The herbicide atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamine-6-isopropyl-ainines-triazinc) is widely used for selective control of broadleaf and grassy weeds in corn and sorghum in addition to other crops (Geigy Agricultural Chemicals 1971). It is formulated and available as an SO percent water dispersible powder or a 4 percent granular product. Atrazine acts atî an inhibitor of photosynthesis and persists in the soil from 7 to 18 months depending upon soil properties, influence of weather, and the soil environment (Burnside et al. 1971, LeBaron 1970, Mullison 1970, Sheets 1970, Sheets and Shaw 1963).
Herbicides are generally lover in toxicity than many other pesticides. Of 89 pesticides tested by Heata et al. (1972), toxicity of atrazine was not great enough to warrant a toxic rank number. Devany (1967) stated that atrazine when used in accordance with recommended procedure, was not hazardous to fish or wildlife. The LÜ50 for a single oral dose of atrazine (AAtrex, 80 percent atrazine) for female mallard ducks (Anas plntyrhynchos) 6 months of age is > 2000 mg/kg (Tucker and Crabtree 1970). The. LC50's of technical grade atrazine in 5-day diets for 2-week-old birds are: (1) bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus), >5000 ppm, (2) Japanese quail (Coturnix ce turrax japónica),>5000 pom with 7 percent mortality at the 5000 ppr.i level, (3) ring-necked pheasant 5000 ppm, and (4) mallard,>5000 ppn with 30 percent mortality at the 5000 ppm level (Heath et al. 1972). Palmer and Radelefi (1969) found that chickens receiving 10 doses of 50 mg/kg showed significant reduction in weight gained arri lack or loss of appetite.
What are the key determinants of financial development and growth? A large literature debates the relative importance of countries’ legal and political environment. In this paper, I present evidence from ancient Rome, where an early form of shareholder company, the societas publicanorum, developed. I show that the societas publicanorum flourished in a legally underdeveloped but politically supportive environment (Roman Republic) and disappeared when Roman law reached its height of legal sophistication but the political environment grew less supportive (Roman Empire). In the Roman case, legal development appears to have mattered little as long as the law as practiced was flexible and adapted to economic needs. The ‘law as practiced,’ in turn, reflected prevalent political interests. After discussing parallels in more recent history, I provide a brief overview of the literature on law and finance and on politics and finance. The historical evidence suggests that legal systems may be less of a technological constraint for growth than previously thought—at least “at the origin.”
Understanding the causes of financial development and economic growth is central to research agendas in many fields of economics, ranging from macroeconomics and microeconomics to finance. The law and finance literature suggests a causal impact of countries’ legal systems. Another strand of the literature emphasizes the role of the political environment and argues that the effectiveness of institutions varies considerably with the political support they receive.
This paper demonstrate the importance of liquidity to asset pricing. It shows that liquidity is strongly related to the persistence of the momentum anomaly, which has not been explained by standard asset-pricing models to date. Most of these models take the stand that expected returns vary across assets because of variations in risk (see, e.g., Ferson and Jagannathan (1996)). Typically, the effects of market frictions, such as transaction costs, are ignored.
From a theoretical standpoint, one might argue that transaction costs can be ignored in the pricing of financial assets because investors can choose to trade only in liquid assets with low transaction costs and hold higher transaction-costs assets for longer periods (see, e.g., Constantinides (1986). See also Heaton and Lucas (1996), and Vayanos (1998)). Hence, when transaction costs are amortized over the expected holding period they become rather small and of second order. This argument assumes that transaction costs are constant and that investor are free to choose when to trade. However, these two assumptions may not hold in practice. First, this paper shows empirically that liquidity varies over time, which raises the possibility of a premium associated with liquidity risk. For example, when considering whether to undertake a large investment, an arbitrageur may demand a premium for bearing the risk of incurring large costs when closing out the position in the future. Second, investors may be impatient to execute their trades or they might be subject to liquidity shocks, forcing them to liquidate their positions. This paper finds that transaction costs can impose a first order effect on prices.
