Sunday, October 7, 2007

Ignoble Prize Inventors

Net trapping system for capturing a robber immediately
A net trapping system for capturing a robber immediately is used in a place of business such as a bank. The device looks like a storing box and is installed above the entrance of the business. When a robbery takes place and the system is activated, an infrared detecting device determines if a robber is in a zone beneath the storing box. A net, a curtain, and a plurality of barriers will drop down immediately and simultaneously. After a lifting motor is activated, the system traps the robber and suspends him above the floor.


An alarm clock that runs away and hides


Another Ignoble Winner;
Dying to Save Taxes: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns on the Death Elasticity Wojciech Kopczuk and Joel Slemrod;
This paper examines data from U.S. federal tax returns to shed light on whether the timing of death is responsive to its tax consequences. We investigate the temporal pattern of deaths around the time of changes in the estate tax system periods when living longer, or dying sooner, could significantly affect estate tax liability. We find some evidence that there is a small death elasticity, although we cannot rule out that what we have uncovered is ex post doctoring of the reported date of death. However, the fact that we find that postponement, rather than acceleration, of death is more likely to occur suggests that this phenomenon is at last partly a real (albeit timing) response to taxation.

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