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Full-Text Articles in Law

United States Antitrust Policy In An Age Of Ip Expansion, Herbert J. Hovenkamp Dec 2004

United States Antitrust Policy In An Age Of Ip Expansion, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

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The idea that there is a tension between antitrust and the intellectual property laws is readily exaggerated. The tension that exists results mainly from our uncertainty about the optimal amount and scope of IP protection. In general, antitrust draws clearer lines than intellectual property law does, although one should not push the point too far. Antitrust policy as manifested in the courts has achieved a fair amount of consensus today. By contrast, deep uncertainty remains about fundamental questions concerning the socially optimal outcome of IP disputes. In addition, while the antitrust statutes are for the most part public regarding provisions …


General And Specific Legal Rules, Paul G. Mahoney, Chris William Sanchirico Jul 2004

General And Specific Legal Rules, Paul G. Mahoney, Chris William Sanchirico

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Legal rules may be general (that is, applicable to a broad range of situations) or specific. Adopting a custom-tailored rule for a specific activity permits the regulator to make efficient use of information about the social costs and benefits of that activity. However, the rule maker typically relies on the regulated parties for such information. The regulated parties may attempt to influence the rule maker, producing rules that reflect their private interests. We show that in some cases limiting the rule maker to a single rule for multiple activities will moderate this influence and maximize welfare. Available for download at …


Rules, Principles, And The Accounting Crisis In The United States, William W. Bratton Jan 2004

Rules, Principles, And The Accounting Crisis In The United States, William W. Bratton

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The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Securities Exchange Commission move too quickly ·when they prod the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the standard setter for US GAAP, to move immediately to a principles-based system. Priorities respecting reform of corporate reporting in the US need to be ordered more carefully. Incentive problems impairing audit performance should be solved first through institutional reform insulating the audit from the negative impact of rent-seeking and solving adverse selection problems otherwise affecting audit practice. So long as auditor independence and management incentives respecting accounting treatments remain suspect. the US reporting system holds out no actor plausibly positioned …


Book Review, J.O. Haley's Antitrust In Germany And Japan, The First Fifty Years, 1947-1998, David J. Gerber Jan 2004

Book Review, J.O. Haley's Antitrust In Germany And Japan, The First Fifty Years, 1947-1998, David J. Gerber

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No abstract provided.


Of Patents And Path Dependency: A Comment On Burk And Lemley, R. Polk Wagner Jan 2004

Of Patents And Path Dependency: A Comment On Burk And Lemley, R. Polk Wagner

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This Article delves into issues surrounding the relationship between technology and the patent law. Responding to Dan Burk and Mark Lemley's earlier article, Is Patent Law Technology-Specific?, the piece notes that the basic question posed by Burk and Lemley's article is a relatively easy question given the several doctrines that explicitly link the subject matter context of an invention to the validity and scope of related patents. This sort of technological exceptionalism (which this Article refers to as micro-exceptionalism) is both observable and easily justifiable for a legal regime directed to technology policy. In contrast, Burk and Lemley's identification of, …


Pari Passu And A Distressed Sovereign's Rational Choices, William W. Bratton Jan 2004

Pari Passu And A Distressed Sovereign's Rational Choices, William W. Bratton

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No abstract provided.


The Past, Present And Future Of Debtor-In-Possession Financing, David A. Skeel Jr. Jan 2004

The Past, Present And Future Of Debtor-In-Possession Financing, David A. Skeel Jr.

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Chapter 11's distinctive post-petition financing rules trace their ancestry back to the origins of large scale corporate reorganization in America in the nineteenth century. In this sense, post-petition financing has always been with us. But in the past decade, the role of the financers has changed. After a century in the shadows, post-petition lenders have stepped onto center stage. The DIP loan agreement has become the single most important governance lever in many large Chapter 11 cases. Why have these formerly bashful financers suddenly started hogging the spotlight? I argue in this article that the generous terms offered to DIP …


The Unfulfilled Promise Of Korean Telecommunications Reform, Christopher S. Yoo Jan 2004

The Unfulfilled Promise Of Korean Telecommunications Reform, Christopher S. Yoo

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The deployment of telecommunications services in Korea represents one of the great technological success stories of the developing world. In a remarkably brief period, the penetration of local telephone service, wireless telephony, and broadband technologies has soared to among the highest levels in the world. The history of Korean telecommunications thus provides a useful case study for other developing countries seeking to expand and modernize their telecommunications infrastructures. At first blush, the explosive growth of telecommunications services has appeared to go hand in hand with the liberalization of Korea's telecommunications markets. A review of the history of Korean telecommunications reform …


Vultures Or Vanguards?: The Role Of Litigation In Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Jill E. Fisch, Caroline M. Gentile Jan 2004

Vultures Or Vanguards?: The Role Of Litigation In Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Jill E. Fisch, Caroline M. Gentile

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The market for sovereign debt differs from the market for corporate debt in several important ways including the risk of opportunistic default by sovereign debtors, the importance of political pressures, and the presence of international development organizations. Moreover, countries are subject to neither liquidation nor standardized processes of debt reorganization. Instead, negotiations between a sovereign debtor and its creditors lead to a voluntary restructuring of the sovereign's debt. One of the greatest difficulties in restructuring claims against sovereign debtors is balancing the interests of the majority of the creditors with those of minority creditors. Holdout creditors serve as a check …


Functional Law And Economics: The Search For Value-Neutral Principles Of Lawmaking, Francesco Parisi, Jonathan Klick Jan 2004

Functional Law And Economics: The Search For Value-Neutral Principles Of Lawmaking, Francesco Parisi, Jonathan Klick

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No abstract provided.


Bankruptcy's Home Economics, David A. Skeel Jr. Jan 2004

Bankruptcy's Home Economics, David A. Skeel Jr.

