Law Commons^™

The Unctad Liner Code: A Dead Letter?, Sock-Yong Phang, Rex S. Toh

PHANG Sock Yong

The UNCTAD Code of conduct for Liner Conferences entered into force in 1983. The Code's cargo allocation scheme or '40-40-20 rule' aims to provide shipping lines of developing countries with a fair change to compete for the carriage of their seabourne trade. However, the Code has not been effective in meeting its stated objectives for a variety of reasons. Amongst the administrative difficulties are (i) the complications introduced by the EEC's Brussels Package, (ii) the definition of national lines, (iii) the unit of measurement for cargo allocation purposes, and (iv) the monitoring of cargo movements. The tremendous growth in non-conference …

Book Review Of Competition Law And Policy In Singapore, By Cavinder Bull, Lim Chong Kin, Academy Publishing, Singapore, 2009, Sock-Yong Phang

PHANG Sock Yong

No abstract provided.

International Labor Rights And The Sovereignty Question: Nafta And Guatemala, Two Case Studies, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Labor rights advocates in the United States and allied organizations abroad attempting to establish international fair labor standards run up against traditional notions of sovereignty in formulating national labor policies and development strategies. In the same way that entrenched sovereignty principles gradually yielded to international human rights claims after World War E, sovereignty is now being challenged by claims of international laborrights in the field of employment standards and industrial relations. This Article seeks to illuminate this challenge to sovereignty in two case studies of labor rights advocacy. Part I sets the stage with an overview of the growing …

Tlc Colombia - Unión Europea: Perspectivas Preliminares De Sus Relaciones En Contexto De Globalización., Iván A. Rojas V

Iván Rojas V

What Economists Really Know, And What They Don't, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

El Desafío Del Próximo Gobierno, Jose Luis Sardon

Jose Luis Sardon

No abstract provided.

Bases Histórico-Dogmáticas Del Derecho Penal Económico, Javier Fernando Quiñones

Javier Fernando Quiñones

Se analizan las bases histórico-dogmáticas del derecho penal económico.

Proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines: Economists’ Comment, Michael R. Baye, Aaron S. Edlin, Richard J. Gilbert, Jerry A. Hausman, Daniel L. Rubinfeld, Steven C. Salop, Richard L. Schmalensee, Joshua D. Wright

Richard Gilbert

No abstract provided.

Proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines: Economists’ Comment, Michael R. Baye, Aaron S. Edlin, Richard J. Gilbert, Jerry A. Hausman, Daniel L. Rubinfeld, Steven C. Salop, Richard L. Schmalensee, Joshua D. Wright

Daniel L. Rubinfeld

No abstract provided.

Proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines: Economists’ Comment, Michael R. Baye, Aaron S. Edlin, Richard J. Gilbert, Jerry A. Hausman, Daniel L. Rubinfeld, Steven C. Salop, Richard L. Schmalensee, Joshua D. Wright

Aaron Edlin

No abstract provided.

Los Enredos Por La Fibra Oscura, Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

Víctor Pavón-Villamayor

No abstract provided.

If Ethanol Is The Answer, What Is The Question, Peter Z. Grossman

Peter Z. Grossman

Since 2005, in the face of rising oil and gasoline prices, many Americans have looked to plant-based fuels, particularly ethanol, as the "answer" to our energy dilemmas. Section III examines the issues connected specifically to ethanol, how market forces as well as government subsidies have worked to make corn-based ethanol economically viable at times, why that viability has been lost in recent months even with subsidies, and further, why ethanol from corn on the scale the legislation demands is impractical. Clearly it would be technically possible to produce the mandated 15 billion gallons of ethanol, and distilling capacity will nearly …

Knowledge, Capabilities And Manufacturing Innovation: A Us-Europe Comparison, Stephen Roper, Jan Youtie, Philip Shapira, Andrea Fernandez-Ribas

Andrea Fernandez-Ribas

This paper presents a comparative analysis of factors contributing to the innovation performance of manufacturing firms in Georgia (USA), Wales (UK), the West Midlands (UK), and Catalonia (Spain). Enabled by comparable survey data, multivariate probit models are developed to estimate how various types of firms’ innovative activities are influenced by links to external knowledge sources, internal resources, absorptive capacity, and public innovation support. The results suggest the potential for mutual learning. For the European study regions there are insights about how universities in Georgia support innovation. For Georgia and Catalonia there are lessons from UK firms about better capturing potential …

It Works For Mergers, Why Not Finance, Aaron S. Edlin, Richard J. Gilbert

Aaron Edlin

No abstract provided.

