This paper studies the distortionary impact of progressive dividend taxation on investment decisions under the premises of the “new” view. According to the new view, proportional dividend taxation does not distort firms' investment decisions. We find that progressive dividend taxation distorts investment decisions due to endogenous variations in the marginal tax rate caused by stochastic taxable income over the business cycle. The magnitude of this distortion critically depends upon the marginal tax rate and the progressivity of the tax system.

This paper surveys the emerging role of statistical mechanics and polymer theory in protein folding. In the polymer perspective, the folding code is more a solvation code than a code of local φψ propensities. The polymer perspective resolves two classic puzzles: (1) the Blind Watchmaker's Paradox that biological proteins could not have originated from random sequences, and (2) Levinthal's Paradox that the folded state of a protein cannot be found by random search. Both paradoxes are traditionally framed in terms of random unguided searches through vast spaces, and vastness is equated with impossibility. But both processes are partly guided. The searches are more akin to balls rolling down funnels than balls rolling aimlessly on flat surfaces. In both cases, the vastness of the search is largely irrelevant to the search time and success. These ideas are captured by energy and fitness landscapes. Energy landscapes give a language for bridging between microscopics and macroscopics, for relating folding kinetics to equilibrium fluctuations, and for developing new and faster computational search strategies.