College of Arts and Science

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The College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University is a highly selective liberal arts college at the heart of a major research university. It seeks to attract a diverse student body of high promise and ability from throughout the United States and the international community. Its mission is to engage in significant and innovative research, scholarship, and creative expression in the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, to offer distinguished, well-taught programs of undergraduate and graduate education in the liberal arts and sciences, and to foster service to society overall.

Address:	301 Kirkland Hall Nashville, TN 37240
Phone:	615-322-2851
Fax:	615-343-8702
Email:	cas@vanderbilt.edu
Website:	College of Arts & Science

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 977

16TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON CAPTURE GAMMA-RAY SPECTROSCOPY AND RELATED TOPICS (CGS16)
(16TH Internatinal Symposium on Capture Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy and Related Topics (CGS16), 2018) Luo, Y. X.; Hamilton, J. H.; Rasmussen, J. O.; Ramayya, A. V.; Frauendorf, S.; Wang, E.; Hwang, J. K.; Zhu, S.J.; Liu, Y. X.; Xu, F. R.; Sun, Y.; Liu, S. H.; Oganessian, Yu; Ma, W. C.
The paper reviews the systematic studies of triaxial deformations, new mode excitations and shape evolutions with regard to triaxial deformation in the neutron-rich nuclei with Z = 41-46, A similar to 100-116.
A Class of Chronic Poverty Measures
(Vanderbilt University, 2007) Foster, James E.
This paper presents a new family of chronic poverty measures based on the Pa poverty measures of Foster, Greer,and Thorbecke (1984). The chronically poor are identified using two cutoffs: a standard poverty line, which identifies the time periods during which a person is poor; and a duration cutoff, which is the minimum percentage of time a person must be in poverty in order to be chronically poor. The new family of chronic poverty measures is constructed by raising the (per-period) normalized gaps of the chronically poor to a power a > 0 and then aggregating. The resulting indices, which can be viewed as duration adjusted Pa measures, satisfy a battery of properties for chronic poverty indices, including time monotonicity and population decomposability. An illustrative application of the family is provided using data from Argentina.
A Defense of the Current US Tax Treatment of Employer-Provided Medical Insurance
(Vanderbilt University, 2010) Huang, Kevin X. D.; Huffman, Gregory W.
We develop a general equilibrium search model with endogenous health accumulation and a unique feature of the US tax code, that exempts employer-provided medical benefits from taxation, to jointly account for US long term unemployment rate and medical expenditure to aggregate consumption ratio. Through various counterfactual experiments, we find (1) eliminating the employment-based tax subsidy lowers medical expenditure but, via a general equilibrium labor market effect, increases unemployment and lowers output, and contrary to conventional wisdom, lowers welfare; (2) having government raise taxes to finance the provision of medical care substantially increases unemployment rate, while reducing income and welfare.
A Dynamic Model of Lawsuit Joinder and Settlement
(Vanderbilt University, 2009) Daughety, Andrew F.; Reinganum, Jennifer F.
In this paper we examine a dynamic model of the process by which multiple related lawsuits may be filed and combined; we also examine actions a defendant may employ that may disrupt the formation of a joint suit. Our initial model involves two potential plaintiffs, with private information about the harm they have suffered, in a multi-period setting with positive costs of filing a suit. If two plaintiffs file, they join their suits to obtain a lower per-plaintiff trial cost and a higher likelihood of prevailing against the defendant. We find that some plaintiff types never file, some wait to see if another victim files and only then file, some file early and then drop their suits if not joined by another victim and, finally, some file and pursue their suits whether or not they are joined; thus, the equilibrium resembles a "bandwagon." We then consider the effect of allowing preemptive settlement offers by the defendant aimed at discouraging follow-on suits. Preemptive settlement results in a "gold rush" of cases into the first period. In general, plaintiffs (ex ante) strictly prefer that such preemptive settlements not be allowed, and computational results suggest this may be broadly true for defendants as well; however, the inability of defendants to commit to such a policy results in an equilibrium with preemptive settlement. Finally, we consider partial unawareness of victims as to the source of harm; this provides a role for plaintiffs' attorneys, who may seek additional victims to join a combined lawsuit. Confidential preemptive settlements in the case of partial unawareness restrict the plaintiff's attorney from seeking additional victims and therefore leads to higher preemptive settlement amounts. Moreover, the defendant strictly prefers to employ preemptive settlement if the fraction of unaware victims is sufficiently high.
A Model Selection Test for Bivariate Failure-Time Data
(Vanderbilt University, 2004) Chen, Xiaohong; Fan, Yanqin
In this paper, we address two important issues in survival model selection for censored data generated by the Archimedean copula family; method of estimating the parametric copulas and data reuse. We demonstrate that for model selection, estimators of the parametric copulas based on minimizing the selection criterion function may be preferred to other estimators. To handle the issue of data reuse, we put model selection in the context of hypothesis testing and propose a simple test for model selection from a finite number of parametric copulas. Results from a simulation study and two empirical applications provide strong support to our theoretical findings.
