The SSRN Blog

Here are the latest announcements from SSRN:

Seattle University, Texas Tech, and University of Warwick, Schools of Law Join LSN Legal Studies Research Paper Series

We are pleased to announce that Seattle University School of Law, Texas Tech School of Law, and University of Warwick School of Law have each started a Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies series within the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN).

SEATTLE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Seattle-U-LEG.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Seattle-U-LEG

The Seattle University School of Law Legal Studies eJournal contains faculty scholarship from the largest and most diverse law school in the Northwest, standing on twin pillars of academic excellence and education for justice. We are home to leading academic programs, dynamic centers and institutes, and an engaged faculty. Our mission is to educate outstanding lawyers to be leaders for a just and humane world.

Seattle University, founded in 1891, continues a 450 year tradition of Jesuit Catholic higher education. The University’s ideals underscore its commitments to the centrality of teaching, learning and scholarship, of values-based education grounded in the Jesuit and Catholic traditions, of service and social justice, of lifelong learning, and of educating the whole person.

TEXAS TECH SCHOOL OF LAW LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Texas-Tech-LEG.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Texas-Tech-LEG

Established in 1967, the Texas Tech University School of Law is home to approximately 670 law students and over 35 full-time faculty members. We are known for our rigorous curriculum, a collegial faculty, and preparing our graduates for the practice of law. Our faculty reflects a broad spectrum of legal philosophy and diverse legal and professional backgrounds. In the past few years, faculty members have published many well-received books as well as articles appearing in prestigious law reviews and publications. The Texas Tech Law School Research Paper series will showcase this scholarship by supplying abstracts and links to our faculty’s working papers as well as to-be-published and recently published articles.

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK SCHOOL OF LAW LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/U-Warwick-LEG.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=U-Warwick-LEG

The University of Warwick School of Law was established in 1969 and has since developed into one of the leading law schools in the UK; ranking amongst the top schools. Its teaching standards and research quality consistently receive high ratings, and the University ranks in the four leading research and teaching institutions in the UK. The contextual approach has been developed at Warwick for over twenty-five years. Our aim is to avoid treating law as if it can be separated from other aspects of society.

Here are the top 5 papers downloaded from the SSRN eLibrary for the week ending November 27, 2009:

1. Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be…Lawyers
by Herwig J. Schlunk (Vanderbilt University School of Law)

2. A Quantitative Approach to Tactical Asset Allocation
by Mebane T. Faber (Cambria Investment Management)

3. Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis
by Brent T. White (University of Arizona - James E. Rogers College of Law)

4. Why Jack Balkin is Disgusting
by Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern University School of Law)

5. Governance Matters VIII: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2008
by Daniel Kaufmann (The Brookings Institution) and Aart Kraay (World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)) and Massimo Mastruzzi (World Bank Institute)

Here are the latest announcements from SSRN:

Seattle University, Texas Tech, and University of Warwick, Schools of Law Join LSN Legal Studies Research Paper Series

We are pleased to announce that Seattle University School of Law, Texas Tech School of Law, and University of Warwick School of Law have each started a Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies series within the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN).

SEATTLE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Seattle-U-LEG.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Seattle-U-LEG

The Seattle University School of Law Legal Studies eJournal contains faculty scholarship from the largest and most diverse law school in the Northwest, standing on twin pillars of academic excellence and education for justice. We are home to leading academic programs, dynamic centers and institutes, and an engaged faculty. Our mission is to educate outstanding lawyers to be leaders for a just and humane world.

Seattle University, founded in 1891, continues a 450 year tradition of Jesuit Catholic higher education. The University’s ideals underscore its commitments to the centrality of teaching, learning and scholarship, of values-based education grounded in the Jesuit and Catholic traditions, of service and social justice, of lifelong learning, and of educating the whole person.

TEXAS TECH SCHOOL OF LAW LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Texas-Tech-LEG.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Texas-Tech-LEG

Established in 1967, the Texas Tech University School of Law is home to approximately 670 law students and over 35 full-time faculty members. We are known for our rigorous curriculum, a collegial faculty, and preparing our graduates for the practice of law. Our faculty reflects a broad spectrum of legal philosophy and diverse legal and professional backgrounds. In the past few years, faculty members have published many well-received books as well as articles appearing in prestigious law reviews and publications. The Texas Tech Law School Research Paper series will showcase this scholarship by supplying abstracts and links to our faculty’s working papers as well as to-be-published and recently published articles.

