We investigate whether homeowners respond strategically to news of mortgage modification programs. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in modification policy induced by settlement of US state ...government lawsuits against Countrywide Financial Corporation, which agreed to offer modifications to seriously delinquent borrowers. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that Countrywide's monthly delinquency rate increased more than 0.54 percentage points—a 10 percent relative increase—immediately after the settlement's announcement. The estimated increase in default rates is largest among borrowers least likely to default otherwise. These results suggest that strategic behavior should be an important consideration in designing mortgage modification programs.
African American bankruptcy filers select Chapter 13 far more often than other debtors, who opt instead for Chapter 7, which has higher success rates and lower attorneys’ fees. Prior scholarship ...blames racial discrimination by attorneys. We propose an alternative explanation: Chapter 13 offers benefits, including retention of cars and driver’s licenses, that are more valuable to African American debtors because of relatively long commutes. We study a 2011 policy change in Chicago, which seized cars and suspended licenses of consumers with large traffic-related debts. The policy produced a large increase in Chapter 13 filings, especially by African Americans. Two mechanisms explain the disparate racial impact: African Americans were more likely to have traffic debts and incurred greater costs from car seizures and license suspension due to relatively long commutes. When we match African Americans to other debtors with similar commutes, we find no racial difference in Chapter 13 filing propensities.
Age differences in preferences for body physique Han, Chengyang; Lei, Xue; Yan, Panjie ...
Personality and individual differences,
October 2021, 2021-10-00, 20211001, Letnik:
181
Journal Article
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Odprti dostop
Studies have demonstrated the importance of body weight in physical attractiveness, where thinness in women and leanness and muscularity in men are judged to be attractive. However, most research has ...focused on young adults, while less has investigated whether attractiveness judgments of body weight change with age. Here, we compared young and older adults' preferences for body physique in a Chinese population using 3D human body models. We found that the attractiveness judgments of body physique vary with age, where older adults have weaker preference for thinness in both male and female bodies than did young adults. These results present novel evidence that preferences for body size alters with age. We propose that the variation in preference for thinness is likely due to the difference in resource availability between generations.
•Preferences for body physique vary with age.•Older adults have weaker preferences for thinness in both male and female bodies.•The association between body physique and attractiveness judgment is quadratic.
•Testosterone administration increases men’s facial femininity preferences.•Chinese men preferred femininity over masculinity in women’s faces.•Testosterone has a causal effect on men’s facial ...preferences.
Sex hormones are thought to influence human mate preferences. Previous studies have reported mixed results regarding the association between men’s testosterone levels and their mate preferences. The present study investigated the effect of testosterone administration on men’s facial femininity preference. Heterosexual Chinese male participants (n = 140) received a single dose of 150 mg testosterone or placebo gel in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-participant design. Results showed that Chinese men demonstrated general preferences for feminized women’s faces, consistent with previous results from the Western population. More importantly, men showed stronger attraction to femininity in women’s faces three hours after testosterone administration than at the beginning of the session. In the placebo group, no significant change in facial femininity preferences was found between time points. These results indicate that exogenous testosterone increases men’s facial femininity preferences in a Chinese population.
Olfactory responses are intensely enhanced with the addition of endogenous and engineered primarily-elemental small zinc nanoparticles (NPs). With aging, oxidation of these Zn nanoparticles ...eliminated the observed enhancement. The design of a polyethylene glycol coating to meet storage requirements of engineered zinc nanoparticles is evaluated to achieve maximal olfactory benefit. The zinc nanoparticles were covered with 1000 g/mol or 400 g/mol molecular weight polyethylene glycol (PEG). Non-PEGylated and PEGylated zinc nanoparticles were tested by electroolfactogram with isolated rat olfactory epithelium and odorant responses evoked by the mixture of eugenol, ethyl butyrate and (±) carvone after storage at 278 K (5 oC), 303 K (30 oC) and 323 K (50 oC). The particles were analyzed by atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and laser Doppler velocimetry. Our data indicate that stored ZnPEG400 nanoparticles maintain physiologically-consistent olfactory enhancement for over 300 days. These engineered Nanoparticles support future applications in olfactory research, sensitive detection, and medicine.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Consumer Bankruptcy Pathologies Morrison, Edward R.; Uettwiller, Antoine
JITE. Journal of institutional and theoretical economics/Journal of institutional and theoretical economics,
03/2017, Letnik:
173, Številka:
1
Journal Article
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This paper questions several long-standing descriptions of consumer bankruptcy in the United States. We focus on Chapter 13, which discharges debts after consumers pay disposable income to creditors ...for up to five years. Many studies document pathologies, including high failure rates, racial disparities, low creditor recoveries, and attorney biases. We observe the same patterns in new data drawn from Cook County, Illinois, but show that these pathologies are central tendencies that ignore substantial heterogeneity across consumers. Several pathologies are driven by subsets of consumers; some disappear once we take account of consumer heterogeneity. We present new evidence that some pathologies reflect biases in nonbankruptcy law, not in the bankruptcy process itself.