A Neighborhood-Level View of Riots, Property Values, and Population Loss: Cleveland 1950-1980
(Vanderbilt University, 2005) Collins, William J.; Smith, Fred H.
We undertake a case study of riots in the context of Cleveland's economic decline between 1950 and 1980. Our empirical perspective emphasizes differential changes in property values and population levels across census tracts depending on their proximity to the riots' epicenter. We find patterns that are consistent with concentrated, negative, and long-lasting effects from the 1960s riots. These estimates do not depend on whether we use a narrow or a broad categorization for "riot tracts", whether we use simple difference-in-difference measures or detailed information on the distance of each tract from the riot center, or whether we use ordinary least squares or matching estimation techniques. Moreover, the negative relationship between riots and property value trends is not merely a reflection of the pre-existing trend in value, the pre-riot racial composition of the neighborhoods, the pre-riot proportion of neighborhood residents holding manufacturing jobs, the neighborhood crime rate, nor changes in the observable characteristics of the housing stock. ClevelandÂ¬Ï€s economic difficulties did not start with the riots. Rather, we suggest that the impact of the riots was compounded by long-run forces that were already eroding ClevelandÂ¬Ï€s economic base.
A Nonparametric Measure of Convergence Toward Purchasing Power Parity
(Vanderbilt University, 2002) Shintani, Mototsugu
It has been claimed that the deviations from purchasing power parity are highly persistent and have quite long half-lives under the assumption of a linear adjustment of real exchange rates. However, inspired by trade cost models, nonlinear adjustment has been widely employed in recent empirical studies.This paper proposes a simple nonparametric procedure to evaluate the speed of adjustment in the presence of nonlinearity, using the largest Lyapunov exponent of the time series. The empirical result suggests that the speed of convergence to a long-run price level is indeed faster than what was found in previous studies with linear restrictions.
A Proposal for a Selection Criterion in a Class of Dynamic Rational Expectations Models with Multiple Equilibria
(Vanderbilt University, 2002) Driskill, Robert A.
The paper argues that multiple equilibria-whether non-stationary or stationary- are a generic property of dynamic rational expectations models. In light of this, this paper proposes a selection criterion for choosing between these multiple equilibria in an important class of dynamic rational expectations models. The criterion is based on the idea that agents can be assumed to coordinate their beliefs around the limit of a finite-horizon equilibrium. For three examples examined, all of which can have multiple stationary, i.e., non-explosive, rational expectations equilibria, there is, among the multiple equilibria of an infinite-horizon model, only one that is the limit of a finite-horizon model.
A Revelation Principle for Dominant Strategy Implementation
(Vanderbilt University, 2008) Schwartz, Jesse A.; Wen, Quan
We introduce a perfect price discriminating (PPD) mechanism for allocation problems with private information. A PPD mechanism treats a seller, for example, as a perfect price discriminating monopolist who faces a price schedule that does not depend on her report. In any PPD mechanism, every player has a dominant strategy to truthfully report her private information. We establish a revelation principle for dominant strategy implementation: any outcome that can be dominant strategy implemented can also be dominant strategy implemented using a PPD mechanism. We apply this principle to derive the optimal, budget-balanced, dominant strategy mechanisms for public good provision and bilateral bargaining.
A Simple Cointegrating Rank Test Without Vector Autoregression
(Vanderbilt University, 2000) Shintani, Mototsugu
This paper proposes a fully nonparametric test for cointegrating rank which does not require estimation of a vector autoregressive model. The test exploits the fact that the degeneracy in the moment matrix of the variables with mixed integration order corresponds to the notion of cointegration. With an appropriate standardization, the test statistics are shown to have a nuisance parameter free limiting distribution and to be consistent under reasonable conditions. Monte Carlo experiments also suggest that the performance of the test is satisfactory with a moderate sample size. The proposed tests are applied to the stochastic growth model using the U.S. aggregate data.
A Simple Model of Inequality Occupational Choice and Development
(Vanderbilt University, 2000) Ghatak, Maitreesh; Jiang, Nien-Huei
This paper analyzes a simple and tractable model of occupational choice in the presence of credit market imperfections. We examine the relative roles of parameters governing technology and transaction costs, and history in terms of the initial wealth distribution in determinig the long term wealth distribution and level of income of an economy. The possibility of the existence of cycles, and the role of lotteries and redistributive policies in archieving greater efficiency are examined.
A Subsidized Vickrey Auction for Cost Sharing
(Vanderbilt University, 2007) Schwartz, Jesse A.; Wen, Quan