North American Futures: Canadian & U.S. Perspectives, Managing The Arctic, David Caron

David D. Caron

Presentation and discussion of issues relevant to balanced Arctic exploration, multilateral cooperation policy, growth and development and political-economic perspectives.

An End To Too Big To Let Fail? The Dodd–Frank Act’S Orderly Liquidation Authority, Thomas J. Fitzpatrick Iv, James B. Thomson

James Thomson

One of the changes introduced by the sweeping new fi nancial market legislation of the Dodd–Frank Act is the provision of a formal process for liquidating large fi nancial fi rms—something that would have been useful in 2008, when troubles at Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Merrill Lynch threatened to damage the entire U.S. fi nancial system. While it may not be the end of the too-big-to-fail problem, the orderly liquidation authority is an important new tool in the regulatory toolkit. It will enable regulators to safely close and wind up the affairs of those distressed fi nancial fi rms whose …

Tort Law And Probabilistic Litigation: How To Apply Multipliers To Address The Problem Of Negative Value Suits, Ben Depoorter

Ben Depoorter

This Article advances a proposal that brings to life valuable lawsuits that litigation costs currently discourage. Our proposal converts claims with negative expected values into positive expected value claims by implementing a novel system involving flexible conditional multipliers. Our proposal has two components. First, under the proposed system a plaintiff is allowed to select a damage multiplier that determines the amount of damages the plaintiff will receive if the litigation is successful. Second, courts select cases for litigation randomly with a probability inverse to the multiplier the plaintiff selected.

Testing For Adverse Selection In Insurance Markets, Alma Cohen, Peter Siegelman

Peter Siegelman

This paper reviews and evaluates the empirical literature on adverse selection in insurance markets. We focus on empirical work that seeks to test the basic coverage–risk prediction of adverse selection theory—that is, that policyholders who purchase more insurance coverage tend to be riskier. The analysis of this body of work, we argue, indicates that whether such a correlation exists varies across insurance markets and pools of insurance policies. We discuss various reasons why a coverage–risk correlation may not be found in some pools of insurance policies. The presence of a coverage-risk correlation can be explained either by moral hazard or …

Monitoring Managers Through Corporate Compliance Programs, Charles Angelucci, Martijn Han

Martijn A. Han

Compliance programs entail monitoring of employees' behavior with the claimed objective of fighting corporate crime. (Competition) Authorities promote such intra-firm monitoring. In a three-tier hierarchy model, authority-shareholder-manager, we study the impact of monitoring through a compliance program on contracting within the firm and the authority's optimal sanctions and leniency policy. We find that compliance programs are beneficial in the fight against corporate crime if and only if the managerial sanction is low. Moreover, when the shareholder blows the whistle, the authority optimally grants partial corporate leniency, while not granting individual leniency to the involved employees. Conversely, when the employee blows …

Firms As Social Actors, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A close look at what firms are and how they act.

Law In The Shadow Of Bargaining: The Feedback Effect Of Civil Settlements, Ben Depoorter

Ben Depoorter

Lawmakers, courts, and legal scholars often express concern that settlement agreements withhold important information from the public. This Essay identifies, to the contrary, problematic issues involving the availability of information on non-representative settlements. The theoretical and empirical evidence presented in this Essay demonstrates that, despite the widespread use of nondisclosure agreements, information on settlements is distributed both inside and outside legal communities, reaching actors through various channels including the oral culture in legal communities, specialized reporters, professional interest organizations, and media coverage. Moreover, information on private settlement agreements circulates more widely if the agreed compensation in a given settlement exceeds …

Spatial Inequality As Constitutional Infirmity: Equal Protection, Child Poverty And Place, Lisa R. Pruitt