VALUATION DISPUTES IN CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY Ayotte, Kenneth; Morrison, Edward R.
University of Pennsylvania law review,
06/2018, Letnik:
166, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Prior scholarship points to valuation disputes and valuation error as key drivers of Chapter 11 outcomes. Avoiding valuation disputes and errors is also the underlying driver of most proposed ...reforms, from Baird's auctions to Behchuk's options. In this paper, we undertake a detailed examination of bankruptcy court opinions involving valuation disputes. Our paper has two goals. The first is to understand how parties and their expert witnesses justify their opposing views to judges, and how judges decide between them. The second is to provide practical guidance to judges in resolving valuation disputes. We document surprisingly pervasive (and often self-serving) errors in expert testimony. This is particularly true when valuation experts apply the discounted cash flow (DCF) method. With respect to key elements of that method, such as the discount rate, we observe stark inconsistency between expert testimony and finance theory and evidence. We propose simple strategies based in finance theory that judges can employ (such as avoiding the use of company-specific risk premia in discount rates) to reduce the scope for valuation disagreements in Chapter 11. We also recommend that judges rely on the peer-reviewed finance and economics literature to assess the scientific reliability of discount rates.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In the past decade, there have been increasing concerns over the effects of pharmaceutical compounds in the aquatic environment, however very little is known about the effects of antidepressants such ...as the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Many biological functions within invertebrates are under the control of serotonin, such as reproduction, metabolism, moulting and behaviour. The effects of serotonin and fluoxetine have recently been shown to alter the behaviour of the marine amphipod, Echinogammarus marinus (Leach, 1815). The purpose of this study was to observe behavioural and transcriptional modifications in this crustacean exposed to the two most prescribed SSRIs (fluoxetine and sertraline) and to develop biomarkers of neurological endocrine disruption. The animals were exposed to both drugs at environmentally relevant concentrations from 0.001 to 1μg/L during short-term (1h and 1day) and medium-term (8 days) experiments. The movement of the amphipods was tracked using the behavioural analysis software during 12min alternating dark/light conditions. The behavioural analysis revealed a significant effect on velocity which was observed after 1h exposure to sertraline at 0.01μg/L and after 1 day exposure to fluoxetine as low as 0.001μg/L. The most predominant effect of drugs on velocity was recorded after 1 day exposure for the 0.1 and 0.01μg/L concentrations of fluoxetine and sertraline, respectively. Subsequently, the expression (in this article gene expression is taken to represent only transcription, although it is acknowledged that gene expression can also be regulated at translation, mRNA and protein stability levels) of several E. marinus neurological genes, potentially involved in the serotonin metabolic pathway or behaviour regulation, were analysed in animals exposed to various SSRIs concentrations using RT-qPCR. The expression of a tryptophan hydroxylase (Ph), a neurocan core protein (Neuc), a Rhodopsin (Rhod1) and an Arrestin (Arr) were measured following exposure to fluoxetine or sertraline for 8 days. The levels of Neuc, Rhod1 and Arr were significantly down-regulated to approximately 0.5-, 0.29- and 0.46-fold, respectively, for the lower concentrations of fluoxetine suggesting potential changes in the phototransduction pathway. The expression of Rhod1 tended to be up-regulated for the lower concentration of sertraline but not significantly. In summary, fluoxetine and sertraline have a significant impact on the behaviour and neurophysiology of this amphipod at environmentally relevant concentrations with effects observed after relatively short periods of time.
Abstract There is a strong contemporary association between high heels and female sexuality. We investigated the hypothesis that one motivation for women wearing high heels is that it artificially ...increases the femininity of gait. We isolated the effects of heels on gait using point-light methodology. Females were recorded walking in flat shoes and high heels. Participants viewed point-light videos of the women wearing the two types of shoe. Participants judged the females in the heels condition as significantly more attractive (with a large effect size) than the females in the flat shoe condition. Biomechanical analyses revealed that wearing high heels led to increased femininity of gait including reduced stride length and increased rotation and tilt of the hips. We conclude that high heels exaggerate sex specific aspects of female gait and women walking in high heels could be regarded as a supernormal stimulus.
Life history theory proposes that it is adaptive for older people to shift investment away from reproductive effort (such as mating) to survivorship. However, it remains unclear whether the shift is ...also present at the psychological level. We investigated this question by comparing preferences for mate choice-relevant cues, sexually dimorphic facial images, between older (60 years and older,
n
= 92) and younger adults (18–40 years,
n
= 86). Results showed that older adults had significantly smaller preferences for sexually dimorphic faces of both sexes than young adults. Specifically, both older men and women showed no significant preferences for sexually dimorphic traits when judging opposite-sex faces, and smaller preferences for masculine male faces and feminine female faces when judging same-sex faces. Young adults generally showed strong preferences for masculine male faces and feminine female faces. In Study 2, we confirmed that the absent/reduced preferences in older adults for sexually dimorphic faces did not result from poor visual ability. The smaller preferences for sexually dimorphic facial cues in older adults compared to young adults suggest that older adults may shift away from mating-oriented psychology as they become less fertile.
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