely occurs in practice.equality of opportunity; credit; moral hazard; crosssubsidization; collateral