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK SCHOOL OF LAW LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/U-Warwick-LEG.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=U-Warwick-LEG

The University of Warwick School of Law was established in 1969 and has since developed into one of the leading law schools in the UK; ranking amongst the top schools. Its teaching standards and research quality consistently receive high ratings, and the University ranks in the four leading research and teaching institutions in the UK. The contextual approach has been developed at Warwick for over twenty-five years. Our aim is to avoid treating law as if it can be separated from other aspects of society.

Here are the top 5 papers downloaded from the SSRN eLibrary for the week ending November 20, 2009:

1. Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be…Lawyers
by Herwig J. Schlunk (Vanderbilt University School of Law)

2. A Quantitative Approach to Tactical Asset Allocation
by Mebane T. Faber (Cambria Investment Management)

3. Equity Risk Premiums (ERP): Determinants, Estimation and Implications - A Post-Crisis Update
by Aswath Damodaran (New York University - Department of Finance)

4. A Brief Defense of the Written Description Requirement
by Michael Risch (West Virginia University College of Law)

5. Valuing Young, Start-Up and Growth Companies: Estimation Issues and Valuation Challenges
by Aswath Damodaran (New York University - Department of Finance)

iSSRN, our free iPhone App, was released recently.  It provides instant access to the latest Social Science and Humanities research in the SSRN eLibrary from scholars around the world. iSSRN is available from Apple’s iTunes store.

iSSRN allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to search over 250,000 papers and read the full text of the papers directly on their device.

Note: This is an updated version of the previous iSSRN App and this version, not the previous one, will be updated in the future.

Here are the latest announcements from SSRN:

Brown University Joins Law Research Centers Papers; William Mitchell Upgrades Its Legal Studies Research Paper Series

We are pleased to announce that Brown University Advanced Research Institute in Law, Social Thought and Global Governance has started a Law Research Centers Papers series within the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN). William Mitchell College of Law has upgraded its Legal Studies Research Paper Series within the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) from a basic series to a full series, which includes, but is not limited to, a customized abstracting eJournal distributed to SSRN subscribers.

BROWN UNIVERSITY - LAW, SOCIAL THOUGHT & GLOBAL GOVERNANCE RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Brown-U-RES.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Brown-U-RES

The Brown University Advanced Research Institute in Law, Social Thought and Global Governance series seeks to map the structures of power and distribution by analyzing the ways in which global security and insecurity, hegemonic ideas and counter-hegemonic ideas, development, poverty and inequality are reproduced in the world. The series is co-edited by: Vasuki Nesiah, David Kennedy, Nathaniel Berman and Ileana Porras of the Watson Institute in Brown University.

WILLIAM MITCHELL COLLEGE OF LAW LEGAL STUDIES RESEARCH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/William-Mitchell-LEG.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=William-Mitchell-LEG

William Mitchell College of Law was founded in 1900 and is located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Mitchell’s “practical wisdom” approach blends critical scholarship and intellectual rigor with vital practice skills, encourages strong connections to the profession, and instills an ethic of service to clients and community. Mitchell’s accessible faculty and flexible scheduling attract a wide variety of full- and part-time students from myriad professional and personal backgrounds. Many Mitchell students have gone on to become distinguished leaders at the bench and bar and in the business and civic arenas, among them the 15th Chief Justice of the United States, Warren E. Burger ‘31 and the first woman to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court, Rosalie E. Wahl ‘67. The college is named for Justice William Mitchell of the Minnesota Supreme Court (1881-1899) whose opinions were regarded as models of brevity and sound judicial reasoning. Today, the college continues its tradition of academic excellence and access to legal education that combines theory, practical skills, professional ethics, and public service.

Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business Joins MRN Business School Research Papers

We are pleased to announce that Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business has started an MRN Business School Research Papers series within the Management Research Network (MRN).

SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY LEAVEY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS RESEACH PAPER SERIES
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Santa-Clara-BUS.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Santa-Clara-BUS

The Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business Research Paper Series contains abstracts and papers from Leavey School scholars in accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management, and operations and management information systems.

Geoff Bilder, CrossRef’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, and others discussed Trust during their CrossRef Annual Meeting presentations earlier this week and I’ll discuss more on this topic next week.  What I was most impressed with in Bilder’s talk was the list of new projects, such as TOI DOI (a DOI shortener).

I have often thought of CrossRef being a bit old school and it is great to see them sharing its cool new ideas.  Plus, they are making them available at the new CrossRef Labs.  Keep up the good work!

