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Reconciling Risk And Equality, Christopher Slobogin
Reconciling Risk And Equality, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
States have increasingly resorted to statistically-derived risk algorithms to determine when diversion from prison should occur, whether sentences should be enhanced, and the level of security and treatment a prisoner requires. The federal government has jumped on the bandwagon in a big way with the First Step Act, which mandated that a risk assessment instrument be developed to determine which prisoners can be released early on parole. Policymakers are turning to these algorithms because they are thought to be more accurate and less biased than judges and correctional officials, making them useful tools for reducing prison populations through identification of …
Insider Trading In Derivatives Markets, Yesha Yadav
Insider Trading In Derivatives Markets, Yesha Yadav
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The prohibition against insider trading is becoming increasingly anachronistic in markets where derivatives like credit default swaps (CDS) operate. Lenders use these instruments to trade the credit risk of the loans they extend. By design, CDS appear to subvert insider trading laws, insofar as lenders rely on what looks like insider information to transfer or externalize the risk of a loan to another institution. At the same time, the harm caused by using insider information in CDS markets can depart radically from the harms envisioned under existing case law. In the traditional account of insider trading, shareholders systematically lose against …
Duty In The Litigation-Investment Agreement: The Choice Between Tort And Contract Norms When The Deal Breaks Down, Anthony J. Sebok, W. Bradley Wendel
Duty In The Litigation-Investment Agreement: The Choice Between Tort And Contract Norms When The Deal Breaks Down, Anthony J. Sebok, W. Bradley Wendel
Vanderbilt Law Review
This Article begins by describing the market for investment in commercial litigationA Litigation-investment transactions share features of existing economic relationships, such as commercial lending, liability insurance, contingent fee-financed representation, and venture capital, but none of these existing practices furnishes a suitable analogy for regulating litigation investment. Like third-party insurance, litigation investment is a way to manage the risk associated with litigation while bringing to bear the particular subject matter expertise of a risk-neutral institutional actor. Insurance companies and litigation investors may be systematically in a better position to reduce the risk of litigation, either through risk pooling or information-cost advantages. …
The Catastrophic Effects Of Natural Disasters On Insurance Markets, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia Born
The Catastrophic Effects Of Natural Disasters On Insurance Markets, W. Kip Viscusi, Patricia Born
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Natural catastrophes often have catastrophic risks on insurance companies as well as on the insured. Using a very large dataset on homeowners insurance coverage by state, by firm, and by year for the 1984 to 2004 period, this paper documents the positive effect on losses and loss ratios of both unexpected catastrophes as well as large events that the authors term "blockbuster catastrophes." Insurers adapt to these catastrophic risks by raising insurance rates, leading to lower loss ratios after the catastrophic event. There is a widespread event of unexpected catastrophes and blockbuster catastrophes that reduces total premiums earned in the …
Safety At Any Price, W. Kip Viscusi
Safety At Any Price, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
After three decades of experience with extensive government regulation and oversight of health, safety and environmental matters, we have reason to believe that those measures have largely failed to fulfill their initial promise, but many of the initial promises were infeasible goals of a "zero-risk" society. Economic findings with respect to risk-risk tradeoffs highlight the fallacies inherent in government's zero-risk mentality. Agencies that make an unbounded financial commitment to safety frequently are sacrificing individual lives. There continues to be major opportunities to improve regulatory performance by targeting existing inefficiencies and using market mechanisms (rather than strict command-and-control mechanisms) to achieve …
Corporate Liability, Risk Shifting, And The Paradox Of Compliance, William S. Laufer
Corporate Liability, Risk Shifting, And The Paradox Of Compliance, William S. Laufer
Vanderbilt Law Review