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This essay began its life as a commentary on Elizabeth Warren’s article “The New Economics of the American Family” at the American Bankruptcy Institute's 25th Anniversary Symposium of the Bankruptcy Code in 2003. (Both the Warren article and my commentary were published in the symposium in the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review.) “The New Economics of the American Family” was drawn in many respects from then-Professor Warren’s co-authored book, The Two Income Trap. The essay refers to both, though it puts particular emphasis on the article. The essay begins by briefly describing the basic thesis of the article-- …


Copyright And Product Differentiation, Christopher S. Yoo Jan 2004

Copyright And Product Differentiation, Christopher S. Yoo

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Existing economic analyses generally frame copyright as presenting a conflict between promoting efficient levels of access to creative works on the one hand and providing sufficient incentives to support their creation on the other. The supposed irreconcilability of the access-incentives tradeoff has led most scholars to regard copyright as a necessary evil and to advocate limiting copyright protection to the lowest level still sufficient to support creation of the work. In this Article, Professor Christopher Yoo breaks with the conventional wisdom and proposes a new approach to copyright law based on the economics of product differentiation. This differentiated products approach …


Inside The Black Box: How Should A Sovereign Bankruptcy Regime Be Structured?, Patrick Bolton, David A. Skeel Jr. Jan 2004

Inside The Black Box: How Should A Sovereign Bankruptcy Regime Be Structured?, Patrick Bolton, David A. Skeel Jr.

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No abstract provided.


Sovereign Debt Reform And The Interest Of Creditors, William W. Bratton, G. Mitu Gulati Jan 2004

Sovereign Debt Reform And The Interest Of Creditors, William W. Bratton, G. Mitu Gulati

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No abstract provided.


Insuring Liability Risks, Tom Baker Jan 2004

Insuring Liability Risks, Tom Baker

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Recent dramatic increases in prices for medical liability insurance, directors and officers insurance, and other lines of commercial liability insurance, together with the exit of some insurers from those lines of business, has placed liability insurance on the public agenda. At the same time, asbestos and environmental losses continue to mount under general liability insurance policies sold long ago, when no one could have predicted the extent or cost of such losses. In combination, these and other related events have raised serious concerns about the insurability of liability risks and have prompted calls for dramatic efforts to roll back the …


The Role Of Government In Corporate Governance, Cary Coglianese, Elizabeth K. Keating, Michael L. Michael, Thomas J. Healey Jan 2004

The Role Of Government In Corporate Governance, Cary Coglianese, Elizabeth K. Keating, Michael L. Michael, Thomas J. Healey

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Numerous corporate scandals in the past several years have fueled widespread debate over proposals for government action. The central challenge for government is how to restore corporate integrity and market confidence without overreacting and stifling the dynamism that underlies a strong economy. To examine this challenge, the Center for Business and Government's Regulatory Policy Program organized a conference in May 2004 on The Role of Government in Corporate Governance. The conference brought together government officials, business leaders, and academic researchers to discuss three fundamental public policy issues raised by recent corporate abuses. First, who should regulate corporate management - government …


The Role Of Politics And Policy In Television Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo Jan 2004

The Role Of Politics And Policy In Television Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo

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This article is a reply to Thomas Hazlett’s commentary on my article entitled, “Rethinking the Commitment to Free, Local Television.” Although politics and public choice theory represent an important approach for analyzing government actions, economic policy still exercises some influence over the regulation of television. On the one hand, we agree that the regulatory preference of free television and local programming is more a reflection of political considerations than economic policy and that the importance of promoting communities of interest over geographic communities, and the potential for new services such as Digital Audio Radio Services to benefit consumers. On the …


The New Federal Regulation Of Corporate Governance, Jill E. Fisch Jan 2004

The New Federal Regulation Of Corporate Governance, Jill E. Fisch

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No abstract provided.


Would Mandating Network Neutrality Help Or Hurt Broadband Competition? A Comment On The End-To-End Debate, Christopher S. Yoo Jan 2004

Would Mandating Network Neutrality Help Or Hurt Broadband Competition? A Comment On The End-To-End Debate, Christopher S. Yoo

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No abstract provided.


Gaming Delaware, William W. Bratton Jan 2004

Gaming Delaware, William W. Bratton

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No abstract provided.


Selling Mayberry: Communities And Individuals In Law And Economics, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman Jan 2004

Selling Mayberry: Communities And Individuals In Law And Economics, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman

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The small village of Cheshire, Ohio was recently acquired in its entirety by the firm whose giant power plant, located at the edge of town, caused it serious pollution problems. Although the plant was worth substantially more than the town, this was not a simple Coasean bargain. This paper combines an ethnographic methodology with theoretical insights from law and economics to present an empirical and theoretic challenge to the standard account of nuisance disputes. We explore the transaction in detail and explain what prevented collective action and holdout problems that are usually thought to hinder bargaining with groups. Specifically, we …


Of Predatory Lending And The Democratization Of Credit: Preserving The Social Safety Net Of Informality In Small-Loan Transactions, Regina Austin Jan 2004

Of Predatory Lending And The Democratization Of Credit: Preserving The Social Safety Net Of Informality In Small-Loan Transactions, Regina Austin

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No abstract provided.


The Epa's Risky Reasoning, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant Jan 2004

The Epa's Risky Reasoning, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant

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Regulators must rely on science to understand problems and predict the consequences of regulatory actions, but science by itself cannot justify public policy decisions. We review the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to justify recent changes to its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone and particulate matter, showing how the agency was able to cloak its policy judgments under the guise of scientific objectivity. By doing so, the EPA evaded accountability for a shifting and incoherent set of policy positions that will have major implications for public health and the economy. For example, even though EPA claimed to base …