Here are the top 5 papers downloaded from the SSRN eLibrary for the week ending November 13, 2009:

1. Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be…Lawyers
by Herwig J. Schlunk (Vanderbilt University School of Law)

2. A Quantitative Approach to Tactical Asset Allocation
by Mebane T. Faber (Cambria Investment Management)

3. Governance Matters VIII: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2008
by Daniel Kaufmann (The Brookings Institution) and Aart Kraay (World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)) and Massimo Mastruzzi (World Bank Institute)

4. Common Errors in the Interpretation of the Ideas of The Black Swan and Associated Papers
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (NYU-Poly Institute)

5. The Death of Big Law
by Larry E. Ribstein (University of Illinois College of Law)

Here are the latest announcements from SSRN:

Announcing 4 New Sponsored LSN Subject Matter eJournals

We are pleased to announce four new Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) Sponsored Subject Matter eJournals under Law, Brain & Behavior Journals. Law & Evolution, Law & Neuroscience, Law & Prosociality, and Law, Cognition, & Decisionmaking, are sponsored by Indiana University Maurer School of Law and by the UCLA School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

LAW, BRAIN & BEHAVIOR JOURNALS
Law is concerned with organizing and constraining human behavior. As a result, some model of human behavior, implicit or explicit, underlies legal principles and analysis. Papers in LAW, BRAIN & BEHAVIOR employ conceptual and empirical findings from various disciplines, including neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and experimental psychology, to shed light on how we can best understand law and and use it to guide human behavior in desirable directions.

LAW & EVOLUTION
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Law-Evolution.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Law-Evolution

Editor: Jeffrey Evans Stake, Robert A. Lucas Chair of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Description: This journal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts with a focus on the intersection of law and evolution in a number of domains. First and foremost, evolutionary psychology and biology provide a model of human behavior that can be helpful in understanding legal rules, critiquing them, and suggesting reforms. Second, understanding the evolution of the biological world is important for constructing legal regimes to address a wide variety of issues, from the environment to medicine. Third, ideas can and often do replicate, becoming “memes,” and their evolution has implications for the law, both because many areas of the law deal with ideas and because laws and legal institutions are themselves evolving replicators. This journal accepts working papers, essays, published articles, experimental and research reports, and other scholarly treatments of topics within the intersection of LAW AND EVOLUTION.

LAW & NEUROSCIENCE
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Law-Neuroscience.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Law-Neuroscience

Editor: Oliver Goodenough, Professor, Vermont Law School, Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Description: This journal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts with a focus on law and the emerging science of the brain sharing a basic preoccupation: understanding the nature of human thought and action. Law has been had an implicit science of mind; cognitive neuroscience is an explicit version. A sustained academic dialog between these disciplines will lead to advances on each side of the conversation. In particular we desire to increase access to, as well as understanding of, human action. By access we mean an actionable pathway to improving human action. Law will be enriched with better models of thought and behavior and with a tool-kit of applications and interventions for such difficult problems as addiction, mental health, and legal procedure itself. Cognitive science will benefit from the challenge of tackling problems whose solutions could have significant consequences for justice and social welfare. The abstracting journal LAW AND NEUROSCIENCE provides a forum for conducting this exchange. It will accept working papers, essays, published articles, experimental and research reports, and other scholarly treatments of topics at the intersection of law, neuroscience and related disciplines, such as cognitive psychology, economics, and behavioral biology.

LAW & PROSOCIALITY
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Law-Prosociality.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Law-Prosociality

Editor: Lynn Stout, Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law

Description: This journal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts covering various aspects of the many interactions between law and prosocial behavior. Extensive empirical evidence demonstrates that rather than always maximizing their own material self-interest, people often behave prosocially by sacrificing their own material welfare in order to help, and sometimes in order to harm, other people. For example, people often follow legal rules, obey social norms, and show both trust and trustworthiness, even when external sanctions are weak or absent. Papers in LAW AND PROSOCIALITY use data and evidence gathered from neuroscience, experimental and behavioral economics and psychology, and other life and social sciences to shed light on the empirical phenomenon of prosocial behavior and to examine how prosocial behavior depends on, reinforces, and interacts with law and public policy. Legal scholars, behavioral economists, psychologists, policy experts, and other researchers and scholars are encouraged to submit papers that investigate the empirical phenomenon of prosocial behaviors, including behaviors like trust, altruism, cooperation, and altruistic punishment, and their relation to law and social order.

LAW, COGNITION, & DECISIONMAKING
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Law-Cognition-Decisionmaking.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Law-Cognition-Decisionmaking

Editor: Russell Korobkin, Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law

Description: This journal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts at the intersection of research on behavioral decisionmaking and law. Evaluations of existing or potential legal policy require an understanding of how law affects behavior, and an understanding of behavior in turn requires insight into how individuals process information and make decisions. Papers in LAW, COGNITION, and DECISIONMAKING use knowledge of how humans process information to render judgments, form preferences, and make choices for the purpose of informing descriptive and normative analysis of law.

