Much Ado About Nothing: The Limitation of Liability and the Market for 19th century Irish Bank Stock

Abstract Limited liability is widely believed to be a prerequisite for the emergence of an active and liquid securities market because the transactions costs associated with trading ownership of unlimited liability firms are viewed as prohibitive. In this article, we examine the trading of shares in an Irish bank, which limited its liability in 1883. Using this bank’s archives, we assemble a time series of trading data, which we test for structural breaks. Our results suggest that the move to limited liability had a negligible impact upon the trading of this bank’s shares.

The Trading of Unlimited Liability Bank Shares in Nineteenth Century Ireland: The Bagehot Hypothesis

In the mid-1820s, banks became the first businesses in Great Britain and Ireland to be allowed to form freely on an unlimited liability joint-stock basis. Walter Bagehot warned that their shares would ultimately be owned by widows, orphans, and other impecunious individuals. Another hypothesis is that the governing bodies of these banks, constrained by special legal restrictions on share trading, acted effectively to prevent such shares being transferred to the less wealthy. We test both conjectures using the archives of an Irish joint-stock bank. The results do not support Bagehot's hypothesis.

Maximising trace soil evidence: An improved recovery method developed during investigation of a $26 million bank robbery

Obtaining as much particulate material as possible from questioned items is desirable in forensic science as this allows a range of analyses to be undertaken and the retention of material for others to check. A method of maximising particulate recovery is described using a kidnap case, where minimal staining on clothing (socks) remained as possible indications of where the victim had been held captive. Police intelligence led to a hostage scene that was sampled. Brushing of the socks recovered about 50 sand grains with some silt: ultrasonic agitation and centrifuging recovered over 300 grains of sand, silt and clay. These were visually compared to scene and control samples, allowing exclusion of 52 samples and the retention of one comparison sample as well as other possibles, saving time and money, but maximising sample quantity and quality. © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

The Development and Testing of a New Version of the Cognitive Reflection Test Applying Item Response Theory (IRT)

The cognitive reflection test (CRT) is a short measure of a person's ability to resist intuitive response tendencies and to produce a normatively correct response, which is based on effortful reasoning. Although the CRT is a very popular measure, its psychometric properties have not been extensively investigated. A major limitation of the CRT is the difficulty of the items, which can lead to floor effects in populations other than highly educated adults. The present study aimed at investigating the psychometric properties of the CRT applying item response theory analyses (a two-parameter logistic model) and at developing a new version of the scale (the CRT-long), which is appropriate for participants with both lower and higher levels of cognitive reflection. The results demonstrated the good psychometric properties of the original, as well as the new scale. The validity of the new scale was also assessed by measuring correlations with various indicators of intelligence, numeracy, reasoning and decision-making skills, and thinking dispositions. Moreover, we present evidence for the suitability of the new scale to be used with developmental samples. Finally, by comparing the performance of adolescents and young adults on the CRT and CRT-long, we report the first investigation into the development of cognitive reflection.