The evolution of corporate criminal law is explained by the shifting risks of liability and loss between corporations and their agents in accommodating the illogic of vicarious liability. A vivid example of the effects of this risk shifting is seen with the recent emergence of the good citizen corporation movement. This movement en- courages prosecutors with vast discretion to leverage indictments and convictions of subordinate agents, resort to civil and administrative actions against large and medium-sized corporations in place of criminal indictments, compromise agent indemnification, and enforce corporate self-regulation through elaborate plea agreements. Not surprisingly, organizations tend to conceive of …
Deterring Irresponsible Use And Disposal Of Toxic Substances: The Case For Legislative Recognition Of Increased Risk Causes Of Action, Tamsen D. Love
Deterring Irresponsible Use And Disposal Of Toxic Substances: The Case For Legislative Recognition Of Increased Risk Causes Of Action, Tamsen D. Love
Vanderbilt Law Review
Increasing risk does not ordinarily result in tort liability. For instance, every speeding driver increases the risk of a traffic accident.' Tort liability, however, attaches only if the driver actually causes an accident, This means that of two reckless drivers who engage in exactly the same risky behavior, one might face great liability, while the other might escape with no liability at all. The difference between the two cases is in many ways a mere fortuity-whether timing and circumstance conspire to cause a traffic accident in a particular case or not. Many acts of reckless driving go unanswered in tort …
Worker Learning And Compensating Differentials, W. Kip Viscusi, Michael J. Moore
Worker Learning And Compensating Differentials, W. Kip Viscusi, Michael J. Moore
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In the standard compensating wage differential model, workers value their wage and workers' compensation components based on full job risk information. Market forces generate positive wage differentials as ex ante compensation for exposure to relatively high risk. Similarly, market forces generate wage offsets for the increases in ex post risk compensation embodied in workers' compensation benefits. These predictions can be modified to take into account potential imperfections in worker information, as in Viscusi (1979a,b, 1980a,b,d), where the role of learning is incorporated into the worker's decision model. The potential for learning about risks introduces a new market response through worker …
Sources Of Inconsistency In Societal Responses To Health Risks, W. Kip Viscusi
Sources Of Inconsistency In Societal Responses To Health Risks, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Society has until recently devoted insufficient attention to the long-run environmental problems that we face, including acid rain and the greenhouse effect. Our inaction with respect to these risks can hardly be characterized as a rational response or an overreaction to risk. There are three possible explanations of such diverse phenomena. First, one could simply dismiss this behavior as being the result of inconsistent and irrational behavior. Second, one could devise ad hoc explanations of why individuals underreact in some instances and overreact in others. A third possibility is to reconcile this seemingly inconsistent behavior with a consistent theoretical framework. …
Workmen's Compensation And The Social Security Disability Program: A Contrast, Arthur Abraham, Irwin Wolkstein
Workmen's Compensation And The Social Security Disability Program: A Contrast, Arthur Abraham, Irwin Wolkstein
Vanderbilt Law Review
Recently, concern has been expressed that the federal disability insurance program may expand and engulf state workmen's compensation systems; legislation aimed at eliminating this possibility has been introduced in Congress. The authors attempt in this article to shed some light on the controversy; after describing the various disability protection programs, they turn to a detailed discussion of the overlap, interrelationship, and differences between the protection offered by the federal social security and state workmen's compensation programs. They conclude by discussing the arguments which can be made both for and against an "offset" provision in the social security law.
Insurance -- 1962 Tennessee Survey, Robert N. Covington
Insurance -- 1962 Tennessee Survey, Robert N. Covington
Vanderbilt Law Review
The courts of Tennessee were confronted by a number of interesting problems of insurance law during 1962. For the most part, the results were neither startling nor unsettling. There were, however, decisions that seem to qualify previous opinions, sometimes without citation, and there was one very troublesome opinion concerning credit life insurance.
Insurance -- 1961 Tennessee Survey, Robert N. Covington
Insurance -- 1961 Tennessee Survey, Robert N. Covington
Vanderbilt Law Review
The developments in the Tennessee law of insurance during the past year were important without being surprising. The various courts delivered opinions dealing with a number of the central issues in insurance law, especially in the field of risk control, and by and large followed the line of thinking established by past years. Many of the decisions are of less significance than one might suppose, because of their extreme involvement in particular fact situations.