Announcing Expansion of ERN Microeconomics Subject Matter eJournal

We are pleased to announce the expansion of Economics Research Network (ERN) Microeconomics: Information, Specific Knowledge, & Uncertainty into the following eJournals:

MICROECONOMICS: ASYMMETRIC & PRIVATE INFORMATION
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Micro-Asymmetric-Private.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Micro-Asymmetric-Private

Description: This journal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts of empirical and theoretical papers on microeconomic aspects of information including the analysis of decisions in transactions where the costs of information transfer result in one party having different information than the other. Included in this topic are studies in which the cost of transferring or creating information lead to information asymmetries in principal-agent problems. The topics in this journal include topics D82, D83, D86 and D87 from Section D8 of the JEL classification system.

MICROECONOMICS: DECISION-MAKING UNDER RISK & UNCERTAINTY
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Micro-Decision-Making.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Micro-Decision-Making

Description: This journal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts of empirical and theoretical papers on microeconomic aspects of the analysis of economic actors making decisions facing different levels of risk and uncertainty. Included in this topic are models based on probability, and utility theories. The topics in this journal include topics D81 from Section D8 of the JEL classification system.

MICROECONOMICS: SEARCH; LEARNING; INFORMATION COSTS & SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE; EXPECTATION & SPECULATION
View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Micro-Search-Learning.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Micro-Search-Learning

Description: This journal distributes working and accepted paper abstracts of empirical and theoretical papers on microeconomic aspects of the role played by the costs of information transfer, learning, and searching, in decision-making under uncertainty and risk. The analysis of the role played by expectations and speculation in reaching decisions in the context of costly information and uncertainty is also included in this topic. The topics in this journal include topics D83 and D84 from Section D8 of the JEL classification system.

Announcing Paris December 2009 Finance International Meeting AFFI - EUROFIDAI on SSRN

In cooperation with the Paris Finance International Meeting AFFI - EUROFIDAI, the Financial Economics Network (FEN) is pleased to announce the Paris December 2009 Finance International Meeting Online Proceedings. These proceedings are available to all users at no charge and contain abstracts of the meeting’s papers with links to the full text within the SSRN eLibrary.

The annual Paris Finance International Meeting is organized by AFFI (French Finance Association) and EUROFIDAI (European Financial Data Institute), and jointly sponsored by CDC Institute for Economic Research, CNRS, Fondation Banque de France pour la Recherche en Economie Monetaire, Financiere et Bancaire and Ministere de l’Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche and Pôle universitaire Léonard de Vinci.

The latest research in all areas of finance is included in the meeting. Program chair is Patrice Fontaine.

This abstracting eJournal provides a data warehouse for all abstracts and papers presented at the December 2009 Meeting. Abstracts of the papers will also be published in subject-specific journals within FEN and, where appropriate, in the journals of our sister networks.

View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Paris-2009-AFFI-EUROFIDAI.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Paris-2009-AFFI-EUROFIDAI
Conference URL: http://www.en.affi.asso.fr/200-december-2009.htm

Here are the top 5 papers downloaded from the SSRN eLibrary for the week ending November 6, 2009:

1. Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums
by Peter B. Hirtle (Cornell University Library) and Emily Hudson (University of Melbourne - Law School) and Andrew T. Kenyon (University of Melbourne Law School)

2. A Quantitative Approach to Tactical Asset Allocation
by Mebane T. Faber (Cambria Investment Management)

3. Stock Price Fragility
by Robin Greenwood (Harvard Business School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) and David Thesmar (HEC Paris (Groupe HEC))

4. Governance Matters VIII: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2008
by Daniel Kaufmann (The Brookings Institution) and Aart Kraay (World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)) and Massimo Mastruzzi (World Bank Institute)

5. Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure
by Michael C. Jensen (Harvard Business School; Social Science Electronic Publishing (SSEP), Inc.) and William H. Meckling (Simon School, University of Rochester (Deceased))

We recently expanded the Share functionality on the top of our abstract pages by adding Facebook and Twitter to the Digg, Delicious, and CiteULike options.  Our community asked for the ability to easily post or tweet about research that was important to them and has already created thousands of SSRN links on Facebook and Twitter.

This ease of linking and accessing content is beginning to create interesting opportunities.  Google* and Bing are continually adding features to enhance their results but it has become a cat and mouse game trying to provide the best, non-manipulated results.  We are starting to see a lot of interesting research regarding the use of social networks to provide recommendations using a “wisdom of friends” approach.  It makes a lot of sense to us.  When you think about it, don’t you value the recommendation of a trusted friend more than a search engine algorithm?

* I love the 40th Anniversary Sesame Street doodles this week, especially today’s Cookie Monster!