Lisa R Pruitt

This is the first in a series of articles that maps legal conceptions of (in)equality onto the socio-geographical concept of spatial inequality, with a view to generating legal remedies for those living in places marked by socioeconomic disadvantage. Written for a symposium on “rural law,” this article considers in particular whether the funding and delivery of government services at the county level in the state of Montana violate the state’s constitution because of the grossly disparate abilities among Montana counties to finance and provide such services. Pruitt’s analysis focuses on children as a particularly vulnerable and immobile population, many of …

Through The Doughnut Hole: Reimagining The Social Security Contribution And Benefit Base Limit, Patricia E. Dilley

Patricia E Dilley

ABSTRACT The Obama campaign proposal to address Social Security's future financing shortfalls by increasing the Social Security tax base limit only for those making more than $250,000 per year raises the broader question of the function of the base limit from a Social Security program perspective. The public supports increasing the wage base above all other possible avenues for solving long term financing issues, but the problems with the Obama "doughnut hole" proposal are substantial from several perspectives. In this article, the author suggests that the function of the base limit be reconsidered, and the benefit accrual function of the …

Organizations And Economics, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A contribution to a symposium on a paper by Richard Posner.

Diversification Across Time, Ian Ayres, Barry Nalebuff

Ian Ayres

By employing leverage to gain more exposure to stocks when young, individuals can achieve better diversification across time. Using stock data going back to 1871, we show that early leverage combined with reduced equity exposure when older can reduce lifetime portfolio risk. For example, an initially-leveraged portfolio can produce the same mean accumulation as a constant 75% stock allocation with a 21% smaller standard deviation. Since the mean accumulation is the same, the reduction in volatility does not depend on the equity premium. A leveraged lifecycle strategy can also allow investors to come closer to their utility-maximizing allocation. If risk …

¿En Qué Momento Se Jodió El Sur? Crecimiento Económico, Derechos De Propiedad Y Regulación Del Crédito En Las Colonias Británicas Y Españolas En América, Enrique Pasquel

Enrique Pasquel

Las instituciones legales de las colonias británicas y españolas pueden ayudar a explicar los distintos niveles de desarrollo económico en esas regiones. Este artículo se centra en el marco legal de los derechos de propiedad y el mercado del crédito en la época colonial, analizando las políticas de asignación de tierras, el establecimiento de registros, los programas de titulación, las cargas sobre la tierra y las restricciones al crédito.

Standardization As A Solution To The Reading Costs Of Form Contracts, Abraham L. Wickelgren

Abraham L. Wickelgren

It is well-known that a monopolist cannot commit to offer a high quality contract to a consumer reading costs are postive. This paper shows that this also holds in a competitive environment with consumer heterogeneity if the contract space is unrestricted. If firms can offer standardized contracts from a finite set, however, each with a standardized name, this paper shows that, when reading costs are not too large, there exists an equilibrium in which firms offer the most efficient contracts from the set of named contracts and consumers purchase the most efficient contracts offered without incurring any reading costs.

Making Legal Aid More Affordable And Accessible, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

No abstract provided.

The Dynamic Quality Of Law: The Role Of Judicial Incentives And Legal Human Capital In The Adaptation Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

Much of the existing literature investigating the relationship between legal regimes and economic growth focuses on the agency problem of aligning judicial incentives with social welfare. In this paper I look instead at the factors that in‡fluence the quality of law when judges have incentives to promote social welfare but they have limited knowledge about the environment in which law is to be applied. The key insight is that the capacity for a legal regime to generate value-enhancing legal adaptation to local and changing conditions depends on its capacity to generate and implement adequate expertise about the environment in which …

Higher Demand, Lower Supply? A Comparative Assessment Of The Legal Landscape For Ordinary Americans, Gillian K. Hadfield

Gillian K Hadfield

In this paper I review the small amount of available data on the extent to which ordinary individuals in the U.S. have access to legal resources to navigate the law-thick world that Robert Kagan has famously called ‘adversarial legalism—the American way of law.’ I present this data in comparative context, relating what (little) we know about the availability of law in the U.S. to what (little) we know about the availability of law in other advanced societies and in countries transitioning to legally-mediated market democracy. I review first a set of ‘legal needs’ surveys that ask households about their experiences …