We introduce a subsidized Vickrey auction for cost sharing problems. Although the average, marginal, and serial cost sharing mechanisms are budget-balanced, they are not allocatively efficient and they do not induce players to truthfully reveal their values as a dominant strategy. The conventional Vickrey auction, on the other hand, is allocatively efficient and does induce truthful bidding as a dominant strategy, but also generates an overpayment. This paper modifies the conventional Vickrey auction so that some of the overpayment is used to subsidize additional production without upsetting the players' incentives to bid truthfully. Although this subsidized Vickrey auction is not allocatively efficient, it always Pareto dominates the conventional Vickrey auction and sometimes dominates other existing cost sharing mechanisms.
A Unified Approach to Strategy-Proofness for Single-Peaked Preferences
(Vanderbilt University, 2011) Weymark, John A.
This article establishes versions of Moulin's [On strategy-proofness and single peakedness, Public Choice 35 (1980), 31-38] characterizations of various classes of strategy-proof social choice functions when the domain consists of all profiles of single-peaked preferences on an arbitrary subset of the real line. Two results are established that show that the median of 2n+1 numbers can be expressed using a combination of minimization and maximization operations applied to subsets of these numbers when either these subsets or the numbers themselves are restricted in a particular way. These results are used to show how Moulin's characterizations of generalized median social choice functions can be obtained as corollaries of his characterization of min-max social choice functions.
Acambaro : frontier settlement on the Tarascan-Aztec border
(Vanderbilt University, 1985) Gorenstein, Shirley
Accounting for Persistence and Volatility of Good-Level Real Exchange Rates: The Role of Sticky Information'
(Vanderbilt University, 2008) Crucini, Mario J.; Shintani, Mototsugu; Tsuruga, Takayuki
Volatile and persistent real exchange rates are observed not only in aggregate series but also in the individual good level data. Kehoe and Midrigan (2007) recently showed that, under a standard assumption on nominal price stickiness, empirical frequencies of micro-price adjustment cannot replicate the time-series properties of the law-of-one-price deviations. We extend their sticky price model by combining good specific price adjustment with information stickiness in the sense of Mankiw and Reis (2002). Under a reasonable assumption on the money growth process, we show that the model fully explains both persistence and volatility of the good-level real exchange rates. Furthermore, our framework allows for multiple cities within a country. Using a panel of U.S.-Canadian city pairs, we estimate a dynamic price adjustment process for each 165 individual goods. The empirical result suggests that the dispersion of average time of information update across goods is comparable to that of average time of price adjustment.
Activation of a Modern Industry
(Vanderbilt University, 2001) Wang, Ping; Xie, Danyang
This paper constructs an integrated framework to disentangle the underlying economic mechanism of industrial transformation. We consider three essential elements for the analysis: skill requirements, industry wide spillovers and degrees of consumption subsistence. We find that human and nonhuman resources, production factor matching and industrial coordination are all important for activating a modern industry. In the process of industrial transformation, job destruction may exceed job creation, and income distribution may get worse immediately following the activation of a modern industry. An array of policy prescriptions for advancing a poor country are provided.
Activist translation in an era of fictional law
(Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction, 2007) Barsky, Robert F.
This article proposes that activist translators be involved and engaged in those legal realms, such as the treatment of "illegals" or undocumented migrants, because this is an area in which translators can act as true intermediaries, over and above the act of substituting one lexical item for another; however, this form of activism, like other discretionary activities, needs to be directed to lofty causes, such as upholding the human rights of those most excluded by our society. In other words, alongside of the activism must come good faith, because "activism" could also actively hurt the person for whom the translator is doing his or her task. In other words, when the "translator" decides to become an "interpreter," there is the danger that the subjectivity of the latter will trump the "objectivity" of the former, with negative consequences. This article advocates activism over machine-like fidelity because the abuses in certain realms of law are so egregious and the stories so horrendous that most translators who are given the right to speak out will take the road towards humanity and basic decency. The examples to which Barsky refers emanate from the realm of immigrant incarceration in the Southern US, so for the purposes of this article positive activism points to efforts that help people who are arrested in the United States (or anywhere else) for violations of immigration laws. Regrettably, the kind of activism for which this article advocates is not likely to occur.
Additional memorial for David George, Alexander Cowie, James Anderson, William Aitken, and William Fleming, for themselves, and the other compositor-printers of the city of Edinburgh against Mr. David Ramsay, printer in Edinburgh, for himself, and in behalf of the other master-printers in Edinburgh
(Bill Chamber, 1804) George, David; Ramsay, David; Bell, George Joseph; Cullen; Lord, Robert Cullen
Adorno: Never Again Auschwitz
(Vanderbilt University. Writing Studio, 2009-03-22) Eagles, Benjamin; Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit
Adult Illiteracy in Nashville
(Vanderbilt University, 2011-12-13) Green, Robert

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